The Wonderful Joy of Religious Insanity about Halloween

Wanna know something ironic?  I hear the same insanity about Halloween from both religious people and atheists.  What?!  How does that work?  Well, let me tell you.  See, when I was a kid, I grew up in the public school system.  Every year, at my school, there was a Halloween carnival.  We would have all sorts of games and what-have-you going on, and one could get some pizza there too.  It was lots of fun.  Along with the complete lack of responsibility, it is something I have missed about being a lot younger.

But at these events, there was something I noticed – some of the people who were my friends didn’t partake.  Their whole families didn’t get involved.  I always thought this was kind of weird.  I talked to them, and I found out something rather interesting – their families didn’t celebrate Halloween.  When I asked them why, you probably can guess some of the answers I got.

The first set of answers was that Halloween is evil.  Even as a kid, I didn’t get that.  And the irony – neither did they.  They gave me the same lines that their parents gave them.  Some said that it was a pagan holiday which celebrated witches (as Christians see them.  Actual followers of Wicca are nothing like that) and thus, God didn’t like it.  That’s funny, because he doesn’t seem to have a problem with a pagan holiday that was stolen which celebrates the birth of his kid (who is also him).

The next set of answers said that this holiday celebrated demons and Satan and it was a holiday of death, and that is why God doesn’t like it.  There is another irony, because every Sunday, he command his children to drink the blood and eat the flesh of a dead guy.  Yeah, that’s not creepy and zombie at all.

So yeah, it was a lot of Christian rhetoric that I we have all heard a thousand times.  It was dumb, pointless, and made no sense to me.  But, I also saw some people who didn’t celebrate it, and these people aren’t the ones I was expecting.  There were several atheist families who also didn’t get in the fun.  This got me to thinking – why not?  It might surprise you that a lot of the answers I got were very close to the ones that Christians gave.

See, many of those that I talked to said that they didn’t celebrate it because it was based on a pagan holiday.  Of course, they tried to justify it better, saying that they didn’t want to indulge ancient superstitions.  That we were supposed to be more evolved, and grown up past that.

Here’s the thing that both the Christians and the atheists who don’t indulge in Halloween don’t get – it isn’t about any of that.  What is Halloween about?  Well, it is about a lot of things.  First, it is about getting to dress up.  When you were a little kid, you played pretend.  You pretended to be somebody else, because it was fun.  Getting to pretend to be your favorite super-hero, or your favorite movie character.  That was a lot of fun, and we all enjoyed it.  But as a grown-up, you can’t do that anymore.  Well, not unless you want to be mocked and ridiculed like those who cosplay or LARP.  But, on Halloween, you are given one night where you can be whoever you want to be.  You can play pretend again, if only to look slutty for some, and ridiculous for others (and don’t get me started with the “It’s not a costume, it’s a culture” bullshit.  If you want my opinion on that, watch this).  But it is a night where you get to have fun, and get to be happy.

Next, it’s about getting to revel in the delight of fear.  I have a feeling that the reason people like scary stories is because it pulls you into the story more.  Think about it – you always wanted to know what the end of the story was, when you were a kid.  You always wanted to know if it was a scary ghost in the house, or if it was just in the imagination of the person’s head.  It made you so much more fascinated.  I remember the Scary Stories books, when I was a kid.  I was scared stiff of them, yet I always wanted to read them.  More and more.  They were loads of fun.  We loved them, my friends and I, and it made every day a new experience.  Now, all grown-up, I still love a good scary story.  I love it when a story doesn’t try and gross me out with gory mess, but instead, plays with me head.  Letting the fear come from a more visceral and psychological place.  We like scary stories, and to be afraid, because it is a catharsis for how relatively easy our lives here in the Western World are.  We have it pretty damn good, but for one night, we can imagine if things weren’t so good.  If they were a little bit evil.  And it is a good feeling.

Oh, and finally, Halloween is about the fucking candy!  I mean, when you were a kid, what did you dress up for?  What did you get in those goofy costumes that your mom and dad thought would look so cute on you and go out around the neighborhood?  You did it because there was the promise of candy delight!  You wanted candy, to make yourself sick the next day.  And you loved every minute of it!  So, these Christians who talk about how this holiday is evil and whatever, they are idiots.  They don’t get what this holiday is about.  And the same for the atheists.  I think, people just need to calm the fuck down about stuff.  For real, have you ever noticed how uptight people are?  It’s like their assholes clench every time they are given a concept that doesn’t mesh with their little view of humanity.

People want the world to fit into a small little box.  Dr. House said it best.  But the problem is that the world doesn’t fit into that box.  The world isn’t as simple as the Christians, Muslims and even the atheists often want it to be.  Life is complicated.  Life is messy.  There are not clear answer to life.  But we have to keep on going, because this is the stuff that matters.

Happy Halloween, everybody.

Until next time, a quote,

“Spoken like a true circle queen. See, skinny, socially privileged white people get to draw this neat little circle. And everyone inside the circle is “normal”. Anyone outside the circle needs to be beaten, broken and reset so that they can be brought into the circle. Failing that, they should be institutionalized. Or even worse – Pitied.”  -Dr. Gregory House, House M.D.

Peace out,

Maverick

Top 20 House M.D. Episodes (Part Two)

Well, if you read my last post, then you know what’s coming.  Here is the second part of my favorite episodes of this series.  It really is a shame that it’s done.  Oh well, it did have a rather nice ending, which actually was able to wrap things up, unlike other series’s that I have been into that had garbage endings.  Again, I promise to try and keep the spoilers to a minimum.  I hope you enjoy.

10. Detox
Season 1
This was the first episode that really delved into House’s addiction to Vicodin.  While it is often addressed throughout the series, in this episode, there is a rather interesting twist.  Cuddy challenges House to go a week without Vicodin.  He does that, he gets out of the Clinic for a month.  He takes her challenge, while at the same time getting a new patient.  While he is detoxing from the medication, he is trying to solve the mystery, and it shines a rather ugly light on both House and his addiction.  At the end, it also shines a rather bitter light on another character as well.  I won’t say who, but it is kind of interesting to see.  House also has some rather interesting dialogue at the end about this addiction, and how it affects him, and how it has made him the person that he is, but not for the reasons that you might think.  Overall, this is a very poignant episode, and it sets the stage for others about this addiction to walk on later.

9. Last Resort
Season 5
This episode is really awesome for both the medical mystery, and the character discovery.  The premise is that a man comes into the Clinic.  He has been sick for years, and now he is desperate for a cure.  He takes the entire clinic hostage with a gun, and by sheer chance just happens to have House and one of his new doctors, Remy Hadley, aka, 13 as well.  This episode has a cool mystery, which House, since he has absolutely no shame, pushes to the limits.  Watching House push a madman’s buttons and mess with him however he wants is just awesome.  Plus, it isn’t the first time that 13′s position of where she stands with life and her self-destructive nature is examined, but this is the episode where she truly figures out who she is, and what she wants to do with her life.  This episode is so intense, and that is what makes it so good.  House is playing with not only his life and his employees life, but the life of a man with a gun and all the people he has kidnapped.  It’s unbelievably dark.  One of the few episodes that never lets up on its subject matter until the very end.  The climax of this episode is one of the best in the series.

8. The C-Word
Season 8
The final season of this show brought everything to a fever pitch.  Because I don’t want to ruin it for you if you haven’t seen it yet, I will say that the premise for this episode is that Wilson finds something medically wrong with him.  He is facing. potentially (emphasis on potentially), his own mortality.  He has an idea for a radical treatment, and goes to his best and closest friend, House, for help.  House takes him back to his place, after agreeing to the treatment.  What follows is one of the most intense and true examinations of their friendship in the entire series.  I won’t spoil what it all builds to, but there were genuine tear-jerker moments in this episode.  It was great.  I remember not being able to look away as it was happening.  You also see House having to face something equally traumatic – potentially losing his best and only friend.  How he reacts to this is just great.  Putting these two in this situation was just what the show needed, and the friendship of these two characters has never been more believable.  And it starts the final arc of the series, which is just great.

7. Baggage
Season 6
The episode right before the season finale, this is unique and fun for a couple of reasons.  The first is the medical mystery.  A woman comes into the ER who can’t remember who she is.  House takes on her case, intrigued because if there is no memory, she can’t lie to him.  The other reason is how the episode is told.  It is told through an interaction between House and his psychiatrist.  Oh, and it also gets a look into how far House has come since the beginning of the season.  With the style of how it is told, it does lend itself to some very clever vignettes between him and the psych.  There are also some clever comedic moments when both House and the psych get annoyed by each others story’s.  But more than anything else, what I love about this episode is where it all goes.  At the end, House comes to a conclusion about all of it, and man, it is great.  The last speech he has at the end is just amazing.  It isn’t fiery, but there is so much passion, and all due to just a simple sentence, that leaves you feeling in awe of how it was delivered.  This was a fun episode, and it leads to one of the coolest season finales in the series.

6. Broken
Season 6
Well, we talked about how season 6 was ending, now this episode is how it began.  The premise is that House is in a mental hospital, finally deciding to break his addiction to Vicodin.  This episode was shot very much like a short movie.  What I love most about this episode is that it is the only episode of this show where House is the patient.  Well, there is no patient, but if there was, he is as close as it gets.  The opening of this episode is just great.  It would have been better with no sound, but hey, it is still pretty damn good.  There is also the interaction between House and a friend of one of the mental patients.  She is immediately drawn to House, even though he uses her to no end, and even does something horrible with what she allowed him to get away with.  But the two find a connection in each other that neither was expecting.  It was a strangely honest and heart-warming episode.  Still, the cinematography in the opening alone puts it at this spot.  Plus, I got to see House hitting on the woman from The Bourne Identity.  What’s not to love about that?!

5. House Divided/Under My Skin/Both Sides Now
Season 5
Yeah, I know what it looks like, but let me explain.  These three episodes are part of an arc that ends season 5.  These episodes are on here not because of the medicine, but the arc itself.  House is hallucinating.  The cool thing about this arc is how it plays out.  In the first episode, the hallucinations are something to explore.  House is getting a look into his own mind.  In the second, the hallucinations are something to fear.  House’s mission to escape them leads to one of the biggest shit-your-pants creepy moments.  I’m serious, when you see it, you are freaked the fuck out.  It is awesome how well they set up that scene.  I watched it in the dark here the other day, reviewing for this list, and it still gets my heart pumping.  The third episode brings the arc full circle.  This one has a pretty neat twist.  Even though it isn’t hugely unexpected, it still works, because of how well the scene comes together.  I loved every minute of all three.  How it all ends is another really heart-wrenching scene.  Especially when you look at what it’s paired up with.  It is two scenes happening, mixed with each other.  They are both so different in theme and appearance that it is a little hard to watch.  A fantastic way to close out what I think was the best season of the show.

4. House’s Head/Wilson’s Heart
Season 4
An actual two-part episode, I couldn’t count them seperately.  They are both excellent.  Yet ironically, they are both excellent in totally different ways.  For the first, it is the cinematography.  A lot of shows do a lot of tricks to symbolize what’s real and what’s not when they are diving into a person’s mind.  This episode has a rather unique solution – light.  Strobing lights are used whenever they are in House’s mind.  That’s another reason that I love this episode so much.  I love mental stuff.  In movies, books, you name it.  If I can go into a person’s mind, that makes it so much better.  When they go into House’s mind, it is not only interesting, but also intense, and sometimes funny.  The best kind of mental stories.  The second episode is another great episode which shows House and Wilson’s friendship.  Ironically, this one looks at the darker aspect of it.  House definitely has abused his friendship with Wilson before.  But in this episode, he pushes things WAY beyond where he had gone before, and how it all ends is just amazing.  The season finale episodes of this series have this weird way of being the best ones.  This one is no exception.

3. Everybody Dies
Season 8
Hey, speaking of season finales, how about the series finale?  This episode marks the end of the entire series.  I won’t spoil how it ends, because it is pretty awesome, but the premise is very cool.  House wakes up in a building that is slowly burning down.  He is in there with a patient of his, who is dead.  Over the course of the episode, various people who worked for him, he loved, or were in his life appear as hallucinations, and the series comes full circle, as he is looking toward the future, trying to find a reason to live as the building he is in burns to the ground.  It was an episode worthy of being the one that this show ends on.  It was really cool to see a lot of these characters again.  Cameron was there, so was Stacy, Kutner, Amber, and Cuddy.  Looking at who House is, on a completely subconscious level, it was very cool.  And like I said, how it all ends is just great.  It was a very good ending, to an amazing show.

2. Help Me
Season 6
Yet-another season finale.  This one strikes a chord with me for many reasons.  First, the use of darkness in shooting it.  This episode is so gray and so plays with light and shadow.  Every minute of it is a visual masterpiece.  The only flaw was in the fact that there was a constant cut through the collapsed building that House was navigating.  The premise of this episode is that a crane fell onto an apartment building.  House and Cuddy are on the scene, trying to help as many people as they can.  Meanwhile, House is having to deal with some emotional loneliness at the same time.  Through sheer chance, he finds somebody buried deep inside of the building.  Now, it is a race against time to get her out of there.  Her leg is pinned underneath the rubble.  She is desperate not to lose the leg.  It is another of those episodes where House is with a patient, and there is a connection between them.  This girl only wants him to be there, to not be alone, which is exactly how he feels.  But the real seller on this episode for this spot is almost right at the end.  House has an emotional outburst that is one of the few times in the series that he genuinely enraged.  He has gotten angry a lot, but true rage almost never happens.  An amazing finish to another amazing season.

After all these great episodes, what is on the top of this list might surprise you.

1. No Reason
Season 2
Again, a season finale.  The premise of this one is that a patient comes into House’s office.  After he finds out who House is, he shoots him, twice.  House wakes up next to the man who shot him.  He has another case, but finds that as he is working on this case, not everything is as it seems.  Reality comes into question, and as House is losing control of what is real and what isn’t, you get some amazing insight into his mental state, culminating in by far the coolest reveal of what the final prognosis is in the entire series.  But the real seller for me as to why I love this episode so much is because it is an episode that is better in hindsight.  For real, watch the entire series, and then watch this episode.  Looking at it, and listening to what House says about his views on reality, it is just so much better.  For him, logic is the ultimate truth.  Strip that away, then life is meaningless.  This episode is amazing because it puts a man for whom reason and rationality are key into a position where nothing is true.  That is simply amazing, and how it all ends up is the best episode.  For me.

This was an incredible series.  From beginning to end, it was amazing.  I loved every minute of it, and I genuinely am sorry that it’s gone.  Sure, it was about time, but still, it’s always sad, even when you know that’s the case.  I hope that you loved this series as much as I did.

Until next time, a quote,

“You think that the only truth that matters is the truth that can be measured. Good intentions don’t count. What’s in your heart doesn’t count. But a man’s life can be measured by how many tears are shed when he dies. Just because you can’t measure them, just because you don’t want to measure them, doesn’t mean it’s not real.”  -Jack Moriarty, No Reason

Peace out,

Maverick

Top 20 House M.D. Episodes (Part One)

Well, a great legacy in television has come to an end.  I remember when I was young, and I first saw the previews for this show.  I had little knowledge of who Hugh Laurie was.  I was a lot younger, and from the moment I saw the character of Gregory House on the TV, I was entranced.  A lot of people had the belief that this show got progressively worse as time went by.  I’m not one of them.  While some episodes I liked better than others, I didn’t have a single problem with any season.  They were all amazing.  This show has been awesome, and even though I am a little late to this party, I thought that now that it is done, I would offer my top 20 episodes that I enjoyed.  It started out as a Top 10 list.  Then it became a Top 15 list.  Now I have actually been able to settle on 20.  Since this list will be insanely long, I decided that I would make it two parts.  I hope you all have enjoyed this series as much as I have.  I will truly miss it now that it’s gone.  That said, here we go.  I promise that I will try and keep as many spoilers out of this as possible.

20. House vs. God
Season 2
Most of the episodes that are on here are very intense and emotionally powerful episodes.  Not this one.  This episode is on here specifically because it was funny.  House gets a patient who is a “faith healer.”  House, being an atheist who thinks that religion is as stupid as it gets, immediately is annoyed by this kid.  But thanks to a series of events with the patient, somebody mysteriously puts on his white-board two columns – House and God, with tally marks under each.  The medical mystery in this episode isn’t especially interesting, and there are no huge character interactions.  This episode is just fun because of the idea that House is competing with God in a medical mystery.  I won’t spoil who the victor is, but it is pretty funny to see how it all turns out.

19. Cane and Able
Season 3
This is an episode that I place on here because of the character development.  But there is also a pretty neat medical mystery as well.  This episode is on here in equal parts for both.  House is given the ability to walk normally and without pain.  It is a dream come true for him.  However, he is plagued by returning pain.  Fearing having to return to the pain, the addiction to Vicodin, and his limp, he has a new medical mystery.  A young boy has hallucinations about aliens abducting him.  I don’t want to spoil how the medical side is resolved.  It is really, really cool.  One of the coolest diagnoses in the entire series.  As for the personal side, it is a rather harsh look at House.  He is given, for just a brief moment, a view of what life without pain would be like.  For him to potentially have to lose that, it is very hard.  How that also resolves is very poignant.  And also says a lot about another character in the process.  Three cool endings for the price of one.  What’s not to love?

18. Autopsy
Season 2
Another episode that I love exclusively for the medical mystery.  This case revolves around a young girl.  She is nine years old, and terminal with cancer.  However, before the cancer can claim her life, a new medical mystery pops up.  This episode has a couple of very cool moments.  The first is with Dr. Chase, who up until this point had been a pretty shallow character.  I won’t say what his interaction with the girl was that shows a whole different side to him, but not only is in incredibly nuts, but when it is looked at in hindsight, it is hysterical.  The team’s reaction to it is priceless.  The other cool moment is when House is very candid with the girl.  I won’t say as to why or what, but I will say that he has a conversation with her which is surprisingly compassionate and not condescending.  He takes her seriously, which doesn’t happen for very many patients.  Oh, and the medical mystery is also resolved in one of the coolest ways.  It definitely is a cool ending to a cool episode with a very unique little girl.

17. Mirror Mirror
Season 4
Yet-another episode for fun, this one gives us an inside-look into a lot of new characters.  The patient in this episode has a rather unique medical problem.  He is able to perfectly imitate the personality of anybody who is in the room with him.  If more than one person is in the room, he imitates whoever is the more dominant of those two.  And even though you know that many of the characters he is imitating are only temporary, it is still very fun to get an outside, albeit very accurate perspective on who they all are.  But what is more interesting is each of the characters reactions to this.  It is never easy to be facing your own inner person, and how each of them looks into the Mirror is either very amusing, or very intense, as happens with one character, who sees into the mirror and is more than a little bit disturbed by what she sees.  How they diagnose the guy is very cool.  Think about mirrors, it’ll come to you.

16. Locked In
Season 5
Another episode that I picked for the medical mystery.  It won’t spoil anything to say what the premise is.  A man comes into the hospital, trapped in his own brain.  His doctors want to give up on him, but blind luck has him ending up in the hospital right next to Dr. Gregory House.  House is convinced that this man isn’t brain-dead, merely locked in his own mind.  And the game is on to find a way to open that door.  This episode gives some surprisingly interesting insight into the mind of House.  He likes the fact that the patient can’t talk to him.  He doesn’t want something that will spoil the mystery for him.  It is an episode where you get a rather candid look into the fact that for House, it is not at all about the person, it is entirely about the mystery.  He views people as lying and selfish idiots who are too stupid for their own good.  But the perspective from this case was very cool.  It was almost all in this guy’s head.  The person who played the patient’s voice (Mos Def) was a good choice.  It is a mix of something we all fear – being sick, and being helpless.  Being locked in your own mind.  Welcome to Hell, right?

15. Kids
Season 1
I didn’t want to have any episodes from the Vogler story arc.  I hated both the Vogler and Tritter arcs for a reason – they both sucked.  The only time I genuinely didn’t like this show was during those.  Whenever they wanted a villain, this show got worse.  Ironically, this episode was right after the Vogler arc ended, and man, did it come back strong.  The reason that I like this episode is because it is feel-good.  There aren’t many of those in this show.  Sure, there is a medical mystery, and sure it is intense, but this episode is just one that is enjoyable.  The hospital is experiencing an outbreak of meningitis.  At the same time, a young swimmer is presenting at the hospital with a totally unrelated illness, and House is on the case.  Meanwhile, he is also trying to get back one of his employees.  How that ends is…well, priceless.  It goes into another episode, which the only reason it isn’t on here is because I didn’t want to go any higher.  Still, this episode feels good, leaves you the viewer feeling good, and is a lot of fun.  Good times.

14. Family Practice
Season 7
This is one of the more emotionally gripping episodes.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the House/Cuddy relationship arc.  But this episode was one of the few times that their relationship ever felt like something that was going somewhere.  Cuddy’s mother falls ill.  The two don’t get along, but Cuddy will do anything to help her.  What I love most about this episode, aside from the emotional weight, is the cinematography.  If you watch through it, you will notice a really neat trick of light and shadow as the episode goes on.  It is a very cool trick to get you to think about what is going to come next.  I am a person who enjoys darkness in something more than light.  Since this show is based in a hospital, white is a common color, but in this episode, they really make the most of what they have.  Plus, it is very cool to see a much more human side to Cuddy.  I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t like her character much.  She was always kind of a whiny and annoying bitchy character to me.  But in this episode, there are real stakes, and it gives a very relatable side to a character who I don’t think that many people liked.  She needed it, trust me.

13. Birthmarks.
Season 5
You are going to see a lot of episodes with House and his best friend, James Wilson on here.  I have always enjoyed these two’s interactions.  Not wanting to spoil why, their friendship has fallen on life-support.  However, with House’s father having died, which isn’t a spoiler, by the way, it’s just a premise, the two are together on a road trip down for his funeral.  House is working to sabotage the trip every step of the way.  The two are both confronting their pasts, and in the process, they are finding what made them friends again.  But what finally puts it over the edge is when the two talk about a case that House has at the same time.  The two work together, albeit at the start a bit begrudgingly, and figure out what the mystery is.  This is another feel-good episode.  These two’s friendship is a key part of the series.  Since the character of House was based off of Sherlock Holmes, Wilson is modeled after Watson.  And these two are practically destined to be friends.  No matter how hard they try to move apart, they keep coming back together again.  A fun episode, with some very dramatic moments, but in the end, still feel-good.  Worth the watch.

12. Three Stories
Season 1
The premise of this episode was what got me.  This episode is what the name says – three stories in one.  The connecting theme between all of them is the same – a leg.  Each patient in these three stories has a leg problem.  One of them is a very familiar character, but just who it is will blow your mind.  Once that is revealed, you get more into the third character, but all of them have interesting stories.  Plus, how it is told is pretty unique.  House is sitting in on a class where the teacher is sick.  His mission is to get the students to get a diagnosis for each case from the class.  Having some new characters tackling a medical mystery is pretty cool, especially in the first season.  There is also the fact that one of the cases has a very cool twist that gives a lot of back-story to a character who we all wanted to know what the story is.  I won’t spoil it for the ten people who haven’t seen it, but trust me, it is really awesome.  Definitely worth the watch for that story alone.  Oh, and getting to see Carmen Electra’s legs is pretty nice too.  House’s idea, not mine.

11. Bombshells
Season 7
Another episode that I really love for the cinematography.  Or rather, not how it is shown, but all the sections in it that have very cool shooting.  This episode has a lot of really freaky dream sequences.  I don’t want to spoil what they are connected to, but trust me when I say – it’s really cool.  But these dreams are awesome.  It gets into House’s and Cuddy’s head.  It serves to both address their fears, but to also get to show off in front of the camera, which is always fun.  Plus, it is another episode that serves to humanize Cuddy, which is very cool.  I will say that her mind has some pretty cool concept when it comes to dreams.  But all the dream vignettes are just awesome.  Some will claim that they served no point, but I call bullshit.  They serve the point of being awesome!  One in-particular was just great.  I won’t say what it is, but I will end this post with a quote that will put it into perspective.  Enjoy.

The rest of this list will be in my next post.

Until next time, a quote,

“Thank God I remembered my axe-cane.”  -Gregory House, House M.D.

Peace out,

Maverick

My Grown-up Christmas List

When I was a kid, life seemed so much simpler.  Christmas was such an amazing time of year because I hardly got any sleep, wondering what presents I got.  I think all kids are greedy little bastards, but perhaps that’s okay.  I mean, it comes but once a year, and it makes them happy.  That’s not a bad thing, right?  As a grown-up, I now think about what I want.  What I really want.  None of it is material.  The gifts that I truly want are, well, see for yourself

• I want a place where I can sleep.
  I’m tired all the time, but while my body may rest, it isn’t sleep.  It is just being unconscious.  To me, being able to sleep means finding a place where my mind can find solace.  The only time that has ever happened was in the arms of another.  I am casually sleeping with somebody, but it isn’t for the sex.  At least, not completely.  It is for the quiet moments, and being able to sleep again.  I have missed sleep so much.  I have missed being able to not be alone at night.  I am still looking for a real relationship, for real love, but for now, I am glad for this.  However, what I truly want is a place where I can find true sleep.
• I want my friends to be able to have good lives.
  So often, I talk to my friends, the people that I care about most, and I hear all the hardship, all the pain, all the effort, with so little gain.  One friend is going to be working two jobs just to get by, almost never doing anything fun.  It is a bitter truth – that she has to do that.  Then there is my best friend.  She works so unbelievably hard.  She is absolutely swamped.  This semester, she was broken by a relationship coming apart so bad that she was physically ill for some time.  But she still kept at it, still stood strong.  She has so much work on her plate because she has to live.  She is going to college, while also working every chance that she isn’t in class.  She busts her ass, and will still just barely be scrapping by.  Her home life is hell too.  This isn’t the kind of life that a person should be forced to live.  I know that there are so many others who have that and worse, and I wish they all could be happy, but these people are the ones that are right in front of me, and I wish that they could have a joyful life.
• I want a place that I feel welcome at.
  I come back here, day in and day out, I am made to feel like crap.  I am told about how I am just so worthless, how I am so disrespectful, how I am so rude, how I am so dumb.  All I ever hear in this place anymore is about how awful a child I am.  I hear about how I never help, and about how I never listen.  I hear about how I do this wrong, that wrong, how I am not doing enough.  I wake up to it, I got to sleep to it.  I am so unbelievably bitter, but nobody cares.  They only care that they get “help.”  Like I have never helped anybody around here ever.  No, I am cooking dinner for them, helping with two Christmas dinners, but no, I’ve never done anything to help anybody.  And this is how it always is.  I hate this place.  I hate everything about it.  I hate the bright lights, I hate the colored paper.  I fucking hate Christmas!  No, I don’t hate Christmas – I hate everything!  I hate every single aspect of this fucking house and whenever I am here, in the summer or winter, I get to hear about what a bad son I am.  Fuck this place!  I want out!  I want a home where I can go and always feel welcome.  This home is nothing but an emotional gulag, and the people in it are my jailors.  If I could have, I would have stayed in Anchorage.  I always would.  I have never, and will never feel at home here.  I wish there was somewhere that did.
• I want time to pass slower.
  There are so many times that I am with somebody whose company I enjoy so much, but it is so incredibly brief that it isn’t like we got to spend time together at all.  I am gone from their company in a blink.  That really sucks.  It seems like all the really good moments that I get are so incredibly brief.  It’s almost like they don’t happen.  I would shed a tear about it, if I still had tears to shed.  I lost those ages ago.
• I want there to be some kind of meaning to it all.
  It seems like all the pain and suffering that I went through with my head injury, and still go through with the medical hell my life has become, and all of the shit that happens to everybody I care about (the few that there are), like it is all just part of a rigged game that you can’t escape, so why bother?  That’s a horrible paradigm to have to work with.  If only there was a reason to it all.  I secretly know there isn’t.  There is no God, so that’s out.  There is no supreme being or magical entities or anything.  We are all just on a speck of rock floating in the vastness of the cosmos, clinging to existence at the edges of nowhere.  But part of me wishes that there was a reason.  I don’t wish for God or gods, let me be understood.  I wish for reason.  It may not make sense to you, but there is a reason.

So that’s it, that’s the Christmas list that I have as a grown-up.  I really want these wishes to come true, but they won’t.  Instead, I will just keep going, not knowing what to do.  Life sucks, it really does.  I keep trying, but in the end, the end result is the same – that I am just going through the motions of living.  I don’t care about life, not really.  I just keep going thinking that someday, maybe, it will all be better.  Part of me has given up hope to that point.

Until next time, a quote,

“”I choose to believe that the white light people sometimes see… they’re all just chemical reactions that take place when the brain shuts down…. There’s no conclusive science.  My choice has no practical relevance to my life, I choose the outcome I find more comforting…. I find it more comforting to believe that this isn’t simply a test.”  -Gregory House, House M.D.

Peace out,

Maverick

Top Ten Most ANNOYING Female Leads

There have been a lot of good women who had done amazing things with film.  I am a guy, and even I am sometimes entranced by a female lead in a romantic film.  It’s happened.  I loved, and still love Chocolat.  Mostly because of the fact that chocolate and atheism wins over religious stupidity, but hey, there have been worse reasons to love something.  But, the fact is that where there is a really inspiration and really good female lead, there are some awful, and I mean god-awful female leads that just make you want to hang yourself!

Here is my list paying tribute, along with wishing death, for all the female leads who just annoyed the living shit out of me!  And hopefully most of all of you too!

10. Elizabeth Swann
Pirates of the Caribbean
Okay, this is a character who really served no purpose in these films.  In the third film, they tried to make her a kind of badass character, but after having been nothing more than a whiny damsel in distress for the first movie, and just fucking whiny in the second, it was too little, too late.  She brought nothing of any value to the story, and the fact is that she actually took away from the quality of the films.  In the first movie, she was just a romantic who had a kink for pirates.  In the second, she was a back-stabbing bitch, and come the third, not only was she not sorry for her actions, but she manipulates even more people!  She even cheats on her dream guy and then basically says, “I’m a cheating whore, marry me!”  And of course, the dumbass did, even though he saw her cheating on him.  I am not all the much of a fan of Keira Knightley.  She is boring, predictable, and really not good at showing any emotion that wasn’t just grading on your ears.  Here is a character who should have gone down with the ship.

9. Lisa Cuddy
House M.D.
Here is a character who was cast looking for one thing, and what they got was something else altogether.  Cuddy is supposed to be the inevitable love-interest of Greg House, the title character.  It was so obvious that she was going to get with him, but by the time they got there, we really just didn’t care.  She was annoying, really annoying.  Her voice was annoying, her pathetic attempts to look like she cared about what was going on was annoying, and most of what she did the entire series was bitch about pointless junk.  It got really nerve-grating after a while to listen to her whiny tone of voice ragging on House for things that we all knew he was going to do!  She was never all the interesting to watch, and she never left a lasting impression.  All in all, she was a dean of medicine who seemed to be a part of the wallpaper.

8. Irene Adler
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Now, this incarnation of this character in-particular was so unbelievably annoying.  I have never had any real love for Rachel McAdams.  In this movie, we all found out why.  Not only was she a disgrace to the character that she was meant to portray, but every word that came out of her mouth, along with the pathetic attempts to mess with people just left you feeling like somebody was scratching their nails on a chalkboard.  The character of Irene Adler is supposed to be cool, classy, sexy, smart.  The Adler in this movie sounded like a blonde bimbo who just happened to get lucky in her life.  Nothing about her character ever implied that she had a great deal of intelligence.  Had it not been for Watson saying that she had gotten the better of Holmes, I never would have believed that she would have.  She just seemed to be a whiny hussy who just bitched and got captured a lot.  A disgraceful performance of what is supposed to be a cool character.

7. Asuka Langley Soryu
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Here is another character that I get what they were trying to go for, but the end delivery was just ANNOYING!  She was supposed to play the really gung-ho pilot what was in love with herself, but all that narcissism was just a defense mechanism to hide some really serious self-esteem and mental issues.  She was also supposed to have a love-hate relationship with the main character, Shinji.  On the surface, that all sounds really good.  It all sounds like it would be kind of fun to watch.  But it is the delivery of this character that sinks that boat incredibly fast.  Both the original and the dubbed version are equally annoying.  She whines and bitches about everything.  By the time they finally do decide to develop her, you want to sew her whiny mouth shut and keep hoping that she is going to die.  They did make her compassion towards Shinji look believeable, but that was the only saving grace of a character who was supposed to bring some pretty substantial subjects to the table, and instead brought a prima donna attitude and no substance.

6. Elizabeth Bennet
Pride and Prejudice (2005)
Another role where the delivery is not only a million times different than the source material, but it is also killed by the person playing it.  In the novel, Elizabeth is a smart, clever, witty, charming, but still kind of judgmental woman.  In the BBC miniseries, they captured this rather well.  However, in the film, she is as much of a whiny prima donna as Asuka is.  And the performance of Keira Knightley just makes what was supposed to be a character that we all saw as defying societal norms just seem like a whiny little bitch who should just get with the guy so we can all hear her stop talking.  I know people who just love this performance, but what is there to like about it?  Knightley is just so terrible!  She complains, bitches, never seems to do anything of merit, and never shows any sign of being very smart.  She is just another prima donna who we all want to strangle!

5. Relena Peacecraft
Gundam Wing
Here is a character who brought absolutely nothing to the table.  I mean, I guess that maybe she was supposed to be one of the main male lead’s love interest, but all of the interactions that are had with her hinting at there being an attraction are really just blown away by the fact that she is so annoying!  I compare it to Winry Rockbell in Fullmetal Alchemist.  She was a little annoying, but her attraction to Edward Elric was clear, and while they could have stood to develop it more, you got very strong indications that she cared about him, probably even was in love with him.  It added to the story.  Relena, on the other hand, isn’t a whiny prima donna, she is just pouty.  She is always crying about peace.  Peace this, and peace that.  It took away from the greater tragedies that were unfolding in the series when we had to go and listen to her talk about how great peace is, and how bad war is.  She never looks at the greater societal issues, or examines what gets us to fighting, just talks about how fighting never solves anything, which is bullshit.  She could have been erased from the show, and it wouldn’t have been much of a loss.  Peace never got her anywhere but in trouble, only to be another dumbass in distress.

4. Faye Valentine
Cowboy Bebop
Here is a character who I am actually a little torn about.  Granted, she is on this list because she REALLY annoys, but there were times when she actually brought something to the table, and she was kind of cool to watch sometimes.  But she was annoying.  From the moment she gets with the crew of the Bebop, she is a whiny prima donna who does nothing but rob them, then comes back to them later and basically gets not attacks or even having them angry at her.  The crew treats her like an annoying house guest, even when she steals from them, attacks them, vandalizes their property, cheats them out of money, and at one point tries to kill them.  The lack of aggressive response to her actions is just nerve grating, and after a while, you really start to wish some serious death upon her person.  Add to that the fact that she is hardly developed at all.  One could make the same argument about Ed, but she is a teenager.  Not a lot of development is needed, because she is young, and she played her role rather well.  With Faye, she was just an annoyance who helped with the plot every now and again.  I would have blown her brains out, but that’s just me.

3. Willow Rosenberg (early in the series)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Now, I think it is really important to point out that this character became a hell of a lot cooler later in the series, when she got some real power, and some real dilemmas.  But when it started, she was just the nerdy and annoying friend of the annoying title character.  Honestly, I was tempted to put Buffy on here, because she is really a pain in the ass, but the fact is that while Buffy was annoying, she actually served a purpose.  For the first three seasons (well, up until close to the end of the third), all Willow did was get in trouble, and get saved.  She had no skills, no talents, no real use for anything.  For that matter, neither did Xander, but he’s a guy, and we’re talking about the ladies.  You can bet that when I do the male equivalent, he will be on that list.  But for the most part, up until the fourth season, she just kind of got on my nerves.  This show kind of sucked until the third season, when it got a pretty badass villain, and it actually took itself serious.  Joss Whedon had a bad habit of making shows that are great on paper, but the delivery is crap.  He’s a good writer, but a lot of his shows suck.  Go figure.  And annoying characters like Willow didn’t help.  If you want to see the really good parts with her in it, watch when she is evil at the end of the sixth season.  I really wish that had gone more of somewhere, but oh well.

2. Rita Bennett
Dexter
I don’t think that anybody liked this character.  I think Julie Benz is a terrible actress.  She has butchered every single performance that she has ever done, and this one was the worst!  In this series, you get to see why she is such a terrible actress, and why this character is just so awful!  She is manipulative, a complete prima donna, whiny, bitchy, and whenever she doesn’t get her way, she treats everybody (including her own children), like shit.  I get the idea, that she was supposed to be Dexter’s connection with his decency, but he never seemed to particularly care, and the audience hated her.  The best moment in the show was the one where she died!  I remember all my friends and I cheering!  We started drunken song at the death of Rita.  She brought nothing of substance to the series, and the performance was just awful.  Love the show, hate the girl.  It is good that she died.  Ironically, every single aspect got better with her death, even her annoying kids!

And the number one leading lady who just annoying the living shit out of every single person is…

1. Bella Swan
Twilight
I’ve already covered the pathetic, whiny, spineless, and boring character from the books.  Here, I am going to focus on the character in the films.  There has never been in teenage cinema a character more selfish, dependent, uncaring, manipulative, narcissitic, pretentious, stupid, and whiny little bitch before!  The worst part about all of the horrible qualities of her character is that it wasn’t intentional.  They wanted Bella to represent any teenage girl.  But that isn’t what happened.  She’s the real vampire of this series.  She doesn’t have a single problem in the world, yet bitches about how tortured she is.  She gets a crush on a guy, and at 17 decides that she is in love and wants to marry him.  Yes, because we all know exactly what we are supposed to do at 17, right?  Wrong!  When the loser boyfriend Edward dumps her in order to save her, she then manipulates him by putting her life in danger, over and over, just so he’ll notice her.  Manipulative much, bitch?!  She jumps off a cliff to get his attention!  Not only that, but it is a horrible lesson to give to the dimwitted throng of teenage girls who admire this shit.
And when Jacob, a guy who actually seems to care about her and want to take care of her gets involved, she dumps him for the guy who treated her like shit, just so she could use him!  A war starts all because of her, and when all these people are fighting to protect her, she doesn’t care!  She doesn’t give a shit!  And when she finally pressures Edward into marrying her, she then fucks around with Jacob!  And this wasn’t the first time she cheated on her guy with him.  This girl is not only scum, she’s a slut!  What do girls like about her?  She isn’t a hero, she’s a villain.  And she is a horrible lesson to give to teenage girls about what a teen girl is supposed to be.  Mothers, tell your daughters to avoid these films, and the books too, at all costs.  They are fucking dumb!

Until next time, a quote,

“Alice. You’ve disappeared. Like everything else. Now who else can I talk to? I’m lost. When you left, and he left, you took everything with you. But the absence of him is everywhere I look. It’s like a huge hole has been punched through my chest. But In a way, I’m glad. The pain is the only reminder that he was real. That you all were.”  -Bella Swan

Peace out,

Maverick

Top Ten Anti-Heroes

Okay, the fact is that unless a hero has a very prominent dark side, they are BORING!  I hate them, for real, I do.  I hate Superman, I hate Spiderman, I hate most of the X-Men.  I hate almost all the big heroes, save Blade, The Punisher, Elektra (not the Jennifer Garner film version), and others who are not above spilling some blood once and a while.  Anti-heroes are always going to be interesting.  This is a fact.  These are characters who have the makings of a hero, but are unable to reach that status due to some pretty major character flaws.  Here is a list that gives, what I believe, to be the top ten anti-heroes.

10. Batman
Batman: Arkham City
One of the things that always interested me about this character was the fact that Batman always seemed like kind of a thug to me.  Sure, he won’t kill anyone, but he has absolutely no qualms about anything up to that point.  He will totally destroy your body, believing that seeing violence as the first and only solution is correct.  But none of the films or TV series have really acknowledged this, and that always bugged me.  This game, on the other hand, fully acknowledges what this character is.  The Batman of this game sees violence as the first solution and isn’t apologetic when he hurts people unnecessarily.  He will beat up anybody and it even looks like he will Harley Quinn when she is defenseless and on the ground.  They even acknowledge how far he has fallen when he is willing to let all the inmates of Arkham City die to go and rescue his girlfriend from Joker.  To me, this was the best representation of this character, and part of what I love so much is how in the end, he is carrying Joker out of the theater and not the woman he claims to love.  It’s an awesome character, in an awesome game.

9. Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock
There have been a lot of really good versions of this character in a lot of shows and movies.  Robert Downy Jr. played this role very well in the Guy Pierce movie, and probably will again in the new one that is coming out.  However, it is this incarnation that I think deserves a spot on the anti-hero list.  This version of Holmes is played by Benedict Cumberbatch.  It is a modern interpretation of the title character.  He is much more like an anti-hero than the other versions (and I think more on par with the novel character) because while he does good things, he is not motivated by good in the slightest.  He is motivated by the search for a puzzle.  Doing good is just a by-product of his work.  He is not above doing bad things if it gets the job done.  He also seems to not care for the victims of the crimes, and also for the feelings of others.  He only cares about the work.  It is a really interesting character to watch, and remarkably likeable, even though he is also a manipulative and often cold-hearted bastard.

8. Jimmy McNulty
The Wire
Now, while Jimmy McNulty, played by Dominic West, is kind of a bit of a cliche by this point, this series made use of the archetype to its fullest.  McNulty is a detective in Baltimore.  He is a good cop, but has a problem of having little to no respect for authority.  He doesn’t follow the rules whenever it suits him, and while he doesn’t brutalize prisoners, he isn’t above bending and breaking the procedures everywhere else.  But he has a very strong sense of justice.  If one were to look at the scale of what his character is, he would be chaotic good.  To accomplish his sense of justice, he will do whatever it takes, regardless of the consequences.  But where McNulty has good qualities, he also has a lot of bad ones.  He is a hardcore drunk, complete womanizer, and is so out of touch with what the rules actually are that he has a genuine lack of understanding when he does something wrong.  A running gag in the show is people getting pissed at him and McNulty asking, “what the fuck did I do?”  But all of his flaws aside, he is still trying to do good, and is one of many characters who make this show the masterpiece that it is.

7. Spike Spiegel
Cowboy Bebop
I love this show.  This character is what makes it so good to me.  Spike is a interstellar bounty hunter who is trying to run away from his past.  He used to be a member of the a crime syndicate, but left when he was betrayed by the woman he loves.  He now works with a man named Jet, and over time, gets new crew members on their ship, Faye Valentine, Ed, and their dog, Ein.  While Spike seems to not notice Ed especially much, it is shown that he does look out for her.  Faye, on the other hand, is one of the points of contention in the show.  It is hinted that Spike likes her, and that she may do more than like him.  But his is an interesting character.  He has no real concern for his own life, seeing death as just something that is coming.  He actually looks at life as something to be overcome, that death is the ultimate end, and what he seeks most.  He does good things, but at the same time, he is motivated by the need to pay the bills.  Were it not for money being involved, he would likely not care about the problems of others.  He is a tragic character in a tragic show.  Check it out, if you have time.

6. V
V for Vendetta
V is an interesting character.  His is a character who originally started with no goodness to his plan at all, but over time grew to gain some.  The backstory to this character is shrouded in mystery.  He was an ordinary man who was rounded up during the crackdown of the fascist government that rules England, and then given some kind of injection that turned him into a badass killer.  A fire at the institution (arguably caused by him), burned him beyond recognition, but he survived.  Now, many years later, he is back for revenge against those who did this to him.  By chance of fate, he meets a woman named Evey, who unlocks the goodness that he had locked away for so long.  This character is not only badass, but he is cool.  Well-spoken, thoughtful, intelligent, and very dark, his is a character who you grow to like a lot, even though he does do crazy things, and sometimes he even sounds a little nuts.  Check out the film, if you can.

5. Lelouch vi Britannia/Zero
Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion
I have already talked about this character in great detail in another post, where I compared why I favor Lelouch over the anime character Yagami Light from Death Note, so I won’t say too much here.  Lelouch is a young man who, by sheer chance, comes into possession of a Geass.  This power is different for everybody who has it, and in Lelouch’s case, it allows him to give an order that somebody must absolutely follow, so long as he has eye-contact with them.  What makes his character so much better than Yagami is simply the fact that Lelouch does horrible things, but he has genuine remorse for his actions sometimes, and that is a good thing for a character who does do horrible deeds, and use people in cold ways.  The dual-nature of his life, between the rebellious hero who is trying to destroy an empire, to the loving brother who is trying to look after his sister, is one of the charms of this character.  It is worth checking out, and although I like Death Note more, this character is worth it.

4. Alan Shore
Boston Legal
The Practice (Season 8)
This is a character who I will always adore because of how well he was played.  James Spader plays the brilliant Alan Shore.  He is a lawyer in Boston who not only has little to no regard for the rules, the idea of breaking them and suffering intense consequences appeals to him.  He has a very strict code of justice, but he is most certainly not above doing really awful things to get to that point.  He is a womanizer of the worst kind, and while he has an attraction to older women, he will sleep with younger women to satisfy his insatiable appetite.  His strategy in the court-room is to identify the underlying failing of society that got his client to that point, and use that to sympathetic juries.  He is often victorious.  While he is quite the ladies man, he generally is disliked by the men that he works with.  His lack of tendency to follow the rules puts him at odds with all of his bosses.  But despite his lack of respect for authority, he often gets his goal, and rarely ever feels the hammer come down on him.  All in all, a good character of a show that ended way too fast.

3. Gregory House
House M.D.
Here is a character who I will always love.  A lot of people are saying how his character has gotten kind of stale, but I am not among them.  I think this guy is cool, no matter what he does.  He is a character who can keep charming, regardless of what he is doing.  Played by Hugh Laurie, his is a character a lot like Holmes above.  He does good deeds, helping the sick, but he doesn’t do it because he cares.  He does it to feed his quest to find a puzzle to solve.  He is a brilliant doctor who also has little to no regard for authority.  No amount of authority scares him.  He sees it all as a game.  While most people believe that he not only doesn’t care about his patients, he doesn’t care about anybody else, his best friend, Wilson, knows otherwise.  Part of the reason the two have stayed friends is that Wilson can tell that there is a good man underneath the cold, but he hides it well.  This has been a good show, and I will always be a fan, because of the awesome antics of Greg House.

2. Dexter Morgan
Dexter
Here is a character who is unique among the anti-heroes on this list.  All of the others have goals, and are willing to do extreme things to get there.  Dexter, on the other hand, his goal is to do extreme things.  He is a serial killer, but unlike normal serial killers, he was trained by his adoptive father to channel his need to kill into something less heinous than it otherwise would have been.  He finds and kills killers who have fallen through the cracks of the justice system.  Granted, he does sometimes engineer their falling through, but always with the intention of taking them out himself, and he only does it when he really believes that this killer shouldn’t suffer in jail.  That death should be their inevitable end.  This is a remarkably likeable character, despite his proclivities.  But it isn’t really his killings that are the interesting part.  Not to me, anyway.  Dexter is interesting because he does make genuine attempts to connect with his species, from having a girlfriend, to trying to make friends, to even having a best friend.  But every time he does, his demons destroy the lives of everybody that he comes into contact with.  I think most people can relate to that problem, of trying to find somewhere to belong, even though most of us are not serial killers.  We are able to relate to him as he makes his way through life.

And the number 1 Anti-hero is…!

1. Omar Little
The Wire
It had to be Omar.  Omar really is the personification of what an anti-hero is supposed to be.  He lives completely by his own rules, and doesn’t care at all about what the rest of the world wants, or about the games that the rest of us play every day.  He is a character who lives in the slums of Baltimore, robbing drug dealers.  He has a reputation of shooting those who do not cooperate with him, but while he comes off as a thug, Omar has a very strict code that he lives by.  The first part is that he never swears, ever.  His grandmother raised him and gave him that strict code.  And while he isn’t above blowing somebody’s knee out with a shotgun, he will never raise his weapon onto a person who isn’t “in the game.”  And when people step outside of that code, he does get very upset.  He lives by the law of the old west, where the way of the gun made right.  He regularly walks the street with his shotgun hanging from his side, and he never goes anywhere unarmed.  Given that he has been in the game for some time, he has to always watch his back.  Omar is a very intelligent character.  He can plan and change up plans on a moment’s notice.  He will stalk out the place or person he is after, and make sure he knows everything about them.  This character was incredibly well-written, and if you have a chance, check him out.  Omar is the kind of character that we needed – an old west outlaw in modern times, who lives by the gun, and inevitably dies by the gun.

Anti-heroes are always going to be interesting, and I recommend you check out all of these.  So, what should I do in my next top ten?

Until next time, a quote,

“Don’t get me wrong, I done some dirt, but I ain’t never put my gun on no citizen!”  -Omar Little, The Wire

Peace out,

Maverick

Reasons to Live

So, this is going to be a response to some posts that I am seeing around Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other places that friends are telling me about.  There have been a bunch of posters that I am seeing around campus too that talk about this.  These posters are horribly misleading, and honestly kind of annoy me, but I won’t talk about that too especially much, because honestly, if people can’t figure out how dumb these posters are, they deserve to be misled.  That said, these posts are giving reasons why you shouldn’t kill yourself.  Why you shouldn’t commit suicide.

Okay, let me state, up front, that I am not against suicide.  I’m really not.  If you want to kill yourself, while I will miss your passing, if you are among those I call my friends, I truly believe that it is your life.  One of the reasons that, when I hear on legal shows or whatnot, that they (whoever is talking), has to “protect them from themselves,” gets on my nerves so much.  I ask people who are against euthanizing terminal patients who want to take the easy way out – what claim do you have on this person’s life that they don’t have?

A lot of people will argue – the value of human life.  There are over seven billion people on this planet right now.  Thousands, probably millions, die every single day.  People are dying in the poorest countries from things we have cured here in America.  We don’t give a damn about their lives, but when somebody talks about committing suicide, or when the debate over ethanasia for terminal patients comes up, they will talk about how human life is so valuable.  We have professional trained murderers that we call soldiers going overseas and killing people.  What was the value of their lives?  Really, this entire system is so we don’t have to feel like complete pieces of shit, even if we really are, underneath it all.

Now, back to the posts.  What are the reasons to live?  Well, here’s the truth – there are none.  Reason is something that we assign to something else.  We are naturally pattern-seeking creatures.  We like to believe that when awful shit happens, it happened for a reason.  By the same token, when we also like to find reasons for reasons for the good things.  One of the biggest examples has been, what else, God.  If something bad happens, God is the reason.  Something good, God is the reason.  God has some great plan for everything.  It’s all a crock of shit.

Excluding the religious nonsense, there are no reasons for you to keep on living.  The reasons you have for continuing your life are whatever you want them to be.  All the people who will get in your face and give you a bunch of reasons not to die, they are not you.  They don’t have the life that you have.  They haven’t gone through the experiences that you have.  They don’t know what your passions are.  They have no idea what you’ve been through.  They know nothing about you.  Their reasons are not your reasons.

I think the thing that has gotten under my skin most are the posters are the dorms.  They all have these messages like one said something to the effect of -

Martin Luther King Jr. got a bad grade on a test he did in High School.  What if he had killed himself?  Then he wouldn’t have been able to do any of the things he did.

Yes, because all people who commit suicide had something so small like a bad grade happen.  They didn’t have traumatic events, or anything really big happen, it is something small and virtually insignificant.  And not to mention the idea that anybody who doesn’t commit suicide is going to go on to do great things.  Here’s a niftly reality check for you – the chances that you are going to do great things with you life is very, very small.  Odds are that you are going to do nothing with your life, and just fade out of existence, never to be remembered.

That is what I really believe the “Reasons to Live” people don’t seem to talk about – how people are all just trying to find a niche to exist in.  And I do believe that there are people who just don’t fit in, who are the odd people out, who don’t have a place to belong in this world.

Now look, I am not discouraging people from finding a reason to live.  I have recently found my own reasons to keep waking up in the morning and doing my thing, even though life kind of sucks, and all I have had over the last few years, and a lot of what I have to come is medical hell and a lot of pain.  All I am asking is that you don’t insult the intelligence of the people of this world by pretending that the reasons that you have to continue drawing breath at the reasons that I have to continue drawing breath, and that there is a reason to continue drawing breath.

Reason is subjective.  There are no universal reasons.  Human life really isn’t all that valuable a commodity, which I know is a really awful thing to say, but hey, let’s be honest here.  Life is whatever you want it to be.  I am asking that the people who want to find a reason do the really smart thing – look inside of yourself.  What do you want out of life?  Can life give that thing to you?  If you can just do that, then you are somebody I can respect.  Reason doesn’t exist.  Meaning is a dream.  But finding your own way, and having the strength to be able to do what you want to do, that is something that is really worth it, and one of the reasons that life can be so special, if you want it to be.

Until next time, a quote,

“Right. If we were all satisfied with what we had what a beautiful world it would be. We’d all slowly starve to death in our own filth but at least we’d be happy. Listen I need your self worth to hang on this job. For kicking ass to be all that lets you rise above miserable. If waking up in the morning is enough, I don’t need you.”  -Gregory House, House M.D.

Peace out,

Maverick