Been awhile since my last post, but I've been meaning to organize my thoughts on this so I can write it down and see if it still makes sense.

What got me thinking really hard was because I've always pondered the following question:
Do animals have a consciousness?

This led me to research the subject of animal intelligence in many different kinds of animals (horses, cats, dogs, crows) and perhaps the most intriguing evidence I found is a personal account told by a woman who owned a parakeet named Puck. http://birdwithmostwords.com/chapter_headings.html
To summarize, a woman raised a budgerigar, or parakeet, who showed an ability for imitating human speech at a young age. It quickly picked up on syntax (which few animals have done, some may even disagree that Koko the gorilla understood syntax), and had a vocabulary count of about 1000 words by the time it was a year old. What is even more amazing is that this bird constantly invented new words for things it didn't know the names of. For example, it called an Apple, a "banerry" because it only knew what a banana and cherry were called." Puck was able to create sentences and actually have conversations with its owner.

The chances of finding an animal with this level of intelligence is one in a million.. or billion. What I always thought was that maybe there's a pool of "consciousness'" somewhere out there in the universe, where each consciousness is matched to a human being, and sometimes, animals are accidently paired with human consciousness. But that was my old hypothesis.

My new theory is that language is the precursor to consciousness. Therefore, animals do not have a consciousness or rather, they have a limited consciousness. 
Keep in mind that I am not saying that animals aren't intelligent or that they lack the ability to feel emotions or store memories. In my opinion those things have no correlation with having a consciousness. My definition of consciousness is: The ability to focus one's thoughts in a a way that creates self-awareness.


Too tired to continue typing so I'll finish this later.

"Do you think we're doing the best we can in life?" A young woman I did not know directed this question at me over her shoulder while talking with her friend as we crossed a busy street together. She seemed like one of those liberal art intellectuals who had more to say than the average person. Most people would think, "how random." But I was in the moment, and I was intrigued by her question. It had almost made my day, so I felt obliged to stop (although not in the middle of the street) and answer her question.  At first, I threw the question back: "What do you mean? Are you two trying to settle a debate?" I was a bit confused by how she worded it and what she was getting at. I couldn't put my finger on it then, but reflecting back it occurred to me that the question seemed awkward because trying at life isn't something we think about; it's something most people just normally do. We don't often guage ourselves on how well we perform at life. Our existence is something we take for granted.
She gave situations where her question applied, for example: "if my friend here is on youtube for 3 hours a day, is she still doing the best she can in life?" I still didn't understand what she was getting at, so I took it as the equivalent of, "Are we trying our best in living life to the fullest?" This was actually a question I'd pondered before, so I gave my thoughts on it.

"I think that if a person is always moving in a direction towards a goal, then yes, they are doing the best they can in life." I continued on. "For example, I'm always trying to become better than who I am. I try to keep an open mind and reflect on my past mistakes and learn from them. So I try to constantly evolve to keep up with myself. Because often we fall into this pattern of autopilot, where we just become robots, and we don't try to improve or change anything. A moment ago, you and I were robots. But now we can both see that in fact, neither of us are robots, because we're actually engaged in a conversation about something."

"Exactly! High five!" We slap hands. I forget if I'm smiling at this moment, since the woman seemed happy.
She moved on to another question which related to something I said as a response (can't remember what I said)-- it was: "Do you think we're motivated by greed?"

"No, absolutely not, because I believe in Rousseau's idea that humans are good-natured at the core, and that society influences us in many ways to either pull us away from that or pull us closer." 

We fluff-talked for a bit, then parted ways at the corner of the intersection. I don't know if I really answered her question in the way that she expected, but she probably accepted it to be sufficient as she walked away in seemingly high spirits. 
Thinking back, it might have been a lie when I told her that humans aren't motivated by greed. The truth is that my need to improve myself and acquire health, wealth, and love, is actually motivated by personal greed. The irony is that my greed also has a motivation-- the motivation to do good. Someday I want to devote my life to philanthropy, and to do that I need money and power, although both things may just be one and the same. Some people may disagree and say that the funding will come after you've built a foundation and established connections, and that first you need the heart and willingness to help others. It's true and I agree whole-heartedly, though I tend to have an imagination which projects epic proportions. There are a lot of things I love and hate about this world; and so many changes I would make if I was in control. Sometimes I'd silently wish, "if only I had a superpower." I'd be able to make a difference. And my superpower would be talking to animals, breathing underwater, or flying or some shit. Haha. Well this journal entry is headed towards pointlessness so I'll just end it here for now.

"Imagination is the fabric of life" -Last Emperor

Life gets kind of hectic sometimes, and it moves so fast that I rarely have the time to stop and think or write down my thoughts. It's been 4 years since I've kept a personal journal. My old journal was on xanga, and amazingly, it's still there. I'd just finished reading it, and I was surprised to find that a lot of my old philosophies and outlook on life has changed. So this is my first journal entry in four years and I am going to make it a long one.

Why did I decide to write again? I've always had this disease called "thinking too much," and lately I've just been extremely overwhelmed with thoughts and concerns about everything that has happened to me these past few years. I'm unable to shut off my mind, and sometimes it gets so bad I can't even sleep. I was thinking of having a real journal to write in, but that could easily get lost, so I decided to make one online which I could access anywhere. I think that keeping a journal will also help me brush up on my writing skills, as I intend to write a book some day (perhaps a science fiction novel, but a girl I met recently said I should write an autobiography, lol).
My reason for keeping this journal is so that I can remember the different periods and changes in my life. As a caveat, I have every intention of making my entries very personal, just as if no one was ever meant to read them. However, if  anyone wants to try to understand my world-- I am merely providing that bridge. Something that some people fail to realize is that reality is subjective. Life is a struggle to make sense of the world we're born into.

I've always been extremely open-minded. I'm constantly evolving, absorbing new experiences and concepts, and reworking them into the blueprint of my fibres. I've realized though, that while I believe that I'm an open-minded person, it's easy to decieve myself into a close-minded reality. We all do that. None of us are living up to our full potential, because the friends and family members around us reinforce the belief that we are fine the way we are.  But it's not enough to just be yourself. You have to be your best self. Often, we get stuck in old thought and behavior patterns that may have been effective when we were young, but now only serve to hold us back. Our friends have no problem correcting our minor flaws, but they often let the big ones slide, because that would mean attacking who we are. Sometimes, our family-members do offer us advice and try to make us change, but we take it as "in one ear and out the other." The reality is that, no matter what someone else tells us-- the only real way to help ourselves is to realize that there is a problem and actually want to do something about it.
I am really open to constructive-criticism, but I've never had anyone tell me about my real problems, because no one really understands me. Sure, you shouldn't change yourself for others, but what about changing for yourself? I'm constantly changing because I must. If I don't, I'll become outdated and crushed within my own reality. This is taken from the idea of social/cultural evolution. Evolution is something that normally takes millions of years, but the evolution of the mind is something which you can actually see in action, and it's sort of amazing to witness my own mind progressing towards a higher state of consciousness. What I mean is that many years ago, I lacked the necessary vocabulary and the ideas or concepts to verbalize and fully express my deepest beliefs, opinions, and concerns. I've seperated my timeline into stages-- knowing that I literally am not the same person that I was in elementary school, middle school, high school, or any other part of my life; and it's very frightening, to understand that the only thing which connects me to my past are my memories and the emotions attached to them. Which is why I need to keep a journal. I've always been a philosopher, and later in life I found out that I fit the definition of an existentialist . I asked a lot of random, unimportant questions when I was a kid, and it was probably annoying for the people around me because even though I could see that they were busy, I would pesker them until I got my answer. The need to satiate my curiosity always came first. As I grew up, I had a lot of questions about the universe which I tried to discover on my own since, it seemed, people no longer had the answers to my questions. 

For most of my life I've been alone in the sense that I haven't been able to connect with many people. But the few that I have, mean everything to me. I've always had to figure shit out on my own, because I've learned that the only person who won't let you down is yourself. As a result, for almost my entire life, I've excelled at intrapersonal communication (communication with the self). I am now almost 22 years old. I have to live up to my own standards before I can consider living up to anyone else's. I rarely ask for a second opinion, and if I have a hypothesis, I would test it. Or rather, the hypothesis would be a summation of all of my past experiences up to my current point in life.  My theories, just like my consciousness, are constantly evolving. It's changing to incorporate new experiences and information, so that it can relate better to the real world and this ever-changing environment.

So, when was the last time you actually noticed the sky? I've been doing this almost every day for a year now. No one told me to. I just looked up while driving one day and saw the most breath-taking scenery, like the ones you see in life-size ceiling paintings of actual skies. When I noticed the sky the next time, it was around dawn and the sky was a fiery magenta. The clouds were parted majestically, seperated on both sides of the highway. I can't even begin to describe the experience and emotions I felt. To sum it up in one word I would say that I truly felt humbled. When I noticed the sky again a few days later, something dawned on me. This may be common sense to some people, but what I realized is that the sky is never the same as the skies that have been in it's place in the past. The shade and depth of the sky and the way the clouds are formed and parted are always going to be different. Also, sometimes the clouds drift along at a fast pace, and at other times they seem almost completely still. I think the chance of seeing the same sky twice in your lifetime is very rare. And imagine; one day the sky will look completely different compared to what we've ever seen before depending on the global events that unfold. This was such an amazing discovery to me that I felt like learning photography just so I could take pictures of the sky. But a simple digital camera will do for now.

What was more enlightening, as I soon realized, was the implication behind this. An ever-changing scenery signifies that every day begins a new page and that today is not the same as yesterday, nor will tomorrow be the same as today. It's a cliche I've heard but before this realization, I never really paid heed. We should look forward to each day as a brand new day that is always full of opportunities. This kind of became a metaphor for how I behave, because what I believe is that every human being is constantly changing, as if we're somehow connected by an invisible, mechanical clockwork that drives us towards the final fate of our species. What are we evolving towards? Perfection? Destruction? Who knows. I am never the same person I was a day ago, because every day I'm experiencing and learning new things. Even if the changes that occur are trivial, they'll eventually add up and I will perhaps become an entirely different person in a few more years. Will I ever reach a point where I stop changing? Hopefully not, because to me that would mean that I have stopped growing-- that I have closed off my mind. To me, becoming mature is a lifetime process. A person can never fully become "mature;" they can only learn from their mistakes. However, I'll always remember where I come from, and what I was like in the past, so I can always revert back if needed, if only for a brief moment, just to give the illusion to my friends that I'm still the same laid-back kind of guy. But I can't be that care-free person anymore. Life is much different now. I have responsibilities and many un-opened doors to walk through and explore.

Last year I shed myself of my circle of "friends," because they weren't ready to change. I don't blame them; I was like that once, so I know someday they'll realize as well how much time they're wasting. I had to sever those connections in order to stop doing drugs and change other inner aspects of my life. I wanted to stop being afraid of success. I wanted to give a fuck again. I want to reach for my goals; to live my life to its fullest potential.

In high school I became really introverted, mostly because I was depressed at not knowing what I wanted to do in life. I figured out the meaning of life for myself during my senior year and shortly after high school. I slowly came to understand what my goals, desires, and dreams were. The main reason I was introverted though, was because I always had the mentality that if people liked me, they would approach me and try to befriend me. So I rarely was the one to approach others. After high school, I changed that mentality because I realized that most people are apprehensive about approaching strangers, and that I would have to be the one to take the initiative if I wanted to broaden my social circle. The reason why people have this fear is because most of us are conditioned by our familiarity of our surroundings, and are afraid to step outside of our comfort-zone and try new things. This inhibits our spiritual and mental growth, because we become used to doing the same routines over-and-over each day, until we gradually fall into a pattern and put our life on auto-pilot. Someone who does that is essentially what I call a social robot, sheep, or ant. They don't question anything. They don't question life. They don't like thinking about the future. I've met people like that, and to me it is really bizarre. They prefer their illusion of "living in the moment." I abhor that cliche... you can't live in the moment with your fuckin eyes closed, metaphorically speaking.

I'm sick of breathing stale air.

I don't want to be a robot, so I've been meeting new people everyday, with the intention of improving my interpersonal skills to the point where I can approach strangers in any place and have a decent conversation, and just break down the barrier that seems to exist between two strangers. The people that I meet are interesting, some strange, some laid-back, some have issues (which makes it all the more interesting). I'm a kind of person who prefers having drama in his life, as long as it's not the boring kind of drama that I've seen too many times. So this will mostly be a journal dedicated to my experiences and what I learn in my interactions with other humans. There is a saying, "it's not what you know, but who you know." I didn't understand what that meant until recently. It means that we learn a lot through our shared experiences and interactions with other people, and knowledge doesn't necessarily always come from your own brain or from books.

To end this entry with a random quote, "Ambition without knowledge is like a boat on dry land" - Mr. Miyagi (Karate Kid).