my view today

I wish I was better at science. because like all things science strives to provide solid facts for unanswerable questions. for scientists there are no impossibilities, just things that cannot be explained yet. correct me if i am wrong but i assume the same goes for atheists.
I have never been fond of the negative connotation that goes along with the word atheist, and never less proud that my twelve years of catholic school probably has something to do with that. I do not consider myself a catholic because i have major issues with their dogma, but i do consider myself a man of faith.
if i wanted to put a word on it i guess it would be agnostic, because i don't really acknowledge any religious sect because they were all made by humans, who are inherently flawed by power, greed, and other vices. and yet i still have faith.
lately i have been calling myself a humanist, because i believe that if you want the world to be a better place you have to acknowledge that we are all human beings, and with that acknowledgement we must then agree that we are all worth the same, and worth saving; not spiritually but from persecution, social injustice, and genocide.
all that said i also know that in the scope of humanity everyone living now is insignificant. trillions of humans have lived since the first man and woman evolved, my name along with every other from this time may be forgotten, but it does not mean i didn't live a good life.
this is where my faith comes in. i have faith that there is something higher, something above all that when i die will take my soul into a better place. maybe i have faith because i fear nonexistence, or because i just don't get science, but i have it. now some people call this being by a different name but i guess like you i am not sold on there being one correct religion, and yet unlike you i think there has to be something.
i don't think i am any happier than you and when you and i die i don't think we are going anywhere different. i hate people who see otherwise, and i hate when religion is used to persecute people or to make laws in a land that is supposed to be free. if my faith makes me naive to a scientifically explained world than i guess thats a causality i am willing to take to ensure my own inner peace. as i previously stated, for me it comes down to respecting humanity as a beautiful construction, scientifically or deity inspired. until we all learn that no one should be denied basic rights we won't learn much of anything. in a world where you can literally connect with anyone anywhere we lack people with the urge to connect, and that above all else is the worst sin to me.
hope that explains an agnostic side, well my side i guess.

A bottle of whiskey and a box of tissues

How do you comfort someone if you can't empathize? Not to say I'm cold hearted, but empathy is often tossed around, but today I was confronted of not knowing what to say in a sensitive situation and I could not empathize. We toss around empathy and I am not sure I really know what it means, because there are many times I cannot relate to the situation that causes the pain. I am speaking today about talking to my grandfather on the phone when he mentions how much he misses my grandmother. I think the worst feeling is the one you get when you know nothing you can say or do can alleviate the torture of another. When you reach a breaking point in the conversation where the only thing left to say is goodbye because it is well known that one cannot help the other. I have never been married, never truly loved the way he has, so when he mourns the loss of a wife, a best friend, a completing piece, I have nothing to say but "sorry." As defeating as this sound sit is the sad fact of life that by the time I will understand his pain he'll be with her again. So in that situation what is the expected outcome? What is the expected reaction? The shitty part about death is that it affects everyone different. As close as I was with my grandmother I will never be able to come close to the attachment that a man who spent 60 years by her side. For one man it is losing his life, for another it is losing his youth. The two diverging instances alienate the grief among men. While we are both in mourning we handle it in different ways. He confides that it is hard for him to cook dinner without breaking down. I can cook fine. Yet we both can't look at pictures without pressure in our gullet. I can't remember her voice, and I wonder if he can. I only had twenty two years with it, he had six decades. I wonder what he misses the most, but I would never ask. It is tough to see your parents cry, and in some ways tougher to watch your grandfather. So much of my life was spent laughing with him that the sudden change has separated me from emotion. I want to cry along with him but I stare instead. Like a voyeur with a pain fetish I find myself taking it in, writing it down, prostituting an emotion I never want to forget. I often wonder what this memory will be when I am his age, in a situation I never want to understand. Death finds me selfish and wandering. They say I'll see her again, and when he passes him as well. Then maybe I'll understand, I'll have the words. Yet the way life works thats too little and certainly too late. As the world passes and I get older I find that all the knowledge I gain only leads to more questions and a vast amount of things I realize I will never understand. You don't get smarter getting older, you just begin to realize there is an infinite amount of answers you wish you could know. But like my grandmother used to say, "If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride."

Ageism

There was a time when I thought being 18 made me an adult, and I guess in the eyes of the law that is true. yet recently adulthood has crept up on me, leaving me mourning the simpler days. So if it is not age, what is being an adult all about? Responsibility is the first thing that comes to mind. As I enter my last semester of college I become fully aware that in six months I will be twenty thousand dollars in debt and most likely still searching for employment. Responsibility sucks. If leaving college is a marker into adulthood then the experiences gained along the way must factor somehow. So what have I experienced in college? All night dance parties, bingeing, reckless abandonment, and homework. Perhaps college is not really about maturation but more likely a passage of the frivolous toward a more sustainable lifestyle. That being said, there is a push to do more of the above in the last semester than ever before because as an accepted part of being a productive adult is not staying up all night drinking from plastic cups and hitting on slightly inebriated girls. So in this last stand of a youth well spent I find myself arguing my inner conscience over where the cash shall be dealt and the hours budgeted. How much time can I spend at the bar? Then again when else will I be in this situation where it is expected? I guess it boils down to what you believe responsibility is in your own life. If the word is a negative for you than by all means drink up, realizing, of course, that responsibility is what holds us all together. For me being responsibility does not have the negative connotations. Sure being responsible sucks sometimes but with the personal freedom being an adult brings there is a responsibility that balances hedonism with sanctity so society can function. With four months to go I do not expect to descend into depravity but I will not be the square in bed by eleven. Balance. It's what keeps us walking the tightrope that is life.