For The Blank Page

Possibly most difficult thing a person can achieve in life is to defeat their heart with their mind. I doubt there is one person having read this that at some point has not had to bare the feeling of struggle between the heart weighted with lead emotion and the minds cold logic you know to be true. Your mind filled with undeniable logic is equally countered by the crushing emotional weight of the heart. Even against the most solid reasoning, the blind urging of the soul will attempt to trump the mind. For many this situation is typically illustrated by relations with the other sex, though this is a common but narrow example. Consider this instead, a mouse that continually makes it’s way into the pantry to eat your last packet of oreos, would commonly provoke that instantaneous irritation that wishes an end to the existence of that mouse. However if it ever actually came to the point where you held that small delicate mouse in your hands and truly possessed the power to make that irreversible decision, what would you choose?

With only a logic to set my moral compass the choice would be clear and simple and many would argue that this cold certainty is the way all decisions should be made. But by denying the pressure we feel on our heart when faced with such decisions we are denying the very things that make us more than the sum of our molecular structure.

Without sounding too cliché I will say that through life we are faced with moments that will weaken us or through the correct perspective make us stronger. When I first began to encounter cripplingly strong emotions I considered it a weakness, something that must be controlled and was pathetic for it to control me. As i considered compromising this opinion a form of weakness for a long time I was reluctant to considered that constant prodding of a single, pivotal thought.

Perhaps emotional progression is not ment to be supressed, perhaps i am ment feel it completely, understand it thoroughly and incorporate it into my understanding and perspective of a given situation. Perhaps by gaining the ability to understand our feelings in a given circumstances we will possess far more power and understanding than logic could ever possess alone. With this uncertain apiffany I will persevere the path of painful understanding in place of cold suppression of humanity.

Obscure white crippled ball, what do you have for me ?  The possibilities infinite but the truth far less.  I unfold it, nothing.  Turn it over, nothing again.  I smooth out the creased material.  The blank page was once alive, now wasted.  With neither word nor image you are but conveniently arranged cellulose pulp.  Your possibilities cut short by a narrow mind, your legacy aborted.  Where nothing exists, there is potential.  Potential for something of the utmost value and substance to the most trivial of trife.  What means nothing to one could mean everything to another.  A page may endure when neither thoughts nor memories can.  It may pass a thousand hands without recognition, but even then it is still there, still possible, waiting.  It deserves a mark, a purpose, a chance to be great, even if only for a second.  Denial of potential is the only true waste.

So this morning, picking up the best Sunday takeaway breakfast the average man could hope for (well for under $10 anyway) i was distracted by today’s edition of the Sunday Mail.  Not usually one to buy a newspaper in its physical form on account of anyone that spends enough time on the net shouldn’t need to support the wastage of paper that is the daily newspaper.  So back to the point, this is the front page headline that ensured i would buy the paper out of disbelief more than anything else “Primary school students are being taught that man and dinosaurs walked the Earth together”.

As i read the article it continues to explain that some of the religious instructors in Queensland’s primary schools have informed children that dinosaurs existed in the same era as man.  That Noah collected the dinosaur eggs for the ark (which doesn’t explain why the are currently extinct?).  That Adam and Eve were not eaten by dinosaurs because they were under some form of protective spell (possibly similar to the one that protected snow while she was sleeping i guess ?).  Best of all, there is fossil evidence that proves it all.

Now don’t misunderstand my position on the RI program in primary schools.  I think religion is something that everyone should understand at least a little about, considering approximately 85% of the worlds current population has some form of belief system.  Part of my own understanding of Christian beliefs and the bible originated in primary school religious education classes.  It appears that the problem with these specific religious instructors is that these classes are not being used to offer information on religion but instead to prey on a child’s imagination with ridiculous disinformation tactics that make me wonder if they have even read the bible, not to mention a single piece of empirical data on the subjects they are attempting to teach.

Without further ranting on how such religious disinformation impedes the progression of our society i will say that toward the end of the article i did have to smile with a spark of optimism when i read this testimonial.

A parent of a Year 5 student on the Sunshine Coast said his daughter was ostracised to the library after arguing with her scripture teacher about DNA.

"The scripture teacher told the class that all people were descended from Adam and Eve," he said.

"’My daughter rightly pointed out, as I had been teaching her about DNA and science, that ‘wouldn’t they all be inbred’?

"But the teacher replied that DNA wasn’t invented then."

After the parent complained, the girl spent the rest of the year’s classes in the library.

Little girl i place all my hopes for your generation with you.