Welcome

Welcome, readers, to my humble blog.

This blog was created mostly on a whim today, but I felt that it was something which needed to be done. After speaking with some people today about various things: love, sex, boyfriends, religion, friendships, etc. I walked home with a mind full of, well, thoughts.

It seems that I always wish to know the answers. To everything. I've been that way as long as I can remember... maybe I started drawing from the time I was about two because I sought permanent things on paper. Just like my profile mentions, I like having things in one place to solidify them. Whether this makes them more accurate, that's up to you to decide.

While in conversation, the two people I was speaking with eventually started a discourse about love. I recently was broken up with by my first true boyfriend, and to be honest, I didn't lament this fact as I thought I would. We're still excellent friends. Perhaps it is better this way.

Perhaps it isn't, though. A friend then interjected her thoughts on love, and why, perhaps, I wasn't in it. She told me that God is love, and that without Jesus I wouldn't be able to find it.

God isn't love. Empirical evidence is love.

In fact, empirical evidence is not love, but is the only thing we can trust. I cannot trust something that doesn't exist. Why would I base all my decisions on something, or someone, who has never been present in my life, or physically present in anyone else's? While I acknowledge that there is more to the body than its physicality, spirit and thought exist on a level wholly separate from corpulent flesh. Is Jesus going to spring out of his chaise lounge in Heaven to personally help me out in my quest for romance? No.

When sitting at the chest press machine in the campus recreation center last night, I kept telling myself that the only person I can trust is myself. Friends and family can only aid me with so much. Praying for Jesus to do it for me isn't exactly going to work either. He isn't going to whip my ass into shape. I am. Ego. Me.

How can people trust so much in pure speculation without questioning it? Imagination is a key factor in my sanity, but I understand that my imaginary manifestations are things proven NOT to be real. They dwell only in my mind. Why believe (and by "believe" I mean "treat as if real" or "validate") in something that has a very, very slim chance of existing in our physical world? Faith is blind, I suppose.

Thus, at that comment about God, my lower lip dropped, and I wasn't sure how to respond right away. I actually got a bit angry, fiery. As a friend, I appreciated the advice. As a human being, I felt sorry for her. (Even if you're reading this post, friend, I don't apologize for anything: you know I'm open for debate any time you want to call me. This for whatever reason upset me.)

Freeing myself from the chains of religion has been one of the most interesting decisions - or rather, realizations - in the past year of my life. I try to approach things with a level head and an open mind, but reading, learning, and looking have changed my mind. I'm sick of how it is taboo to be anti-religious. Being anti-religious is, I guess, a "belief," too, though I would consider it more a "position from evidence." My appetite for knowledge - what we can see in front of us and what it means to us as human beings - is insatiable.

Hence, the name of this blog itself. voracitas cognitioni: "a voracity for acquiring knowledge." (For lack of a better colloquialism, God help me if this is wrong.)

I'm an avid lover of the Latin language. Of course, you could interpret my cupidity for a dead language futile or cliche, if you really want. There are a few things I find so fascinating about the language.

I simply love that Latin is so condensed. It is succinct. It says much with very little (this makes it confusing when you're studying its grammar, that's for sure, but I'm okay with that). What might take ten words in English, Latin can express in five or six:

The small girl walked through the door at that time.
Femina parva per ianuam eo tempore ambulavit.

Damn, English is convoluted. Anyway, to continue.

It also reflects a time in history when people savored intellect, as I am trying to do now as a college student. Ancient Roman society (and I suppose Greek, too, but I'm not as well-read on Greece) placed an emphasis on the human as a whole. It emphasized the mind and body. Though Roman mythology was just as its name is, pure mythology, it still shows that classical society was thinking analytically (most classical myths were etiological). Philosophers were active along with religious theorists.

Roman society emphasized the body, too, through gladiatorial games and military prowess. One might argue that this base, carnal violence was a detriment to the society, making its people ever the more bestial and lowbrow, but I personally think it developed a betterment of the body (at least to those fighting).

Ever heard of the poet Juvenal's maxim, mens sana in corpore sano? "A sound mind in a sound body." The Roman empire epitomized power, or more so, ability, in all aspects of the word.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that I'm striving to achieve zeniths in both of these areas of physicality, both mind and body. (Unfortunately genetics has given me a slight advantage in only one of these areas...) My goals for this year have been varied. I am trying to be healthier physically and to learn as much as I can. It is pleasurable for me to learn and understand that which I as a human should and do know. Being really is living.

Too often I find that our society throws away the ability to strengthen both mind AND body, or both altogether. I don't like where our society is heading. I don't like that we treat bodies as toys, that we take for granted the amazing biology behind it. In no way am I "healthy," but I give a shit most of the time. Seems like so many people have corrupted what it means to be human, to not throw away your body for the hedonistic pleasure of a good fuck or the temporary high of drugs. We have become addicted to everything vile. It brings us closer to animals. We are a higher species because we command the ability to reason, and to then turn that cognitive thinking into means of bettering ourselves.

On that note, take a gander at the motto of my school, Ohio University, founded in 1804.

Religio Doctrina Civilitas; Prae Omnibus Virtus
Religion, Learning, (and) Civility; Above all, virtue.

I disagree with the first part, quite obviously, but the rest is well-founded in my opinion. Maybe I'm at the wrong school. Many of my Athenian counterparts will be drinking their cares away and abusing their bodies (as well as others', I'm sure) tonight at MillFest, one of the spring's biggest alcohol-laden bashes, only helping to contribute to the "party school" image OU already possesses. And me? I'm sitting here typing a blog. That doesn't make me better than them. I just wonder still why they enjoy slowly killing themselves so much, when every single person in attendance has the potential to do great things.

Finally to conclude, this blog is pretty much going to serve as a means for venting, sharing information, musing, analyzing, or whatever else comes to mind.

Thanks for reading!