I wrote a letter to my brother who is still in jail. It is a pretty good summary of what I’m doing these days, so I’m posting it here.
Monday, June 5, 2006
Dear Matthew,
I decided to type your letter this time. Why? Because when I handwrite things, they (1) take longer so (2) I forget what I was about to write before I write it and (3) I’m sure they won’t confiscate your letter if it’s in plain ol’ Lexmark #16 black ink.
I don’t think I need to ask you what you’ve been up to lately; that would be silly. I’m sorry that I can’t send any books right now, either. We’re a bit poor at the time being what with school starting next Monday. Some of the books you asked for, well, good versions of them anyway, were expensive. My math class begins on June 12th and my English on June 19th. The English one actually ends on my birthday! Ah, I’ve never had to go to school on my birthday. =(
An internet cafe sounds like a good idea for the Las Vegas strip. There’re too many of those here and most are perpetually empty. Maybe Internet Cafe/Strip Club? =) Anyhow, many of the programs you’d need for such a place are already available through Microsoft. They have versions of Windows 2000 for them and I hear they’ll have one for Vista, too. It’s similar to the type of programs you’d find on school computers… except better.
I haven’t said anything about this because I could guess how Dad would react, but for a while now, I’ve been vegan. You know what that is, right? I’ll pretend you don’t and will explain: being vegan means that I don’t eat meat, eggs, milk, honey or any other product that comes from an animal. That also goes for leather, silk and the like. I finally told Dad the day before yesterday. He started with, “Well, if that makes you happy, then good for you,” but ended up with, “Well, you need meat. Eventually you’ll wear down without it,” et cetera. You see, I’ve always known where meat comes from, how it’s produced and how the animals raised for it are treated, but something inside me just clicked one day. I thought about it and realized that it was just wrong.
My personal beliefs are that all the world and everything in it are utterly worthless. Each thing has a complete and total value equal to zero. This theory I’ll explain a bit later in this letter, but I’ll continue now with how this relates to my veganism. If we’re all worthless, I thought, what does it matter if I inflict suffering on others? It’s true that it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. But! If I have a value of zero and an animal has a value of zero, then is the animal’s welfare just as important as my own? Both equal zero. I started researching about animal abuse, factory farms, meat production… and I came to realize that it doesn’t matter whose suffering it is, it’s still horrible – I don’t want to be a part it. I don’t want to be the cause of another’s pain. Of course, I don’t think I’ll change anything. I don’t think I can make it a better place, but instead of wallowing in this fact, I refuse to contribute to it! I can’t make the world a perfect place, but I don’t have to make it any worse, either!
Of course, it’s hard. There’s a million little animal-derived additives to most anything you’ll find in a grocery store or a restaurant. I’ve started shopping at a local vegetarian grocery store. It’s not fully vegan, but it’s not hard to find things there that I can eat. I really do miss cheese, too! “Vegan cheese substitute” is nasty and doesn’t melt quite well, after all… but doesn’t giving up something you love for something you believe in build character? I think so. I’ve never been happier. I get to say this every day now! “I’ve never been happier.”
Roman is doing fine. His new job is at a local hotel and he runs its night audit. Of course, they abuse him there by sometimes making him work twelve-hour shifts and six-day weeks, but, “It’s still better than working retail,” he says. I guess any job is better than working retail.
School, as I’ve said, starts next week and I registered and bought my books online. Half.com makes books cheap. I got a $135 textbook for $20 after shipping. (I feel really smart!) Except one of the books I need for English, I have everything. This one merchant keeps jerking me around and it’s driving me crazy. I should have checked their feedback before ordering. It’s been almost a month! Lousy jerks.
Apple has come out with a new MacBook. I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but the new Intel-based Apple computers can run Windows XP through a beta program called “Boot Camp.” I was worried that I’d have to get a Windows laptop for school because I’m a Computer Science major and would need to write programs for Windows, but now I have no worries! There’s been a MacBook Pro out for some time now, but it starts at $2000! The MacBook, after a slight RAM upgrade, student discount, and tax will run me $1250. Ah, it’s a big price, but what quality! I can also get the student/teacher edition of Microsoft Office for Mac for $50 from eBay. Dad is sending me his old MacMini so I can sell it on eBay and get little money for my MacBook. He says it’s because he didn’t have the money for a wedding present. I feel a little bad accepting it from Pops, but he says he doesn’t use the Mac and I could really use a laptop. Also, I’m not really afraid of being mugged for it in my cracked-out neighborhood ’cause I always wear a backpack whenever I go anywhere, and nobody bothers me. Well, that is except the men who yell lewd things at me, but I can stand that. =(
I also stopped using plastic bags. You know, those ones you get from virtually every store on Earth. They’re just horrible for the environment and incredibly wasteful! I picked up these ones from eBay called “Green Bags” – got four of them for $7.50 after shipping from Australia. They zip up to wallet size and I throw them in my backpack and hand them to the bagger after my purchases. Like I said, I can’t make the world a perfect place, but I don’t have to make it any worse, either!
A few days ago, I was standing in the bus near the back exit because there was nowhere to sit down. On the seats next to me, there were three pretty teenaged girls going to Mason Street. One of them was incredibly ancy and kept wanting to get off the bus. She kept asking, “Is the next one Mason Street?” and proclaiming, “I’m getting off here! I have to go!” She obviously didn’t know her way around or anything about the Tenderloin. It’s funny how though I’m new to San Francisco, I still find myself giving directions to people here. I had to convince her and her friends to stay on the bus – they were trying to get off eight blocks early – and tell them that there are no places to use the restroom in the area. Alas, I hope they listened! If men in this area yell lewd things to me and follow me around (sometimes for a whole block) I can only think what they’d do to these photogenic girls!
Ro and I have been playing a new private server lately. There’re new Ragnarok classes! If you haven’t heard they are: TaeKwon Kid, Star Gladiator (2-1 of TaeKwon), Soul Linker (2-2 of TaeKwon), Gunslinger and Ninja. Ninjas, sadly are far overpowered and can waste a whole group of people with a single cast of “Crimson Fire Formation.” =( At any rate, you should try playing next month. It’s free and fun. TaeKwons have a skill called “TaeKwon Mission” which is rendered obsolete if you change to a second class, so it encourages you to stay a TaeKwon forever, like I have. See, it gives you a random monster of which you must kill 100. For each mission you complete, you get a point. The ten TaeKwons with the most points on the server are called “rankers.” After level 90, they get 3x HP and SP as well as unlimited kick combinations. (You’d have to see it to get it, I think.) I’m the top ranker on this sever, but about 300 people play it and competition is stiff. I hope I can maintain it after school starts!
I almost forgot to explain my theory about the absolute value of the world and everything in it! It goes like this: this planet has not always existed nor will it exist forever hereafter. If everything is finite, then no matter what we do here and now, it will not last forever and eventually all will be as if we never existed to begin with. Thus, anything that has any value must exist forever, else it is all a futile waste. Even if we can do something that will last forever, like, I don’t know, blow up the Sun, it won’t change anything in the long run so long as the universe keeps going through its Big Bang, Big Crunch cycles. If nothing lasts, nothing matters. Makes sense, right? Sounds sad, doesn’t it? I guess it was sad when I first came to realize it, but because there’s no reason for our existence, we can do anything with it we like, no? Only moron religious-types need to find a reason for living. We exist and it doesn’t matter, therefore we are free. We can assign values to things as we so choose, though the values aren’t absolute, they are relative to each person.
Speaking of religious-type belief in absolute value as assigned by presence and intention of a deity: I always ask them where God came from and how they can be sure that he matters. That always reduces them to idiotic bumbling things like, “How can God not matter?” and “But he created us!” Ah, I’ll never find a religious person that can adequately answer that question. Nothing can simply be, it has to come from somewhere. Kind of makes me wonder where the universe/multiverse came from to begin with. We think, therefore we are, but were did we come from to think to begin with? This is how I almost started believing in a “God” again, that is before I realized that “God” is just a cop-out and we have to work hard to get real answers.
Well, I’m actually out of things to say now! I’ll write again when I think up more.
Love, your sister,
Sara
