This World Isn’t Real And I’ll Prove It To You
There are some worldly things that just do not make sense half of the time. They may seem like reality, but sometimes if you take a step back and try to rationalize their existence, you might come up short with concrete answers. Here are a few of them.
The ocean
From Atlantis to the kraken, the ocean has a myriad of mysteries that scare the living daylights out of me. What are all the things found inside that vast, devastating mass of water? What lies beneath your dark, murky depths, oh ocean? I just cannot wrap my head around it.
The ocean has many terrifying facts. Between the creepy creatures (both discovered and undiscovered), and the fact that it covers over 70% of the earth’s surface, it is hard for me to believe that the ocean is as commonplace as it is portrayed to be. At this point, I will not be surprised if merfolk and sirens did actually exist.
Credit scores
The credit scoring system is a weird invention. I understand the basis behind it–in ancient times, people used certain criteria to judge others’ ability to pay debt, such as repayment history, word-of-mouth testimonials, and home visits.
However, the conditions that come with the modern-day credit-scoring system are hard to justify.
For one, there is the ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ model on which it is based upon. Why do I get penalized both for paying off my debt and for having debt in the first place? Why does my prosperity as a functioning member of society depend on the existence of a number that is borderline arbitrary?
There is some value to be gleaned from credit scores, but I see the entire system as something that is maneuvered like a chessboard. Because that is what credit score management is. A game. It should be marketed as such because that is a more honest label.
The government’s hand in homeownership
Having lived in two different continents (Africa and North America), I can confirm that homeownership appears to actually be a myth in most parts of the world.
Someone I cannot recall once said something along the lines of, “After you buy a home, you basically start paying rent to ‘Daddy Government,’ as any home renter would.”
In the US, this comes in the form of numerous property taxes and other miscellaneous fees. In Nigeria, the state government has vested power of your land and you must get approval from your governor (called a ‘government consent’ document) before any property can be transferred to your name. What’s more, any owned personal land in Nigeria is actually a ‘lease’ from the government which you have to either renew or extend after 99 years have passed. Talk about a well-packaged scam.
So, what even is the point of spending the entirety of my mid-life paying a mortgage, if the house will be seized if I don’t follow some questionable Ts and Cs? Probably nothing. But this does not completely derail my homeownership aspirations though. I still need my picturesque white picket fence.
Air travel
The idea of being halfway across the world in just a number of hours is an intriguing concept. Some of us have become so used to hopping on a plane that we easily forget how surreal of an experience it actually is.
You are getting onto a 40,000kg metal machine, soaring into the skies with no supporting platform underneath at incredible speeds, and landing at your given destination just in time for dinner with friends.
Not to mention, a plane typically flies at a speed of 460–575 mph. The fact that we cannot physically feel the impact of this speed is a physics theory that is equally fascinating to me.
We cannot feel the plane moving so fast just as we cannot feel the earth spinning around its orbit or the velocity from a fast-moving car. This still seems like magic.
Fiat currency
This is a legendary question — if the world is riddled with poverty, why can’t people simply create more paper notes and coins?
Fiat currency is money that is not backed by a physical commodity, but instead backed by the governments that issue it. The results of printing more money would be devaluation and subsequent hyper-inflation in the economy.
But it is still unnerving that a system has been developed which puts so much value on a manmade paper-based exchange, instead of something as certain as gold, which is a naturally occurring resource. The irony is, the world might still be heading towards mass inflation anyways.
So, the theorized tenacity of the fiat currency does not seem to be a sufficiently tangible reality either.
These are just a few items that make me question life’s existence… and don’t even get me started on the internet and outer space. Perhaps I will save that for another post. Thanks for reading my article. Until next time, be kind and curious.
