Category: Miscellaneous
Essays about random things
Posted on September 22, 2018
by Kephen
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In the Twilight of Memory Calling to me in the distance, I can hear them all say my name. Reaching out from the past, from moments that used to be. I drift beyond the precipice of wakefulness, I let go of my consciousness and…
Posted on September 20, 2018
by Kephen
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My name is Kephen Merancis and there’s really no easy way to start the conversation that we need to have. It takes a lot of courage to break the wall of silence that stigma builds. It takes at least a little bit of hope…
Category: All, Depression and Suicide, Human Condition, Kephen's Commentary, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Behavioral Health, Bi-polar Disorder, Depression, MCRD, Mental Health, Mental Illness, San Diego, Suicide Awareness, Suicide Prevention, USMC
Posted on June 9, 2018
by Kephen
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To be Acknowledged as Existing 7,432 Americans will wake up today to what will be their last day alive, most of whom will not know this ahead of time. According to the American mortality rate published in 2016 by the National Center for Health…
Category: All, Human Condition, Kephen's Commentary, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Appreciation, Awareness, Friends, Friendship, Gratitude, Lessons on Living, Love, Loved Ones, Positive Influence, Thich Nhat Hanh, What Matters
Posted on April 6, 2018
by Kephen
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Choose To Live Do something that scares you. Go places you’ve never been before. Become the person you wish other people would be. Ever since my mom died almost two years ago, I have constantly faced the mortality of my own existence. Too many…
Category: All, Depression and Suicide, Human Condition, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Awareness, Death, Life, Live, Mindfulness, Mortality, Thrive
Posted on March 19, 2018
by Kephen
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The Inexplicable Have you ever stopped to think for a moment how incredibly rare your existence actually is? The odds that you would ever come into being are literally on average a million to one. That’s literally a 0.000001% chance that you would be…
Category: All, Human Condition, In Loving Memory, Kephen's Commentary, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Existence, Inspiration, Mindfulness, Rarity of Life, Truth, Value of Life
Posted on March 19, 2018
by Kephen
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How To Research Your Family Ancestry So you’ve decided that you want to research your family ancestry, but you don’t know where to begin. Genealogy, the study of family ancestry, is both immensely rewarding and incredibly time consuming. For most people, the time required…
Category: All, Human Condition, In Loving Memory, Kephen's Commentary, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Advice For Beginners, Building A Family Tree, Family History, Family Research, Genealogy, How To, Inspiration, Learn About Your Ancestors
Posted on February 7, 2018
by Kephen
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Ben Tre: Keep The Loneliness Warm I hold my face in my two hands. No, I am not crying. I hold my face in my two hands to keep the loneliness warm two hands protecting, two hands nourishing, two hands preventing my soul from…
Category: All, Atheism, Religion and Spirituality, Human Condition, Kephen's Commentary, Miscellaneous, PoliticsTags: *See All Posts, Ben Tre, Bombing of Ben Tre, Buddhism, Buddhist Monk, Da Nang, Destruction of Ben Tre, Facts, Ho Chi Minh City, Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, PBS, Politics, Public Broadcasting Service, Saigon, Self-Immolation, Southern Vietnam, The Vietnam War, Thich Nhat Hanh, Thich Quang Duc, Viet Cong, Vietnam War
Posted on February 2, 2018
by Kephen
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Genetics: The Basics of How You’ve Come To Be Genetics are a fascinating thing. Most of us have forty-six chromosomes in every one of the some fifty-trillion cells that are in our body at any given moment. Each of those chromosomes is paired up…
Category: All, Human Condition, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Adenine, Allele, Autosomes, Cells, Chromosome, Cytosine, Deoxyribonucleic Acid, DNA, Dominant, Double Helix, Expressed Genes, Genes, Genetics, Genotype, Guanine, Heterozygous, Homozygous, Hydrogen Bond, Inheritable Traits, Inheritance, Mutation, Non-Recombination, Nucleotide, Phenotype, Phosphate, Proteins, Punnett Square, Recessive, Recombination, Sex Chromosomes, Thymine, XX, XY
Posted on January 30, 2018
by Kephen
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What the Story of Hiro-Kala Teaches Us If you’re not familiar with Hiro-Kala, I’ll give you a brief glimpse. He is a Marvel Comic Universe fictional character created by Greg Pak and Ron Garney, appearing from 2008 through 2011 in such series as Skaar:…
Category: All, Human Condition, Kephen's Commentary, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Axeman Bone, Bruce Banner, Caiera, Galactus, Hiro-Kala, Hulk's Dark Son, Incredible Hulk, Marvel Comics, Sakaar, Skaar, Skaar's Evil Twin, The Story of Hiro-Kala, Who is Hiro-Kala?
Posted on December 13, 2017
by Kephen
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The Passenger: Commentaries on the Nature of Consciousness What is consciousness? It is defined as a subjective experience, an awareness of self or one’s surroundings and the ability to react to it. Right now, as you are reading this, there is someone inside your…
Category: All, Human Condition, Kephen's Commentary, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Buddhism, Callosotomy, Christof Koch, Corpus Callosum, Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Emergent Property, Gregory Matloff, John Wheeler, Left Hemisphere, Multiple Personality Disorder, Nature of Consciousness, Neuroscience, Panpsychism, Philosophy, Physics, Right Hemisphere, Roger Penrose, Sam Harris, Split-Brain Theory
Posted on December 9, 2017
by Kephen
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“The mind withers and the soul may fade, but the heart will always beat in sync with the one who carries it.” – Colin Madsen February 18, 1991 – April 04, 2016 His Light Carries On: The Life, the Loss, and the Love of…
Category: All, In Loving Memory, Kephen's Commentary, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Abduction, Adventurer, American Medical Examiners, Arshan, Buryatia, Cerebral Wayfarer, Closure, Colin Madsen, Compassion, Death, Evidence, Facts, His Light Carries On, In Loving Memory, In Memoriam, Inspiration, Irkutsk, Justice, Loss, Loss of Loved Ones, Loving Kindness, Murder Case, Nature, Peace, Remembering, Russia, Russian Investigation, Siberia, Torture, Truth, Tunka National Park, Unsolved Murder, Violent Interrogation
Posted on October 10, 2017
by Kephen
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The Macrocosm Perspective Siddhartha Gautama taught that in order to see what matters we must first remove the ego from the equation. Nothing rips apart my ego or sense of self more than the Universe. The above photo is a compilation of the center…
Category: All, Kephen's Commentary, Miscellaneous, TechnologyTags: *See All Posts, Andromeda Galaxy, Betelgeuse, Black Holes, Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Dark Energy, Density, Earth, Ego, Eta Carinae, Event Horizon, Facts, Fun, Gravity, Hubble Space Telescope, IK Pegasi, Interstellar, Laws of Physics, Light Years, Mass, Matter, Milky Way Galaxy, Proxima Centauri, Red Dwarf, Science, Singularity, Sirius, Space, Spitzer Space Telescope, Stars, Sun, Supermassive, Supernova, Universe, Virgo Supercluster, Void
Posted on September 9, 2017
by Kephen
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“The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established… It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one…
Category: All, Kephen's Commentary, Miscellaneous, PoliticsTags: *See All Posts, America, Confirmation Bias, Constitution, Continental Congress, Divided States, Facts, FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Identity Politics, National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund, Nationalism, Oath of Enlistment, Opinion, Police Brutality, Politics, Roland Fryer Jr., Silo Effect, The Washington Post, Truth, United States Marine Corps
Posted on August 22, 2017
by Kephen
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The Thousand Year Journey Jedidiah Jenkins offers up some inspiring wisdom for those of us seeking deeper meaning in life: Follow Jedidiah on Instagram
Category: All, Atheism, Religion and Spirituality, Human Condition, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Awareness, Courage, Explore, Fun, Happiness, Healing, Health, Inspiration, Introspective, Joy, Learn, Lessons on Living, Meaning, Mindfulness, Nature, Travel, Wander, Wisdom
Posted on August 1, 2017
by Kephen
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His Empty Soul: How to Heal a Broken Man There are only a few things every man needs in his life to feel as though he’s living the most fulfilled life that he can. The first critical thing every man needs…
Category: All, Depression and Suicide, Fitness, Human Condition, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Broken, Brotherhood, Emptiness, Empty, Fellowship, Fitness, Healing, Health, Inspiration, Male Bonding, Meaning, Mental Health, Pack Mentality, Philosophy, Purpose, Truth
Posted on June 4, 2017
by Kephen
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Abortion, Abstinence, Abuse, Birth Control, Teen Sex, and Unwanted Pregnancy One in every five American teens lives in poverty. Abuse, poverty and a lack of opportunity plays an important role in not only teen pregnancy, but also unwanted pregnancies in general. Later in this…
Category: All, Depression and Suicide, Human Condition, Miscellaneous, PoliticsTags: *See All Posts, Abortion, Abstinence, Abuse, America, Data, Opportunity, Poverty, Pregnancy, Sex, Sources, Statistics, Teen, United States
Posted on May 12, 2017
by Kephen
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The Algorithm Specs Behind Facebook’s “People You May Know” Suggestions We’ve all seen it, that horizontal scroll pane in our Facebook news feed titled People You May Know. I’ve always found it odd why it would list people I have no mutual friends with….
Category: All, Kephen's Commentary, Miscellaneous, TechnologyTags: *See All Posts, Algorithm, Facebook, GPS Location, IP Address, Mutual Friends, Online Privacy, Online Stalking, People You May Know
Posted on May 12, 2017
by Kephen
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The Darkest Corners of the Cyber World:Sexual Predation and Exploitation Sexual predation and exploitation is the topic of this article, more specifically it’s about catfish who use social media and social apps to seduce and trick young men and women into sending naked photos…
Category: All, Human Condition, Kephen's Commentary, Miscellaneous, TechnologyTags: *See All Posts, Apps, Baiting, Catfish, Facebook, FaceTime, Instagram, Kik, MeetMe, Omegle, Online Safety, Parenting Advice, Sextortion, Sexual Exploitation, Sexual Predation, Sexual Predator, Snapchat, Social Applications, Social Media Sites, Straight Baiting
Posted on April 16, 2017
by Kephen
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Words To Live By I’m sharing this video because as a 4 minute reflection, it may very well be the most profound thing you listen to this month, for the next six months, or perhaps even this whole year. In fact, if you’re like…
Category: All, Depression and Suicide, Human Condition, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Hope, Inspiration, Lessons on Living, Philosophy, Travel, Truth, Wisdom
Posted on November 7, 2016
by Kephen
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Photo credit: Kelvin Cheuk Lotus in a Lake of Fire: Honoring Thich Nhat Hanh Thich Nhat Hanh, pronounced Tik-N’yat-Hawn, is a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk. I stumbled across him when studying Buddhism about ten or so years ago. Over time I collected 15 of…
Category: All, Atheism, Religion and Spirituality, Human Condition, MiscellaneousTags: Buddhism, Humanism, Meditation, Mindfulness, Peace is Every Step, Spiritual Leader, Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen, Zen Buddhist Monk, Zen Master
Posted on October 30, 2016
by Kephen
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Leonardo DiCaprio’s film on climate change: Before the Flood “We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world, his inner life molds the…
Posted on September 14, 2016
by Kephen
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On Labels and Identity Want to read something awkward and extremely personal? You know you want to, but if you don’t want to know about my sex life you should probably stop reading right here. Oh look at you continuing to read. I knew…
Posted on August 19, 2016
by Kephen
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It’s Been A While August 19, 2016 I haven’t posted anything on here in quite some time. Furthermore, I haven’t typed anything extensive that would garner being posted. The year 2016 has been a harsh one, not just for me, but also for other…
Category: All, Depression and Suicide, Human Condition, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Death, Depression, Guilt, Hopelessness, Introspective, Mental Illness, Sadness, Suicide
Posted on September 8, 2015
by Kephen
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My wakefulness slipped into the murky waters of sleep and dreams as my mind turned rampant with all the information it had received. Damien’s confession sent shock-waves of uncertainty through me and just as those thoughts bounced through my head while awake, they manifested…
Posted on September 6, 2015
by Kephen
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Dusk settled beautifully onto the land and even though the mood surrounding us had turned somber and painful, there was still no other place on Earth I wanted to be more than right there in that moment with Freckles. No matter how short he…
Kephen
Out of the Darkness
Posted on September 20, 2018 by Kephen
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My name is Kephen Merancis and there’s really no easy way to start the conversation that we need to have. It takes a lot of courage to break the wall of silence that stigma builds. It takes at least a little bit of hope…
Category: All, Depression and Suicide, Human Condition, Kephen's Commentary, MiscellaneousTags: *See All Posts, Behavioral Health, Bi-polar Disorder, Depression, MCRD, Mental Health, Mental Illness, San Diego, Suicide Awareness, Suicide Prevention, USMC