Stories By Van

Thanks to everyone who shared my post about mental illness yesterday. There was a really huge turnout for viewers and a lot of people sharing the post, so thank you to everyone. Alright, now that the mushy stuff is out of the way; it's time to ruin your weekend. Let's talk urban legends - specifically, Black-Eyed Kids. en.wkipedia.org The unsettling black-eyed kids phenomenon is described as children and teens who have jet black eyes without any sclera (white), iris, or pupil. They usually have pale skin or a death pallor. They may be wearing normal clothes or white nightgowns. These black-eyed kids (BEK) usually appear at night. They may knock on doors and windows asking to be let in. Their voices can be monotonous and they may have high-pitched giggles. The advice usually given is to ignore them, and walk away if you encounter them on the street. Reports of BEKs spiked in 2013 after percolating for a number of years, but it has all of the hallmarks of an ...

Alright, so this morning I was sent a link this morning to 15 illustrations of mental illnesses represented as houses. It was really cool and thought-provoking, so, thanks to Nyla Grigsby for sending me the link. I'll share it here . Check it out, but not before you read this post (obviously). After looking through those pictures, I was reminded of a series of drawings I found a couple years ago with the same idea (only much more frightening - which I like). If you're not aware, every October, artists from all around the world participate in a drawing challenge called "InkTober" where they make one ink drawing a day for the entire month. In October 2016, an amazing artist Shawn Coss  decided to make his own original prompt for the month. Shawn wanted to focus primarily on personifying mental illnesses and disorders. These illustrations are crazy awesome, scary, realistic . Shawn manages to capture the struggle and turmoil of those who suffer with these illnesses...

Who’s smarter - you, or the computer or mobile device on which you’re reading this article? The answer is increasingly complex, and depends on definitions in flux. Computers are certainly more adept at solving quandaries that benefit from their unique skillset, but humans hold the edge on tasks that machines simply can’t perform. Not yet, anyway Computers can take in and process certain kinds of information much faster than we can. They can swirl that data around in their “brains,” made of processors, and perform calculations to conjure multiple scenarios at superhuman speeds. For example, the best chess-trained computers can at this point strategize many moves ahead, problem-solving far more deftly than can the best chess-playing humans. Computers learn much more quickly, too, narrowing complex choices to the most optimal ones. Yes, humans also learn from mistakes, but when it comes to tackling the kinds of puzzles computers excel at, we’re far more fallible. Computers enjoy o...

Ah, time to sit back and smell the dying roses. Existential questions. Those rising, dreadful things that strike at you in the dark moments of tragedy or introspection and strip away the fleeting illusions of life revealing the truth of absurdity. We have all been there. Most brush those questions aside, but they are there. Lying dormant in the long grass of the mind, waiting to pounce when you least expect. I know why people avoid these questions. They are powerful and terrible and downright earth shattering when we happen to stumble across some less than desirable conclusions. But they don’t have to be. They can be some forceful motivators for taking responsibility and action in your life. Now, I want to make one thing clear before we start, while I am drawing on the extensive knowledge I have in regards to Existential philosophers and Existentialism in general, I am drawing more deeply from my experiences of and in the world. That is the root definition of existential...

www.thoughtcatalog.com In 1963, NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper claimed to have seen an unknown satellite in space. NASA said Cooper was hallucinating. In 1998, the space shuttle Endeavour took a photo of the mysterious satellite and dubbed it ‘The Black Knight Satellite’. Now, video feed from the International Space Station has captured the satellite to the astonishment of control personnel. (see YouTube channel Section 51 video below) In the video, the Black Knight is seen floating near the Soyuz spacecraft set to dock with the ISS. Conspiracy theorists claim the satellite is 13,000 years old, of extraterrestrial origin (from Epsilon Boötis to be exact), and orbiting the Earth in near-polar orbit. NASA says that it is a thermal blanket dropped by space shuttle crew. I'm not here to tell you which is right. Frankly, because I have no clue myself. I will, however, give you the information provided and let you decide for yourself. Alien satellite or misplaced thermal bl...

Have you ever been convinced that something is a particular way only to discover you’ve remembered it all wrong? If so, it sounds like you’ve experienced the phenomenon known as the Mandela Effect. This strange form of collective misremembering of common events or details first emerged in 2010, when countless people on the internet falsely remembered Nelson Mandela was dead. It was widely believed he had died in prison back in the 1980's. Obviously, not true. In reality, Mandela was actually freed in 1990 and passed away in 2013 - despite some people's claims they remember seeing clips on his funeral on TV. Paranormal consultant Fiona Broome coined the term "Mandela Effect" to explain this collective misremembering, and then other examples began popping up all over the internet. For instance, it was wrongly recalled that C-3PO from Star Wars was gold, when actually one of his legs is silver. Likewise, people often wrongly believe that the Queen in Snow White...

WARNING! Scientific experiments have proven that if you read the following story, you will likely be changed. Your ideas about religion, politics - yes, even your appreciation of art and beauty will be changed... at least temporarily. So if you like the way you feel about life right now, maybe you should skip this article. I'm going to tell you something that you already know. It's something obvious. But it's also so horrific and terrible that it must quickly be forgotten or it could literally drive you insane. Just the reminder of this fact will be enough to change your behavior, your outlook on the world and the look on your face. Funny stuff right? I saw this warning this morning when I started researching this theory. But, we don't come to this blog to run and hide from what could potentially scare us. No, we look that dark abyss dead in the face, and we laugh. Well, maybe not laugh, but rather, we learn to understand its mysteries as much as humanl...