Dazed and Confused|The unexamined life is not worth living, man.

It’s been a while since our last visit. My mind has been like a washing machine of thoughts lately. Ideas sloshing around in a sea of soapy water, when I try to pull them out of my head they are heavy with water, hard to handle, unwanted until pristine and dry. We’ll see how far this drenching sweater gets me.

It was just today that I was reminded of a cute little book called 1984. “War is peace” is the quote of which I have recalled. Tell this to any person who has not read the book, they will assume you are an imbecile. But within this paradox is some measure of truth, even in our non-fictional world.

But how can something so terrible as war cause such happyness? We can see after both World Wars an era of at least temporary prosperity. Now this is not an economic analysis of how war effects the marketplace, but rather an admiration of this great paradox.

It is interesting because war not only brings out the worst in people, but also the best, especially on the home-front. Motivation, nationalism, community, all of which can spring from the war effort. It is these emotions that demonstrate the irony of war. It further demonstrates the ‘gray area’ of which I have examined earlier:

Even something as terrible as war has its benefits.

These words I type are merely a reflection of my thoughts in physical form. I am able to write this because I can speak English, read the keys I need to type, form sentences that need to be said. This segment of writing is merely a portion of my thought process recorded on a server somewhere in the United States. It is merely a representation of my thought in words.

But is it possible to form rational thoughts without language? Can the brain think without words? A small theory I’ve been thinking about lately has to do with the sub-conscious. Language adds a layer to which we can express thoughts, this is the ‘conscious’ layer. Remove the language and all you have is a sub-conscious layer, the brain reacting as it should react, living, basically, on instinct. This can be seen in infants. They clearly have no ability to speak or think in language, and their sub-conscious layer is what remains. They cry when hungry, they sleep when tired, they behave in a completely predictable manner. The same can be seen in animals, in addition to true emotion. Which leads me to something else.

Is it possible then, that language causes us to ignore our sub-conscious? We can all will ourselves to deal with hunger, stay awake, ignore raw emotion. Is it the concept of language (and thus the object of consciousness) that enables us to do so? This, again, leads to further deduction.

Is there yet another layer of consciousness that no human has yet achieved?

I’m starting to sound like a hippy.

The emergence of such social networking sites as Facebook (see earlier posts) have redefined the term ‘friend’. It seems it is quantity of said friends that determines your social status. Facebook has given popularity a clearly defined number. This was seen before the days of Facebook, however. When MySpace friend whores, as they’re called, merely friend request anyone to bump their status. In some cases it is these very people that boast it is not the quantity of friends, but rather the quality.

I’m beginning to believe people have begun to loose site of what a friend truly is. Not someone to boost your status, status is a mere representation of yourself as seen by others. Friends are there to boost your self image, the opposite of status, how you see yourself. Self respect.

You see, when your mere goal of friendship is to boost your status you have lost all self respect. I caught myself doing this lately, on aforementioned websites. Was I really friends with this person? Probably not. My sole reason for so called ‘friendship’ was popularity. Which, I have recently discovered, is not something I wish to enhance. This led me to another observation.

Solidarity, the title of this post. It is rare in our overpopulated world that we are truly alone, there’s almost always someone within a close proximity. It seems in our modern day lexicon we are expected to be with a certain group, not always physically, (say in a group of friends during lunch) but also a mental belonging to a certain group we can identify with (insert typical high school clique here).

What if you could free yourself from all of these physical and mental groupings? What would you find? We often define ourselves by those who are similar, but in a world of over 6 billion people there is only one you, and that is all that matters. Define yourself.

“Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”

The New Year’s resolution. I find this to be a funny thing. People always make their resolutions at the start of the New Year expecting to follow them strictly. It turns out the resolution is almost never followed, at least in my personal experience, past the first weeks of January.

That’s why I aim low, or at least be very vague in your New Year’s Resolution. What was mine for 2008? Improve. That’s the general unifying concept of all resolutions, do something to improve yourself. Eat less crap, drink less poison, inhale less carcinogens. All too specific for me. Some people need specified rules to follow, it creates an easier goal to attain.

In being so vague with my resolution I was able to pump a little creative juice into the mix. Improve what? Depends on the day, the week, the hour, the month. Find something wrong and improve on it. Using this method I found I could become a slightly better person in all aspects. Not just awesome in some, and still horrid failure in others.

Perhaps I’ll use the same method for the year on the horizon, maybe try a few other theories. But if anything take this with you: follow through with your resolution. You’ll be a better person for it, assuming you chose something that actually matters.

It’s been a while. I hadn’t had the urge to really write in quite a bit. Possibly because school exhausts most of my lust for writing, or because I’ve just been living a routine for the past half a year or so, writing on my own was not part of that routine. But as of late I’ve been getting the urge, that strange notion that I just need to put something on paper, or on a blog as the case may be.

Writing is a funny thing for me. I noticed a few weeks ago I could organize my thoughts infinitely better if I just had a piece of paper or a computer or whatnot. Do I need people to read my writing? It depends. Mostly for me I write just to get stuff out of my head that wouldn’t go away otherwise. I don’t need anyone to read the rants that most of the time end up on here, nor do I expect anyone to enjoy them (like this post, for example).

In some cases I do want people to read what I have to say. That’s what class essays are for or whatever forums I might attend. In the former people are forced to read my writing, and hopefully end up liking it, but it usually ends up a formality. The latter is a bit more informal where I can just say whatever I want without worrying about a specific syntax or form, and people are still willingly (for the most part) reading it.

This blog, on the otherhand, is a mere outlet for my mind to wander as it pleases. If someone ends up reading it, then great. My aim is not to get a million readers, my aim is to just say something, even if it is to an empty room…or in this case a bunch of spam bots (and the occasional friend).

So my Facebook page got hacked today. No real damage was done, some offensive messages were sent out, but I deleted them in a timely manner, changed my email and facebook password soon after and contacted facebook staff, I await their reply.

It’s a disturbing feeling, something you thought was a safe place, such as a Facebook or your email account is easily hacked. My only fear is that it will happen again. So I’m a bit shooken up, but it isn’t like anything really happened. The people that had messages sent to them know I’d never say such things, so I don’t think it really matters. If it happens again I’ll likely delete my entire account. I don’t need to deal with this.

Greetings. It has been quite some time since our last visit. Please reread the previous post in order to figure out why I’ve been unable to write for so long.

One of my teachers made a comment before the year’s end about the human mentality of seperating things into groups, the most prominent being good and bad. I thought about this and quickly came to the conclusion that there are only a few things that can be completely considered good or bad. Some of these things are considered by some to be man-made thoughts, such as God, the idea of perfection.

Some might say an item like murder is evil. But what if it is in self defence? What if it is in defence of another person, or for a country? This is known as the gray area. Some may go so far to say everything has a ‘gray’ aspect. Like donating to charity. This is almost a purely good act, but you are showing favoritism by donating to a specific group. Of course it isn’t humanly possible to donate to every existing charity, but does that diminish the fact that only one group benefited while others did not?

Some debate that is the intention that truly speaks whether the act is good or not. By donating to a charity you show that you do indeed care for the less fortunate, permitting it is genuine care. This is where my belief lies and it is where the afoementioned ‘gray area’ vanishes. If the person’s intention was good then the act was good, if not then the act is bad. This could be further broken down and analyzed, but I believe it suits well for a general rule of thumb.

My apologies with my lack of posting lately. It has been a busy few weeks (and more to come). I’ve been trying to hunt down a job for the summer, and possibly until I leave for college. Finals until Friday. I had to go up to a college graduation for the weekend (which is when I usually write my posts).

So I’m not dead yet and will write a lengthier post in the next few days.

When you read this title you probably instantly thought of Nazi Germany. “tis unfortunate. The swastika is often associated with this evil group of people, and for good reasons.

But this symbol has been around for millennia. Why does the events of approximately 10 years cause this symbol to become such a negative item? Probably because the events only occured 60 or so years ago. But will the true meaning of the swastika ever be restored?

Probably not. Just imagine if you went out on the street with say a swastika necklace or a swastika-embroidered hat. You’d probably get a lot of dirty looks. The truth is, as long as we remember the horrors of Nazi Germany then we will also remember that their symbol was the swastika. And in most people’s minds the swastika becomes a symbol of evil, even if worn as a symbol of good.

The swastika is found in several religions as a symbol of prosperity, but only if its top points to the right (as seen in the Nazi flag, ironically). If the image of the swastika is flipped it is a symbol of ‘opression and terror’. The former brings about total victory, the latter total annihilation. The Nazis knew this, that is why the ‘good’ version can be seen, slightly tilted, on their flag.

Some might debate that the swastika should be considered symbolic for the horrors the Nazi Party brought upon their victims. I believe this to be foolish. Why would you ever feel the need to assign a design to represent something horrifying? The swastika is a very powerful, clear cut picture. So I suppose it is easily remembered as such a bad piece.

Maybe we’ll see the renewing of the meaning of the swastika sometime in the future. But for now I’d just spread the word on it’s true meaning (don’t go around wearing one).

Source:

http://reclaimtheswastika.com/

So in English today my teacher asked us to write our opinions on banned and censored books. I figured it would make a blog-worthy post, so I decided to type it up here. A little background: this is just a free writing excercise, not an essay. Each paragraph is the answer to a set of questions. The first paragraph is basically defining the difference between banning and censoring books, the second is asking if books should be banned or censored, why or why not, the third asks if schools are responsible for protecting or exposing students to the ‘real’ world.

Enjoi.

Banning a book requires that the entire book should be removed from the school curriculum. From this point it is not allowed to be taught in a public school environment. Similarly, censoring a book requires that only certain words or phrases are removed from the book, as opposed to the entire removal of the book as mentioned earlier. Public schools most likely ban and censor books in order to ‘protect’ students from ‘unfavorable content’ (i.e. racial slurs, racist ideals, sexist ideals, etc). The question arises, which of the two forms of censorship is worse, banning or selective editing? To be honest, I believe the choice is quite obvious. Banning a book is far worse than selectively editing it in that the ideals and lessons to be learned from the book are completely eliminated. As opposed to censoring which only removes the ‘unfavorable content’ from the novel. Most of the same literary ideals and purposes of the book remain when this form of censorship is used.

Books should not be banned from public schools. The reasons are quite obvious. Any ideas that could be learned from a book are lost due to the ‘unfavorable content’. This content probably had little to do with the main ideals of the novel in the first place. The idea of censorship is a bit more complicated. Why are books censored? For the same reasons they are banned, to protect students from ‘unfavorable content’ and ideals. I find this idea to be old-fashioned at best. Times have changed since the idea of censoring a book was originated. Students today, especially in public schools, are exposed to more ‘unfavorable content’ (higher quantity as well as ‘quality’, if you will) than would ever be present in any sort of American classic, or otherwise, that would be proposed as reading material in a public school. Because of this, censorship would make little difference in terms of the effect on the student.

Schools are responsible for exposing students to ‘real’ world ideals. The whole purpose of school is to prepare us for life after school, should that not include education as well as ‘real’ world ideals? I believe so. It is foolish to ban or censor a book in order to protect students from life after high school because they are experiencing most the censored ideas during high school anyway. Drugs, sex, racial slurs and other aspects of life that may be deemd as ‘unfavorable’ by a school board is commonplace among teens. Censoring a few words here and there will do little to change a student’s behavior or change his or her mind about the lifestyle they’ve chosen.