Internet relationships are a very interesting thing. There are many different ways in which a person can become aquainted with someone else via the interent. There are Dating sites, chat rooms, online games, online forums, or perhaps even introduction by mutual friends on facebook. Whatever the means of introduction that was used, once someone is befriended, one begins to formulate different ideas about this person. I have talked with many people online, the vast majority through gaming, and while we do have great times playing these games together, in reality--we probably do not have much in common at all.
A good question to ask about these people that you meet online is, what are they REALLY like? Who is the real person? Perhaps your best friend from an online game is a thrice divorced fifty year old man who is an alcoholic and extremely overweight. You even may know this, and while you can have a great time with him online, in a real life setting, you might be asking yourself, "What am I doing here?" The real test of friendship comes when the setting is change from the internet, to real life. An idea of this person has been forumlated in your mind, and you dont really think about it when you are interacting with them over the computer. If and when the situation changes to real life, it may be very startling. Perhaps your friend has a stutter, a squeaky voice, is 7 feet tall, in a wheelchair, or very overweight. When you finally meet them in real life, these facts may be eye-opening because they are not what was expected.
The real question that I am posing is, what determines the extent of a friendship? I 100% think that my online friends are truly my friends, even if we do not really have much in common in real life. When you open up to someone else, and they open up to you, it doesnt matter if you are on the phone, or chatting, or next to them in person--it is still real. I have come to invest much time into some of these online relationships, and even though I have never met any of my online gaming friends, I do fully expect it to happen someday. I know that I have made some false assumptions about some of them, but I hope that even if they aren't the prettiest face, or the most socially normal, I can look past that and see the real person that I became friends with.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Monday, May 17, 2010
The Butterfly Effect
Have you ever wondered how your life would be altered if you had made different choices in your past? These choices don't necessairily have to be choices that you regret, just choices that had any impact on your life whatsoever. "Wait a minute!" you might exclaim, "But EVERY choice I make, not matter HOW small, has SOME impact on my life!" Yes Socrates, that is correct...no matter how small a choice you make may be, it still has an impact on your life; the ramifications of some of these choicies are even greater than you can fathom.
The term, "The Butterly Effect" was coined by one Edward Norton Lorenz, a pioneer of the Chaos Theory. In the laymans terms, the Chaos Theory states that a small difference in initial conditions of a system will have wide effects in the long term. While it may sound a bit extreme, the most commonly used example of this would be a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the earth and through multiple chains of events causing a hurricane on the other side; this is where the "Butterfly Effect" gets its name.
Think, for example, if you decided one morning to read a good book instead of watching the news before you went to work. If you would have watched the news, you would have seen that it was going to rain later on that day, but because you didn't, you didn't bring a jacket and you got wet; later on got sick because of it. You got so sick, in fact, that you got fired from your job for missing so many days of work, all because of the fact that you decided to be an intellectual person one morning instead of being a couch potato. You never know the true outcome of your actions.
There are so many times in my own life where I can point to certain choices that have made by others or me that have changed the direction of my life completely, and I have not even begun to consider how other people's live have been changed by the smallest choices that I have made. One example from my own life would be when I met my friend Joe. We had a mutual friend named Mike who was riding bikes with Joe when Joe ran over a broken bottle in the road. Mike realized that my house was nearby and decided to bring Joe over to see if his bike could be repaired. I know for a fact that Joe's life and My life have been impacted dramatically by each other, our personalities and aquaintences, and it was all because of the fact that some drunk guy made the choice to leave his beer bottle in the middle of the road.
The worst part about the Butterfly Effect is that while the choices you make have huge impacts on your own life, the choices of others have just as great effects. You can't control whether or not someone will sneeze on your and get you sick, or spill hot coffee on you just before your important job interview. The smallest things can make your life have the biggest turns, and while you don't have the ability to control how others impact your life, you do have the ability to control the actions that you make that will change your own life and other's lives. You cannot always see the later effects of your most immediate actions, but I hope that I have now opened your eyes to the imporance of every single decision you make. Be careful about everything you say and everything you do, because choosing to walk, bike, or take the bus could have huge ramifications in the long run.
The term, "The Butterly Effect" was coined by one Edward Norton Lorenz, a pioneer of the Chaos Theory. In the laymans terms, the Chaos Theory states that a small difference in initial conditions of a system will have wide effects in the long term. While it may sound a bit extreme, the most commonly used example of this would be a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the earth and through multiple chains of events causing a hurricane on the other side; this is where the "Butterfly Effect" gets its name.
Think, for example, if you decided one morning to read a good book instead of watching the news before you went to work. If you would have watched the news, you would have seen that it was going to rain later on that day, but because you didn't, you didn't bring a jacket and you got wet; later on got sick because of it. You got so sick, in fact, that you got fired from your job for missing so many days of work, all because of the fact that you decided to be an intellectual person one morning instead of being a couch potato. You never know the true outcome of your actions.
There are so many times in my own life where I can point to certain choices that have made by others or me that have changed the direction of my life completely, and I have not even begun to consider how other people's live have been changed by the smallest choices that I have made. One example from my own life would be when I met my friend Joe. We had a mutual friend named Mike who was riding bikes with Joe when Joe ran over a broken bottle in the road. Mike realized that my house was nearby and decided to bring Joe over to see if his bike could be repaired. I know for a fact that Joe's life and My life have been impacted dramatically by each other, our personalities and aquaintences, and it was all because of the fact that some drunk guy made the choice to leave his beer bottle in the middle of the road.
The worst part about the Butterfly Effect is that while the choices you make have huge impacts on your own life, the choices of others have just as great effects. You can't control whether or not someone will sneeze on your and get you sick, or spill hot coffee on you just before your important job interview. The smallest things can make your life have the biggest turns, and while you don't have the ability to control how others impact your life, you do have the ability to control the actions that you make that will change your own life and other's lives. You cannot always see the later effects of your most immediate actions, but I hope that I have now opened your eyes to the imporance of every single decision you make. Be careful about everything you say and everything you do, because choosing to walk, bike, or take the bus could have huge ramifications in the long run.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Vicarious Living
The Internet is a wonderful invention; I love and adore it--perhaps too much, and the world would not be the place that it is today without it, for better or for worse. It began as an information sharing medium, and while there are many purposes other than this that it is used for today, this is still one of the main purposes of its existence. Whether you are trying to figure out a personal stance on Global Warming, or simply wondering how to make those chocolate chip cookies you had when you were a kid, you can almost certainly find this information on the internet. While facts and directions are easily found on the internet, people are also looking to find affection from others by putting their lives out in the open for people to see.
Blogs and Vlogs (weB LOGs and Video LOGs, respectively) are perfect examples of this--people putting their lives on display for the world to examine. Have you ever watched a vlog? No, I dont mean occasionally going onto YouTube and skimming through videos that come up wherin people gripe about their parents, teenage romances, celebreties, school, and work. I mean really following someone through the journey of their life. Beleive it or not, this is an extremely fascinating experience. Most vlogs started off simply as a person telling their feelings to the camera, much in the same way that a person would write in their journal, or type out their feelings on a blog before publishing it, but for some people this developed into a much more sophisticated thing.
The first vlogger that I first encountered was a man by the handle of ShayCarl. I had never experienced anything such as what he was doing before; he was filming his family and himself every single day for an entire year--bringing the viewer along for a very personal ride in his own life. While I cant say for sure whether or not he was the first person to do this or not, this certainly had a profound effect on my life. He would carry the camera around with him when he was going to the store, to church, to work, and most amazingly of all, we met his family through the camera. While he wasnt being filmed 24/7, he gave us a taste of his life and I fell in love with him, his wife, his kids and even his dog; I felt like I was there and an important part of his life. I would sign on every day wondering what today's experience with him would be, not caring if it was a family gathering, or even a simple trip to the grocery store.
There are many famous YouTube vloggers today: SxePhil, ShayCarl, LisaNova, KassemG to name a few, and I began to follow them daily. Many of these people were great friends with each other over the internet, and to make a long story short, some of them actually uprooted their lives to move into the same town and became even closer. They began to produce videos together and as I watched them in their daily interactions, I could tell that they were so happy. They were spontaneous people who had a sense of adventure and a willingness to try new things and to tell me about it through their vlogs. I still felt apart of their lives, but I had a creeping feeling in the back of my mind.
I had devoted a large amount of my own personal time to these people. I had invested in their families and in them emotionally by sharing the same experiences. They have no idea who I am. This hit me like a brick one day when I was daydreaming over what would occur if I ever happened to meet ShayCarl. I could go up to him and reminisce with him about all the great times we had together, but in reality they were his great times, not mine. Unless by chance our paths were intertwined in the future he would forget who I was probably minutes after we met, and while he has had an impact on my life, I have had none on his; it hurts to be worthless to someone who means so much to you.
I dont follow vloggers seriously any more; occasionally I will sign on and watch a couple of their latest videos, but after a few minutes I get that sinking feeling deep in my stomach, the knowing that I am not really a part of these happy and fantastic people's lives no matter how many videos of theirs I watch. While I would someday love to meet these people and to tell them that they are my friends and that they have effected me emotionally, I am scared of the realization that they dont care about me. I wonder how many others there are out there like me who are neglecting their own lives to watch these vloggers experiences. It is time that we, the viewers, go experience lives that are ours, and make friends who will invest in us in return, and share memories that are not one-sided. It is time to stop living through others and have great times of our own.
Blogs and Vlogs (weB LOGs and Video LOGs, respectively) are perfect examples of this--people putting their lives on display for the world to examine. Have you ever watched a vlog? No, I dont mean occasionally going onto YouTube and skimming through videos that come up wherin people gripe about their parents, teenage romances, celebreties, school, and work. I mean really following someone through the journey of their life. Beleive it or not, this is an extremely fascinating experience. Most vlogs started off simply as a person telling their feelings to the camera, much in the same way that a person would write in their journal, or type out their feelings on a blog before publishing it, but for some people this developed into a much more sophisticated thing.
The first vlogger that I first encountered was a man by the handle of ShayCarl. I had never experienced anything such as what he was doing before; he was filming his family and himself every single day for an entire year--bringing the viewer along for a very personal ride in his own life. While I cant say for sure whether or not he was the first person to do this or not, this certainly had a profound effect on my life. He would carry the camera around with him when he was going to the store, to church, to work, and most amazingly of all, we met his family through the camera. While he wasnt being filmed 24/7, he gave us a taste of his life and I fell in love with him, his wife, his kids and even his dog; I felt like I was there and an important part of his life. I would sign on every day wondering what today's experience with him would be, not caring if it was a family gathering, or even a simple trip to the grocery store.
There are many famous YouTube vloggers today: SxePhil, ShayCarl, LisaNova, KassemG to name a few, and I began to follow them daily. Many of these people were great friends with each other over the internet, and to make a long story short, some of them actually uprooted their lives to move into the same town and became even closer. They began to produce videos together and as I watched them in their daily interactions, I could tell that they were so happy. They were spontaneous people who had a sense of adventure and a willingness to try new things and to tell me about it through their vlogs. I still felt apart of their lives, but I had a creeping feeling in the back of my mind.
I had devoted a large amount of my own personal time to these people. I had invested in their families and in them emotionally by sharing the same experiences. They have no idea who I am. This hit me like a brick one day when I was daydreaming over what would occur if I ever happened to meet ShayCarl. I could go up to him and reminisce with him about all the great times we had together, but in reality they were his great times, not mine. Unless by chance our paths were intertwined in the future he would forget who I was probably minutes after we met, and while he has had an impact on my life, I have had none on his; it hurts to be worthless to someone who means so much to you.
I dont follow vloggers seriously any more; occasionally I will sign on and watch a couple of their latest videos, but after a few minutes I get that sinking feeling deep in my stomach, the knowing that I am not really a part of these happy and fantastic people's lives no matter how many videos of theirs I watch. While I would someday love to meet these people and to tell them that they are my friends and that they have effected me emotionally, I am scared of the realization that they dont care about me. I wonder how many others there are out there like me who are neglecting their own lives to watch these vloggers experiences. It is time that we, the viewers, go experience lives that are ours, and make friends who will invest in us in return, and share memories that are not one-sided. It is time to stop living through others and have great times of our own.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Laziness
Being lazy sucks. That's it, plain and simple. All of you assertive people out there might not understand, but laziness is a DISEASE!@! Laziness isn't something that you can simply brush off and say "You know, I think I wont be lazy today, I'm going to go do something epic!" Laziness persists and compounds--the lazier you are the lazier you will be in the future.
There are a couple ways that you can develop this disease:
1. You just plain out don't like to do active things.
2. You USED to like to do things but you decided that sitting around doing nothing was a lot easier.
I would say that my case of laziness definitely developed from scenario 2. I used to be a very active person! I loved to frolic in fields and run chasing butterflies but my laziness started to take ahold of me when my parents made me to tons of hard labor! I would be forced to work under the beating sun until my hands were raw and blistered; after these intense work sessions I would enjoy every minute of worklessness that I could find! At first this was not laziness, but simply a relaxation period; as time wore on, I began to take advantage of every possible movement less moment.
"HA-HA!" you might say "I am not lazy and I will NEVER be lazy!" A word to the wise...laziness is CONTAGIOUS! Take my little brother for example. I don't think that his case of laziness is irreversible yet, but he has definitely been hanging out with me too much. The other day we were sitting in the living room, and he was so lazy that he wouldn't even make his own tea, even after I had already heated up the water! He wouldn't even make his own popcorn he was so lazy, and had to beg our sweet mother to do it for him. She scolded him, but eventually did it for him which is not something you want to do if you are trying to stop someone from being lazy. MAKE THEM DO EVERYTHING THEMSELVES!
For those of you who are are reading this for intellectual benefit...I congratulate you, but for the rest of you who are reading this simply because you don't want to get up and do anything else, GET OFF YOUR BUM AND STOP READING!!!
Come on...I just told you to stop reading...OK, stop NOW!
NOW!
Alright...I have a better idea...I think I will stop writing because I am using it as an excuse for not doing anything else and its a beautiful day out.
There are a couple ways that you can develop this disease:
1. You just plain out don't like to do active things.
2. You USED to like to do things but you decided that sitting around doing nothing was a lot easier.
I would say that my case of laziness definitely developed from scenario 2. I used to be a very active person! I loved to frolic in fields and run chasing butterflies but my laziness started to take ahold of me when my parents made me to tons of hard labor! I would be forced to work under the beating sun until my hands were raw and blistered; after these intense work sessions I would enjoy every minute of worklessness that I could find! At first this was not laziness, but simply a relaxation period; as time wore on, I began to take advantage of every possible movement less moment.
"HA-HA!" you might say "I am not lazy and I will NEVER be lazy!" A word to the wise...laziness is CONTAGIOUS! Take my little brother for example. I don't think that his case of laziness is irreversible yet, but he has definitely been hanging out with me too much. The other day we were sitting in the living room, and he was so lazy that he wouldn't even make his own tea, even after I had already heated up the water! He wouldn't even make his own popcorn he was so lazy, and had to beg our sweet mother to do it for him. She scolded him, but eventually did it for him which is not something you want to do if you are trying to stop someone from being lazy. MAKE THEM DO EVERYTHING THEMSELVES!
For those of you who are are reading this for intellectual benefit...I congratulate you, but for the rest of you who are reading this simply because you don't want to get up and do anything else, GET OFF YOUR BUM AND STOP READING!!!
Come on...I just told you to stop reading...OK, stop NOW!
NOW!
Alright...I have a better idea...I think I will stop writing because I am using it as an excuse for not doing anything else and its a beautiful day out.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Procrastination
Procrastination. We have all participated in it. Of course, I cannot lie--I am procrastinating as I write this blog. Thus far in my school year I havn't done much school related work, yet I am at a point where I have realized that I MUST start doing work if I want to receive reasonable grades in my classes. I am reading textbooks which, though I find interesting, I do not want to read because someone else is telling me that I MUST do it. In these textbooks are materials that I find very intriguing, even so much that I might want to learn this information in my free time if it were not in such a dull, bland form. As stated earlier I was doing school work when I had the sudden urge to write a blog. This being only my third blog, it was a strange urge indeed, yet I felt it necessairy to share my thoughts on procrastination with you before I get back to reading the texts that I am required.
Why do people procrastinate? The problem being put off will usually not solve itself as time progresses, especially in the case of school work or projects that have a due date. however, some problems DO work themselves out. There are a few things that can happen to a problem if we put it off:
1. It WILL fix itself.
2. It will fix itself for a short while, then return at a very inconvenient time.
3. Nothing will happen and the problem will overrun us.
Yes, some problems will fix themselves. Unfortunately for humans, we are learning creatures, and once we have seen that a problem may fix itself, we continually wait until the very last possible second before taking action. In essence, we are so lazy that we are willing to risk a terrible consequence so that we do not have to work through a problem ourselves. There were always the occasions in school when you didnt do your homework, or study for the test and
you arrived at school feeling horrible and for some reason the teacher was absent, or the copy machine wasnt working and you were saved from the error of ways by a great stroke of luck! "From now on", you always tell yourself "From now on I will ALWAYS do my work on time!". Yet, you find yourself doing your work less, in hopes that the teacher will break her leg in a freak walkathon accident, or that there will be a heatwave in mid February and the power will be cut. The excuses that we tell ourselves get all the more ridiculous as time goes on; even when we are punished for our lack of action, the memory of that ONE SWEET ESCAPE still lingers in the back of our mind.
The movies that we watch definetly compound this problem--the main character is in a terrible fix with NOTHING to save them, that is until their friends return with an army, or the power goes out and the bomb defuses itself, or the sick child find the medicine they needed in the cabinet, or the character wins the lottery, and lives out the rest of their days in a wonderful beach house in Monaco. Unfortunately, as we know, the movies are fiction, and the wonderful
stories that we see take place onscreen, rarely occur in real life.
The second thing that can happen to a problem is that it will SEEM to fix itself, but it will return! Again, in the school analogy--when you didn't finish your homework, and your teacher wasn't there to collect it, what happened when you got home that day after school? Did you immediately jump to your desk and rush to finish it? NO! You put it off again, thinking that the teacher would be sick the next day also! Yet, your jaw dropped in dismay when you walked into
class the next day, only to find the teacher already sitting at her desk, and a neat little stack of papers in front of her that the other students had already turned in! How shameful!
One of the more prominent cases of a problem seeming to be fixed, then returning at the most inconvenient moment is the case of broken technology. Cars have many moving parts in them, and are liable to break down for the most seemingly insignificant reason! How many times has the "Check engine" light lit up, yet it was ignored for weeks, and then suddenly it dissapeared! "HAHA!" you tell yourself "I KNEW there was nothing wrong with the car afterall!". Or how many times has your computer been acting strange for a short period of time--say a week, and then the next week it is all fine like nothing ever happened! "Forgive me", you can almost hear your computer whisper in your ear, "how could I ever have been so selfish, it will NEVER happen again!" as you welcome it back to your family with open arms. You live your happy life as you always have, driving your car and using your computer, when suddenly when writing a paper your computer BREAKS DOWN AGAIN! And after you are already an hour late to class to TURN IN your paper that you had to re-write, your car decides to take a sabbatical on the side of the freeway! We are victims of our own conspiracy to defeat the undefeatable universe.
The third and most common outcome in the war against problems with our arsenal of procrastination is complete and utter defeat. However, we do deserve it. As stated earlier, we are learning creatures, and though we can learn things that are not so helpful in this thing called life, we can also learn things that will assist us in the continuous flow of problems that head our way. I do no pretend to be all knowing, and all perfect, and part of me writes these blogs so that i can help learn what i am preaching. It is easy to tell other people their problems, but when it comes to my own problems, it is much harder to see even the obvious. However, i do see that i am a master of procrastination, and hopefully i will learn my lesson sooner than later. As for now, i have to find something else with which to procrastinate my school work because there is nothing left for me to say here.
Why do people procrastinate? The problem being put off will usually not solve itself as time progresses, especially in the case of school work or projects that have a due date. however, some problems DO work themselves out. There are a few things that can happen to a problem if we put it off:
1. It WILL fix itself.
2. It will fix itself for a short while, then return at a very inconvenient time.
3. Nothing will happen and the problem will overrun us.
Yes, some problems will fix themselves. Unfortunately for humans, we are learning creatures, and once we have seen that a problem may fix itself, we continually wait until the very last possible second before taking action. In essence, we are so lazy that we are willing to risk a terrible consequence so that we do not have to work through a problem ourselves. There were always the occasions in school when you didnt do your homework, or study for the test and
you arrived at school feeling horrible and for some reason the teacher was absent, or the copy machine wasnt working and you were saved from the error of ways by a great stroke of luck! "From now on", you always tell yourself "From now on I will ALWAYS do my work on time!". Yet, you find yourself doing your work less, in hopes that the teacher will break her leg in a freak walkathon accident, or that there will be a heatwave in mid February and the power will be cut. The excuses that we tell ourselves get all the more ridiculous as time goes on; even when we are punished for our lack of action, the memory of that ONE SWEET ESCAPE still lingers in the back of our mind.
The movies that we watch definetly compound this problem--the main character is in a terrible fix with NOTHING to save them, that is until their friends return with an army, or the power goes out and the bomb defuses itself, or the sick child find the medicine they needed in the cabinet, or the character wins the lottery, and lives out the rest of their days in a wonderful beach house in Monaco. Unfortunately, as we know, the movies are fiction, and the wonderful
stories that we see take place onscreen, rarely occur in real life.
The second thing that can happen to a problem is that it will SEEM to fix itself, but it will return! Again, in the school analogy--when you didn't finish your homework, and your teacher wasn't there to collect it, what happened when you got home that day after school? Did you immediately jump to your desk and rush to finish it? NO! You put it off again, thinking that the teacher would be sick the next day also! Yet, your jaw dropped in dismay when you walked into
class the next day, only to find the teacher already sitting at her desk, and a neat little stack of papers in front of her that the other students had already turned in! How shameful!
One of the more prominent cases of a problem seeming to be fixed, then returning at the most inconvenient moment is the case of broken technology. Cars have many moving parts in them, and are liable to break down for the most seemingly insignificant reason! How many times has the "Check engine" light lit up, yet it was ignored for weeks, and then suddenly it dissapeared! "HAHA!" you tell yourself "I KNEW there was nothing wrong with the car afterall!". Or how many times has your computer been acting strange for a short period of time--say a week, and then the next week it is all fine like nothing ever happened! "Forgive me", you can almost hear your computer whisper in your ear, "how could I ever have been so selfish, it will NEVER happen again!" as you welcome it back to your family with open arms. You live your happy life as you always have, driving your car and using your computer, when suddenly when writing a paper your computer BREAKS DOWN AGAIN! And after you are already an hour late to class to TURN IN your paper that you had to re-write, your car decides to take a sabbatical on the side of the freeway! We are victims of our own conspiracy to defeat the undefeatable universe.
The third and most common outcome in the war against problems with our arsenal of procrastination is complete and utter defeat. However, we do deserve it. As stated earlier, we are learning creatures, and though we can learn things that are not so helpful in this thing called life, we can also learn things that will assist us in the continuous flow of problems that head our way. I do no pretend to be all knowing, and all perfect, and part of me writes these blogs so that i can help learn what i am preaching. It is easy to tell other people their problems, but when it comes to my own problems, it is much harder to see even the obvious. However, i do see that i am a master of procrastination, and hopefully i will learn my lesson sooner than later. As for now, i have to find something else with which to procrastinate my school work because there is nothing left for me to say here.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Love
What is love? According to science, love is a complex chemical reaction in our brains...but our physical bodies are based wholy upon physical stimuli--and i dont think love to be merely a physical stimulation. True, attraction is definetly a physical stimulation, but what can cause a high paid, handsome movie star to fall in love with the unattractive woman who doesnt have all the glamour, looks and riches of his peer group; or an old couple to stay together for 50 years, when all physical attractivness has gone, and only wrinkles and grey hairs remain.
Love MUST be more than something that nature has designed for humanity to help couple partners so that procreation can occur. We see that love is not necessary in all other species of animals who simply mate, then move on to their next target to mix up the gene pool a little more. It seems that love, therefore, has no function in procreation whatsoever, and therefore must have zero biological function. The 'purpose' of life, as science might put it, is self preservation and procreation, and love fits neither of these categories.
In fact, love goes against all natural instincts. Putting the needs of another above oneself goes against everything that nature has engrained in the minds of all animals. Whether it be love of a country, love of an infant, or love of a partner; love can manipulate great minds, and change the actions of sane people into those of madmen. Who in their right mind would run into a burning building to save a child? Who would move all their possessions, forgoe their surname and break all family ties to marry someone? Who would run onto a battlefield with death all around them to save people that they do not know? Of all the emotions, love is inarguably the strongest.
There are obviously different kinds of love. I love my parents differently than i will love my wife, and VERY differently than i love all my buddies that i have grown up with. It is love nonetheless, but they are seperate feelings with seperate outcomes.
I dont beleive love at first sight is possible--yes, deep physical attraction at first sight may happen all the time, and i have experienced this, yet i beleive that love takes cultivation--time being a key ingredient to love. To love a person you need to actually KNOW them, to see what makes them tick; what they like and dislike. People in our society today seem to throw around the world "love" so casually that you can love your girlfriend one day, and dump her the next because she tweaked you the wrong way. Love doesnt give up so easily--love isnt perfect, yet it still works out the kinks between two people to show that a relationship can work even in troubling circumstances.
The next time you say "I love you" to someone, whether it be your parent, significant other, or your pet, think to yourself "what would I be ultimately willing to sacrifice for them?" A thousand dollars for a surgery for your pet or waking up in the early hours of the morning to give a friend a ride to the airport may be a small payment compared to the ULTIMATE sacrifice--death. John 15:13 says "...greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Think to yourself--the friends that i TRULY love, the significant other that i REALLY do care about--would i be willing to die for them? THAT is love.
Love MUST be more than something that nature has designed for humanity to help couple partners so that procreation can occur. We see that love is not necessary in all other species of animals who simply mate, then move on to their next target to mix up the gene pool a little more. It seems that love, therefore, has no function in procreation whatsoever, and therefore must have zero biological function. The 'purpose' of life, as science might put it, is self preservation and procreation, and love fits neither of these categories.
In fact, love goes against all natural instincts. Putting the needs of another above oneself goes against everything that nature has engrained in the minds of all animals. Whether it be love of a country, love of an infant, or love of a partner; love can manipulate great minds, and change the actions of sane people into those of madmen. Who in their right mind would run into a burning building to save a child? Who would move all their possessions, forgoe their surname and break all family ties to marry someone? Who would run onto a battlefield with death all around them to save people that they do not know? Of all the emotions, love is inarguably the strongest.
There are obviously different kinds of love. I love my parents differently than i will love my wife, and VERY differently than i love all my buddies that i have grown up with. It is love nonetheless, but they are seperate feelings with seperate outcomes.
I dont beleive love at first sight is possible--yes, deep physical attraction at first sight may happen all the time, and i have experienced this, yet i beleive that love takes cultivation--time being a key ingredient to love. To love a person you need to actually KNOW them, to see what makes them tick; what they like and dislike. People in our society today seem to throw around the world "love" so casually that you can love your girlfriend one day, and dump her the next because she tweaked you the wrong way. Love doesnt give up so easily--love isnt perfect, yet it still works out the kinks between two people to show that a relationship can work even in troubling circumstances.
The next time you say "I love you" to someone, whether it be your parent, significant other, or your pet, think to yourself "what would I be ultimately willing to sacrifice for them?" A thousand dollars for a surgery for your pet or waking up in the early hours of the morning to give a friend a ride to the airport may be a small payment compared to the ULTIMATE sacrifice--death. John 15:13 says "...greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Think to yourself--the friends that i TRULY love, the significant other that i REALLY do care about--would i be willing to die for them? THAT is love.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Flies
There is a fly buzzing around my room right now. Its so annoying, and as I'm trying to think of a topic for my first blog, i realize that the fly has provided me with which i have sought after for a whole fruitless minute and a half.
The fly, buzzing around my head, doesn't leave me alone...i opened all the doors so as to give him the freedom to go where he wants, but apparently my room is the most favorable location for him. I succeeded in locking him in the walk-in closet, yet he managed to crawl under the door and proceeds to fly straight to me and land on my arm as if to say "ha ha, sucker...u can't win!"--what fly is so smart as to taunt his opponent!?@
Frustration grabbed ahold of me and i looked for a weapon--anything to kill that darned fly. after 19 years of living, the one thing that i have figured out is that flies aren't very sturdy, so i lay my hand upon a hat and start swinging at the fly. Sturdy? no. Agile? yes. As I'm climbing all over the furniture in my room, wildly swinging at the fly, who seems to almost be ignoring my pathetic attempts to end his life I realize what i am doing. I'm trying to kill something.
"its only a fly, there's no need to worry--it doesn't have feelings." I begin to tell myself. True, flies are not on the top of the "most intelligent creatures" list (nor are they on the endangered species list), but why do i have this desire to cease the life of this creature who was fulfilling his purpose--FLYING. Why must we kill everything that annoys us--things that have done us no real harm? I think back on my life and of all the spiders i have killed, all the ants i have killed, just because they were on the wall in front of me. They were not harming me, or anyone else for that matter, they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and i happened to have a Kleenex in my hand.
I think we as humans take life for granted. We needlessly kill living things every day because "they don't have feelings" or "they cant really think". How would life be if every time someone annoyed you, you killed them. Think vice versa...you wouldn't have lived past 3 days. Your mother would have done away with you after you cried for one minute too long. The next time you are walking on the sidewalk and see a worm, or a snail, a spider or an ant, don't needlessly kill it; don't end its life just because you are having a bad day, make every attempt to not step on it and go through the rest of your day knowing what the poor creature doesn't know--that you helped them survive an already cruel world.
The fly, buzzing around my head, doesn't leave me alone...i opened all the doors so as to give him the freedom to go where he wants, but apparently my room is the most favorable location for him. I succeeded in locking him in the walk-in closet, yet he managed to crawl under the door and proceeds to fly straight to me and land on my arm as if to say "ha ha, sucker...u can't win!"--what fly is so smart as to taunt his opponent!?@
Frustration grabbed ahold of me and i looked for a weapon--anything to kill that darned fly. after 19 years of living, the one thing that i have figured out is that flies aren't very sturdy, so i lay my hand upon a hat and start swinging at the fly. Sturdy? no. Agile? yes. As I'm climbing all over the furniture in my room, wildly swinging at the fly, who seems to almost be ignoring my pathetic attempts to end his life I realize what i am doing. I'm trying to kill something.
"its only a fly, there's no need to worry--it doesn't have feelings." I begin to tell myself. True, flies are not on the top of the "most intelligent creatures" list (nor are they on the endangered species list), but why do i have this desire to cease the life of this creature who was fulfilling his purpose--FLYING. Why must we kill everything that annoys us--things that have done us no real harm? I think back on my life and of all the spiders i have killed, all the ants i have killed, just because they were on the wall in front of me. They were not harming me, or anyone else for that matter, they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and i happened to have a Kleenex in my hand.
I think we as humans take life for granted. We needlessly kill living things every day because "they don't have feelings" or "they cant really think". How would life be if every time someone annoyed you, you killed them. Think vice versa...you wouldn't have lived past 3 days. Your mother would have done away with you after you cried for one minute too long. The next time you are walking on the sidewalk and see a worm, or a snail, a spider or an ant, don't needlessly kill it; don't end its life just because you are having a bad day, make every attempt to not step on it and go through the rest of your day knowing what the poor creature doesn't know--that you helped them survive an already cruel world.
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