"The Thinker - A Novel" Now Has Its Own Website

So I decided to create a unique website for my novel The Thinker in order to keep it separate from this site. I think it makes more sense. Now it will have its own domain to live on where all the content will be about the novel instead of a post here and there mixed in with my other rants. In hindsight I should have done that from the start.

Here is the link: The Thinker - A Novel

I have another part in the works but I've been super busy lately with work and hanging out and drinking after work, sometimes until late at night. This leaves me little to no writing time (or reading time). I would ideally like to publish one part per week, but that looks like it will be unlikely. Maybe every other week is more possible. There may be times however where I post two parts at a time to make up for not posting one week, and there may be times where I can only post one part a month when I'm really busy.

As far as the novel is going, it's just getting started. I haven't even really begun to get to the good part. In the first chapter I'm really just laying the ground work for the journey. In chapter 2 the fun really begins. My character will begin learning the views that I hold now. Basically, I see him as a version of me, searching for meaning, and coming to learn all the views I know of and hold now through the journey, which is what the book is really about. Chapter 2 will really begin the journey, and that's where it gets fun.

The Thinker - A Fictional Novel

I'm currently recovering from a long weekend partying and haven't been blogging as a result of this. I have a new idea on the horizon brewing for this blog. I want to start writing fiction that is atheist, science, and philosophy themed that aims to both entertain and to teach. I've already been writing a book about my experiences and views through fictional narrative under the working title The Thinker, but I'm now considering just posting some of the work as short episodes on my blog as an ongoing series. I'm debating on whether I should post it in chronological order, or mix it up, but I'll probably do it in chronological order. It will be based on a fictionalized version of my life and will explore philosophy, religion & atheism in the context of contemporary urban life - exactly what my blog's subtitle is. I envision it as a 21st century On the Road, but I can assure you I'm no Kerouac. It will explore culture, dating, and economics as well. It might be a millennial's guide to the universe.

It will be interesting to see where it goes.

On Vacation

Man I love blogging. I'd do it full time if it weren't for work and that pesky thing known as a "personal life." But I will have to take a slight break because I'm on vacation and I only get to see my family once a year. I have several new blog posts pending, including one on how to infer ontology that is part of an ongoing conversation with Luke Breuer, and one about the definition of religion, which will become a handy link whenever I get into the inevitable dispute of its cumbersome definition.

Also, my long awaited review of chapter 2 of Edward Feser's critique of New Atheism, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism is almost done. I've already reviewed the preface and chapter 1, but chapter 2 took me a lot longer than expected because it's really heavy on philosophy and my goal is not just to review and critique Feser's book, but to summarize it so that readers will understand the metaphysics upholding his religious views. That means that my reviews will be lengthy, but they will serve as online resources for those who want to learn and hear a criticism of his book which few people have done before. I'm putting the finishing touches on it now and hopefully this will be done by the end of the month. Chapter 3's review is almost done too and should follow relatively shortly afterwards.

Then I have other topics potentially in the queue, including a critique of David Wood's reasons for being a Christian, which I think are really bad, a post about indoctrination and whether or not all teaching of children amounts to some form of indoctrination, a post about what I'd do with $100 million dollars, and maybe a post about whether "Only God can provide an adequate rational foundation for morality and unalienable human rights," as one theist tried to claim to me recently.

Also, I'm open to suggestions. If there are any topics that you'd like me to write about, I'd be open to consider them, depending on the topic and how much research it will involve. So, if you'd like, leave suggestions in the comment box.

Where Do I Put The Punctuation When Quoting?

One of the trickiest things about writing, at least in the English language, is where to put punctuation when quoting. In American English we are generally supposed to put punctuation inside of quotes, as in "this." In British English, they are generally supposed to put punctuation outside of quotes, as in "this". This makes reading awfully confusing, because you can't always tell what you're reading is British or American English in origin. And it seems as if the rules regarding punctuation can go either which way.

I will admit to having used both ways with no apparent logic behind why I do it one particular way. I generally prefer the British way when quoting and keeping the punctuation outside. But there are times when I think the American way is better. I'm no English major, or expert of any kind on the proper rules of grammar, but here's the logic of when I think the British way is better and when I think the American way is better. (And I have no idea whether this is already a thing.)

Let's take a block of text to use as our example.

For most educated, thinking people, how we go about forming beliefs may seem rather straightforward. We carefully, logically evaluate evidence for and against a particular claim, and if the evidence outweighs counterexplanations, we believe the claim to be true. If only it were that simple. Though philosophers and scientists present logical evaluation of evidence as an ideal for forming beliefs, in practice, most beliefs we hold—even those of philosophers and scientists—arise through less transparent means. (Barrett, 2004)*

With this as our subject matter, suppose I wanted to end this sentence with a quote on Barrett's subject matter and mention it was relevant to "most educated, thinking people". I would put the period on the outside of the quote because the actual quote doesn't have one and I used it to end the sentence. But now suppose in mid sentence I wanted to quote the author's thoughts on the thinking process of "most educated, thinking people," and then end my sentence. I would put the punctuation inside the quote because the original had it and the sentence needed it where it was.

Likewise, if I was ending a sentence with a quote that was from the end of a sentence, I'd put the punctuation on the inside of the quotes, as in:

Barrett thinks forming beliefs "arise through less transparent means." 

Sometimes the period can be replaced with a comma, as in:

"If only it were that simple," Barrett says. 

And also, if I was using a quote to form a sentence where I give it a question mark, as in:

Is it true that Barrett's ideas about how we form beliefs are "rather straightforward"? 

I'd put the punctuation on the outside of the quotes. To me this makes sense. And though it may seem in my writing that I'm switching between British and American grammar rules, this is the methodology that I've recently been applying.

So if a quote has the punctuation that would be the same as the sentence needs, then I keep the punctuation inside the quote. If it doesn't, then I keep the punctuation outside the quote. To me this seems logical. Any thoughts?

*Barrett, Justin L. (2004) Why Would Anyone Believe in God? Lanham: Alta Mira Press

Blogging Frequency

We're already more than half way through August and I've only made two posts so far. Yes they're pretty long ones, but still. This time last year I had made already 13 posts in August, and in July last year I made 45 posts - the highest number of posts in any month. I was blogging every day last summer, sometimes several times a day. This summer, not so much. I have a new job that is taking more of my free time away. That's one major reason I'm not blogging as frequently. On top of that I just got back from a one-and-a-half week vacation, and I didn't have any time then to blog much as well. Last summer I didn't go on vacation.

I have been commenting a lot and debating with theists on many blogs and that's been taking up a substantial amount of my writing time, preventing me from writing new material. I've been going out on the weekends to enjoy the outdoors also, and that of course prevents me from writing. But also, I've just been dry on topics lately. I haven't had much inspiration for interesting topics to write about. I plan on writing more counter apologetics in the future and hopefully other interesting topics related to atheism and urban living, but they're mostly just fuzzy ideas right now. My viewership has declined significantly as I've started to write less. It's down to about half of what it was last summer.

So, I'm certainly not going to stop blogging anytime soon. I hope to post more frequently in the future, at least 1-2 posts per week. I don't think I can blog everyday as I did last summer, unless they're really short blogs or links. I try to have original material here, instead of reblogging or linking to other content, but I might ease that up a bit in the name of frequency. Cheers to a good summer!

Jack Kerouac : King of the Beats (2012) Full Documentary

Watching this documentary makes me want to be a writer. A real writer, not just some blogger. I'm trying to write a novel right now and let me tell you it is FUCKING hard. I have about 79 pages so far, but I have no idea how many of them are useful. I can sometimes write for hours and hours and feel I'm making great progress, and then for days I write nothing. Nada. Creativity can't exactly be scheduled, it rears its head whenever it wants. I can't set my alarm to go off at 9 AM and declare, "It's time to be creative." It just doesn't work that way.

I've always wanted to actually write a book. Any book. The idea of writing a novel crossed my mind numerous times and I've had a few false starts that never went anywhere. This time it's different. I'm going to complete this novel or die trying. I'm aiming for at least 150 pages, but more closer to 200. Any real novel has at least about that much. The problem is I get creative mostly at night, right before I'm supposed to go to bed, right when I'm drowsy. I can't write anything during the day for some reason. I seem to have a creative aversion to bright light. I thrive in the darkness. I'm naturally nocturnal, did I mention?

There's going to be lots of philosophy in my book, along with sex and drugs. I'm going to touch on many topics dear to me: atheism, nihilism, existentialism, free will, determinism, Buddhism, religion, dating, polyamory, feminism, partying, economics and more, all through the mind of a millennial living in contemporary New York. I'm confident it will be awesome. It will be exactly the kind of book I would want to read. Isn't that the goal of every writer?

Recap

I haven't been blogging as often recently. Instead, I've been going out in the evening trying to enjoy the last couple of weeks of summer. I went to another philosophy meetup yesterday. It was the annual "Philosophy of Sex" event, always a big turn out, although last year's was better in my opinion, because there was an open bar. I got to discuss the philosophy of sex with various strangers and a few friends I've come to know. Always exciting. I also met another atheist blogger named  Dan Fincke who writes a blog over at the Patheos website called Camels With Hammers. Check it out.

I've got a lot of ideas brewing, although considering that last month I wrote more posts than the entire year of 2011, I kind of burned out. But only temporarily. I'm going to have a post coming up about whether atheism is self-defeating because a fundamentalist challenged me on it. There are other things on the horizon too. I'm actually trying to write a book! It's actually going to be a novel. It's a fictionalizes account of my life and it incorporates a lot of my philosophy on religion, sex, drugs, living and growing up in New York. It's actually very hard to write a book. So far I only have 14 pages and I've already burned out, but the inspiration comes and goes. It's going to be called "The Thinker". I really hope something can become of it and it turns out halfway decent, even if I end up being the only one that reads it.

Even More Thoughts On Hell

I've been recently writing about the concept of hell. It intrigues me for rather obvious reasons being an atheist. Since some theists believe that hell is just the eternal separation from god, I wonder then how it could even be practical. For example, many atheists (but not all), have rejected god out of their lives either because of the flimsy evidence supporting god's existence or from the revulsion caused by the character of god himself, or both. So if hell is the eternal separation of god, then god is really just giving the atheists what they want.

Most theists think that in the afterlife you will exist in a physical form like in the body you had on Earth in some sort of metaphysical reality. So hell would appear to those living there as a physical place but with the total absence of god's presence. But how is that any different from the actual world we live in now because I don't sense god anywhere? What would a day in hell be like? By all accounts it would appear to be exactly the same as life on Earth. There'd be violence and suffering, but you'd get to do whatever you want, and so you'd be able to indulge in whatever vices your heart desired.

Does Absolute Truth Exist?

The following is the opening argument I made in a debate years ago over whether absolute truths exist with a friend . Please tell me if you agree or disagree.

To say that absolute truth does not exist, is to imply that in some sense, that all knowledge is subjective or relative, and that no piece of information could be independently and objectively verifiable. In abstract concepts like numbers and mathematics we clearly find universal constants that have no deviation. Einstein’s beautiful equation that E=mc², has been proven repetitively by the most modern scientific instruments of today. And even if it were to be disproven, all that would simply mean is that there is another truth out there, which is currently beyond our scope of knowledge.

Surely of course there are ideas that have their truth lay in opinion. For example, if one were to ask “Is Brittany Spears talented?” this of course would be a matter of individual tastes. An absolute truth cannot lay in opinion or preference, or even consensus, it must be objective. It must be true and verifiable regardless of whether anyone agrees with it or not. That is one of the beauties of science: it’s true whether you believe in it or not. The close-minded religious fundamentalists who think the Earth is just 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs coexisted with man have no argument in the face of contradictory evidence. Their “reality” is forever intellectually silenced, and the evidence in this case is the objective truth.

15 Things To Consider When You're Feeling Down

Last summer when I had lost my job, it gave me time to reevaluate my life and use my time differently. I was sitting in Union Square park enjoying a beautiful sunny day and I decided to jot down a few ideas to consider now that I didn't have to spend so many long hours in the cubicle. Here is what I wrote. Take from it whatever makes sense and whatever you feel can make a positive difference in your life.

1. Got to Meetup groups to keep active
2. Continue writing every day and reading
3. Go out! Enjoy the summer. Enjoy the outdoors!
4. Make projects and stick to them!
5. Make some art!
6. Connect with people that matter
7. Collaborate with like-minded individuals
8. Indulge in your passions!
9. Enjoy life!
10. Stay positive, live positive!
11. Learn a new skill that you did not have time to learn before
12. Don't be lazy
13. Do not let apathy rule you
14. Make life your bitch
15. Be confident in who you are, be true to who you are

Natural Born Skeptic: My Atheist Journey Part 10

The Journey Ahead

This blog originally was part of a school assignment for an English class I had after I decided to go back to college and get my bachelor's degree. The assignment required that I create a blog and write 5 weekly posts about anything I wanted. This is why if you look at my early posts from 2009, you'll notice that many of them are hastily written and are not concerned with religion. This blog was originally called "Mike's Mandatory Blog", which was my way of making it known that my hand had been forced. Slowly it grew on me to write about what was becoming my obsession - my atheism and philosophy.

Looking toward the journey ahead, as a passionate secularist, atheist and humanist, I know the challenges people like me face. Our agenda is to preserve secular democracy here at home, and to help nourish it abroad. We want a fair, just, and humane society for everyone. We want peace - but we're not afraid to fight for it. Fundamentally, we feel that a reasonable and just society is possible, and it's only when we succumb to ignorance, superstition and ill-conceived ideologies that we impede its progress. And no, there are no hollow dreams of a perfect utopia that we are chasing after. We are not communists. We support freedom and individual rights, and the sincere democratic process.

I have many lucid fantasies of becoming a skilled debater and counter apologist for the atheist and secularist movement. I've joined a debate meetup group in my area and have learned that I'm pretty good at it. Over the past few years I've become more active in my local atheist and skeptic communities, and I look forward to further contributing to the cause for reason. I was also thinking of making videos and become an active YouTuber like so many other atheists since video as we all know can more easily reach a wider audience. I will certainly continue to keep writing about my philosophy and my journey where ever it takes me.

Perhaps it's best that I leave this part of the journey with a quote from the late Christopher Hitchens' untimely memoir Hitch-22. In the closing page he summarizes the noble struggles of the rational non-believer:

The defense of science and reason is the great imperative of our time, and I feel absurdly honored to be grouped in the public mind with great teachers and scholars such as Richard Dawkins (a true Balliol man if ever there was one), Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. To be an unbeliever is not merely to be "open minded." It is, rather a decisive admission of uncertainty that is dialectically connected to the repudiation of the totalitarian principle, in the mind as well as in politics. But that's my Hitch-22. I have already described some of the rehearsals for this war, which relativists so plainly call "endless" - as if it were not indeed the latest chapter of an eternal struggle - and I find that for the remainder of my days I shall be happy enough to see if I can emulate the understatement of Commander Hitchens, and to say that at least I know what I am supposed to be doing.

Previous

"A Case for Secular Morality" Coming Soon....

You can think of this blog as a kind of record showing my moral growth and progression. Over the last few years that I began really getting into the arguments made for and against religion, I have learned a tremendous amount of knowledge concerning morality. I am developing my own moral philosophy concerning the nature of good and evil, and the source of morality. When it comes to ethics, we all have our own opinion. My goal is to simply offer my beliefs on the matter and have them compete in a free market of ideas where the best system of ethics wins on its own merit and logic.

So, I am beginning to write now a relatively brief and simple to understand paper outlining my moral philosophy, taken from the beliefs that I have already outlined on this blog. It will be called "A Case for Secular Morality" and it will be my attempt to explain as best I can, the precepts and principles of my moral system with regards to my atheism. I hope I can pull of a decent paper. I want to make it easy to read and interesting so that the laymen on morality can make use of it. In my paper I will address some of the objections that I have encountered debating theists who believe that only with god can there exist a complete moral system. Depending on the eventual size of the paper I will either post it on here whole or in sections hopefully over the next month or so.

Writing As A Therapy - Teenage Identity Crisis: A Painful Reminiscence Part 2

Writing for me is very therapeutic. I cannot shake off the good sensation I get when I put together a well written post. Not all of my posts hit the mark, but nevertheless, each is an attempt to put into words a concept or memory that I consciously wrestle with, however imperfect it is. Besides the usual posts on religion, theism, and morality, which seem to consume a great deal of my writings, I occasionally like to write about a personal reflection. And as this is the Thanksgiving holiday, I feel somewhat inclined to write about past problems I've dealt with and hopes I have.

I cannot say that I've had it too bad. My life has been a sort of mild journey when I compare it to the most horrible tragedies that have marred the lives of others. Although my parents divorced when I was a young child, I grew up in a pretty stable middle class home. My parents, although not perfect, were certainly not the worst characters when it came to how I was raised. I also grew up in a pretty safe neighborhood that is and was neither privileged nor impoverished.

I've had my bouts with depression. When I was an adolescent I came down with a serious case of acne that stayed with me until my early twenties. All throughout high school I was a mess. Acne made me embarrassed to be seen, it made me withdrawn, anti-social, and awkward. I hated my life at this time and I even contemplated suicide, making one failed attempt at it. In the back of my head what gave me confidence all through these years was the idea that things would get better. As an atheist, I never prayed, I never had any unreasonable faith that things would get better. Instead, I blamed my misfortunes where it seemed logical, namely my genetics. I blamed my mother and father for giving me the genes that cause acne. I angrily held them accountable and fully responsible for what they had done. In short, I had wished on some deep level that I was never even born.

Eventually my problems cleared away but not without leaving their indelible marks. My adolescent years when I was suppose to foster my social skills, were in a way put on hiatus. My withdrawn personality had made me lose the experiences necessary to build social skills and to make friends easily. I was also a person who was not into the typical things young people were into. I cared nothing for sports, and my musical tastes were very eclectic and usually far from the mainstream. My atheism however was never an issue at all since religion was almost never talked about and it pretty much never came up amongst my peers. I also wasn't the polemic anti-theist back then that I am now either.

In high school I did my fair share of partying with the few friends I had but looking back I always felt that somehow I missed out on what it should have been. This is probably instigated my the movie industry's depictions of high school that show a free for all in non-stop partying and sex. I guess I can say that although I've been through some tragedy, others have been through worse and I have to be thankful for that.

Now that I'm 30 years old I have to realize that my youth has almost completely evaporated and I must accept that my body will forever be in a perpetual state of decline. Sure I can eat healthy and workout obsessively but I will only be delaying the inevitable. Physically speaking I no longer have anything to look forward to, unlike when I was young. As time passes things will not get better, they will get worse, and this has partially led me to another form of depression, the depression of getting old. I still have many years before I am "old" and before I start to look "old", but I do not wish for eternal youth or eternal existence of any sort. Such an idea seems like a cruel trick of hell to me. I enjoy the fact that I will eventually grow old and die, and cease to exist. I just wish that I can age gracefully while it happens. That will give me a tremendous sense of comfort and hope for the future.

Winter's Despair

A wave of sorrow and procrastination has over taken me recently. I can do no more than click my laptop to play the next video that slowly cradles me toward the end. I have come across a fantastic site called topdocumentaryfilms.com. It contains over a thousand streamed documentaries on all different subjects, including my favorite topics of obsession: religion, philosophy, science, and history. I have been superglued to my computer due to this, and have as a result, been as lethargic as a sloth; barely able to expend enough energy to feed myself.

As much pleasure as there is in getting free, no commercially interrupted, full length and albeit, illegal documentaries steamed to my comfortable living room(take that SOPA!), I have also been gloating over the current situation in my professional life. I still do retain employment, so I cannot despair as deep as millions of my fellow countrymen do at the moment, but I am hopelessly out of place in the IT industry.

I originally came to this industry because of the multitudinous touting I heard while growing up. They all proclaimed an exponentially growing industry, that delivered large financial payloads. This has more or less held up in some regard, and I testify to this only as anecdotal evidence. But what I forgot to remember, is how much I, as someone who is somewhat antisocial, who doesn't make friends easily, who doesn't vibrate to the stereo-typical, socially popular, favorite pastimes of the "average" person, and who finds trouble befriending those who do, how important it is to be doing something that is dear to my heart.

I'm really a simple man, and I know what makes me happy. Happiness for me resides with in three basic conditions. I am happy when I am doing something I like, with people I like, in a place that I like. I've noticed that if these three conditions are met, I am almost always happy. I hate my job because I am doing something I don't like, with people I don't like, in a place that I don't like. At least with some jobs you may hate the work, but like your coworkers, or you may hate your coworkers, but like the easy commute, I don't have any such thing.

Generation A.D.D.

I've come to notice that when I write while distracted by something else, like the TV, or something on the web, my writing often doesn't make sense. Or, the literary flow will seem more like a series of separate statements grouped together in a what appears to be at first, a paragraph. But it is no paragraph. It's more like how an album that is collection of singles is not grounded on a concept. Distractions are terrible for cohesive writing. I generally don't free-write. I like to stick to a central theme and plan every sentence and paragraph out before it's written.

We are the generation ADD. We lose interest at the slightest waning of excitement. When the TV looks interesting, our eyes are on it. When the internet can give us something gratifying our eyes are on it. When that video or site bores us we find something else that suites our immediate needs.

I plead guilty on all charges. That is what I am doing right now. I have the TV on while I am typing this. I just cannot focus on one thing right now. I can't stay focused on blogging. Our culture of instant gratification has resulted in a whole generation not being able to read or write or even watch TV with out having to obtain entertainment elsewhere.

Change is the only thing that's constant

I'm starting to learn that many good writers write daily, sometimes for hours. I've noticed that I make usually about a half dozen entries on this blog a month. Maybe I should be writing more. After all the more I write the better I will become at it. Great writers also read a lot also. I read a lot on the internet. I read a lot of news, but a great deal of my knowledge lately has come from watching videos on YouTube that explain concepts of science and philosophy and economics. This is very typical of the young today who can't even deal with the cliff notes anymore and have resorted to watching and listening to videos instead of actually reading about any of it. It is a pattern that a friend advised me to not get comfortable with.

Spelling is not an issue anymore thanks to the spell check mechanism. But spell check cannot make you a exceptional writer. I hate the laziness that comes and goes in me. I don't even have to get off my couch to do what I am doing now, and still I find an excuse to be lazy and not do it. Remember when you had to actually go out to obtain knowledge about a subject, to the library in the freezing cold? Those days are long gone and with it, that energy one had to have.

I did keep a written journal for years at a time and wrote several notebooks worth of events, documenting various stages of my life from high school to as recently as a few months ago. I still have one that I stopped writing in and for some reason I guess I stopped, maybe because of this blog. But in my notebooks I would write much more personal things regarding my personal life, and on this blog I've chosen for it to not be about my silly mundane day-to-day problems. My old journals I burned and destroyed years ago so no one could read them. I guess I wish I could have saved them until now, they'd be fascinating to read.

I really wish I was writing about my experiences hanging out with metal heads in high school in the 90s. It was a great era and subculture to document since a lot has changed in New York in the past ten years, and also because the heavy metal culture that existed back then has significantly waned. Change is the only thing that's constant. And that's never more true than in the secular metropolis.

High school was tough. I had a really hard time fitting in. Even among my own clique I was kind of the outcast. It took me a really long time to find myself, and to find my place. I'm still kind of looking but I'm a lot more focused now. I really wish back then I had the knowledge I have now, or at least (since saying that has become so cliche) I wish that I was as passionate about the same subjects back then as I am now (namely atheism and philosophy). I was always into atheism pretty much, but never had the passion to really dig deep into the philosophy behind it and religion. Also, I wish I had payed attention to more of the cultural changes over the years as they evolved slowly instead being shocked by seemingly abrupt changes that were really just the result of years my neglect towards them.

Am I a Good Writer?

I wonder sometimes if I am a good writer. I know I'm not a bad writer, but I think overall that my writing is average, maybe even a little mediocre. Sure there are many variables to measure writing. I think one of my strongest measures is my subject matter. I would like to improve on my articulateness. I wish to be a wordsmith one day. I've always respected writers who can, with just a few well chosen words, paint a beautiful description of an experience, a concept or a picture.

Poetry is nice also, but I don't read much of it. I don't read much in general also, unless you consider reading on the internet. But the internet is often interjected with pictures and video to give you that visual representation to make sure you stay interested. Just words on a page with no other media there to hold your hand gets harder and harder to digest, in this age of constant stimulation. There are stories all over the the internet about how far most people are addicted to technology nowadays. From iPads to smart phones to free wifi, it's unbelievable.

My internet went out today for just a few minutes and I freaked out. I cannot live with out the internet. Back in 2005 and 2006 I didn't have the internet. I got my hands on a 6 month trial of AOL, using dial up on a computer that I literally found in the garbage. I used it mostly for porn. Today I'm addicted to information. I spend a lot of time on Wikipedia constantly looking up things. There is so much information there. Some times when I already know something, I'll look it up on Wikipedia just to see what the article about it says.

All of this information that I'm absorbing is virtually useless for me in terms of making money off of it. Maybe I should go on a TV game show to use my extensive knowledge of useless information to monetize. All I need is a good hair day and I'm set!

I want to be a writer!

That is a good writer. I want to write nonfiction. I want to write about my ideas and experiences with life; about growing up where I have grown up; when I grew up and about the people I grew up with; about the politics and culture of today; about religion and race my two favorite subjects. I want to start reading more; good writers read the works of other good writers. I hardly ever read. I've gotten sucked into this visual world of simple 5 or 10 minute clips that has been built. Why read a lengthy book or article when I can simply watch the video or movie on the internet? Reading takes time, patience, diligence. When I come across a book I really like I can devour it rather quickly. I haven't even read a single Christopher Hitchens book, a writer I greatly admire. Maybe it's because I haven't had much time considering school. I have kept a journal for years. It has helped my writing a bit. I guess I'll keep on writing.