I spent the last few days with my girl­friend and my fam­ily. As usual, we went to the coun­try­side where my par­ents live and I am of two minds about it. No ques­tion, I like it there. It’s where I was born and it’s a lovely enough place, still not near as crowded like the cities. Even taken all the vaca­tion­ists into con­sid­er­a­tion it’s more than silent if you know where to go. And what’s more calm­ing than sit­ting high on the moun­tain on a bright, sunny day, look­ing down into the peace­ful val­ley while expe­ri­enc­ing moments of absolute still­ness and utter calm­ness? In con­trast to the big city life, every­thing is silent and beau­ti­ful and radi­ates a whole­ness few have ever expe­ri­enced. I really like it there. Next time I’ll make some pic­tures for your view­ing plea­sure, I promise.

On the other hand, there’s this old-fashioned style I can’t quite come to terms with. You know, no broad­band inter­net, no big plasma TV, no inter­est­ing dis­cus­sions, no ade­quate pub­lic means of trans­porta­tion, and the like. Of course, it’s small vil­lage where the rural pop­u­la­tion just don’t much care about out­siders. There are so many things that seem under­de­vel­oped to the untrained eyes. I know that there’s much more going on, I know all there is to know about the local under­cur­rents. Often enough I can for­get about all these “short­com­ings” because there’s a qual­ity to the peo­ple there most town­ers have lost ages ago. Any­way, I still miss some of the things men­tioned above …

Have you ever had headache? Remem­ber the last time? In fact, I do quite well. When I was 14 years old, I often had bru­tal headaches and there was no cure. The pain was right behind my eyes and no med­ica­tion ever helped to get rid of the pain. Actu­ally, I didn’t get all the meds on pre­scrip­tion because no doc­tor could ever do an analy­sis pro­found enough to jus­tify pump­ing me full with drugs. So I tried every­thing I could get my hands on but, as I feared, noth­ing ever worked. I made a fright­en­ing sight with my blood-shot, almost com­pletely red eyes. The headaches got more and more sel­dom after some months and when I turned fif­teen noth­ing but mem­o­ries remained.

Now, they’re back with a vengeance. The pain isn’t exactly the same – it’s more of a stab­bing kind now – and the cen­ter of it has slightly shifted half an inch above my eyes. Nonethe­less, the pain has at least dou­bled. It’s an excru­ci­at­ing expe­ri­ence because still no med­ica­tion works. If things aren’t going to get bet­ter within the next few weeks I should have myself checked by a spe­cial­ist, I sup­pose. I won­der if there’s any­thing at all that can be done about it. I’m a really peace­ful guy but I’d kill to get rid of these headaches. Many times. Just to make you see how des­per­ate I am.

… seems to be the one and only answer for ever more peo­ple in this world. Recent hap­pen­ings all over the world, at least in First World coun­tries, indi­cate a grow­ing trend towards going postal among youths. Know what’s so ironic? I tell you: There are dozens of peo­ple look­ing for an answer, look­ing for the moti­va­tion behind, but they fail to see because they ask the wrong ques­tions. One can’t blame bru­tal video games because it’s con­ve­nient to do so. There are hun­dreds of stud­ies prov­ing that there’s way more to it than a sim­ple first per­son shooter. Nowa­days, I’m a casual gamer and I still like games like Prey, Half-Life, Doom, Quake, God of War, etc. These games are con­sid­ered as bru­tal killer games that depict bloody violence.

Accord­ing to some politi­cians, such games should be com­pletely banned. Obvi­ously, these fools only try to make a name for them­selves and, in con­se­quence, win some votes. I can imag­ine that many rel­a­tives of vic­tims, shocked par­ents, and some self-proclaimed pro­tec­tors of our youth are prone to fall for that illu­sion of secu­rity. The very same peo­ple seem to abhor any vio­lence at all but vio­lence in words and they tend to think that play­ing these games fre­quently trans­lates into train­ing a per­son to over­come the psy­cho­log­i­cal resis­tance to killing another human being.

So, why are peo­ple ignor­ing the obvi­ous facts? Because they’re hard to acknowl­edge if you’re part of this root of all evil. I don’t think it’s easy to admit that there are seri­ous flaws in the edu­ca­tional sys­tem or that you neglected your parental duties. Fur­ther­more, there must be a rea­son why most of these mas­sacres take place at school. Can you think of any rea­son? I’ll bet you sure can if you only think hard enough. There are always peo­ple try­ing to sub­due oth­ers, try­ing to estab­lish a clear hier­ar­chi­cal struc­ture with one alpha/prime male. That’s human nature and not some­thing we can get rid of in a few thou­sand years. Pri­mal instincts can’t be bred out in such a small time and that’s why we like this dis­guise of cul­ti­va­tion so much. Indeed, if not for our human val­ues – what’s there to sep­a­rate us from animals?

Well, pupils do have seri­ous prob­lems. That’s a fact peo­ple, first of all par­ents, need to acknowl­edge. Peo­ple, espe­cially youths, also tend to use more and more vio­lence to stand their ground in their daily/weekly/monthly fights for their place in the afore­men­tioned social struc­ture. It’s even worse if you don’t fit into it at all, be it by choice or by design. I’m dead sure most par­ents don’t know about their offspring’s adven­tures at school, that their chil­dren are humil­i­ated and abused by oth­ers. Some­times I won­der if some par­ents care at all. Either way, nobody talks about it and the whole sit­u­a­tion quickly becomes a taboo. Just to get back to those oh so bru­tal video/computer games – there isn’t even one frelling game out there that depicts vio­lence as bloody, accu­rate, and exten­sive as many movies do.

If it wasn’t so sad I’d laugh my ass off. Right here, right now. Ever won­dered why so many “killer pupils” wear sun­glasses and black leather coats? Any­body? I won’t blame Matrix for it, don’t worry. Even if they do wear sun glasses which only serve to hide most of their feel­ings. Ah, it’s no use, isn’t it? Most par­ents won’t go and check on their chil­dren because some mis­led, mis­er­able feel­ing youths decided to end their lives which were, at least on their account, with­out per­spec­tive. Parental con­trol? Media com­pe­tency? For most par­ents these terms could as well be non-existent for all they know about them. The social envi­ron­ment as a whole is very impor­tant for our kids. It alters their per­cep­tion, it forms them as they grow up, when they finally leave their fan­tasy world and clash heads with real­ity. It’s no easy time for par­ents and kids alike.

Don’t let that hap­pen to your child(s). See that you know what’s going on, talk to your kid(s) and, please, don’t dis­miss their con­cerns as incon­se­quen­tial. If you do, you may one day expe­ri­ence the loss of your kid(s). Even more, you would’ve to live with all the blame because deep inside you knew – and you did nothing.

You know what strikes me as odd? I think that I’m sort of … dam­aged. All my life I’ve been so damn dif­fer­ent and I fought against it. Now, I don’t think I’m all that dif­fer­ent any­more but still, there’s a vast gap pre­vent­ing me from con­nect­ing to oth­ers. It’s so sad. How I longed to be like oth­ers are and how much I failed in try­ing to do so. You see, I had a rough child­hood but there were times when I was happy. Some day, how­ever, some­thing changed. I nei­ther know what nor how. It’s more a feel­ing, deep inside. Some kinda sub­con­scious instinct. You know there’s some­thing there but you can’t get a hold of it. You try and try and try again but every time you wanna put your fin­ger on it your fin­ger slips of.

Any­way, I’m seri­ously screwed. Got some­thing you love? Got some­thing you like? Got some­thing you’re proud of? Some­thing you can con­nect with? I don’t. There’s only my love. Only she can reach part­way down into the great hole I’m in. Oth­er­wise, I’m an empty shell totally with­out joy. Instead, I’m full with pain. Doesn’t mat­ter much because it’s sort of damp­ened. Even as I’m writ­ing this I can only feel a faint echo of my loss. I don’t feel mis­er­able, though. I’m not sad­dened as you under­stand it. It’s like there’s a black hole within the very core of my being suck­ing almost every­thing into its void. Seems a some­what dry notion, doesn’t it?

How can I make a liv­ing? Well, it’s not that noth­ing mat­ters to me. It’s just that I don’t feel as deeply or richly as oth­ers do. I really love my girl­friend, though. If you want a metaphor, try this one: This love is like a beau­ti­ful flower in a waste­land. There’s more to it. I’m in bal­ance when I’m with her. You know, that’s one of the most impor­tant things in life. I can reach this point of com­plete bal­ance more often now. The point where pain and hap­pi­ness are build­ing an exquis­ite equi­lib­rium of mind. A secure haven of unlim­ited free­dom and peace of mind. This expe­ri­ence is com­pletely opposed to my non-feeling because peace totally engulfs me in this state. Thus, there’s the ulti­mate ques­tion to ask: Is it worth sac­ri­fic­ing pieces of who you are – to live my life the way I do – in order to get some peace of mind? A silent place where every harm­ful thought is can­celed out by it’s counterpart?

I don’t know. Is that what it means to strive for being a bet­ter man? Is the very sub­stance of my being – the con­struct I am, the con­struct you per­ceive – in dan­ger? What am I doing and to what end? All my life I’ve been so sure of myself and now the care­fully con­structed life lays there before me – a use­less pile of shards. Is that what it means to get stripped of the count­less pro­tec­tions one builds up in the course of his life? What a bur­den this is. I’m feel­ing as if my soul has been laid bare …

Last night, a work­ing col­league of mine died because of a heart dis­ease. He wasn’t only some co-worker, but a friend you could really talk with. He shared the wis­dom of his 60 years with me and I trusted his advice on more than one occa­sion. Since I don’t believe that his very essence still lives on in another realm, I don’t think that he has a bet­ter live now. What I do know, how­ever, is that he lived his life well. He was of a refresh­ing and funny sort, always ready to jape about some­thing. I’ll miss him.

Peace of mind, peace of spirit, peace of soul. Good­bye, old friend.

Moti­vated by my words on FarScape back on Sun­day and in accor­dance to my recent watch­ings I sim­ply have to reflect on these aliens. Not too long ago I already did so over here. Back then, I didn’t spend too much time writ­ing about aliens but thought on the most prob­a­ble means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion between pos­si­ble vis­i­tors and us. This time it’s all about their inten­tions: Why should aliens visit Earth? Anybody?

Well, why don’t we start with what SF lit­er­a­ture and series have to say about that? There are many con­cepts and some of them really look promis­ing. In the end, every­thing boils down to just a few pos­si­ble reasons.

1. They sim­ply want to watch/study us.
2. They deem us wor­thy and want to estab­lish contact.
3. They’re aggres­sive and they want to con­quer humankind.
4. They’re aggres­sive and they want to erad­i­cate humankind.

That’s it, as far as I’m con­cerned. I can’t think of any other rea­son so it’s safe to assume I got all the bases cov­ered. Of course, there are var­i­ous shades of gray that – and that goes with­out say­ing – aren’t listed there for obvi­ous rea­sons. So, can you think of any other pos­si­ble reason?

Hell, I try and try and try but there’s noth­ing I could come up with. If they’re able to jour­ney to Earth through space, they surely are far more devel­oped than we are. To blindly think that they’re a benev­o­lent species want­ing to enrich our lives with their knowl­edge is fool­ish. To assume that they’ll bring war isn’t the best approach either. So what? Are they already watch­ing us? Are they already plot­ting to kill every­one of us? I long to know. I want to know. I need to know. Although I’m sure that extrater­res­trial life exists I can’t pos­si­bly know whether they’re vis­it­ing this part of the milky way. But I know one thing. If we ever come in con­tact with aliens it will be a day remem­bered by every­one, no mat­ter the outcome.