Best of Today: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

This movie is absolutely horrible. The whole plot of the movie is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern going to England to give them the news that Hamlet has gone insane and then they end up getting killed. Along the way, they invent these stupid games that make no sense whats so ever and it just bugs me because I can't figure out what they are trying to play or how to play it.
I absolutely dread watching this movie and I believe that the movie Hamlet should be left alone. There shouldn't be any interpretations from anyone's point of view and insignifican character's should not get their own movie. By Rosencrantz and Guildenstern getting their own movie that tells the story of Hamlet from their point of view, it just confuses the audience more and adds on uneccessary detail to the plot of Hamlet. Also, by having their own movie, it makes the play Hamlet seem over done and too played out, therefore leaving the audience and fans of Hamlet very distraut and annoyed.

Best of Today: "Sympathetic Magic"

The most interesting part about this article occurs about mid-way through when Wilson brings up the idea of cave paintings. Back when the world started changing and the Homo Sapiens starting overshadowing the Homo Erectus, art began to emerge and I find it really cool that Wilson brings it up. He talks about how when our species first came into being, art emerged in the form of cave painting and various other "barbaric" forms. He explains how the people needed a way to make note of their rituals and sort of perserve their experiences. What I find most interesting about his illumination of the pre-historic art is that he uses it to make an argument. That argument is that humans have always needed a way to express themselves personally and to remember things and that's exactly how art came into being.
Wilson takes it a step further when he mentions "sympathetic magic", which is the "manipulation of symbols and images" that ultimatley influence the people and the objects they represent. One of the most famous representation of this is voodoo. Pins are stuck into dolls and this image is suppossed to represent torture and destruction to a person. Ever since the beginning of modern man, sympathetic magic has existed and it is basically what sparked art and creativity. The idea of sympathetic magic is really interesting because you could see it in many other ancient civilizations such as that of the Aztecs and Maya in their sacrifices.
I think it's really important to learn about sympathetic magic because it is the origin of symbols and images. It is where the idea of using symbols to represent something powerful was derived from, in not only literature, but in art too. I think it's fairly important to think back to these ancient examples to remind ourselves of how to properly use symbols when writing or creating works of art because it would not only help us become greater artists, but it would help us create great works of art.

Best of Today: "Hereditary Propensity"

As we continued on with the reading of Consilience in class today, we came across this idea of hereditary propensity. This idea formed by Wilson is among the many that make up the "narrative of coevolution of genes and culture". This claim that all individuals are predipositioned to learning certain things and being good at certain aspects of life is really interesting. It's basically like saying that since one person's parents were extremely skilled in math and statistics that that person inherited that skill to learn and understand it better and faster than the people around him/her. It's like inheriting your parents mental capability traits just as someone inherits their physical appearances from their parents.
Anyways, this claim of hereditary propensity that Wilson argues really stuck out to me and when we related it to the whole "blank slate" idea that we learned about last year, it made it even more interesting. John Locke and the Trancendentalists were one of the first and most famous to imbed this idea of blank slate into our heads. They were the ones who said that all human beings started off with a blank slate; meaning no predisposition or bias toward anything or anyone. They claimed that as the individual got older and started learning and adapting to life, they themselves chose what they wanted to be good at and what to believe.
Although I find the idea of being born without any predispositions really interesting, I think that what Wilson is saying make more sense. The reason for this is because of personal experience. For example, both of my parents were very good at science. To them, understanding science and applying it to day to day situations just came natural and that's where I got my talent for science. I remember when I was younger, I would be absolutley fascinated with science and I never had to try hard to actually understand the material. Because of my personal experience, I would have to agree with Wilson when he says that individuals inherit traits from their parents and that as they grow older, these traits develop more and more. To me, it just simply does not make any sense to say that we aren't predispositioned to any thoughts or any abilities.

Best of Today: Charting the Brain

In the article taken out of the book Consilience, Edward O. Wilson makes the claim that in order for human beings to successfully chart the brain and understand how it really works, we would need the collaboration of both "scientists and humanities scholars". In the midst of attacking postmodernists, he basically says that human beings stem out from science (and that's why our existence can be explained in a scientific way), but we also need to remember that it's not just about science. It's also about generalization and gathered information about humanity as a whole that helps explain our being.
This statement that we read about and discussed in class is extremely relevant in a world like today. We now live in a very confused world where over half of the population actually practice a religion and the others refuse to believe in God, claiming that science and evolution is what made us human. In a world like today where children and brought up confused about whether they should believe in God or whether they should believe in science, the claim that Wilson makes is completely relevant. The best part about Wilson making this claim is that he is offering a solution to this crisis and that is to simply believe and believe in both science and the humanities.
This cliam is basically like a summary of my own beliefs, in a weird way. Ever since I was younger I fell in love with science and have sort of used that to guide my actions and my explanation for life. I have also been agnostic for as along as i can remember and when I read what Wilson wrote in this article, I was completely shocked. I was really excited when he explained how we could be understood by these two opposite things. His idea is incredibly powerful and I believe that if everyone had an outlook like his, the world would be a better, more peaceful place.

iMedia: Atmosphere

Atmosphere- Trying to Find a Balance

This video criticizes the popular culture that we are all a part of here in the US. Through out the video, there are pictures of young girls and guys getting tattoos and piercings and doing outlandish things as a means of rebelling. In my opinion, this form of rebellion is completely ridiculous because it's not solving anything. Teens may try and get back at their parents by doing stupid things like getting a tattoo, but in the long run what does that really solve? It just makes the parents even angrier and it causes more problems. I realized as I was watching this video that for the fist time in my life it dawned on me that individuality is actually the cause of these rebellious actions. Everyone seems to think that being an individual is the greatest thing in the world, but what they don't seem to notice is that it is actually the cause of many problems. Individuality makes us selfish because everything that we do we do only for ourselves and for our benefit. Individuality makes us greedy because we are taught to accomplish things only for ourselves and once we are satisfied, only then can we actually become somewhat selfless.
If you take a look at any other country in the world, their philosophy on how life should be lead is almost the complete opposite. Everything they do revolves around their family or some type of group. They learn to forget about themselves (and therefore forget how to be selfish and greedy) and learn to do good for the greater amount of people.
The lyrics of the song are extremely impressive because they seem to bring about this problem with individuality in our country. They also show another major flaw in our culture and that is that we are superfluous in every aspect of our lives. We constantly want to out-do everyone at everything. We want to know that we are the best and the fastest people in the world and that is just not good for our health. We need to relax and realize that the world isn't going anywhere. We have plenty of time to do things and there is no need for this ferocious competition; what we need is to make peace. To relax and to take things as they come; to not overbook ourselves. The citizens of America need to know that life is not a race against time; its not about how fast we can get things done but rather how balanced our lives are. It's about balancing work with fun and solitude with socialization. Basically, it's exactly like the title of the song says, its about "trying to find a balance".

Best of the Week: Wealth

I think the most interesting observation that I noted this week in class was the about how we measure wealth. The Do You Mind question, how does one measure wealth (without the concept of money) was really interesting to talk about. I guess the only way that I thought wealth could be measured before was through how much money a person had, but the more we discussed it in class the more I realized that I was wrong. Wealth is about how much love, respect and kindness you can give to others, and more importantly how much love, respect and kindness people give to you. You know you are a wealthy person if you have a great family that respects you for what you and loves you no matter what. You know you are a wealthy person if do not do wrong to other people and if you try your absolute best to help out others and our planet.
This observation made me think about how lucky of a person I am to have such a wonderful family and such wonderful friends that are always there for me. It makes me wonder about how many people are unfortunate to have this kind of wealth in their lives and how I want to help those people.

Metacognition: Do You Mind Questions

Every time I am getting ready to answer a Do You Mind question in class, I use this sort of repetitive, routine-like thought process to get to my answer. First, I re-write the question down in the notebook so that my brain has enough time to absorb what the question actually is. Next, I brainstorm some ideas for a possible answer, and after I get a few possible simple answers, I choose the one that I am most interested in. After that, I sort of blow the answer out of proportion and make it seem really meaningful and detailed to the point where I convince myself that it is the best answer I could come up with. It sounds weird, but all of my Do You Mind questions have these crazy answers that are unique to myself and my own life experiences. They might sound made up and extremely exaggerated, but in reality the core of my answers deal with my unique experiences.
I think it's really interesting how my brain can take a simple thought and add on various layers of detail and experience without really having to think that hard about it. It's interesting how my imagination plays such an important role in my thinking process because it shows how much of a kid I am on the inside. I use my imagination and exaggerate things as if I was still a little girl and it's really cool to see how i'll always have this young, vibrant and enthusiastically playful person inside me. For the time being, I wouldn't change a thing about my thinking because if I were to do that, I wouldn't really be myself and I wouldn't get to imagine and create the beautiful thoughts that I do now.

Connection: Hamlet and The Pact

The play Hamlet has a question that is reinforced time and time again throughout the play. The question "To be or not to be", as Hamlet the main character puts it is a question that has poped up in various works of literature, one of them being The Pact by Jodi Piccoult. The Pact is a book about two young people who have known each other for their whole lives and have been in love for as long as they can remember. They spent every waking moment with each other and one day, the girl decides that she has gotten everything she wants out of life and that she wanted to kill herself. She decided that she wanted her boyfriend to be there when she did it, so that he would be the last person she saw. Whether it was on purpose or not, when the police showed up, it looked like the boyfriend shot her and she did not commit suicide.
In the play Hamlet, the main character also ends up killing himself (although it was in a more non-direct way). The two main characters of these works of literature both dealt with the question "to be or not to be" and they both chose to end their misery on earth. Both of the characters had been corrupted not only by society in general, but by the people that they loved the most. Hamlet had been forced to reconsider his being and human nature in general when his father was killed by his uncle and the girl in The Pact was corrupted by her boyfriend, who made her realize that there was nothing more to live for. The one difference between the two characters is that in the play Hamlet, Shakespeare made it obvious how much Hamlet was sufferring and the reason for his demise, whereas in the The Pact, Piccoult left out several details about the girl until the end of the book, making it a sort of mystery.
This connection is really interesting, but it involves two characters that are almost complete opposites, that end up doing the exact same thing. The decision to off themselves is very interesting because it shows how there isn't exactly one type of person that has suicidal thoughts and that even though a person may look happy on the surface, in reality, they are miserable. It's interesting because it shows how fake our world is. Both of the characters were opposite people when it came to their public and private lives and they seperated the two as if to form two different personalities for each person. By doing this, it showed that neither of them truly knew who they were and their true identity and this is the core reason why they decided to escape from this world. This reason created a sense of self loathing and uselessness that none of them could escape from.

360 Degrees: Agnosticism

I think the concept of proclaiming oneself as agnostic is really interesting, because it has so many degrees to it. Recent studies show that the second highest "religous group" ( if it can be called that) in the United States today are agnostics and atheists. Where did all the protestants and Catholics go? It's really interesting because all of the people that are my age (and a little younger) seemed to have that bit of religious ferver and zeal that the older generations still hang on to. It seems as if my generation is the first generation to not actually identify themselves with any sort of religious affiliation and i'm not yet sure if it's a good thing. I mean, most of my friends and fellow classmates seem to have this sort of "fear" of religion in general. Whenever I try to spark up a conversation about God or whether or not a certain person believes in it, that person gives me the most peculiar look i've ever seen.
Being agnostic isn't as bad as some may think. I'm sure that the older generations are looking down and frowning upon us, for we are nothing but sinners in their eyes, but in my opinion, being agnostic is better than being an atheist. Acknowledging that there is some type of God out there that has created us all and that even though he/she is unknown, we still believe in him/her because we so desperatley need to believe in something bigger than us. We so desperatley need to feel as if the fate of the world isn't in our hands, that we are not the ones responsible for the tragic disasters that happen in this world. If a person has the decency to acknowledge a higher being, I think they are smart to do so because they themselves are going agasint the status quo. They are essentially saying that they refuse to refuse any religion or diety that exists. That they refuse to be looked at and judged by a stereotype that a lot of us in this world fall under. But is this such a brave thing? I definitley think it is, in fact I think it's the bravest thing we can do as humans, refuse to be stereotyped, refuse to be judged by what we identify with religiously.
On the other hand, it is also very risky to be an agnostic. Since the beginning of time, people have needed something to believe in, to have faith in. This of course was hard to do until the concept of religious icons and names and stories were tied down to these religious leaders. If we suddenly slip and don't stick to a certain religion won't that be bad? Won't it ruin who we are as humans? I think only time can tell, but as for now, i'm thinking that if we have no bigger entity to stop us from becoming "sinners" or being "condemned" on judgement day, then won't we all just rebel and do repulsive things to one another? If not, then is there truly a way to accept one another and have peace amongst one another?

Carry It Forward: Hamlet

In William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, he uses the dialectic of the private vs. public persona that Hamlet obtains and has to distinguish between in almost every situation that he faces. Shakespeare demonstrated how Hamlet is very different in private because it is the only time where he can actually show who he really is. In private he is this severely depressed and over-analitical being that is trying to make sense of the choatic world around him, whereas in public, he chooses to hide his private side and act "fake" towards everyone. Instead of talking about what's really on his mind (his father's death), he represses these feelings for more welcoming ones whenever he is around others. The interseting thing about Hamlet is that in a way he does bring out his private side in public, but in a very sarcastic way and because he brings it out through sarcasm, most people don't catch on to it.
I think that this idea of being a whole person and not having to distinguish between the private and public is very important. The reason I bring this up is because I want to carry this idea into my future. I want to actually atempt to be a more whole person by showing exactly what I am feeling and thinking at the time and not having to be fake around anyone anymore. Even though most people I know have to be fake and supress their true emotions and thoughts because they either have a job that requires you to do so or are in a circumstance that never allows you to be yourself (like a persons's family) , I think it's important for people to at least realize that they are being fake. I think that it is important for them to stop doing this, and just become themselves. If we all act as two different people all the time, then how are we suppossed to know who we really are? How are we suppossed to trust each other and love each other?

Research: William Shakespeare

http://www.bardweb.net/man.html
http://www.bardweb.net/language.html
William Shakespeare was a very mysterious man because little about his life is actually known, aside from his works of literature. The only other documents that exist about his life are a few church and legal documents. Shakespeare was born on April 23rd (which is a weird coincidence that i'm writing this on April 23rd!!) 1564. He was born to a leather merchant and local heiress and he was the third of eight children (three of who actually died). Because his parents couldn't really afford an education, they enrolled Shakespeare in a free grammar school where he learned about Greek Classics and Latin but because he never chose to attend a University, his works of literature were controversial. Many people debated whether or not his works were actually acurate and authentic.
In 1582, he married Anne Hathaway and had twins Hamnet and Judith and Hamnet later died at the age of 11. Then in 1592, he once again appeared in London, after showing no signs of life for four years, establishing himself as a devout actor and playwriter. The irony of his life was, of course, that he ended up dying on his birthday, April 23rd, in 1611.
Another interesting thing about Shakespeare is that in the time period that he was writing, there was no dictionary or any word reference source where he could of looked to helped him write. He had a vocabulary of 17,000 words, which is quadruple that of an average writer which is highly impressive considering that he didn't even attend a university. Also, it is said that he added almost 3,000 words to the English language, which is absolutely incredible and inspiring. This definitley makes me respect him more as a person and certainly as a writer.

Carry It Forward: Letters to a Young Poet

Although Letters to a Young Poet was a quick and easy read that would take anyone about an hour to read, I actually took my time reading it and finished it over the course of a few days. My intention wasn't to do, but the more I read, the more I found myself thinking about Rilke's statement on solitude. Throughout the whole book, he encourages Kappus to live his life in solitude and rely only on himself. Rilke claims that the only way in which someone can get to become to a great poet (or a great anything for that matter) is by being in solitude and being introspective. He says that if you remain in solitude, you will have time to explore your most inner feeling and experiences and interpret them for what they actually mean. By doing this, one will know exactly who they are what their experiences have done for them and they will subconsciously transfer something meaningful into whatever work they are doing (in Kappus's case poetry).
To me personally, this is really interesting because it made me realize that I live my life by the opposite manner of what Rilke is encouraging people to do. Instead of spending my life in solitude and looking for answers within my own mind, I depend on other people for answer. I depend on my teachers, family and friends to provide me with comfort, security, knowledge and happiness. It's not necessarily that I don't spend time alone, it's just that in a society like this, where there is constant interaction with other people, it's hard for someone like me to live in comeplete solitude. It's hard for me to solve everything on my own because (in my opinion) i'm not mature enough and I still need some guidance in my life. In the future however, perhaps one day when I feel ready to take on the challenge of living a life where I comfort myself and am happy by simply being with myself and enjoying myself. Life is full of tragedies and i've learned that sometimes you just simply can't trust other people. I hope that by attempting to live my life in solitude in the future it will make me trust myself and truly understand the reason for my being and from this interpretation be able to live a happy life devoted to me, myself and I.

Captured Thought: Religion

It's very interesting how more and more people in the U.S. are starting to look down upon religion and are starting to disregard it as an effective means of living one's life. Many people are starting to claim that they are atheists and that there is no reliable proof to prove the existence of any type of diety, (which I find kind of absurd and ironic). We are probably one of the few countries in the world that don't have any steady base of religion. This trend is significantly ironic considering that the foundations of the U.S. was based off of religion. As I started to think about this more and more I realized that maybe democracy played a major factor in this trend. Maybe our "freedom of religion" and "freedom of speech" has given us too much liberty and we now feel as if we can disregard all of the philosophical ideas about religion and deities in favor of our new 21st century philosophy of meaninglessness. I don't know if this completely makes sense, but if you take a look at all of the other countries around like the globe, you would see that they are almost the exact opposite.
Take India for example. They are a fairly socialist society and although there's a large amount of poverty in the country, the people there are extremely happy. The reason why they are so is because they are religious. They (the majority of the people in India) practice Hinduism and even though things might be falling apart in their country and they might not have enough money for food to last them for the whole week, they are still extremely hopefull and greatfull of what they do have. I find this incredibly influencial and extremely hopefull. I believe that if the U.S. were to have some unifying force (and i'm not saying that religion is the only example of a unifying force), then I think we would finally be able to escape this materialistic society that we live in and find peace and happiness within ourselves and within the world.

Metacognition: Frank Gehry Project

For the Frank Gehry project, our group had the task of building a 21st century library that reflected the worldview and philosophy of our community in the present time. Before I started sketching and brainstorming about what this building would look like, I first had to reflect and think about how people view the world today. In order to do this, I looked over the Modern Art packet and other handouts from class and kind of reminded myself of the 21st century's philosophy; that we are meaningless and essentially, nothing and that there is no way in which we can know every aspect of ourselves. After reflecting on this, I started brainstorming about what the library might look like and wanted to make sure that whatever the design turned out to be, that it wasn't the typical symmetrical two story building and that it had sort of an incomplete look to it. 

Once I established these guidelines for building, I started sketching different type of architecture for our library. I started out with one simple sketch and then after I completed it, I looked at it and decided which parts I didn't like and then erased and made revisions to it. While making these revisions, I always had the present day philosophy in the back of my mind and used that as a guide to shaping and designing our library. Also, I wanted to make sure that my sketches had a sort of inviting and appealing outlook to the people in the community and that the library had a design that completely differed from the traditional; a design that didn't look like a storehouse. 

Overall, I think that my thinking process throughout this project was fairly effective because I stuck to our rubric and compromised with my group about the final revisions. The only thing that surprised me about my thinking was the fact that I kept in mind my group members suggestions, which made the final piece a great work of compromise. The only thing that would be better would be to have the time to brainstorm and sketch together as a group, using all of our ideas and thoughts and revising them so that we came up with the best possible model. 

360 Degrees: Banksy and CCTV

First off, in order to understand this image, we must know that CCTV stands for Close Circuit Television which is a type of "television" that transmits signals to a specific place. CCTV is mainly used for surveillance in public places that need monitoring, such as schools and banks. The increased use of surveillance cameras in public areas all over the the U.S. is a major problem because it shows the type of relationship that the citizens of this country have with our government. By initiating these cameras, we are no longer allowed our privacy that has played such a major role in in the creation of our country. Being under constant surveillance takes away that Liberty and freedom that the citizens of this country thought they had. Being under constant surveillance takes away the trust between the government and the its subjects and we all know what happens to countries like this. Without trust and liberty, a nation is bound to collapse and wither away, especially a nation like ours that was specifically built off of trust. 

It is important to note how the whole slogan of this picture was taken from our pledge of allegiance to this country and transformed into a slogan that seems to capture people's attitude about our country. I mean, before "One Nation Under God" used to be motto, but whatever happened to that? Have we all lost our trust and belief in God? Maybe CCTV and technology in general has become so advanced because of us that it has sort of replaced the notion of omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience that God used to stand for. Maybe CCTV (or technology in general) is the "God" of our time. 

On the other hand, maybe I am thinking way to pessimistically about this photograph. I mean, is it such a bad thing to be under constant surveillance? Can there actually be an upside to this notion of losing our liberty? Maybe by having the government and other agencies watching our every move we are actually better off. I mean if you really think about it, having surveillance cameras does a lot of good. For one thing, if there is a crime happening, there is full record of it and the person committing the crime would suffer for it and therefore justice would be served. I'd like to believe that by having these cameras, we have the opportunity to not only learn from our mistakes, but from others as well. 

Obviously, there are many ways of looking at this image. By looking at and understanding all of these different angles that the photograph implies one can draw a very valid conclusion about the photograph; that it represents our contemporary philosophy. This philosophy is mainly based off the fact that we are so powerful and advanced technologically, but internally, we are just untrustworthy and "meaningless" creatures. 

Connection: Atmosphere and the Status Quo

When most people think of rap, they think of big African American with lots of jewels on and baggy clothes that can't ever seem to fit them right. They think of rthyum and rhymes and lyrics that almost always talk about violence, money or sexual intercourse. Of course this is just a stereotype that people put on rap music, but this is also the status quo.

Through out the whole week, we have read several articles on how different people and enterprises tried to challenge the status quo and how exactly they did it. The status quo (or the existing conditions of things) can be challenged in different ways. For example , Stravinsky challenged it through rhythymic and harmonic dissonance whereas Martin Luther King Jr. challenged it through his adaptation of non violence.  These are not the only ways to go about challenging the status quo, as the rapper Atmosphere demonstrates perhaps one of the most influential ways.

 Atmosphere is a young white rapper that seems to completely challenge all of these mis- illusions and preconceptions that we have of this subculture. Atmosphere is a rapper that raps about real life situations and things that most rappers are afraid to touch base on. In his songs, he not only raps about the government and the pros and cons of American society, but because his lyrics are so simple and deal with (most of the time) real life situations, most people can easily relate to his songs. Atmosphere is , in my opinion, an artist that not only challenges the status quo of rap music, but one that challenges the status quo for all music. He is an artist that tells the truth and connects with his audience through the simple experience of being human and that is why he is so great.

Metacognition: First Semester

This first semester in English has been a completely new experience for me. All the other years that I've spent in English have all been the same. Everyday we would read, answer questions and discuss the passage(s). This Humanities class however made me look at English class in a whole different way. During this past semester I have learned to alter my thought process into a more "philosophical" one. Instead of finding the perfect answer to something, I learned that there can never be one answer to any question (except math, maybe). Without even realizing it, this class has changed the way I think about things for the better.

This class helped me take a piece of information (or question) and other related information onto it so that I could get at a more reasonable and deep answer. Before this semester, i have always thought in a more linear fashion about things, but because of the philosophical emphasis in this class, i am now able to think in a more 360 degree fashion. Thinking like this and questioning every bit of information is something that I've never really done before. By thinking in this way, it has allowed me to find my personal truth to everything and in turn my philosophy on life.