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[abrahamcrane-blog]

Reality

I have to believe that reality is literally yours to define. You cannot maintain a semblance of existence otherwise. What do I mean by this?

How do you define what is real? Are you real? Is Superman real? Are Superman comic books real? Is the English language real? Is Tolkien’s Elvish real?

Depending on your answers to these questions, what you consider to be real will have a common thread. Many times over the course of my life, I’ve had issues with surreality. Proving something to be real has often led me through an exhausting(and I truly mean it) trip of the mind, until eventually I conclude that if I can’t prove anything is real, then my own state of existence is not an absolute.

Personally, I find it best to describe reality in terms of non-existence. To not exist is to have no effect on anything within the universe. Therefore, to exist, and be real, is to affect the universe.

This means that Superman, as a character, has to be real. His existence might be bound within our minds and media, but he affects us through it.

Sadly, my definition means that Superman is more real than I am. Hell, Abraham Crane hasn’t even been around for a month, but Superman is known by almost every living human.

While you’ll probably just return to your previous state after reading this, there will be one key difference; you’ll have a idea on whether or not you exist.

[abrahamcrane-blog]

Self-Awareness

I think of everyone I meet, including myself, as some form of character. If the world were experienced in the third person, then no doubt everyone would act more coherently. But, the way we act is often hypocritical, and it is a rare individual who never breaks their code.

Though I myself struggle to reach complete coherency in my actions and words, I no doubt try. A large amount of my ability to retain my own morals comes from this sense of myself as a character. I’m simply one man, amidst a sea of 8 billion others. I don’t stick out, I’m not entirely unique, and I know this.

Whether you like it or not, each of us can fit into a series of labels. I’m a pretentious millennial who fancies himself a sage of sorts, when really he’s just spouting random garbage. There’s probably a million people like me on this site, and probably more scattered around the world who have other ways of venting their creative buildup. 

You reading this right now, try to identify yourself as a character. What’s your place? Are you the main character? If you have a story arc, is it a complex one? We all fancy ourselves to be the protagonist of the world, from our first-person perspective alone. We struggle to see ourselves as one, tiny cog in a massive, useless machine, accomplishing nothing. No doubt it would operate differently were that gear that you are disappeared, but it would not be distinguishable from how it operates now.

This might come off as nihilistic, but I don’t think it is. I believe the universe is meaningless, but only because all meaning in it must derive from its inhabitants. We must be aware of ourselves, and our impact on the cosmos, before we can influence it beyond the path set before us. 

[abrahamcrane-blog]

Hatred

There are only two emotions an infant can feel following its birth; wretched misery, and purest joy. The babe learns all others from observation, and from teaching. But, as the proverbial Adam and Eve learned, not all knowledge is worth knowing, and knowing some things can corrupt you.

Do not mistake me. Knowledge is my favorite tool, and I rely upon it heavily. But, there are a great many things I desire to un-know.

Foremost among these, however, is my ability to hate. Where I learnt it from, I do not know. But, when in the throes of wrath, I feel it surge throughout my body, and I fear myself in this state. 

To become a healthy and wise person, hate must be removed, like a tumor that threatens your existence.

To become a healthy and wise species, we must eradicate hate, casting it off like clothing that would otherwise choke us.

We do not need the hate we harbor for those we disagree with.. Our older brothers with a tendency for the illogical. Our reckless employers who seek to run us into the ground. Our neighbors across long oceans who pray to foreign deities.

I am an idealist at heart, but I understand the world cannot lose hate one nation at a time. Such a thing would destabilize our entire system of world politics.

But, I plead, the few who read this; forsake hate. It weighs you down, it rots your heart, it poisons your mind. You learn nothing from it, you gain nothing from it, and you waste it upon those you cannot abide.

[abrahamcrane-blog]

Worship

As a child, I went to church on a weekly basis. My parents, good people, would ask me to praise the Lord. My juvenile mind always had the same response. Why?

Worship is natural to humanity. Whether it is a celebrity, a mantra, or a book, we naturally attract ourselves to revere things. Some might argue that if it is human nature, then it must be right.

Naturally, we are born naked. Yet, we clothe ourselves. Naturally, we are hunters. Yet, we farm. Humanity’s position has never been to follow nature, but to overcome it. Why we haven’t left worship with the other primitive things we have discarded is a mystery to me.

Some may say that God desires to be worshiped. But why would God want our reverence? If God desires positive attention, then the deity should only reveal itself to the world, and demand tribute. No rational being would dare question the Almighty, were it before them. Perhaps God simply wants to encourage faith, but faith must be left in a vacuum, not a world where the evidence only rises on its non-existence. 

Within the Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian Bible, so much is devoted to defining how the Lord should be worshiped. Numbers and Leviticus especially. Instead, shouldn’t a divinity be telling us why it needs to be worshiped?

God, in any form, should not ask us to sacrifice the one thing we can never gain in return for nothing. Time is already so precious, and though every generation gets a little more than the last, we live such short lives compared to the grand scheme of things.

A truly benevolent being would not demand we spend one seventh of our lives in worship, but instead ask us to spend one seventh of our lives helping those in need. Charitable action is the greatest way to honor morality, while worship simply wastes time away. 

[abrahamcrane-blog]

Generalization

The biggest, and perhaps the most common mistake made is perhaps generalizing. Stating “All bananas are yellow” will only result in you being proven wrong, for most bananas are green at some point, and some turn brown at a later one.

When a human generalizes, it typically betrays two things about them. 

1. They think they are undoubtedly clever. 

2. They lack some sense of self-awareness. 

The problem when generalizing is when you lack the data. You could say “All bananas I have observed have been yellow” to far more accuracy, or you could say “Most bananas are yellow” and be accurate there as well. But an absolute is a dangerous thing.

The problem becomes especially apparent when applied to humanity. Making a broad, sweeping statement that defines a large group of people is an easy way to make mistakes. 

Stating “All muslims are terrorists” would be stating that 2 billion people seek to use violence to further an agenda. Were that the case, the other 6 billion of us would probably experience more firsthand terrorism.

However, stating that “Islam is a religion of peace” makes the same mistake. Were 2 billion people unwilling to harm others, then the many attacks suffered within Europe and Western Asia would not be present. 

You cannot define any group of people by generalizing them, not even if its positive. Ultimately, humanity is an incredibly diverse species mentally, and something as simple as whether or not we will take a life is bound to have more answers then “yes” and “no”.