Dear Death, Please Knock Before Entering.

Day after day you wake up. You mindlessly follow the daily routine of brushing your teeth and washing your face. Yeah- life tells you to stop and look at the roses, but even when you do, it can only be for a few seconds. What's the point in even taking the time out of your day to "appreciate" these wonders of nature and wonders of life if you can't ever seem to find time to pay respects to them? To acknowledge that lives, other than your own, occur daily around you--from the bees making honey to the skies shifting winds.

In our culture of hustle-bustle-ism, it becomes second nature to simply overlook the scenery...I get it. And in no way do I ask you to stop what you are doing just so that you appreciate the birds humming around you. Quite the contrary- I wish you and I became more aware of the unconscious, repetitive daily routines that we so mindlessly execute. Because it is these mindless executions--I think--are what entrap us in a cycle of repetition. We choose to exclude variety in our lives. We choose to do the same thing over and over again, because we never realize that we might die some time. And if we realized that death were ever so close to us, we may behave differently.

Case in point: On our way to school or work, we grab our wallet and keys. Did you ever look at your wallet and notice the expiration date? I did. You know what I thought? If I knew I was going to die a week from now, would I have to let the DMV know? How often do we get so close to death that our minds--the only thoughts preoccupying our minds--revolve around death?

Case in point: We drive the car and instinctively turn on the radio. I saw an ad for AT&T about losing a precious moment. If I once sat in a car and listened to the radio right away, I could have missed the sounds of a fire horn coming nearer to me within milliseconds. Or I could have been busy flipping a radio channel instead of rolling down the windows and simply listening to the sounds of the city--the people walking and the cars flowing.

Case in point: We grab a bag of chips before sitting down to watch tv. If I had a penny for every chip I ate in front of a screen, I think I would be the next Warren Buffet. But in reality, if I get a chunk of cholesterol for every chip I eat, I get heart disease. So if I knew that the next bag of chips I opened would lead to heart disease, would I do it?

Basically, we live in a world where it is impossible to carpe diem "seize the moment". But what happens when we stop realizing there are moments to be seized? For example, after routinistic patterns of eating unhealthy foods, people become obese. A recent Jamie Oliver discovery on the Oprah show proved one point: when an obese person dies, do you know how the funeral goes? First, they must get an extra-extra large casket that is double the size of a normal one. In carrying the casket (which can only fit through some double doors), the family is not able to give the body any dignity. Even while dead, the person is being humiliated. Ever seen the film What's Eating Gilbert Grape? It's about a mom who was so morbidly obese that she quit going outside in years, and eventually died on her bed. So does anyone ever think about the specifics of dying? Will we, too, lead our bodies to become machines and then die mindlessly?

Death comes suddenly, too, and can wipe out en masse--it has done so in the recent tragedies of Haiti and Pakistan. Does anyone ever look at the clouds, day by day, and think: one day it is these very clouds that might strike me?

If death can so easily invite itself to our lives, then what--exactly--defines or proves our existence? Do we prove that we exist by driving all day, getting stuck in traffic, and going home then watching tv? Or do we prove our existence by planting seed after seed and sowing the crops? How do we define ourselves when it comes time to place a tombstone over our dead bodies? "Amelia Noor- mother, wife, and daughter?" Is that a definition?

Life is an endless acre of corn fields. Each row represents a week, and each stalk is a day, and each kernel a minute. When you drive past the corn fields, they all look the same. Each one is a repetition of the last. There are a few rotten stalks, and several dead kernels. But when you drive past so fast, it's hard to focus on them, hard to notice them, because all the life surrounds them and engulfs them. You keep driving and driving past the acres of corn fields, but you never think--could the next acre be the last one I drive past?

Real, 100% Fake Juicy Reality

That's real deceiving. Real, deceiving- what an oxymoron, no? In fact, it is an oxymoron that Americans face everyday. The distinction between what is fake and what is real has eroded in our lives, and we are deceived by notions of a seeming reality.

Tunnel vision- that's what I call it. That black zone, almost like the introduction part of a Star Wars movie. There's a zoom-in and zoom-out button on your brain like a cone on a dog's neck preventing it from viewing any peripheral movements.

So, of course, this begs the question: Do we see what we want to see, or do we see what is really happening?

Wouldn't that be a nice question to pose to the media.

But, on a more relevant tangent, I would like to question America's food system. How do I explain to a child that our world has deteriorated SO much, to the point th



at we must feel it is a treat to have a100% real fruit smoothie? To explain to our next generation that Monsanto soy beans have taken over nearly 96-97% of all American crops, that they are genetically modified beans (in other words, 100% fake), and that the worst part is: there is most likely a soy ingredient in any food product on the shelf of a grocery store? Maybe I should start a Facebook group- "When I was your age, we had REAL soy beans!" Even plutonian soybeans would taste more authentic- Ha!

Food, Inc is the documentary I recently watched that spurred these thoughts. Although I had already been aware of the "modifications" and hormones in food, it was a rude awakening to learn that, in all of America, there are only 13 slaughterhouses. That means, if you are buying meat at the local supermarket, chances are that the beef patty on your next burger contains a mixture of shredded beef from thousands of different cows mushed together in a single 3-inch diameter patty. News flash: some of the cows had E. coli, but were never treated. News flash: each burger has an "ammonia" filling that is supposed to wipe out all the E. coli. News flash: YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE YOUR FOOD IS COMING FROM, NOR WHERE YOUR FOOD HAS BEEN.

I have ceased eating red meat for about five months now, with the exception of a bite of kebob here and there. (Just a bite, I swear!) It is refreshing to know that I have not partaken in the deception of humanity by the industry. However, there is no escape.

Vegetables: ripened by ethylene gas in trucks, while on their way from one end of the world where they are in season, to the other end, where they are not in season.
Chicken: now have larger breasts, with half the time it takes to reach full maturity.

Fruits: planted by seeds that have patents on genetically modified formulas.
Fish: incresingly being fed corn instead of seaweed or algae that naturally occurs in nature.
Again, what am I seeing? Am I really cooking spaghetti and meatballs or is it simply the notion of spaghetti and meatballs, with artificial tastes and thus artificial pleasures? Do I even know what it's like to feel real? To wake up due to the sun rising instead of an alarm buzzing? To drink water running in a stream instead of through the tap? To admit myself into the hospital of reality, get checked in at the front desk of dystopia, and then hand myself to a doctor for a cure?

I had afterthoughts on such questionings of reality not only after learning about the food we eat but also after having watched Inception. Although the entire premise of the film is to question the distinctions between reality and fantasy, the specific aspect of "planting the seed of an idea" into a person's mind--Inception--is what occurred to me while watching it. By simply paying $10.50 for any movie I have ever seen in my life, I have let someone else plant an idea in my head that I cannot ever own copyrights to. Who even thought of the idea of copyrights? Why are the seeds of ideas labeled? Next time I go to Lowe's, I would like to enter the Garden Center and purchase two varieties of Suburbia seeds, one packet of instant farm fertilizer, and ten gallons of synthetic water!

In addition to this seeming "socialization" of thoughts and realities, I find it increasingly hard to be able to explain what a real world was like back then if I ever have a chance to explain it to my children. Once upon a time, we used to have playgrounds instead of Virtual World of Fitness, version 3.0 Limited Edition. We used to be afraid of contracting skin cancer from bathing in the sun too long. We used to hate eating vegetables raw- when carrot dip, broccoli and cheese, and cool whip were inventions of the future. We used to live longer, and with fewer diseases. And the best part--we never had the attitude that if there was something wrong with us, we could pop the pill that would fix it later on.

Our facade is so eminent, that even our own mirrors deceive us. We see what we want, not what is real. We become avatars in a widely web-dominated world. When all of our information will be stored in hard drives, who will discover our communications when we are wiped out? As Albert Einstein once said, the third world war will be fought by sticks and stones. I am afraid that the world I know as it is is disintegrating before my eyes, but at the same time, I am in my own preferred alternate reality.

And so are you.