Since I'll only be awake for another three hours (in keeping with my 7am to 7pm sleeping scheduel), I might as well post something semi-meaningful.

Lately, I've been thinking about all the resources parents have to muster (monetary and otherwise) to raise children. You can blame the misanthrope for not liking people in general, but the need to have a next generation is an urge that I lack.

Moreso, I wonder why nearly millions of dollars are spent on something as fragile as a human life. One could argue that it's built in our genes; in order to propagate the species, we have to WANT to have children... But I've seen so many parents (especially in this do-it-yourself nation of America), upon their offspring's 18th birthday, give their kids $50, open the door and say "out." Perhaps they only fulfilled a legal obligation instead of an intrinsic one in caring for someone until "adulthood" before swinging the machete of consummatum est on any familial ties with their children.

Maybe the urge to propagate (which is different from procreating, since that only involves the messy and enjoyable act of ejaculating into a cup/turkey baster) was not strong enough for those parents to ensure that their genes are carried on in the next generation.

In fact, that may be the answer to the need to spawn: immortality. The actions of one individual in a world of over 6 billion is small, and with the inevitability of death upon our short lives people rely on the memories of their fellow men to remind them that yes, they too existed once. The only way to continue living beyond death (that we know concretely of) is to create proof of one's existence through a legacy, be it monuments, nations, histories, or children.

And since so few aspire to greatness (let alone achieve it), creating someone whose genes will perpetually remind them of where they came from is the easiest of choices. Need proof? Look at the numerous cultures (especially in Asia) whose central spiritual belief lies in ancestor worship. What better way to become immortal than by becoming a god?

(Hey, if the Egyptians managed it... and they even built time-resistant monuments to boot.)

...

I ask these questions not only to observe what can be called an ethical flaw in my thinking, but to justify my own existence. Why have I been brought into this world, why have my parents spent so much of their resources to build me into this imperfect being when I would've sooner put a cavity through my head?

My existence, from this stand point, is merely an inconvenience. The supposed joy I bring others is lost on me because I don't want to be an inconvenience. And if living to consume is as nonproductive as I know it is...

But would I really waste the investment my parents placed in me for delusions of inadequacy?

Let's just say that you know you've been raised Catholic when you parents can guilt you out of suicide.