The world we live in, and 'sprituality'... hey SPIRITUALITY!

I am very passionate about this. I am probably way too passionate about this.

There is one thing I believe very strongly in, yet rarely reveal to the elders in my family for fear of sounding inappropriate or 'out of order' or rude - it is this - very bluntly, knowledge is, for me, more useful, necessary and urgent than 'spirituality'. First, spirituality is not reading books by 'spiritual gurus' and trying to live up to their instructions; that is simply being a student. 'Sri Sri' may be a great man, but I promise you he is not repeating someone else's teachings to you. I'm sure he knows what's up, because he's experienced it. He won't tell you, but to be a great man or woman, you need to have made mistakes yourself, you need to experience this shit yourself.
I haven't myself, obviously, but I wish to, and till I do, I won't take anyone's word for it.

I do not presume to know what spirituality is. My personal idea of it is to be at peace with yourself, at peace with everyone around you, at peace and in place with the world, yet that is and will always be own personal, and perhaps stupid opinion.

I gave my parents both, two unbelievably good books - 'Cosmos' and 'Pale Blue Dot', both by Carl Sagan. I ask them about these books everyday, they rarely seem to have read them any further. I feel sad about this.

I am also linking an article for both of them, and for the rest of the people who read this blog, so that you can read it in your free time at work or otherwise during the day.
Here it is - http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
(Thanks to Alam for that one!)

Now I will rant like usual -

While it's true that, thanks to my parents, I have always had access to the best of the world that has been available, books and the internet, I also realize that generations before mine might not have had it available freely in their years.

I look at people in my own generation who have had access to the same information as I have and see that they do nothing with it and stay ignorant, I feel bad.

When sometimes, in my blog I have said that there is just too much beauty in this world to comprehend, I am not lying. There is. It's depressing that however much I will try, I will not get to it all myself. I will try my hardest but, shit.

For someone as untrained in these things as I am or most of my friends are, there are tons of books to read about the world, the universe and about things that have been and that probably will be. Like the ones I mentioned above that I gave to my parents, there are others - 'A Brief History of Time', 'The Elegant Universe', 'The Selfish Gene', 'The Origin of Species', 'A Short history of almost Everything', oh my god and so many more. Then for the lazy, there are audiobooks, or there are documentaries.

The most common response to when I say something like this, is 'So what? I'm having fun. Life is more than science,'
To them I say, somewhere down the line, when you're old you will feel the need to 'praise god', and 'be thankful' or 'seek forgiveness'. I implore you, before that happens, arm yourself with the knowledge to be precise about what you're 'praising god' for. or 'being thankful' for.

I've been called young and immature when I've expressed these thoughts to older people close to me. Well now, I've grown, and now I call them old and uninformed.

Blink, and realize.

You are an animal. Millions and millions of stupid animals died in order for your ancestors to survive and for you to be born.

You are capable of observing and comprehending unbelievable insights about you and your place in the universe. You are the first of the generations that will have all the knowledge of the world at your fingertips, literally, simply keystrokes away, and only tens of years ago, people would have dreamed of such a situation.
If you are unwilling to pay monetary compensation for such knowledge, you are perhaps the only generation who will be able to get away with stealing this information off the internet without consequences.

You... We... we are special. This is a special time in the world.

There is so much to learn.

Wake up.