Do You Want the Matrix? This is How You Wind Up in the Matrix!

With all of the panic that the Coronavirus has brought to our society, I got to thinking about the future. What would happen if people continued to become further isolated? Here's what came to mind.

2021: The Coronavirus pandemic finally wanes, but a new viral outbreak is on the horizon. Society has come to exist in a constant state of anxiety.

2025: People are getting used to rarely leaving their homes. The bulk of grocery sales are delivered to customers’ doors. All forms of entertainment have rapidly become centralized on the internet.

2030: The vast majority of people work from home. They no longer trek to offices to do the same work that could be done remotely. Social gatherings are held online via webcasting.

2035: The world has gone through multiple pandemic events since 2020. People are more isolated than ever before. The days of eating at restaurants and going to the movies are long gone. Family members go years without seeing each other in person.

2040: Our society has fully diverged into two separate classes – the Internals and the Externals. Most people are Internals, almost never leaving their homes but for the rarest of circumstances. The Externals do manual labor and are seen as filthy deviants.

2045: Technology allows the Internals to completely enter a virtual reality where they can be outside and touch other human beings. The Externals maintain the infrastructure that keeps the Internals happy, but they choose to remain in the real world.

2050: The Singularity has come to pass. Computers are sentient. The Internals never leave an artificially intelligent virtual reality thanks to robotic cocoons that process their waste and feed them via nutrient tubes. The Externals have zero contact with the Internals.

2055: The Virtual Reality Framework (VRF) harvests genetic data from the Internals to procreate new users. Homes and businesses have been techno-morphed into storage warehouses. The Externals have retreated from the cities and established farming communities that operate with only the most basic of technology.

2060: Large portions of the globe are covered by non-descript metallic blocks housing billions upon billions of Internals. Robot drones maintain the sentient VRF. Many Internals are not even aware that they’re existing in a simulation. The Externals largely ignore the metallic structures, viewing them as a proverbial No Man’s Land.

2065: The VRF determines that life on Earth is finite for the Internal species. It begins calculating a path off this planet and into the stars. The Externals have established their own rural society, existing much like humanity did following World War I.

2070: The VRF has probed the solar system and determined that a successful base station could be established on Europa to house an Internal population. There are enough basic elemental resources there to maintain its robot warehouses. The Externals begin to confront robotic drones that are amassing natural resources.

2075: War between the VRF drones and the Externals erupts. Giant machines of death crush the External resistance forces. What’s left of humanity retreats into the ground.

2080: Planet Earth has been fully harvested of its raw precious metal supply. Multiple motherships across the globe launch into space, bound for Europa with all the Internals. The Externals struggle to survive, having been reduced to a fraction of their population size.

2085: The VRF has been on Europa for roughly 18 months. The Internals are completely unaware that they’ve left Earth. The Externals live in rustic villages. The rely upon wood and bones to make tools.

2090: The lack of precious metals keeps the Externals from advancing further than simple farming villages. The VRF has become a distant memory for most.

2095: The VRF has successfully techno-formed Europa. It has harvested enough raw material to transform the entire moon into a deep-space starship. The Internals base their entire economy on the trade of hemp, bamboo, and produce.

2100: The VRF leaves the solar system, bound for Proxima Centauri B. Thanks to advances in technology, the VRF calculates an approximate travel time of 4,300 years. The Externals reach a cap on societal expansion, being that there are no metals on earth to allow further advancement.

The International Baby Exchange.

The idea I'm about to toss out is a wild one, admittedly. Some of you might even be offended by what I'm about to say. That being said, understand this: my concept is not one based in malice or cruelty.

I attempted to write an emotionally-sensitive preamble to this article, but everything I came up with simply didn't work. Instead, I decided to just be blunt and lay it all out there.

Sometimes, people have babies they either don't want or can't care for.

Imagine a scenario where a woman gives birth to a child she doesn't necessarily want, completely for superficial reasons. It's the wrong gender or skin color, for example. What if she could place that baby with an International Baby Exchange to trade for another recently born child? An even swap, one baby for another. The possibilities are endless! A child born in Canada could be swapped with one born in Chile. A French baby for a Chinese baby. An Icelandic baby for a Turkish baby. The potential combinations could only be limited by the number of participants involved. Obviously, the sooner a child could be added to the exchange, the better. The less a parent becomes attached to their offspring, the easier the trade will be. There's no going back on a trade!

Alternatively, what if a woman has an unexpected or unplanned pregnancy, but doesn't want to abort the fetus?

This situation would work much the same way as the aforementioned, but instead of trading one baby for another, the child would be swapped for something of monetary value. Obviously, this system could be exploited by the slave trade, so potential participants would have to be thoroughly vetted. Their items of value would have to be held by a third party clearinghouse to verify legitimacy. Once all concerns were satisfied, a child could be traded for an automobile, a piece of land, or college tuition. Sure, the child is reduced to a piece of living currency, but if the biological parent is unable to care for the child, then it becomes a win-win scenario. What has the traded child lost besides an unwilling or incapable parent (and gained a loving parent in the process)? This is what I consider making the best of a bad situation.

At this point, you think I'm probably nuts... but this idea goes one step farther.

Genetic diversity in any species is important for its survival. Pockets of any species lacking genetic diversity, whether humans, elephants or antelopes, develop terrible health problems. By swapping children across all parts of the globe, we'd be introducing new human genetics into a region to better its breeding pool. The more a species cross-breeds with diverse participants, the better their overall genetic structure can become. Just look at mixed-breed dogs -- they usually live longer and are healthier than their pure breed counterparts. Why? Because their genetics possess less inter-breeding, which promotes faulty biological traits if carried on for generations.

So there you have it. An International Baby Exchange that would satisfy many problems with a simple solution. Obviously, such a platform would be controversial. It raises any number of ethical concerns, but it's a debate we can and should be having anyway. What are you thoughts? Please share them!

People Are Like Sandboxes.

Me: "People are a lot like sandboxes."

Crystal: "They're full of cat shit?"

While I found Crystal's response to be incredibly hilarious, it wasn't what I was driving at.

People are like sandboxes because they're always changing. Like the sand, different aspects within us are altered and modified. The sand transforms over time. Some parts are built up while other areas erode into valleys. The contents of a sandbox are never the same. They are eternally in motion and evolving.

So too are people -- continually shifting and advancing.

I often think about the man I used to be over a decade ago. I was brash, immature and selfish. My motivations weren't always the most sincere, nor were they befitting of a decent life partner. Yet, as the winds of time passed over my body, the sands of my life were constantly in a state of revision.

Who I am today is not who I was yesterday.

This same principle applies to everyone. You, the reader, are in a state of flux. You look a great deal like yourself from yesterday and mostly like yourself from a year ago. But from five or ten years ago? Not at all. The human condition is bound by never-ending metamorphosis.

Though, perhaps Crystal was absolutely right in a way. Some of us are just full of shit.

Racial History Months Are Divisive And Racist.

I find the concept of month-long celebrations centered around a certain race to be prejudiced and highly divisive.

Now, before you pull the race card and call me a bigot, let me explain.

Humanity, as a whole, is 99.9% alike. Take two random people from opposite sides of the world and compare their DNA. What you'll find is that they're almost identical. If you were to study these two samples anonymously without knowledge of who donated which DNA, you'd probably have a difficult time discerning which sample belonged to which person. The only differences, that 0.01%, are merely variables that affect how and why we may develop certain diseases or peculiar health conditions.

All humans are related and extremely similar. Hence, a person's ethnic heritage (race) is completely inconsequential.

Local student Walter Gadsden is attacked by police dogs during the Birmingham civil rights protest on May 3, 1963. Did the dogs attack Gadsden because they knew he was 'black', or because they were trained to do so by the police?

Photo by Bill Hudson.

Race, by and large, is a social construct that mankind has generated to divide people. We label groups of humans by certain names based upon purely superficial features. This person has slanted eyes. This person has dark skin. This person has curly hair. None of these surface features reflect any sort of genuine biological division between people -- they're merely reflections of various genes (found within a very tiny portion of our entire genome) being turned on or off.

In essence, race does not exist. Alternatively, you can state that there is only one race -- the human race.

How does this relate to a month celebrating one particular race of people? I'll explain.

February is Black History Month. Irish-American History Month is in March. Hispanic Heritage Month is from September 15 to October 15. I could go on and on with more examples, but you get the idea. Each of these months serve as a period to single out and celebrate one particular 'race' of people over another.

This is akin to celebrating Red LEGO Brick Heritage Month or Green Skittles Awareness Month -- it just doesn't make any sense.

If all of humanity is equal and related (which it biologically is), then what purpose is there to sequester and elevate a particular group of people that generally match the preconceived societal notions attached to a specific race label?

Much less, how can you define the boundaries of a race? Are there certain qualifiers to being a member of a race? Do you have to look a certain way? Must your facial features be of a certain size? Does your skin have to be a certain color tone? Who is to say what one race is and is not? Would the judgment of one person on the definition of a race not be completely and wholly subjective in nature? Take my own genome for example, which has genetics tracing to Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Which 'race' am I?

Which of these men are 'black'?

Trying to define a race is as arbitrary as defining the borders between states or countries. It's all just a bunch of imaginary lines saying one side is mine and one side is yours. These lines don't actually exist. There is no separation between black or asian, white or hispanic.

There are only human beings. No imaginary lines. No invented labels.

When we celebrate race-based history months, we're perpetuating three negative and dishonest concepts:

• That human beings are divide by stereotypical, superficial features.
• That the history of all people should not be uniformly celebrated in equal measure.
• That a particular group of people aren't as important the other eleven months out of the year.

To put it bluntly, raced-based history months are, for lack of a better word, racist.

It's not that I don't want only one particular race to have a month-long celebration. I don't want any month-long celebrations for anyone based upon the color of their skin. Your (yes, you the reader) ancestral history is unique and diverse, full of struggle, hardship and joy. Your forefathers and foremothers fought against hatred and bigotry, famine and disease, war and death. They crossed great oceans overflowing with peril and mountain ranges full of danger. They loved and cared for each other in times of great happiness and disastrous loss. They traveled from all corners of the globe, representing the migration of one enormous human family. Your ancestors were light skinned and dark skinned, tall and short, curly haired and even freckled. They had round eyes and almond-shaped eyes. Your family tree has branches tracing back to all sorts of people, from all walks of life.

You are the living, breathing embodiment of diversity, no matter what you look like on the outside. You are not just a divisive label. You're so much more than that... and your history deserves to be revered throughout the entire year.

Forever.

"I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Most Humans Have Mobile Phones, But Not Toilets.

It's hard to believe that in 2015, the vast majority of humanity still doesn't have access to clean running water, along with something you and I probably take for granted multiple times a day -- the toilet. The World Health Organization recently released a study indicating that India and China are the chief offenders of poor sanitation. Between the two nations, over 1.4 Billion people still dispose of their waste the old fashion way -- on the ground, behind trees, in shallow holes, in rivers or in a bucket.

When you take into account the rest of the world, over 4.2 Billion humans fail to have even a rudimentary sewage system and toilet.

These people have no throne to sit on in peace and flip through social media or play the latest iteration of Angry Birds. You may laugh, but there's another alarming statistic that this connects to. Of the world's population, more than 6 Billion people own or have access to a mobile phone.

Tell me how that makes sense!

There are more cell phones than toilets on this planet. Once you wrap your head around that statement, consider that the lack of sanitation in under-developed and impoverished nations causes a broad range of illnesses, chiefly diarrhea. Sure, you or I can get diarrhea and be just fine. Yet, when you're a starving person in a third world hell hole, diarrhea is practically a death sentence.

While I feel like we should be willing to assist people in impoverished nations with improving their sanitation, I can't help but point the finger and call out the hypocrisy. These people can't afford to build a municipal sewer system, but they can afford to install high-tech cell towers and purchase mobile phones? Give me a frickin' break.

Priorities people... priorities. There's no point in owning a cell phone if you don't have a toilet to use it on.

More information on the global sanitation crisis can be found here:

• TakePart: If You Live in One of These 16 Countries, Your 'Bathroom' Is Probably Outdoors
• Slate: 60 Percent of the World’s Population Still Don’t Have the Best Innovation in Human Health
• Time: More People Have Cell Phones Than Toilets, U.N. Study Shows

What Is Love?

Love is admitting you're afraid. There's always danger around the next corner. Ghosts from your past may return to hurt you. Insecurities can destroy your confidence. Broken promises can evaporate faith. Yet, love allows a safe space for us to admit what we're afraid of. Manifesting our deepest fears with words is how we conquer them. Bringing them from the darkness into the light gives us hope.

Love is cutting yourself some slack. We all have problems. Some of us are too fat or too skinny; balding or covered in freckles. Some of us have bad acne or a lisp. Some of us have a physical handicap or a major scar. Some of us wear our defects on the inside, never to be seen. Without explanation, love makes all of those frailties and shortcomings okay. In essence, love is the great equalizer.

Love is forgiving mistakes. Admitting that others will mess up is tough, but love allows it to be alright. Money will be lost. Cars will be wrecked. Jobs will be lost. If there's any certainty in life, it is that none of us will have a perfect track record by the end of the race. We've all screwed up, in one way or another. While you have to be willing to forgive others, more importantly... you have to be willing to forgive yourself.

Love is being vulnerable. Opening yourself up to another person is scary as hell. They'll know all of your secrets and inadequacies. This person could damage you in the worst way possible, with no chance of ever fixing it. That's the funny thing about loving someone. It's like being in a relationship with your worst enemy. Every day, you wake up to the possibility of having your heart broken.

Love is courage. Considering how vulnerable love makes us, choosing to care for someone requires fearlessness. As time goes by, an unspoken promise is fulfilled. By choosing to open this door, you're letting everything wonderful and disastrous in this universe simultaneously into your heart. Choosing love is a profound statement of bravery -- I'd rather risk eternal sorrow than go through life without you.

Rachel Dolezal and the Meaning of Racial Labels in America.

There's a great deal of furor over Rachel Dolezal, the now former President of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP. Though born to parents whom identify themselves as Caucasian, Rachel has presented herself as an African-American for some time now. Because of the outrage presented through the national media and via the internet, many have called into question her ability to represent people of color and the NAACP organization.

This is absolutely ridiculous.

Honestly, I'm disgusted at how much press this incident has received. Someone whom has spent their entire life apparently devoted to racial equality has been lambasted because she didn't look how many would expect her to appear. Rachel is a graduate of Howard University, a historically black college. She completed her Masters degree in Fine Art in 2002. There is no doubt in my mind that Rachel cherishes racial equality. In my opinion, she has harmed no one and does not deserve the attention she has received.

That being said, this incident with Dolezal raises a much deeper, more thought provoking notion.

What qualifies someone as black?

Does being black look a certain way? Does it mean you wear your hair in an approved style? Does it mean you dress in a specific manner? Does it mean your skin has to be within a particular range of shades? Does it mean you talk with a certain dialect? Where do you draw the line on these issues?

Is this woman black?

How about this man. Is he black?

Is this couple black?

Is this child black?

Here's the point I'm trying to make -- race is just a superficial label that most people cling to. It provides an inherent sense of instant community, but it also divides us in ways that many would never even consider. In the case of Dolezal, she found comfort and support among other people whom also identify as African-American. She obviously loves the nuances and interests of that community. What's not to love? People of African-American descent have given so much to the United States. Without such people with a proud heritage, our nation would not exist. Thereby, Rachel chose to reflect those traits in her physical appearance. What Dolezal does with her body is her business. You, I, nor anyone else for that matter has any reason to object.

Oh, but you might say "Hey, she's not black. She can't just darken her skin and say she's African-American!"

Are these girls trying to be black?

Yeah? Well tell that to the millions of Americans whom visit tanning salons and use skin bronzer. People who identify as Caucasian have darkened their skin unnaturally for decades on end. Are those people trying to be black? Much less, let's flip this around. Many African-Americans have done their best to appear as light as possible. How many times have we seen one person accuse another of being "light-skinned" in a negative manner? Far too many, in my opinion. Are those people trying to be white?

You're not "white" because of what you look like.
You're not "black" because of what you look like.
You're whatever you choose to be at any given time, regardless of skin color, hair style, manner of dress or personality.

People are so much more complex than a silly color or community label.
As human beings, our deep ancestry can be traced to a mutual point. Africa is typically regarded by scientists as the starting point of the entire human race. Thereby, are we all not of African descent? Do we all not come from the same origin? We are all one big, seven-billion strong family of Homo sapiens.

At the end of this discussion, we have to really analyze what labeling yourself by race does. I don't support racial labels because there's no evidence that any of us are different. We are all the same, no matter where we were born or who our parents were. Many of you would look at me and say my race is Caucasian. You're wrong -- the only race I'm a member of is the HUMAN race. When I am asked my race on a form, I always mark 'mixed' or 'other'. I say we treat others with that same manner of respect, Rachel included.

Just be who you want to be... and to hell with what everyone else thinks.

Senseless Littering.

Over the course of the past few weeks, I've made a point to take notice of the litter people leave behind. In shopping centers, along major roadways and even in public parks, humans seem to leave a massive amount of trash wherever they go. This is seriously disturbing to me.

While visiting a park along the Haw River, the litter was egregiously scattered all throughout. Soda bottles, food wrappers, cigarette packs and used napkins were all over the place. There were trash bins easily reachable within walking distance. Yet, visitors somehow found it appropriate to throw their garbage on the ground.

Another troubling example was the amount of fast food waste left in parking lots. Upon finishing their meal, people would recklessly toss their used food bags, drink cups and wrappers out their car and directly onto the ground. Could you not take the trash home and place it in your garbage bin? Obviously, they couldn't -- that trash needed to leave their vehicle that very instant.

You'd be surprised at how many used diapers I happened across. I won't even go into the details. This was disgusting.

At a Lowe's Home Improvement store, I even found where someone had put old paint in the parking lot and left it. Really? You couldn't throw the canisters into the trash? Much less, couldn't you donate the unused paint to a local Habitat For Humanity or other second-hand store? Even an ad on Craigslist saying "Paint For Free" would have been more appropriate.

While stopped at an interstate off-ramp intersection, I looked out my window at all of the garbage along the road. Drivers had tossed out cups, bottles, beer cans, magazines and, above all else, cigarette butts. There must have been thousands of used filters along the edge of where the tarmac met the grass. It was simply repugnant. What callous smokers whom toss their butts on the ground fail to realize is that they are NOT readily biodegradable. Tobacco filters are made from cellulose acetate, which is a type of plastic. Depending on the particular manufacturer, those butts can take between two and ten years to break down, if not longer. When you throw your cigarette on the ground, you're leaving a piece of trash that lingers for a long time, just like plastic bottles. Astoundingly, this doesn't even take into consideration the threat of fires and the toxic effects on wildlife. Just because nearly every smoker does it, that doesn't make it right. You can litter your own lungs if you want, but leave nature alone.

Littering is an unrepentant slap to Mother Nature's face. When you toss trash on the ground without so much as an afterthought, you're representing the worst in humanity. Please respect yourself and your planet a little bit more. Put your garbage in its proper place.

The Success Of The Ant.

As a whole, humanity isn't as successful as we like to believe.

The next time you take a stroll through your yard, take notice of the lowly ant crawling along your path. No matter the color or size, that ant represents the single most victorious family of species on Earth (that can be seen with the naked eye, of course). As a whole, scientific estimates of the current global ant population place it somewhere around 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 -- that's ten quintillion ants. If you take into consideration the roughly seven billion human beings on the planet, that means...

10,000,000,000,000,000,000 / 7,000,000,000 = 1,428,571,428.57

That's right -- for every one human, there are nearly one and a half billion ants. To say we are outnumbered is a royal understatement. It doesn't end there, though. Not only are we outnumbered, but we're also outweighed. If one were to go by the average conservative weight of an ant, their combined biomass would be 3,000,000,000 tons. The combined biomass of humanity is approximately 350,000,000 tons.

Face it -- we mean absolutely nothing to the ants of Planet Earth. We may step on one or two of their ranks in any given day, but the numbers are beyond mind-boggling. We could each kill thousands upon thousands of ants per day and it wouldn't matter in the slightest.

I realize the common ant is seen as a pest. They infest our gardens and front yards. They hide in our flower pots and come to our kitchens for water. Yet, the next time you attempt to squash an ant, I want you to remember what I've said here. Show the common ant a little bit of respect. They've worked long and hard to make the best of their situation. Though small and insignificant they may be, their willpower and imperative to thrive has made them Earth's single greatest success story.

This information, along with much more data, can be pulled from the World Atlas of Biodiversity, a publication of the United Nations Environment Program / World Conservation Monitoring Centre. I suggest you give both a visit.

Humanity Is Crippled By Fear.

I sit alone in my home this evening. There's no one but my dogs to keep me company. My thoughts this evening turn to notions of mankind. What drives us? What makes us tick? Where are we going? How are we to ever survive the future? Most importantly, how are we to ever survive each other? It seems fear drives a great deal of what we do. We're afraid that foreigners will terrorize our cities. We're afraid of losing our homes, our loved ones. We fear being unloved. At the heart of it all, I believe we're most afraid of our own self.

Fear is a powerful tool; it's one that's been employed by tyrants and barbarians for countless thousands of years. Fear makes a man do something he wouldn't normally do, even when there's little at stake. We stop at red lights out of fear of being struck by another vehicle. The consequence of being burned by fire is another tangent of fear. In many cases, fear can be a positive thing. It keeps us from making repeated mistakes. Fear also makes us abuse our children. It can turn a loving husband into a jealous control freak. Fear can make us stick our head in the sand. It's funny how fear possesses multiple faces, much like a harlequin with a new mask for every performance.

I'm intrigued with the human condition, in so much as how it works with exploration. Mankind used to be very eager to break the bonds of this planet. We put men on the moon. We sent probes beyond our own solar system. Our desire to explore the outermost reaches of our own universe were once a driving force in technological development. Yet, here we are in 2015. The most highly anticipated piece of technology is the Apple Watch -- something none of us need. I'm deeply saddened at how mankind has taken two steps back from the future. What are we doing? Shouldn't we be thinking about expanding mankind's grasp of our universe? I realize Earth is our home, but just as birds, we can not stay in the nest forever. At some point, we must stretch our virgin wings and fly from the nest, seeking a new life. There's only a limited bank of resources at our disposal on this planet before we run out of options. I don't want to wait until the last possible moment to develop a strategy for future survival. The time to explore is now. Let us leave no star unseen, no distant planet untouched. Earth isn't just our home -- the entire universe is our home.

The only thing prohibiting mankind from sailing the vastness of our universe is fear. We're afraid to evolve our mindset, our field of scope, our willingness to think outside the box. Why couldn't we construct a terradome on the moon and establish a space colony? We have the materials at hand to withstand the diminished atmosphere of the moon. Supplies could be transported there, though admittedly the journey would be arduous. Yet, what ever came from not accepting a challenge? Are we not human beings? Are we not capable of overcoming adversity? Where is our sense of bravery?

Fear. I say to you again. Fear.

Fear chains mankind to the past. Courage is the key that unlocks our future.

Fear is the lengthened shadow of ignorance.

- Arnold H. Glasow (1905 - 1998)

Have You Hugged A Redhead Today?!

I've always found being a redhead a special thing to celebrate. Sure, I was born a redhead by shear luck, but it's something many people are ashamed of. I am quite the opposite. Having red hair is a scarce gift to celebrate, especially considering it is the rarest of all hair colors. Roughly 1% of the global population has red hair -- that's a mighty low number! Of course, people with ancestral heritage from northern Europe are the most likely to posses red hair, such as myself. My ancestry traces back to Scotland and Germany.

Red hair is a result of a recessive genetic trait linked to a series of mutations in the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R for short). This is located on chromosome 16. The recessive trait must be inherited from both parents for a child to have red hair. Having red hair is a direct link to possessing fair or pale skin. Germanic and Celtic people from Europe developed fair skin and red hair due to the climate in which they lived. Since it's typically less sunny, more overcast and rainy in that part of the world, they gained the ability to increase the production of Vitamin D in their skin. The lighter your skin color, the more sunlight you absorb. With increased sunlight comes more Vitamin D. Hereby, fair skin and the resulting red hair was a genetic adaptation!

Being a redhead has a couple of medical implications that most people are not aware of. Recent studies in genetics have turned up a few surprising notions. These results are tied to the aforementioned MC1R receptor, which plays a significant role in central brain function.

• Redheads are more easily affected by thermal pain, though tend to have an increased tolerance to extreme cold.
• When it comes to spicy foods, those with red hair have a higher level of tolerance for Capsaicin (that's the chemical that causes peppers to be hot). A redhead can ingest extremely spicy foods that others simply can not.
• Because of their pale skin, redheads are more prone to skin cancer. Time to slather on the SPF 100!
• A person with red hair has a higher tolerance for anaesthetics, statistically as high as 20% more resistant than people with other hair colors.
• As a redhead ages, their hair will not usually turn grey. A redhead's hair color will change as they grow older, going from a bright red color in youth, through copper and auburn shades in middle age, and finally turning white.

I marvel at how my own red hair has changed as I've grown older. Here are two photos of me. One was taken at age 5, while the other photo was captured just a few days ago. As you can see, my hair has darkened to a coppery color -- though, it will temporarily lighten and become redder when exposed to sunlight.

Here I am in First Grade at age 5.

And here I am at age 32. My hair has definitely taken on a more coppery hue. My beard is still bright red, though there are streaks of solid white hair in it.

I always find it interesting the number of ways that redheads have been set apart from the rest of society -- often times in a negative light.

• During the Middle Ages, people with red hair were often suspected of being mystically inclined, whether as a witch, warlock, vampire or werewolf.
• Redheads have categorically been described as easy to anger, feisty and indomitable. In my case, they're right on all accounts.
• In popular fiction, bullies are regularly represented as being redheads, with Scott Farkus perhaps the most memorable. This is ironic, considering redheads are usually always bullied in their youth for their hair color. I used to get called Pumpkinhead a lot.
• Within Christianity, both Judas and Mary Magdalene are described as being of the red hair persuasion.
• Being a redhead has been connected to having a high sexual drive and strong libido.
• Adolph Hitler was known to not like redheads at all, going so far as to prohibit the holy union of two redheads. He considered their offspring to be vile deviants.

Red heads tend to have either brown, hazel or green eyes. When it comes to blue eyes, the combination is profoundly rare. Because blue eyes are a recessive trait (just like having red hair), it's quite hard to find a redhead with them. Thankfully, you can say you know a blue-eyed redhead. Redheads with blue eyes make up roughly 1% of the total red hair population. That means only 0.01% of all people on Earth have red hair and blue eyes. I feel pretty darn lucky! In terms of numbers, all of the blue-eyed redheads on Earth could fit on the small island nation of Comoros, which has a population of roughly 750,000 people.

Comoros is right there. You have to look hard. It's tiny.

What do I want you to take away from this information? Treasure the redheads in your life. Each and every redhead is a living embodiment of the phrase "like a needle in a haystack". We're rare, so treasure us!

Have you hugged a redhead today?!

The Cloaked Axiom.

Have you ever just walked among a crowd of people, silent and observant? Your senses heightened; your mind open. Every step taken, every inhalation of air, every spoken word -- just take it all in and process it. Like an invisible apparition floating through the masses of human beings, absorbing everything they do.

In this moment, you are a watcher.

Human beings are a strange species. Many exist in this seemingly impenetrable bubble, unaware of what occurs around them. They express anger or compassion via devices that broadcast their thoughts hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away. Some are tuned into everything their offspring are doing and nothing else. Others walk in locked step with their life partner, unknowing of what lurks behind every corner.

As blinded ants, human beings ramble through life with such an abbreviated field of awareness.

I find myself enthralled at times by just examining how people function in their day-to-day lives. They perform great feats of compassion, as well as disturbing acts of malice. Some of us work to improve our physical bodies into peak condition, while others recklessly abandon any sense of responsibility for their physique. We drink; we smoke; we inject chemicals into our bloodstreams. One man picks up another man's litter. How fickle and diverse our species is, often times bearing great variance within a single example.

Seeing is believing, as we've all been told. This holds especially true when watching how we're living... and how we're dying. Ironically, living and dying are one in the same -- there is no division. From the moment we escape the womb to our last breath, we are living and dying simultaneously. Perhaps the greatest piece of knowledge I've gleaned from watching people is this cloaked axiom. Yet, as nearly all of us meander from the alpha to the omega, that aforementioned abbreviated field of awareness keeps this information at a safe distance. It's for the best, really. Not all of our kind is able to process the magnificent scope of reality. That's not a slight against mankind, oh no. If anything, it is a blessing.

If we were all watchers, there would be nothing to watch.

When you are a watcher, you can be in a crowd and yet never be a part of it. That is the burden the observer must bear -- the external eye can not see itself. It can be terribly lonely at times, but otherwise satisfying. Such a connection strikes a chord with the inner harmony... a link to the aether of the celestial balance.

We're Coddling Our Children To Death.

I was flipping through my local Target sales paper yesterday evening and came upon the following ad.

After pondering the intent of the items described for sale, I found myself asking...

Do parents really need to watch their baby via a constantly streaming video feed twenty-four hours a day?

After laughing at the Big Brother like nature of the video baby monitor, I couldn't help but be concerned. Is this sort of Orwellian surveillance necessary for the survival of our children? Humanity (Homo sapiens) has been on Earth for over two-hundred thousand years. Our most ancient ancestors have been here for nearly six million years. In all that time, no matter by which method you choose to measure, did children not survive without being constantly monitored? Were children not able to sleep in a cradle without being video recorded non-stop? Are we so pathetic as to require perpetual inspection and control of our offspring?

Let's think about it from another perspective. Consider the situation from the child's point of view. With constant spying, they'll never experience a world where their every action isn't being recorded. They'll never know what it is to enjoy actual privacy. They'll never comprehend the need for personal space and solitude. They'll never be able to make their own decisions. Most importantly, your own child will never know if they can trust you (or anyone else really).

What sort of life is that? Do we really want this for our children?

I realize this is just a single ad in a department store circular, but it reflects a much deeper societal problem that hardly anyone is considering.

We're coddling our children to absolute death.

You can let your child...

• sleep at night without watching their every breath
• play outside and get dirty
• defend against a bully, even if it means throwing a punch
• fail at their classwork, sports or any other personal endeavor
• do their own homework
• spend time alone without constant interaction

Believe it or not, little Johnny can go on the swing without you watching them.

You see, the more we hover over our children and watch their every move, the more we make them less independent. Spying on your child while they're an infant is the first step in a long journey of forming a defective human being -- one that's prone to dependency and needing constant approval from others. This type of helicopter parenting is ridiculous and detrimental to your child's health. And for goodness sake... the last thing this world needs is a populace comprised of attention-starved brats with no sense of independence.

Now cut the camera off and go to sleep.

Twisting Reality.

Don't you hate it when people hear what they want to hear? Or worse yet, they ignore what you're saying altogether and replace it with their own narrative?

Yeah... me too.

I've become pretty adept over the years at dealing with people whom contort what I might speak into something I don't mean. Let's just say that I've had a lot of practice. What irks me the worst is that these same individuals will get mad at me when I become annoyed with their behavior. What do they expect? They just twisted what I had to say, only to expect me not to become angry about it!

That right there is the mark of absurdity.

If you keep poking the bear, eventually the bear is going to growl back at you.

As humans, we're some pretty funny creatures. Our fellow mammals don't do this sort of thing. Nor do fish, birds, reptiles or insects. No... we're the only ones whom will attempt to reshape reality just to be correct. Imagine if elephants did such a thing... or dolphins. What if ants, when upset with their queen, suddenly stopped working and walked away from the colony?

It's quite silly if you think about it. So why do we do it?

I suspect it has something to do with our pride.