Quite The Storm...

The past two days have been brutal. I've been bailing out water from my house, constantly lighting candles, kick-starting my generator, and cooling my food. The Chicago area is practically without electricity, spare the lucky few places that have it. A massive storm rolled through just yesterday.

It was so rapid, I didn't even know what was going on for half of it. I couldn't even estimate the wind speeds and the amount of rainfall in the mere 10 minutes of the actual storm. Surprisingly, the storm ended shortly after it died down (in total the ordeal was about 20 minutes). In that grueling 20 minutes, cars were given the fate of immovable 5 hour traffic, horrendous tree-laden roads, knocked over power lines, and satellite dishes running rapid throughout the sidewalks. I've never seen so much destruction in such a short amount of time, but luckily my area had the weakest hit of all of the areas in Chicago. We are still without electricity and any form of power. The only place I have now is the public library which thankfully offers free internet. My laptop has never been so necessary until now.

I didn't catch much sleep last night because of all of the commotion, so I tried as hard as I could today to maintain a healthy equilibrium by napping when acceptable and exercising when the situation warrants it. I sit here now, at the public library, thinking of how dependent our city is on artificial power. In this case, electricity. Come to think of it, most of the world is consumed by energy. Our drive for convenience will take us far, not only positively but more often than not, negatively. I truly believe the saying "When you really want something, you'll really go after it". It some-what expresses human nature, in a sense.

When a human being goes after something, the prize of the chase is imprinted in your brain. Our mind begs us to catch the prize and cherish it, and to never run out of it. In this case, the race is for the prize of electricity, a very powerful concept. The question that is stagnant; How far will we go to chase our prize?

Surely, we can wage wars and kill for our prize, but is there a better solution? Can we live without electricity (in this case) at all? There must be an alternative, the Universe is infinite and without an end in any direction. With my own electricity coming back (promisingly) later today, I can only hope I find an answer to this question.

Though, it's going to be hard walking back to my home in the heavy rain.

Spare Change

It's a damn hot day today, and the heat is almost unbearable. I haven't seen a day like this in Chicago in many a month, and I can safely say I'm happy for the change, despite the heat. I don't boast complaints, but I can assume not everyone enjoys the blistering hot sunlight beating down on us, though I guess we just have to appreciate it as change.

I rode my bike a few miles the other day, circling around neighborhoods and the like, and examining the different lifestyles and the variation between them. I enjoy variation, and I realized that without, our world would be very bland, and we would not have the wonderful things that we have today. Naturally, we humans are accustom to one thing over a long period of time, but for the significant other, change is a welcome feeling. To everyone else, it may seem as a challenge to overcome (which is perfectly acceptable).

Change is symbolic of the living world holding the freedom to do what is desired and build on it, either by improving it or copying it. Living in a place where every little aspect of regular-day life is the same, forever, will surely be a drag. Picture in your mind heading down to work every single day, getting the same cup of coffee, talking to the same people with the same conversations, every day for the rest of your life. It doesn't sound fun, and we would die the same way we lived, which in some cases is a severely negative issue.

Really the whole thing that sparked my creative interest in the subject of change was a pile of loose coins someone left on a park bench.

I guess I have a tendency to think abstractly.