State of the Union

What can I say? Our nation is a mess, just like the rest of the world. Many problems plague our “glorious” nation. Corruption has seeped into the heart of our government, poisoning our nation. Many people are unhappy in our country, and are not getting any happier. In fact, every day it seems like more and more people begin to suffer, and our leaders are too busy trying to make themselves look like good leaders to actually play the part of one. Lying and money are what put our leaders in office, not genuine character and leadership skills. They are not helping our problems at all, and our problems are many.

Poverty is sweeping the land. Everyday, more and more people fall out of the middle class and into the lower class. People are always losing jobs because we Americans don’t ever want to get down and dirty. Because Americans are too cowardly to do many jobs, illegal immigrants get a foothold in our nation. They have so many jobs because Americans are too lazy to do the hard work. Most of our people expect every job to be a walk in the park. We are always looking for easy money, and since jobs offering easy money are hard to come by, people are having trouble looking for work. Our own laziness is what’s losing jobs, not the illegal immigrants. They only do things because we don’t want to. It’s our fault they’re taking our jobs, not theirs.

Numerous foreign nations hold shares of our national stocks of money. China alone has billions of dollars in United States bonds. Eventually, China is going to cash in those bonds, and we’ll have to pay, even though we are trillions of dollars in debt. The value of the dollar is also constantly decreasing due to the fact that all the government does is spend money it doesn’t have. Eventually, our economy will outright fail, and never recover again.

The failing economy is leading to misery for us at home, but it is not the only problem we face. We face trouble overseas as well. Iran is building nuclear weapons, and China and Russia have voiced that they will support Iran if it came to trouble. In addition to the building of nuclear weapons, Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hornuz, which could easily cause military conflict. If that happens, it could easily be the breaking point that starts World War III, which would be a problem for everyone on earth.

Yet another issue that we have is the issue of fossil fuel dependence and global warming. We are dependant on foreign oil, and not making any effort to wean ourselves off of it. If we do not cease our dependence on that which destroys us, we will only accelerate our demise. We need to stop depending on foreign oil and oil in general, or we are going to speed up our fall into the despotism which will befall all nations one day.

The nation has many challenges to face, as does the rest of the world. However, we can defeat any challenges in our way if we unite as one race, one people, and one world. We need to forge bonds across all nations to be strong, that when the rising challenges come, we may defeat them, working together as one unstoppable force that shall be remembered for generations to come. Many challenges shall rise, and many changes will take place, but we need to stick together for our own betterment, and hold onto our values. For, if we lose our values, we will lose ourselves, and our whole kind will fall soon thereafter. We need to help each other, not ourselves. We need to always act for the best of humanity. If all of us work together, we can form a global alliance, formed with kindness, and held together with the powerful glue of love. If we do these things, we can rise up to the coming challenges, and face conflict head on. Eventually, we can make the world better. These are bigger, more important things than our nation. Even though I would love to save our country, what’s the point in living here if the rest of the world is destitute? There is none. Therefore, I declare, we must work together and forge international bonds. For, if we do not, we will all be defeated by the rising tide of conflict that shall soon engulf the world. There is hope for humanity, so long as we always act with kindness, treating everyone with friendship, compassion and understanding. We must create an impenetrable wall of friendship to combat that furious wave of trouble that will soon hit the world with the force of a thousand seas. A storm is coming. It is best that we’re prepared when it does.

My Early Memories

Most of my early memories are foggy. I remember lying on the couch, with doctors poring over me. I had an insanely high fever, I seem to recall. My mom said it was like 105 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s crazy. She also said the doctors thought I would die. I don’t remember that much. My body used every ounce of its energy to fight the illness, not even spending and resources on memory.

A memory I recall a bit more clearly was the memory of a window shattering on me. I was two years old. We had just been at the driving range, and a storm started. My dad was really mad for some reason, which in turn made my mom really mad at him. We were leaving the range, and I was sitting in the car. My mother slammed the door so hard, the window shattered on me, coating me in shards of glass. I started crying, and we immediately went to the hospital. I know not how long we were there, having the pieces removed, but it was a fair amount of time. I still have a scar from it.

As I mentioned in a previous assignment, I have a love for adventure. It was one way I satiated my frequent and intense boredom. My mother, before her Crohn’s Disease invaded her life, used to always take me to the woods to have adventures. We would hunt for secret civilisations and lost hiding places of the ancient world. Our woods adventures gained even more substance once my next memory occurred.

I fondly remember the first time I saw Indiana Jones. I had been in love with Ancient History for a very long time, so my mom decided to treat me by renting a movie. She rented Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Silly as I was, I thought it was GI Joe based on the pictures from the case. I thought GI Joe was dumb. As it turned out I was wrong, and I loved Indiana Jones.

Indiana Jones became the focus of my woods adventures. I would pretend to be the guy with his famous Fedora, and imagine that I was going on incredible adventures, looking for the Ark, or seeking Christ’s cup. The woods were so awesome, and were like a second home to me, and are a part of many of my favourite memories. 

Now, I shall move away from adventure, seeing as I have a whole essay about that. Some of My foggier memories include falling asleep listening to eighties music and having a nightmare where the music broke into the dream. I remember my friend’s eye getting hooked on a toy grappling hook (that one scarred me for a few years). I remember throwing up while eating broccoli (why I haven’t eaten broccoli since). I remember my mom flipping out at me, and wrecking the whole house as to avoid hitting me (thank goodness she learned to control her anger once she left my father). I remember seeing Harry Potter and falling in love with it, and there are many other minimal memories that I seem to recall. There are too many to list them all. Most of them are vague, but they’re still there.

Memory is a funny thing, and is quite amazing. They can be clear as day or murky like a swamp, without any real reason as to why the memories differ in clarity. I can see why there are whole institutes dedicated to the strange mysterious of the human memory bank. It is an amazing thing to discuss and ponder. They from an irreplaceable area of human consciousness, and without our memory to aid us, humanity wouldn’t have been able to accomplish nearly as much as we have.

"Balance is Power"- You have been warned

A blog about balance! I was simply aching for this opportunity to arise.  I shall not tarry.

“Balance is power,” Guthix said. No true words have never my eyes seen. Balance is necessary to life on earth, and the universe as a whole. If the scale of the universe tips one way or the other, disastrous things happen. Nature is a delicate thing, and if anything happens to disrupt Her delicate balance, Her fury is without recompense. When the universe was created, it was given a set of rules, procedures, and reactions to maintain its balance. Under normal circumstances, balance never ceases to exist. The only thing that can disrupt Nature’s constant equilibrium is a powerful force; a force that has escaped Her grasp and become artificial. Such a force exists, and it is called humanity.

Nature kept itself in balance for eons. Every disaster that struck was quickly remedied by an equally powerful reaction. Meteors, planet-wide earthquakes, and massive floods all got negated by Nature’s powerful arsenal. She had tools for every occasion, and nothing could keep Her unbalanced. Such was the case until the dawn of humanity.

At first, humanity lived in harmony with Nature. We would use her resources to live, and in return, we acted as a source of population control and would fertilise the ground upon our deaths. We helped maintain the balance of the world. We respected nature, and accepted that Nature was a more powerful force than man could ever be. However, eventually, humans began to manipulate Nature for their own betterment. Irrigation, deforestation, and burning of wood were all examples of how we tried to control nature. Humankind, arrogant as we are, decided that we should be the ones in charge. Almost all of our early advances involved trying to conquer Nature, because we were obsessed with becoming the dominant force in the universe.

At first, Nature managed to keep up with mankind by making Her tools stronger. Disease, in particular, was a very effective way of controlling the onslaught of humanity. Nature adapted, and kept us in check. However, with the birth of medicine, we began working towards conquering our last and most difficult obstacle: death. Over the centuries, life expectancy has been rising ever higher and higher. In addition, our manipulation of nature has gone on for far too long. We have not just tipped the scale of Nature’s balance. We have thrown it over the edge of a cliff. 

The world is entirely out of whack. The planet is getting warmer, much faster than if Nature were left to Her own device. Our controlling of Nature and evasion of death have increased our population far beyond Earth’s carrying capacity. Normally the optimist, I would generally say that there is hope. However, none can deny that we have come too far to reverse our tracks. Our path is set, and it is anything but a cake walk.

There is frequent conflict in the world. None can deny it. The world is getting smaller, but humanity’s progress is only ever increasing exponentially. Stick 500 people inside of a locked bathroom for a day or too. See what happens. That is what happens every day, only on a much larger scale. There are seven billion people on this planet, and we are not getting smaller. There is always conflict over resources such as oil and natural gas. The earth must support all of us here, but it cannot. I foresee that ever-increasing population will soon render the resources on the planet insufficient to support us all, and when nations have their interests at risk, war breaks out. I predict that World War III will be caused by a lack of resources on a planet too small for us all, starting with oil, which scientists predict will run out by 2050. We need to find alternate energy sources. There is enough war without one started over the evil known as “black gold.”

Oil is not the only resource of concern. Food is another major issue, and widespread famine has already begun. In Africa, there are more starving bellies than full. Even in America, the strongest country in the world, one can find starving children in families who have fallen on hard times. I, for one, have once almost been starving myself. Over the summer, we could barely afford three square meals in a day. Thank God we got out of that hole. As of right now, the world needs to feed seven billion bellies every day. Nature is fruitful, but even Her vast bounty will soon not be enough, not even factoring in climate change, which would further squander our food sources. We need to do something about population growth and climate change if we are to prevent widespread famine. The problems caused by our imbalanced nature do not cease there.

Diseases are becoming ever more dangerous to us. Every day, new, stronger diseases are coming out faster than we can combat them, and the clock towards a global epidemic is a ticking time bomb. Cancer, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and ever stronger strains of Influenza are developing all the time and we are slowly falling behind in our war against death. There are simply too many people on this planet to protect them all from disease, and with increased population, it is getting harder and harder to save everyone. It is simply too much for hospitals to handle it all. As population continues to soar, ever-accelerating the imbalance we are creating, pestilence will become one of our banes.

Do you not see all of the trouble that we are creating for ourselves? We are constantly decimating the delicate scales of Nature, as we have been doing since the advent of things like fire and irrigation. We have evaded Nature’s fury for quite a long time, and I think that Her effective adaptability is finally overrunning us. We have done too much damage, and have come past the point of no return. Nature must have balance, and She will use any means to restore it. Due to our lack of harmony and flouting of balance, what could have been a peaceful relationship with Nature will turn violent. She will unleash all of her tools, strengthened a hundredfold, to smite us for the Blight we brought upon God’s beautiful creation. Overpopulation will make our resources run out, causing dreadful wars, and the famine which has long plagued Africa will begin to spread to the rest of the world. Considering that the beginning of the beginning was in Africa, ‘tis only fitting that it should be the beginning of the end as well. The war and famine will weaken us to ever strengthening diseases, and before you know it, humanity will be all but gone, especially when you factor in climate change and miraculously strengthening natural disasters.

Nature must have balance, and it is Her duty to ensure that God’s glorious creation remains intact. We have failed to do our duty, and maintain balance. As such, Nature will bring balance back to Herself, in a manner strong enough to wipe us out. If we act now, and restore balance to Nature, we may yet stop these omens from occurring. However, if we don’t unite as a race, and stop ourselves, Nature will stop us, and that stop would be eternal. “Balance is power,” is one of the best quotes I’ve heard. If we do not hearken to it, the power of balance will make us hearken, bringing about our demise in the process.

The Crossroads of History

If I had to pick a historical time to visit, I would visit the Renaissance era. It was a crossroads of history, which was both wonderfully ancient, and thankfully modern. It was a period of learning and enlightenment. People were learning new things all the time. It was revolutionary, but at the same time it was archaic, like the romantacised tales of the Middle Ages we always hear about.

I would love the Renaissance because of the constant exploration. There was always an adventure to be had, or a discovery to be made, if you knew the right place to look. I love adventure, and I love discovery. Both are such adrenaline rushes. Imagine the euphoria of revealing some new truth that nobody considered. It would be quite an amazing thing to experience: making new realisations and then sharing your new found secrets with the world. Would you not agree that such is the case?

There was also adventure to be had. Throughout the Renaissance, feudalism, chivalry, and honour were still aspects of society. I could travel all over the countryside, helping people in need of assistance, like the fabled adventurers we see in the Lord of the Rings, RuneScape, and Dragon Age, amongst other media. I could find no greater joy than helping anyone in need like the characters in my favourite video games, books, and movies, as is my life dream.

Between the adventure and discovery, I would be changing the world quite a deal which, as you know, is my main goal in this life. I would help bring wisdom and knowledge to the uneducated folks coming out of the Dark Ages, and help anyone who needed it, seeking nothing in return but opportunities for more adventure. Adventure and discovery are not the only good things about the Renaissance. There is also the beautiful art to be considered.

Renaissance art is renowned. Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Raphael are all names commonly associated with Renaissance art, which is among the best in the world. I could see da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa, or look on as Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel. If the art is amazing *now* just imagine how incredible it was when it was newly made. It would certainly be quite an awe-inspiring sight to behold.

The Renaissance was a time period full of adventure, discovery, wonder, and awe. It was a revolutionary crossroads of history, and we would be nowhere without the things that came from this era. Knowledge that was lost since the time of the ancients began to resurface as people questioned all areas of conventional knowledge, and without it, we wouldn’t know about gravity, or the sun’s position in the universe. We wouldn’t be able to behold the beautiful artwork of the period. We wouldn’t see Mona Lisa’s smile or The Thinker without the visionaries of the Renaissance. Medicine would still be archaic and people wouldn’t live as long. As a matter of fact, without the Renaissance, we would still be in the Dark Ages, hunting witches and smelling like a pig’s backside. Where would we be if not for this time period? I could hardly pass up an opportunity to visit Europe during this crossroads of history.