Intro

     Let's begin this day with a quick preface. Last night, I finished my first blog, so late at night, and with the next day looming ever closer. I felt I needed to wrap things up rather quickly and I feel that the ending of "The Naming of Things" to be rather abrupt. In the future I will try to refrain from such circumstances. Let's just call it... The Prologue; the experiment piece; that which would lead to more. This is where we take our first steps.

     Hmm... Now the question is where to step next? Imagine you are a tiny, minuscule, singular point on the surface of a perfect sphere. There is no set direction for you to move, but you feel you must move. How do you choose which direction to go? There is no 'right' or 'wrong.' There is just you, with infinite directions to meander about, forever until the day you can move no longer... This is the position I am in right now with my blog. There is no proof of reason that I can employ that will dictate a path for me to follow.

It's up to me to make this what I will.

     I think that's why I am so suddenly in love with the prospect of blogging. I finished my first blog this morning at about 4:00 AM and I stayed up for another hour, unable to fall asleep, just thinking about what I was going to write next. And even all day today, during any spare time (which there's plenty of), all I could think about was what direction to move in. Oh, the excitement of it. My own thoughts and words, for anyone besides just myself (who is generally my only audience and discussion partner).

     The medieval philosopher, David Hume, talks about how without any sort of passion, making a reasoned decision between two or more things that have no real distinction would be nearly impossible. There was even a case study a few years back about a man who has an abnormality in his brain that pretty much renders him as being solely logical, he had next to no feelings or passions whatsoever. When he was presented with a blue ink pen, and a black ink pen, it was impossible for him to reason out a decision. He sat for hours upon hours, trying to decide which pen to use. And to be honest, I can't remember the outcome of it... One of my philosophy professors presented a similar scenario where we have the same guy, but he's in the cereal isle of a grocery store. Could you imagine it? The choice of which cereal to buy would be impossible for this guy to make...

     Hume is quote as saying, "Reason is the slave to Passion." And after hearing that case study and subsequent reflection of myself, I can completely agree. It disappointed me slightly though, because I have felt for a while that deep passions and subjective beliefs were considerably counter-productive. But ultimately, counter-productive to what? Our society's goals? Our goals are based on our values and our beliefs and our passions. Such a realization to make...

     And yet, here I am; here we are. We sit, still, on this tiny, point, seemingly insignificant against so many other insignificant points. So the path becomes somewhat clearer to us. The road begins to take shape in the fog. I can stay where I am, content with what I have already written, set up shop and call it quits... But that's not the case. There are so many fields I feel I need to cover. So many subjects to observe and unravel. My passions will lead the way.

     In order to do this in what I can only describe as, for lack of a better word, the "correct" way, I feel I must implement some ground rules for myself. To continue on last night's point about naming things, and to connect to today's subject of choice, I feel the criterion for naming each blog should be severely limited; dealing with the subject (obviously), but to make things easier and more time-efficient, I will do my best to pick a song name that relates somehow, and at the end of each blog, I will link that song in some fashion. Now do I map out a set path for myself? Picking out topics far ahead of time?? hmm... I think not. As I said yesterday, that would be spoilerish of me and it takes away the excitement of what I'll write about next, and what you'll (hopefully) be reading.

     So I think this is where I will end for now, seeing as I have my first final tomorrow and I would prefer to get in some last-minute studying in. I'll leave you with M83's, "Intro" from his new album, "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming." (You can listen here: "Intro" by M83)

Until Next time...

"The Naming of Things"

     Where do I begin? It's just after 3:00 AM Central Time, Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 CE, at least that's what it is relative to my position. But I ask again, where do I begin? This is such a free medium that there are literally infinity direction I could take this, and I am only a couple sentences in.

     Conventionally, people tend to greet one another with a short greeting and an introduction to who they are, at least that's what I presume. So my name? Well, that depends on who you talk to. To most (I imagine), I am One One Seven, to fewer, that extends to "Halo Fan of the Decade." I have also been, and continue to be, called Chuck, Chip, Jaqubime, by far fewer people. But generally, I go by my given name, Jake.

     Now, if you don't know me on a personal level, which I imagine most don't, you're possibly reading this wondering more about me: my values, interests, tastes in genre. Essentially, this part is the 'first date' of this blog adventure. But when you go and read a story or watch a movie, does one generally look at the table of contents prior to diving into the actual plot? My guess is that most people know just a tiny bit about what's actually in store for them. Unlike me, most people tend to despise such spoilers, so why would I ruin it for you? There's already plenty of information for readers to ingest then analyze for themselves.

In short, make of me what you will, because chances are that you're going to do it anyway.

     Now, onto more 'initial-blog inquiries... Recently the Blogging bug has struck my closer circles of friends and family. I've always known it was popular amongst society, but it was never a prevalent entity in my life. My brother, Travis has had one for a while, but I never cared enough to read his, let alone anyone's. My sister, Lizz, and friend, Mike Tassi, have both started one and it seems I too have found the prospect of it interesting enough to reason out actually starting one. I think this may be a healthy change for me, at least in some ways. Earlier tonight, or last night (depending on how you view it), I contemplated what subjects I would talk about, how personal I may or may not get, and most importantly, the name in which any and all readers of this particular blog will see before any other writing.

     Naming is a very long and arduous process for me. Like a person with OCD (which is another subject for later reference), the name in which I represent myself is something that needs to be just right. A great example of the naming process is when I used to play World of Warcraft. I had a small stable of characters, most of them level 1s simply because I usually stuck to my main character. But anyway, every character I created had some sort of story in my head, even before their feet touched Azeroth for the first time. Their name was so important, so integral to who and what they were. The more I did it, the more I found the criterion for naming stuff. It needed to be all encompassing of that particular character. It had to be a name that was part of the character's race and culture. I researched lists of names from different websites and would alter it as I would to make it fit better as I saw it.

(This next part is World of Warcraft heavy, so feel free to skip if that's not your cup of tea)
     A fair example would be of my Blood Elf mage, Saelion (Say-lee-yon). The 'ae' and 'ion' were fairly common name parts that were found within the Blood Elf (BE) culture. The BEs were similar to the elves we see in things like Lord of the Rings. They are swift, agile, and graceful as fuck. The name needed to reflect that. It needed to roll off the tongue with said grace. Other such examples were Grunlok (Orc DK), Volkner (Human warrior), Durrim (Dwarf warrior, and my personal favorite because it took so long to figure out his name), Gurujin (Troll Hunter) and Neurion (Blood Elf Paladin). By now, I would hope you got the point so that I didn't have to continue talking further about WoW...

     ANYWAY, the principles remain the same. The name of my blog needed to encompass all that I will eventually talk about, all that I feel I represent and what represents me. A reflection of myself, if you will. Certain aspects I wanted to include were: One One Seven, Philosophy, Observations, Redefining Existence, and so on... The subtitle, which I found later would help yield what is now the title of the blog. I was able to get in what I wanted and now have it in a manner which I feel I will like for a while.

     From the sorts of reactions I have gotten in the past about hearing my process of naming, people generally respond with a resounding, "Holy fuck," or "You think way too much." The ladder of which is relatively true. But perhaps most people don't think enough? Like with most things, there is no correct answer. It's simply a point of view. I suppose I'll end on that, as it is now 3:55 AM and seeing as it's the last couple days of classes before Finals Week, and I have class at 11, I should probably be getting to sleep.

     For those of you actually still reading this now, thank you. Give yourself a pat on the back every time you finish one of my blogs. I tend of over articulate, as you may or may not have noticed. But I always appreciate comments and likes, if that's even how this site operates... Follow me here and on twitter @Jakewhlr117!

     Oh, also, the title of this post is in quotes because it is the name of a song by Andrew Bird, whose music and odd artistic style I find interesting and somewhat perplexing. You can listen to "The Naming of Things" Here:

Until next time...