This is my last one I have to do for this class YAY!!! Besides my outburst of glee, I still have to type this out. So my connection for this lovely morning is from Disney's Hercules. When little baby Herc got kidnapped by the little demon guys, he was supposed to drink all of a poison type potion thing that would turn him into a mortal. He was just about to drink the last little bit, when his new parents called out at exactly the right moment and he didn't turn fully mortal, earning him his future entitlement to a movie about him.
Yep, this blog is about fate. Of course, Hercules is an exaggerated vesion because it is Disney and they will make improbable situations like that. Regaurdless of that, what would have happend if the parents hadn't called out when they did, of Hades' little henchmen weren't so clumsy? Before that scene, Hades was talking to the Muses and they said that if he didn't do anything about Hercules, then he would foil Hades plans of world domination. In the movie, its obviously saying that you can't escape fate no matter what you do, Hercules would still save the day in the long run. But does that apply to real life? It's pretty hard to tell, since we don't have time machines. I personally beleive that there ae an infinite amount of parallel universes, whether or they they are accesable is irrelevant to this blog. So I believe that we have choices, and we can presume to choose them, but each choice forks off into a new situation or experience than the next. There's also the thought that our genes are preset so that our reactions and choices are pre determined. I don't really agree and I think this is long enough so I'm going on to my reflection.
In the last part of the book, Hilde and her father talk about the big bang. It makes you sort of look at things and realize how vast the universe is and how little we actually know. There could be book characters who have escaped their stories and are walking around right now hitting us in the head with wrenches to get our attention, and we wouldn't even know it. There are as many possibilities about the universe as people can imagine, and although we can assume they aren't true, there is absolutely no prof against it. So while we might think that we're dust mites of a strand of rabbit fur trying to climb to the top, that "hair" could be a peice of intricate bacteria we haven't dicsovered yet and this bacteria is searching for higher meaning by climbing deeper into a wormhole. We can say it's impossible, but Luna Lovegood said something along the lines of "it exists until proven non existy". And it's pretty hard to actually disprove that the tooth fairy doesn't just inspire the parents to deal in terms of teeth. So this book gave me the perspective that Socrates was right. "All I know is that I know nothing". That basically describes what I'm feeling right now, especially seeing as I have this final next hour and I know absolutely nothing. Anyways, thank you for reading this blog if you happen to stumble upon it. Maybe I'll taike up a legit one that I'm not forced to do for a class and be able to write about more interesting stuff.
- Sassafras
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Connection and Reflection (6)
My connection for today comes from a book that I read last year called "Something Wicked this way Comes". In all honesty, I thought it sucked. It gave a very 1 dimensional view of good and evil, so much in fact that I thought the book was almost a satire and would end with the "evil" turning out to be nothing more than paranoia. Sadly, it didn't end this way and I was quite confused. The book made it blatantly clear that there was a definite line between good and evil, but I don't agree. The people modern society considers evil never think of what their doing as wrong. In "Something Wicked this way Comes", they didn't really add any character development to the bad guys, so that doesn't really count. But all real people who have committed crimes that seem inhuman do it either because of a mental state or for some sort of greater good cause. Sure, people can be greedy and selfish, but those qualities in and of itself are not all bad. They are survival traits. When you see on the animal channel about how different animals fight to get mates and the ones that don't just end up dying, we don't look at those winners as evil. Technically they just killed another of their kind to get a mate. Plus, there are so many cultures and so many definitions of what's evil that finding an absolute evil that biology determines for everyone is impossible. There are immoral decisions, don't get me wrong, but I believe that no act nor person can be completely and purely evil. Even in the worst torture I've learned about, WW2. The Nazis weren't "evil". They thought that they were doing the world a favor and starting a new super-civilization. They certainly weren't being moral in my mindset, but it was all caused by ignorance, greed, cowardliness, and a whole lot of other crap. But note how these acts in and of themselves are not evil, it's only when you take them to ridiculous extremes that they become harmful. Onwards...
This weeks edition of reflecting upon Sophie's World is going to be centered around Romanticism. I have some more background information on Romanticism than the book explains, so I'm sorry if I sound too much like a genius...Oh wait, I always do that. Anyways, I think that a healthy does of Romanticism is important. Freedom of expression seems to be flourishing with Lady Gaga but not so much in daily social life. My dad and I actually had an argument over the way I held a fork. I said that it was my individual choice and style to hold a fork so brashly, as it is more comfortable for me to stab my food like I'm holding a sword. Dad said that I was making him look bad in public, and I asked why he should care what people judge of him, you should be confident enough in your parenting abilities that other people's glances shouldn't bother you. He said it was selfish for me to make him look bad; I said it was selfish for him to depend on me to make him look good. This was a very casual argument by the way, no chairs were thrown in the restaurant. I think I ended up losing just because my brothers agreed with my dad like a bunch of suck-ups but that's off topic, and I would just hate to be off-topic. So having a sense of your true self is important, and if everyone acknowledged their feelings that everyone has but still feel shameful of like jealousy or just plain out wanting something, instead of pretending we're all little angels, maybe we could realize that humans did not evolve to be perfect and I think if we faced that fact, we might be able to get a lot more accomplished and live more fulfilling lives. But that's incredibly idealistic, which is another thing the Romantics liked. Idealism is good in doses, but refusing to face the reality of situations can lead to some serious consequences. So, I believe that a balance is important; you can take a lot of good things away from the Romantics, but we also must keep in mind that we are living in reality.
This weeks edition of reflecting upon Sophie's World is going to be centered around Romanticism. I have some more background information on Romanticism than the book explains, so I'm sorry if I sound too much like a genius...Oh wait, I always do that. Anyways, I think that a healthy does of Romanticism is important. Freedom of expression seems to be flourishing with Lady Gaga but not so much in daily social life. My dad and I actually had an argument over the way I held a fork. I said that it was my individual choice and style to hold a fork so brashly, as it is more comfortable for me to stab my food like I'm holding a sword. Dad said that I was making him look bad in public, and I asked why he should care what people judge of him, you should be confident enough in your parenting abilities that other people's glances shouldn't bother you. He said it was selfish for me to make him look bad; I said it was selfish for him to depend on me to make him look good. This was a very casual argument by the way, no chairs were thrown in the restaurant. I think I ended up losing just because my brothers agreed with my dad like a bunch of suck-ups but that's off topic, and I would just hate to be off-topic. So having a sense of your true self is important, and if everyone acknowledged their feelings that everyone has but still feel shameful of like jealousy or just plain out wanting something, instead of pretending we're all little angels, maybe we could realize that humans did not evolve to be perfect and I think if we faced that fact, we might be able to get a lot more accomplished and live more fulfilling lives. But that's incredibly idealistic, which is another thing the Romantics liked. Idealism is good in doses, but refusing to face the reality of situations can lead to some serious consequences. So, I believe that a balance is important; you can take a lot of good things away from the Romantics, but we also must keep in mind that we are living in reality.
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