Creative Title

WARNING: This post may contain mild profanity. Reader discretion is advised (if you happen to be a complete pussy).

So… I tend to naturally be pretty meek. Empathy, caring, and general shyness (perhaps combined with a tall, extremely controlling sibling… and yeah, some of that “moral upbringing” stuff) creates a need to fulfill the needs of others–any others–before my own. People (primarily various self-defense instructors) have been yelling at me about this over the past couple years because, well, it’s kind of a stupid way to live in the long run–particularly from a self-defense point of view. So I’ve been trying to change it over the past couple years.

Frankly, it’s a lot harder to act confident and strong than shy and unable to even look at people’s faces while walking (interestingly enough, if you look at their faces, you’ll find that there are many more memorizing the details of their shoes than anything else). But I’ve been doing it because it’s safer than having a vulnerable appearance. There’s also the whole theory of “the way you act is the way you feel,” which, while not complete BS, really doesn’t work that great. If you’re pissed off and try to pretend you’re having the time of your life, you’re only going to get more pissed off. And if you try to act bold and unafraid to stare at people in the eye, you’ll only start feeling odd and worried that you’ve somehow done them an insult by overpowering them… or just wonder why that person was staring at you, which is only obvious from a third-person perspective. So it becomes even more difficult to keep your eyes up because you know that some people are going to stare back at you and create that awkward sort of moment.

But I did it anyways, even after a day like today when I’m out of my dorm for 10 hours (after four hours of sleep, possibly due to a Cherry Coke at 2pm, my stupid, loud suitemates being loud and stupid, and (probably the most likely reason) being rather upset about something). I get damn tired on these days, and the last thing I feel like doing is walk the whole way across campus practically staring down complete strangers. It’s a (frankly, surprisingly) difficult thing to do, having to act like you have confidence, but it’s (frankly, also kind of surprisingly) safer than the alternative.

But I’m not sure I’m having to pretend anymore. Perhaps it’s the formation of friendships, perhaps just the natural course of life, perhaps this acting crap is working and I haven’t noticed, or perhaps it’s this random story I’m about to tell. See, I went to the local gun show a couple weeks ago and bought my first piece of movie memorabilia: a super-awesome Indiana Jones knife:

Yeah… that’s 18″ of steel right there, full tang and all–incredibly well-made. I love it to death. So my dad took it and “sharpened” it with one of these pieces of crap to cut a tree bush branch. Now, I love my dad to death, and it’s usually kind of neat when he does stupid stuff like that (last weekend, burning branches in the front yard - me: is that gas? Dad: No [pause] it’s diesel fuel *pours it on the fire*), but this was my knife and “nerdchandise”, and he took it from me while I was there and made the edge so jagged that the thing’s practically a saw (alright, a slight exaggeration (the above picture was taken after this event), but it’s definitely noticeable if you look close enough (with a blind eye, mind you) and it can certainly be felt.

The thing is, I was there and only whined. I don’t want to do that any more, so I won’t.

…but then again, I did have the audacity to somewhat question my rather intimidating shooting instructor the week before that (and, well, it was more of a request for information than a challenge), and had been actually talking and expressing opinions in my Ancient Philosophy class (why are all the interesting subjects for me 2 words… and the initials AP?), so perhaps it was just a simple change in thought that was taking place anyways–for whatever reason. On the other hand, it may have needed something to push it over the edge.

…and therein lies the problem with absolutely any Psychological research. Too many damn variables.

So, boldness is a difficult thing to achieve, particularly for someone who, say, less than six months ago had social anxiety to the extent of trembling in social situations (…and for the longest time, I thought it was just cold. It actually took me a while to take into account the actual temperature). Apparently, it’s possible coming with just age, wisdom, and people yelling at you, but I’m sure something making you very angry that you could’ve stopped probably helps.

Well, let’s minorly switch topics here, since, as all readers should know, the length of a normal post is just far too little for me. Males, along with all of mankind, have been shaped into total wimps by today’s society. Or… at least, that’s what this culture tries to do, thus creating a generation of men who aren’t allowed to be manly (and, come to think of it, women in the mindset that housewivery is practically a crime). It’s taught that women should have more power–not because it’s kind of stupid to act vulnerable, but because they’re supposed to deserve it from what happened in the past.

I know what you’re thinking. “Hazel, you already wrote about that last semester, and you link back to it every. Other. Post. We know what you think of feminism, give it a rest already!” Now, hear me out here. I’m not blaming women for modern society’s problems… alright, so I got a little off track in the last paragraph, let me retract and try again with mankind as the primary focus (because, frankly, I doubt I’m inside men’s heads enough to speak for a gender of which I am most assuredly not a part), because women are also not taught to be bold.

I mean sure, the public schools spout crap about gaining self-esteem and “you can do anything if you put your mind to it!” and maybe the occasional mention of leadership (I never really fully got that, actually… but let’s explore it in a later post), but it somehow doesn’t work (probably somewhat due to the fact that it is crap, and they try to sell it like crap). I still see downturned faces walking to and from class every day.

Ooh… I’m suddenly not quite sure where I was going with this topic. Well, not exactly not sure, but I keep trying to think of arguments for what I’m trying to say, but immediately disprove them all–mankind’s wimpiness isn’t caused by today’s society–not completely, anyways. Most people have always been sheep–or at least the ones who weren’t died in battle and unfortunately were unable to reproduce (or, rather, reproduce as much), otherwise we wouldn’t have had the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, Persian, Roman, Aztec, Mayan, Chinese, Russian, British (and so on…) empires. Then, trying to think of the topic simply in terms of men… well, first, I don’t know for sure what the hell I’m talking about, and second, I was going to say something about there being so very many douchebags, but reading Plato’s Republic, the character Thrasymachus is a pretty accurate embodiment of such people–and it seems they weren’t terribly rare then, judging from the other readings. I’m really not sure, thus the lack of a conclusion. I really need to think these things through before I start writing.

Sorry guys, here’s some German rap to make up for it

Now, everyone always says that, even if you never had to study in high school, you’ll have to do so in college–like, it’s harder material or something. Really, though, I just don’t see it. Perhaps it’s just the subject matter I’ve had to learn thus far–it is, after all, only my third semester–but I don’t believe I’ve studied once since I came here. Heck, didn’t even really read most of the Greek Tragedies last semester (my Ancient Philosophy teacher now, though, came up with the rather effective method of having us answer questions on it the night before), and somehow managed to pull a B in that class (without once opening cliffnotes, thank you very much).

Maybe I’m just relatively intelligent and soak up information easily–actually, that’s a lot of why I was able to pull off homeschooling as easily as I did (no bragging intended, but I learn essentially anything very quickly)–but I’m thinking it’s possible that it was more just a staple of the humanities I’ve been stuck in during my time here–that is, that they’re F-ing easy. After all, an Engineer asks, “how does it work?”, a Physicist asks, “why does it work?”, and a Liberal Arts major asks, “do you want fries with that?”

See, there’s this interesting thing that my teachers have been doing: almost every one of them has said something to the effect of, “I’m making the final (or midterm, as it were) as easy as possible for you guys.” Only my Greek Tragedy teacher (a rather elderly woman named–I kid you not–Ms. Packman) said anything near, “I’m making the final challenging.”

And it was fairly challenging–I rather wish I had studied, though apparently (thank the Lord) my GPA didn’t suffer too much from this. But it got me thinking (you know, the way a floor tile might–it doesn’t take much) that the professors I’ve had haven’t been too concerned with reasoning through problems–well, I guess I shouldn’t really expect them to be (after all, there aren’t really any problems in these subjects through which one can reason). No, scratch that. It’s that they’re not concerned with deep understanding of the material (there we go!), so much as letting those who are incapable of deep understanding pass the class and give the professor a good end-of-semester review. And that’s basically what it all comes down to–temporarily memorizing enough of the material to get as many people the best grades possible so that the professor gets… well, I’m not sure, but I guess so their department doesn’t get downsized (not like the really good ones can get a raise or anything at a public university. Yay, negative reinforcement!)

Frankly, I’m just annoyed by the lack of active thinking that’s been going on here, and how the professors don’t even try to really challenge our minds–even in my Logic and my Ancient Philosophy class. Yeah, Plato does challenge the mind to a certain extent in his writings, and it’s obvious that the students are looking for challenges to their thinking (probably more than they know) by the fact that we probably spend around half of every lecture with people just raising their hands to comment on and find loopholes in the arguments presented by the readings, but the professor himself seems to be more or less like the others–but I could be wrong; if you’re terribly curious, I can let you know after our first exam.

Perhaps it’s just humanities. Perhaps there’s no need for a deeper understanding, since there are no lines of classes (like, say, Calculus, which comes in three semesters) and no information relying on previous knowledge. Perhaps this simply isn’t exactly the right subject-matter for me. But I’m inclined to think it’s just the time and culture we’re in (My unhappiness? Totally not my fault)–after all, my old Greek Tragedy teacher managed a challenging final–and that’s literature, for goodness’ sake! Really, it’s possible to make young people think (no matter what the old coots say)–I mean, actively think. Like, critically, with their left frontal lobe–and it just disappoints me that this doesn’t happen.

Then again, perhaps I’m overestimating the mental capabilities of my peers… in which case, they should be encouraged more towards trade school and less toward scholarship where they’ll only stay a couple years dragging the rest of us like this, and drop out to work at McDonald’s.

Well, that was a rant to an extent. I guess this answers my question about whether or not I want to go into a more science-oriented sort of path, though.

Yeah, yeah, lack of friends=lack of seeing things in theaters. Blah blah blah, just using the excuse while the number of people with whom I regularly associate is still in the single digits (already more than I’d like, actually. Not the number of people, but one just keeps trying to spend too much time together–gets annoying.

Anyways, the one who keeps trying to spend too much time with me (DAG, actually) invited me to watch Iron Man with him and his roommates after we ate lunch so I could give him back V for Vendetta (it was better than the movie of it, to say the least). Since I’d heard good things about Iron Man, I’d been almost avoiding him like the plague since before finals, and DAG is really kind of a fun guy if you factor out the too much time, I agreed. So that’s how I got to watch Iron Man on a snow day half a year after it came out.

Overall Impression: pretty darn awesome.

The thing that struck me most was, of course, the character of Tony Stark. Having never really been a comic book aficionado (I’ve been through Watchmen, Vendetta, and The Ring of the Nibelung (Yes, the rest, too)–that’s it), I clearly had no real idea of what to expect. All I’d heard was “so awesome” and something about conservative values from all the conservative blogs I frequent. Go figure.

But I digress–back to Tony Stark… and I really don’t know what to say, other than simply the fact that he was charismatic (and somewhat reminded my of my shooting instructor–same look behind the eyes). He was a far cry from the typical superhero personality–you know, the mild-mannered tortured soul who lost everything and wants retribution until some horrid experience makes him realize that he should be saving people, and vows never to kill again. That’s not this guy–this guy’s a cocky bastard who unapologetically blows up terrorists and gets every hot girl he can (or… did that last one change with the whole being-captured-by-terrorists thing in the beginning?). I love Batman, Spiderman, X-Men, and so on, but frankly, it was quite refreshing to see a superhero who’s actually kind of fun and happy. Just saying.

So yeah, I highly recommend that everyone see Iron Man some time or another. Well worth it just to see that character–and terrorists being blown to smithereens, if you’re into that kind of thing. Additionally, the ending was actually really unexpected, so I’ll be looking forward to the sequel–something very rare for me after Dead Man’s Chest (cautious about The Avengers at the moment, but it’ll go on my list if the trailer looks any good).

Also, Stan Lee as Hugh Hefner was really cute.

A couple months ago, this campus organization that I go to–the Society of Independent Thought–held a discussion on the topic of the death penalty–namely, whether it’s wrong or right. At least, that was the intended discussion; most everyone agreed that there are immoral acts punishable by death. However, this one girl kept asking whether or not the state had the power to enforce it (if you will).

Well, we went over that ground as best we could, considering that such conversations rarely end in an absolute answer. It got to be 10 pm, and we all went our separate ways. I, myself, got back to my dorm and got in vent with my mom and our NJ WoW friend, during which time my mother brought up her own opposition to the death penalty. I asked her about it the next day, and her argument was essentially the same as the girl’s: the state shouldn’t have the power to decide.

Now… I get it. I have a deeply-held belief that governments should essentially have as little power as possible. But what is the alternative? Well, the only ones I can really come up with are we either don’t execute anyone, thus causing even more prison overcrowding, or have some form of vigilante justice–and we all know how that can turn out in the end if the vigilantes don’t naturally form into groups followed by systems of leadership… also known as a government (though, admittedly, it’s pretty awesome at first. Yes, I know they’re both fiction; the characters in the former are based enough in reality that my point still stands).

“Well Hazel,” you say, “if you’re so smart, what’s the solution?” But see, that’s what I’m trying to say: there is no solution. There is no perfect system. There will always be innocent people executed, just as there will always be guilty people freed on basis of technicality or bribery, no matter the system. But that doesn’t matter, so long as the large percentage of people who deserve such a punishment get it, and most people who commit no heinous act get no comeuppance. Tragedy and mistakes are nigh unavoidable, and death wholly so; might as well do what we can to keep law order justice alive where we can, but injustice is inevitable in any system (and surely without one).

Besides–and I must make this point lest someone mistake me for someone ignorant of our particular system (yes, I brought this up in the meeting)–the government itself is not necessarily the one deciding upon a sentence (or, perhaps, verdict). I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s a jury that has the primary voice, yes? I’ll concede that a jury can be led, tricked, shown falsified evidence, simply a bunch of idiots, and so on and so forth, but guess what? They’re human. A government is made up of humans. Humans, in essence, are a little… imperfect. We still have yet to create a perfect sphere, the atomic clock’s accuracy is 10^-9 seconds (which, yes, is impressive to say the least, but still not 0), heck, rarely-if ever-can any one person do something as simple as draw a straight line (without a ruler–and heck, even with one it probably looks like crap close up). We’re imperfect beings rather used to fooling ourselves into thinking that we can completely solve anything, much less something as complicated and that attracts such corruptible people as a government system.

So what do we do? Have a computer make all the decisions? Right, that’s always* a good idea. No, all we can really do is just live with it, I guess. It doesn’t matter anymore that Jack the Ripper was never found; the guy’s long-since dead anyways. If an innocent man gets executed and a guilty man lives, everyone dies. Sure, keep having these seemingly endless talks on the matter; refine the system so as to allow the absolute minimal amount of mistakes and tragedy. By all means, work as much as possible to make it better, but don’t expect it to ever be flawless. You’ll only disappoint yourself.

*Three links splitting the word. Just wanted to prove more than one point (and yeah, two are pretty similar).

Hey, I must be getting better at this; I actually made a point.

I have many talks–particularly within one certain group of friends (if you’d like to call them that; they’re not exactly my peers)–of revolution. Not so much planning one, but more of the theory of the practice (if you’d like to call it that). Thus, it is a topic that is often on my mind–perhaps more-so than it should be for an 18 year-old girl, but that’s the direction my life has taken me thus far.

So let’s define “revolution” in the political sense (for which I’ll simply copy & past from dictionary.com, since I now only have 2.5 hours before my next class): an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed. To be clear, I am not talking about cultural revolution or [damn]commie revolution or anything of the sort. I mean the overthrow of a tyranny to return freedom and liberty to a particular society.

There’s that, and one may now ask why revolution must ever take place to begin with. Surely there are other ways to change a government besides revolution (which, might I add, is more often than not violent. Those in power rarely wish to give up control). I don’t know for sure about the past, but in the majority of governments nowadays, it’s possible to write representatives, hold protests, bring up court cases (recent awesome example: Heller v. DC), and so-on and so-forth. So why do people let governments become more and more oppressive until the only option is overthrow?

In short: they have no choice; individuals have far less control than they think, even in the most democratic societies (nay, perhaps especially in democracies). There is a long-standing pattern in the formation and destruction of governments. If people exist, they will exist in groups. If there is a group of humans, one will be “named” a leader or decision-maker of some sort. Also, if one group of humans exist, it’s highly likely that there is another group somewhere. If those two don’t find each other and begin feuding, the one group will likely grow to such a point that either a) it will split into many groups (more than likely near to one-another), which will eventually begin to compete for land and resources with each other (and one will eventually win and conquer), or b) skip that step and go straight for a state-level society.

Hey, anthropology does have a purpose. Who’d have guessed?

What happens then? The population grows, the control that the governing body has grows (one of those things that might be better explained later or in an entirely different post), and people come up with phrases like “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” People generally don’t like to be controlled by outside forces, no matter how they might vote. But it takes 1) a pretty heinous amount of control and 2) a certain percentage of individuals who detest being controlled with all their being and are aggressive enough to act on their desire for freedom liberty.

So the conditions are right for a revolution, and it happens; the government is overthrown. People then split up (even into a certain amount of anarchy, for a time), soon re-form back into small groups, and the whole cycle starts again; anarchy, feudalism, state, revolution, anarchy, and so-on. Like Pythagoras said (sorry, I have Ancient Philosophy this semester. I’ll probably bring up Socrates a lot (just read Plato’s Apology–I love that guy!)), everything exists in cycles.

So, is it all a fruitless endeavor? Eh… depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, a governing body will always form, and will always grow to hold more power and control over thousands, millions, and billions of people than anyone and anything ever should. It’s one of those inevitabilities (funny thing–my archaeology class stressed that all societies collapse, but failed to even mention the unstoppable force of society formation (which, frankly, I consider to be a more certain event than collapse. Collapse takes effort on someone’s part; people naturally form groups and alliances). Interesting…).

But I digress–I don’t believe revolution to be pointless, even if though people will soon sheep right back up and follow whomever promises the most free lunches. An endless cycle of prosperity and disaster, freedom and oppression, unity and individualism (not exact antonyms, I know), the rise and fall of governments, is a far greater fate for the human race than the one-way violence inherent in a constantly more and more large, controlling, and (purposefully) frightening ruling body. People need to be reminded that they can stop shocking the actor at any time; you do not have to obey the guy in the lab coat.

Switching gears here, how does a revolution happen? My shooting instructor–let’s call him D–once said that people must act individually, without knowledge of or cooperation with any other person. Now, I look up to the guy–he’s like a second father to me, but I have to disagree with him here. No single person has ever overthrown or even attempted to overthrow a government, unless, of course, they were a complete nutbucket. Sure, there might only be one leader, but in the end, it takes an army. The goths invaded Rome (of course, that was independent of the various other groups’ weakening of the army, but it’s still not individuals), the Sons of Liberty essentially kicked off the revolution (eh… facts schmacts), and so-on. A revolution is not made up of individuals acting individually. Sure, perhaps people begin to act out alone against tyranny once the ball gets rolling, but it takes an entire group of people to push it (hah, literally and figuratively!).

Now… where, exactly, was I going with that? Oh well, I guess I just wanted to get it out of my system before dissent became illegal next week (that, and 1) my laptop battery was about to give, 2) I had to go to class, and 3) it’s now 6:10, I’ve been out since 8am, and there is no way I am coming up with something new to say here for the rest of the night).

Help! Help! I’m being repressed!

That’s my calendar. My mom at first got it as a possible part of some present for the wedding (don’t ask me how it ties in), and I ended up with it. So on Friday, Lethon said, “I can sense the SHADOW on your hearts. There can be no rest for the wicked!” and Thursday was when Bazil Thredd said, “Tell the warden this prison is ours now!”

You may notice a certain lack of absolutely, terribly horrid quality. See, the mom, dad, and sister all got something like this (granted, I think The Sister had had hers for a couple months), so my dad gave me his old one. So I now have a digital camera, thanks to everyone else getting a better one! I can be easy to please, sometimes.

So anyways, we’ll see how long it takes for me to get tired of posting a picture of my calendar each day (or so). I’ll try for a substantial post by the end of the week. Until then (also, I highly recommend the Illegal Danish series by that person).

UPDATE, Wednesday: For some reason, it’s not letting me make new posts today. So… yeah.