My Letter to Toms Shoes

Dear TOMS:

I would like to do those kids a favour, the ones without shoes. The world is a cruel place, and I am saving the children from the suffering that will continue if you give them shoes. It would be much more to their benefit if they should contract some sort of fatal infection via a cut or scratch in the foot. Only then can a child truly move on to the paradise of the neo-life.

Thank you for helping me save the souls of countless children. However, should you not follow my instructions, I will start my own shoe company called KENS. We will be your rival company, and our policy will be similar to yours, but in an opposite fashion. For every pair of shoes we sell, we will steal a pair from a young child in a third world country, thus saving them. It would be in your best interests to just follow my orders if you're all so "philanthropic".

In all seriousness though, I noticed right on your very own website that your shoes are manufactured in third-world nations already, such as Argentina, China, and Ethiopia. I happen to know that in these nations child labour laws are minimal or absent completely. Therefore, I accuse you, TOMS Shoes, of being hypocrites. Sure, you're providing shoes to children (which most people thing is benevolent), but they don't realize that you're forcing the kids to make the shoes which they just might wear.

Don't get me wrong, I think the concept is neat and your shoes all look really cool. But don't put up a philanthropic front if you're just going to have kids working in factories to make them anyway. Just be a normal shoe company like Nike or Adidas or Phat Farm. Ok, don't be like Phat Farm, nobody wears those anymore.

Having said all this, I plan on purchasing a pair of your shoes in the near future. However, I don't want you, under any circumstances, to give a child a pair of shoes with my order. I will not contribute to your hypocrisy and it ends here. I've already told all my friends about this, and it would be a shame if you lost any more customers because of this.

Hoping you heed my advice,
Kenny (aka Child Saviour)

Ten seconds

Drive ten seconds with your eyes closed

Let the car drift as it will
Don’t peek, don’t touch the wheel


Doesn’t it feel good?

Knowing for these ten seconds
You have no control?


Things will happen as they will,
You’ll probably live
But the chance there lies
Whatever you do,

Don’t open your eyes.

Instantaneous Existence

As any decent science student knows, there is a delay (though negligible) between the neurons firing across the synaptic gap and processing the information of said firing. Now consider the speed of light and the speed of sound. When one combines the miniscule neurological delays with the time it takes for the light rays to travel to the eyes or sound to the ears, the delay is perhaps doubled, though still microscopic.

I have reached a conclusion after toying with the concept of these delays: it is impossible for anyone or any living thing to exist instantly. Regardless of how quick someone's synapses are or how fast the speed of light is, it can never all occur at once. In other words, nobody has ever, is, or will ever live precisely in the moment of an event.

Think about it. When you look at a tree, you're not seeing it as it is now. You're seeing it as it was 0.000000000000000001 seconds ago. Though this is close to the moment you see it, it's not the instant you see it. You are never hearing a song at the part that it is currently at, you are hearing the part it was at 0.0000001 seconds ago.

With this conclusion, I would be willing to agree with Descartes in his assertion of mind-body dualism. When a man (or woman) thinks about what he will do in the next instant, he is taking into account all the aspects of his condition at the time he is experiencing. If he is not perceiving the instant he is actually in, then he cannot trust his senses to prove his existence in a moment. If he cannot trust his senses but he is still a thinking thing, then his mind is independent of his body.

This is not to say that you should not trust your senses from day to day; after all, they are all we have in the physical realm. However, be cautious. Xbox Live isn't the only thing that can lag...

Purpose?

Although it has no doubt been questioned before, I would like to ask it once more: What is the purpose of life?

As everyone says, money can't buy everything and I won't for a second entertain such a notion. However, the money fueling such materialistic pretenses can allegedly not buy happiness, but is this to say that happiness is our purpose?

For instance, I can purchase an Xbox 360 and thoroughly enjoy myself and have times of great fun. However, once I progress from my Xbox stage and have had my fun, what comes next? In this sense, happiness is like a drug. As it has been described by drug addicts, the purpose for continuing to use a drug is to chase the first high or to continue smoking is to feel the sense of relieved stress that they felt the first time they smoked. If this is the case with happiness, then happiness can't be that good of a thing.

I have many a-time pondered upon this topic considering perhaps the purpose may be companionship. However, such a source of pleasure is not stable enough to be our sole purpose of "existence" (if we exist, that is). Our friends and family can provide times of joy, as well as distress, so at the troughs of these waves of emotion, the fickleness of friendship is questionable.

So if happiness - comparable to a drug - and friendship - unstable as can be - are not our reasons for living, what is the reason?

The Sword

I've just set sail,
My sword in hand.
Land ho! is called
Before I planned.

I feel that I've
Been here before.
This place is not
A foreign shore.
Familiar yes,
But I want more.

Legend holds
There is a beach,
Always in sight,
Just out of reach.
How to get there,
You cannot teach.

Inhabitants
Are native, so
How to find it
They do not know.

A man stands there.
Drop your sword! he shouts.
Can I trust him?
I have my doubts.
Why?, I call.
You'll soon find out.

I toss the sword
Into the sea.
The man, he grins.
I gasp with glee.
The shore draws nearer
Towards me.

Is this not
The land you seek?
I nodded yes;
I could not speak.
My future here
Would not be bleak.

Never again pick up a blade
If you enjoy this peace we've made.