With a title like that, you just know I've been thinking too much again.

For as long as I can remember, I've questioned things. I've never been able to take ANYTHING at face value; I generally require solid proof and logic to back up my opinions.

That element of my personality basically precludes having any kind of religious belief. Even worse, and I know this is a fault of mine, there are times that I look down upon people who hold religious beliefs. I sometimes see it as a weakness of sorts, kind of like "You need a god to make sense of things? Well, forget that, I can sort stuff out on my own. I don't need any religion to tell me what my morals are, to explain death or atrocities."

Instead, I look to science to explain things and reason to determine my value system. I guess you could say that I believe in science, that I believe in logic. And doesn't that amount to religion? Have I been hoodwinked by my own skepticism and biases? Perhaps my beliefs aren't any less based on that ambigious thing called faith than a devout Jew, Muslim, or Christian. I have faith in scientific procedure, in the human capability to organize the world around us. I believe in empiricism.

And that disturbs me.

If I look down upon people who hold faith, am I not to look down upon myself? I have been a hypocrite in that regard, practicing my beliefs while sneering at those of others. I don't want to accept things unquestioningly as do those who I see as being blinded by their religion.

Perhaps this is what Descartes felt, upon realizing that he had to discard what the world had taught him in order to build, from scratch, his take on the world. What can I believe in?

Maybe nothing really is, or at least, nothing has any meaning other than that which is apparent. I am here. I think. I communicate with others, who also think. I interact with the physical world. I take from it, I give to it, I observe it. The only meaning in any of that is in what actually takes place and in whatever meaning I assign it. That assignment is born of my thinking. I am here. I think. Rinse, and repeat.

Just call me a born-again nihilist.

On a less cosmic note, I've been extremely angsty lately about this coming summer. I have to start thinking about where I'm going to live and what I'm going to do, because I most emphatically do not wish for a repeat of last summer's "live in a hellhole, work at boring jobs" extravaganza. I want to have a decent place to live, save a lot of money, and, if possible, have some sort of 'resume-building' job.

There are a couple options:

I could live at home, which would eliminate most living expenses and thus reduce the pressure on me to get a high-paying job. However, any job I find around here would likely not exactly be much to brag about on my resume, and living at home after not doing so for two years would probably drive me absolutely batty. Also, if I do end up studying abroad next fall, living at home in summer would mean that I wouldn't see my friends from school between May of this year and January of next- not a happy prospect.

I could live in the Twin Cities, which would mean having to find someone to live with AND a place to live. I'd also have to pay rent and groceries, which would mean I'd have to find a very lucrative job or be extremely tight-fisted with my money. This option would drastically increase my chances of getting an interesting job, and one related to my field(s) of study.

There are other various combinations of those situations, but basically it comes down to a battle between money and my sanity. Of course, I'd much rather live in the Cities and have the latter, but it's much harder to be blase about money when it's my tuition (and thus, my education) that is at stake.

Right now, I'm basically just trying not to freak out about it. There's really not a lot of planning I can do while sitting here at home; I just have to calm down and think about the whole thing later.

Today must be the day for me to get in contact with friends from school- I called Patrick, then got email from Jason, and I'm hanging out with Sean tonight. Best of all, Patrick might drive down from Appleton to join us!