Bryan's Brain It does work, I promise...

What happened to the Surgeon General? I have fond memories from my childhood of his admonishments and terrifying recommendations nearly every other week, but lately: nothing. I would suspect terrorism, but I fear just the utterance may get me into trouble...

 

I find it mildly unsettling to realize that I have minimal proof that history is as it has been told to me; or even that it existed at all, prior to my birth. All of history before my first memory has been granted through books and other instructional media created by other people, most of whom I've never met. If the inclination existed, I could have been given a coordinated series of lies and never known the difference, save for the occasional physical visitation to some historical object or place; even my memory could be fabricated- studies have proven long-term recollections to be astoundingly inaccurate. Perhaps I live in a planetary Seahaven, and am the subject of a grand psychological experiment; or perhaps I'm just odd. Maybe it's best to not concern myself with such things, lest the experimenters deem the experiment a failure and scrap the project entirely...

 

Scientists estimate that this universe is jusy shy of fourteen billion years old, according to observational analysis using the standard model. Our sun, the life giving star at the center of our neighborhood of planets, is currently a little more than half way toward it's five-billionth year, the middle-age marker for a star such as it. And the universe is littered with stars of similar size and type to ours, near ninety-percent by many estimates. Thus, it is entirely reasonable to infer that around the cosmos throughout time, there have been numerous stars such as ours, possibly orbited by planets like ours, some of which may have harbored organic life similar to our own, that birthed forth, reigned for billions of years, and were snuffed from existence with the death of their own sun. A fate that awaits us may have played out hundreds, thousands, millions or billions of times. May we make the best of our brief echo of existence...

 

My great struggle, my internal philosophical tug-of-war, is always between the inherent pessimism of a world observed, and the intellectual optimism of a species shared. I have great faith in humanities capacity for achievement, for uncovering the secrets of a vast universe and applying them to the common advancement of each other, to sustaining the planet we occupy and to brightening an unknown future for generations not yet born and of whom we may never meet. Yet, the progress is always mired in viciousness, of violent intersections between old world dogma and new world attempts, and it's often difficult to imagine the barriers overcome. The mediator between these two polar perspectives is my own youth, which, barring accident or genetics, should ensure I can see at least some of the changes to come, whatever they may be. It should be quite a ride...

 

The most important, yet potentially dangerous, utterance in any human tongue is the glorious set of words, "I don't know." It is dangerous when one regards the sudden ignorance with a dogmatic adherence to fairy tales and dismissal, better to suit the individual preconceived worldview, devoid of discovery and truth; it is important when one takes a different direction and uses the moment of illumination to launch headlong into the second most important human utterance: "let me find out..."

 

The power and importance of quiet contemplation can rarely be overstated. While group discussion can help a stuck mind tackle a complex problem through collaboration, the dangers of crushing individuality and succumbing to group-think are real and everpresent. Meanwhile, the great breakthroughs of the world have often come from a brilliant mind singularly focused, uninterrupted, on a task of self-reflection and careful reduction. Always come back to the group and share your resolutions, but don't be afraid of the time inside your own head; in that magnificent skull lies the keys to the mysteries of the universe.

 

Frankly, I'm growing a little tired of the trend (and by trend, I of course mean an anecdotal random sampling of my friends and family) whereby people are frequently expressing complex opinions through vastly oversimplified textual images on social networks; it is degrading to the core concept and functionally irresponsible. Textual images should be for comedy, and nothing else. If your opinion can be concisely explained through a textual image, then you're either wrong or haven't sufficiently considered your stance.

 

I find the greatest reality to be the understanding that everything we recognize as part of humanity, save the need to eat, sleep and reproduce, is entirely the construct of human intellectual thinking and was entirely optional. Government, ear rings, tennis, religion, money, the tank, physics, movies, McDonald's, cellphones, the internet, sunglasses, the space shuttle, the clock, baseball, the Eiffel Tower, swords, castles, music, rockets, art, literature, and a million other things of equal majesty; all the result of the human brain. It may all be cosmically meaningless and organically a waste of effort, but from the narrow framework of my own life, the sum of our few million years of existence has produced a stunning amount of output...

 

I am rather excited for the Colbert Report tonight, and hope dearly that he and his Super PAC decide to throw themselves into the South Carolina primary debacle. If nothing else, he should be able to inject a little humor into what has consistently been a horror show of insanity... And maybe he can squeeze a few votes away from Huntsman and Gingrich.

 

I'm growing increasingly convinced that the Republican party is currently conducting the most elaborate, dangerous and hilarious Kaufman-style prank in the history of the world, and all of America has failed to yet notice. The game will hit a fever pitch when Obama joins in the fun... Also, I think everyone failed to include Ron Paul in the planning meetings, as he seems to have no idea what the hell is going on.