What's in a Name?

Why is it when someone dies, their written word, their handmade drawings, their ideas, and anything else they may have left behind becomes that much more important to us? Is it because we want to hold on to their past? Or is it because we recognize the uniqueness of each person's creative footprints? Should we feel ashamed we didn't cherish these gifts when they were still alive? Or are we just giving posthumous meaning to a person's life after they have long left the earth?

As humans, maybe we aren't happy with just being left with genetic leftovers. Maybe we are compelled further to give meaning to our existence. I guess this is what separates us from animals. We are cursed with vivid memories, and need a lot more than family traits to fill the void that is left behind after the passing of a loved one. Then would ignorance really be bliss? Would we be better off with a meaningless existence? Or is our current existence also meaningless and have we just found ways to give meaning to nothing?

Just as our forefathers left us with inscriptions and tablets, in order to know more about them and hence carry on their names and knowledge. Was it just for naught? Yes, we gained from their experiences, but who do we ultimately pass on their names to along with ours, and why? If the human civilization was to exist for another 1000 years or 5000 years, who would care who Ramses the Third was? And if they did care, why? Posthumous infamy? It's meaningless.

Or is it?

Shoot to kill?

Ok, so I just got done watching some famous school shooting videos posted on Youtube, and thereafter some parodies and other such nonsense that shows up in the "related videos" section of the website. I disappeared into my thoughts and decided to write 'em down:

You can have all the guns in the world, but if you don't have the balls to pull the trigger, you won't. You're either built like that or you aren't. It's as simple as that. You can't turn a vegetarian into a meat-eater. Well, maybe you can, but there will always be that little voice in the back of their mind going, 'what the fuck have I done?'. If you don't have the heart to take a life, you can act tough, you can threaten people as much as you want, but you wont' have the heart to do anything. You won't admit to this, because you'll be labeled a pussy, but this is you. You either kill or you don't. You either care, or you won't. Be who you are. If you try to be something you're not, you end up fucking others and yourself.

Shooting a gun doesn't take courage. Shooting a gun at a human being is something else. It's not in us to kill each other at a push of a button, or a pull of the trigger. Others find it as a means to an end, but no matter how insane you are, you regret it if you're lucky enough to live that long.

Movie endings

I hate turning a good movie off when its done. You know the type which invokes deep emotions we don't normally feel whilst we go about our everyday lives. Once the movie is turned off, and the ending soundtrack is replaced by silence, the meaningful moment is abruptly lost. Like an epiphany one has sometimes right before dosing off to sleep, and there's no pen handy, so you just decide you will remember it in the morning. But when morning comes, you have no recollection whatsoever of what it was you had thought of before falling asleep. You knew it was something important, something maybe life-changing at the time, but you push it aside and dismiss it as a nothing.

How many of these 'moments' have we had in our lives that we've never noted down to share with others, or to just reminisce about on a rainy day? Well, I'm 27, and I've decided to write this one down, while the credits of Jerry Mcguire are rolling down my TV screen.