Go Outside

     Hey all and welcome back! It's been a while since I've done an actual blog post and I felt that in order to continue my blog, I obviously have to write something. That has recently, I'll admit, been difficult for me. Since Spring Break started back on March 9th, I haven't had all that much going on, or at least,  enough built up to write a substantial blog's worth. I'm also using this post as a sort of experiment for future blog posts. This blog, and possibly from now on, I'll be segmenting my blog up into chapter-like sections, similar to my Halo Story posts. So let's start by getting caught up.

     My reasoning for this change is mostly for my purposes. I usually get caught up in just talking about what's going on in my life, which is okay and all, but part of why I started this blog was to also talk about Halo, which seems to be my most popular topic, as well as philosophical topics that I find myself thinking about, which is seen on my blog next to never... So, this is all to give me more organization and not to spin off into topics which some don't seem to find nearly as engaging. From now on, I'll be trying to cover a larger variety of topics for people to read.

-Story Time:

     Well, I haven't written anything in my blog since my Spring break, so let's start with how that week went, shall we? In short, my spring break was just the sort of vacation I needed. Throughout this semester, I've been finding myself less and less motivated in school work. Granted, this semester is easier that others, if only on the basis that three of my, then four but now, five classes are very closely related, and because of that, so is the work. The downside of that perk though is that I then do not feel nearly as challenged in those classes... My math class is a bit of a joke, so, again, there's not much for me to pay attention to. Anyway, because of this lack of motivation and a build up of midterms, I was pretty stressed by the end of the first half of the semester, and with my hardest week looming ever closer (but we'll talk about that later). The week-long break was great for pulling myself back together and getting back on track with certain things, many things, in fact. (After reading this paragraph, this is a very good example of how I start on a tangent and get very off topic... *sigh*)

     My break was spent with my friends, whom I saw about every day and evening of break. Matt and I spent a lot of time driving around and catching up and doing outdoor activities, which started a semi-hiatus from the internet. I also came up with two new video ideas with his help, but I'll get to that later.

     I also got back into a small hobby I picked up over summer- Giant bubble blowing. The weather was spectacular and it was a good opportunity to bring out the "wand." What the "wand" really is, is two sticks with a short cotton rope connecting them together with a much longer one below, that also connecting them together. One afternoon, Matt and I went out to the yard and a few neighbors stopped and just sat there watching me make my giant bubbles.

My inspiration for my bubble hobby

Me out on my deck, making giant bubbles for all to enjoy.

     My St. Patrick's Day was fairly interesting. I got a green button-down shirt for a party Colin's family was having that night. Everyone says that the shirt makes me look Alan Grant from Jurassic Park. I'm okay with this, although I was hoping for more of a handsome look instead of going-on-a-safari look. At the party, I got to hang out with Colin, Dan, Chris, Kozi, Terry, and Siegel, who, for some reason, I hadn't expected to be there. Later on, they talked me into going to White Castle with them. I got chicken rings, ate one and a half, and then realized that I shouldn't have done it because it wasn't going to be staying down... I was driving us back when I realized that at any moment, it was all going to come back up. We pulled over into an empty Chipotle parking lot where I got out as quick as I could and began... uh, well... vomiting. While doing so, a cop car pulled in and came up right next to us. The first thing out of his mouth was "How much have you been drinking tonight?" Oh course... It was St. Patrick's Day, it's like 1:00 AM and I'm hunched over outside my car throwing up in an empty parking lot... figures. I had to explain that I don't like to drink and how this was all a misunderstanding because of my lap band surgery. Afterwards, we went back to Colin's to let everyone get their cars before heading home. 

     Before leaving, however, "Icarus," by Madeon came on and Dan decided to start dancing. We decided to carry this over into the street outside Colin's house. It was delightfully fun, because before Spring Break started, I'd been having issues with not being able to dance like usual. I was being much less into the music and whatnot, but that has since passed. Aside from that, I also out-danced Dan, who is much more in shape that I. It was then that I realized that dancing was actually really helping my stamina and endurance. It's also been evident in my new Soccer class and when I was also able to out-dance Mike when I was in St. Louis this past Thursday for the Andrew Bird Concert, which was amazing to hear live, especially since he played one of my favorite songs:

"Tables and Chairs," by Andrew Bird

     My sister, Lizz, and cousin, Pat, also came down this weekend, and boy I miss it already. Again, I didn't spend much of any time on the internet, not only because Lizz's air mattress was blocking my desk, but because I didn't have much of any time. We hung out with Scott and Michael, who are also our cousins, and Pat's brothers. Most notable from the weekend, at least for me, was going fishing and realizing how much I enjoyed it. I don't really get out of my house that much because no one really ever wants to go do things and I don't know what is around here... So, from now on, I think I'm going to be spending my weekends down here on one of the many lakes that I've finally realized are very beautiful and peaceful.

-In the Internet World:

     Honestly, nothing has been going on in the internet for me. Like I said, I've barely been on at all the past couple weeks, and it's left me feeling awkward and distant from those that I normally talk to on twitter and such. I'll say that I don't like the fact that I haven't talked to anyone on there really, but at the same time, it's not in the forefront of my mind, not to mention how much I've been enjoying my time while NOT on the internet. If this continues, I'm not too sure how I'll end up. I don't want to lose my focus on my relationships with those that I feel connected with, but actually getting out and doing stuff has been so great, and rather therapeutic, in a sense. I wonder, despite how one connects with so many others over the internet, that if I gave it up, like I have pretty much done with television, I would be happier? I'll just have to keep it in mind for the next few weeks and test it out. Only time will tell.

-Gaming:

     The last game that I played extensively was Mass Effect 3. I have done everything in the game except for the last two missions, and ME3 isn't a game that I'll be replaying for a while. I know the current endings already, but with the uproar by fans about the seemingly terrible ending, Bioware has said it will be changing the endings to give them more closure. Since I already know each ending, I've put the end of my ME3 save on hiatus until the new endings are out. I know I can just make another save file, but honestly, I'm not THAT invested in Mass Effect as it is. I know the endings, but they're getting changed, so I'm just going to wait it out.

     Past that, I've been playing Draw Something, so if you'd like to play with me, create a game with me through facebook, because I don't know what my username is, or if I even have one when using facebook to login.

-Halo News:

     Over break, Matt played a song in his car by m83, called, "Outro." You may recognize it from the Red Bull commercial where various athletes are doing jumps and flips in slow motion and are inter-cut with each other. The song is a giant build up and feels very... epic throughout. All I could imagine, especially near the end, was Halo and the sense of scale you feel throughout every game. So, I'm making it. I've already began cutting clips together and when it's done, I think people's mouths will be agape, going "Woah..." It's not like my usual trailer work that I've done before, where it focuses in on the characters and actions, but instead focuses on the scale of the Halo universe and the beauty of the structures, and the feeling that we are so small compared to everything going on. The problem is that since last Thursday, I don't feel like I have much of any time to work on until after April 3rd, due to school work. In the meantime, I thought I'd officially announce it instead of hinting at it on twitter. Maybe I'm revealing too much, but since I can't work on it for another week, I thought I'd at least give you that.

The song during this trailer is "Outro," by m83

     I also came up with a machinima video that, if all everything goes smoothly, will be in production in the summer. So far, I only have a relatively short scene outline written up. Those few that have read it so far have told me that it's actually pretty good, so I'm pretty happy about that. But, like the "Outro" video, working on it has been put on hold due to school work... I've been trying to come up with a fitting subtitle to it, but it's proving to be much more difficult that many other naming endeavors. A couple titles I have in mind are "Halo: In Bonum Omnium," which is my personal favorite, although the word 'Bonum' has understandably left people making jokes. That's the ONLY problem with it in my mind. Otherwise, it's short and leaves the audience wondering what it means, whether it be in English or in Latin, which I felt was rather fitting for it considering the themes and the ties the title has. I also had "Halo: Ad Legionem," but I'm not a fan of saying 'Legionem' and it doesn't give the same impression on me that the first one does. So right now, I'm still on a quest to find a shorter way of saying "Consequentialism." If any of you have any suggestions, please comment! I'm always open to suggestion.

     In actual Halo news, a magazine cover was leaked which details Halo 4 and the new enemies (SPOILERS?), which may turn out to be the Forerunners themselves, or their constructs, which I have been speculating on for a LONG time now (yes, this is my stroking my ego and being proud of myself). If you'd like to see, check out: http://jakewhlr117.tumblr.com/post/19978080931/empresscortana-halo-4-u-mad

-Philosophical Concepts:

     This is something that I really feel I don't do enough of on here. I started out fairly well in this area, but as I said above, I have found the focus of this blog to be more and more of just an e-journal with the occasional Halo 4 news and speculation. And, as a Philosophy major, I feel somewhat obliged to at least bring up certain concepts, discussions, or even stray thoughts that I may have.

     On the car ride back from spring break, I was thinking about how people with rather dark pasts seem to be considered the adults with the most character, assuming of course, that they bring themselves out of that darkness into a more... civil and social person that is more of a part of society. An example of this would be a former hard drug addict or something. They seem to have the craziest stories and people seem to remember stuff like that.

     On the subject of the institution of punishment, we need to ask ourselves if punishment is okay to do, because when we punish someone, we are effectively doing the same thing that the one being punished has done- setting back the interests of others. In the Deontological defense, Hegel proposes a thought experiment for us. Imagine that Humans are naturally a part of the rational world, where things make sense to us, and how we understand everything. When we harm someone, by which I mean setting back the interests of someone, we figuratively step into another world. This world is irrational and does not make any sort of sense to us. Up is down, black is white, everything is backwards. The Deontologist justifies punishment by saying that when we step over into the irrational world, we must be punished in order to be brought back to the rational world. From this standpoint, punishment is considered an honor, rather than an all out negative.

     So while I was driving, I considered Hegel's thought experiment and came up with an interesting conclusion. Often, we find ourselves happiest when we simply go back to normal from a place of punishment. Do we not feel most grateful when we are taken from shitty circumstances and brought back to normal? How often have you found yourself saying, "Boy, I'm glad that's over?" Probably enough times to make my point valid. Sure, we achieve a great bit of happiness when we are taken from normal to extraordinary, but it's a different happiness, more fleeting and temporary, and generally, I'd venture to guess that such circumstances would not leave us with much of a lesson or anything to take with us for future experiences and reference. I think at least part of why that is, is because when we are punished, we know understand and recognize actions that are considered irrational and begin to familiarize ourselves to the rational world, where the deontologist would say we "belong."

     The question I'm leading up to is this: Is it rational (logical) for Humans to act irrationally in order to bring ourselves further along? The more irrationality we experience, the more punishment we get, the more learning takes place, and potentially, the more civilized and more intelligent we will become? As Thomas Wayne says in Batman Begins, "Why do we fall down? So we can pick ourselves back up."

     Now, let's be clear here, I don't necessarily mean for people to take this and go intentionally harming anyone, and I don't necessarily mean conventional punishment like prison or any physical punishment (although they are definitely applicable too). For most, I'm referring to everyday punishment: work, school, practicing anything. We must pay our dues to achieve a lasting happiness.

     It sounds vaguely like I'm concluding this thought process, but I keep the thought open to any variables that could change the outcome. What I mean to do from all of this is ask simply, 'Is it rational for us to act irrationally, considering the potential outcomes?'

-In my plans:

     Now, I must go back to planning homework for the rest of the week. I have two papers due and an essay exam all on April 3rd, followed by a Math exam on the 6th. I'm trying to get the papers done asap, but I don't have the prompt for one until tomorrow and the website for a survey that needs to be completed for the other is currently down, which has delayed that paper by at least a day, which is at least a day later than when I wanted it done by. Chances are that I won't be writing much until after then.

     So, for now, I'll leave you with "Go Outside," by Cults. Enjoy!

Until next time...

11th Dimension

     Hey all, I'm going to be relatively busy this weekend, so I don't know if I'll be getting around to writing much f=of anything other than practice essays for an upcoming exam... Plus I don't usually put up as much philosophical stuff as I may like, so to fix both issues, I am putting up a paper I just wrote on a passage from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. It deals with world and societal reformation so that Humans can have a more peaceful world to live in. 

     I'm also going to put the song up here, in case you just aren't that interested in Human nature without law. This is "11th Dimension," by Julian Casablancas. Enjoy!

     In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes sets up rules and ideas with the goal of setting up a world and society that is much more peaceful than the one he was living in. When Hobbes is discussing Human nature without government, he says, “To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent: that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are in war and two cardinal virtues” (Leviathan, p. 78). In short, Hobbes is describing how Humans act in a natural world, without government. This passage is very important to everything Hobbes is trying to accomplish and is full of different things to talk about. If society implemented the foundation of ideas that Hobbes is proposing, then a volatile society, like Hobbes’, could benefit and reform itself into one that is more peaceful and longer lasting. I will be breaking down this passage and go over what Hobbes means by the war of all versus all, how Human ethics are affected in nature, and how a central power is necessary to uphold Human ethics. I will then briefly go over my own views of those ideas that Hobbes is discussing.

     When Hobbes says, “…this war of every man against every man…” (Leviathan, p.78), he is means that in nature, everyone is working primarily on their own self-interest and trying to survive. Since there are no rules to abide by, the threat of being hurt or killed is a very real thing. Everyone works for himself or herself in the war for survival. For Hobbes, the circumstances under which this sort of scenario would happen is in a natural world, where there is no central power present to reinforce the morals and ethics that we know today. But how are our ethics affected by this natural world and the constant war for survival, where no person can be trusted?

     With the understanding of what Hobbes is describing with the war of all versus all, we move on to the difference in ethics that we know compared to how they would exist in a natural world. Hobbes continues on by saying, “…this is consequent: that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place” (Leviathan, p. 78). This part of the passage is rather self-explanatory. What Hobbes is saying that given a world governed by the forces of nature, rather than one by society, all of the ethics and morals that we base society on disappear. There are no made-up rules that we feel we should abide by. The sense of justice that we know is suddenly thrown out of the window and is replaced by one that permits anything and everything, personal abilities permitting. There is no longer any sense of right or wrong, except in fulfilling our own needs to survive and working towards our self-interests. To Hobbes, in this world, nothing is unjust and there is no such thing as right and wrong, as we perceive them. Everything is permissible. This is true even in such examples of rape or killing an innocent child. In short: In nature, whatever happens, happens, and there is not much standing in the way of that, except for the prospects of ethics and society that governs us.

     Now, at this point, it is important to begin remembering the bigger picture that Hobbes is setting up for us. He is trying to create a society and government that is peaceful and is on our terms (so far as we can achieve them), instead of the seeming lack of order in nature. Without such power, Human life is, as Hobbes puts it, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Leviathan, p. 76). In order to work past these risky and volatile conditions, there needs to be a central power, bigger than us, that controls how we act with one another. Continuing on with the original passage, Hobbes says, “Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice” (Leviathan, p. 78). When Hobbes says “common power,” he means something that can control most, if not all of Humanity. Since we are the top animals on Earth, it is left to us to create that power from and for ourselves. Our common power is a central government built on our ethics. Without such a common power upholding and enforcing laws that we create, then there are no laws to uphold, and therefore, there are no laws to follow.

     So, to paraphrase the process that Hobbes is following: For Hobbes, the world is a very volatile place where society is seems to be crumbling and people are starting to expand their minds and reforming society. Hobbes is no different in this endeavor. He understands the knowledge we have gained and how his society works. He hypothetically destroys his society and throws everyone back into nature. With his prior knowledge, he then re-forges his society into one that recognizes how nature works and tries to work against the chaos that everyone has been exposed to, all in the attempt to create the blueprints for a society that is more peaceful and empirical than the one he knows.

     When it comes to my views and opinions on Hobbes, I guess I will just say this: The more I read and understand what Hobbes is saying, the more I feel like at some point, I will be going back in time and writing this book myself. At almost no point have I found myself disagreeing with what he says. He reasons out his points effectively and what he says are things I have often found myself thinking too. Perhaps it may be because, like Hobbes, I see our society as one that is headed to its destruction, and more hopefully, a reformation that continues seeking the same values that Hobbes was looking for: peace, science, and the spread of intellectualism.

     People seem to think that the society that we have been raised in is just how things always work, and do not take the time to recognize the forces of nature without the only setting we have ever known. I completely agree with what Hobbes says about the lack of justice and injustice in nature, the loss of right and wrong, and how Humans are easily willing to kill one another to get what they feel they need to survive. What I feel Hobbes neglects to distinguish in his nature scenario is whether such a society existed prior to the natural take-over. This is an aspect that I feel is quite important to take into account. In a natural world where so prior society existed, where Humans create order blindly and without much guidance, such a society would eventually grow into the one that Hobbes knew and the one that we know today. However, if there were such a prior society, it would most likely be one similar, if not identical, to ours. This difference, I feel, makes Hobbes’ overall point that much stronger, because those people that survive the destruction of our society would still have all of our prior knowledge and would probably try to reclaim it. With such prior knowledge, we could, and hopefully would, be able to reason out the same points that Hobbes is explaining in Leviathan. When Thomas Edison was going through his seemingly failing invention process for the light bulb, he was quoted as saying, “I have not failed. I have found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” This applies to everything we create, and society is no different.

     In the instance where a previous civilization falls and people are left in the state of nature, as Hobbes describes it, there is still a fair chance that society and peace could not be recovered. The chaos from the transition could be too powerful for us to endure or there could be too few survivors to reclaim peace and order. I do agree that, given circumstances like these, that state of nature that Hobbes describes is considerably accurate. From that point, I think anything could happen to Humanity. People are willing to hurt, kill and rape already, but in a world where there is nothing saying not to do that, such things would run rampant and unchecked. So many think that these sorts of things cannot happen and that we are invincible, unable to fall, but in reality, anything could put us on such a path, whether it be a reason outside of our control or ourselves. In either case, we have the potential to create wonderful things. What we need is some recognition of how things work in reality, outside of our minds.

     So, to conclude, Hobbes does a wonderful job of reasoning and creating a blueprint of a newer, more peaceful society. He paints a picture of a world that is very real, and yet is relatively unseen, and shows us that knowing such possibilities and potential can help us reform and recreate civilization to prolong a peaceful Human existence. 

Until next time...

Pursuit of Happiness

     Oh, it feels like it has been quite a time since I last wrote. I'm not totally sure what subjects I'll venture into, but I feel confident that I can at least manage navigating my towards, what I will feel is a sufficient blog to publish. I think at the very least I should begin with noteworthy bits from the week, and then see what we get into.

     On Mondays, I usually wake up at around 8 or 9, and then wait until 2PM to go to my Math 113 class where I draw dragons instead of notes and focus on the gas station girl, hoping to catch her eye or something... I don't know. I'm working on that front. I'm trying to get into a situation to meet her. It's going okay, I suppose. We'll see tomorrow. Part of my worries is that the guy who she's friends with in the class may be her boyfriend. They seem to be relatively close to one another. Only time will tell, followed shortly by me telling on my blog. In the meantime, enjoy my cool picture of a Skyrim Dragon.

     Speaking of Skyrim, I came up with a new way to play Skyrim in different ways and keep it interesting. From now on, I will be creating many characters with small storylines, aside from the main one. Think of it this way, When you play the game, you're usually all over the place, doing everything possible in the game to do. All with just ONE guy. One guy can't save the world from destruction, stop a civil war, ride dragons, go to heaven and come back, time travel, be a master swordsman, super-strong wizard, and a ninja thief, and do this, that, and the other thing, and also one time he saved your cat in a tree. One guy can't do all that. So now I have a small stable of characters that only focus on certain quests and questlines. For example, the character that saves the world from Alduin, then the character that reunifies the country locked in civil war, the wizard on a quest to become the wisest and most powerful, the character who quests for the dragon priest masks. I think of them all being separate but in the same world, each doing something specific. They all act in the same skyrim but never meet one another other than their origin, as prisoners about to be executed, when Alduin suddenly attacks. All get out in their own respective ways, although when I actually play through them, they all happen to be the same way because it's a dictated path. My newest character that I'm just about finished with is a character very akin to Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. Volknir is an Imperial warrior (who I decided was secretly rogue royalty) that uses a 2-handed sword, and light, and then eventually heavy armor, the wolf armor from the Companions, and an Elven blade, and his story line is that he is the one that reunifies Skyrim in the civil war. He fought for the Empire, because the Stormcloaks are all super racist and that's not progressive, I have a feeling there may be more for this character when the first DLC comes out.

     So now I'm looking for a new character to build and which storyline they'll follow. Perhaps the Dark Brotherhood, because I have yet to even touch their storyline in any playthrough. Faeroon, the Dark Elf. Yep, that sounds good. But, until I get to that point, I feel it's more pertinent to talk about other things.

     I really wanted to write this blog on thursday when my mind was racing. It's the day that I have all four of my classes so there was a lot of brain stimulation. It was a good day for connecting stuff from my classes together, primarily between my ethics, modern philosophy, and positive psychology classes. In Ethics, we've been dealing with the Harm principle and creating a system of laws that follow this principle. For a brief moment in that class, I saw myself becoming a lawyer, and then I shook that thought from my head. Then, while in Modern Philosophy, we continued our coverage of Hobbes' "Leviathan." During the lecture we discussed our senses, which I am very interested in already. I thought about about, if we can "recreate" images in our minds and "hear" in our minds using our memory/imagination, is it possible to recreate tastes, smells, and possibly touches that could re-stimulate us? Imagine just creating the taste of ... well whatever you find appealing (in my case: cotton candy), all the time? But this also deals with the branch of Philosophy called Epistemology, which asks, "What can I know?" There are two main ways of thinking about how ideas are formed. There is the side of Rationalism, which thinks that there is some knowledge that is completely original from our minds, without any provocation. Data in our DNA that is just part of us, the main example supporting this being mathematics, primarily geometry and how shapes can only be thought of as they are and in no other way(e.g. it's impossible to think of a square triangle). The other side, which I agree with, is called Empiricism, which states that any and all knowledge, any idea that we form, is based off of mixing and matching things in our memories into new ideas. They're formed from analyzing the impressions left on us via our senses. My personal thought on the Math thing is that Math was learned the same way anything else is, from reanalyzing impressions. They ask why we think of idea of the perfect sphere, but it doesn't actually exist in nature, so why have we thought of this? Because it's a stepping stone to understanding how nature works. We call it a perfect shape, but what we should really be calling it is basic. The more perfect and unnatural it gets, the more basic the idea is, the further from understanding nature we are. We got the idea from seeing things that were circular in nature and we put it together, just like everything else humans have done and learned throughout their entire existence. But I digress on that subject, let's move on.

     We also stopped on how dreams are formed and we didn't really dive into it, but I did put together a couple things from this and my knowledge on how the mind works in conjunction with its senses. I've talked briefly in the past about my interest in sensory-deprivation tanks, where people lose all of their senses and begin to hallucinate and do what I've been referring to as 'free thinking' - meditating. What's actually causing it is that, when you lose your senses, your mind has nothing tethering it to the real world, no sense distracting it and keeping it busy. So to compensate, and try to bring some semblance of reality back, it begins to make you hallucinate things. When I was researching this, I also figured out that that's also what happens when you go to sleep, when you close your eyes, your sight receptors turn off and it's effectively the same principle as the sense-deprivation tank. So, that idea, coupled with the chemical DMT, which a gland in your brain secretes when your asleep, causes dreams. Dreams are entirely based on things in your memory mixing and matching in your brain and creating new things. Your own world purely by your design, whether you realize it or not. Anyway, we then went on to the difference between knowing and believing. What it comes down to is not basing something you learn on faith, from someone else's mouth. If you don't learn it for yourself and re-experiment an idea for yourself, how can you truly know? Reasoning and experiencing for yourself, and reliable pattern recognition to help predict the future, but even knowing what we know, we have to maintain a constant observation on everything, because something may end up differently.

     In Positive Psychology, we're still on the ever-going subject of what makes us happy and how the good life is different from pleasure because pleasure is very temporary, while the good life is being immersed in everything. In one of the slides, there was a quote from Aristotle that said, "Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of Human existence." I disagree. Life for humans, maybe, but not all life, the aim of life is to survive. The aim of happiness is society. Society is the embodiment to Humanity's unhappiness. Humans are forever unhappy, otherwise we wouldn't be constantly upgrading everything. If we were happy, why would we change anything? If we are unhappy with something, we change it so that we can be happier. This has led us to the creation of cities and society as we know it today and will know of it for a long time to come. I guess, more than anything, I know I'm happy just from that. I don't generally feel as though I need a change in how things are. I'm happy, in an unhappy society. As my Ethics TA reasoned out, from the moment we are born, we are already wanting our most primal want: To be infinitely powerful, forever. Our most primal want is wanting to be that which most consider as, "God." I'd agree, but my next question is whether or not we are capable of letting go of that and becoming truly altruistic and creating a new way of life. We also watched a video on the country of Bhutan who has a Gross National Happiness measurement. In the video they talk about how Bhutan has banned stuff like cigaretts and plastic bags to quell consumerism and keep things happy, because they feel that with consumerism, comes unhappiness. What I eventually saw, which never came up in the post-discussion (so I wonder if no one else noticed it), was that the citizens of Bhutan were not practicing what they preach. Eventually, they talk about how television was quite new to the country and it was creating unhappiness and people being addicted to TV. Ah, but I saw the real problem. Bhutan is tricking itself into being happy. They are trying to quell unhappiness, and yet, the Bhutan monarchy eventually allowed television in. That right there is the true unhappiness. The government and the citizens who bought all those TVs felt some unhappiness, some void that only the TV could fill. So don't kid yourself Bhutan. I did think that perhaps simply implementing a change can create unhappiness because it's exposing it to the public. The public who does not understand is the happier one. For example, if the citizens hadn't been exposed to the idea of television, they wouldn't have realized the lack of it.

     I have been seeing a lot of people on my twitter feed and just in general being unhappy, even myself. I wasn't sure what to do with my time on Mondays and Wednesdays because they're so open. I was bored and unhappy too, but the key to getting rid of it all, is just letting go of it. The Other can't beat you if you don't play the game. Stop hearing 'No' and learn everything for yourself, so that you know, instead of just believing what they tell you. Be the best you, that you can be. Let go of what's right or what's wrong, good or bad, and just see things as happening. Embrace logic and explore the universe the way you want to. Let it all happen as it will, and it will. And if it doesn't? Well then who cares? Let it go and work towards the future instead of the past. With that, I leave you with the sounds of Steve Aoki's remix of "Pursuit of Happiness" (Not exactly my first pick, but it did the best job relating to the material), as well as a bonus video that I thought was awesome. It's a live version of Madeon's song, "Pop Culture." Enjoy!

   

     For those of you who really feel like you're looking for some direction and happiness in your life, might I recommend for you an audiobook called "Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao," by Dr. Wayne Dyer. I feel that's a good source of learning mindfulness and meditation.

Until next time...

New Beat

     Let's set a quick scene: You're walking up a flight of white-carpeted stairs, the further up you get, the darker it becomes, the light covering the white-washed walls sinks behind you. A soft, soothing musical rhythm begins to fill your ears:

     Time slows with each step as you get closer to the top of the stairs. The lights are gone, left behind on the level below. You turn right, intersecting with a short hallway, each ended by a bedroom. The bedroom on the left, lit up by a lamp next to the gray-sheeted bed. The room is empty. To the right, a closed door, bathed in darkness, the source of the oddly calming music laying in wait. You venture towards it, so spectacularly like, and yet unlike, a moth, both driven by your curiosity. What manner of creature lurks in this darkness, in a place that is more likely to be deserted than the room that is actually empty. The music draws you into the darkness. You twist the door knob and slowly take a step inside. The room is a dark place, but there is no menace to behold. Rather, there are tiny multi-colored christmas lights wrapping around the window straight ahead, extending leftwards behind a clock that tells no time and onward to another window. To the left, a bed with green silk sheets, a khaki comforter twisted and contorted from when I had woken up earlier that morning. Under the clock, my desk sits, with my computer's screen lit up, a white sun in the vast darkness of space, surrounded by the lights of distant stars. The music emanates from this bright white star. And sitting at the desk, is me, typing away, describing on my blog what it's like when you walk into my room. 

     I gotta say, after writing that, I really appreciate the way I set this up. I subconsciously set up my own private solar system! Perhaps now I have an actual reason to add some more christmas lights. Either way, that was enjoyable to write, I don't do that often enough. Now, we have our scene. Let's catch ourselves up from last week.

     My last blog was the final part of my Halo story, which has now caught up to the present, but I left it with a brief announcement about how I was going to be the guest on The Running Riot Podcast about my massive Halo collection. Everything went very nicely. You can go watch/listen to it on http://therunningriot.com/. Warning: there MAY be an echo during it at certain points, but don't quote me on there. Evidently, there were audio problems, but TRRPodcast tweeted that it was being edited.

     The next day I packed up the car, picked up Matt, and together we headed for St. Louis. Matt is moving in with Mike and Steph, since Matt has just graduated from college. He convinced me to drive him down and I would spend the night there and drive the remaining two hours the next day. It was a pleasant drive filled with some wonderful new music for my earholes, provided, as always, by Matt and his wonderful music tastes. A list of the bands that we heard were:

-Toro Y Moi, which is disco-funk dance music- very fun to dance to.
-Girls
-St. Vincent
-Real Estate
-Destroyer
-Youth Lagoon
-and a couple other I don't remember the names to...

     I already had Toro Y Moi's new album, "Underneath the Pine," so while it is still new to me, I had already heard his stuff. The other two that I got really into are Destroyer and Youth Lagoon. Both artists' music is very relaxing, and hypnotic, but so good. Certain songs have awesome crescendos, while other put you in this state and eventually you space out to the point where it almost feels like you're floating around in outer space. I know that sounds crazy, but you'll know what I'm talking about if you just lose yourself in the music. It just takes you out of where you are and puts you in a calm and focused state. I fell right asleep just the day before yesterday while listening to it. I'll throw up a couple examples, instead of rambling on.

This is "Kaputt," by Destroyer. I know the video begins somewhat oddly, trust me, the feeling is not lost on me, oh but the song is wondiferous. And the song above is "Montana," by Youth Lagoon.

     So now Matt is in St. Louis with Mike, just a mere 2 1/2 hours away, just another reason that this semester at school will be pretty stupendous. Except that there is still more story to tell before I get into the next few months of my time, but just a couple smaller items, I promise...

     I can honestly say that I have not been following SOPA or PIPA at all really, all I know is that SOPA wants to blacklist certain websites like TheCHIVE and Reddit, and even youtube if I understood it correctly, pretty much any website that somehow has to do with pirating or something...like I said, I haven't been following it. I had never even heard of PIPA until tomorrow and I know people seem to hate it just as much as they hate SOPA. I sort of have to side with the rest of the internet, and by extension, Humanity, because banning websites because of some other people is a bit harsh, don't you think? I'm on the internet, of course you think so. But in either case, it not like that's going to stop people from continuing what we've been doing. I mean, you're dealing with the internet community, there's no stopping them even if you wanted to. I don't think I've ever seen a more intuitive crowd, more fearless and  willing than any other group of people I know. But I digress, after all, I may be blacklisted for this hahaha.

     I bought a grouping of computer programs recently, all connected to one goal. I bought Parallels for the Mac, after which I bought the Windows 7 OS disc, and finally, a wee little game by the name of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Oh, yes, that's right. In fact, this blog was going to be half-dedicated to my adventures thus far in the game, except that I've run into a bit of a snag that I have yet to figure out...

     You see, I installed Parallels, then Windows 7, and then finally SWTOR. When I started the game, I got a warning telling me that the game wouldn't be able to run properly because there were not enough CPUs dedicated to it. "Well, fuck," I said to myself, with just a hint on contempt. I was able to create my account, and even got as far as creating characters, but once I actually got to playing, it lagged so slowly that it actually took minutes to open the menu and quit back to the character screen... I searched through the Parallel settings, looking for some way to change it so that it worked, but to no avail. I tried the bootcamp route, but for some reason, it said that the bootcamp disc wasn't formatted correctly to install Windows 7. So now I'm stuck with like $300 worth of software that I am unable to use at the moment, and with time now-expiring on my SWTOR play-time... For the record, I made two characters, a Jedi Knight, who is the same race as Darth Maul, named Throne; and a Jedi Counselor, who is the human-like race that's blind, named Bornstellar, after the character from Halo Cryptum. When Tassi and Bob get started with this game in the summer, we're going to be playing as Sith.

     And last, but not least by any measure, with the winter break over, the school semester has started back up. This semester I am taking:

-Intro to Contemporary Math, which I just hadn't gotten around to yet, so close to being done with my GenEds.

-Ethics, a Philosophy course which is being taught by the same man who taught my Logic class last semester, Dr. Hahn. The course covers the nature of ethics and how we use them in our lives.

-Modern Philosophy, which details the Modern Philosophical period (1500-1699), which really emphasizes on how we came to use the ethics we have today. In short, the history of our ethics. I hadn't known about this bit, so when it came up, I was elated to notice the connection between the two Philosophy courses.

-And finally, Positive Psychology, which ALSO has a major emphasis on Ethics and Philosophy, as it deals with what makes people happy and the strengths of people. Yet again, the connection was not lost on me.

     So, besides my Math course, I had unintentionally created a theme for the semester- The nature of ethics and how we use them in society and where it's leading us. It was relatively easy to articulate the theme that I had subconsciously created for myself because, well, it's been the primary focus of my thoughts over the past few months. I always do manage to surprise myself like that, as if this was the movie "Paycheck" (With Ben Affleck), and I'm receiving guidance from a future version of me (which has been happening a lot to me lately). This was not my original plan when I signed up for these, they all just seemed interesting, but I guess that's it, isn't it? Last semester, I began working towards living a more positive life than I ever had done. So far, I think I've been pretty successful in that venture. This semester is going to be a good one. Besides Math, none of my classes are that uninteresting to me. Good things are coming.

UPDATE (1/20/12): I just went to my first Math lecture for the semester. My god, is it boring, I couldn't help but feel like I was stuck in a class full of 4th graders, or at least that's how the professor kept talking... This class is going to be quite awful, but hark! Hope yet remains. When I was sitting waiting for the class to end, I made eye contact with a girl sitting in the middle section of the lecture hall (I always sit on the right side, up against the wall). When the class ended, I began my walk out and she walked up towards the front of the hall, presumably to talk to the professor. That's when it hit me. She was wearing a short brown coat that had a fleece lining, a crimson skirt that reached down to her ankles, a string of some kind, with little coins hanging from it (imagine a gypsy dress), her wavy black hair lightly covering her eye. It was the girl from the gas station, the same girl I wrote about in my blog: http://oneoneseven-jakewhlr117.blogspot.com/2011/12/contact-high.html. There is hope yet. Like I said above, good things are coming.

     So that's what's going my way at the moment. I hope everyone is happy with where they are at right now, and if you're not, then change something. Create some new beats for yourself. Speaking of which, I leave you in the very-capable hands of Toro Y Moi's, "New Beat." Enjoy! :)

Until next time...

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...