Metacognition: What was I trying to say?

     Normally I would picture a poet to be an artsy, exquisite, and delicate creature. One with a strong mind and nimble fingers to flutter about the keys like a butterfly. Not cautious but extremely curious. I've always been a lover of poetry, magnificent words that seemed to shiver and become tangible, and imagined the poet to be an artist with impeccable taste, a superfluous vocabulary, and a magic touch that brought words to life, literally.  I never thought of my self as a poet but hey if it's an English assignment might as well take a shot at it.

     While the ideas were whirling in my head I decided that the only way I could get started was to finally name the twister in my head and call it a "brainstorm". Just as a tornado spews out shreds of wood glass, concrete, the remains of houses and buildings that used to be, my brain began to spit out ideas that were extremely random, varied, yet built up to the same thing. To help us on our way to a successful poem, our teacher advised us to "capture a moment" and to write about some moments that just randomly stuck out in our minds. As you may or may not have seen from my previous posts, I traveled to Mombasa, Kenya over this past summer. Probably some of my favorite memories have their origins there. Three of my favorites were the smiling faces of the children we were working with, stargazing at a safari, and watching a sunset atop pride rock. In short they were all very stereotypical TIA things. 

     The next step was a stretch compared to the first. Robert Frost once said that a poem “begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a love sickness.  It is never a thought to begin with.” That's exactly what this one was. I don't know whether it was the discontent I felt with the people around me or if the anger I had felt at the moment seemed to manifest itself into a poetry form. For years it must have been in my sub-conscience, building up until it exploded from my finger tips. I was mad, angry, and crying hot and salty tears as I wrote this. A reasonable explanation for this was that I was on my period, but I feel as if it was much more than that. My poem was about the "dystopia" that we live in today. Every complain that I had, every word that I had to swallow, every thought that I blocked from every getting past my mouth manifested itself into a harsh and vicious poem.

     It was time for revisions. Presidential debates had been thoroughly persistent in annoying me. At first the beauty of the language used, the sophisticated communication skills, and opposing ideologies, philosophies, and policies intrigued me. But during the week leading up to the debate I had had enough. Enough with the commercials that lied, enough with the ignorance of people who weren't willing to see both sides of each issue. Enough with the hardcore, radical conservatives and liberals who would stick to their person for the sole reason that he was a democrat or republican; people who wouldn't decide on the policies. Enough with the ignorant masses which we call "Americans" who refused to do any research on the candidates before voting. And enough with the candidates who's main goals were to attract more voters, not do what was best for the country. I was sick and tired of it all. That's when my "poem" seemed to get a spark of light. Digging deeper into all the things that had maddened me, I realized that I was truly just mad at the fact that there was a clash of ignorance and that people were just to blind or arrogant to see the truth or work and compromise with each other. It reminded me of the "black and white" style of thinking that our teachers are always trying to pull us away from. Ha! The very thing they tell us not to do is done by the majority of the american population! Rather than it being black and white with the supposedly unreachable gray area in between, it was blue and red with a seemingly unreachable purple area in between! People call me strange for being a moderate, but all my political and policy related beliefs became part of that dystopia. And thus a poem on the world's clash of ignorance was created rather than a general overview of the things that I disliked. I was getting closer.

     Our class had just begun to read King Lear written by William Shakespeare. It was filled with revolutions, one in fact stuck out to me. A theme of the young rising when the old fall. Already on my next draft: going back to the political debates, I realized that these ideas had to go. the ideas of "we" and "them". The idea that we were all segregated to the point in our ideas that there was no way people could live together. The younger and new generations of today seem to be leaning towards the more cooperative side, but if we don't feed these ideas, support, and nurture them, they will die out. I decided to be a bit more specific with the "clash of ignorance": I made the ignorant ones, some of the old ideas which have been downplaying us for the past few years, and I played that against new, fresh faces (aka the new generation) who was willing to see two sides of things and agree on things. Instead of isolating ourselves with our ideas and status, why cant we be as social as kindergartners, who are open to everything and anything?

     It was now time for final draft. My last one was great. But what I didn't realize that this part of the poem was also reflective of me in a way that I didn't realize until half way through the poem. I have different view points from my own parents. I've grown up in a different time period, different country, different environment all together! I have different views on governmental policies, values, beliefs, religious viewpoints, education policies, etc. They are similar in many ways, but still extraordinarily different! Plus the text would be easier to connect with and more powerful if I had my own story weaved within it. But I released my clutch on this idea and allowed it to fly away. I thought the poem was fine.

     Then came conference time. My teacher prodded and pushed me, digging deeper and deeper into the twists and turns of my mind till we finally discovered a strategy to approach an unfinished poem with. A monologue, he stated, would be the best to express what I was trying to say. We both thought it would be a more powerful and meaningful way to finish up the poem. But how? He proposed that I should tell my own story and thereby get the message across that there are conflicting viewpoints between the the young and the "older"  ideas. The process began again. Racking my brain for moments or memories, looking for deeper meanings, and artfully chiseling away at unnecessary detail to make it as close to perfect as I could. And by the end, that was what I had created. My own story tole in a twisting rhythm, a storm of sorts to tell the confusing and extremely powerful experience that I had. Though the poem probably didn't shimmer and shiver to life as it did for me when I read professional poetry, it was a beautiful piece of art in my eyes.

     So there it was. From being a stereotypical story about African sunsets to politics to clashes of ignorance and to my very own self, my poem now has meaning and definition. It has taught me who i am as a person, and why that buildup of anger that I seemed to have had in my first draft existed in the first place. Though it may seem odd, working backwards: From a national problem to myself as a person rather than the other way around, I am proud that I know a little bit more about myself and who I am. I am proud to know that I can acknowledge flaws in society, and hopefully one day I can work my way up to fixing them. This is just the first step. Thank you Mr. Allen.

Metacognition: Pictures

            It’s that time of year again. In my family before we leave for vacation we usually have a tradition of dusting, mopping, and sorting everything out in the entire house; my mom especially is quite religious about cleaning up.  I finished the usual, tidied up my room, my desk, the living room, the dining room, and did the laundry. But there was one thing that I had neglected to do in a while: Organize my pictures.

            Now you may think, “Oh that’s easy” well it’s not! I’m the biggest picture junkie you will ever meet. I take my camera everywhere, even to school. I feel that we are constantly surrounded by great moments and scenery. Pictures have great meaning behind them, they are a form of art in itself, and they have extremely powerful messages. Let’s get back to the story. Most of my pictures are digitalized, yet every month I make sure to get them printed. I keep telling myself that I will organize them tomorrow and such is the human nature that tomorrow never arrives.

            The pile of printed pictures in my room were now becoming mountainous, pictures I had taken since the start of my photography career at the age of four, along with some pictures my parents and sister had taken. Not only was this not aesthetically pleasing and got in the way of things, but it was beginning to ruin the quality of the print of the photos and that’s what caused me to take action.

            I bought 12 photo binders; 11 of them for each of my years of photo taking from the age of 4-15, and an extra for the pictures I had taken from others in my family. By the end of the day the mountain was nonexistent.

            Before this tedious process began I was extremely overwhelmed with the amount of pictures I saw, just as you would probably be overwhelmed if I had posted King Kong sized paragraphs rather than utilizing smaller ones. My brain was in denial, “You can clean this up when you get back, there’s no need to do it now,” was what it was telling me. But as the clock ticked, I recalled an essay from freshman year that I had put off for a month and ended up pulling off an all-nighter the day before it was due. It was extremely stressful, not quality work, and it was all due to pushing it off for such a long time. So my body for once listened to logic and began making its way towards the domestic version of Mount Everest against the illogical desires of my cowardly brain.

            As soon as I made those first steps, my brain figured there was nothing better to do but follow my legs being the sheep for once. I felt better and more relaxed, and then I got to work. But getting my brain to oblige was by far the easiest part in comparison to what was to come next, sorting through the pictures.

            A person looking from the outside would see a short, nerdy girl thumbing each picture, looking at it closely, and putting it in a pile. Yet inside my head a flurry of memories were recalled. As it stated in a story I’ve mentioned in my past blogs, Memoria Ex Machina, human memories are attached to physical things, whether they be books, pictures, or even a radio. For me these pictures were my connection to the past. Scientists have been doing so much research on time travel yet the answer is easy: just pick up a picture, pick up a book, and pick up that radio, feel that blanket, and you will be transported back in time. Time travel is literally at our fingertips.

            I may have been overwhelmed by the amount of work I had to do at first, but now I was overwhelmed by memories of my early childhood all the way up to memories of yesterday! Memories of how my cousin blew out my candles at my own birthday party, the funeral of a close family friend, piles of stressful homework from camp, the day my sister was born, all those times I stargazed, the last fourth of July I celebrated in Michigan (we watched the fireworks while windsurfing), the time I was stuck in the elevator of a foreign country, that time I was watching the raindrops slide down the windowsill, the pleasure of catching snowflakes on my tongue on a rare snow day, the misery I felt when I was at my cousin’s house, my best friend when I was a kid, being stuck in the middle of a sandstorm, the first time I played my viola with scratchy sounds coming of the strings unlike the intricate notes I can play now on the cello, bass, and viola…….I can go on for days about this.

And as one thing led to another, every time one memory was unearthed from the depths of my brain, it was so attached to others that it surfaced them as well! For example: Over this summer I fell of a bus in the middle of a safari, it happened in the most unusual of ways. I was sitting atop a big jeep, open, safari bus. I thought I was cool by sitting on the railings rather than sitting on the seats like everyone else when we were at a rest stop. I was with a bunch of kids in a camp held in Mombasa, Kenya. My friend needed to use the bathroom so she left an extremely expensive camera under my protection. I slug the camera over my head and onto my neck. A camper came behind me and tried to scare me while I was taking a picture of a monkey; not realizing that I was easily scared. I ended up falling but my friend’s camera had miraculously wrapped itself around a pole of the bus, so I was left dangling at the edge of the bus by the back of my neck. Someone took my camera which had fallen in the commotion and taken a picture of that. It reminded me of all the great times I had, the people I met, the application process, the day we all split up and left.

If one could have seen me at that moment they would have been amused, at one picture I was laughing and smiling, for another I was swallowed up in deep despair. At that mind my thinking resembled that of a file cabinet being organized: Everything was taken out, yet slowly they were all put into place to tell my life story, only one which I could truly remember. And arranging them helped me to remember who I was, all that I had been through, and allowed me to look forward to what I was to become.

After the pictures were completely sorted out and put into place, a great sense of accomplishment and cleanliness overtook me, I was giddy with happiness. I felt accomplished, and I felt as if I knew more about myself than I had known before.

My mind felt at ease, I had climbed to the top of the mountain after hours of painful yet happy moments, and though it had put a strain on my brain to remember moments, it was all worth it. The great task which I had been anxious and scared about earlier in the day was now accomplished, and if I may say so, it was done amazingly, all pictures arranged like news clippings with little anecdotes and quotes to go along with every other page.

Though it was not an easy project, it was worth it and I have no regrets whatsoever. It helped me organize the story I have to tell as one of the eight billion people on this planet. Each of our stories makes up the encyclopedia of the human race. I learned of memories and moments that had occurred without me even knowing, as well as relearned memories that I had forgotten. Doing this also taught me a lesson: It’s good to organize your life. If I had just done this earlier instead of allowing it to turn into the mayhem it became I could have had these memories for a longer time, it’s easier for my brain to understand and truly allows me to look closely at my ideas and what I am saying.  It is as strange as relearning your native language or rereading a book. It allowed me to take a closer look at my life, reevaluate myself, and discover new meaning. Just like in Thomas Wilder’s Our Town I was finally there and truly aware of what had happened and it made me more aware of my present. I had to go into the past to appreciate my present.

Metacognition: Documentary Project

     Upon hearing the word, "Project" one would probably think that it was graded or for school. But it isn't. What I have been working on is a documentary project; it is one which I have chosen to do at my own will. It started off over this last summer when I began noticing how differently disabled children as well as adults were treated in comparison to so called "normal" people. At least in America we have systems to create some sort of equality between the two supposed groups, but while teaching in a school within the coast of Mombasa, I realized how discriminated students with disabilities are as compared to others.

     The purpose of my blog today isn't about the documentary I am working on. Rather it is on the thought process behind the project. I will be focusing today on Meta-cognition or in other words, "Thinking about my thinking."

     Back in eighth grade, I felt as if I had one of the most alert, and critical thinking mind than I have had at any other stage of my life, in many ways more so than now. In contrast, when I was working on this project (and many other essays and presentations) I felt as if I had a ton of brain fog making it difficult for the wheels of my mind to know where they were headed. For example, I first knew that I wanted to make a documentary after my recent trip to Kenya, but I didn't know on what I wanted to make a documentary on. I continuously encountered waves of brain fog and dead ends. I didn't know what I would want to make a documentary on, and when I had an idea, I had a hazy sense of it and was so confused and muddled that I decided to drop it. I feel as if this problem may be due to the fact that in middle school we did not get much homework and followed a block schedule, allowing me to dedicate large amounts of time to each topic I was doing, as well as allowed me to get outside more and gain "Real-Life experiences" so that I could apply them to my project. On top of that I would get nine hours of sleep on average in middle school allowing my brain to be at the top of its game and ready to learn
   
     The problem I feel that I am approaching today, along with several other students, is the fact that we care "Too much" about school. We want to finish all of our homework and projects, as well as study for tests at the best of our ability, and now without the block schedule we must stay up late to thoroughly understand concepts in class. We must do that because even in Academy we only have around an hour and a half of each class. Back at my old school we would have two and a half hour classes in which the teacher would make sure everyone understood everything so that we could go home with only small pieces of homework that reinforced what we learn in class. I feel like in today's school system, students cannot fully understand the content that they are being given in class or that they are just given so much homework overload every night (I'm not much of a procrastinator and I only get around 4-5 hours of sleep per night which is not sufficient for a brain to be working properly, no matter how much coffee I drink) that they develop brain fog and cannot fully dedicate their attention to their homework or studies. I feel that people need to start understanding that peoples mental health becomes messed up due to constant stress from school and not being able to get out side of the house EVER because of homework. That is why schools in Japan, China, Singapore, India, or even a local school like New Trier have suicide rates that just keep on going up. Though we want our education systems to be "competing and exceeding" those of the world wide system, we have to understand if our students are going to have a proper teen hood (Most of the people I know today don't even have time to go out with friends to the overload) and live healthy lives in which they enjoy and actually learn (rather than memorize things for a year to quickly forget about them).

     Anyways, my process of thought for this documentary were as follows:
          step 1: Brainstorm
          step 2: Choose an appealing idea
          step 3: Find ways to present the idea
          step 4: Constantly revise and find new ideas
          step 5: Final touches and finish

     Other than that another problem that I saw while working on this documentary was the fact that whenever  I felt as if I was running into a wall, my mind would just stop working and start thinking about something else. One of my biggest dilemmas was trying to lace in poetry to the video clips, pictures, and facts to create a piece of compelling and moving art. I kept on trying and trying, but as soon as I hit a dead end I gave up and decided to just lace the video clips with facts and get over with it. Maybe as I explained above, I might have had more time to finish it and get past that road block and persevere for a wondrous result.

     Yet I feel as if I have nicer qualities of my thinking that I would like to emphasize on. I loved the fact that when I am thinking of ways to express ideas, they go off like rapid fire in my head. Though some may find that to be overwhelming, I find it to be nice to have such a variety of sources to choose from. This leads to the main feature of my mind that I love, my ability to make instant connections between ideas. While working on my documentary I was surprised to see how nicely this played out. I would have an idea, and my mind would want to extend to different realms of thought, allowing me to understand my project better and change it so it could be a powerful form of art.
   
     Also my mind gets interested very quickly, and once that occurs, I have a spark of interest which inspires me to do more. But my only problem with this is that it isn't sustained. I have instant flashes of interest and inspiration that cannot be prolonged.

     All in all, I wish I could have more time to work on thinks such as going beyond the dead ends and capabilities and do my utmost best work through that.  I also wish I had more sleep so that I wouldn't have so much brain fog impairing my analyzing and critical thinking skills. But I will have to make do with what I have now and persevere with my writing and thinking to knock down the so called "fort" that surrounds my mind to reach the paradise beyond it.

Blogging Around

The first comment I decided to make was on Ruxi's blog. In short, it emphasized on how Sherman Alexi's poem about Facebook applies in real life. That Facebook and other, similar social media sites/objects (i.e. smart phones) are degrading us due to the fact that they are unnatural, and are "messing with our brains". Along with that it states how we are becoming lazier and more dependent on technology now that everything is at our finger tips. My comment was:

I think that their intentions as social networking innovators were good, to connect people who normally wouldn't be able to talk on a daily basis. And in some ways that has seriously helped. For instance, this past summer I went to camp with kids all over the country to Mombasa, Kenya, and created strong relationships with many of the Africans that we were working with there. The only way for me to keep in touch with these kids is through social networking sites. This was the main purpose of the creation of these sites, and it has served its purpose well. I mean how would the Arab Spring, or numerous other ideas and revolts start if it weren't for this interaction of people assisted by technology?

In my opinion, what makes these sites appealing for us is the fact that by nature, humans are social, and the main role of all these innovations and technologies revolve around that very idea. Humans also tend to "Want" to be happier and more relaxed people, which is why drugs and alcohol became such a big hit. Or maybe altogether, its just the fact that for both (drugs/alcohol, and social networking/media) a few "cool" people begin doing it and through your own mental pressure on wanting to be like others, you fall into the trap as well and so do the people around you. And through that, a norm in society is established.

But I have to agree with you, the instant gratification can make us lazier than we already are. I once read an article in eighth grade about how scientists think that kids brains are being wired differently due to the influence of technologies on our lives. In today's world, it can make us lazier than we already are due to the fact that teaching and work methods are similar to those of the pre-computer/cellphone era. I now see that schools as well as the workforce are making efforts to adapt to the new norm, but the status-quo still remains firmly rooted in these two areas.

The problem is that the instant gratification of these sites is more interesting to us than what we learn in school. This is a tough era for teachers as well as for students. Teachers are going to have to step their game up and so will students. Props to Mr. Allen because I think these blog posts are the perfect way to get students to do homework. It allows me to do the same as I would on Facebook, share my own ideas and thoughts, and to view and comment on others. This socialization is what students want, and this has allowed us to speak our minds in a productive manner.

I wouldn't compare Facebook to bad drugs, but I would associate the use of it to an overdose on say Tylenol. It helps you feel better, but in large amounts it can have devastating consequences. Through experience one must realize what abusing these sites can do and should step by step recover, and take the social networking in the recommended dosages as said on the package of Tylenol. Students must also understand that the teachers themselves have this procrastination issue You will have less stress and won't be prone to procrastinate even more if you understand where to draw the line in terms of procrastination.

Many seem to love to advertise their personal lives on these sites, and complain that people are getting "into their business". Well obviously you make a status and post a picture of what you were doing all the time! Who wouldn't know what was up? Do you spend your entire day on Facebook? 
All in all, I agree that the whole factor of things being at our finger tips is going to cause us to be lazy, that's inevitable, but we just have to adapt to it. This is the information age. In the late 1900s who would want to go to the library if they had a computer to tell them all they needed? We have to be able to draw the line at some point and everyone is going to have to change their ways, we can't have the same factory styled school system as we say in Mr. Morgan/Widner's video last year, we have to change how things work, because we are no longer in the same era.
Great blog post! (:

The second post I did was on Julia's post about how her voice in writing seems to be suppressed by the fact that she is writing to please others rather than herself, similar to the way in which Orlando wrote in the very beginning of Virginia's Woolf's novel, Orlando.  Through this her voice has been lost and covered by the generic "Student trying to hard to please the teacher" voice rather than her own, and every since, she has been trying to reconnect with her original writing. The comment I made was:

This is some really deep stuff!

I can totally relate to how you feel about writing. I feel like that is the same as almost any other thing in life. My friends will tell you that it is not an uncommon sight to see me breaking down in tears due to stress about getting into colleges and receiving good grades. I worry about getting good grades more for the sake of college admins rather that the sense of self accomplishment I would feel in middle school when I received all As. I have allowed grades to define who I am, and rather than caring about my own learning, I feel like I am working hard to please some random college administrator who probably just doesn't care because he or she has seen multiple cases of hard work everyday.

My pediatrician told me that she regrets just getting good grades for medical school, she stated that she wished she could have "learned for herself" and not just stressed out over grades. Its gotten to the point that I don't know what defines me or not, just as you cannot distinguish your generic voice for your teacher through your writings from your true voice. From a young age society holds us in chains and tells us that we will not succeed unless we do things to please others who are higher up on the social scale, whether it be teachers, the "popular kids, the person you like,etc. 

I miss the thrill of being able to write my mind, and feel the power of my pen running on to my paper and I wish I could have it back one day! Now of days, there is no such thing as writing in your own style, there is just a generic, scholarly like voice that every child assumes, as if they were robots! I feel as if I have to painfully scratch out every word onto paper just to please a certain structure of writing with all the formalities. It sickens me.

Personally I want to be a journalist, so I must somehow find a way to rebel against this generic voice before it's too late...This blog post is a good way for me to truly express myself in an unconventional format, that's why I love these assignments. Teachers may be trying to help guide us in the right direction, but what makes amazing literature (as well as good college impressions) is the ability for the writer to do something against the norm of the generic voice and to truly express themselves.

THIS IS AMAZING!!!!! :D

An Inconvenient Truth: Language: A Prison

           Language is limiting.  I write, I read, and I write, I reread, I like what I read.  Yet why does it seem like I am circumnavigating what the strong and clear mental image in my mind is? Why is it that I cannot seem to define my experience as it was through my eyes without having to alter it a bit?  Browsing through poems in a poetry book I realize that try as I might, I will never be able to attain the exact picture the author is creating in his or her head, neither would anyone else who read my writing.  Even Virginia Woolf stated in her novel, Orlando, that, "...Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another.  Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces..." (14).  Yes folks, we have been deceived by our childhood teachers who told us that we could write anything.  The First Amendment has failed us, for how is there a freedom of speech when speech in itself is our prison!  The truth is that we can write and say things that don't exactly hit the mark of the definite picture in our heads.  This is the same with other forms of expression (e.g. art, music, etc.).  The writer of a poem or a novel may have an extremely rich idea which they wish to convey to an audience: an image, a sound, a firework bursting within their craniums, yet it's as if they have gone mute and must sign the words they are looking for.  It's something hard to accept, the fact that the only principal we have been taught to communicate with is in actuality, quite restricting.

           This bothers me.  Growing up in America I was taught that our country was one in which freedom ought to ring throughout the land.  If our basic foundation is filled with holes, how do our forms of expression still stand? For example: When deeply reading an opinion piece in the news paper my brain begins to grasp the concept of what the author is talking about.  My brain does this by connecting to similar images and/or sounds I think the author is depicting that I have seen in the past.  This action can be both subconscious and conscious. But by doing this will I ever know what the author truly wanted to tell me? Sadly the answer is no.  The experiences that I have had are unknowingly intertwined with the text the author has written.  I will end up receiving and understanding a tainted version of the author's message, a message tainted by my own self.  Language holds us in chains for trying to express an idea which cannot be fully explained with the words and sentences it provides to us.

           Now imagine a more telepathic world in which ideas could be communicated just the way we want them to be, and then leave our brain to interpret it without leaving any holes that still need to be filled on the author's part.  Ideas would be clearer, make more sense, and most of people would be more educated, critical, and understanding of what they are reading.  We would finally be on intimate terms with the text as well as the author.  We could receive a full picture of experiences, meanings, emotions, ideas, and more that the author has all wrapped up in one!  People would finally get the chance to speak the truth of what they think and feel rather than the fluff of it by merely skipping around what truly occurred, which is what language causes us to do today.  One may argue that though we don't understand what the author is trying to say, the holes make for better critical thinking.  This could be true, but that is not the point I am trying to make! If you truly wanted to argue that point though, I would say that it depends on what the author wants from his or her audience.  Does he/she want to leave the material through interpretation? Or does he/she want the audience to truly understand what they are trying to say, and to truly appreciate the craft of the novel?  If it is for the second reason, then the use of language today would only lead the audience into bliss ignorance, making them think they know exactly what the author is talking about and why, with really only fragments of their own connections facilitating their opinion.

           This leads to yet another problem.  In Plato's Cave Allegory (As mentioned in my previous blog) the prisoners were forced to see a depiction of life through moving pictures across a wall with various sounds echoing in the background, they interpreted that life was one way when in actuality it is another (ex: A picture of a dog would be depicted on the wall, and a sound would come along with that, but it may not be a barking noise).  None of the prisoners had ever seen the light of day.  But when one of the prisoners was released and saw how life truly was as well as the sun, and was amazed.  Just like the Cave Allegory, language right now is giving us a mere depiction of the event that truly occurred, it is up to our interpretation to find out what the truth (real life/the sun) of what the author really is trying to say.  By using our interpretation rather than the true image or sound or feeling the author has allows us to create somewhat of a "fake reality" in which we only see things in how it relates to ourselves rather than what the true thing the author is trying to present to us.  Our brain ends up seeing a connected world it has created, rather than the world the text wants you to see.  That is why at a young age I was taught as a Muslim that the Qur'an was written so as to allow followers of the religion to have different interpretations of what it means.  This also leads me to believe that many wars, fights, arguments, etc. about things said, things done, written, painted, sung, and more often then not are caused by the fact that language has been restricting the the speaker, painter, or author's ideas or thought in totality.  Our language cannot truly define that of our existence, actions, and the complexity of our brains.

           Let's take a silly example.  In the first paragraph I stated how in Virginia Woolf's novel, Orlando, she said that: "...Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another.  Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces." (14) Say I'm the author and I am trying to portray a certain shade of green.  A color, like "lime green" or "emerald" just won't do,I'm looking for a forest green but with a tortoiseshell pattern due to alternating light patterns of the sun.  It is a combination of.....now I must stop, there truly is no shade of green to describe the shade I am looking for.  I see a perfect leaf in my head , there is a green quality about it that I want to depict, but I can only describe it.  This creates murkiness of the readers understanding of the green I am trying to explain, it makes the reader quite confused.  It is something that is beyond words and therefore leads readers to think of their own shade of green.  Now lets say that this "green" was a controversial issue.  Some people though that the green I was describing above was a lime green and forest green life, while others thought it was a sea green and forest green leaf.  Who is right? Who is wrong? The viewpoint that it must be lime and forest green probably have a context and a connection in their mind ready for the view of green in nature.  It is a view long influenced by experiences and events in their lives.  This is the same with myself as well as the sea and forest green people.  No one can understand why I see a certain shade of green in my head, I cannot understand why they see theirs.  Due to this an argument breaks out and the true shade of green I was trying to communicate to my audience lives to be highly disputed in infamy.  Lives are lost in some cases, voices unheard, because language didn't allow me to fully explain the green I was picturing in my head.

           Though language is our prison, we must cope with it, no matter how much in may drive us insane (hence the teenage quote: "You just don't understand!").  We must deal with it until some sort of Utopian communication system is created. So far     though we have been thoroughly lived in blind ignorance of the fact that language is imprisoning     the human race has done a good job of describing what the author is saying to the point of exasperation.  Though I cannot fully explain the green I am seeing, I can describe it with like terms such as , "forest green" and "tortoiseshell patterns" to give the readers some idea of what type of green I am trying to convey to them.  To truly make an effort to reach Utopian communication, the author or speaker must provide experiences or a context that have caused them to think, feel, act, etc. a certain way.  For example: I see the color green.  When I was a child I admired the green, and my grandfather told me...etc.  It would be a good idea for these thoughts to be general connections, that the majority of your audience can connect with as well, narrowing the chance of misinterpretation.  In addition to that, the book, Life of Pi by Yann Martel is a good example on how to truly exemplify emotions the author feels.  Though Pi didn't have quite an interesting or adventurous experience as he did in his "story version" he conveyed the emotions he felt, whether, he was angry, empowered, happy in an extreme version of a story of what really happened.  The emotions are the same, yet the experiences different.  I would recommend this method to musicians, authors, and speakers who want to focus on their emotions throughout their craft rather than the order of events and experiences.

           Although breaking free of this prison seems impossible, one must live with it, and the coping that the human race is already doing through descriptions can be tweaked a bit, to make the cold and frigid jail cell be a bit more luxurious.  Hopefully one day the answer to this problem will be found.

           

           

           

           

           

           

           

Dialectics: Freedom and Safety

           After recently finishing the novel, Orlando, by Virginia Woolf, in class, I was brought to remember Plato's Cave Allegory in which Orlando, the main character, is forced to choose between the safety of the Spirit of the Age or the freedom of literature and writing.  Last year, my teacher brought up an interesting point in class which was left unanswered after reading the Cave Allegory.  His question was "Would you rather prefer safety and security or would you rather have freedom?".  This duality seen throughout the Cave Allegory between these two completely opposite ideas was astonishing.  The same realization occurred to me when reading Orlando, the forces of freedom and safety had to work together in Orlando's life.  Yet the funny thing about dualities, especially in the case of freedom versus safety and security is that they are extremely close in relation to one another, yet are considered to be the complete opposites of a situation.  

           But what is the relationship between freedom and safety? They both are desired traits by many people, but they get in the way of one another.  In the Cave Allegory, the prisoners were safe and sound in their cave, and they never had to worry about being hurt from the outside or anything.  But they were not able to see the truth, they didn't have the freedom to go into the outside world and to really live life to its fullest.  Freedom and safety are both needed in society, and are forever interlocked with each other.  The purpose of the concept of safety is to protect people from the bad consequences freedom can have.  An extreme example of this would be: A terrorist wants to terrorize people because freedom allows him to, but safety and security prevents its people from getting hurt.  In the same manner certain laws are set up to protect its people, and to prevent the freedoms of others, like hacking laws, etc.  Yet to what extent can safety be utilized? Can peoples freedom be cut off so much that their entire lives can be recorded by government agencies, etc?  

           As for freedom, the concept of safety was probably first created when people realized how much power they had and how frightening it could be if misused.  Or maybe circumstances forced people to limit their freedoms because it would hurt more than help them.  The fact is that freedom probably came before safety, but safety and security must be put in place to limit the dangerous of freedom and to keep people safe.  But what should the ration of safety and security be to freedom? Who should determine this? Why?

           Thinking deeper about what life would be like without safety and security put in place is pretty hard.  But I'm trying to expand my mind a bit...I imagine a world without these measures put into place to be chaotic (or is it because the nature of the 21st century human brain is that we NEED order in society) and disorderly.  That people could do what they wanted to without having to worry about the consequences their actions may impose upon others or themselves.  Unfortunately we have seen what a nation is like when safety and security has been imposed heavily upon it, and this is not very good either.  Just like you shouldn't have too much of anything, a society should have a reasonable balance between its safety and security. If America really is "the land of the free" then should we still be allowed to impose extensive security measures on our people (like graffiti laws, etc.)?

           It also depends on the people within the place whose measures you would like to change.  Lets take a household for example (for within each household is its own nation):  If their are only young adults in the house/apartment/etc. then they would probably prefer freedom over safety because that's where their mindset probably would be, but if the house hold contained a couple with young children, then they would probably say that they would prefer safety over freedom.  It depend on the mindset of the people.  I personally, as an adolescent would prefer freedom over security and safety.  Other than typical teenage reasons for favoring freedom over safety, I came to this choice because I realized that without the concept of freedom, safety would be non-existent.

           Knowing the relationship between safety and freedom opens the door to insight on how our modern day government was formed and may even give us an idea on how to "fix" our government limitations today. Though our nation is young we have had years of influence from other countries on our government (e.g. The Roman Empires democracy taken from an idea of the Ancient Greeks, the pilgrims coming to America had left their country for an escape from religious oppression and to gain freedom, etc.) and to see how our government has been formed and what has and what hasn't worked, as well as working with the spirit of the age, we can find a near perfect solution between the balance of security and freedom in our nations.  All of this was inspired from Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando and Plato's Cave Allegory two amazing books which portrayed the duality between freedom (literature, the truth/sun) and safety/security (The spirit of the age, which Orlando always had to obey, and the chains which bound the prisoners and caused them to believe in a fake reality).

Best of the Week: History Is a Symphony

           "It is, indeed, highly unfortunate, and much to be regretted that at this stage of Orlando's career, when he played a most important in the public life of his country, we have least information to go upon.  We know that he discharged his duties to admiration     witness his Bath and his Dukedom.  We know that he had a finger in some of the most delicate negotiations between King Charles and the Turks     to that, treaties in the vault of the Record Office bear testimony.  But the revolution which broke out during his period of office, and the fire which followed, have so damaged or destroyed all those papers from which any trustworthy record could be drawn, that what we can give is lamentably incomplete.  Often the paper was scorched a deep brown in the middle of the most important sentence.  Just when we thought to elucidate a secret that has puzzled  historians for a hundred years, there was a hole in the manuscript big enough to put your finger through.  We have done our best to piece out a meager summary from the charred fragments that remain; but often it has been necessary to speculate, to surmise, and even to make use of the imagination." - Page 87 of Virginia Woolf's "Biography", Orlando.

           The best observations, and intriguing beliefs, in my opinion, were all revived from this passage of the book our class is reading, Orlando.  Mr. Allen, our teacher, stated probably the most true comment that I have ever heard in my life.  "History is like a symphony," but he was cut off by the bell and the idea just hung in the air with everyone trying to grasp the idea of it.  After going through the usual buzz of school, sports, friends, etc. I finally had a free moment to think about the significance of these words.  History is indeed very much like a symphony.  To help you fully grasp this concept I will explain the whirlwind of thoughts that ensued in my mind.  History in itself is a memory of the past.  A memory, as explained in Memoria ex Machina by Jon Fisher, is simply a recollection of thought seen in the way we want to see it, and thoroughly changed by our environment.  For example: you are trying to remember how your best friend looked in third grade, but you can only picture her as she is now (environment) and she looks extremely pretty and nice in the mental image you've formed (to see what you want to see).  Memory is a bunch of information coming together to create an image or scene in your head, and so is history. 

           "But what does history have to do with a symphony?" You may ask.  Think about it, when all that information comes together to create history, usually the prodigious and extraordinary events that occurred in the past are emphasized and most often remembered.  The loud bursts of sound and big, unforgettable booms are remembered; these are the equivalent of the great, remembered events that occurred in the past.  What about the long, flowing, and mellifluous pieces of music between these bursts?  Referring to the first paragraph in which Virginia Woolf states, "We have done our best to piece out a meager summary from the charred fragments that remain; but often it has been necessary to speculate, to surmise, and even to make use of the imagination."  These stanzas of music are strings of inferences, speculation, and imaginations, that cross and hold together the story of history.  They create something close to the events that happened, just as this music keeps the song together, events and inference are linked hand in hand to tell the story of life.

           An symphony orchestra is made up of hundreds of musicians, each playing a different instrument and harmony.  Yet the harmonies they play enhance a certain melody that the conductor is trying to convey to the audience.  In history, the teller of the story has some bias towards what they are saying and try to make the events, and parts of history  they convey  to lean more towards the persons beliefs, and the author composes it by linking together strings of connections and imaginations to create a masterpiece.  And each author has different sources they use to create their version of history (like the variety of instruments in an orchestra).  Yet all historians tell the same story, yet have different biases, just as the orchestra has different instruments and harmonies, yet all create the same melody.  And they all have something different the audience can take away from it.

           A learner of history (which we all CONSTANTLY are) will look at the events lets say that occurred during the American Revolution, and think one thing about it, while another person can look at the same events and think another.  This is because everyone has a different background and different experiences that connect them to history.  Lets go back to the American Revolution scenario.  Reader one thinks, "Man the yankees were great! I wouldn't have changed a thing that they did during the revolution!" This person was probably an American, and brought up in an American family that has a certain sense of Nationalism, as most people do for their country.  But if person two had a different upkeep, in a different country (i.e. United Kingdom) then their opinions and views on the events that occurred would be very different (I don't really know this, it is just an example.  Sorry if I offended anyone).  The same with a symphony.  It could be the exact same thing that the audience hears, but what they take away from it is completely different.

           In the future I will probably be using these words: "History Is a Symphony" whenever I analyze any situation, whether in a conflict I had with a friend last week, or when I am reading my history textbook for school.  I must carefully look at the situations that occurred and the ideas presented to me, and think about the different viewpoints on the same events, and to uncover the events under the suffusion of biases.  I hope this allows everyone to do so as well to.  You must first understand something before you can attain a true passion for it, to love a symphony you must first understand all points about it (the conductor, the musicians, the meaning behind the piece, etc.)  To understand history you must do the same, and by creating a love for history maybe someday we can finally prevent mistakes that have occurred in our history and prevent these issues from repeating themselves.  Hopefully this has also taught everyone the significance of knowing that the most renowned events of history are usually strung together by inferences based on documents and the author/speaker/creator's creativity, and to think twice before you wholeheartedly trust what your teacher, news articles, and history books have to say. Thank you Mr. Allen for showing me a whole new perspective that I have never been exposed to before.   

           

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Captured Thought: Pyramids

           How would our nation survive without the work of thousands of manual laborers and immigrants who laid the foundation for everything to come.  Similarly, what would society be like today without the workers inside a fast food restaurant like McDonald's, the average garbage man, or truck drivers? 

          Speaking of McDonald's, how many times have you heard ridicule of the people working there? Whether they are in the form of jokes, or even if your parents are trying to make a point (My friend's mom used to threaten her son with the phrase: "Do you want to end up as a worker at McDonald's? Is that the type of mediocre life that you want to live? Has all our hard work gone down the drain?" Whenever he complained about school.)  It all hit me about how cruel and obscene these everyday comments are when I, a typical teenager, went to McDonald's to get a cup of coffee last weekend. 

           It was there that I realized that every single person in the world grows up with a dream of becoming someone, an actor, a doctor, a model, an engineer, a singer, and the list could go on forever.  Yet not everyone reaches their aspirations. As I was waiting for my coffee I thought, "What about the people who do reach their goals, what makes them more worthy than others to receive what they want?".  I quickly came to the conclusion that there really was no way to decide.  In America, there are about 312 million people, and of that maybe a minuscule amount of people become who they really want to be.  When my coffee arrived I began fantasizing a world in which everyone became who they wanted to be (because any human being probably would not want to be surrounded by the miasma of decay as a garbageman or garbage-woman does).  Yet every scenario led to chaos.

           Think about it for a minute; if every man and women achieved their desires, who would do the small, menial, and undesired jobs that are necessary for society to function properly? For instance, if there were no truck drivers, packages, shipments, and goods would never get to the places they needed to be at.  Without any garbage men and women, there would be no one to get rid of a cloud of stink that would haunt our lives, and the streets would be spewed with trash.  If there were not any workers in McDonald's there would be no such thing as fast food or even (this is a bit of a slippery slope) any restaurants.  And without factory workers, we would be lacking everyday products that we take for granted (e.g. toothbrushes, cars, laptops, sinks, food etc.).  Without any of these unwanted jobs, life as we know it would be altered quite differently.  Even America itself was, as mentioned before, built upon the labor of immigrants, and laborers doing manual jobs.   As mentioned above I was imagining every possible scenario, and in one, I imagined that without these jobs that we consider undesirable now, none of the occupations that anyone would want would even be possible because there was no food (starvation), no everyday products that we need, disease would be rapidly spreading (grave diggers, though it may pay good, it is not something somebody really WANTS to be), and there would be no communication between the peoples of the world.

           After looking back to this moment, I have decided to name it "The Pyramid Effect".  This is due to the fact that no matter what job you have, or even if you don't have one, you are a contributing member of society.  Each of the 8 billion people in the world is a block in this pyramid.  Those who are at the top (those who have reached their aspirations) are only there because of the strong foundation held by the bottom, the several people who work just as hard as the people yet are not recognized rather, they are ridiculed by those at the top of the pyramid, by those who would become unstable after one block fell, and those who would completely fall after a few did the same.  The pyramid organizes society with the people with unappealing jobs, those in unemployment, as well as stay-at-home parents at the bottom, office workers (average office cube dwellers), in the middle, as well as those not doing as well as they wanted with the job they have, and with those who have reached their occupational dreams on top.  In cheer-leading we have often seen that it is a mutual effect.  If those on the bottom are sturdy and doing good, only then can the people at the top do as good as they would like (ex: without laptops produced in the commodities they are, or cars, or people who take care of cars, and if fast food wasn't available on the go, where would we be?).  If the bottom is not doing good, then neither can do good, the flyer (a type of cheer leader) at the top if the pyramid becomes vulnerable and can fall.  Without the base society would crumble, and nothing would get done.

           This was my spontaneous eureka moment in the midst of buying a coffee from McDonald's, an average everyday activity for several American citizens.  This whirlwind of thoughts occurred within my mind within a span of five minutes.  A light bulb influenced by years of hearing horrendous remarks about low class jobs sparked and created "The Pyramid Effect".  And that day that thought was captured in my mind, like a photograph, always allowing me to look back, and remember how important every single person in this world is.  Next time I see someone ridiculed about their job because it is disliked in society I will conjure that picture and state, "Your job, or even your childhood wouldn't be here if it were not for this man or woman working at that job.  Society itself would be sabotaged without people like him or her." And hopefully that message will be spread and the thought of society being a pyramid will capture the minds of others as it had done to mine.