It has been a little over a month since COVID-19 lockdowns took into effect. It’s honestly been quite boring, and depressing, not being able to go anywhere. It makes me appreciate people more, even people whom i don’t even know. I miss the crowds on subways and buses. I miss sitting down and eating at a restaurant. I miss going to the movies. I miss it all.
Tag: people
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Birthdays and Anniversaries
Birthdays are supposed to be times of great happiness. They are occasions on which we celebrate another year of being alive. They’re joyous occasions, and can make feel very special. However, on the same day that someone is celebrating life, another person is mourning life lost. Most tragedies that happen in our lives won’t become national or even international news. They’ll only be remembered by a select few. Occasionally, tragedies make their way into the national and international headlines, and remain engrained in our hearts and minds for a long time. Sometimes, those impactful tragedies have occurred on our own birthdays. One example is the Tenerife disaster. It was one of the worst airplane disaster in history. Coincidentally, the anniversary of it is the same day as my birthday. What a weird coincidence. Knowing this makes my birthday feel very strange. I’m celebrating life on my birthday, while somewhere in the world, there are people out there who are mourning the lives lost on that tragic day. It is a strange feeling to feel, and it really puts life, and death, into perspective. We all are born into this world, and we will all one day leave this world, as well. It may happen when we’re young, when we’re old, or when we’re somewhere in the middle. It can happen any time, and on any day, even on our own birthdays. It is crazy to think about, but we have to remain positive and hope that nothing bad happens to us.
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Birthday
So today is my birthday. Does not feel like much of a birthday today, though. With the whole coronavirus pandemic going on in the world, I have not been in much of a celebratory mood.
It really sucks, for I was looking forward to my birthday for a while. Back in January, before things got as bad as they did with coronavirus, I was looking forward to hanging out with friends on my birthday. I wanted to grab a bite to eat with them. I was thinking about trying “Beyond Sushi” in the city with them. It was a vegan sushi restaurant, and I wanted to try something new and different. I was also thinking about going to Gamestop to buy a new game, or possibly going to a book store to get some books for myself. There was so much I was thinking about doing for my birthday both with friends and for myself.
Things did not turn out that way, however. Currently, the world is dealing with a pandemic, and in the US, the cases are skyrocketing. It’s pretty serious. It is really depressing, too. It is really depressing to hear about all of this shit going on. I want things to get better. I hope they get better. I know at some point, this virus will subside, but what will be the result? Who even knows?
All I do know is that I will try to make the best of the situation. I still have books. I still have music. I still have movies. I still have YouTube. I still have the Internet. I still have family. I still have friends. I still have my health. I will try to keep in touch with my friends and family for as long as I can, and I will try to stay as healthy as I can for as long as I can. I hope I don’t wind up getting sick. I do not want to get sick, and I do not want to get other people sick. Nobody knows what will happen days, weeks, or months from now, but what is for certain is that we have to try to remain positive, take precautions, social distance as much as possible, and if we are still working, hold onto our jobs for as long as possible. We have to take things one day at a time and see what happens.
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A Day With A Smartphone
Called a cab. Missed it.
That’s okay.
Just use the Uber app.
Tell it where you’re going, and pay right away.
Five minutes later, the cab’s outside.
Get inside, and you’re on your way.
Get dropped off at McDonald’s. Meet with your friends.
Go to the counter, and pick up your order.
Show the cashier your phone screen and the purchase you made on the McD’s app.
Two minutes later, your food’s in your hand.
How very convenient.
Sit down with your friends and chat about whatever.
Show them the latest Marvel movie trailer by searching it up on the YouTube.
Just then, you get a Twitter notification about whatever it was a celebrity had said.
You then get an update from the NY Times app about a recent speech The President has made.
Later on in the day, you’re ready to go home. You use Google Maps to find out where you are
And where the nearest train or bus stops are.
Once you find them, you decide to walk there, so that way you can enjoy a breath of fresh air.
You soon get to the train station, and you use the local train app to pay.
The gate is now open, and you can go through, so you do.
On the train, you debate what you want for dinner.
Since it will be a long way until you get home, you decide to order from GrubHub.
You schedule it to be delivered in an hour and a half, since the train ride takes an hour.
Once that’s out of the way, you decide to relax for the rest of the way.
You download some tunes from Spotify and enjoy the rest of your ride.
Once you’re home, your food is outside. You take it inside, eat it, and go to sleep for the night.
You set the alarm on your phone to wake you up in the morning.
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Death
Death is a part of life.
It causes us great strife.
It takes away our loved ones
And leaves us all alone.
It affects us all differently,
For we have different ways that we grieve,
But I know that I personally believe
That death is the end; the end of everything.
Once someone’s gone, they’re gone for good.
Maybe there’s a God and an afterlife. Who knows?
All I do know is that I will always try
To bring happiness and joy to the people in my life.
I will try to make the world great in the best way that I can
By using the gifts and talents that make me who I am.
I may not be perfect; not in the slightest
But I strive to be a light; a light that shines brightest
When I’m surrounded by those who are caring and supportive.
I don’t like to see people in pain,
Either physically or emotionally.
Their pain is something that I want to take away,
But I know I can’t do that,
For I’m not superhuman.
I’m only a man; a man with a plan;
A plan to see this world be the best world that it can.
How it will be done, I honestly don’t know.
What I do know is that I’ll be a light that glows.
I care about people; always have and always will.
That’ll never change; at least, I don’t think it will.
I strive to be better; to be different.
I want to learn from my own failures, shortcomings, and mistakes.
I want to be someone that people would want to meet.
I want to be someone that people could appreciate.
Even though I don’t expect anything in return,
I will do anything I can to bring joy to this world,
So that if I die tomorrow, I’ll be proud of all I’ve done.
I don’t know what will happen to me when I die.
All I know is, I’m going to appreciate life and just take things one day at a time.
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The Dome
Background
I initially wrote this poem in hopes to possibly have it included in a book about climate relocation. It unfortunately wasn’t accepted, so I’m sharing it on here!
Before I get to the poem itself, let me tell you about the background of what inspired and led me to write the poem in the first place, for the story is a pretty interesting one. It all started about a month ago. I wss browsing YouTube and decided to watch a video from YouTube user DarkDocs titled “Is America’s Own Chernobyl Sitting In The Middle of the Ocean.”
In the video, he describes the history of the Runit Dome and the effects it could have on the environment today.
After the video was over, I watched in the suggestions tab titled “This Concrete Dome Holds A Leaking Toxic Timebomb | Foriegn Correspondent.”
It was a video by ABC News In-depth. In the video, it talks about the history of the Runit Dome and how it is affecting the Marshallese people presently. One of the people who was mentioned in the video was Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, a poet from the Marshall Islands. In 2014, she had read a poem for her daughter in front of the UN for the Climate Summit. I thought her poem was very inspiring, so I wanted to follow her on social media to check out more of her work. I followed her on Facebook and Twitter. On her Twitter, I saw that she had shared an advertisement for a book that two climate scientists were working on getting published. The book would be a collection of works ranging from scientific articles to poems. I decided to submit a poem. I had sent a short excerpt of it to them. They said they liked it and that I should hear back a month later if my poem will be accepted or not. Fast forward to today, and I found out my poem was not accepted. However, they said they enjoyed the excerpt that I had sent to them, and that there were a lot of submissions to choose from. I wish the both of them good luck in getting the book published, and without further ado, here is the full poem that I had wrote!
The Poem
Bikini Atoll;
They were told
The US were protectors
Of hope
And of freedom.
Instead, they were relo-
-cated from their homes
While their atolls
Were bombarded with radiation,
Which had took a toll
On them and their souls,
And the remains of it all
Were buried underneath a dome
That is called “The Tomb.”
How ironic it’s name is, so,
Because the Runit Dome
Has the potential
To become their own tombs.
With sea level rising,
It’s becoming a crisis
That if the radiation finds its
Way out, it could
Completely poison
The entire Earth’s oceans,
And this is because of the
Changing Earth’s climate!
Is there any hope for us to survive this
Disastrous threat that could possibly annihilate us?
I’d say there is, but we need to realize this:
For us to survive it,
We all need to rise up and
Take a stand for what’s right, which
Is saving the entire planet
From total destruction.
It may sound bleak; it may sound alarmist,
But I believe we all can grow and thrive despite this!
That is why I, a mere man who writes this,
An artist with a creative mind that is
Concerned about the state of the world and this climactic climate crisis,
Had decided to sit down and take the time to write this.
I wrote this poem
Because I care about my home.
I care about the loved ones that I call my own.
I wrote this for my friends; my family, too!
I wrote this for their friends, and their families, too!
I wrote this for everyone; everyone that’s in the room;
The room that is so big and so round and so blue;
The room that has oceans that spans millions of miles;
The room that has a diversity of creatures both on land and in the sea;
The room that has been around for billions of years;
The room that houses a species that has accomplished many great feats, but has also caused a myriad of tragedies that led countless people to defeat;
The room that I’m proud to call planet Earth.
I was not asked to be born on this Earth,
But it is my place; the place of my birth.
It sorta just happened; one day I was conceived.
I grew to a fetus, then a baby, and then eventually an adult human being.
It was a slow process; just like humanity’s growth on this Earth for thousands of years.
We started out in caves, and eventually made great things.
Along the way, we also had created
Devastating weapons that can harm us and hurt us in many ways.
The same goes with climate change; it’s mostly man-made.
It is a mess that we ourselves had made.
The consequences are dire; the Earth is on fire.
But if we take a stand now, I believe we’ll survive this!
The Earth is our home; it is our dome.
It is the one thing that should come above all!
Just as the dome
Located in the Enewetak Atoll
Has the potential
To destroy us all,
We too have the potential;
The potential to be saviors
For not just the here and now,
But for future generations.
That is why I had wrote this poem.
So if you see this message, please heed the urgency
To do something about this climactic climate emergency
That could lead to insurgency
Of disastrous natural convergency
That could inadvertently lead
To extreme diathermancy
And create great divergency.
We must fight this looming threat, and we must do so with great fervency,
For it is this Earth that we love with great ardency!
We must stand up and fight, and must do so without errancy.
We must not treat this threat as a mere nonemergency.
We must respect this planet with great amounts of conservancy,
And clean up this world with great levels of detergency.
This our home; the home that we were grown.
This Earth is our dome, and this is its poem!
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Dearkitty’s “Real Neat Blog” Award
I would like to take the time to thank WordPress user Dearkitty1 https://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/ for nominating me for her “Real Neat Blog” Award. It really means a lot to me. When I created this blog a few months ago, I did not expect it to get to where it is today. I know that number-wise, my blog is small. However, 25 followers is a lot to me. I thank each and every one of my followers, and whoever else reads and likes my posts and blog. Your support means a lot to me. I’ve always loved writing ever since I was young. Now, after creating my blog, I have a chance to share with the world my thoughts and ideas. Thanks again for all of the support!
I will now answer the 7 questions for Dearkitty1’s “Real Neat Blog” Award. Here they are in case any of you who are reading want to know what the questions are.
1. Where do most visits to your blog come from? My poetry. My poems seem to do the best on my blog.
2. What is your favourite sport? I don’t really have one, since I don’t really watch sports or play sports. However, if I had to pick one physical activity, I guess I would go with biking.
3. What has been a special moment for you so far in 2020? Honestly, getting nominated for this award was very special to me in 2020, so far.
4. What is your favourite quote? “We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” – Isaac Newton
5. What was your favourite class when still at school? Hard to say what my “favorite” was. My top 3, however, and this is in no particular order, were biology, English, and history.
6. Anything you had wished to have learned earlier? Spanish. I was I had learned Spanish when I was growing up. If I had, I’d probably be more fluent in it than I am right now.
7. What musical instrument have you tried to play? Piano when I was younger. Currently, I’m learning to play the saxophone. I also played the drums once in music class back in high school. I also know how to drum on tabletops and objects. I can sustain a catchy and rhythmic beat while playing.
Now for the nomination part.
Honestly, I have not really given much thought about who my favorite bloggers are on here. To be quite honest, I don’t really come on here that often, except when I write. I haven’t really read many blogs and blog posts on here. I want to change that, however. I hope to read more blogs and blog posts on WordPress as time goes on, and at some point in the future, when I feel ready to, I’ll nominate some of my favorite bloggers for the “Real Neat Blog” Award. I hope to nominate at least 10 people.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this post, and if you want, feel free to check out Dearkitty1’s blog for more content, and feel free to check out my blog, too! Take care, everyone!
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Bridges and Walls
If you raise up a bridge, you build a wall.
If you tear down a wall, you create a bridge.
Why should we should we exclude some instead of include all?
Why should we divide ourselves and act cold like the fridge?
It is time we stop looking at each other like we’re not “the others”
And start realizing that we should start to love one another.
We’re all humans.
We are one family.
We’ve lived on this planet for many generations.
Sure, our ancestors may have caused much division;
Division that exists to this very day.
However, there is one vision; one vision I envision,
And that vision is an end to all division.
I believe it’s possible. It’s very feasible.
The first step to make it achievable is to simply care for other people.
That’s all you need to do to start bringing a positive impact to the world.
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What A Weird Start To 2020
So, this year has been quite the interesting year so far, and we’re only 8 days into it! Recently, there were some tensions between the US and Iran (which could still possibly continue well into the future) that had the potential to cause World War III! Admittedly, I was scared; really scared. I was so scared that I thought I was going to die. I thought that my friends and family were going to die. I thought that innocent people who had nothing to do with the tensions between the two nations were going to die. I was scared for a lot of people. It felt as though the weight of the world was on my shoulders! Usually, I am an optimistic individual, but when it comes to the possibility of imminent death, the possibility of losing everyone I know and love, I begin to break down. I was so scared these past few days for the people of the world that I had insomnia, stomach cramps, increased heart rate, and increased breathing rate! It was bad! I thought I was going to have a panic attack due to how much stress I was feeling!
I had originally made plans to not use social media for the entirety of January, but after hearing about the possibility of an all-out war, I felt I needed to say something! I felt as though my life, the lives of people I care about, and the lives of countless individuals, were on the line! I felt as though it was my duty, my obligation, to speak out against the prospect of going to war with Iran. The last things I had wanted were for me to get drafted and for my loved ones, along with innocent people, to perish in a conflict between two (or possibly more) nations! I was not going to let that shit happen! I was going to use my writing skills to call out the injustices of war! Even if only a few people had read what I wrote, it did not matter to me, because I had felt I was contributing to a greater cause, even if it was to a minute degree! I felt I was a part of a collective, and that I was fighting for something grand; something that was bigger than any one of us by ourselves, and that required our collective effort to combat! In some ways, I felt somewhat heroic. Even though all I did was make comments and share posts on social media, I felt that my actions were having an impact! In some ways, it felt exhilarating! At the same time, though, it was also scary. It was scary because I feared losing the people who I care about most in my life.
For a lot of people (at least in America, anyways), when they lose someone, they usually have a comfort. They have religion. They have an afterlife to look forward to, and they have their deity/deities and loved ones looking down on them; at least, that’s what they believe! For me, though, not so much. For me, as an atheist, I don’t have the luxury to believe any of that! I don’t have an afterlife to look forward to. I don’t have deities and loved ones looking down on me. All I have to ultimately look forward to is my death, and the death of my loved ones! Once we’re gone, that’s it! We’re done! No more! The end! Lights out! Finito! From my perspective as an atheist, once a person is gone, they’re gone! There’s no coming back. Their consciousness ceases. Their body stops working. They stop existing! To a lot of people, that’s depressing, but to me, that’s just reality. Our world is full of unfairness and cruelty, and that’s just a part of life. It is depressing, but that is just the way things are. In this universe, we are nothing. We are just a blip on a spec on a dot within a sea of chaos and uncertainty! The universe is a chaotic place, and it does not care what happens to any of us. At any moment of any day, it could conceive life just as easily as it can take life away. Nothing lasts forever in this universe. No person lasts forever. One moment we’re here, and the next moment we’re gone! We don’t know when our time is going to be, but when it’s our time, it’s our time, and there is no going back! For some people, such a concept may be hard to accept, but for me, I, for the most part, have accepted it. I have accepted that once I’m gone, I’m never coming back. Sure, I may not know 100% whether there is or isn’t an afterlife, but to me, I’ve seen no evidence. All I see is what we have now. All I see is the world around us, and the people living in this world. Beyond that, I’m clueless, but I am not going to worry about what is or isn’t out there after we die, because to me, we won’t know the answer until after that happens, so why worry about it? Why worry about the possibility of an afterlife existing when you don’t know for sure, and can’t prove it either way? To me, there’s a lot more pertinent things to worry about, like trying to make the world a better place for people to live in! Even though I may not believe in a God, I do believe that it is our responsibility to make the world a better place. We’re here on this Earth, and we’re the ones who make the decisions in this world, so we decide whether or not we want this world to be a world worth living for!
I may not ever go back to being religious, because to me, I’ve become too skeptical of it. I’ve become skeptical of a lot of things, for that matter! To me, in a world full of liars, cheaters, and manipulators, it is hard to believe anything, or anyone, in this world! It is hard to find people who are honest, people who are caring, people who are kind, people who are loyal, people who are trustworthy, people who are compassionate, people who are loving, people who are empathetic, and people who are selfless, but when I do, I hold onto them. I hold onto them, and cherish every waking moment that I have with them, because one day, they will be gone! Thus, I try to appreciate the people who are in my life, and I try to live my life to the fullest, and live it as though each day were my last!
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Life and Death
This whole thing with the US and Iran
Has really got me thinking, man!
It’s got me thinking all about death,
And how it will one day be the inevitable end!
We may not know how we’ll die.
We won’t know when, where, by what, by who, nor why!
All we do know is that one day, it will be our time!
I know that I don’t want to die,
For I still want to experience life!
There’s still places I want to see,
And people that I want to meet.
I want to try new foods to eat,
And fall in love with the right one for me!
I want to try interesting things,
And expand the knowledge in my brain.
I don’t know what’s beyond the grave,
Nor do I know how long I’ll stay!
One thing I do know, I can certainly say,
Is I’ll live each day like it was my last day,
And I will do so with a smile on my face!