Is That It?: 2010

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

A Mile in Someone Else's Shoes

If you want to understand someone's point of view, it is said that we are to walk a mile in their shoes. An interesting idea, but there are many questions to be asked about that. For example, what if their shoes don't fit? What if they don't want to give you their shoes? Or perhaps the best question, what if you don't want to take their shoes?

If we want to learn about different people, it is important that we take into account their perspective as well as trying to incorporate ours as well. As for the first question, some people are stubborn. Sometimes, someone else's ideas are so abstract to you that you cannot rightly consider there ideas. These ideas are just too off of your norm. How is it that we can even listen to someone and take them seriously when what they say just sounds impossible to us. If we are to walk a mile in someone's shoes we'd better make sure that they fit because if we are not comfortable with someone's shoes, there is no way we're going to walk anywhere with them.

Secondly, not everyone is up for a discussion. I, personally, love to talk, about anything, but not everyone is like me. Just because I have and idea and I want to discuss it with someone else, doesn't mean they'll want to talk to me. Do learn something new, or hear from someone with ideas unlike our own, we need to convince them they should share their ideas (shoes).

The biggest problem with encountering someone unlike ourselves is actually considering their information as important. We come into a conversation without keeping an open mind, there is no way that anything the person (or thing) has to teach us will be absorbed. We must come into a discussion with an open mind, we should try our best not to condemn the other person, but at the same time, we must be sure that we do not simply accept whatever the other person has to say. If we don't want to consider other people's ideas, and simply ignore anything someone poses that is contradictory to our own, how are we ever supposed to learn if we do not even give ourselves a chance.

As long as we are open to learning, there will always be people to teach us new things. Keep in mind that everyone has valuable information, and we can allow ourselves to walk forever in many different shoes. This metaphor may be clique, but it works. We can walk for our entire lifetime, and even if we don't end up exactly where we wanted to, we need to consider all of what we learned along the way as important too.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Who am I?

We see ourselves as the top of the food chain on Earth. We do what we want to the other animals of Earth with no consequence. There is no fear of predators or other animals stalking and eating us, excluding perhaps bears or cougars in certain areas. We, as humans, see ourselves as the best possible being, but we are incredibly miniscule in comparison to the world around us. We live in a large world, or at least we see it that way, and yet our world is part of a galaxy that, in comparison, is infinitely diminutive in relation to the universe as a whole. We say that man is grand because of the civilizations we can build and the interactions we make between one another, but with how big the universe is, it is extremely likely that we are not the only ones that can make such connections and have the abilities to build that we do, or perhaps have even better ways of doing these things. In the grand scheme of things, human beings, or even the planet we live on, is nothing. In math, infinity is not inconceivable, it is rather common. There are infinite possible numbers positively and negatively, but that is a very simple example of infinity. From 0 to 1 there are infinitely many numbers, as there are between 1 and 2 and so on. Infinity is everywhere. As there are infinitely many possible numbers, there are theoretically infinitely many planets, solar systems, and galaxies. If the universe is random, it is extremely likely that with that many different possible planets, that one houses a being similar to us. We are as special to the universe as a slab of granite is to us.
Just as we are infinitely small relative to the universe, we too are infinitely large. Our bodies are made up of muscles, tissues, and organs that build up our bodies. These are built up of small organic materials made of up molecules, atoms, etc. As we continue to analyze what we are made up of, we see smaller and smaller components that make us up. In the same way that we believe the universe is infinite, there are also infinitely small parts that make up our anatomy.
As I try to imagine something infinitely small or large, I reach an unsolvable problem. We want to understand what makes up the world around us, but how can we attempt to imagine a infinity of pieces making up an infinity universe? There is a story about a well- scientist (Bertrand Russell) who was describing the orbit of the earth about the sun. After his lecture, an old woman stood up and told Russell he was wrong. That the world is flat and is on the back of a tortoise. The scientist smiled before saying "What is the tortoise standing on?" In this way, the scientist showed that we are never going to be satisfied with an answer to "What makes up our universe?" If we are told the universe is made up of atoms, then we want to make up atoms, if atoms are made up of neutrons, protons, and electrons, then what makes up these? If we continue to ask this question, we reach a point where we are unable to answer it. No matter how hard we try, there is never a definite answer, and yet we continue to search.
I occasionally try to think about what my place is on earth, what it is that I want to do with my life. What will make it worthwhile? But I avoid ever thinking about my place in the universe. I find that you get nowhere. We can use all the technology and knowledge about the universe that we have now, but we will still never understand completely what our place is in our universe or even the importance of our planet. If you want to try and think about makes up our planet, go ahead, but I'm going to stay happily ignorant.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Vampires Don't Sparkle

The vampires in (film we watched in class) had Christopher Lee portray the classic vampire. A creature with the desires to kill and eat humans who are helpless to resist. Nowadays, it seems that every new vampire TV show or movie is trying to be different, to show that vampires have the capacity to love a human girl. Vampires were ALWAYS part of the horror genre until Twilight. Vampires don't glitter when they're in the sun, they turn to dust. They are not to fall in love with or accepted as part of society, they should be seen a creatures of the night, and feared by the entire world, as they could be attacked without warning and become the next target of a vampire attack and would have no defense against their immense power. Humans are like a gazelle to a lion. We are the natural prey of the vampire, and we should be seen in a way complimentary of such a relationship. You don't see a gazelle falling in love with a lion, or vice versa. They are natural enemies and the lion has ways to trick the gazelle, but they aren't trying to mate with them (at least I hope not), so why is it that today's media thinks people should become the vampire's lover, when we do not find ourselves falling in love with cows (most of us).

I will admit to having read the series, but throughout I thought "I wonder when they're going to steak someone." or "I can't wait until those humans get totally eaten by those vampires. That's what they get putting themselves in such a monstrous type of company." It didn't happen. To me, modern films and novels that portray vampires in this way are less 'changing the way you view vampires' but creating a parody of them. In nearly every instance, vampires are chasing after their prey and having nearly limitless abilities that give them the upper hand over humans. They have the power to hypnotize a human into doing whatever they say, and often to get a meal with no fight. Everything about vampires is to help them kill humans, not love them. Vampires used to be humans, it is true, and therefore, it is true that some may still retain some of their humanity. For example, in nearly every version of Dracula, he has a bride, or strives to get one, but never does he keep her as a human. In fact, the girl is often very young and has no choice in the matter. It's not like she's in love with him, he forces her, and turns her into a vampire like him. Just another reason to fear vampires, not have an infatuation with them. The actors that have played Dracula in the past were all dressed in make-up or in some other way took on the appearance of an evil being. People see Robert Pattenson on the street and mob him because they think his character was so beautiful in the Twilight films, but you don't see girls running after Christopher Lee, asking him to marry them. It is true that he is much older now, but it is because he portrayed a vampire in the way they were meant to be, as a grotesque monster that should be feared not loved. With blood-shoot red eyes, large fangs, and often blood on his face, no one would not be at least startled by such an appearance.

Monster movies were made so that the audience could come to the theatre and be thrilled by the idea of a mythical creature that is terrorizing a civilization similar or identical to ours. We think, "It's good that such creatures aren't really," but if we are to desensitize the public to the creatures that used to scare the generation pervious to ours, we instill a new norm for the vampire. With this norm, the creation of believable and scary vampire movies become a challenge since they must show their target audience that these monsters are to be feared, not sympathized with and NEVER loved. These inventive monster movie creators must find a way to accomplish this in a new and inventive way that will appeal to the public, but this becomes more and more difficult as more television shows and movies portray a contradicting view of these creatures.