I recently saw Waking Life, a very interesting and visually stunning film about dreams, consciousness, and existence. The entire movie utilizes the rotoscope technique, rendering every scene as an expressionistic and sometimes surreal animation. A young man named Wiley Wiggins, a dreamer, is visited by an eclectic collection of individuals who challenge the dominant paradigm of reality. Through monologues on philosophy, physics, politics, and humanity, the speakers express a common thesis - that our waking life is no more real than a dream that we are sharing.

Whenever I try to analyze a situation or a perception, I inevitably return to my initial assumptions and question why things are considered right or wrong, or how subject and object are differentiated. After consideration, it becomes apparent that all qualifications and symbologies are relative; we ascribe meaning independently, and it is impossible to correlate two experiences. For example, the color I call "green" has a certain effect on me: after photons vibrating in that particular range of frequencies excite sensors in my eyes, specific neurons in my retinas fire the "

this is my prayer to live simply to not seek that which i do not need to recognize god in every face i see and to always be the change i wish to see in the world sunshine

I don’t think God exists. There is no personality floating out there in space, dictating morality or watching over us. Sorry. There’s just no evidence for it. I wouldn’t even want a God if there was a possibility. I mean, doesn’t it creep you out that there are people who think that their every little action is observed by some old guy in a robe? Sounds like a bunch of exhibitionists to me.

I delivered the following speech at my high school graduation.

We tend to view the future as if the end of the world were just around the corner. Our perception of the passage of time is that the world has been moving faster and faster, and now it is accelerating at a frenetic pace. The state of technology is rapidly advancing, yet there never seems to be enough time to enjoy life. Lately, the media has been saturated with images of natural disasters, unspeakable crimes, and unusual occurrences: tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, floods, fires, earthquakes, comets, plane crashes, train wrecks, environmental destruction, terrorism, domestic violence, murder, rape, mass suicide, starvation, war crimes, religious persecution, nuclear threats, widespread mutation, human cloning, government conspiracies, and alien contact - it seems as if the End is near. However, disaster is a normal consequence of existing on Earth. For thousands of years people have felt the same sense of impending doom that we feel now. The world is not ending any time soon, so go ahead and make reservations for the Millennium celebration.