Mentally jewelled

Aug 18th, 2008: Reincarnation, for all intents and purposes it the belief that when you die, you are born again as something else. Whether it be another person, a creature or even just a part of the foliage in the neighboring woods. Technically you would need to believe that you came from something else as well.. right? If that is the case (admittedly, I haven’t gone very far into the pages upon pages of background information available on this – depending on the religion - I’m sticking with the basic concept here) there are more avenues I have to explore. To a certain extent I believe this, as I obviously came from the earth and will eventually seep back into it, but as for the rest I’m really not clear.

I have been questioning the whole “soul” concept for awhile now. Not in a religious sense, but in a moral sense I suppose. Only because I thought that a soul was something every person was born with, but I think I am wrong on that too. I thought it was the essence of a person, that no matter what actions a person took or words they said, their soul would remain good (if it was to begin with). Almost like a moral compass maybe. But I sat and wondered awhile back, can people be born without a soul? I also answered, yes, this has to be possible because I am encountering more and more people that seemed to have never been given one – or it died years ago.

Now comes my struggle with karma. It’s intertwined with reincarnation for me, considering what you bestow upon others should truly define the type of future life you’d be given, right? Well who the hell decides how well you lived your life? Who gauges the right and wrong? What if you have made every possible effort to make your life a good one, but hurt other people along the way? What if your damn moral compass is broken? (Isn’t that a warranty issue??)

Maybe if we were born without a soul to contradict or a moral compass to constantly check for defects, and believe we came from dirt, and will return to dirt because dirt says so, life wouldn’t be so odd. Not such a struggle to find something outside of ourselves to believe in.. eh?

Aug 17th, 2008: I pretty much first discovered the internet about ten years ago, give or take a few months. I was pretty amazed at what was out there, but even more so, I was fascinated with what I could put out there. I connected to the internet through AOL so it just seemed natural to build myself a little hometown page. I wish I had screenshots of that sparkling piece of crap. I probably sent a few people into seizures with all of the obnoxious blinking animations, considering I had apparently given myself the goal of shoving as many of them as I could into one frame without freezing my own browser. Fun!

Well, thankfully, I "kind of" graduated past that point, and fell into the new (to me) world of online journals. I poked around, talked to other people, and decided to get my own domain. I figured why use all those free things out there? No way! I came across so many people, places and things that I wanted to make into a "layout" of my own, I figured better now than ever. I went through my iframes phase, my image map phase, and a few more complicated phases. But my favorite layout, or "version" as it was called (lol there), was a blended graphic I had made of Jessica Simpson and her husband as newlyweds. I wasted hours on it - cutting, pasting, blending, tweaking - until I was happy with it. I hadn't figured out css yet (and to be honest I still haven't, and don't care to) so I went through all 50+ pages of my site and updated every detail to match the blend. It was horribly stupid to be so happy over a damn picture but I was.

And then it happened - I was robbed! I just figured out that I could see where people had found my site, through that nifty little feature called the Cpanel and had started following the referrers. Most of them were things I knew of, or had joined. But why the hell were there 100 or so referrals from angelfire? I DON'T GET IT. So I clicked the link, and I'll be damned, there was my entire index page, copied and pasted into the angefire page builder and thrown up there. Mind you, the details (like my name and whatnot) were changed to match this little thief's but all of my hard work was just copied and sitting there, amongst all of these horrendous blinking popups and I was mad. Mad? Yes, mad - I thought this was MY stuff and this was just UNFAIR. I got pissy and attempted to "report" it, and so forth, but nothing ever happened. Up until about a year ago, it was still sitting there.

That was pretty much all it took for me to realize there isn't anything you upload to the internet that is yours. Ever. Your pictures, your designs, your life. It is all up for grabs to be taken or used in any way any anonymous person sees fit. Hell, even I did it back in the day, just view a source and snag their html or the url to the picture they "blocked" you from right-clicking. I've gotten into "private" sites and pages and snagged information and other things just for my own personal knowledge and I know damn well it's been done to me. I used to wonder why there were so many people on the internet who pretended to be someone else. Of course I don't mean the full blown crazies, I mean those who never disclose where they live, or their last name or things like that - have the idea. Maybe they'd never been duped, or had been (much worse than I had), but decided to err on the side of caution. I learned my lesson about shit like this, and I know there are people out there who have the same (possibly self destructing) inquisitive nature as I do. Just be careful.

Aug 16th, 2008: I've been forced to wonder whether or not there is an actual physical limit to how long I can endure the same eyeball hurting headache. I'm sure watching The Hills is secretly making it worse but I don't care. Dammit.

Still August 15th, 2008: Fuck it, it's up now. I feel like I've missed a ton of links that I frequent, but autocomplete overrides actually bookmarking things for me apparently so I'll add them as I remember.

I came across this on CNN, and I almost physically got ill.

New Year's baby's death shatters family, relationships CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio (CNN) Camryn Jakeb Wilson was bathed in TV lights the day he was born, celebrated on the local news as Summit County's 2008 New Year's baby after his arrival at 12:33 a.m. on January 1. Camryn Jakeb Wilson was the first baby born this year in Summit County, Ohio, arriving at 12:33 a.m. January 1. Camryn Jakeb Wilson was the first baby born this year in Summit County, Ohio, arriving at 12:33 a.m. January 1. Just 12 weeks later, he was bathed in warm water minutes after he quietly died in his mother's arms, the victim of shaken baby syndrome. Camryn's 9-year-old sister, Tabatha, asked why he needed a bath now. "We have to get him ready to go to Jesus," a nurse softly replied. Tabatha took up a sponge to help. Camryn's father, Craig R. Wilson, 28, of Cuyahoga Falls, is scheduled for a pretrial hearing on murder and other charges August 20. Police say he confessed to shaking and squeezing the infant after arguing with his wife, Crystal Wilson. But he has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and faces trial in September.

Complete story here.

OK, of course my first thought was, "NO SHIT it ruined families??", then my second thought? (Which I shared with Tiff instantly, by the way), was "How can people do these things?" And then thoughts of my own frustration flew through my own mind. How many times have I walked away from confrontation? To stop it from elevating to the point of no return? How many times have I screamed at the top of my lungs into an empty room or a pillow to let it out - but keep it in? Then one final thought railed fast and shaking - what if some people are born without that warning? That you need to get away from the situtation? That a TWELVE WEEK OLD infant may be the very root of your frustration, but there is NOT A DAMN THING they can do to help YOU. You are there to love them, protect them, all of it - NO MATTER WHAT. I suppose there are people that take out their anger on those who love them most, but I have made damn sure I don't. It's unfair, and cruel. And in this case, fatal.

Aug 15th, 2008: Up until about a week ago, I had the local news emailed to me - easier than reading the paper and I felt a little more knowledgeable prior to going about my day. But due to the recent onslaught of horrendous crimes against children and animals, I have stopped my subscription. Not that this stops these things from happening, but I just couldn't continue starting my day, every day, on the verge of tears over things I feel so helpless to stop. I still read the news - local, national, world - but I have to mentally prepare myself to click those links now. People have been giving me shit about my lack of interest in the Olympics. I seriously don't care about them or the fact that I don't apparently makes me a "bad American" but I've spent a lot of my online time trying to find meaningful ways to make an actual difference in the stories that upset me.

Aug 14th, 2008: I haven't had a public blog/journal/site in almost 7 years, so don't anticipate one now. But recently I have come across topics that I want to vent about and my usual spots for conversation have gone downhill and my need to vent remained unsatisfied... so here I am. Considering I haven't actually added the option to comment yet I may just talk out of my ass on occasion but if you can read this I am confident you know how to get a hold of me if you'd like to talk ;)