This too, shall pass.

That's what I keep telling myself over and over again. Usually this phrase springs to mind when I'm in some state of distress. Whether that distress be related to sickness, sadness, potential vomiting or otherwise. It has become sort of a mantra to me in times when I would rather be feeling a different emotion. I like that. I quite enjoy the impermanence if all things. Nothing will last forever, nothing has existed forever, and I love it.

Apparently this way of thinking can weird out some people, which I can only kind of understand. With my Catholic upbringing, I can remember as a child feeling scared because I knew that I would eventually die, but I didn't know when that would be. So I was worried that I might not do enough good things in life to outweigh the bad things I have inevitably done. But I've come to realize that I don't believe in a god anymore, nor an afterlife, and the knowledge that there is nothing after this life gives me a great sense of security. It's like a blanket can wrap my mind in, the comfortable knowledge that at one point we all will have our consciousnesses obliterated.

I feel like this life that we live is all there is, not a step in a journey, nor a precursor or afterthought to or from anything else. This is all there is. The "hereafter" for want of a better term, is completely devoid of all existence, therefore why the hell should we care, take the time to better yourself while you can. There is no reward for being a more advanced person, at least not beyond the obvious rewards in this life. But it kills the time until we die, and that seems to be what a lot of this life is about. Yeah, you could go live in the woods and go crazy by yourself, and that would be just fine, but most people don't seem to love that idea, and so they choose to live in a society. To be a member of society, you have to make money, or else you won't be able to eat or clothe yourself. But really, eating and clothing yourself are just things that are convenient to help the time pass.

People shouldn't be afraid of the "afterlife" because of the idea of eternity. If there is such a thing as eternity, then time becomes completely meaningless, and there may well be no end to an afterlife if it does turn out to exist. Yet if time is meaningless, then there is no beginning or end, and so nothing actually happens.

I'm rambling.

Time just broke my mind.

I've decided I might not believe in time. I was on Facebook chat with a buddy of mine (Hi Matt, if you ever read this). As is our custom we began an unannounced battle of words and wit, mostly just circular logic and trying to confuse each other. That's the context.

The actual event occurred when in the course of the conversation I think I said something along the lines of "Yeah but "now" is a word that applies to such a minute amount of time as to be nearly or completely insignificant". That's when my brain broke for a weird second. It's so true, there is really no such thing as now. Such a rapid passage of a moment should have no meaning whatsoever, it's not enough time for anything to happen. Right now I'm trying to visualize a concept for the word "now" but all I can really imagine is a graph of an asymptote, with the zero being absolutely nothing, and the definition of "now" is the function being represented. (I don't even like math.) The definition of "now" continues to approach closer and closer to zero and therefore nothingness but it never actually touches, the moment of now just becomes infinitely smaller and smaller and less meaningful. Think about that. Like not even enough time for an electron to move at all, much less orbit around something.

That was the first part. Then I thought about (as I was writing the first part, actually) about the future, which doesn't exist yet. And the past, which doesn't matter anymore because it is over. So I think time might just be a hoax, like I understand how people use time to give a frame of reference to their lives and actions and all that good stuff. But I don't know if it actually exists in the traditional sense at all. Some people say that time is supposedly the fourth dimension, but I dunno.

Like I said, I over analyze junk a lot. Like A LOT.

Intros and explanations

Okay, so I'll explain myself and what I'm doing here first. My name is Joey, I'm newly 22 years old, and I'm a college student (theatre major). I smoke too much, love beer, don't sleep enough, and have a naturally philosophical view of life. I analyze things a lot, probably mostly too much, which is fine, but it makes me kind of live in my head a lot.

I was raised Catholic by my wonderful parents, whom I love dearly, even if I don't say it enough.

Yet I am Catholic no longer, much more of a Zen Buddhist now, though I have yet to take my precepts. Along with that Catholic upbringing I feel tremendous guilt occasionally for things I shouldn't feel guilty at all about, this also leads to introspection and often I decide that I shouldn't drink or smoke or party as much anymore, but of course I do.

I also enjoy writing poetry and fiction. I've only been published in one magazine, but I've never actually submitted to any others, so who knows what'll happen down the line.

Anyways, all of this is here because I decided one night while in my room after reading someone else's blog how useful it could be for me to be able to keep track of things in one place, and maybe some other people will get some mild kind of amusement out of it, as I greatly enjoyed reading about what someone I'm barely acquainted with had to say about their life. So here it is.