9:38 PM GMT+8:00, January 31, 2004, Sanxia, Taiwan
I think I put the location in my heading for the sole purpose of being able to change it like I just did. I'm not sure why that would be interesting, but it was. So as you can see if you have any sort of reading comprehension at all, I am now in Taiwan. This is just for a few days, as the ticket is cheaper if it is for a short period of time. There's not much to say about this country, except that now that I can compare it to Japan, it is even dirtier than I remember. Taipei, which is basically next door to where I am now, really is a smaller, dirtier version of Tokyo.
The air is dirtier, the sidewalks are dirtier, the people are dirtier and less fashionable, and the coffee sucks. However, it is a hell of a lot cheaper. What this all means, I don't know. What exactly does a higher standard of living bring to the general population? And is per capita income a proper measurement of the physiological and psychological well-being of the populace? Does it even try to measure it at all?
On a side note, the time here is one hour behind Japan, so I just assumed that it was GMT+8:00 instead of +9:00. I could be wrong, though. Since I got lots of new year's money, Happy New Year's, everyone!
8:40 PM GMT+9:00, January 25, 2004, Tokyo, Japan
I may as well continue. Ok people, the secret to losing weight is right here. I have it. I'll tell you one thing first, though. It is not through fancy diets, or pills, or any kind of herbal bullshit either. Really, it's very simple. Before I tell you, how about you think about it for a second.
Thought about it? Think harder.
Got it yet? No? Think again!
Christ, fine.
Here you go, the revelation of the century, that will change how we diet:
Take in fewer calories than you burn.
Was that too hard for you? Here, let me make it simpler:
Eat less and exercise more.
There, that wasn't so hard, was it not?
I've just about had it with fad diets, especially that so-called Atkin's Diet. I've always been skeptical about how such a diet could possibly be good for you, but further research on it shows that people eat less in general on the diet than normal, probably because protein keeps you satisfied for longer, among other reasons. Therefore, since their calorie intake is lowered, along with going to a slightly toxic fat-burning metabolism, they lose weight. This isn't fucking rocket science here, people. Eat less, and you won't weigh as much. Or maybe stop watching so much fucking TV, Christ. Just do something instead of nothing. Don't sit there and bitch, because that will get you nowhere.
2:09 AM, GMT+9:00, January 25, 2004, Tokyo, Japan
I had a whole other rant ready to go about how dangerous a little knowledge was, but two subjects specifically came up in the past few weeks that allow me to elaborate on why this bothers me so much. I'm probably going to get real technical here, and I'm also going to sound very elitist, but frankly, I don't care. If you can't follow me, that's not my problem.
First off, I had a long discussion with a friend about the speed of light. We are taught that it is a constant, and indeed it must be, for if it was not, many things that we hold to be true about physics (and indeed which are confirmed over and over again) would simply not be true. He said that if it couldn't be, simply because it didn't make sense to him. I'm going to use a logical fallacy (that would be the appeal to authority) here, but I think in this case it applies. My friend is no way stupid, but he simply doesn't have the knowledge necessary to question the speed of light. He uses red/blueshift as an argument against the speed of light being a constant. I only had one year of college-level physics, and probably a month or two of quantum physics, but simply looking at the equations tells us that wavelength doesn't have a damn thing to do with speed. In fact, wavelength and frequency are related by an equation, the only constant being the
speed of light.
Hey, people don't just make this shit up. Experiments have been done, over and over again which show us that quantum mechanics are very real. Time dilation is real. The speed of light is a constant, as it is the same speed whether we fire a beam off parallel to or perpendicular to the Earth's orbital velocity. What more do you want? The last thing I want to hear is that we can never be sure of things. While this is true, and is the foundation of good science, as an argument, it means nothing. We can't ever be 100% sure of
anything. Hell, you can't absolutely prove that you exist. It's proven to a good enough extent for just about anyone, but it's never 100% sure.
In conclusion, the speed of light is a constant, and frankly, the fact that I'm typing away on this computer right now, and you're all going to read this, in spite of me being thousands of miles away says a lot, doesn't it?
Now for the big one.
I'm no physicist, so I can't put up a good enough argument against a constant bombardment of questions. I don't know
why things are, they just are. Fuck, like it matters. I don't care if people used to think the Earth was flat, that doesn't invalidate the information we have now. It's not like we're just making shit up about humors or similar craziness. I also don't care if they used to think the atom was the smallest thing out there. None of that matters. Christ, I'm not believing this stuff because it's convienent. Quantum mechanics doesn't make intuitive sense to me either, but the math has convinced me. The math, and the loads of evidence that is out there. All I have to say is prove me wrong. Don't believe the speed of light is a constant? Prove it. Fucking prove it, then come to me and talk about it.
And if you can fucking disprove evolution, you'll win a fucking nobel prize. But yet, there are far too many people that seem to think they can. The tired old arguments are getting annoying. Same shit, different day. The second law of thermodynamics doesn't apply to an open system, can't you get that through your thick skull? Fuck, if I hear the phrase irreducible complexity one more time, I'm going to hurt someone. Adding information, subtracting information? Fuck, people, go take a basic fucking biology class and then come back and talk to me. If you don't even know that Lamarckian evolution is bullshit, I shouldn't even be talking to you about evolution. Mutations being beneficial is unimaginable? Do you even know what a fucking mutation is?
Before you even think about debating evolution with me, go learn some fucking biology. You have to know what DNA is, it's chemical structure, what a gene is, how they work, basic microbiology, what a mutation is exactly, and what exactly we're talking about when we say evolution. For starters, genes are not as simple as many people seem to think they are. Even for something as simple as hair color, there are five or six genes (the number could be wrong, but it's more than one) that interact to produce your hair color. Furthermore, if you can't even understand that genes merely code for proteins which have myriad effects on your body, you shouldn't even start arguing. If you don't understand genetic drift, the various types of selection, or what genotype or phenotype mean, you also shouldn't start. Furtherfuckingmore, if you ask me for beneficial mutations, I'm going to stab you in the eye. There are catastrophic mutations which usually result in a miscarriage, but there are also mutations whose effects are determined by the surrounding environment. They could be good, but they could also be bad. It all depends on where you are.
Saying evolution is merely "survival of the fittest" is a huge oversimplification, but to truly understand evolution, it seems that you need so much background information that it's nearly pointless to try explaining it to one who is uninformed. Oh, you elitist asshole, you say. Hey, science is not some mysterious magical thing, all the information that has ever been found is out there for you to read. No one is hiding it from you, but if you can't understand it, it's not my job to dispel your ignorance. Frankly, I don't have the patience for your sophomoric pseudo-scientific posturing. Go ahead, bring up the second law of thermodynamics again, you ignorant hick. If you don't even recognize the phrase Carnot cycle, I don't even want to hear it. You probably don't even know what the first law is, you inbred knuckle-dragger. Christ, it's a wonder you can even tie your shoes in the morning.
I guess this is why I'm never going to be a teacher, huh?
5:46 PM GMT+9:00, January 16, 2004, Tokyo, Japan
I was having a discussion with a friend recently, and we began to talk about the nature of love and attraction. Knowing what I do, I can't help but think that "love" as we call it is nothing more that neurochemical interactions, and to believe in some higher ideal of love as a nebulous thing to strive for is just a silly dream. Seems a little depressing? I suppose it could be. If love is nothing more than neurochemical interactions, does it really matter? Can we induce these feelings by simply injecting you with the particular cocktail of endorphins, dopamine, and whatever else floods your system when you see someone you love?
And by simple extension, isn't love a bit like an addiction, except to a person? A chemical addiction is generally very simple. Take cocaine, for example. I should do more research on this before I say anything, but if I remember correctly, cocaine binds to dopamine uptake receptors, thereby making it so all the dopamine released into your system doesn't leave in a timely manner. Hence, you feel good. It was either that or it causes a flood of dopamine to inundate your system. It doesn't really matter, as the result is the same. You associate that feeling with that particular drug, and so you become addicted to it. Nicotine acts in much the same manner, except it is more mild in effect. A physical addiction can be defined as a state where you
need a particular substance in which to go on with your life, and nicotine, heroin, cocaine, and many others can cause physical addictions. There is another kind of addiction where you will not suffer physical withdrawal symptoms (outside the hypochondriac kind) which I do not know the term for, so I will call it an associative addiction.
Let us examine the situation:
- Addiction is caused by associating, mentally or physically, a feeling or condition you desire with a thing.
- Love is the association of good feelings with a single person.
- Therefore, love is a kind of addiction.
So what does this all mean? I don't know. It all gets back to the whole question of why we exist. The optomist would say to make the best of things. The pessimist would say to suffer. The nihilist would tell you it doesn't matter. The existentialist would say to exist. Some people say we exist to love, but if it is nothing more than an addiction to neurotransmitters, what's so special about that? It can make people do crazy things, perhaps we should regulate it. Not really, but perhaps you see my point. What, exactly, makes love something that inspires people worldwide to write stories, poems, songs, to get into fights, to sacrifce their very lives, just for one person?
If I knew the answer to that, my life would either be better or that much more depressing, if I cared enough about these issues to stress.
5:42 AM GMT+9:00, January 18, 2004, Tokyo, Japan
I woke up roughly 12 hours ago, so I'm finally ready to go to sleep. This is going to destroy my sleep patterns, but I'm near the end of the line anyway, so I think it's fine.
Let's recap. I broke up with my girlfriend on Sunday, and proceeded to get wasted. I drank a bit on Monday, but not enough. I drank on a nearly empty stomach on Tuesday and so it was cheap, and I got a nice buzz. I was going to go for the whole week, but that didn't end up working out, so I just got hammered on Saturday to make up for the other three days I didn't get. I made the mistake of not drinking enough water after taking who knows how much vodka, and I paid for it with my third hangover of my life. I'm figuring things out. After drinking enough to get nicely buzzed/drunk, I have 6 or 7 hours to drink water to avoid the dehydration and stomach churning pain that come with a hangover. This probably varies with how much water I have in my system before starting, but I have a number to work with, at least.
It snowed today, or I suppose yesterday, now. Apparently this was all day, but I wasn't awake for very much of it, so I wouldn't know. Not much stuck, because it's not cold enough for that quite yet, but it got relatively heavy for a bit, which was really cool to see. No one that's not from California really understands this, as snow is not uncommon in other parts of the world, but seeing frozen water fall from the sky is not something I'm used to. It has only happened in my hometown once. Maybe we're just weird in California, I don't know.
As you may or may not have heard, Bush has announced that we want to once again go to the moon, and set foot on Mars. My first reaction to this was elation, as the prospect of going into space feels a bit like our manifest destiny, but upon further research and reflection, I see that this announcement is nearly empty. The timeline puts all the actual work on the shoulders of whoever succeeds him, guts current programs, will probably not get approved by Congress anyway, and the funding increases for NASA don't even outpace projected inflation. How is this helping us then?
3:26 PM GMT+9:00, January 12, 2004, Tokyo, Japan
So now I'm single again. I thought it would be liberating, but it's not. Rather, I kind of feel a little lonely, as sad as that may be to admit. It was also a lot harder than I thought it would be. This is to say that while I knew it would be hard, I didn't know it would be as hard as it was. It's not easy for the one doing the dumping, depending on the person. I already miss the closeness of having someone you can sleep in the same bed with, and share just about anything with. It all sounds sappy and lame, but I guess in spite of all I thought I had changed about my personality, that still is there.
I've never had to be the one doing the dumping, and it was really hard. I forced myself to look her in the eyes when I said it, and I think she almost expected it. That just made me feel even worse. She treated me so well, and I basically took advantage of that. I feel like such an asshole. That compounded with the fact that I can't really express myself all that well in Japanese, and I could definitely come off as an asshole.
I never really realize how nice it is to just hold someone until I can't do it. God, I sound like such a pansy. That's what girls do to me, I suppose. So does it really help me that now I can hit on any old skank? Perhaps not. The grass is always greener and all that.
I know I had to do it, because the relationship was far too unbalanced, but I can't help but think selfish thoughts and wish I could still have that, but when I realize that I don't want it all the time, just when it would make me feel better, I realize all over again why I had to do it. It just wouldn't have been right to let it continue. I could have lied and changed a few of my habits to keep things going, but it would simply have been far too wrong. The last thing I want to see is a girl sad, and I think breaking it off now would, in the end, save her from the cyclic pattern of kind of realizing that she likes me a lot more than I like her. I'm tempted, still, to call her up or whatever and try and get back together, to make myself feel better, but it's all for the best this way. I really hate logic sometimes.
