Hey all, what's this? Two blogs in two days? "But Jake," you may be wondering, "You haven't done consecutive blog days in so long! Why choose to return to your archaic ways?" Well? Three words:
FUS RO DAH!!!
Let's start simply. If you don't know what Skyrim is, or are just not that interested in it to begin with, or are not interested in RPGs, then stop reading this. It's a small post that is being completely devoted to this. That being said, I beat the vast majority of Skyrim with my first character, Dovahkiin (yeah, I was unoriginal), and, as pretty much intended, I did anything and everything I could possibly do in my first play through. It kept me busy for a time, but eventually, I wanted to create a new character, but I didn't just want to do it all over again... So, recently, I figured out a way to enjoy the game in a new-ish sort of way. Instead of having an incredibly unrealistic adventure (and not by fantasy genre standards) where the single adventurer does literally everything in the entire country that needed doing. Sure, Dragonborn is something of a superhero, but come on. One dude, can't practically single-handedly end a civil war, become thane of major cities, become the leader of multiple guilds, AND save the world from dragons and a prophecy about the end of the world. It just doesn't seem realistic. SO, I've instead decided to play the game in a new way, where I create a bunch of characters that focus solely on one or two quest lines and that will be it. Sure, all the storylines are still in your perspective, but if the stories I'm playing become character-based stories, it forces me to play it in new ways. Essentially, Role-Playing in its most basic form. But what about the game's beginning?
Well, how I'm playing it is that all of the characters I have created were captured by the empire and all brought to Helgen for executions. Sure, you don't see your other characters standing in the background or anything, but there's enough people present for it to be plausible. As the character Dovahkiin bows his head down, Alduin comes down and fucks everything up. Each character gets out in their own ways (even though you go through the same path every time...). Once all the characters escaped Helgen, they began their own journeys through Skyrim. I've also made it so that Dovahkiin is the only one that ever ends up using Dragon Shouts. The other characters never gain them, and if they do, they aren't allowed to use them.
1. Dovahkiin
Race: Probably Nord
Class: No real focus, but considering sword and shield, idk, very basic
Questline: The main questline, saving the world from Alduin the World Eater and fulfilling the prophecy.
2. Volknir
Race: Imperial
Class: Ranger, and then eventually a soldier, focusing on 2-handed swords and minor in archery
Questline: Once, a lost son of an Imperial general, Volknir ran away for most of his life. After learning of his father's death in the land of Skyrim, he tries to cross the border to meet up with his body. After the attack at Helgen, he eventually joined the companions and learned to become a great swordsman. From there, he traveled North, to Solitude, where he would join the Empire and would eventually help defeat Jarl Ulfric and bring Skyrim back into the Empire.
3. Farlik
Race: Nord
Class: Warrior, with focuses on 1-handed axes and light armor
Questline: A Stormcloak soldier who was part of the captured at Helgen. After escaping with Jarl Ulfric, he managed to help the reach of the Stormcloak's cause. Acquiring the Jagged Crown and almost crippling the Empire at the Battle of Whiterun, where we would be killed by Volknir in the city's center.
4. Faeroon
Race: Dark Elf
Class: Assassin, with focuses on dual Daedric daggers
Questline: A Dark Elf refugee, after the attack at Helgen, would meander Skyrim, constantly fighting racism, and in the hopes to redeem himself by helping a child by killing an old caretaker in Riften, would eventually be inducted into the Dark Brotherhood. He would eventually become a master assassin and the leader of the Brotherhood.
5. Taelian
Race: Wood Elf
Class: Archer (with elven daggers)
Questline: After escaping Helgen, Taelian the hunter would travel eastward, before arriving in Riften, where he would join the Thieves Guild and bringing it back to its former glory, as well as becoming a member of the Nightingale.
5. Saelion
Race: High Elf
Class: Mage
Questline: A High Elf with unrivaled magical talent. After nearly escaping Helgen with his life, Saelion traveled to Winterhold where he would eventually quell the Eye of Magnus and become the Archmage of The College of Winterhold. He would continue his studies to become the strongest wizard in Skyrim, and would discover the secret to the Dragon Priest Masks.
6. Throne
Race: Nord
Class: Warrior, with focus on 2-handed axes and heavy armor
Questline: Having ruthlessly fought his way out of the burning Helgen, Throne would wander Skyrim before eventually joining the Companions. Throne would eventually be brought into the inner circle, become a werewolf, and become the Harbinger of the Companions, and would wield the mighty axe, Wuuthrad.
7. Not sure yet... This will probably end up being the first DLC questline character
So keep this sorta thing in mind next time you feel bored of playing the game. You just gotta play it in newer ways.
So, with that, I leave you with my favorite song from Skyrim, "Town 03." You may recognize it from the Skyrim Concept Art Trailer or when you may be meandering through Whiterun. In any case, enjoy!
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.
Hey all, a couple topics to cover today, but I'm at least back to having one be much more prevalent than the others. So, as per usual, let's start with the small stuff.
I think I should start putting a picture in near the beginning or something. When I share my blogs on facebook, the little picture that pops up is just my profile picture from blogger, which is also my picture on facebook... and twitter. I JUST LIKE IT, OKAY?! But, it's still redundant and could use some...sprucing, I suppose the word would be. So, I suppose I'll put this picture in:
(you'll see why soon :})
I've started playing Skyrim again, this time around, I'm playing a mage. This is actually the first time really that I've ever played a mage in any sort of game, unless the protagonist was one to begin with. Whenever I play RPGs, I usually play a class that is close-quarters-oriented. In WoW, my main was a paladin, which I loved SO much more than any of the other classes. I felt so much more in-the-action. In Skyrim, I played as just a warrior, and would only use magic or archery when I felt it was REALLY necessary. In Skyrim though, at one point, a mage describes magic as being a natural force that we are able to control with years of practice. The point was, was that I could literally harness the forces of nature. Mages are wizards are also generally seen as being so brilliant and wise. And as someone who seeks further wisdom, I felt I could actually relate to being a mage more than I could being a warrior. So far, everything has been going splendidly, except that I accidentally killed my housecarl, Lydia, so I am kind of in mourning right now. From the standpoint of an on-looker, it's relatively pathetic... But to each their own.
Well, fuck. I know there were a couple other things I wanted to talk about, but for the life of me, I can't remember.... let me think for a moment.............. Oh yeah, Christmas is in a couple of days, and for those of you who celebrate Hanukkah, it's difficult to spell your holiday (Thank science and man for Google). How odd, when I look at the written word, 'Google,' I can actually see the colors of each letter change to what they are on the website. Blue, red, yellow, blue, green, red. ...Let's check if that's right.... It is. Interesting, I'll need to look into this further at some other time. Anyway, for those of you who celebrate Hanukkah, I believe this is day #3? I suppose I should at least acknowledge any other religious holidays that happen around this time. Either way, I hope all goes well and all have happiness, whether it's the holiday or not. If you're not happy, then go find what makes you happy. Don't think about it, just go.
Tomorrow, I will be reprising the role of Buddy the Elf, accompanying Santa, played by my dad. Together we go out each year and bring a bunch of gifts to a couple families who are... not as well off, I suppose; the less fortunate. It's a program put on by the school where my mom works, but now that she's retiring at the end of this year, I don't know whether this will be our last year doing this or not. Only time will tell.
Which brings me to what I want to talk about today (Ah, what a great transition and lead-in that was). This is actually something that I wanted to talk about the next day after I cleared out that swamp with Colin, but I figured I should hold off. This is one of those subjects that I've been keeping since before I started this blog, and boy (or girl), I'm excited to explain my theory. But first, let's set up the contextual backdrop in which I formed this idea, shall we?
It was some random weekend, leading up to the release of Skyrim. The only reason that this is relavent, is because since Skyrim wasn't out yet, I was trying to satiate my hunger for fantasy-genre media. So, for the fourth time during this past semester, I was doing The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition marathon. Let me also add, that I was not sober in the least when this happened (which, for me, makes this even better). To liken this to someone who may be confused, or perhaps intimidated by the length and seeming complexity of it, don't fret. This is very VERY simple. Think of it as the moment when the apple dropped on Newton's head and he finally put together his theory of Gravity. This is about as close to that as I can get.
Okay, I'll begin as I do whenever I explain to someone in person. What is on X-axis of almost any and every graph? More importantly, what yields movement in our universe? The answer? Time. How does one define 'Time' off the top of their heads? Usually, it's seen as its own entity, an anomalous thing that just happens. This may hurt me in some fashion, but I've never looked at the dictionary definition of 'Time.' On Dictionary.com, Time is defined as:
(Well, at least I know where and how Dan came up with his definition of time so quickly when I asked him haha)
So anyway, while watching The Fellowship of the Ring, I was at the part when Gandalf talks with Frodo in Moria In the scene (at like 1:55 in the linked video), Gandalf says, "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." Sidenote: This is actually my favorite line in the entire movie, ...possibly the entire series. It really resonates with my beliefs, which perhaps I should outline to give more context to this whole thing...
Okay, I was saving this for another whole blog, so I guess I'll just give the highlights: I do not believe in any such god, though I do not reject the possibility that I may be wrong after all is said and done. Until there is some definitive proof of such a divine presence working in our universe, I'm sticking with a "What you sense is what you get" mentality. My perspective tries to see things as they are in nature, not how people see things in their mind. We let our conventions control us and we have become close-minded. I am trying to change that, if not in others, then at least within myself. The universe is made up of particles and forces, not some intended path that has been rolled out for Humans. I try to be as logical as I can be and try not to let my emotions interfere when observing, but when interacting with others, try to be as relatively courteous and nice as I can possibly be. I do realize that at times, this may not be the case, and I can at least recognize that I, along with everyone else, is a (presumably) walking contradiction. We see contradiction as being a stain on our identities, when we should just recognize that everyone does it, so now that we see it, let's do something about it, together.
I think that's enough on that subject, at least for now. Anyway, when Gandalf says the line mentioned above, I suddenly recalled another instance in The Two Towers, when he is telling the three hunters his tale and how he "moved across time and space, where every day was as long as a life-age of the earth" (Or so I think it goes.... It's close enough). I can honestly say that I cannot remember what it was about these two lines that sparked it for me, but the idea rushed forward as if I was uncovering it from a lost memory. Oh, how wonderful it was... The metaphorical light that switched on shined brighter than any almost any other (the almost being in comparison to two other huge events, one of which is what led me to my current way of thinking, which I briefly articulated above). I was about to redefine the concept of Time.
We are able to measure relative time, but as it's own separate entity. Time is its own category. This is not the case. In quantum theory and particle physics, there are four forces of nature: gravity, electro-magnetism, Strong Nuclear Force, and Weak Nuclear Force. I don't want to get into explaining the nature of each one, so I'll link this very helpful video, here. A curiosity just struck me as I finished watching that video. At the end, Brian mentions eventually discovering a "Theory of Everything," through the unification of these four forces of nature. How poetic and romantic that sounds... Perhaps, and this is the short version of my theory, Time is actually a fifth force of nature.
Since the Big Bang event that, for all intensive purposes, started the universe as we know it, any and all bodies of mass and particles have been extending outwards, in all directions, at an exponential rate. Aside from the other four forces, which obviously work in conjunction with time, time is almost solely responsible for everything in our universe. Everything that has any sort of movement or change to it, is solely due to time. If there was no time, the big bang would never have happened because nothing moved. All the mass in our universe was collected in one singular spot within space. Time is what changed that.
My theory suggests that perhaps time, as an almost physical force striking that matter, or more likely, time exploded out from within the singular mass. The explosion shoots everything outward and continues to carry everything outward on a wave- a time wave. The time explosion, the big bang is still in the first half of its sequence, or perhaps even the first quarter. I suppose I should explain it this way: think of gravity as the antagonist of time. Gravity is what held together all bodies of mass into that singular point prior to the big bang event. Where time moves things out, gravity pulls it back in. It's also why particles like light move in waves rather than just straight lines. Time is a wave.
Time is also the largest measurement of distance that our universe can reach. This may seem confusing, but think of time as a measurement of distance, rather than of just...well, time. Go look at a clock, not a digital one, but an old-fashioned round clock that you have to read to tell the time. Now go and cut in on the '12' line. Now pull the two sides apart until it's flat. For all intensive purposes, that clock is now a ruler. This is how we measure time through space. The length at which our universe finally stops expanding (the wave of time) is measured as (and I'm going to put this in quotes to distinguish it more), "1 Time." Time is the largest unit of measuring distance in our universe.
Things like video and audio? They're time machines! We are recording past events that actually happened and we watch/hear them because we cannot physically go back in time...yet. When we edit these recordings, we have then discovered the nature of the term, "false" or "Fiction." We are able to manipulate the appearance of events in time so much that we are able to create whole new existences within our minds, which are just pseudo-realities that we create to try and understand nature.
We are able to predict the trajectory of a rocket or something that we launch off. Through calculation, we are able to figure out the relative position, and possibly the exact position of where the rocket went. So here's the kicker, if this is how time works, why can't we do the same thing with literally every body of mass in the universe? Down to the last proton in your body, the trajectory of time (along with the other forces of nature) dictates how each particle moves and acts. So just magnify that to a larger scale. The particles make up cells, which make up tissue, which make up your body chemistry, which pretty much defines who you are, plus your experiences. Anything and everything anyone or anything that has ever happened or ever WILL happen can be predicted through probability. Now, what I sort of mentioned way up above is that I also don't believe in any intended path, nothing is predetermined. That belief has been shaken more than ever since I thought of this. With this, everything is predetermined from probabilities and the dictatorship of nature. Some may see this as being a very scary thought, knowing that there is no real free will and that it's just time moving your particles around enough to make the decision for you. Others may feel a bit more free, knowing that despite what they think, what happens, happens. I tend to lean to the latter.
A further theory from this is that perhaps, when the time wave comes to its stop and gravity begins pulling everything back in, perhaps time will just be going backwards. We, being long dead by this point will come back to life and shrink younger and younger until we are no more yet again until the universe is back to the singular mass it was so long ago. Perhaps that if everything went back exactly how it was before, that when the big bang should happen again, time as we have seen it unfold, and will see it unfold in the future, will just repeat itself. Making the universe the biggest phoenix-metaphor ever! Amazing...
So keep this in mind. You may continue it forward until everyone sees it. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! And for those that would ask me to prove it, just watch things happen as they do. Don't influence it with your wants and your emotions, just watch it happen and you'll see it.
If you like heavier, more intense, electronic music, this is a good song for you. I went through a small kick with it, but I prefer stuff that's... well, just not as intense - more danceable. Anyway, enjoy Bassnectar's "Timestretch."
Until next time... (Hah! Now it works on two levels.)
