What can really be done?

I haven’t written in a long time, but I assure you, after this New Year’s I’ll be writing more. Things just got really busy so it has been difficult to sit down and write out my thoughts. I miss this though; sitting down and contemplating the things I’ve done. I guess this is why writing is considered therapeutic.

Anyways, I heard some very good advice one time: talk/write about things you know, so that’s what I’m doing this time. I know that I’m 26, disillusioned and very sceptical of what is to come. This year has been intense. Never have I seen humanity for what it truly can be, until now. I know from history classes that Anne Frank was a strong person, and Adolf Hitler was an evil person. I know that Josef Stalin built an empire, and the U.S. countered the evil of communism. But I’ve witnessed the concept of humans losing their humanity because of a higher power. Watching the footage of Egyptian protesters being stomped by police makes me understand that humans are looking for an excuse to forget about the meaning of empathy. And if it isn’t enough that “foreigners” are getting abused, I see American citizens abusing humans like they’re lesser forms of filth. After this year, I think I understand why experiments should no longer be conducted on apes, or why animals should no longer be kept in zoos. Humans tend to treat others of lesser intelligence or ability as lesser beings. I think this now because of what Steven Hawkins said, “If we were to be invaded by an alien race, they would be so far advanced that they would look upon humanity as flies, infesting a sandwich. They would have no remorse with wiping us out, just like we have no remorse killing a fly because they are no where near the same intelligence as us.”

This speaks volumes about human behavior and philosophy, and in all honesty, it’s very disheartening. If an alien race were to ever reach Earth, I would hope their society and philosophy would have evolved to the point that understands how precious and special life is in this universe. Just think about this: if the the Earth was but a few hundred miles further or closer, the sun would not be enough or too much for life to develop and flourish. I don’t want to even address the effects of gravity having on our Earth within those hundred miles, or how, even if temperatures would miraculously stabilize, would affect our rotation or orbit and not allow life to flourish to the point it has now.

Watching police officers pepper spray and abuse other human beings just because a piece of paper allows them to conduct in a certain behavior made me realize how unethical our society truly has become. We let Nazis off after WWII because they were soldiers obeying orders, but how are those soldiers from the 1940s any different than the riot police of today? We want to hold that one officer accountable for pepper spraying those kids sitting, peacefully protesting, but isn’t he just following procedures? Isn’t he just following orders? I say, “Yes”, but at what cost? He has obviously sacrificed his humanity to maintain a paycheck or his own well-being. I can’t blame him for that, but lets really break down how he’s acting. He has allowed ethereal ideas take hold of him; i.e., he has allowed the ink that was superposed by someone else, control who he is. Would he have pepper sprayed that group if his daughter was sitting there? I don’t think so, but why should a blood relative change the way you act/react? A genetics test has shown that every human being comes from one of two sources: Asia and Africa. We are all essentially brothers and sisters, down to our very core - genetically. Why should we allow a piece of paper dictate who we are? Why should borders that don't truly exist affect our behavior towards each other? Is there a real way to change? I don’t know, but I do know that as long as the Internet continues to flourish and technology continues to advance, hopefully our single consciousness will form a global consciousness and humanity will begin to realize hurting each other is no worse than hurting our own family.

But this is nothing but a rant so there’s no real answers or ideas for the betterment of humanity. So I guess I just have my youthful hope, and all I can do is love my self, my family, my friends and be as nice to people as I possibly can be.

Comic Book Review #1: The Walking Dead

As I mentioned before, in my previous entry, zombies fascinate me, and I think the inevitable zombie apocalypse will some day engulf us.  The reason why I think this is because nature is a bitch and I’m pretty sure with how humans are living with impunity, Mother Earth will figure out a way to make sure we know who’s boss (Tool’s song Aenima is playing in the background as I contemplate how she’s already caused five mass extinctions before).  I’ve come up with this opinion due to my fascination with natural sciences and, really, all of science in general.  Now, because of my interest in science I’ve stumbled across some natural occurrences of “zombism” in nature, and, in all honesty, it scares the shit out of me and I don’t see why these fungi couldn’t, someday, evolve and infect humans.

This debate is for another time because this entry is to talk about how much I’ve grown to thoroughly enjoy reading The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman.  I’m not a big comic book reader but I enjoy researching the source material for our current media featured on television and in movies; because God forbid Hollywood comes up with their own creative ideas for once.  

Robert Kirkman gives a foreword in the first volume, and in it he describes how every zombie movie he has ever seen, the story of the people abruptly ends and it doesn’t allow the viewer to know how the characters live on; this is the point of The Walking Dead.  It isn’t about some government conspiracy or why zombies exist, but it’s more about the loss of one’s humanity and how humans that live in today’s society would react to such extreme stimuli.  Being a Batman fan, the Joker comes to mind when he talks about how society allows for humans to live in a civilized way, but if the walls, constraints or constructs of civilization crumbled, so would one’s perceived humanity.  This idea is illustrated very well in The Walking Dead.

Rick Grimes is introduced at the beginning of the series, and he is a small town cop who has the traditional views of middle America.  An honorable man, who loves his wife and son dearly but allowed himself to get wrapped up in his work and he gets injured.  Fast forward weeks later, he wakes up from a coma (why do they always wake up from a coma?) and is thrust into the zombie apocalypse that is set in The Walking Dead.  He lives in a small town north of Atlanta, so he travels to Atlanta to find his family.  After some trials and tribulations, he makes it out of Atlanta to find his family living with some other survivors outside of the city, alive and well.  Now, in this time his wife has hooked up with his fellow officer and friend Shane Walsh, both believing he was dead, and gets pregnant.  There’s some drama that go into this whole ordeal, but I don’t want to spoil it in case you want to read this story, but I would like to point out the fact about how marriage is thrown to the wayside when civilization seems to crumble.  The need to procreate and ensure the survival of the human race seems to out weigh the constructed morality to stay monogamous.  Of course, when Rick finds his wife, and she realizes he’s still alive, she puts her instincts aside and wants nothing more to do with Shane ever again.  Something I admire in the character, but at the same time I could understand why she let herself go before because she had originally thought her husband was dead.

Now, as the story moves along, members of the group die; some key members die; and they run into other groups who seem to have rid themselves of their humanity all together for reasons of either greed, power or survival.  A group of cannibals that Rick’s group runs into come to mind, and they explain eating people has become easy after they had to eat the children of their group first when they ran out of food.  Now, you’re probably pretty shocked, but they go on to justify eating their children by explaining how bears will eat their young to survive through harsh winters because they need to survive in order to have more.  There’s something very pragmatic and natural about their explanation, but it’s still really disturbing to ever think someone could ever justify cannibalism by comparing humans to other beasts of nature. (Oh, don’t worry, Rick and his group fuck these people up)

Throughout the series, Rick changes and becomes a pretty ruthless human being in order to protect his family.  Again, a natural instinct that can surely be understood by everyone, but he does some things that do make you realize just how lucky we are to be living in the civilization we do today.  The amount of killing between uninfected humans is amazing; especially since you would think people would band together in order to survive the hordes of predators droning around waiting to eat their brains, but human beings seem to become animals once civilization crumbles.  Though Rick does some pretty nasty things, he’s almost reminiscent of Dexter, he still has a moral code around how he kills so the reader is able to easily identify and empathize with him.  

It would be a rough situation to ever have to really deal with any kind of apocalypse so it’s not really a fun thing to think about, but this comic book series (now a graphic novel) is pretty fun and fascinating.  It’s a great look into the human psyche; both raw and unhindered in the interpretation of how humans really are, I don’t think I would like to see how the world turns out.  Then again, maybe my instincts would take over and my will to survive will overpower any sense of humanity.  Anyhow, this is a great read and a real page turner.  There are 14 volumes out right now, so I wouldn’t start reading this series because if you buy the first one you will buy the other 13, and you’ll be looking to drop around $130 as they’re about $10 a piece on Amazon.  But, if you have the time and money, definitely get into this, and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

**On a side note, I can’t wait for the television series to really delve into Rick’s character, and maybe even introduce the Governor (and no, I’m not talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger).

Game Review #1: Dead Space

As a child, I remember sitting on the floor in my grandparents living room, my grandpa sitting in his chair to my left and my grandmother sitting in front of me in her chair with her lamp illuminating the crossword puzzle from the local newspaper, telling me about seeing the original Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein, Nightmare on Elm Street, and many other horror movie greats.  I remember thinking to myself how brave she was because, at the time, I hated anything from the horror genre (I’d like to thank Chuckie for my inability to sleep in my own room until about the age of 8).  But I have noticed that the women in the Smith family tend to like horror movies so I have grown to not fear these movies anymore.  My lack of faith in the supernatural and other farfetched scenarios presented in these types of movies have also helped to quell any fear I used to have as a child. The only horror films that fascinate me now are of the zombie variety because it seems to be the most likely of scenarios we will ever have a chance of coming across.  With that said, I still enjoy the occasional tense, albeit silly, scary movie that will undoubtedly be released some time in the fall.

I think there is something about horror films that truly captures the imagination; they pull at our empathetic strings and ask us, “what would I do in that exact situation?”  I think this is why the horror genre is such a good and fun type of film to see, but what if you could actually interact and experience that film?  This is what video games do for us today.  With the advent of the horror-survival genre in video games (thank you Resident Evil, the first real popular game in this genre), you are now able to be the character you’ve always wanted to be, and feel what it is like to be thrown into the situation of a horror film.  

Dead Space does exactly that.  The game takes place on a deep space mining vessel, the USG Ishimura, somewhere within our galaxy.  The character you play is Isaac Clarke, nothing more than an engineer, who is thrown into an extraordinary situation where a virus, or plague of some sort, breaks out and kills/transforms every living human being into a mindless, killing machine.  They don’t just become zombies, they grow blades of bone, with distorted mouths of teeth, and posses the inability to feel pain.  And unlike in other zombie movies, a head shot will not kill them, you must sever multiple limbs before they die.  This concept of limb severing is revolutionary in its own, and it adds a whole new element to the first person shooter concept.  The game is also very freaky.  With tons of creepy moments of people with dementia committing suicide and homicide in front of you coupled with these monsters jumping from out of no where, they use the ventilation system to travel, it makes for a very tense and freaky several hours of game play.  

Game play is obviously an important aspect of video games nowadays, but for me the story is what causes me to play for 8 hours straight, and the story driving the plot of this game is pretty captivating.  The mythology that has now been created has spawned 2 animated movies and a series of comic books.  The story begins with miners finding an ancient relic which later on is discovered to possess some kind of mystical powers.  It is later revealed that the mining vessel was sent to find this relic by some religious cult back on Earth, known as the Church of Unitology, and a conspiracy unravels.  Whether or not the game developers were providing social commentary on religious cults and how people will absolve their humanity in order to support the leaders of their church, I cannot say, but I would say the Unitologists had some similarities with Scientologists.  I won’t go too deep into it, and this is just my own jaded opinion, but a lot of the turmoil and conflict that arises is due to the fact that the people allow for the Church to impair their judgement and think of courses of actions in a pragmatic way.  Now with that said, the relic was also supposed to cause dementia, thus the suicidal and homicidal behavior, but there were plenty of chances for the people in charge of the ship to relinquish the scourge brought aboard the USG Ishimura.  So in a way, the characters in this story are very frustrating, but it allows for great tension and conflict to arise, things that are needed for a great story to be told.  By the end, however, a cliff hanger is left as the hero of the story, Isaac, begins to succumb to his own dementia.

Now, as Dostoyevski would use the city of his stories as a character, so does Dead Space use the USG Ishimura.  The spaceship itself has died and is transforming just like its inhabitants.  The atmosphere created by the low lights, moving shadows, and eerie sounds of alarms never being turned off creates a very immersive experience that allows the player to lose one’s self in the setting. Yet another aspect to this great game to make your heart rate increase and eyes dilate.  The setting itself is a very integral part in producing that adrenaline rush and that “fight or flight” feeling one might get when they are woken up by a loud bang from the kitchen.  I can’t think of too many games that I play where I have to stop playing because I just need to catch my breath and relax a bit.  

Overall, this game was amazing.  I know I’m a few years late with this review, but I don’t see the need in rushing through great pieces of art.  Needless to say, one of my next purchases is going to be Dead Space 2, but my only worry is that it turns out like Bioshock 2 where it was really just the same game in the same setting.  I think the ability to expand a setting to fit into an entire world and mythology is difficult to do, but Dead Space has already begun to explore the many different possibilities that can be built upon the first game.  If you like to be scared and enjoy a good story with a captivating conspiracy, then this is the game for you.

First Attempt

I've never really done this before, but I have been looking for a forum to write and have some of my closest friends and family read.  I'm highly critical of myself so I'm sure I'll write several drafts before I post them here, but for this one time I want to just wing it.
I wanted to start this blog because I've heard, read, and experience the therapeutic nature of writing.  My mom has always told me that I've needed a creative outlet since I was a kid and I'm hoping this can provide said outlet.  I won't be creating anything, per se, but I do enjoy the thoughtful nature that writing endows, and receiving feedback, whether you feel so compelled to do so or not, is always a plus.  In addition, maybe I can spark discussion every once and a while since one of the best ways to learn and grow is through healthy debate/discussion.
I also just want to thank a friend of mine for inspiring me to start this, as I have found his blog both entertaining and profound.  I also need to thank another friend for forcing me to actually sit down and start writing because he knows I have some things to say, how ever trivial or insipid they may be.  He's not forcing me to write this blog, but he has pushed me to start something because he wants me to develop an act to perform at an open mike.  I've said I can't do an open mike because I have nothing written down, nor do I have an act, a character, or even the know how to work a crowd, but I believe this could be a start.
This will also just be a set of thoughts and quandaries for family members and friends to help think about things and maybe even reinvent how they see the world, hence the name "Letters to Zooey" (which is a reference to my favorite J.D. Salinger book).  But I also want to be clear that I'm willing to reevaluate my own ideals, so please don't misinterpret me as being "holier than thou".
Because I keep giving excuses to my friend of why I can't do something this will be the thing that will hopefully focus me and prevent the distractions of video games, work, TV, movies, or whatever else may stop me from expressing myself.  And now, all I need to do is start writing, or have I done that already?