We still haven't figured this out yet!

I recognize that white men killing black are not the only murders that occur. I don't expect us to have eradicated murder, but I would have hoped that by now we could have stopped killing each other over skin color.

We still haven't figured out that a white man should not kill a black man. I can't list one victim without listing them all, so I'm not going to. Black people are senselessly being murdered because they are perceived as a threat based on their skin color. Racism is a huge issue and the civil rights movement was not all that long ago, it takes awhile for society to change- I get that. What I am appalled by is that we haven't figured out that every black man does not want to kill you, or rob you, or threaten you. Your hand should not twitch towards your holster when you see a hoodie. It's not just rogue red necks, it's our law enforcement. Men and women that are put in a position of power in order to keep us safe are instead making rash decisions based on fear and killing our children. A police officer should be the last person making snap judgement based on race- they should know enough, have seen enough. We should not have to wake up to another black man senselessly slaughtered.

Hate is so dangerous. Hate grows and festers until it is a part of you, until it is causing you to kill. We cannot let hate get that far.

Murder is a huge issue- I get that. Racism is a huge issue- I get that. But murdering someone you don't even know because of their skin- that's a huge issue that I expect us to solve.

I should not be begging white men not to kill black men in 2014, but I am.

How Do I Know What I Know?

How do I know what I know? I don't. Not really. Seriously though, I don't know much of anything. I think things and I feel things, but to me that doesn't equal real knowing. The closest I get is being pretty sure I know something. Like I'm pretty sure I know how to spell the word know but I can't really prove that I actually know how. It's entirely possible that I'm completely deluded and I'm just typing gibberish- or not typing at all. I can't prove that I'm not a little blob of slush with a crazy imagination that's just inventing everything I'm perceiving. But going through life constantly considering that I might not even be a person and that everything around me is a lie is not an okay for my mental health (at least I think I know that?), so I try to just assume that I am a person but remember that there are very few things I can actually prove.

Anyways, lets say that I do actually know some things. Most things I know because I have been told it by someone else and I have observed it for myself. Like I know that sometimes when people are angry they take that anger out on other people that are not at all related to why they are angry. This is a commonly accepted "fact" and I've been reminded of this since I was a kid but I have also seen people exhibit this behavior, so I have accepted it as a truth. An important part of knowledge is choosing what and when to accept something as a truth. A lot of people accept truths when they just hear it from reliable sources, but I think its important to make a conscious decision to accept something as a truth rather than not consider its validity.

Knowledge is a really, really hard thing to define and claim. I'm pretty skeptical of anyone that thinks knowledge is a certainty.

The Garden State

A garden is a happy place. A green, and warm place. A place teeming with life and possibility. Gardens take work and love and patience. You have to be willing to get your hands dirty, to spend hours hunched over in the hot sun. There is a particular pleasure that comes from having a garden. There's a beautiful harmony that comes from coaxing nature to do its thing in precisely the spot and way that you want it to.

A garden state should be simple yet interesting. It should take earnest work and diligent upkeep. A garden state can't grow amongst corruption, so it has to be WEEDED out. Yeah, I went there. But seriously- corruption and greed eats away at society. It may be natural but we have to keep it from growing out of control so that the beautiful and bountiful can thrive. A garden state should be small and thus easy to manage. The tending of the garden state should be done so that the state can grow as healthily as possible. Despite all of this hard work being done by the gardener, most of the work is being done by the garden. The plants are working hard to grow, while the gardener helps the plants along with a little water and a little weeding.

The garden metaphor doesn't work out with every detail- like the gardener just gets to rob the garden of all its tomatoes and basil and whatnot. That's not cool. And does the state just kinda die and whither in the winter? I dunno maybe the garden is some place snow doesn't exist. Still, it's a pretty cool metaphor. It conjures up images of a neat, happy little place where hard work and patience is rewarded.

Bye, Candide.