Don't follow me, I'm lost too.

What are we?

Hmm. That question needs explaining, doesn't it?

Alright. It doesn't mean 'What species are we?'. That is quite easily answered, since there is already some sort of guideline on how to distinguish and classify species("Question 42. Do you have some sort of backbone? Then you are probably a chordate, unless you happen to be a statue of the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex. Proceed to question 771." That sort of thing.). The question addresses an issue far deeper and general and universal than that. Presumably. Let's try to continue for the moment. I'll start from the thing that got me thinking about this.

Clive Staples Lewis, of Narnia fame, wrote in the book The Problem of Pain these words: "They wanted to be nouns, but they were, and eternally must be, mere adjectives." He was referring to Man's rebellion against God; that when Adam and Eve took and subsequently ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they did so in attempt to secede from God and to assert their independence as entities. According to Mr. Lewis, that was the sin. We, as creatures, are adjectives that describe God; or perhaps, if I'm allowed my own opinion, also adverbs that describe God's works. Pantheists and panentheists will perhaps agree to a certain degree. It also fits the part 'God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him' from Genesis 1:27. Perhaps this could partially explain the period in human history when we were all very religious (or superstitious): we are only extensions of a being or beings, thus we might as well do as they wish.

That sort of thinking apparently lost popularity (if it ever had any) some time ago. As Mr. Lewis said, the transition happened from adjectives to nouns. We start to describe the world, and ourselves, as nouns. One evidence has already been given: the classification system, as pointed above. It seems that for some period of time, we - perhaps better defined as early scientists and philosophers - were concerned mainly about what things are, and how are they to be classified. As another example, let's look at the four classical elements: water, earth, fire, air. Some people seem to have thought that all things are created from these four elements. Sure, now we have over 100 elements, but the idea is still basically the same; the focus is essence, of what things are made. This sort of thinking might have lead to alchemy, with the hope that everything has a common substance, and they only need a few modifications. Even now, we can think of every word as nouns. 'Verb' is a noun, correct?

What if 'verb' were a verb? I first read this in a Calvin and Hobbes strip, where Calvin said that he liked to verb words. 'To verb' here means to take a noun or an adjective and then use it as a verb. An example, given in the comic, is that 'access' used to be a thing, but it is now something you do. It got verbed. Another example, common nowadays, is the usage of the word 'google'. Really, there are lots of examples: bottle up feelings, fully booked flights, bagged the money, Shyamalan a movie, Jedi the heck out of people, and of course, 'was Batmanned until he lost consciousness'. While not that uncommon and surprisingly natural and easy to understand, if used inappropriately (or appropriately, depending on your intent), verbing could certainly weird language.

So what?

To briefly summarize: the human thinking might have evolved in those steps: adjectives, nouns, then verbs.

That.

Look at today's world. Really. We focus on action, right? Change. We want to 'do things' or 'get things done'; questions on 'what things really are' or 'whether certain things violate certain basic principles' are set aside, perhaps even forgotten. But I'm not here to debate ethics. At least not now.

From shaman to philosopher to engineer. That's how I see our evolution as a species. Of course, probably this is an oversimplification. But the real process could be more than this; it could not be less than what I have described.

So what are we? We might really be adjectives, but we wanted to be nouns, and now, our worth is defined as one would define verbs. Confusing? Hell yes. Even I am unsure of all this.

What of the future, then?

Oh, maybe we'll move to the 'conjunction' phase, where we are simply connectors of ideas, and the best humans are the best emissaries between beings.

Maybe there will be a 'pronoun' stage, when all men are basically placeholders for an idea, a general concept of Man.

Of course, there's always the possibility of the 'interjection' phase.

Fuck. Bloody hell. Bollocks.

On Walpurgisnacht, this happened.

I am bored.

So very bored.

Not that my life's empty and devoid of things; on the contrary, there are lots of things that should occupy my interest right now. Well, that proves it. It's all in the mind.

But honestly, for some reasons which are currently unknown to me, I am suddenly losing interest in most of the things in life.

Not all things, though.

Food. Food is one thing that still excites me. (No wonder I'm fat.) I love the way food feels and, most of the time, tastes. Is food beneficial? In some certain quantities, sure. In excess, maybe not so much. But that's the way it is.

While I'm skirting the subject here, let me comment on something that's been on my mind for some time. Ever thought why most glasses nowadays have bases that are smaller in diameter than the rims are? I find it somewhat annoying sometimes. Perhaps not downright annoying, more like... an itch, maybe. I mean, really, why? Does it make the glass more stable? Common sense says 'no'. More pleasing aesthetically? Depends on the individual using it, and I'm sure opinions are divided. Maybe they're made that way to mislead the user on the subject of liquid amount. When the glass is full, the user sips, and the liquid level falls to some degree. No problem there. But then the user sips again, presumably in the same volume as the previous sip, and the liquid level drops again, but this time it drops more due to the difference in the circumference of the glass. To what effect? I don't know. Maybe it creates - at the commencement of the drinking - an illusion that the glass is containing more than it really does? Again, I don't know.

Ah. Or maybe, maybe, the glass is shaped that way because liquid pours better from that shape? Or that shape is easier to clean? Or it's easier to store (being more space-efficient)? Probably one of those, yeah.

Sigh. It's halfway solved. As usual, with mundane and uninteresting explanations.

Back to my boredom.

Of course, at least two highly intelligent (fictional) characters get really bored. I'm talking about Light Yagami (from the manga 'Deathnote') and Sherlock Holmes (created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and has been portrayed by various people, most recently by Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC series 'Sherlock'). Naturally, I identify with them. Oh yes. I consider myself highly intelligent, certainly. I have an ego the size of... me. Which, as suggested above, is quite large in terms of spatial measurements.

Maybe that's the problem? Too big an ego? Creating the mindset that the world is simply not enough for me, ergo, boredom?

Not my problem.

God, I think Your job now is to show me the real world in all its majesty and glory so that even I, the great I, am humbled.

Shouldn't be too hard for You, I think.

I am. Today. Sorry, Master Dodgson.

Saturday night. And, for some reason, I'm sort of in high spirits.

Perhaps some might view it funny or strange or downright creepy that I usually get psyched in the nighttime, which has been associated with darkness (somewhat obviously), cold, evil, horror, the supernatural, the supranatural, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, murderers, rapists, kidnappers, monsters, the dead, the undead, fear, sorrow, melancholy, the unknown, which mostly inspire gloom and dread (maybe with the exception of vampires and werewolves, albeit for weird and inappropriate reasons nowadays). But that's alright. I do.

In fact I've just been reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, translated into English by Reg Keeland. It took around one sixth of the book to get me going, but by the time I'm halfway done, I can't put it down. Read it. Interesting. And, by the way, possible minor spoiler alert.

The book is partly what puts me in a rather uppy mood tonight. You see, the eponymous character is a problematic person, who glides through school without exceptional achievements. If I'm not mistaken, she dropped out of college or something. Her academic history is not... good, in short. Of course, as with all problematic main characters, she is virtually perfect in at least one area of expertise, namely investigation. (I'm not done with the book, so I can't really say more than that, thank you very much.)

And that's what lifted my spirits tonight. If you know me at all, I suppose you ought to know that my grades aren't exactly what you'd call brilliant. Especially last semester. Ugh.

But stories like that, those are the ones that I (and I presume those similar to me) delight in. What kind of stories exactly? You know, stories in which the dropouts (or near-dropouts) are actually quite capable people, and simply has not shown all their capabilities yet, for whatever reason. Stories like this give me hope.

It led me to a revelation. A stunningly simple realization.

Your life doesn't (necessarily) end if you fail college.

See? Imagine sometime in the future, maybe a year from now, when confronted with a doubter, and you say "Give me a year," and a year later you have learned, maybe mastered, all the skills you need for your life. Possible, right? Pleasant, even. Satisfying.

All those might sound pathetic. Well, if it's pathetic to have faith in yourself, then I suppose I am pathetic.

Maybe I'll become a Peripatetic. Who knows?

The future is not real. Not tangible. Not writ. Nonexistent as of yet.

We are free.

Or at least I am.

P.S. Well, back to the book. It gets really interesting in part 3, specifically around chapter 16. People die in it.

One of the promptings from the dark and locked off parts of my mind.

Hello.

It's been quite a while since I last saw you.

Well, not really, I saw you on the first day of the term. Which was not even a month ago.

But that was not a proper meeting. More like passing each other on our own way to someplace. It was exactly that, now that I think of it.

Our last real meeting was on your birthday, way back in the dark age that was 2011.

Fun? Of course. Always a pleasure to see you. With her, as usual. There was the slight annoyance of meeting him on the way to your place, but the meeting itself was nonetheless pleasant.

Fun. Happy.

But not nearly enough.

Not nearly enough.

I think of you nearly everyday.

I wish I don't, but I do.

And the more I think of you, the more I become unsure.

I realized... I don't really know you that well.

Forgive me, but that is what I feel.

And this... this FRIGHTENS me.

I hate being frightened.

What do I fear?

Not very many things that I am aware of.

But I am afraid of loving my projection of you more than I love the real living you.

I need to see you.

I need to hear you.

I need to experience you.

I need to know you.

Before the probably inaccurate image of you crushes my mind completely.

A bottle. Yes, I'm gonna go with that.

Let me be honest to you guys.

I'm feeling kinda lost.

This is a problem.

'Lost', here, means not knowing how to reach your destination.

I, meanwhile, have deliberately tried NOT to have a destination.

So, the 'fact' that I feel lost means that I feel there's a destination or goal I have to strive for.

I must have done something terribly wrong.

Or, perhaps, that I have successfully turned into, say, a bottle.

(By the way, 'problem' is usually defined as a condition having deviation(s) from the ideal, and 'this' is usually not defined at all. The subject of the second clause of the previous sentence is, to me, an example of the subject of the first clause of the previous sentence. The previous sentence, meanwhile, is essentially the same as the third sentence of this article/post/rant, with 'to me' added.)

Ta.