With A Blank Slate

"A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering...than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence." - John Stuart Mill


"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a food satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their side of the question." - Also John Stuart Mill


I've gotten to the point in Justice--which arrives about halfway through nearly every nonfiction book I read-- at which I stop reading and begin skimming. Kant's thoughts, as described by the author, are...dense.


However, one of the sections that I did read thoroughly was the one about how to make fair laws.


John Rawls (who inhabits the chapter after Kant) discards utilitarianism and libertarianism and suggests that if people were able to forget everything about themselves--economic status, gender, religion, etc.-- for a few hours, we'd be able to make laws that really were fair for everyone--or at least fair enough that we wouldn't mind being on the losing end.


You want to have social programs just in case you wind up as one of the poor people. You want religious freedom in case you're one of the minorities. You want tolerance in case you're one of the ones not being tolerated. Self-interest doesn't involve bias anymore, because we don't know which possible self we're supposed to be interested in.


And I like that. (Psst. Congress! Come listen to Rawls!)

Right vs. Wrong and The Value Criterion

"You're right, it doesn't really matter. It's best to live life as yourself. If you start to care too much about results, then you see the box that you're kind of in and then you start acting like your box is supposed to act. Then you're not acting like yourself." - my best friend in response to my last post

So I was sitting here procrastinating from figuring out a plot dilemma, and I started thinking about the concept of right and wrong (which sounds odd when I put it like that).

I firmly believe that there are many situations in which I am right, while the people with opposing ideas can also be right. That sounds awfully counter-intuitive (because it is), so I then proceeded to try and justify that belief.

In Lincoln-Douglas debate (one-on-one with a specific format), there is the resolution (the thing being debated), the value premise (the goal), and the value criterion (how progress towards the goal is measured).

Here's the resolution from the 2010-2011 Nationals: "When forced to choose, a just government ought to prioritize universal human rights over its national interest."

The value premise is "just government." The value criterion, however, changes between the affirmative and negative sides of the resolution. 

If I'm arguing affirmative, my value criterion would be something like "'Just,' as defined by the World English Dictionary, means fair or impartial in action or judgement; therefore, a just government is one that favors no group of people over another for arbitrary reasons such as national boundaries."

If I'm arguing negative, however, my value criterion would be something like "The purpose of a just government is to provide for its citizens a fair, well-functioning society with legal allowance for equal opportunities for all citizens; therefore, a just government is one that acts with its national interest in mind." (Bear in mind this is my first time writing value criterions-- the purpose here isn't to actually have a solid argument.)

So with one set of values, universal human rights should have the priority, and with the other set of values, the primary drive should be national interest. The affirmative is correct according to the things valued by the affirmative, and the negative is correct according to the things valued by the negative. They're both right, despite having opposing opinions regarding how to reach the goal of "just government."

The debate, then, falls to well-argued points concerning values rather than methods by which to attain the goal. It's not "same-sex marriage should be legal" vs, "same-sex marriage should not be legal." It's "we value marriage equality" vs. "we believe marriage should only take place between a man and a woman." A small difference, but an important one. In both cases the goal is corruption-free marriage laws; both sides just have differing opinions as to what that means-- based on their values.

That particular example is one in which I think the side opposite mine is dead wrong and nothing they say can change my mind, so perhaps I should not have used it here, but there are plenty of other situations in which I respect the difference in values and am fine with acknowledging the subjective "rightness" of the other person, even if I will gladly debate it with them anyway (acknowledging the validity of an opposing opinion does not mean agreeing with it, after all).

Center-Brained

“There are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely-or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands.” - Oscar Wilde


Having spent most of the day writing and then a little bit more time on Khan Academy (my dad wants me to work on it just so I can have the calculus unlocked when I need it and I can still do most of it in my head), I thought I'd do a post about left brainedness vs. right brainedness (yes, that's a word).


My main passion is writing, as you well know, and most of the rest of my time is spent with other right-brainy things, but I've also been known to read books on physics (specifically higher dimensional theory) in my free time and while I generally hate doing math, I like learning about it. While I act like a right-brained person, I've been told both by people and "what should your career be based on your personality" tests that I think like a left-brained person.


I took a quiz right before writing this (a quiz with more than just "yes" and "no" as answers) and scored 47% left brain and 53% right brain. Just like I thought: I'm straight down the middle. Each hemisphere is broken down into different characteristics, with my scores being pretty straight down the middle there too other than "nonverbal" (very low) and "concrete" (very high). According to the analysis, this means I'm good with words and always need/want to know why something is the way it is, or works/doesn't work, but can go both ways with pretty much everything else.


This is exactly what I expected. Personally, I'm happy to be right in the center, even if it means I can be terribly indecisive and paradoxical at times (which I definitely can). I don't think it's necessarily good or bad to be strongly one way or the other, and it would at this point be arrogant to say anything about the benefits of being in the middle. Although it probably means us middle people over-analyze too much (see: the entire archives of this blog).


An example of my contrariness: I took this test in order to analyze myself and then draw conclusions about related topics, but now that I have done so, I'd rather just go with the flow. To be myself and not worry about which box I fit in, as much as I like sorting things with accurate, useful classification systems.


It's a perpetual problem, and the more I think about it, the more examples within my life I can find. But then I don't want to think about it. **flings arms out dramatically** Oh, woe is me!


If you are one of those who likes this sort of thing, please take the quiz and leave your results in the comments if you are so inclined.

Groups Are Memes

"I think a lot of people misinterpret the 'nerdfighters' philosophy as 'we are people who wear glasses and are socially awkward and love math and harry potter and english literature.'
It sort of started out that way, but since then I think the major ideology of the community has become something more to the tune of 'we are people who value rationality and sensibility as opposed to vapidity and hostility, and who promote knowledge and the furthering of information as tool to combat both personal and global issues.'
I think a lot of people get stuck in the 'peeps and things on heads and in your pants and giraffes' layer of the community and are either put off by the barrage of memetic in-jokes or simply adopt that as their entire view of the community, which I think sort of takes away from the more universal, inclusive values that the nerdfighter philosophy is fundamentally based on." - John Green

He says that as if it's only non-nerdfighters who think those things. There are plenty of nerdfighters who have the "we people who are socially awkward and love math and Harry Potter and English literature" thing, and get absorbed by the memetic in-jokes and apparent norms.

This is interesting because it shows that even if the creator/defacto leader of a group views the group in a certain way, that doesn't mean the group itself views it in the same way. Even if the "official" ideology of a group says one thing, that doesn't mean the group behaves according to it. Even if you intend for something to go one way-- be it a group, a relationship, or a novel-- once you start it, it gets a life of its own. It's not yours anymore. It belongs to the people to which you gave it (and John Green knows this-- he's written me an email about it.)

In other words, groups are memes. And they have memes within themselves. (MEMECEPTION!) Oh look-- a 3rd level of meme.

Platform Fifteen And Three Quarters

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire


In English last semester, we read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. It's about a man's spiritual journey. He starts out as a Hindu Brahmin (priest caste), becomes an ascetic (self-deprivation for the sake of spiritual advancement), meets the Buddha, decides he admires the Buddha but needs to find his own teachings, becomes a greedy, worldly man, meets a hermit ferryman, and then he and the ferryman hang out and listen to the river talk to them and he finds peace. It's basically a coming-of-age novel in that he spends the entire time wandering around figuring out his identity and place in the world...it just takes him most of his life to do it. I liked it. Most of my classmates didn't.


When we first started reading it, we had a journal assignment in the general ilk of "Is spirituality/life linear, or cyclical?" I interpreted the question as "Is there an end point, or do we keep moving forward forever?" and I'm a huge advocate for the cyclical/"we just keep going" side of things.


My dad told me a couple days ago that probably two thirds of the adult population are at the same maturity level they were at when they finished high school. Knowing how much I've grown as a person in the past six, three, or even one month(s), I can't imagine why anyone would ever want to stop. Why would someone ever think they're finished?


Individual lives might have definitive beginnings and endings, but why should Life In General? I figure if no one can ever be as wise or knowledgeable or successful or or kind or mature or happy or self-actualized or whatever as they'd like to be, we should keep trying. 


If we're to be successful in that, we're going to "need" different things at different times, in order to keep progressing. And those things will in themselves present new problems, which means we'll need new things. (God, that's a lot of new things. I hate new things. Grrr.)


Different religions have different worldviews, different perspectives, different teachings, and different people. Maybe it just comes from being of the opinion that we can never really know any ultimate metaphysical truth, but I am totally okay with religious beliefs morphing over time, or even just swapping religions entirely. How can I have beliefs without believing in absolute truth? "I don't know this, but this is what I think at the moment."


Whenever a little kid says "I'm six and one quarter," the adults in the room usually laugh. But having been a little kid, and being a teenager now, I can say with full confidence that those quarters matter. So much can be learned and said and done and experienced in three months. 


People mature at different rates, so the older you get, the less the actual numbers matter, but you keep going forward. Every year on my birthday, my dad says to me "Happy Day-Older-Than-You-Were-Yesterday." And while he's just doing it to be clever and to make me laugh, he has a point. Your birthday isn't some magical day when you were fifteen and now you're sixteen and that suddenly makes you so much older and more mature. It's the culmination of all 365 days before that.


So hi. I'm here catching the train on platform fifteen and three quarters. I intend to ride these trains for a long, long time, and I'm not just riding through time; I'm riding through life.


(And there is my super-dramatically-phrased Hey Look At Me I Think I'm Smart post of the day. Thank you.)

I Am A Blogger For Right Now

I need to ask a favor of all of you. Please read the following quote from Kenny's blog:


"Yesterday it occurred to me that one of our greatest struggles as we try to relate to other people is our need to objectify ourself. What I mean is that, paradoxically, although we have so much more information about our own experiences than anyone else's for this very reason we often cannot understand ourself. We lack the context to understand ourself as a human being precisely because we have such a skewed perspective on ourself, and we struggle to fit ourself into the role of human as we cannot compare ourself to anyone else since we lack comparable data on any one else's experiences. Thusly we struggle to objectify ourself, or to consider our experiences from an objective, rather than subjective, point of view, because that is the only way that we can relate to other people, whom we must all view, to some extent, from an objective perspective."


Now, in case that was too academic for you...


We try to apply labels and roles to ourselves because that's the only way we can relate ourselves to other people. We're too complex and confusing to do it any other way.


There's some stuff later in the same post that I also want to talk about, but I'm just going to use my own words for it. Go read his post as well if you want, though. I've linked to it at the top of the page.


I have this theory that other people anchor us to ourselves, and to life. When other people are  involved, you define yourself by how you relate to and interact with them. When a person leaves, be it leaving your life or leaving the room, you lose some of that stability.


You become less boxed-in, and more of a seething mass of perception, emotion, and thought. This isn't necessarily bad-- just scary, and sometimes hard to deal with depending on the degree. I think that's one of the many reasons other people are important-- figuring out them helps us to figure out ourselves. 
At the very least they make it easier to live simply by being something on which to hold:


"I am customer. Ze is salesman." "I am Ze's friend." "Ze is my mom." "Ze is a fellow tourist."


Those are gross simplifications, but you see my point-- defining the relationship between oneself and Ze allows you to in turn define yourself in relation to Ze. You can stand up and say "I am this for right now."
And that's usually a comforting ability to have.

Delusions

"Life isn't a matter of milestones, but of moments." - Rose Kennedy


"If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging at your back and running its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do-- the only thing-- is run." - Lauren Oliver, Delirium
I'm not convinced that I agree with that, but it sure is poetic.


This post is dedicated to Elijah, for becoming my 20th official follower (cough haha rock4ever95 I now have more followers than you today is a momentous day cough).


Today in the midst of a daydream in the midst of 4th period (within a daydream, within a daydream, within a daydream), I realized that I was daydreaming, and wondered about it (as I am prone to do. Introspection is both a blessing and a curse, but that's another post entirely).


In my defense, it's something my dad and I were discussing on the way to school. I said "I'll just leave you to your delusions, then." He said "Sometimes that's all that gets me through the day."
Now, "delusion" has a bit of a negative connotation. However, there are both "good delusions" (henceforth referred to as either fantasies or daydreams) and "bad delusions" (the kind that make you kill people or convince you that you're a god).


At first thought, I'd consider myself a fan of living in reality. Living in the real world. But then I think "Hang on. I'm a writer who spends a lot of time reading and enjoys movies and TV who argues that it doesn't matter whether or not the top falls at the end of Inception."
So perhaps not as much.


Unless we're so totally immersed (such as while dreaming or in a virtual reality sci-fi thing) that it truly doesn't matter whether or not our delusion is reality, though, it's important to keep a handle on what is and isn't real. It might seem counter-intuitive, but I think the most dangerous daydreams are the ones that are close enough that they might happen, even if it's not actually terribly likely.


Example: A conversation with a friend who I'm going to see later that day is more likely than getting an A on my next chemistry test is more likely than getting my novel published is more likely than winning the lottery.
What's the most dangerous to daydream about? The chem test, because if I convince myself I'll get an A with 0 effort, I'm not likely to try as hard (although if I'm having said daydream during chemistry, odds are I'm not paying much attention anyway).


Even more dangerous still, though, is those sorts of daydreams involving other people. Because if you start attributing fictitious traits/likelihoods to real people, they're going to disappoint you (sounds like I've had a bad day- I haven't. Just a thought.)


So...keep your talismans with you, I guess. That's my Pretentious Teenager Advice For The Day.

I'll Take Your Word For It. Except Not Really.

“Caring about stuff binds us to the other people who care about that stuff and that creates the communities that make life worth living.” - John Green


In other words, fandom is awesome because you get to geek out over stuff with people. 


"Everything has been figured out, except how to live." - Jean-Paul Sartre


Now on that I would have to disagree. There's a fair amount of science-y stuff we don't know, and the phenomenon of love (of any and all kinds) is way too complicated and multi-faceted and such to have been really figured out as a whole, which brings me to today's topic: taking people's word for things.


When it comes to books or movies or tv shows or music, it's pretty safe to take people's word. If you and Person X like a lot of the same things, and Person X likes Thing A, chances are you'll like it too. Obvious and boring. Moving on.


What's less easy to trust people on is the future. Here's a quote from Hank Green that I've been thinking about rather a lot lately: "Do not trust anyone who is telling you the way the world is going to be for you."


Because there have been a lot of things that have happened this year that don't match up with any of the stereotypes, or assumptions, or stories, or predictions with which I have been presented.
Humanity as a whole is far too diverse (and complicated, and multi-faceted, to quote myself from above) for everything to be the same for everyone.


We can only tell others the way things were/are for us. We can only say "this is a possibility, and this how it played out." Which, don't get me wrong, is a useful thing to be told. It gives us something on which to base ourselves and our interactions, as well as helping us to keep realistic expectations. But people are people, and people are different.
The trick, I think, is to find the balance between treating everyone the same, and treating everyone as an entirely different type of life form. Neither extreme is a good idea, obviously, but where in the middle is it best to go?
You have to assume some things, but if you assume too many, things don't always turn out as well as they might have otherwise (and no, I don't have anything particular in mind when I say that, so you don't have to try and read in-between the lines).


But Hank isn't saying to never trust anyone who tells you anything about the world. He's saying that life is full of surprises: "I majored in biochemistry, and now I'm a professional Internet moron."


So like all good Ravenclaws, we need to "cum grano salis," which is rough Latin for "take it with a grain of salt." 
(And no, I don't actually know that much Latin. I just googled the phrase to make sure it meant what I thought it meant, and the Wikipedia article happened to have the Latin for it, so I thought I'd sound all sophisticated and such.)


Comment Question: What Hogwarts house are you? It occurs to me this is something Harry Potter fans should exchange, particularly about those of you I know IRL.

Everybody Is Shy

"April Fool's Day, like love, is about having the carpet pulled out from under you at the last moment and making you feel like a complete moron." - Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast
How true is that? (Hint: the answer is 'very.')


I've sort of been challenged (meaning that I decided to take it as a challenge even though it wasn't intended to be) to prove the statement that everyone is inherently shy.


First let's have an agreed-upon definition so as to eliminate arguments over semantics.
From Dictionary.com: "Shy: a manner that shows discomfort or lack of confidence in association with others."
That'll be the basic definition I work off of. If you want something more in-depth, you can read this article, which you should read anyway because it's pretty interesting, even though it is a bit scary to think that something genetic can have such an enormous influence over personality.


So in regards to shyness, there are a few different types of people.


1.The Shy People Who Know And Act Like It


These are the easy ones, and this is the group to which I belong. There really isn't much to say here, because we exhibit standard shyness and it's obvious. We work on overcoming it; sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.

2. The Shy People Who Are Good At Covering It Up

These are the ones who know they're shy, but it isn't always easy for other people to tell. They pay attention to how people interact, and then they apply what they see to themselves in a (usually) successful manner. I suppose this group would also experience the most self-doubt, since people would tend to see them differently than they see themselves, which is, of course, a source of anxiety.

3. The Shy People Who Don't Know It

And here's where I make my argument, although it's going to involve rather a lot of bias, so I'm sorry about that. I know a lot of you will disagree, and I might even disagree, but it's my challenge to support it, so that's what I'm going to do.

Me in my introverted shy ways assumes that everyone is shy, and those who don't think they are simply haven't done enough introspection and reflection and thinking to realize that Other People are rather scary. Because you know, that's just a Fact of Life that is completely indisputable. Scary is usually an opinion. Not when it comes to Others. (I am, of course, being  jokingly arrogant and half-jokingly serious.)

Or perhaps these people aren't as good at imagining others complexly. Simple people are by definition easy to predict, so there isn't nearly as much stress involved. But the more complex you suspect the person is, the less you can be sure of, so the scarier they are.

The only cure for this, really, is to get to know him/her better. 

Group 3 people don't have to deal with this anxiety for some reason. They discover the complexity of a person as they get to know him/her, instead of assuming it from the beginning. But they would be shy if they thought about it. Or perhaps they do think about it and are simply very, very confident or very, very optimistic.

So there is my Very Biased and Probably Inaccurate defense of the inherent shyness of humanity. Clearly I like Group 1 people best. WE ARE TRUE TO OUR INNER NATURES. The rest of you are a bunch of phonies, as Holden Caulfield would say. ;)

Fear Part 4: Hate

This post comes to you courtesy of a variety of things/events/people, but the only one I can link to is this, which is very good, and while it's related, it's about something else, so go read it.


Now that you have read it (and if you haven't, go do so right now), I would like to begin by saying that I find it very difficult to comprehend the concept of having such a high level of hate (as some do) based on such a thing.
And comprehending it is something I've had to do recently, since I'm currently writing from the perspective of one such person. It hasn't been easy to write it well, but it has been fascinating to try.
So there's two of the things.


The third is that when my grandma and I were leaving to go see my sister's track meet this afternoon, I opened her car door to find a wasp.


Now, I am terrified of bees and all of their relatives. I don't know why, but I am.


However, my immediate vocal reaction was not one of fear. It was "I HATE BEES. I HATE THEM I HATE THEM I HATE THEM."


How did I make the jump from fear to hate? It doesn't make much sense. But it happened, and it happens to other people as well in worse contexts than insects.


So we profess to hate what we fear, and quite often (although not the case with my example) we fear what we do not understand. That's the basis for the writing project mentioned above: growing to understand. 


It's ironic, too. Because while my narrator is growing to understand that homosexuality isn't the most Evil Thing Ever, as I'm writing it, I'm growing to understand her (despite not actually agreeing, of course.)

Person-Potential

I think about perception a lot. It's probably just because I'm a self-conscious teenager or whatever, but the point remains the same.


So I think we can all agree that we don't perceive others the same way they perceive themselves, and we aren't perceived by them in the same way that we perceive ourselves (which I think is a rather terrifying thought if it's kept in the front of the mind).
And most, if not all, of us either consciously or subconsciously act differently depending on who we're with. Whether it's because our great-grandmother doesn't want us using that word, or just because Person A uses a given phrase often, so we pick it up when we're around him/her.


(N.B. Person A really truly is a fictional construct. If  at any time while reading this you think Person A is you, the similarity was not intentional.)


I, for instance, am more likely to talk about video games and science when with some people, but will probably talk more about books with others.


And if I'm hanging out with Person A and his/her given phrase, do I become a "different" person? Does Person A change me, or bring out a different "being"? 
I'm inclined to think that our personalities are a lot like quantum wave functions-- there's a certain area where we're likely to be, but every now and then those electrons jump somewhere else. We have the potential to be an awful lot of different things, and different people and different situations bring out different aspects of that potential within us.


What if I'm friends with Person A just because Person A brings out the facets of person-potential that is a good fit for Person A? Does that mean I shouldn't be friends with Person A, because the person I am while around him/her isn't truly me, or does it not matter because when I am interacting with him/her, that really is who I am? (I vote for the latter. It's not so much  a question that I'm actually wondering, but something that simply occurred to me.)


Which one of those perceptions or interpretations of my person-potential is "real"? Which ones are more valid than the others? 

Humans Are Awesome

Usually when I ask you to do something, I do it politely, or I make it into a joke. This is not one of those times.
Go read this right now. Unless you're going to complain about it, in which case don't bother, because you won't like it, but there you go.


My grandma and I went to have dinner with my aunt, uncle, and cousins (one of whom is nearly 10 and the other of whom is almost 3 months). On the way there, she said something to me. I don't remember what it was. I was in the midst of thinking about something, so I didn't respond. Then I decided I should apologize for not responding. Then I realized that "Sorry I didn't say anything-- I was contemplating the miracle of human consciousness" sounded kind of strange.


But that's what I was thinking about. 
Later, a similar thing happened, only I was thinking about the cosmic radiation background.

But really: human consciousness. How are we "sentient," while animals are not, if we share the vast majority of our DNA with, say, chimps? How are we "conscious," while they are not? If it's just because we're much smarter than they are, what about the really, really dumb humans? Do they count as animals? No.
And how did we become conscious? Did one of our ancestors give birth and suddenly that baby thought "WOW! I HAVE INDEPENDENT THOUGHT!"? I doubt it.


But if this is true, then we really are animals. We're just really, really developed ones so it feels like we have something more. But we're really nothing more than the most complex organisms that we know of. Or maybe we're really nothing less than that.


Some people would find the thought depressing. Aren't we really more than a bunch of instincts and reactions?


Well...it doesn't look like it. But does that make a difference? We are what we are. We still make art. We still have our brilliant ideas. We still have creativity. We still dream. We still love and are loved and feel pleasure and pain. 
And that, I think, is where the miracle is: somehow we ended up capable of all of this. Even the most complicated of our computers can't do it (yet).


How freaking amazing is that?

An Abundance of Quotes Part 8

"I never imagined myself being a writer. I always imagined myself actually being smart or something." - Christopher Paolini


"The truth resists simplicity." - one of the vlogbrothers. Hank says it in a recent video, but the context hints that John said it at some point before.


"Each day provides its own gifts." - Marcus Aurelius


"It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact." - Edmund Burke


"Know or listen to those who know." - Baltasar Gracian


“It is very sad to me that some people are so intent on leaving their mark on the world that they don’t care if that mark is a scar” - John Green


"The crux... is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing." - William J. Broad


"You have to dream before your dreams can come true." - Abdul Kalam


"The joy of Alzheimer's: I can always make new friends, and I can hide my own Easter eggs." - my math teacher, who does not have Alzheimer's.


"You look like someone peed in your cornflakes." - Also my math teacher


(Guy in my math class): "Dude, are you racist towards Asians?"
(Another guy in my math class): "If by 'racist' you mean 'sexually attracted to,' then yes."


I'm cleaning out my binder and found some things I made note of, the conversation above being one of them. It's too bad I don't have any novel ideas that need a lot of modern teenage boys. Perhaps The Clockwork Experiment's eventual sequel can use them. 


Did I ever tell you guys that my mom has traced our lineage back far enough to know that my great x25 grandfather's name was Grimbaldus? He lived in the 1500s, and didn't have a last name.
We're also directly descended from John Alden & Priscilla Mullins (they came over on the Mayflower), closely related to Winston Churchill, and distantly related to John Adams, Princess Diana, and Sarah Winchester (of Winchester Mystery House fame).
I just thought that was an interesting bit of information for you to know.

An Abundance of Quotes Part 7 & Inception

"Normal is not something to strive for; it is something to run away from." - Joe Roach


"Anyone can become angry. This is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way--that is not easy." - Aristotle


"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is a habit." - Aristotle


"If gods exist, where do they live?" - Socrates


"Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character." - W. H. Auden


I just watched Inception, and it was also amazing. We're going to watch it again sometime this coming week.


I saw it for the first time Saturday night. My best friend called me, said she'd watched it the night before and wanted to see it again, thought I would enjoy it, and her family was all going to be gone for various reasons so thought that night would be a good time to watch it. I immediately said "YES."


Throughout the first half, I kept asking lots of questions and making lots of guesses, partially because I wanted to know, partially because I enjoyed coming up with ridiculous theories, and partially because I knew she'd find it entertaining. 


And the end. The end was awesome, and sparked so much discussion.


Leave your theories in the comments. I want to read them.


(SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON OUT)


Some things we discussed:

• Is the end intended to be a real life Inception, meaning that it's just there to make us think and wonder?
• Does it mean that it doesn't matter whether it's real or not, because he's happy?
• Was it wobbling?
• Is he still in Limbo?
• Was the entire movie in Limbo, and the real point was to get him out of it?
• Did she really die?
• "They come here to wake up." (the old guy in the basement where the chemist works)

Tell me your thoughts, O Readers!

Voicing Emotion

“That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts. There is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking.” - Nietzsche

For the most part, I agree.

Then there's the other part.

I think that for which we find coherent, make-sensy, easy-to-read, everyday words is already dead in our hearts. If we're going to verbalize our feelings and be understood, we have to analyze them, which means we aren't really feeling them anymore.

However, if we speak/write in the language of imagery, metaphor, and poetry, we can make ourselves understood. Audrey will know what I'm talking about. I'll send her some of the weirdest, emotional emails, just because I need to express myself to someone I know well and trust and also know will read it pretty quickly. Upon later re-reading, they seem cheesy and forced, or "pushing the envelope through language," to tie it into the WGWG posts, but they weren't at the time. They were the best representations of how I felt at the time, and if I have to traipse through all sorts of ludicrous metaphors and images to do so, then so be it.

That being said, at our most basic, we are experiencing creatures. When we are born, we have no language. We learn to speak out of necessity (and because society requires it, and because it is in our nature to learn). 

We can understand language. We created it, after all. What we don't understand is the complexities of the brain and just how much our DNA controls us. What we cannot fully understand, we cannot fully verbalize.

Project For Awesome 2010

"What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?" - Henry David Thoreau


For those of you not familiar with the Project For Awesome: http://projectforawesome.com/aboutp4a

My video:





This is not intended to offend any nuns, or people against Harry Potter, or Christians who AREN'T against Harry Potter. This is just intended for laughs and to raise money for a charity I support.


In addition, the HPA is not by any means the only good charity out there. In fact, I recommend that you donate to other ones.


Charities I donated to:

• Partners In Health 
• The Make A Wish Foundation

If you click through to the pages I linked to, you will see that I donated to PiH for the raffle prize (not that PiH is a bad charity. I just had ulterior motives.)
Make A Wish, however, was not for the prize. A length of time ago so large that it is rather shameful, I raised a bunch of money by crocheting and selling scarves and promised to donate the money to cancer-related stuff. Then I never actually donated it. So I donated it to Make A Wish earlier this evening, and the possibility of Star Wars novels is a bonus that I actually secretly hope I don't win. Not because I don't like Star Wars...but because I don't have the shelf space right now.


So am I selfish, donating simply because I want the prize in the first case and out of duty in the second? I couldn't have lived with myself if I transfered the scarf money from its envelope into my wallet. Therefore am I not doing it to help others...only to help myself? Is any charitable donation selfless, if it's just to make us feel good?

An Abundance of Quotes Part 3

“That brief walk was one of those moments he knew he’d remember and look back on, one of those moments that he’d try to capture in the stories he told. Nothing was happening, really, but the moment was thick with mattering.” - John Green


"The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos." - Stephen Jay Gould


"Love is space and time measured by the heart." - Marcel Proust


"One can acquire everything in solitude except character." - Stendhal


I love 1 because I can identify with it a heck of a lot.


I love 2 because it rings with the humor of truth.


I love 3 because it sounds pretty.


I love 4 because it is good to know.


The Abundance Series:


Part 1
Part 2

What's The Point?

"Reading is the inhale and writing is the exhale." - Donalyn Miller, courtesy of my elementary school's librarian


I love that quote. So eloquent. So true. Such nice imagery.


WARNING: Spoilers of a book you're likely to never read unless you're a sophomore or have yet to become one!


In English this morning, we were discussing how we felt about the end of the book we were reading: Things Fall Apart, in which the main character commits suicide at the end.


Someone in my class, upon being called on, said "I don't really understand what the point of the book is if the main character dies at the end."


I think I'll stick that in again for extra emphasis. 


"I don't really understand what the point of the book is if the main character dies at the end."


My immediate thought, which I did not voice due to how mean it is: "Oh yeah? Well I don't understand what the point of your life is if you're going to die at the end."


This is the problem with Hollywood. If there isn't a happy ending, there's no point. We want emotional gratification.
The primary purpose of a book is not (or should not be) to entertain (in this case meaning to provide emotional gratification). It should be to make people think. Entertainment is certainly a huge bonus, and its the only way to get a book sold (unless you're writing nonfiction), but it is not needed in order to have a good book. 
Now for the ideal person, a thought provoking book is also almost by definition an entertaining book, but such is not the case.


WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE, and I know that sounds really optimistic and all, but it's true, and if we don't think our lives matter despite that gloomy fact, then we're in some deep waters without boats or gills or any other manners of survival.

Questions On Perception

"In the light, where do shadows hide?" - Orson Scott Card, on the title page of one of my sister's friends' copies of Pathfinder


We all live on the same planet, right? In the same universe? The same stuff happens in my universe as it does in your universe.
Then why do we all have such different perceptions of it?


Some people hate the world.
Some like the world but don't think it matters much.
Some people think our country sucks and all of civilization is headed down the tubes.
Some people are filled with happiness at the thought of the future.
Why?


I listen to my dad rant, and then I'm filled with anger towards the government, towards religion, and towards that driver who won't speed up after cutting us off.
I watch the vlogbrothers, or read articles by Cory Doctorow, and I am filled with optimism and love for the human race. 
Then I hear about people starving after floods in Pakistan, or the Koreas bombing each other, and I feel nothing but despair.
I think about my own personal future, and I am filled with anxiety. There's so much I don't know. So much that will change between now and when I graduate from college. How can I plan for that when I can't even predict...anything?


And if we all live on the same planet, why does everyone feel so differently about...everything?


When it comes to politics, its not that Republicans are wrong and Democrats are right (or the other way around). It's that both groups have opinions as to what is important and how we can better the country, and those opinions are different.


Again: If we all live on the same planet, why don't they agree? It's the same world, with the same people, and the same events.


This sounds like a plea for peace and giving into each other just for the sake of ending the arguments. It's not. I'm simply wondering.


And speaking of Cory Doctorow, here's an article that I read today, and loved: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/02/cory-doctorow-children-and-computers