It’s all so clear now. Math is going to save my life one day.

I Googled the question “When will I use Algebra in real life” and the answer was actually pretty simple. You see, we do use Algebra in every day life. Only, the form of Algebra we use is a realistic form of math that is tantamount to common sense. It isn’t dealing with some imaginary number that has no connection to anything.

2) Lets say you need to buy a NEW XBox 360. You have $800 to spend on everything. You know a new system costs $400 and extra controller $40. Assuming a game costs $60 how many games could you get?

Let x= the number of Games

$800 = $400 + $40 +$60x
800=460+60x
360=60x
x = 6 Games ^(#)

If I have $800 to spend, then I know I won’t be able to go over that $800. I know I won’t be able to spend $440 on a new system and an extra controller and be able to buy more than a certain amount of games because I would over $800. I don’t need to write some formula describing how I know this – because I can count. I can add and subtract.

I wouldn’t be standing there trying to figure out in my head, “Ok, so x is the system for $440, and the games are $60 each, so I’ll represent them with z, so then I multiple the number of games to have an end dollar amount to add to x…” I know that if I spend $440 out of $800, that would leave me $360 to spend. If games are $60 each, that’s… 60, 120, 180, 240, 300, 360 = 6. WOW! That was so hard. I totally needed some off-the-wall expression to figure that out!

Is it really so hard to ask to be able to learn this stuff in a way that is actually applicable to our lives? It seems to me that every time someone asks “When will I use this in real life” they are given examples that are actually relevant to their lives. They aren’t given examples that include numbers that have no significance to anything, or problems that are being worked out just for the sake of finding some answer that holds no importance. They are given answers that involve problems that are actually needing to be solved. And that’s what learning math is – you’re solving problems that never needed to be solved in the first place.

And why, I ask, why is that the case? Why do I even care about solving problems that aren’t even problems to begin with? Teach me math in a way that actually relates to something real, or shoot me in the face.

/define: reality: the state of being actual or real. Placing the word “reality” into a phrase like “reality television” would mean that what you’re seeing is real, or that you are watching with the expectation that it is real – otherwise, you’d just be watching scripted television with an actual plot.

Why are we so obsessed with everybody else? The celebrities, the money, the lifestyle, the things that we can or can’t have. Why do we have to obsess over it so much? It is insane the level of obsession we have reached. Do you realize this? The level of insanity we have come to.

If we aren’t obsessing over how skinny someone is, we’re obsessing over how fat they are. If we aren’t obsessing over how old their kids are, we’re obsessing over when they are going to have new ones. If we aren’t obsessing over relationships they are having, we’re obsessing over relationships they are potentially going to end. Whether it’s good or bad news, we don’t care. As long as it’s something to obsess over, to paste onto the television in a sound-byte, we will obsess over it.

And it’s not just A-list celebrities anymore. It’s regular people. It’s regular nobodies of no exceptional talent or skill who we obsess over now. These average nobodies that are famous for nothing. That only exist on the tips of our tongues because of a mildly popular “reality television” show. Why are they famous again? Why are they popular? Why are we obsessing over these people? Have we really come to such a sad state in our progress as a society that we are actually paying attention to these people, cheering them on in the self-destructive nature?

We’ll cheer them on in self-destruction and watch them fall in their downward spiral, and we’ll cheer them on as they redeem and resurrect themselves. Do we even care what the outcome is, really?

Can we return to a time when television was actually entertaining?

The day had been long, and the last place I needed to be was in a hot box flipping meat patties. I had shown up to work at my usual time to find that the moment I walked through the door, the last place I wanted to be was there. Anywhere else, but not there. Not today. Not now. I needed to talk to someone, but couldn’t figure out what to say to them. I needed to do something, but couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. I needed to get out, but couldn’t quite figure out how to leave.

A couple of hours later, I found myself walking out. Walking down the street. Towards the trailer on Overstreet. Towards the edge of Morgan. Away from the confusion that had been with me all week. My head was tearing itself apart, and I couldn’t even figure out why.

As I walked, I took pictures with the digital camera I had taken with me. After we had bough it, I had gotten into the habit of carrying it with me wherever I went.

A few hours later, I downed a bottle of pain killers, and laid in bed. The phone was ringing, but I didn’t care. On the third time it started ring, I decided to answer. I tried speaking, but couldn’t exactly form words. Making my way to the living room, I collapsed. Through the door, a person entered the room. Her words were mixing with the surroundings. Nothing made sense. Everything was getting so … uncomplicated. Unraveling in front of my eyes. Nothing mattered.

Driving to the hospital. There was darkness all around me. The sense of movement was overshadowed by the sense of nothingness slowly infiltrating my existence. Getting out of the car, and then waking up in a waiting room on a metal bed. Tunnel vision. Somebody standing in front of me, and yet – getting further and further away. Echoes. Silence. And then: the end.

I know too many people in the ground. Maybe that has a way of distorting ones perception of the things happening around them. Maybe, if I could somehow find my way back to the beginning, I could…

Two days later, I resurfaced. It wasn’t the end after all. More like: an intermission.

I’m going to the borders
of the waters of the oceans
where the swimming people swim
and the drowning people motion towards the

And if you should become
just another person drowning
in the waters of the oceans
that are made of all the people
near the beaches of the waters
of the remnants of the people
know that you’ll soon be with me
in that place we should have been

It is within my capacity to dwell upon things that more than likely shouldn’t be dwelt upon. To remember key phrases and figures from my past and make really abstract connections to things with them, while sometimes missing the much bigger picture.

/define: family: “an association of people who share common beliefs or activities.” By the very definition, a group of friends would be a family. A group of people who meet at a local bar to watch sports and share the same beliefs as one another could probably be loosely construed as a family.

I know that I am connected to people in this world via bloodlines. But what else connects me to them? What connects me to them? Some sense of moral obligation? Some sense of something that I think should be there? I can go through the motions and put forward this facade; but in the end, what is there? What is it that I’m supposed to be feeling? Love? Empathy? Remorse? Some sort of bond?

It is within my capacity to love, to cherish, to trust, to want. It is beyond my ability to understand what sort of connection a “family” is supposed to have. Maybe that makes me sub-human. Maybe it doesn’t. In all honesty, I don’t know what that makes me.

Sometimes it feels like I just suddenly appeared into this world. This reality. This circumstance. I know this isn’t true; that through the process of birth and nurturing, I arrived in this world a living, breathing, thinking organism.

Did something happen to me along the way that just completely and utterly skewed my perception of normality? I know that normality is a false assumption of anything; what, exactly, is normality anyway? But these feelings that I think I should have; these … capacities to know what connections are, in the sense of them being… was I simply born without these, or did I lose them somewhere along the way?

Somewhere in the world you sit. And somewhere in the world, I sit.

Who was I?