The Meaning of Life (in General)

                I ask myself ‘what is the meaning of life’, but not with the intention of finding my place in the universe. I have already found mine, or at least think I have, but that is irrelevant. The question is not intended for me, but for us. What is our place here in the universe, and what should we do to make it count? I will be excluding any sort of religious view, as I believe that it is up to the individual, in this case on a macroscopic scale (the individual would be society as a whole), to find this for itself. Having a god tell us this seems simply too easy. And I believe that at least Christianity does not offer any long-term goal – just moral guidelines to help us on the way. No, it seems to me that we have to find it for ourselves.
                But what should we aim at then? Universal happiness or equality? Both? Maybe the universal knowledge and adaptation of the ideals of the Zeitgeist Movement? While these all seem like noble purposes, I have different thoughts about the matter. Communism, and here I mean the original meaning of the word, depicting a society where everything is shared, seems to be a beautiful and romanticised idea. But that is all it is. To my understanding, in such a society, everyone would do what they could, get what they need to live, and everybody would be equals. These are indeed noble ideals, but they do not suffice for me. The goals of Communism, and here I mean the various movements, has never been described to me as anything else than the attempt to adopt and “unversify” these ideals, but what I wonder is what happens next. Some variations, and here I refer to what is called primitive communism, suggest that the easiest, and best, way to obtain such a society would be to go back to a pre-agricultural model:

“In a primitive communist society, all able bodied persons would have engaged in obtaining food, and everyone would share in what was produced by hunting and gathering. There would be almost no private property, other than articles of clothing and similar personal items, because  primitive society produced no surplus; what was produced was quickly consumed. The few  things that existed for any length of time (tools, housing) were held communally. There would have been no state.” (Source: Wikipedia)

My point is that such a society, where the only goal seems to be the sustenance of human life and, I admit, happiness, would be pointless in itself. For any being that has achieved awareness, the simple act of only securing its continuation is unrewarding, meaningless. For what is there to live for if all we are doing is to continue to live?
                For myself, I believe in the advancement of the human race, both in the domains of medicine, science, philosophy and technology. I believe and support research and actions that better our situation on our earth, and that allow us to grow as a species.
                We have had an enormous advancement during the last century in all of the fields mentioned above; we have much, much more than quadrupled our quantity, and stand now in the middle of a global regionalisation, where countries grow more tightened together. I believe that the meaning of life as an aware species is to continue this development, and to take it to the next step, whether that proves to be abolishing national borders and establishing an international government; letting advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence make our day-to-day safer and easier; furthering social and ethnical equality and distributing better the goods of our society; or maybe even colonising and terraforming new worlds. Whatever we do, it is advancement that provides us with purpose, and I would like for us to do so, one step at a time.

"For NASA, space is still a high priority", George Walker Bush

Sheet Music and Music Blog

        I have been playing a lot of piano lately, and while being fed up with deciphering Zelda songs on my own, I happened to stumble upon an amazing blog by a Californian musician, Aivi Tran. According to herself, she is a self-taught, school-refined and freelance composer, who has "soft spot for video game music". She is a great pianist, who is adept at transcribing music to sheet. I found in her blog a real treasure of sheet music from some of my favourite video games, such as Zelda, Super Mario Galaxy and Final Fantasy. She's also added demonstrative videos for most of it, and I must say that her level is far above mine (though that does not say much, as I have never pretended to have more than an acceptable level). It is just a shame that most of it is a bit above my level, so even after an eight-hour marathon of Piano playing, I still have a long way to go before mastering pieces such as "Castle" and "Zora's Domain", both from Zelda.
       I have taken the liberty of adding the first page of "Zora's Domain", just to show how amazingly complicated it turned out to be. For the rest, I highly recommend visiting her blog, Waltz for Luma (I intend to ask her what it means).



Ps. I found out what Luma means" Beside being a plant and a species of tree, it is the star-shaped thingies from Super Mario Galaxy. You can see one flying to the right of Mario by exploring the latter link.

A qui la Faute?

I removed the poem I had put in the left corner, so I'll just add it here as a post:

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
(recueil : L’Année Terrible)

-  Tu viens d’incendier la Bibliothèque?

- Oui.
J’ai mis le feu là.

- Mais c’est un crime inouï !
Crime commis par toi-même, infâme !
Mais tu viens de tuer le rayon de ton âme !
C’est ton propre flambeau que tu viens de souffler !
Ce que ta rage impie et folle ose brûler,
C’est ton bien, ton trésor, ta dot, ton héritage
Le livre, hostile au maître, est à ton avantage.
Le livre a toujours pris fait et cause pour toi.
Une bibliothèque est un acte de foi
Des générations ténébreuses encore
Qui rendent dans la nuit témoignage à l’aurore.
Quoi ! dans ce vénérable amas  des vérités,
Dans ces chefs-d’œuvre plains de foudre et de clartés,
Dans ce tombeau des temps devenu répertoire,
Dans les siècles, dans l’homme antique, dans l’histoire,
Dans le passé, leçon qu’épelle l’avenir,
Dans ce qui commença pour ne jamais finir,
Dans les poètes ! quoi, dans ce gouffre des bibles,
Dans le divin monceau des Eschyles terribles,
Des Homères, des  jobs, debout sur l’horizon,
Dans Molière, Voltaire et Kant, dans la raison,
Tu jettes, misérable, une torche enflammée !
De tout l’esprit humain tu fais de la fumée !
As-tu donc oublié que ton libérateur,
C’est le livre ? Le livre est là sur la hauteur ;
Il luit ; Parce qu’il brille et qu’il les illumine,
Il détruit l’échafaud, la guerre, la famine
Il parle, plus d’esclave et plus de paria.
Ouvre un livre. Platon, Milton, Beccaria.
Lis ces prophètes, Dante, ou Shakespeare, ou Corneille
L’âme immense qu’ils ont en eux, en toi s’éveille ;
Ébloui, tu te sens le même homme qu’eux tous ;
Tu deviens en lisant grave, pensif et doux ;
Tu sens dans ton esprit tous ces grands hommes croître,
Ils t’enseignent ainsi que l’aube éclaire un cloître,
À mesure qu’il plonge en ton cœur plus avant ,
Leur chaud rayon t’apaise et te fait plus vivant ;
Ton âme interrogée est prête à leur répondre ;
Tu te reconnais bon, puis meilleur, tu sens fondre,
Comme la neige au feu, ton orgueil, tes fureurs,
Le mal, les préjuges, les rois, les empereurs !
Car la science en l’homme arrive la première.
Puis vient la liberté. Toute cette lumière,
C’est à toi comprends donc, et s’est toi qui l’éteins !
Les buts rêvés par toi sont par le livre atteints.
Le livre en ta pansée entre, il défait en elle
Les liens que l’erreur à la vérité mêle,
Car toute conscience est un nœud gordien.
Il est ton médecin, ton guide, ton gardien.
Ta haine, il la guérit ; ta démence, il te l’ôte.
Voilà ce que tu perds, hélas, et par ta faute !
Le livre est ta richesse à toi ! C’est le savoir,
Le droit, la vérité, la vertu, le devoir,
Le progrès, la raison dissipant tout délire.
Et tu détruis cela, toi !

- Je ne sais pas lire.

Does Karma Apply?

I like the idea behind Karma. I like the thought that there is a balance between good and evil in the world, that we have to balance the good we have with good deeds if not to suffer the repercussions of balance - that we reap what we sow.
                But even though I like the principle, I do not believe in it.  There are far too many who suffer in the world, without having done anything to do so justly. Earthquake in Haiti, 140’000 deaths; despotism in Uganda, 500’000; conflicts in Darfur, over 300’000 deaths. The only faults that could have been done are those of Mother Nature or our leaders, because nothing could justify this. And there are far too many profiteers. People who use the power they have, whether financial or political, solely for themselves and their own. The Russian oligarchs enriched themselves by using a situations of massive reforms, corruption and legal anarchy to do so – on the expense of the general public. For a newer example, millions of people all over the world lost their job during the financial crisis. But when the American government paid up to save different industries in the US, to give the very same people that cause the mess money to save it, Wall Street banks and firms still used an major part of the money to give their CEOs and leaders huge bonuses.
                All of these examples seems to indicate that Karma, or any similar “law of nature”, does not exist. At least not on an individual level. For though many individuals suffer pointlessly, I would like to believe that there are some sort of general balance. There is war in this world of ours, but there is also peace. And even though society seems to be going downwards, with tension building up in the Middle-East, with global financial crisis et cetera; we are making huge advances within medicine and technology, and more and more people get to appreciate the fruits of civilisation and development. I might only see this because I am looking for it – one finds what one searches for, but I still chose to believe it. Because the world will sometimes look like it is going straight to Hell, but still: life goes on.

“If you are going through Hell, keep walking!” Sir Winston Churchill