We have been edified through the media to worship the wrong things. Prime time news and The Walstreet Journal have given us all the same basic hardwiring. We follow things in the name of vanity and greed and brand new shiny red cars; and none of these things are important.

            Self-Improvement has slowly been turned into self-worship. Is there even such a thing as ambition anymore? All this bizarre acceptance in the form of words like Fate and Destiny makes me cringe. It is not the effect that matters, its the cause. That is all that is important. Its not about the bodies, or the blood splattered on the dining room table, or the crimson soaked glove; or even the serial killer himself Its the reason a man would commit these acts that matters. The kind of emotions that would take an average individual and make them become something far more monstrous and atrocious than ever intended...It makes me curious. What would it take for a metamorphosis of that caliber?

            Philosopher John Locke's theory of "Tabula Rosa" states that every individual is born as clean slate, ready to be imposed with the impressionable and filled like a sheet of paper. Using this rationality, we, as a species, are very close to being a machine of sorts. We are born, imputed with a variety of programming, trained, tested, and finally released. Our circuits are thoughts and rationality that carry and conduct us from one situation to the next. And, as a machine will often do, we make critical errors when we are over-stressed, over-worked, under-cared for, or (as in the case of the crazed man killing his cheating wife and her lover) programmed wrong. When the incorrect data is entered, or even when  correct data is entered incorrectly, bulbs explode, circuits malfunction, wires burn up and the whole, glorious program known as the human mind completely changes.

            Among many other things, we are raised and programmed with predetermined views of right and wrong. We raise our little girls and little boys to be wary of strangers and people they dont know, and to trust doctors and nurses and policemen or anyone else in a damned uniform of any kind. Things are not this convenient, this fool proof. Strangers are human beings, just as people that wear the lab coats and the badges are. The only difference between right and wrong is position and opinion, and opinion is nothing but speculation...so does that means that there is no such thing as fact...only educated guesses?

            A six foot hole in the ground is just that: a hole in the ground. Then go and add something as simple as a corpse in a pine box, and it is now called a grave. One mans' freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. Over here in the conceited, invincible U.S.A, we call people like Osama Bin Laden and The Taliban bad people, yet they say the same thing about our endless air raids and marines. And what, exactly, makes our opinion count more than theirs? Is it because we have more rights then them? Is it because we live in a democracy? Power does not routinely give way to correctness.

            So then, this is more than just perception were getting into here, its Purpose. The man that kills his deceitful wife may often not only perceive his actions as "Just" and "Right", but is also filled with a sense of purpose. Do you see?

            What's the differentiation between the emotions a Navy SEAL experiences as he creeps through the underbrush, dispatching the "bad" guys silently and stealthily; and the man that sits behind the controls of a hijacked 747 passenger plane? The answer: There is none. It is that same feeling of purpose, the same exact one the man that avenges his broken heart, and the terrorist, and the SEAL.

            We are all running on the fumes of TERMINAL BOREDOM. We lack a great cause, a purpose of any sort to call our own. Theres just nothing to do. Our "Needs" and "Wants" don't extend far enough, stopping just short of ignorance. Each and every one of us is, in our own private way, mentally and emotionally atrophied. Life for most is a great groove on the plane of existence; the only apparent options are often only a choice between rushing headlong and screaming down the pre-etched path, or simply stopping in your tracks completely.

                                        This is not acceptable.

            The only answer to this problem, this Terminal Boredom, this great emotional and mental plague on our daily lives is very simple: Sheer Curiosity. It is curiosity that sparks something bigger, something that opens the gateway out of the groove and into a new, unimaginable existence.

            We cannot allow opinions, laws, morals, perceptions, or anything else even closely resembling another mans vague conclusions about life change us. "To think for yourself, you must question authority", even when the authority in question is yourself. The meaning of life is Happiness. Do not let anything stand in your way.