sorry this one is late, i figured i could to make up for the one josh did late, these last two days have been ridiculous, anyhow, here is my quick newsletter.
Earlier this week, josh and i were discussing emotions, but not just emotions, but how the emotions flow together and are interrelated. We actually had discussed one in particular that seems to me actually spurred this discussion on. this was the emotion of love. We have come to decide that this is the emotion of the utmost importance, the one emotion that we could find that had relation to every emotion except for one, which i will get to eventually.
Well into the relation of emotions. emotions seem to have little chains of events, ones that are persistent, though some steps in these chains of sorts can be skipped. one of the ones josh and i came up with was something like sadness-confusion-frustration-anger, granted this is vague and can be altered in many different ways, it is an example. haha, now as i write it, i think of star wars (something my brother insists on watching like EVERY day) when yoda was going on to anakin saying something like sorrow leads to suffering, suffering leads to anger, anger leads to hate, so on so on, and yes, i realize that that is most likely incorrect for all those star-wars enthusiasts out there.
Alright, now on to the love aspect, we came to the conclusion that love fuels almost every emotion. (granted this is on our definition, there are many, all able to be interpreted, and all made by humans) We believe this, or maybe i do, anyways, I belive that love spurs on the other emotions, you lose something you love-you become angry, confused, frustrated, lost, all these things. love finds a new way into your life, you are happy, joyus. now when i say love, i do not mean necessarily toward a person, but an object, an idea, even a possiblility. the one argument that really arose was when people would say something like, "oh, i'd love to get 100 on the test" would they really? i'm not so sure, i believe it is another expression that the human race has lost meaning for, and is now used lightly and without thought.
Lastly, the one emotion we came across to not be affected whatsoever by love, actually, the moment love is involved, this cannot occur-indifference. I believe that it is impossible to be indifferent about something you love, hate, once loved, or once hated, this i see as a complete impossibility.
And so ends another short newsletter, sorry
oh, question.....hmmm.......
do you think there is a fourth dimension, and if so, what would it be, if you could make it
(i realize there are some other dimensions than x,y,z but disregard them, haha)
AND for the winner of the note contest
the winner of this contest was Kasey Leblanc!
so you should be hearing from her again sometime soon, pay attention and find out when!
February 25-2009
By-Brad
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Newsletter- Contest Entries
alright, here is how this is gonna go, i am going to post all the notes i was sent, and i will number each one without disclosing the names of the writers, what i want you to do is this-
-read EVERY entry
-Grade it like this:
-Topic:1-10 points
-Content:1-20 points
-once you have decided the respective score, add it together, and send the final to my email
-you must rate EVERY note or your vote is thrown out
format something like this please:
1.29
2.14
3.23
etc.
one last thing, if you read this, please don't toss it aside, PLEASE rate, i need all the voters i can get, especially seeing as entrys weren't in entire abundance.
contestant 1
How about I start with an favorite, just because I don't believe it can be beaten to death from over discussion. My personal belief on the perfect circle thing is that they most certainly can exist. First of all, a circle is a geometric shape whose perimeter is infinitely small, and any examination closer than with the naked eye is just overkill and wasting your time. But, for the sake of argument, if you did look that close, it would look absolutely no thicker than before.
Now that that's taken care of, let's talk (or whatever it's called where one reads comments typed possible way before the time of reading) about Hollywood, or more accurately, the Televison Industry. When they air a new television series, they and they alone have the power of deciding whether or not that show will air. Now, they NEED to take a clue from our own government and instill some checks and balances. Currently, when a show is starting to lose viewers or the industry thinks they are tanking, they consult only themselves and cancel the show, almost with no warning.
My gripe with this is that people are watching these shows (I've never heard of a show that absolutely no one watched), so they should either poll these people and ask them if/tell them that the show should/will be canceled, and then go from there, either cancelling the show, move the show to a sister, parent, child station or even the Internet. With the expansion of popularity of TV on the Internet, this is becoming more and more of a certainty.
Next, hows about something I was pondering while working a week ago? Can you treat someone with respect and equality? For example, when you call someone "sir" or "madame," you have successfully and satisfactorily treated them with respect, but that name insinuates that they are of a higher class/position/etc. than you, eliminating equality. On the other hand (side note, it would be great if someone could tell me a single word for that phrase, thanks), if you say something like "'sup, dude" or "what's going on, bro?" as long as your roughly our age, you are treating them like an absolute equal (and not desperately trying to be their peer, that's you, annoying, obnoxious parents!), but are you treating them with respect?
Finally, randomness. This is quite arguably the greatest thing the human mind is capable of. Personally, when I button mash on my keyboard to make Microsoft Sam/Anna (depending if I'm on XP or Vista) say something rediculous in the speech function, this gives me a laugh and a joy nearly no movie can give me (except for the scene in Bruce Almighty when Bruce was making Evan speak gibberish). It's the surprise/shock factor that makes this so awesome to listen to, because (usually just the first time you hear it) you have no idea what's going to happen. Njiernuipeabrnobren mioimoaejbiajioiomn qrveimivcnniunfrener cuinrinure hugthuyt ghuigtnuigftv vhbhyugtrnuibgtrbihgvtr huibntnugtrv bbvgftrbnuibgrnuniub grnjuiob gunbgrniubguhb ngbfnjghujngwbnui bgnjuignnuivnucnujioncfnc qmjicfnnuvg ngrvnnipvgnuigvrnn jini egninigbniu gbfnniu gfbnuiubnigruibn, ui. Put that into your speech function, make them say it on any speed (fast works best), and tell me you are not roflmao'ing all over the place. If you are, I rest my case. If not, you need to ask yourself when the last time you truely laughed was.
This was fun, thanks for reading!
contestant 2
A lot of these notes seem to have to do with psychology/philosophy/ideology, but
I think I'm gonna take a shot at something else (at least at first) and that's
sociology. I've got a theory about that and to put it simply, WHY CAN'T WE ALL
JUST GET ALONG?!?!....seriously folks. I'm not quite as oblivious as everybody
chalks me up to be, and as somewhat of the "resident psychologist/counselor/listened"
in my group of friends, I've realized some things. I think the biggest problem
in this world is that it's way too easy to forget that everyone else is human.
Think about it, how often do you consider somebody as actually having their own
life, their own issues, joys, dreams, pain, aspirations, etc., etc. as opposed
to just their role in your own? I know I'm just as guilty of doing this as
everybody else, but I think if we could all realize this and somehow remain
conscious of it, it might be a good step to actually cleaning up the world
(corny, I know :-P).
So just think about that, the next time you're upset with somebody, somebody's
upset with you, or whatever else is going on, they're still people. Especially
with technology and everything, it's way too easy to just dehumanize everyone
else in your life. But I think that's enough corny, be a good person blah blah
blah. So I'll move on to a second topic, as suggested.
Another trend with these notes seems to be reality v. perception v. theory, and
when that brings up all that comes to my mind is idealization. Everything in
life is idealized, there's no such thing as perfect anything. I'm going to put
in a plug for my minor and bring up physics. It's pretty much the one science
that admits that what it says isn't necessary true. For those of you who have
taken a course in it, how many times do you remember hearing/reading something
similar to "under these circumstances 'object' can be taken to behave as an
ideal 'object'" "ignore air resistance" "ignore friction" and even though there
are models that incorporate those things and "non-ideal" systems they can be
come rather complicated, and can't always account for everything going on,
they're just approximations, and that's all they claim to be, unlike biology,
chemistry and the rest which state how things are, while at the same time
telling you how every previous scientist for the past thousands of years has
been wrong. This applies to real life too. All measurements are rounded,
everything is approximated, nothing is exact, and it would be impractical to
have it that way (measuring things down to the last atom would be horribly
unnecessary). We live in a world of man-made definitions and man-made
approximations, because well, that's all we have to go off of. We have to define
our world as we see it, and that seems to be very much what Josh and Brad are
about in these notes, and it seems like a rather promising start. Hopefully I
gave you guys something to think about, and if not self-indulgence beats out
doing physics homework. Congratulations to whoever wins this. Josh and Brad,
keep up the good work.
contestant 3
Have you heard of the question: what came first, the chicken or the egg? well the egg had to come first.
Chicken DNA comes from zygote. The only way to get this zygote is from DNA mutation from two chickens. now to get those you need a zygote. That means this zygote must have come from a species that was like a chicken. zygote only forms in a chicken egg. So that means this species like a chicken laid an egg and forms this mutated zygote to form a chicken. Feel free to disagree. In fact please disagree if you do because i like to see peoples opinions on this.
Is this war necessary. A lot of people say no. I think it was very necessary. Iraq had a ruler, Saddam Hussein, abusing power. Iraq could do nothing about this. Who do you call for help? AMERICA. he helped them and now they decide to attack us since we made them look foolish. is that right or wrong? if we didn't fight then the USA would of had some serious problems. So fighting back was the best solution at the time.
People has a problem with Barack Obama. Everybody critsizes me on this. I dont like him. I am not racist. I just perfered John McCain. So as this just being a side note, please dont critizes people for not liking Obama because in the end he is our president and I am proud of it.
MCAS. I dont think this is necessary. Colleges dont look for MCAS results.
A-Rod. Heard about the steroids? well i dont think it matters if he did. He is bigger now then he was in 2003. 1994 Seattle Mariners 17 54 4 11 0 0 0 2 11 3 20 3 0 .241 .204 .204
1995 Seattle Mariners 48 142 15 33 6 2 5 19 58 6 42 4 2 .264 .408 .232
1996 Seattle Mariners 146 601 141 215 54 1 36 123 379 59 104 15 4 .414 .631 .358
1997 Seattle Mariners 141 587 100 176 40 3 23 84 291 41 99 29 6 .350 .496 .300
1998 Seattle Mariners 161 686 123 213 35 5 42 124 384 45 121 46 13 .360 .560 .310
1999 Seattle Mariners 129 502 110 143 25 0 42 111 294 56 109 21 7 .357 .586 .285
2000 Seattle Mariners 148 554 134 175 34 2 41 132 336 100 121 15 4 .420 .606 .316
2001 Texas Rangers 162 632 133 201 34 1 52 135 393 75 131 18 3 .399 .622 .318
2002 Texas Rangers 162 624 125 187 27 2 57 142 389 87 122 9 4 .392 .623 .300
2003 Texas Rangers 161 607 124 181 30 6 47 118 364 87 126 17 3 .396 .600 .298
2004 New York Yankees 155 601 112 172 24 2 36 106 308 80 131 28 4 .375 .512 .286
2005 New York Yankees 162 605 124 194 29 1 48 130 369 91 139 21 6 .421 .610 .321
2006 New York Yankees 154 572 113 166 26 1 35 121 299 90 139 15 4 .392 .523 .290
2007 New York Yankees 158 583 143 183 31 0 54 156 376 95 120 24 4 .422 .645 .314
2008 New York Yankees 138 510 104 154 33 0 35 103 292 65 117 18 3 .392 .573 .302
those are his stats. he did a lot better before and after 2003.
contestant 4
So, this is something I’ve been thinking of for awhile, and before I begin, I’d like to say that I mean no insult to anyone, it’s just a thought.
First a little bit of back-story:
So when I was little my parents raised me as a Catholic. I was baptized, went to church occasionally and did the whole first communion thing. And then I started really thinking about religion, and why I was even a Catholic; other than that I was raised that way and I realized that there was no good reason why I was still religious. First of all, the entire Bible reads more like a fiction novel than anything else, and in my mind I began comparing it to say Harry Potter.
What if one day the only document that became a proof of our existence at this time was Harry Potter? Would people interpret it word for word as truth? Would they show discrimination to people based off of a description in a novel? And despite no proof of there being people with magical abilities, would they believe and base an entire religion off of such a story?
Thinking that, it’s easy to make such a comparison to the Bible. Should we then, just because its written down and widely regarded as truth, take the Bible to be just that? Does anybody truly believe that life began with Adam and Eve?
Using Harry Potter is only an example however of what my true point has been from the beginning. My Harry Potter analogy, at least in my eyes, gives me reason enough to doubt having ever believed in such a religion. For me, my lack of belief led me to become an atheist (though I suppose I could also be described as agnostic, however if I could choose, I’d just say non-religious without having to categorize it).
When I told my parents my decision, they began to question me. What did I believe then, if not in God? To which, my response was that I didn’t believe in anything, because whatever created the world created the world, and for me, that was enough. I didn’t need to explain the universe or the world, I just wanted to live in it.
Which brings me to my ultimate point in all of this rambling. With no true basis or proof of the existence of any religion, is not faith in many ways quite similar to superstition? People who are superstitious believe the things they do and behave the way they do out of blind fear for consequences that are irrational to begin with. Will seeing a black cat really cause bad luck? No, probably not.
Why then would denouncing a religion send you to hell, or whatever the equivalent may be in another religion? I know that for me, being a good person is what I hope to accomplish in life, among other things, and if not worshipping a religion or a god spells doom for me in the afterlife, well, then it probably wasn’t a god worth worshipping anyways.
All right, well, that’s all I’ve got for now. If you like what you read, vote for mine, and hopefully there will be more to come!
contestant 5
forgive me for not being grammatically organized.
lets start with talking about time travel. i dont believe in it. i mean, im sure it will be possible in the future, i just dont think it would be a good thing to use. i believe that if you change one thing in the past, you might change youre entire reality. people have no idea what other things will/could change along with the event you went into the past to change. they might not even know if they changed something in the past. and what i mean by changing more than one event purposely/accidentally, is that if you change an event, fate/luck needs to change other events that lead to the event that you changed.
this leads me to my belief in luck. i believe that luck is the master of events. fate is its partner. i think that luck controls peoples actions. if you have a lot of luck, good things/things that have little chance in happening, they will happen to you. if you have little luck (no such thing as no/negative amounts of luck) then bad/undesirable things happen to you. to connect this to that other paragraph, if you change something in the past, in your favor, then fate/luck would have to go back farther in time to change events where you gain more luck, enough for your event to occur. people who read my note about the 25 things about me would remember how i dont believe in time travel, ur welcome for elaborating. the thing i dont like about it is the whole loss of control thing, and the thing about it changing your personality. mostly the latter.
i say changing your personality because of the fact that the events in your life shape your personality. im not quite sure how to elaborate on this. (i like saying elaborate. and personality. brad, give me some synonyms! and you dont have to post the stuff in the perentheses.) certain actions upon your psyche make you a jock, or a punk, or a prep, or a friggin alien! i hope that clearly defines my belief. if not, comment! and youre personality is just a small detail that time travel can alter/destroy. it could alter life as we know it. it could take away the whole drug fananza of the 70s, or the british couldve won the revolutionary war, or, even dinosaurs living with humans. the changes are limitless, and extraordinarily unpredictable, unless you have an iq of like, 400.
now what can i discuss, hmm. i dont believe in christianity. i think that it just may be as crazy as scientology. as in, i think it was just a story written by a rather creative fellow, and went out of control. although its fiction, it gives humans something that they neeeeeeed. and thats belief in something you cant prove. every one needs irrationality in their life to be rational. its an opposites thing. i dont believe in a story, but i do believe in, well, all that ive discussed.
now, when i say opposites thing, i mean that life is a roller coaster. one day youre happy the next ur sad/in a bad mood. on moment ur in pain, the next, u feel amazing. on second ur thinking about math, the next ur praying to something you cant see, something that doesnt talk back, something that made a virgin mother. excuse me, a human virgin mother. you need down to be up, cold to be hot, sick to be healthy.
thats all of them now, so please vote, and the winner will be posted on wednesday, i would have said tuesday, but i feel as if i shoud give some more time.
February 22-2009
-By Various Authors
-read EVERY entry
-Grade it like this:
-Topic:1-10 points
-Content:1-20 points
-once you have decided the respective score, add it together, and send the final to my email
-you must rate EVERY note or your vote is thrown out
format something like this please:
1.29
2.14
3.23
etc.
one last thing, if you read this, please don't toss it aside, PLEASE rate, i need all the voters i can get, especially seeing as entrys weren't in entire abundance.
contestant 1
How about I start with an favorite, just because I don't believe it can be beaten to death from over discussion. My personal belief on the perfect circle thing is that they most certainly can exist. First of all, a circle is a geometric shape whose perimeter is infinitely small, and any examination closer than with the naked eye is just overkill and wasting your time. But, for the sake of argument, if you did look that close, it would look absolutely no thicker than before.
Now that that's taken care of, let's talk (or whatever it's called where one reads comments typed possible way before the time of reading) about Hollywood, or more accurately, the Televison Industry. When they air a new television series, they and they alone have the power of deciding whether or not that show will air. Now, they NEED to take a clue from our own government and instill some checks and balances. Currently, when a show is starting to lose viewers or the industry thinks they are tanking, they consult only themselves and cancel the show, almost with no warning.
My gripe with this is that people are watching these shows (I've never heard of a show that absolutely no one watched), so they should either poll these people and ask them if/tell them that the show should/will be canceled, and then go from there, either cancelling the show, move the show to a sister, parent, child station or even the Internet. With the expansion of popularity of TV on the Internet, this is becoming more and more of a certainty.
Next, hows about something I was pondering while working a week ago? Can you treat someone with respect and equality? For example, when you call someone "sir" or "madame," you have successfully and satisfactorily treated them with respect, but that name insinuates that they are of a higher class/position/etc. than you, eliminating equality. On the other hand (side note, it would be great if someone could tell me a single word for that phrase, thanks), if you say something like "'sup, dude" or "what's going on, bro?" as long as your roughly our age, you are treating them like an absolute equal (and not desperately trying to be their peer, that's you, annoying, obnoxious parents!), but are you treating them with respect?
Finally, randomness. This is quite arguably the greatest thing the human mind is capable of. Personally, when I button mash on my keyboard to make Microsoft Sam/Anna (depending if I'm on XP or Vista) say something rediculous in the speech function, this gives me a laugh and a joy nearly no movie can give me (except for the scene in Bruce Almighty when Bruce was making Evan speak gibberish). It's the surprise/shock factor that makes this so awesome to listen to, because (usually just the first time you hear it) you have no idea what's going to happen. Njiernuipeabrnobren mioimoaejbiajioiomn qrveimivcnniunfrener cuinrinure hugthuyt ghuigtnuigftv vhbhyugtrnuibgtrbihgvtr huibntnugtrv bbvgftrbnuibgrnuniub grnjuiob gunbgrniubguhb ngbfnjghujngwbnui bgnjuignnuivnucnujioncfnc qmjicfnnuvg ngrvnnipvgnuigvrnn jini egninigbniu gbfnniu gfbnuiubnigruibn, ui. Put that into your speech function, make them say it on any speed (fast works best), and tell me you are not roflmao'ing all over the place. If you are, I rest my case. If not, you need to ask yourself when the last time you truely laughed was.
This was fun, thanks for reading!
contestant 2
A lot of these notes seem to have to do with psychology/philosophy/ideology, but
I think I'm gonna take a shot at something else (at least at first) and that's
sociology. I've got a theory about that and to put it simply, WHY CAN'T WE ALL
JUST GET ALONG?!?!....seriously folks. I'm not quite as oblivious as everybody
chalks me up to be, and as somewhat of the "resident psychologist/counselor/listened"
in my group of friends, I've realized some things. I think the biggest problem
in this world is that it's way too easy to forget that everyone else is human.
Think about it, how often do you consider somebody as actually having their own
life, their own issues, joys, dreams, pain, aspirations, etc., etc. as opposed
to just their role in your own? I know I'm just as guilty of doing this as
everybody else, but I think if we could all realize this and somehow remain
conscious of it, it might be a good step to actually cleaning up the world
(corny, I know :-P).
So just think about that, the next time you're upset with somebody, somebody's
upset with you, or whatever else is going on, they're still people. Especially
with technology and everything, it's way too easy to just dehumanize everyone
else in your life. But I think that's enough corny, be a good person blah blah
blah. So I'll move on to a second topic, as suggested.
Another trend with these notes seems to be reality v. perception v. theory, and
when that brings up all that comes to my mind is idealization. Everything in
life is idealized, there's no such thing as perfect anything. I'm going to put
in a plug for my minor and bring up physics. It's pretty much the one science
that admits that what it says isn't necessary true. For those of you who have
taken a course in it, how many times do you remember hearing/reading something
similar to "under these circumstances 'object' can be taken to behave as an
ideal 'object'" "ignore air resistance" "ignore friction" and even though there
are models that incorporate those things and "non-ideal" systems they can be
come rather complicated, and can't always account for everything going on,
they're just approximations, and that's all they claim to be, unlike biology,
chemistry and the rest which state how things are, while at the same time
telling you how every previous scientist for the past thousands of years has
been wrong. This applies to real life too. All measurements are rounded,
everything is approximated, nothing is exact, and it would be impractical to
have it that way (measuring things down to the last atom would be horribly
unnecessary). We live in a world of man-made definitions and man-made
approximations, because well, that's all we have to go off of. We have to define
our world as we see it, and that seems to be very much what Josh and Brad are
about in these notes, and it seems like a rather promising start. Hopefully I
gave you guys something to think about, and if not self-indulgence beats out
doing physics homework. Congratulations to whoever wins this. Josh and Brad,
keep up the good work.
contestant 3
Have you heard of the question: what came first, the chicken or the egg? well the egg had to come first.
Chicken DNA comes from zygote. The only way to get this zygote is from DNA mutation from two chickens. now to get those you need a zygote. That means this zygote must have come from a species that was like a chicken. zygote only forms in a chicken egg. So that means this species like a chicken laid an egg and forms this mutated zygote to form a chicken. Feel free to disagree. In fact please disagree if you do because i like to see peoples opinions on this.
Is this war necessary. A lot of people say no. I think it was very necessary. Iraq had a ruler, Saddam Hussein, abusing power. Iraq could do nothing about this. Who do you call for help? AMERICA. he helped them and now they decide to attack us since we made them look foolish. is that right or wrong? if we didn't fight then the USA would of had some serious problems. So fighting back was the best solution at the time.
People has a problem with Barack Obama. Everybody critsizes me on this. I dont like him. I am not racist. I just perfered John McCain. So as this just being a side note, please dont critizes people for not liking Obama because in the end he is our president and I am proud of it.
MCAS. I dont think this is necessary. Colleges dont look for MCAS results.
A-Rod. Heard about the steroids? well i dont think it matters if he did. He is bigger now then he was in 2003. 1994 Seattle Mariners 17 54 4 11 0 0 0 2 11 3 20 3 0 .241 .204 .204
1995 Seattle Mariners 48 142 15 33 6 2 5 19 58 6 42 4 2 .264 .408 .232
1996 Seattle Mariners 146 601 141 215 54 1 36 123 379 59 104 15 4 .414 .631 .358
1997 Seattle Mariners 141 587 100 176 40 3 23 84 291 41 99 29 6 .350 .496 .300
1998 Seattle Mariners 161 686 123 213 35 5 42 124 384 45 121 46 13 .360 .560 .310
1999 Seattle Mariners 129 502 110 143 25 0 42 111 294 56 109 21 7 .357 .586 .285
2000 Seattle Mariners 148 554 134 175 34 2 41 132 336 100 121 15 4 .420 .606 .316
2001 Texas Rangers 162 632 133 201 34 1 52 135 393 75 131 18 3 .399 .622 .318
2002 Texas Rangers 162 624 125 187 27 2 57 142 389 87 122 9 4 .392 .623 .300
2003 Texas Rangers 161 607 124 181 30 6 47 118 364 87 126 17 3 .396 .600 .298
2004 New York Yankees 155 601 112 172 24 2 36 106 308 80 131 28 4 .375 .512 .286
2005 New York Yankees 162 605 124 194 29 1 48 130 369 91 139 21 6 .421 .610 .321
2006 New York Yankees 154 572 113 166 26 1 35 121 299 90 139 15 4 .392 .523 .290
2007 New York Yankees 158 583 143 183 31 0 54 156 376 95 120 24 4 .422 .645 .314
2008 New York Yankees 138 510 104 154 33 0 35 103 292 65 117 18 3 .392 .573 .302
those are his stats. he did a lot better before and after 2003.
contestant 4
So, this is something I’ve been thinking of for awhile, and before I begin, I’d like to say that I mean no insult to anyone, it’s just a thought.
First a little bit of back-story:
So when I was little my parents raised me as a Catholic. I was baptized, went to church occasionally and did the whole first communion thing. And then I started really thinking about religion, and why I was even a Catholic; other than that I was raised that way and I realized that there was no good reason why I was still religious. First of all, the entire Bible reads more like a fiction novel than anything else, and in my mind I began comparing it to say Harry Potter.
What if one day the only document that became a proof of our existence at this time was Harry Potter? Would people interpret it word for word as truth? Would they show discrimination to people based off of a description in a novel? And despite no proof of there being people with magical abilities, would they believe and base an entire religion off of such a story?
Thinking that, it’s easy to make such a comparison to the Bible. Should we then, just because its written down and widely regarded as truth, take the Bible to be just that? Does anybody truly believe that life began with Adam and Eve?
Using Harry Potter is only an example however of what my true point has been from the beginning. My Harry Potter analogy, at least in my eyes, gives me reason enough to doubt having ever believed in such a religion. For me, my lack of belief led me to become an atheist (though I suppose I could also be described as agnostic, however if I could choose, I’d just say non-religious without having to categorize it).
When I told my parents my decision, they began to question me. What did I believe then, if not in God? To which, my response was that I didn’t believe in anything, because whatever created the world created the world, and for me, that was enough. I didn’t need to explain the universe or the world, I just wanted to live in it.
Which brings me to my ultimate point in all of this rambling. With no true basis or proof of the existence of any religion, is not faith in many ways quite similar to superstition? People who are superstitious believe the things they do and behave the way they do out of blind fear for consequences that are irrational to begin with. Will seeing a black cat really cause bad luck? No, probably not.
Why then would denouncing a religion send you to hell, or whatever the equivalent may be in another religion? I know that for me, being a good person is what I hope to accomplish in life, among other things, and if not worshipping a religion or a god spells doom for me in the afterlife, well, then it probably wasn’t a god worth worshipping anyways.
All right, well, that’s all I’ve got for now. If you like what you read, vote for mine, and hopefully there will be more to come!
contestant 5
forgive me for not being grammatically organized.
lets start with talking about time travel. i dont believe in it. i mean, im sure it will be possible in the future, i just dont think it would be a good thing to use. i believe that if you change one thing in the past, you might change youre entire reality. people have no idea what other things will/could change along with the event you went into the past to change. they might not even know if they changed something in the past. and what i mean by changing more than one event purposely/accidentally, is that if you change an event, fate/luck needs to change other events that lead to the event that you changed.
this leads me to my belief in luck. i believe that luck is the master of events. fate is its partner. i think that luck controls peoples actions. if you have a lot of luck, good things/things that have little chance in happening, they will happen to you. if you have little luck (no such thing as no/negative amounts of luck) then bad/undesirable things happen to you. to connect this to that other paragraph, if you change something in the past, in your favor, then fate/luck would have to go back farther in time to change events where you gain more luck, enough for your event to occur. people who read my note about the 25 things about me would remember how i dont believe in time travel, ur welcome for elaborating. the thing i dont like about it is the whole loss of control thing, and the thing about it changing your personality. mostly the latter.
i say changing your personality because of the fact that the events in your life shape your personality. im not quite sure how to elaborate on this. (i like saying elaborate. and personality. brad, give me some synonyms! and you dont have to post the stuff in the perentheses.) certain actions upon your psyche make you a jock, or a punk, or a prep, or a friggin alien! i hope that clearly defines my belief. if not, comment! and youre personality is just a small detail that time travel can alter/destroy. it could alter life as we know it. it could take away the whole drug fananza of the 70s, or the british couldve won the revolutionary war, or, even dinosaurs living with humans. the changes are limitless, and extraordinarily unpredictable, unless you have an iq of like, 400.
now what can i discuss, hmm. i dont believe in christianity. i think that it just may be as crazy as scientology. as in, i think it was just a story written by a rather creative fellow, and went out of control. although its fiction, it gives humans something that they neeeeeeed. and thats belief in something you cant prove. every one needs irrationality in their life to be rational. its an opposites thing. i dont believe in a story, but i do believe in, well, all that ive discussed.
now, when i say opposites thing, i mean that life is a roller coaster. one day youre happy the next ur sad/in a bad mood. on moment ur in pain, the next, u feel amazing. on second ur thinking about math, the next ur praying to something you cant see, something that doesnt talk back, something that made a virgin mother. excuse me, a human virgin mother. you need down to be up, cold to be hot, sick to be healthy.
thats all of them now, so please vote, and the winner will be posted on wednesday, i would have said tuesday, but i feel as if i shoud give some more time.
February 22-2009
-By Various Authors
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Newsletter #00007
There are a lot of superstitions out there. Some of them revolve around numbers. Numbers that are considered to have superstitious properties are 6, 7, and 13. Each of these numbers is unique in its own way. The number 6 is superstitious because it is believed to be the number of the devil. This has even been dates set to be the end of the world because of the number. 6/6/06 was one of those days. But I don’t think it was the end of days, because, um, we’re still here. XD
The number 7 is considered a lucky number. So maybe because this the 7th newsletter, this will be lucky in some way? Eh, maybe.
13 is considered to be unlucky too. Why is there more unlucky numbers than lucky numbers? But Friday the 13th is considered to be unlucky. Walking under a ladder, a black cat walking in front of you, stepping on a crack, breaking a mirror, they are all considered to be “unlucky.”
Something else I want to write about is dreams. Now, I didn’t come up with this idea, Sam did. See, I gave you credit. =] But anyways, dreams are quite interesting. They offer a pathway into a realm of the unknown. Now, while you sleep your brain is just organizing thoughts, and dreams are sidetracks of those thoughts. And, most dreams only last for just a few seconds, though some seem like they last all night. Dreams are also a way of telling yourself something through your subconscious. If you have a strange dream, and remember it, try and see if you can interpret it.
There are some dreams that are interesting, and reoccur with most people. They include dreams of flying, and dreams of falling. I can’t remember having a flying dream, but the falling ones I remember are actually quite interesting. It feels like I’m free falling, and I just keep going. It’s an interesting experience.
This isn’t one of the most organized things I’ve typed, but then again, what is really organization? It’s just something that is considered to be neat and orderly. But that is all on perspective. I’m one of the people who will have a mess (if anybody has seen my backpack or chemistry binder, you would know), but I’ll be able to find something 98% of the time. Yes, I know it’s not the 99.99% that there is when you’re organized, but it is still close enough. Notice it’s not 100%, because nothing can really truly be 100%. Nothing can be 100% positive, especially if you read Brad’s note on Tuesday. But perspective is something that is quite interesting to explore.
Perspective is all on the way we view things. Many things depend on the perspective with which we view things. I could claim that what I’m typing is entirely non-fiction, and everything is a fact, no matter what. However, another person would be able to say that everything I’ve written is fiction, not a single word of it is true. It’s all on how you want to view it. Now, on Brad’s newsletter, there was a comment on it (I believe by Danielle), that mentioned colors. How what if your green was actually somebody’s else’s red? And vice versa? That is something I have thought about, and it is interesting. And there is no way to prove or disprove it. It was a good point, and I just wanted to bring it up.
Now, the kind of writing I do here is entirely informal. It’s all written from my point of view, and how I view the world around me. It’s almost written like you’re inside my mind. However, no matter what words I use to describe it, my mind is my own, and there is nothing that can be done. But what I write is really close to what I think. Now, I could write entirely formal.
I would be competent to compose a wholesome complete statement if I opted to.
Or, I can write just like this, simple, and to the point.
Honestly, I prefer to write simply. Formal is nice to write in, but I don’t enjoy it as much. This is much easier to do.
So, that is all I have left to say. Enter the contest, or just like what we write and express your own opinion. I do know that some people have used their ability to disagree (which I mentioned in the first note), which is great. So, instead of a puzzle, here are some nice quotes to ponder about.
Things that are done, it is needless to speak about...things that are past, it is needless to blame.
-Confucius
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
-Mohandas Gandhi
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
-Buddha
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.
-Plato
February 19-2009
-By Josh
The number 7 is considered a lucky number. So maybe because this the 7th newsletter, this will be lucky in some way? Eh, maybe.
13 is considered to be unlucky too. Why is there more unlucky numbers than lucky numbers? But Friday the 13th is considered to be unlucky. Walking under a ladder, a black cat walking in front of you, stepping on a crack, breaking a mirror, they are all considered to be “unlucky.”
Something else I want to write about is dreams. Now, I didn’t come up with this idea, Sam did. See, I gave you credit. =] But anyways, dreams are quite interesting. They offer a pathway into a realm of the unknown. Now, while you sleep your brain is just organizing thoughts, and dreams are sidetracks of those thoughts. And, most dreams only last for just a few seconds, though some seem like they last all night. Dreams are also a way of telling yourself something through your subconscious. If you have a strange dream, and remember it, try and see if you can interpret it.
There are some dreams that are interesting, and reoccur with most people. They include dreams of flying, and dreams of falling. I can’t remember having a flying dream, but the falling ones I remember are actually quite interesting. It feels like I’m free falling, and I just keep going. It’s an interesting experience.
This isn’t one of the most organized things I’ve typed, but then again, what is really organization? It’s just something that is considered to be neat and orderly. But that is all on perspective. I’m one of the people who will have a mess (if anybody has seen my backpack or chemistry binder, you would know), but I’ll be able to find something 98% of the time. Yes, I know it’s not the 99.99% that there is when you’re organized, but it is still close enough. Notice it’s not 100%, because nothing can really truly be 100%. Nothing can be 100% positive, especially if you read Brad’s note on Tuesday. But perspective is something that is quite interesting to explore.
Perspective is all on the way we view things. Many things depend on the perspective with which we view things. I could claim that what I’m typing is entirely non-fiction, and everything is a fact, no matter what. However, another person would be able to say that everything I’ve written is fiction, not a single word of it is true. It’s all on how you want to view it. Now, on Brad’s newsletter, there was a comment on it (I believe by Danielle), that mentioned colors. How what if your green was actually somebody’s else’s red? And vice versa? That is something I have thought about, and it is interesting. And there is no way to prove or disprove it. It was a good point, and I just wanted to bring it up.
Now, the kind of writing I do here is entirely informal. It’s all written from my point of view, and how I view the world around me. It’s almost written like you’re inside my mind. However, no matter what words I use to describe it, my mind is my own, and there is nothing that can be done. But what I write is really close to what I think. Now, I could write entirely formal.
I would be competent to compose a wholesome complete statement if I opted to.
Or, I can write just like this, simple, and to the point.
Honestly, I prefer to write simply. Formal is nice to write in, but I don’t enjoy it as much. This is much easier to do.
So, that is all I have left to say. Enter the contest, or just like what we write and express your own opinion. I do know that some people have used their ability to disagree (which I mentioned in the first note), which is great. So, instead of a puzzle, here are some nice quotes to ponder about.
Things that are done, it is needless to speak about...things that are past, it is needless to blame.
-Confucius
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
-Mohandas Gandhi
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
-Buddha
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.
-Plato
February 19-2009
-By Josh
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Newsletter #00006
Alright, as many of you may know, i enjoy philosphy and psycology alot, this note is based mainly on both, i hope you enjoy it!
Now, before i get started, I will need to explain the theory of dualism, which is something that i will be alluding to alot in this note. Dualism is a theory that was established by Rene Descartes in 1879, it is the theory that the body and the mind are two separate entities. That should be all you have to know about it.
Now, this is my main argument, can everything around us be proved to exist? I do not believe that it can. Look at it this way, have you ever gone up to a friend and called them by the wrong name? I know i have, and i have had people come up to me and say "Hey Ben!" Now if the senses can fool us once, who is to say that they are not constantly fooling us, that we are perpetually decieved? My name is Brad, we are all in agreement on that, but what if my understanding was corrupted, and i have come to belive that my name was brad, when it really isnt? What if every one of us is wrong, and my name is really Frank, or Ben? The same goes for everyone else too, What if Josh's name wasn't josh, what if we heard wrong? Had our ears decieve us as well as our eyes, How could we be sure that we were really speaking to josh? We cannot be sure of anything pertaining to this, because we can always forget a name, or see one thing, when the thing that is actually there is entirely different from how we percieve it. Or we could even imagine hearing something due to our imperfect ears, or hear it wrong, and establish it as truth.
With this understanding, we could go so far as to say we don't know the difference between the sun and the moon, left and right, soft and hard, so on and so on. It is even logically possible for our understanding of truths to be obscured, with the possibility of some "grand deciever" that keeps us from comprehending truth. Due to this theory, our understanding of simple mathematics could be warped or out of place. our common understanding of 2+2=4 could be wrong. Under this theory, for all we know, 2+2=14. Now some would say, "without correct mathmatics, how could large structures be built? or any type of architectural design without measurements?" Which only goes back to the first point, that senses can be decieved, and that neither common sense nor mathematics are exempt from this possibility of extreme error.
Descartes says that if we are able to question these things, then we are, without a doubt, thinking things. now this makes alot of sense, because to even begin to question yourself about being a thinking thing, you need to be able to think, so do not argue with myself or descartes on this point.
*side note1*-refer to bottom
This point i am about to make leads me to dualism.....
In all of this doubt, that we may be inconceivably incorrect about absolutely everything, means we could be wrong in saying that we have a body. This proves dualism, to make another point, i will provide one(which will end up being many) quote from descartes.
when an entity is known for certain to have property x, but not known for certain to have property y, then x is essential to the entity, and y is not
what this means is that if one thing with one property cannot be one and the same with something that has the opposite of that property. When he was saying this, the property he was referring to was that of proof of exsistence and entity. We know that we have a mind, but we cannot be sure we have bodies, so a soloid thing cannot be combined with something that is undeniably questionable, leading to the notion of dualism. Descartes had many meditations on this, here are annotations from a few of them:
(1)I cannot possiby doubt that i exist as a thinking thing.(This was established as we tried to doubt our existence and found ourselves, therefore, affirming it.)
(2)I can doubt, however, that i have a body, and thus that i exist as a physical thing.
(3)Therefore, thinking is essential to what i am. My body is not. Furthermore, I know my mind more easily than i know my body. "From this I knew that I was a substance the whole essence or nature of which is to think, and that for its existance there is no need of any place, nor does it depend on any material thing; so that this 'me,' that is to say, the soul by which i am what i am, is entirely distinct from body, and is even more easy to know, than is the latter; and even if body were not, the soul would not cease to be what it is."
(1)If i concieve and percieve with certainty that they are separate, different kinds of things then they are separate, different kinds of things. If, for example, i see that one thing has propery A and another thing has property Not A, then i knowthat they are different kinds of things, because one and the same thing cannot have a property and its opposite.
(2) I percieve with certainty that i exist as a thinking and unextended thing.
(3) I percieve with (virtual) certainty that my body, or any body for that matter, is unthinking and extended.
(4) Therefore, mind and body are separate, different kinds of things. "This I (that is to say, my soul by which I am what I am)' is entirely and absolutely distinct from my body, and can exist without it."
(1) An entity cannot have a property and its opposite.
(2) My body is divisible, it has parts. Divisibility is part of what it means to be a body
(3) My mind is indivisible. It has no parts. "For...when I consider the mind, that is to say, myself inasmuch as I am only a thinking thing, I cannot distinguish in myself any parts, butapprehend myself to be clearly one and entire; and although the whole mind seems to be united to the whole body, yet if a foot' or an arm, or some other part, is separated from my body, i am aware that nothing has been taken away from my mind."
(4) Therefore, my mind and my body are different kinds of things
There is an Argument to contradict this, it is as follows:
One cannot determine the properties or laws of other entities, but can determine them for themselves.
(or thats how i understood it)
another way to say that would be this:
you cannot determine the properties of something you are not, but you should be able to determine what properties you have
In his fourth statement of the third annotation, Descartes says different kinds of things, which means something, that i shall explain to you now. Descartes also used the idea of what is called a type-type dualism. In this field, there are types, and there are tokens. a type would be say a chair, how would you classify a chair? as something you sit on, that is a type, BUT, tokens are like different things within that type, for example, there are square chairs, three-legged chairs, four-legged chairs, and they come in a rainbow of colors, no each of those would be considered one TOKEN of the TYPE chair.
What Descartes is saying (now that you know that) is that the mind and the body are not, in fact, tokens of the same type, but two types altogether.
*side note1*-
These points fit very well with my religion argument in the first note, how can we be sure that we have a religion or belief when we can't even be sure we hear everything correctly, yes we can concurr that we have heard the same things, but in this theory, there is a large margin for mutual human error. Therefore possibly disproving anything and everything we have heard.
BUT- this could also be used in the exact opposite way, it could be used to refute all physical things, and identify ourselves as nothing at all but spirits.
sadly, thats all i can get in for now, possibly a follow-up next week, tell me if you would actually want one or not.
today is the absolute DEADLINE for the contest, get them in!!
here is the little puzzle-
if you were to stick a man in an unbreakable bubble, and keep filling it with air, what would happen to the man?
(ignore some physics, just go with it, i don't need to hear it, haha)
February 17-2009
-by Brad
Now, before i get started, I will need to explain the theory of dualism, which is something that i will be alluding to alot in this note. Dualism is a theory that was established by Rene Descartes in 1879, it is the theory that the body and the mind are two separate entities. That should be all you have to know about it.
Now, this is my main argument, can everything around us be proved to exist? I do not believe that it can. Look at it this way, have you ever gone up to a friend and called them by the wrong name? I know i have, and i have had people come up to me and say "Hey Ben!" Now if the senses can fool us once, who is to say that they are not constantly fooling us, that we are perpetually decieved? My name is Brad, we are all in agreement on that, but what if my understanding was corrupted, and i have come to belive that my name was brad, when it really isnt? What if every one of us is wrong, and my name is really Frank, or Ben? The same goes for everyone else too, What if Josh's name wasn't josh, what if we heard wrong? Had our ears decieve us as well as our eyes, How could we be sure that we were really speaking to josh? We cannot be sure of anything pertaining to this, because we can always forget a name, or see one thing, when the thing that is actually there is entirely different from how we percieve it. Or we could even imagine hearing something due to our imperfect ears, or hear it wrong, and establish it as truth.
With this understanding, we could go so far as to say we don't know the difference between the sun and the moon, left and right, soft and hard, so on and so on. It is even logically possible for our understanding of truths to be obscured, with the possibility of some "grand deciever" that keeps us from comprehending truth. Due to this theory, our understanding of simple mathematics could be warped or out of place. our common understanding of 2+2=4 could be wrong. Under this theory, for all we know, 2+2=14. Now some would say, "without correct mathmatics, how could large structures be built? or any type of architectural design without measurements?" Which only goes back to the first point, that senses can be decieved, and that neither common sense nor mathematics are exempt from this possibility of extreme error.
Descartes says that if we are able to question these things, then we are, without a doubt, thinking things. now this makes alot of sense, because to even begin to question yourself about being a thinking thing, you need to be able to think, so do not argue with myself or descartes on this point.
*side note1*-refer to bottom
This point i am about to make leads me to dualism.....
In all of this doubt, that we may be inconceivably incorrect about absolutely everything, means we could be wrong in saying that we have a body. This proves dualism, to make another point, i will provide one(which will end up being many) quote from descartes.
when an entity is known for certain to have property x, but not known for certain to have property y, then x is essential to the entity, and y is not
what this means is that if one thing with one property cannot be one and the same with something that has the opposite of that property. When he was saying this, the property he was referring to was that of proof of exsistence and entity. We know that we have a mind, but we cannot be sure we have bodies, so a soloid thing cannot be combined with something that is undeniably questionable, leading to the notion of dualism. Descartes had many meditations on this, here are annotations from a few of them:
(1)I cannot possiby doubt that i exist as a thinking thing.(This was established as we tried to doubt our existence and found ourselves, therefore, affirming it.)
(2)I can doubt, however, that i have a body, and thus that i exist as a physical thing.
(3)Therefore, thinking is essential to what i am. My body is not. Furthermore, I know my mind more easily than i know my body. "From this I knew that I was a substance the whole essence or nature of which is to think, and that for its existance there is no need of any place, nor does it depend on any material thing; so that this 'me,' that is to say, the soul by which i am what i am, is entirely distinct from body, and is even more easy to know, than is the latter; and even if body were not, the soul would not cease to be what it is."
(1)If i concieve and percieve with certainty that they are separate, different kinds of things then they are separate, different kinds of things. If, for example, i see that one thing has propery A and another thing has property Not A, then i knowthat they are different kinds of things, because one and the same thing cannot have a property and its opposite.
(2) I percieve with certainty that i exist as a thinking and unextended thing.
(3) I percieve with (virtual) certainty that my body, or any body for that matter, is unthinking and extended.
(4) Therefore, mind and body are separate, different kinds of things. "This I (that is to say, my soul by which I am what I am)' is entirely and absolutely distinct from my body, and can exist without it."
(1) An entity cannot have a property and its opposite.
(2) My body is divisible, it has parts. Divisibility is part of what it means to be a body
(3) My mind is indivisible. It has no parts. "For...when I consider the mind, that is to say, myself inasmuch as I am only a thinking thing, I cannot distinguish in myself any parts, butapprehend myself to be clearly one and entire; and although the whole mind seems to be united to the whole body, yet if a foot' or an arm, or some other part, is separated from my body, i am aware that nothing has been taken away from my mind."
(4) Therefore, my mind and my body are different kinds of things
There is an Argument to contradict this, it is as follows:
One cannot determine the properties or laws of other entities, but can determine them for themselves.
(or thats how i understood it)
another way to say that would be this:
you cannot determine the properties of something you are not, but you should be able to determine what properties you have
In his fourth statement of the third annotation, Descartes says different kinds of things, which means something, that i shall explain to you now. Descartes also used the idea of what is called a type-type dualism. In this field, there are types, and there are tokens. a type would be say a chair, how would you classify a chair? as something you sit on, that is a type, BUT, tokens are like different things within that type, for example, there are square chairs, three-legged chairs, four-legged chairs, and they come in a rainbow of colors, no each of those would be considered one TOKEN of the TYPE chair.
What Descartes is saying (now that you know that) is that the mind and the body are not, in fact, tokens of the same type, but two types altogether.
*side note1*-
These points fit very well with my religion argument in the first note, how can we be sure that we have a religion or belief when we can't even be sure we hear everything correctly, yes we can concurr that we have heard the same things, but in this theory, there is a large margin for mutual human error. Therefore possibly disproving anything and everything we have heard.
BUT- this could also be used in the exact opposite way, it could be used to refute all physical things, and identify ourselves as nothing at all but spirits.
sadly, thats all i can get in for now, possibly a follow-up next week, tell me if you would actually want one or not.
today is the absolute DEADLINE for the contest, get them in!!
here is the little puzzle-
if you were to stick a man in an unbreakable bubble, and keep filling it with air, what would happen to the man?
(ignore some physics, just go with it, i don't need to hear it, haha)
February 17-2009
-by Brad
Friday, February 13, 2009
Newsletter #00005
Ok. Here I go. Sorry it's late.
Both last night and tonight I was doing Shoulder Taps for the Gardner Community Action Team (GCAT). GCAT is an organization that goes around helping our community. A shoulder tap is when a group of kids from our S.A.D.D. group go out and stand outside liquor establishments and ask people walking in if they would go and buys us some alcohol. We do mention that we are underage. But we need to keep it hypothetical, or it's entrapment. Believe it or not, we get quite a bit of No's, and very few Yes's (though there are some). But that's what I've been doing for the past two nights, which have prohibited me from typing this.
On to the main topic of my newsletter, I am going to talk about something that I like to call Chindapan. Chindapan is made up of an alliance of three countries: China, India, and Japan. This would be an economic alliance used to control the world market. They would be able to control the economy of the world, and shape it how they see fit. Without any military conquest whatsoever, they would be able to conquer the globe. With the world market in control, they would be unstoppable.
There are some countries, like us, that have become so dependent on these countries, that with out them, we would be lost. Eventually we would be able to support ourselves, but it would take a lot of effort and time. In the meantime, we would be helpless. Our economy would crumble, and we would need to find a way to rise from the ashes. But what about the other countries that can't support themselves? They would be left at the mercy of Chindapan. Or, they would go through a civil war that would last for quite awhile.
There would be so many issues that could arise because of this economic alliance, it's scary just to think about it. Who would be able to stop them if they formed and became one? China, having lots of people, and great trade with the world, would be able to just stop everything. Japan, being if not the top one of the top places in the world in technology, would be able to hack anywhere in the world, and take over the world through robots and computers. India, just because they are like that. And it seems they're a big Asian power. But that is my theory on what could happen if they ever did form an alliance. Let's hope they don't.
You know something about me? I love being random. It's what make life fun. Being random I think is a sign of a healthy mind, not a sick one. Because by being random, you are able to extend your creative process out of control, and are able to do anything that you want. Another thing that I quite enjoy is writing. I have gotten back in the spirit of writing. I just love it. It's fun to do, and I get to express myself in different ways. It's an amazing thing. I know people don't like to read or write, but I don't understand that. Reading is something that I could never live without, and it makes me feel happy. Reading a good book is a way to escape from the world, and enter a new one. It's a continuous movie going through my head. It's an amazing thing when a book can do that to a person. And after reading, I have more new ideas in my head, which help me end up being more random and spontaneous.
Music is a way of meditating. I actually tried it. I was extremely stressed out earlier because of life (who isn't), so I put my headphones in and blared some music. I just sat in the middle of the floor, and crossed my legs, shut my eyes, and tried to empty my mind. This is the one time I didn't use randomness. I put a song that relaxes me on repeat, and I passed 1/2 hour in what felt like 5 minutes. And I became really relaxed. I just tried to imagine a blank canvas in my head. A painter's easel to be exact. Just imagined the empty canvas on the stand. There were still thoughts going through my head, but they were extremely vivid. It was almost like I was dreaming, but I wasn't. I would examine one thought, and it would lead to the next. All in vivid detail. When I got done, bored, or wanted to move on, I just thought of the blank canvas again. It was really interesting, and I'm probably going to try it again in the future. Just thought I'd share that with you.
I really do enjoy writing these. Writing cheers me up. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed typing it. I know that what I typed about really wasn't like worldly issues or anything really debatable (though anything can become a debate in my opinion), I at least think that they are somewhat interesting topics. If you don't think so, and think that I should just stick to kinda what I was doing before, tell me. Because I have no issues with it. Tonight was just kinda free-form for me. Anyways, before I go, I have some questions instead of a puzzle for this newsletter:
1. What is your opinion on having a school newspaper at GHS?
2. Do you think French will ever be a useful language in the future?
3. Are you going to enter the contest?
4. Did you enjoy this kind of writing, or my other kind? Both?
5. Did you know that it is difficult to pronounce Irish Wristwatch quickly while speaking out loud?
6. Do you prefer a puzzle over a survey?
7. Are you aged 57 years 8 months or older?
7.5 If you answer No to the above, would you consider becoming a cell phone?
8. If the sky is purple, what color is the moon?
10. This is a statement.
11. Did you notice there is no #9?
February 13-2009
-by Josh
Both last night and tonight I was doing Shoulder Taps for the Gardner Community Action Team (GCAT). GCAT is an organization that goes around helping our community. A shoulder tap is when a group of kids from our S.A.D.D. group go out and stand outside liquor establishments and ask people walking in if they would go and buys us some alcohol. We do mention that we are underage. But we need to keep it hypothetical, or it's entrapment. Believe it or not, we get quite a bit of No's, and very few Yes's (though there are some). But that's what I've been doing for the past two nights, which have prohibited me from typing this.
On to the main topic of my newsletter, I am going to talk about something that I like to call Chindapan. Chindapan is made up of an alliance of three countries: China, India, and Japan. This would be an economic alliance used to control the world market. They would be able to control the economy of the world, and shape it how they see fit. Without any military conquest whatsoever, they would be able to conquer the globe. With the world market in control, they would be unstoppable.
There are some countries, like us, that have become so dependent on these countries, that with out them, we would be lost. Eventually we would be able to support ourselves, but it would take a lot of effort and time. In the meantime, we would be helpless. Our economy would crumble, and we would need to find a way to rise from the ashes. But what about the other countries that can't support themselves? They would be left at the mercy of Chindapan. Or, they would go through a civil war that would last for quite awhile.
There would be so many issues that could arise because of this economic alliance, it's scary just to think about it. Who would be able to stop them if they formed and became one? China, having lots of people, and great trade with the world, would be able to just stop everything. Japan, being if not the top one of the top places in the world in technology, would be able to hack anywhere in the world, and take over the world through robots and computers. India, just because they are like that. And it seems they're a big Asian power. But that is my theory on what could happen if they ever did form an alliance. Let's hope they don't.
You know something about me? I love being random. It's what make life fun. Being random I think is a sign of a healthy mind, not a sick one. Because by being random, you are able to extend your creative process out of control, and are able to do anything that you want. Another thing that I quite enjoy is writing. I have gotten back in the spirit of writing. I just love it. It's fun to do, and I get to express myself in different ways. It's an amazing thing. I know people don't like to read or write, but I don't understand that. Reading is something that I could never live without, and it makes me feel happy. Reading a good book is a way to escape from the world, and enter a new one. It's a continuous movie going through my head. It's an amazing thing when a book can do that to a person. And after reading, I have more new ideas in my head, which help me end up being more random and spontaneous.
Music is a way of meditating. I actually tried it. I was extremely stressed out earlier because of life (who isn't), so I put my headphones in and blared some music. I just sat in the middle of the floor, and crossed my legs, shut my eyes, and tried to empty my mind. This is the one time I didn't use randomness. I put a song that relaxes me on repeat, and I passed 1/2 hour in what felt like 5 minutes. And I became really relaxed. I just tried to imagine a blank canvas in my head. A painter's easel to be exact. Just imagined the empty canvas on the stand. There were still thoughts going through my head, but they were extremely vivid. It was almost like I was dreaming, but I wasn't. I would examine one thought, and it would lead to the next. All in vivid detail. When I got done, bored, or wanted to move on, I just thought of the blank canvas again. It was really interesting, and I'm probably going to try it again in the future. Just thought I'd share that with you.
I really do enjoy writing these. Writing cheers me up. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed typing it. I know that what I typed about really wasn't like worldly issues or anything really debatable (though anything can become a debate in my opinion), I at least think that they are somewhat interesting topics. If you don't think so, and think that I should just stick to kinda what I was doing before, tell me. Because I have no issues with it. Tonight was just kinda free-form for me. Anyways, before I go, I have some questions instead of a puzzle for this newsletter:
1. What is your opinion on having a school newspaper at GHS?
2. Do you think French will ever be a useful language in the future?
3. Are you going to enter the contest?
4. Did you enjoy this kind of writing, or my other kind? Both?
5. Did you know that it is difficult to pronounce Irish Wristwatch quickly while speaking out loud?
6. Do you prefer a puzzle over a survey?
7. Are you aged 57 years 8 months or older?
7.5 If you answer No to the above, would you consider becoming a cell phone?
8. If the sky is purple, what color is the moon?
10. This is a statement.
11. Did you notice there is no #9?
February 13-2009
-by Josh
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Newsletter #00004
alright, so i really have like no time to write right now, so here is just a little short note, at least it has a purpose
here we are on the circles, i can't say much, so i will finish up nex week.
the atom is a good argument, but i believe that the atoms can be aligned perfectly still so that a perfect circle is formed that goes through the nuclei, and if you don't agree, take it to the subatomic level, you will find a way.
the circle over circle deal was irrelevant, it proves me correct if anything
pi isn't used to draw a perfect circle, it is derived from one, and the only way you can even get pi is to use the dimensions and proportins FROM a perfect circle.
that ends that, more to come i promise
what if dates were put to decimals? like if it was june 4 at 5:00 am, could you write this:
6.09/4.2/09.43 (estimated decimals)
and could you end up a date that was 3.02/pi/09.33?
and for my question:
if you were to be shrunk, would you die of lack of oxygen?
i ask this because of this fact- to shrink, you would need to shrink every one of your atoms, and if your atoms became proportionately incorrect to the size that your body needs to use them.
sorry if that is hard to follow
here we are, the main part of this note
CONTEST!!
alright, we are going to add one more person to this, how it works is this:
to enter, simply whrite a note and send it to my email adress (bms7269@aol.com) by next tuesday,
then, i will publish all the notes sent to me on wednesday, and it is up to all the tagged people to rate the notes, the one with the best rating, gets to be a part of this.
sorry it had to be so short
questions? write on my wall, call me, email me, anything
February 10-2009
-by Brad
here we are on the circles, i can't say much, so i will finish up nex week.
the atom is a good argument, but i believe that the atoms can be aligned perfectly still so that a perfect circle is formed that goes through the nuclei, and if you don't agree, take it to the subatomic level, you will find a way.
the circle over circle deal was irrelevant, it proves me correct if anything
pi isn't used to draw a perfect circle, it is derived from one, and the only way you can even get pi is to use the dimensions and proportins FROM a perfect circle.
that ends that, more to come i promise
what if dates were put to decimals? like if it was june 4 at 5:00 am, could you write this:
6.09/4.2/09.43 (estimated decimals)
and could you end up a date that was 3.02/pi/09.33?
and for my question:
if you were to be shrunk, would you die of lack of oxygen?
i ask this because of this fact- to shrink, you would need to shrink every one of your atoms, and if your atoms became proportionately incorrect to the size that your body needs to use them.
sorry if that is hard to follow
here we are, the main part of this note
CONTEST!!
alright, we are going to add one more person to this, how it works is this:
to enter, simply whrite a note and send it to my email adress (bms7269@aol.com) by next tuesday,
then, i will publish all the notes sent to me on wednesday, and it is up to all the tagged people to rate the notes, the one with the best rating, gets to be a part of this.
sorry it had to be so short
questions? write on my wall, call me, email me, anything
February 10-2009
-by Brad
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Newsletter #00003
This is the third edition of Brad and mine's newsletters. On this newsletter, I will be focusing on two main subjects. This isn't going to be about random things, though I would like to do that. =] For this one, I will be focusing on Circles, and their Imperfections. After I am done thoroughly discussing that, I will move on to talking about the Universe, and it's existence. Not necessarily what I talked about last time, though in a way it could be tied into this.
Circles
Now, there is some opposition on the topic I am about to discuss. I believe that a perfect circle cannot exist. That is to say, a circle where every point along the circumference is exactly equidistant from the center is impossible. I have a multitude of reasons behind this, and I shall go about listing them. However, I would advise you not to make your decision on whether you agree with me or not until you read Brad's Newsletter on Tuesday the 10th. I'm sure he'll have his opinion posted on it, if he and Tim don't start against me through comments. But whatever happens, happens. I welcome opposition against this, but if there are any converts, then YAY! One more for me =D
First off, I will disprove them mathematically. If you remember from math class, the circumference is found by using this equation:
2 • pi • r = C
If you were to put in any real number, let's say 5. You would do 5 • 2 is 10, multiplied by pi is approximately equal to:
31.415926535879323.....
As you can see, it is an infinitesimal decimal. It goes on forever and forever. You can not make something that has an infinite numbers. Just like you cannot draw a line that represents infinity. It continues forever. So, by basic math, a perfect circle is rendered obsolete.
But of course their are arguments against that. Math, believe it nor not, does have its discrepancies and gray areas. What I'm discussing right now is one of the few spots. Hopefully I'll talk about more in the future. But back to my arguments. If you were to cut down the circle you have down to the atom, you could still not make it perfect. If you have learned anything on atoms, you know they are made up of layers, and aren't perfect circles. And if you think about it, try putting two circles together. Overlap them to try and make a bigger curve. You can't, because if they are perfect and the exact same size, then you will only get one circle on another. If you move it off a little bit, there is a slight dip in it.
You cannot continue a curve to make a curve. It will not work. It will NOT be perfect. So atoms, being somewhat circular, will behave just like those. And atoms will not be able to line up properly to form the just perfect curve. Atoms are bumpy, and don't go together uniformly. That is why there is no such thing as a flat surface. Because atoms are bumpy. So if you down to the atoms of a circle, you will see squiggly lines, not a perfect curve. Once again, this proves that a perfect circle does not exist.
Against what I've been saying, I do believe that in theory a perfect circle would be able to exist. However, it just can't in our dimension/universe.
My concluding remarks are that you do not judge on what you have just read, but wait until either Brad or Tim come back with a rebuttal against this to hear their point. But that is my view on the Perfect Circle.
The Universe
The universe that we live in is quite an interesting place. We have so many things in it, we cannot fathom all at once that exists. We have stars, planets, elements, life, rocks, all placed throughout space that amounts to more you could ever think of. Now, the most popular theory currently on how the universe was created, other than religious means, is the Big Bang Theory (which is also a comedic television show on CBS on Mondays at 8:00PM EST).
The BBT is on how everything that we think of right now was crammed into a very very very very little space, smaller than a fingernail, and then BOOM! Our universe. But some scientists believe that due to the rate of expansion due to the amount of energy released, we are expanding too fast for us to cave back into the middle, and repeat the cycle. However, I do not believe that will happen. After watching the National Geographic (or was it the Science Channel?) special on black holes, I have a theory on what will happen.
Every star will die. That is a fact. They will eventually stop their fusion, and will expand to find more fuel. Once it can't expand any more, it caves in on itself, spreading itself out in an explosion and losing all but the core. If the star is big enough, the cave in may be big enough to crush the center of the star into a black hole.A black hole is an area of super-dense matter, that has an amazingly high gravitational field, so much that light is bent and twisted, and that once it passes the field-of-no-return, it is sucked in. But after watching the special, I learned that the current theory on the black hole is that in the center, the matter is not destroyed, but just converted. It is put into Hawking Radiation. As the black hole is "fed" by objects, it gains energy. But in order to remain stable, it transforms energy into radiation, which is Hawking radiation, named after Stephen Hawking who theorized it. So, essentially, if it keeps emitting radiation, it will "evaporate". This is where I differ somewhat from it.
After this point, it is said that the black hole will evaporate, and disappear. I think that will happen, but as it emits radiation, it sends it somewhere. So, eventually that will be captured by another black hole. It will just repeat. But now what if all there is is radiation? Well, everything emits some gravitational pull. So why they are transferring radiation back and forth, they are all slowly moving towards each other. They will eventually form one big black hole. They will be pulled towards each other. Now, once all there is left is one big black hole, it will collapse in on itself, due to the mass of itself. Once it collapses, what do you know, big boom. Therefor, Big Bang. Rinse and repeat.
Now, as I've wrote that, I've realized there are some problems. I'm assuming the universe is finite, and that black holes behave the way I want them to. If they don't, well, I hope that something else brings them together and big bang. Else, within 1,000 years, if we don't colonize the universe through space travel, the human race will be gone. I don't think we can last another 1,000 years in our current worldly state.
As a note, I wrote that as one big paragraph. However, I broke it up so that way it will be a little easier to read. And that is my theory on creation of the universe. At least at this moment. It may change tomorrow. Or not.
Overall, I didn't enjoy writing about the universe as I thought I would. Sorry if it doesn't turn out to be in top quality, my mind doesn't seem to be right currently. But I'll end with a riddle. See if you can determine the answer.
Which of the following is true?
The statement below is false.
The statement above is true.
February 5-2009
-by Josh
Circles
Now, there is some opposition on the topic I am about to discuss. I believe that a perfect circle cannot exist. That is to say, a circle where every point along the circumference is exactly equidistant from the center is impossible. I have a multitude of reasons behind this, and I shall go about listing them. However, I would advise you not to make your decision on whether you agree with me or not until you read Brad's Newsletter on Tuesday the 10th. I'm sure he'll have his opinion posted on it, if he and Tim don't start against me through comments. But whatever happens, happens. I welcome opposition against this, but if there are any converts, then YAY! One more for me =D
First off, I will disprove them mathematically. If you remember from math class, the circumference is found by using this equation:
2 • pi • r = C
If you were to put in any real number, let's say 5. You would do 5 • 2 is 10, multiplied by pi is approximately equal to:
31.415926535879323.....
As you can see, it is an infinitesimal decimal. It goes on forever and forever. You can not make something that has an infinite numbers. Just like you cannot draw a line that represents infinity. It continues forever. So, by basic math, a perfect circle is rendered obsolete.
But of course their are arguments against that. Math, believe it nor not, does have its discrepancies and gray areas. What I'm discussing right now is one of the few spots. Hopefully I'll talk about more in the future. But back to my arguments. If you were to cut down the circle you have down to the atom, you could still not make it perfect. If you have learned anything on atoms, you know they are made up of layers, and aren't perfect circles. And if you think about it, try putting two circles together. Overlap them to try and make a bigger curve. You can't, because if they are perfect and the exact same size, then you will only get one circle on another. If you move it off a little bit, there is a slight dip in it.
You cannot continue a curve to make a curve. It will not work. It will NOT be perfect. So atoms, being somewhat circular, will behave just like those. And atoms will not be able to line up properly to form the just perfect curve. Atoms are bumpy, and don't go together uniformly. That is why there is no such thing as a flat surface. Because atoms are bumpy. So if you down to the atoms of a circle, you will see squiggly lines, not a perfect curve. Once again, this proves that a perfect circle does not exist.
Against what I've been saying, I do believe that in theory a perfect circle would be able to exist. However, it just can't in our dimension/universe.
My concluding remarks are that you do not judge on what you have just read, but wait until either Brad or Tim come back with a rebuttal against this to hear their point. But that is my view on the Perfect Circle.
The Universe
The universe that we live in is quite an interesting place. We have so many things in it, we cannot fathom all at once that exists. We have stars, planets, elements, life, rocks, all placed throughout space that amounts to more you could ever think of. Now, the most popular theory currently on how the universe was created, other than religious means, is the Big Bang Theory (which is also a comedic television show on CBS on Mondays at 8:00PM EST).
The BBT is on how everything that we think of right now was crammed into a very very very very little space, smaller than a fingernail, and then BOOM! Our universe. But some scientists believe that due to the rate of expansion due to the amount of energy released, we are expanding too fast for us to cave back into the middle, and repeat the cycle. However, I do not believe that will happen. After watching the National Geographic (or was it the Science Channel?) special on black holes, I have a theory on what will happen.
Every star will die. That is a fact. They will eventually stop their fusion, and will expand to find more fuel. Once it can't expand any more, it caves in on itself, spreading itself out in an explosion and losing all but the core. If the star is big enough, the cave in may be big enough to crush the center of the star into a black hole.A black hole is an area of super-dense matter, that has an amazingly high gravitational field, so much that light is bent and twisted, and that once it passes the field-of-no-return, it is sucked in. But after watching the special, I learned that the current theory on the black hole is that in the center, the matter is not destroyed, but just converted. It is put into Hawking Radiation. As the black hole is "fed" by objects, it gains energy. But in order to remain stable, it transforms energy into radiation, which is Hawking radiation, named after Stephen Hawking who theorized it. So, essentially, if it keeps emitting radiation, it will "evaporate". This is where I differ somewhat from it.
After this point, it is said that the black hole will evaporate, and disappear. I think that will happen, but as it emits radiation, it sends it somewhere. So, eventually that will be captured by another black hole. It will just repeat. But now what if all there is is radiation? Well, everything emits some gravitational pull. So why they are transferring radiation back and forth, they are all slowly moving towards each other. They will eventually form one big black hole. They will be pulled towards each other. Now, once all there is left is one big black hole, it will collapse in on itself, due to the mass of itself. Once it collapses, what do you know, big boom. Therefor, Big Bang. Rinse and repeat.
Now, as I've wrote that, I've realized there are some problems. I'm assuming the universe is finite, and that black holes behave the way I want them to. If they don't, well, I hope that something else brings them together and big bang. Else, within 1,000 years, if we don't colonize the universe through space travel, the human race will be gone. I don't think we can last another 1,000 years in our current worldly state.
As a note, I wrote that as one big paragraph. However, I broke it up so that way it will be a little easier to read. And that is my theory on creation of the universe. At least at this moment. It may change tomorrow. Or not.
Overall, I didn't enjoy writing about the universe as I thought I would. Sorry if it doesn't turn out to be in top quality, my mind doesn't seem to be right currently. But I'll end with a riddle. See if you can determine the answer.
Which of the following is true?
The statement below is false.
The statement above is true.
February 5-2009
-by Josh
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Newsletter #00002
alright, my first newsletter, im not sure how im gonna go about it, but I'll give it my best, I will touch on some of josh's topics and bring up my own, I feel that he will end up being the political writer, I am personally not very interested in politics. so here goes:
All through last week and the week before it, SADD had been working on an anti-smoking campaign, and i was sitting at the table at lunch handing things out. This brought an interesting thing to mind, as I would look out across the cafeteria, I would notice just how many people i didn't know at all. This just struck me as strange, I always feel like I know alot of people and have alot of friends, (of course coming from holy rosary with a graduating class of 19, it could just be me) but looking out like this just seemed to be a bit of a realization, even if it does seem insignifigant.
To touch on Josh's little thing on religion, here is my thing-
-In my opinion, all religions are based on the same thing, being taught virtues and lessons of a sort
-Awhile back, i was sitting in church, and some of the things said made me think, and please don't think I am trying to say anything bad about any religion or that it is not true or anything else you can come up with, so please just read without your hard beliefs, or with an "open mind", or skip.....
anyways, i was in chuch, and i thought.."say none of this was true, say religion just gives us something we always believe we can count on, an assurance made to be beyond our understanding so that we can refute anyone that argues, say it is just a way of keeping people sane, a friend that we are always told is listening, then waiting until something good seems to come from it, and we give all the credit to the respective entity".... this just happened to pop up in my head.... like what if religion was made purely to explain everything science couldnt prove centuries, millenia ago....... but like i said, just one of my little "what if.." moments
-I belive that religion is a good thing to have, especially for the fact that it does teach life lessons, and how to live peacefully with other people........ that is, of course unless you go way over the top with it, which we have all seen happen.
Loneliness..........it seemed to be the "Theme of the month" for january,everyone I know was struck by it one way or another, and if you are in Ms. Pierce's class with me then i will say no, this is not because we wrote an essay on loneliness, but it sure goes with my idea of the theme now doesn't it? This is something i wish not to stay on for too long for a host of reasons......
so moving on-
Lately i have been noticing more and more of life's little cycles, the patterns, the little quirks in people and traits that seem to be constant, but always in a different way, these things that seem to apply to most everybody, if i manage to get a more concrete example of what i am trying to say, I will put it in next week's note. This is one thing that i thouroughly enjoy, watching, observing, and learning from things around me, not so much learning in school, but of surroundings.
Now to touch on another subject brought up by Josh, the ability to disagree, oh so important. it is something that is needed to keep any sort of balance, hey, if nobody disagreed, our government wouldn't work, there would be no checks or balances... of course i suppose alot of other problems would be avoided if nobody ever disagreed, like there would be much less fighting, things would get done quicker, more could be accomplished, I would even like to go out on a limb and say there would be less crime...but then again, there would never be that one person to see the fault in a plan and step out and say "hey, not gonna work, bad idea." This is something that is obviously vital, how many bad decisions could be made if everyone just agreed with the first person to voice his/her opinion? So to close this little discussion, i will say that i believe that disagreement is not only important to life but essential.
Have you ever noticed how complicated relationships are? and by this i do not mean boyfriend/girlfriend. I mean every kind of relationship, Friends, Family..... well, those are the two i know most about, but they can be split up into subsections quite some bit. Like friendships, I will start with them, I am going to leave out the boyfriend/girlfriend relationship because i really don't want to touch on that for so many reasons that listing them would be more redundant than writing this sentence in which i am writing about things that i am saying i am not going to write about... But to get back on subject, Friendships, all good friendships prosper in learning about each other and putting in that extra effort to really have a good time with a person. But i see it as much more than this, i feel that in a good friendship, there is always a comfort in the knowledge of a friend and much more in the presence and words of a friend, someone without judgement on you, someone who is willing to forgive mistakes, a true friend. Which brings me to the next distinction, true friend or not? I see a true friend as someone who does what is listed above, but there are many versions of this, i know people that may not be able to do what i said, but these people give their best effort, which is something that i think advertantly accomplishes the goal anyway. but the untrue friend is much easier to describe, i see this as someone who does not care, or is simply too lazy to put in the effort needed to maintain a good relationship. I also believe that to obtain a good friendship, you can never take someone's word on a person, you must cast all prior "knowlegde" of a person aside to keep an open mind. You also need to refrain from judgement, which i must admit, i do not do all the time, but i refuse to believe that anybody does. I may write more on this next week, we will see, i never did get to family, but i am done with this subject for now.......
Alright, here is one that i would like an opinion on:Is it possible to make the opposite of a person? or would the opposite simply be the same person? (And to avoid confusion, i am only talking about personality, not physical appearance.) The reason this can be debated is this:
-The opposite of recessive is dominant
-The opposite of dominant is recessive
-The opposite of good is bad
-The opposite of bad is good
The reason that those four things that could have been said in two bullets are relevant is this-
say you have an overall bad person, i believe that they are still going to have a small part of them that is able to be good. if you take the opposite, only looking at it that way, the dominant bad would become recessive and good, and the recessive good would become dominant and bad, thus replicating the person. So give me your thoughts.
Josh, perfect circles most certainly can exist, but i will hold off and let you begin what I believe will become quite the epic debate between our notes.
And so ends my first newsletter, tell me what you thought, and leave some ideas for josh and myself to touch on and write about in the future. Comments are very welcome (and truthfully asked for in a way)so long as its not one of josh's so called "YOU'RE WRONG! RANT RANT RANT" little deals, those are not appreciated, and i will send out the same threat of deletion to any that contain such things, haha. I am also going to attempt to throw in one of the questions like the "opposite of a person" one every week to get everyone thinking and just to get input.
February 3-2009
-by Brad
All through last week and the week before it, SADD had been working on an anti-smoking campaign, and i was sitting at the table at lunch handing things out. This brought an interesting thing to mind, as I would look out across the cafeteria, I would notice just how many people i didn't know at all. This just struck me as strange, I always feel like I know alot of people and have alot of friends, (of course coming from holy rosary with a graduating class of 19, it could just be me) but looking out like this just seemed to be a bit of a realization, even if it does seem insignifigant.
To touch on Josh's little thing on religion, here is my thing-
-In my opinion, all religions are based on the same thing, being taught virtues and lessons of a sort
-Awhile back, i was sitting in church, and some of the things said made me think, and please don't think I am trying to say anything bad about any religion or that it is not true or anything else you can come up with, so please just read without your hard beliefs, or with an "open mind", or skip.....
anyways, i was in chuch, and i thought.."say none of this was true, say religion just gives us something we always believe we can count on, an assurance made to be beyond our understanding so that we can refute anyone that argues, say it is just a way of keeping people sane, a friend that we are always told is listening, then waiting until something good seems to come from it, and we give all the credit to the respective entity".... this just happened to pop up in my head.... like what if religion was made purely to explain everything science couldnt prove centuries, millenia ago....... but like i said, just one of my little "what if.." moments
-I belive that religion is a good thing to have, especially for the fact that it does teach life lessons, and how to live peacefully with other people........ that is, of course unless you go way over the top with it, which we have all seen happen.
Loneliness..........it seemed to be the "Theme of the month" for january,everyone I know was struck by it one way or another, and if you are in Ms. Pierce's class with me then i will say no, this is not because we wrote an essay on loneliness, but it sure goes with my idea of the theme now doesn't it? This is something i wish not to stay on for too long for a host of reasons......
so moving on-
Lately i have been noticing more and more of life's little cycles, the patterns, the little quirks in people and traits that seem to be constant, but always in a different way, these things that seem to apply to most everybody, if i manage to get a more concrete example of what i am trying to say, I will put it in next week's note. This is one thing that i thouroughly enjoy, watching, observing, and learning from things around me, not so much learning in school, but of surroundings.
Now to touch on another subject brought up by Josh, the ability to disagree, oh so important. it is something that is needed to keep any sort of balance, hey, if nobody disagreed, our government wouldn't work, there would be no checks or balances... of course i suppose alot of other problems would be avoided if nobody ever disagreed, like there would be much less fighting, things would get done quicker, more could be accomplished, I would even like to go out on a limb and say there would be less crime...but then again, there would never be that one person to see the fault in a plan and step out and say "hey, not gonna work, bad idea." This is something that is obviously vital, how many bad decisions could be made if everyone just agreed with the first person to voice his/her opinion? So to close this little discussion, i will say that i believe that disagreement is not only important to life but essential.
Have you ever noticed how complicated relationships are? and by this i do not mean boyfriend/girlfriend. I mean every kind of relationship, Friends, Family..... well, those are the two i know most about, but they can be split up into subsections quite some bit. Like friendships, I will start with them, I am going to leave out the boyfriend/girlfriend relationship because i really don't want to touch on that for so many reasons that listing them would be more redundant than writing this sentence in which i am writing about things that i am saying i am not going to write about... But to get back on subject, Friendships, all good friendships prosper in learning about each other and putting in that extra effort to really have a good time with a person. But i see it as much more than this, i feel that in a good friendship, there is always a comfort in the knowledge of a friend and much more in the presence and words of a friend, someone without judgement on you, someone who is willing to forgive mistakes, a true friend. Which brings me to the next distinction, true friend or not? I see a true friend as someone who does what is listed above, but there are many versions of this, i know people that may not be able to do what i said, but these people give their best effort, which is something that i think advertantly accomplishes the goal anyway. but the untrue friend is much easier to describe, i see this as someone who does not care, or is simply too lazy to put in the effort needed to maintain a good relationship. I also believe that to obtain a good friendship, you can never take someone's word on a person, you must cast all prior "knowlegde" of a person aside to keep an open mind. You also need to refrain from judgement, which i must admit, i do not do all the time, but i refuse to believe that anybody does. I may write more on this next week, we will see, i never did get to family, but i am done with this subject for now.......
Alright, here is one that i would like an opinion on:Is it possible to make the opposite of a person? or would the opposite simply be the same person? (And to avoid confusion, i am only talking about personality, not physical appearance.) The reason this can be debated is this:
-The opposite of recessive is dominant
-The opposite of dominant is recessive
-The opposite of good is bad
-The opposite of bad is good
The reason that those four things that could have been said in two bullets are relevant is this-
say you have an overall bad person, i believe that they are still going to have a small part of them that is able to be good. if you take the opposite, only looking at it that way, the dominant bad would become recessive and good, and the recessive good would become dominant and bad, thus replicating the person. So give me your thoughts.
Josh, perfect circles most certainly can exist, but i will hold off and let you begin what I believe will become quite the epic debate between our notes.
And so ends my first newsletter, tell me what you thought, and leave some ideas for josh and myself to touch on and write about in the future. Comments are very welcome (and truthfully asked for in a way)so long as its not one of josh's so called "YOU'RE WRONG! RANT RANT RANT" little deals, those are not appreciated, and i will send out the same threat of deletion to any that contain such things, haha. I am also going to attempt to throw in one of the questions like the "opposite of a person" one every week to get everyone thinking and just to get input.
February 3-2009
-by Brad
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