Political Ideals

Well, as mentioned in the last post, I am going to be continuing my investigation of the role of government and politics and attempt to put this work by Bertrand Russell in conversation with Thoreau's piece. Hopefully this will work.

One good quote from this work is the following: "For this reason  the men who believe in force are the men whose thoughts and desires are preoccupied with material goods." I whole-heartedly agree with this observation and I immediately thought of the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a U.S-led coalition. While many official reasons were put forth by the White House, over the years some alternate theories have risen in popularity to explain what really happened. One must be extremely cautious when reading these because some are so off the wall that they cannot be taken seriously, while others seem entirely possible. Bush claimed that he wished to enter Iraq to oust the malevolent dictator Saddam Hussein. By removing Saddam from power, a figure who had been in power for twenty-some years and had been, to put it colloquially, a pest to the American government. If one thinks back nearly a decade, he is the reason why Bush Sr. entered the region when his aggression towards Kuwait was taken to an intolerable level. Bush promised that by removing this man from power, that democracy, peace and stability in the Middle East would soon follow suit. Thus, the coalition was formed to forcibly enter Iraq. Not to immediately ensure democracy, peace and stability for the Iraqi people, but rather to secure oil interests near the Gulf and in southern Iraq/Kuwait. If those were disrupted, the flow of oil to the United States would lessen, thus plunging the economy into the tank. Thus, if we take Russell's observation and apply it to this situation, one can see that the U.S. was not interested in securing what it overtly promised (at least not at first). Once they used force to enter Iraq (which, granted, did not require a ton of force), the U.S. was after material items/gain, for men who believe in force are preoccupied with material goods (such as oil).

However, is this observation absolutely correct for every situation? I wondered and thought of the Wars of Religion in 16th century Europe. As one can assume from the name, these were religious wars fought between different sects of Christianity (mainly Catholics and Protestants) over which tradition was more correct and orthodox. There were clearly some spiritual, religious motives behind the use of force in these instances, so does that refute Russell's position? I think not because while a religious bent may have been a motivation for fighting, I do not think that it was the sole purpose for war. I believe the men leading these factions were also interested (to some degree) in acquiring land, wealth, fame, etc.

He briefly gives some "rules to live by" which include:
(1) be concerned with creative impulses rather than possessive impulses -- meaning that rather than being concerned with property and the acquisition thereof, be more concerned with spiritual, intellectual, and cultural achievements. I totally agree with this rule because I also think that we are too focused on making money that we tend to lack in other "creative" profits we can receive in this world, which ultimately tend to make everyone better off.
(2) have a reverence for others -- basically, respect others around you. This is definitely a rule that we instill in children from a young age, which ultimately makes many, if not all, grown individuals respectful of those around them.
(3) Respect for self and consciousness -- pretty self-explanatory. Respect yourself and the fact that you are a cognizant being.

Basically, then, what his rules boil down to are: respect yourself, respect others, and don't worry about the money, be more concerned with rewards that can benefit society in a different way.

Speaking of war and invasion, an interesting quote from him is the following: "War is recognized as an evil by an immense majority in every civilized country: but this recognition does not prevent war." We all know it is wrong and ought to be stopped, because that is the right thing to do, yet we are drawn to inactivity rather than action, which is something that Thoreau also brings to the fore in his piece on civil disobedience. Both of these men, then, are calling us to become more active citizens to create a better world for ourselves and our posterity.

I think this ought to suffice for today, but I will definitely be adding to this post in a continuation of this work of his. In the next section he will denounce capitalism and the wage system and attempts to point out why it is wrong and ought to be overthrown. Should make for an interesting discussion. Until next time!

Thoreau, Pt. 2

Onwards...

So, after getting through a majority of this essay, I hit this roadblock wherein Thoreau states: "I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a god place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad." I find this to be a bit troubling considering throughout the entirety of the essay, Thoreau is urging people to step up and challenge the government and the injustices it inflicts upon its citizens and other injustices in general. It seems as if he is also prescribing a model for the ideal society, which would be inherently good since it would be ideal (unless, of course, one wishes for a world of evil to exist). Thus, I have a problem with this man over this statement. There is nothing more to it, really, just something I found to be a bit inconsistent considering the rest of the paper.

In going along somewhat of the same lines as the previous paragraph, he also is a strong believer that society is all talk and no action, and what he thinks we ought to do is act rather than just sit and talk about it. This would also go against what he says earlier in the paper (as noted in the previous paragraph) because he claims that he is not on Earth to change the world, he is just meant to live in it. Maybe that is what he is meant to do. Maybe Thoreau personally is not meant to be active, yet he is meant to actively tell others that they ought to be active. It still seems to me that he is a hypocrite in this regard.

A big debate Katrina and I had after reading this and discussing it came from the following quote: "Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue: for money comes between a man and his objects." And another, just a few sentences later: "The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as that are called the 'means' are increased." The first quote Katrina had a major issue with because she asked if that meant the completely virtuous person would have to be dirt poor, with no money at all. I could understand where she was getting this from, but at the same time, the opposite end is not defined either. Thoreau, in this quote, does not seem to mention what a completely immoral person would be either. Thinking of it as a graph, with money on the x-axis and virtue on the y-axis, Katrina thought that the point (0,infinity) was included and was to be deemed the completely virtuous person. What I pointed out, after I disagreed with her, was that there is no such point as (infinity, 0), the completely immoral person. Therefore, it must start somewhere in the middle, or we ought to not think of it in terms of graphs at all. Maybe Thoreau did not intend for us to think of this in terms of a graph, but rather as merely the statement he makes in this essay.

Once we had that issue out of the way, we proceeded to talk about whether the meat of the sentence was true or not. I tended to believe that it was while Katrina thought otherwise. I thought that it was a well stated observation and held some validity. Thinking about many of the famous/rich people in our society, it seems to me that many of them, with their millions upon millions of dollars, do not do virtuous acts as often as the more moderately rich or middle-class or poor. While they donate millions of their dollars to charities, that does not make a person virtuous. Money is easy to give away, time is not. If they were to give some more of their time away, I think that would be a different story, but many simply give money as an easy and lazy way out of donating time. It seems to me that middle class folk cannot give away money as readily, but they can (and often do) give up some of their time to care for others or whatever. Basically, we determined that these quotes were referring to materialism and who is more materialistic. I (and Thoreau) claimed that the rich were more concerned with material items while the poor/middle class were more concerned with being good people (including to others). Katrina argued the opposite, that everyone (including those who are poor) are materialistic. I could also see the logic behind her reasoning here, as those who are not particularly well off in the financial field tend to aspire for material objects, which can be considered materialistic. There is definitely some validity there as well. Many of the people from the lower end of the economic pyramid tend to aspire for bigger, better, brighter items. So, after discussing this, we decided that agreeing to disagree would probably be the best course of action.

To conclude my post and the unit on Thoreau, I will pose a large question that I came to about halfway through this reading. I will also attempt to answer it, but not too in depth because...well...because I don't know what to think about it, quite frankly.

Anyhow, it seems quite obvious that Thoreau was really angry with the American government and its role in society and was decrying its injustices against loyal citizens, but at the same time, it seems that the message throughout the essay was optimistic, providing an answer to the question: What am I to do in this life? What is the purpose of living? I think that Thoreau, between the complaining, ranting, raving, and angsting has provided for us readers somewhat of a purpose/course of action in this life on Earth. I think Thoreau makes us challenge our apathy and inactivity and urges us to become active citizens of whichever nation to which we declare allegiance. Therefore, maybe he is also providing people with a sense of hope and usefulness in their lives because that is what a large portion of philosophy is, at least in my opinion. This question of what we are to do, etc. is a huge question that philosophy tries to provide answers to and tackle head-on. I dunno though. Maybe I am completely off my rocker here.

Stay tuned for the next installment and a reflection of Bertrand Russell essay concerning politics. 'Twas interesting and connected nicely with Thoreau.

Civil Disobedience

As I mentioned in my last post, I am planning on reading some philosophical works and then posting my reflections on here. Dunno if anyone is really going to care about it, but that was the purpose of this blog in the first place, so I shall therefore continue to uphold its reputation as such. As can be inferred from the title, I read Henry David Thoreau's 1849 essay "Civil Disobedience." What follows are my thoughts I had while reading the essay and some further expansions of some ideas.

Throughout the entire essay, Thoreau continually relates back to the Mexican-American War, which he despised. He also has a big qualm with slavery, another topic that he uses to illustrate some of his points unrelated to slavery and also in direct relation to slavery.

At the outset of the essay, Thoreau makes a bold statement and exclaims his belief in the maxim "That government is best which governs not at all." I immediately thought about what political affiliation he would have in the modern day. I think that this would put him at the libertarian end of things, wanting the government to keep their hands completely off society. I also assumed that he would be opposed to socialism, but what about communism? I think it is the common misconception that communism is also a super tight and strict form of government, but according to Marx, communism is a system without government. If there is no government, then there is no governing taking place, which is something Thoreau seems to be desiring. Regardless of what political party Thoreau belongs to, it no doubt raises the question: why would we want to get rid of the government? Thoreau goes into more depth with his answer to this, but I believe one of the main points he makes is that government functions merely as a expedient, that is to say, all it does is speed things up. Many would argue that government, specifically bureaucratic government (such as the U.S.), tends to bog down the system with its immense amount of paperwork and formalities. However, Thoreau viewed it as being a service which speeds up processes.

Another of his major points is that society is too mechanized, which is definitely something that ought to change. He states, "I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward." As the title of the essay suggests, Thoreau was calling for open warfare on the law and established order of the U.S. government at the time. He said that the law frequently produces injustices to everyone, to which we ought to rise against and stop respecting the law. If something is morally objectionable, then one ought to raise a fuss about it and then disobey it because you must be a man first, and a subject later. If you are merely a subject, I believe Thoreau would imagine you to be at a loss for your humanity because you become part of the machine rather than a unique individual human being. He uses the example of soldiers who frequently do things they would normally never do, but do them anyways because they are commanded to do so. They compromise their own morals in order to retain respect for the government and the law. I think I would be in accord with Thoreau on this stance because there is no government in the world that I would follow if it made me do something that went against any of my morals. I prize my humanity too dearly to be subjected to immoral activities imposed upon me by the government.

Another one of his main points is that people are hesitant to act and decry morally reprehensible activities. He relates this back to the war and slavery: "There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them." Clearly there are many individuals who find slavery and the war to be foolish ideas, yet no one (as of then) was rebelling against the government. He claims that "they will wait, well disposed, for other to remedy the evil." Rather than taking the individual initiative, they are going to wait for someone else to call out the government. To be perfectly honest, after reading this I found this statement to be incredibly true for myself. Typically, I find myself to be calling out immoral activities, but in the grand scheme of things, I think that I could definitely improve in this regard.

There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote.

When Katrina and I were discussing this essay, we both came to this passage and highlighted it and actually went on some wild tangents that Thoreau never discusses in this essay. One of the tough questions we had to deal with is whether or not morality and morals are inherent in human beings. Katrina was adamant that they were, but I was skeptical. As she explained her reasoning, she explained how the groups we are part of tend to shape our morals. An example of this, though not used by Katrina during our discussion, is Christianity. There are certain Christian ethics that people tend to adhere to because of their membership of the larger Christian community. However, I quickly pointed out that this means that our morals are shaped by society then. We are not ourselves knowledgeable about the differences between right and wrong. We determine what is right and wrong by living within a community and being surrounded by people who teach us morals. We are not born with this inherent ability to make a distinction between moral and immoral, right and wrong. I believe, if memory serves me right, that we agreed to disagree on that topic. However, it raised another wildly off topic discussion.

Throughout this piece, Thoreau claims that the government ought to bow down to individual wishes made by its individual citizens. That is to say, rather than going with majority sentiment, a proper government ought to listen to every single individual and accommodate them. ((Side note: This is, in my opinion, a rather silly idea because then no consistency can be reached, as appeasing Joe Blow will likely anger Jane Doe.)) We got into a discussion of politics and how I thought that Thoreau was angry (and would still be angry) with the two-party system we have in the United States. Yes, we do have some Independents in our government, but overall, the political environment of the U.S. has been dominated by Repubs and Dems. This stands in contrast to many European parliamentary systems (notably the UK, France, Russia, Germany, India [yeah, not European, but once ruled by Europeans and therefore greatly influenced by European politics]) wherein various parties have a say in government. While sometimes a single party can obtain a majority in parliament, it is more often than not the case that parties must form coalitions in order for the government to function and get things done. Under coalition governments, if one member of the government dissents and goes against another party, thus withdrawing their seats in that government, the parliament is dissolved, and new elections must be cast. My point in bringing this example up is, in a certain sense, two-fold. First, it seems that in these European parliamentary systems (often referred to simply as multi-party systems, as these systems exist in countries outside of Europe) more individualized voices can be heard, whereas in the U.S. you have to side with either the Red or the Blue, you do not get the pink, purple, yellow, green, and tan options to choose from. So, while it is not a perfect system, multi-party systems, I would imagine, would tend to please Thoreau. While this is no perfect solution to the problem Thoreau is concerned with, it does increase individualization of government. Additionally, it also gives more individual right to govern, as exemplified by the simple fact that if one member of the government dissents, the government is dissolved and new elections must be called. In conclusion, then, it seems that Thoreau was really angry with the American political atmosphere and its lack of individualization and personal catering to its citizens.

I think I may stop there for this post, as I am noticing it already getting extremely long. I definitely have more on Thoreau and other philosophers as well, so be prepared and bring your thinking caps.

End of Year Review

Alright, it has been quite a while since my last post and as I mentioned in it, I was going to provide a bit of a year review and reflection time. So, here goes.

First semester at Drake. What can I say? It was a lovely time while it lasted. Really. It was. I was sort of sad by the end of the semester when I was just starting to get to know more people and I was leaving. Drake allowed me to make some guy friends (which is sorta strange and a never-before seen feat for me). Anyhow, I made some great friends and was able to open myself up to meeting other people. I remember when I first got there last August I was feeling really good about the opportunities to meet people. I had to first open myself up a bit more and be a bit more outgoing, which was sort of a stretch for me considering I am one of those people that needs to be talked to first before I start really talking to you. That is to say, once you start talking with me, I generally will not shut up. If that doesn't occur, then I will probably never talk to you. I realized that this is a silly policy and have tried to reverse that as much as possible this year. I think I have done a pretty good job because now I am able to talk to many people easily, which should definitely come in handy in the future, especially in the workplace. But yeah, the first month was pretty cool. I met a lot of awesome people, professors, and was able to be independent...I mean, truly independent. As the semester progressed, I became closer and closer friends with people on my floor and it was really awesome. I am still in frequent contact with these people (minus a few) and we are keeping each other updated on stuff, so it looks like a good possibility that these are friends for life. The semester went on, I became more social and started going to this Philosophical discussion thing at Drake that my Ethics prof told me about. I started going and started thinking about the larger picture. That once a week discussion combined with the extensive reading assignments of my actual philosophy class really pushed me to become a more critical thinker, which came in handy especially in the form of this blog. I was also told at the end of the semester by my ethics prof that I would be a great addition to the philosophy department. I doubted that considering I do not have the innate critical thinking skills that many in that department seem to have. However, I do enjoy my dabblings in philosophy now. I also learned a great deal about global politics in my comparative politics class. After taking the history of the modern Middle East, the unit on Egypt in that class really assisted in my understanding of the countries around it and especially the revolution the country experienced in February. I really enjoyed that course and I really enjoy thinking about politics. I have even thought recently about changing to a poli sci major, but on second thought it is a poor choice, in my opinion, because of my poor performance in econ. But, you never know what the future holds for certain, eh? My FYS course got me really excited about the Balkans, a region that I knew little about until this course. Having this knowledge also helped me in the Middle East history course because we talked about the Ottoman Empire, which the Balkans were part of for more than 200 years. I also enjoyed the literature aspect of this course and it has pushed me to think more deeply about literature I read. I even entertained the idea of pursuing something with English literature, but I crossed that off my list because it is far too interpretive and to a certain degree ambiguous. Sociology last semester was sort of an interesting class, but it was too easy and did not challenge me enough.

Aside from the academics of last semester, I also learned many important socializing skills, as I have already briefly discussed. Overall, the first semester was incredible. I would not change it for the world.

But now I am at Luther, and loving it even more. There are so many opportunities for scholarship that I was never aware of at Drake. There are incredible amounts of interesting lecture topics, academic opportunities, and a sense of academic and social community, whereas Drake mostly felt like living at a hotel. My courses this semester were really interesting and assisted me in developing my interests a ton. I took a religion course during J-Term and absolutely loved it. It got me so excited, even though it was a lot of speculation and guesswork. Then during the spring semester, I took intro. to the Bible and learned even more about Christianity and it has sparked my interest even further. I am really interested in studying the historical interaction of religion with society. My Bible prof. really liked me and even talked to me about becoming a religion major or minor, which I thought would not fit within my schedule, but now it does. Thus, I am a religion minor (for the moment...a lot of this depends on the availability of courses and whatnot). My modern history of the Middle East, as I have already demonstrated in the previous section, really linked up to a lot of the stuff I did last semester and even (given the modern time period in which we focused) enhanced my current political understanding of the region. It was really useful and we talked about a lot of relevant topics (including the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq, and Iran). Good stuff. I was a bit wary at first about taking this course because I was not sure that I wanted to really study anything other than European history, but I am so glad I did. As I said, it enhanced my understanding of current events, but it also increased my knowledge of Islam. I came into the course with a lot of holes in my knowledge of Islam, as virtually all I heard about Islam was little tidbits and factoids. I held a very vague picture of this intricate religious tradition, but after a semester of talking about the interplay between the state and Islam, I have become aware of the complexities of Islam. One cannot simply boil down something as complex as Islam to a few basic beliefs. I remember a lecture I went to entitled "Was Jesus a Muslim?" and the lecturer (my J-Term prof, actually) said that anyone familiar in the least bit with Islam would probably know about the 5 Pillars of Islam. However, when one generally thinks of these pillars as principles that basically boil down the religion to 5 easy tenants. However, the analogy that he used, which he heard from some imam, was that the 5 Pillars of Islam provide a framework from which the entire religion is formed around. But at any rate, I learned a great deal about Islam. Paideia (a combo of history and English) was Paideia. It was reading and writing. Pretty basic. Pretty boring and even though it was supposed to be highly discussion-based, it truly was lacking in that department. Finally, my Spanish course. Super nice professor. SUPER nice. Really simple class though. This prof (named Rita Tejada or simply Tejada) recommended me for a spot in the Language Learning Center (LLC) wherein I can help students with their Spanish homework and do assorted other things and get paid for it. Pretty exciting stuff. She also said that I can speak Spanish really well and after a semester of immersion abroad (required for the major) I should have a pretty darn authentic accent down, which makes me happy because that is something I have been striving for for many years.

At any rate, this semester was pretty academically easy, but extremely informative. Aside from courses, I have also been participating in another philosophical society/discussion thing, enhancing even further my understanding of various famous philosophers, ideas, concepts, and world-views. I will be doing some independent (and with Katrina) studying of pretty well-known philosophers and then probably be posting my reflections on them here, so be on the lookout for that this summer. The social side of this semester was pretty awesome. I got accepted into Katrina's group of friends pretty easily and have some pretty good relationships with a lot of the people in that group, but I have also had the chance to make some good friends on the side. Ali from DQ is still a really good friend, and I managed to make friends with Jenni (another girl on Katrina's floor) and then my roomie for next year, Cody. I am really excited to room with Cody because he seems to be a totally awesome dude and we should have a fun year.

Anyhow, this post is getting long. Look forward to some more philosophical insights this summer.

Nostalgia

I was going through my music last night when I remembered something that I have thought about for a long time. You know how people remember where they were when significant things happened in their life? Such examples include the assassination of JFK and 9/11. Well, I have somewhat of the same concept here, except it is through music. There are some songs and artists that remind me of my past experiences and I think back to them and remember them quite vividly. That is to say, as soon as the song comes on and I recognize it, I immediately think about the moment which I associate with them. This usually takes only a matter of seconds before the hardcore nostalgia kicks in. So, as I was going through my music last night, I decided to make a list of individual songs, albums, and artists that remind me of different people, places, and experiences. This is by no means an exhaustive list, rather merely representative of this phenomenon I am talking about:


Entire Sci-Fi Crimes CD by Chevelle -- University of Minnesota, fall of my senior year of high school, studying/reading my history textbook outside on the West Bank


Fall Out Boy -- bus rides in middle school, especially with Haily Hansen


Girl Talk -- Erik and Greg from Drake University


Jonas Brothers -- Duluth trip when the band was popular with Marissa Olsen


"Closer to Habit" by Allele -- driving to the University of Minnesota in the spring of my senior year


"Luna" by Juanes -- for some reason, cleaning at DQ with Tho


Led Zeppelin -- the movie "School of Rock" starring Jack Black


Linkin Park -- walking to the bus stop and waiting for it to arrive in my old neighborhood with Ryan Garves


"Union" by The Black Eyed Peas -- 8th grade Honors English class (we used it in a video concerning the war in Iraq I believe)


Panic! At The Disco (especially the first CD) -- Haily Hansen's house during the summers during my middle school years


Good Charlotte -- my karaoke incident in the car on a road trip to Indiana I believe


Mayday Parade -- January 2010 when I was in Florida


"Mockingbird" by Eminem -- one of Amanda's soccer practices when she was younger


"Crazy Bitch" by Buckcherry -- Gina at DQ. Now as ironic as that sounds, I was thinking about her dancing to the song. However, after that memory popped into my head, I found it quite ironic that the title of the song fit her person so well.


Dave Matthews Band -- Cheryl Gustafson at Lighthouse


Bullet For My Valentine -- driving to Katrina's house, blasting their music.


"Umbrella" by Rihanna -- CJ Sulzle and my first year/(first week?) at Lighthouse


Shinedown -- Ryan Garves and even more specifically, the time I went to his cabin and we listened to their stuff. This was a long time ago, like middle school days.


Red Jumpsuit Apparatus -- Fire Emblem. I used to listen to them and play Fire Emblem (which is an awesome game, by the way) on my DS a lot when I was younger.




I thought that I would post something since I have not done so in a while, even though this post is probably not as insightful as my others. However, I will be posting again in a few weeks for sure, after school is over, to evaluate my year, so look forward to that. Only one full week of school left, then finals week, then home and enslavement at DQ for the summer. Huzzah!


¡Hasta la próxima vez!

Death and Co.

So it has been awhile since I last posted. Sorry about that, but things have been a tad hectic around here. Not to the point where I am losing my marbles (don't worry...I just counted and they are still there), but enough that it was a bit difficult to find time to write another post. Also, due to low self-esteem about these posts, I had to come up with a topic that would be interesting and thoughtful. That being said, let us now turn to the actual text of this post.

Caution: This will not be a very happy post, just so you are warned at the outset.

For my Intro. to Bible class we were reading some selections from the Apocrypha (for Catholic readers that would just be the books at the end of the Old Testament, Protestants do not have this in their version of the Bible) specifically in 2 Maccabees in which stories of martyrdom are presented and the characters are depicted as being heroic. The figures in these books were willing to die for their faith and refused to change deviate from their religious tradition simply because someone was oppressing them so badly. Jews in the text were being forced to eat pork, which is strictly against Jewish law. I then asked myself if there was anything I would be willing to die for, such as these martyrs did.

My initial reaction was that I could not think of anything that means so much to me that I would be willing to die for them. Perhaps this is because I am too young and have not experienced the world sufficiently so I simply have not found anything worth dying for yet. However, I thought that since I was unwilling to die for anything in particular maybe that meant I was a bit too open? Maybe you are reading this and it is making absolutely no sense, but I will try to explain. All right. So, what I mean is that since I do not hold anything quite so dearly or care about anything with immense amounts of passion that I am therefore open. That is to say, I am open by virtue of having nothing that I cling to so dearly that I would not be able to live without. Things in my life can come and go as they please because they are merely things. Maybe the universe has something better intended for me than clinging to these items. Perhaps an example will illuminate what I am trying to say. In the above example from the biblical text, the Jews in Maccabees had such a strong connection and relationship to their faith that they felt as if they could not live without it. I mean, they were willing to die before changing their ways. In a sense, it may seem as if they were stubborn or close-minded. Since I have no item or thing with this sort of connection, then maybe I am too open to change and do not hang on to items like that. Rather than clinging to one item and living a stagnant life, I am open to change in the pursuit of an interesting life. As a minor side note/tangent/disclaimer, I am not saying that if you hold on to things from the past that you lead a boring and monotonous life. I am suggesting that if you were to open yourself up to change that more opportunities would come your way and, in my opinion, would lead to a more well-rounded, balanced exposure to life and all this world has to offer.

Since there is nothing that I personally deem worthy of dying for, does that make me a bad person? I sure do not view myself as being a bad person, but my opinion is biased. I do not know of anyone who thinks I am a bad person, but that does not mean that I am a particularly good person. Maybe I simply am a person, not good, not bad, simply neutral.

I cannot provide examples of things I would die for, but that does not mean that there are not things in life that I would live for. There are tons of things to live for, and I live to hopefully someday experience those things and to continue to experience things I already experience. Friends, family, the prospects of a career in the future, a family in the future. All of these things I find extremely appealing and they are what keep me going.  Is this a more optimistic view of life as compared to what you would die for? Rather than being a Debbie Downer and thinking about dying, I am thinking positively and optimistically at life and thinking about the present and all the things I am looking forward to in the future. I dunno. Just a thought that occurred to me as I was writing this.

To move along to another aspect of this passage we read, I started to think about what comes after life and what it means to be dead. Pretty big, serious stuff, I know. Philosophers spend lifetimes pondering these things possibly never reaching a definite conclusion. However, I would like to tackle this issue. Maybe a little less than a tackle though...maybe more like a light shove or bump, since just this post is concerned with death at the moment.

I suppose that death can be described as the absence of life (which would definitely need a definition of life, another lifelong quest that many fail to ever conclude). But what happens once we die? Many religious traditions tell us what happens after we die. Buddhists and Hindus think we are reincarnated and then live another life. Many of the Abrahamic traditions describe judgment and then sorting into either heaven or hell. So there are plenty of answers of what centuries, even millennia,  worth of philosophers and previous human beings have described as occurring after we die, but how can they be certain of this? Have they experienced death? And if we claim that we have, how could they have experienced death and then written about it? As odd as this sounds, and I mean this in a strictly out of curiosity so don't go calling the cops on me or anything, but I have always wanted to die and then come back to tell my experiences to others. I doubt they would ever believe me (I'm not even sure I would believe someone who claims this has happened to them), but I, as well as many others I have spoken with on this subject, have always wanted to know what it felt like to die. Just once. However, this is highly unlikely to ever occur and even if it did, how can I be certain I was dead if my consciousness I had when I was alive would not be present with me when I am dead (and hence lack life). I dunno, this is just a fascinating subject that captured my attention many years ago and still has my attention and thoughts.

One final thought that was presented to me during my J-Term class here at Luther. Just as a brief reminder, my J-Term class was textual criticism of the Bible, meaning we looked at what other ancient authorities had written down as being part of the Bible and how that differed from the Bible we have today and of what, if any, significance these discrepancies were. Anyhow, during one of our discussions we got onto the topic of why our society is so obsessed with staying alive when such eloquent pictures of the afterlife have been presented to most of us. Especially in the Christian tradition, where the kingdom of heaven, at least during my upbringing, is so awesome and out of this world (figuratively and perhaps literally) that we would not want to go there immediately rather than living in this world of pain and suffering. An example we used in that class was when someone is sick, you want to get the best medical attention/care that you possibly can, so as to live longer. However, by living longer, you are delaying yourself from entering the kingdom of heaven in all its magnificence. Wouldn't it make more sense for people to be dropping dead every two seconds in hopes of reaching this heavenly realm of paradise? Why would anyone endure all the pain and suffering if they were promised so better conditions on the other side? Thinking about it now, I think I may have an answer to this question, which I addressed earlier in this post. People are not dying because there is something they value here that they deem worth living for.

Just some more reflections and thoughts....

Until next time.....

Completely Radical Thought

I was thinking the other day and then this idea came to me. As the title of this post suggests, it was completely radical, but not in a particularly good way. With that in mind, I would also like to openly state right here and now that I do not personally subscribe to this theory of mine. I may have thought it up, but that does not mean I seriously believe this, though there may be a shred of truth in it, but it seems almost too malevolent to be true, so I hope it is not true.

Anyhow, it concerns global climate change, a touchy subject, I know. Just hear me out though. Alright. So I was sitting down here in boring ol' Iowa thinking about climate change. I am not sure how I actually go on the subject, but somehow I did. Then I started thinking about whether it was completely true or not, when I realized the timing of this declaration. If you think about it, most of the Western nations have completely industrialized. That industrialization affected the climate, no doubt, but countries in the West continued to expand and grow their economies. What about all those "Third World," lesser developed countries that are living in utter poverty? How are they going to industrialize if all of the Western powers chastise these poorer countries for harming the environment and affecting the climate?

This then led me to believe that these Western nations were simply trying to keep those poorer countries poor so they could continue to grow. It seemed almost contradictory. Many developed nations give loads and loads of aid to these countries to assist them in their issues and rebuild their economies and whatnot, but they do not want them to grow any further. This part of my theory just seemed to malicious to believe. Why would a country such as the United States ever do such a thing?

A good example is China. Everyone chastises China for producing too many harmful pollutants that they then put into the air or their water supply. Granted, it is definitely not a good thing they are doing, but that does not mean that we must look down on them. Especially since if we were to look back into our history, we would see that when we were first industrializing our cities looked pretty polluted as well. A good example that I can think of is London in the 19th century. Maybe Pittsburgh during the same time was pretty bad as well? I have to admit, I am not up to date on my U.S. history.

With this example in mind and in conjunction with everything else I have said in this post, it seems as if this may be a plausible theory. Maybe the timing for this global climate change is because we are starting to see nations develop and we don't actually want them to do that so we point out all of the environmental damage they are doing in hopes that they stop their industrialization.

I think that is about it for this post. I still have loads of other ones, but I will save them for later. I also feel as if my first few posts were really good and intense and now they are getting a bit weaker and not so great. This one, for example, does not seem to be that brilliant or anything, just some random thought conjured up by me. I dunno, maybe I am just being too critical of myself as I usually am.

In other news, I went to this room mate finder thing cuz I sorta need one for next school year and I found one, which made me insanely delighted. I also am all registered for next fall as well, and am excited to take Judaism, Religions of East Asia (in which we will discussion Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shintoism...pretty legit), a Spanish class, and a history class in which we look at the historical accuracy of films that are concerned with Medieval Europe.

Until next time...

Hypothetically speaking...

As the title suggests, I am speaking hypothetically and am not trying to point a finger at one person in particular. It was the case, however, that someone did inspire this post, though a name will not be disclosed.

Alright. So, I was recently talking with someone and was joking around having a good time. For anyone that knows my humor, I hardly ever take anything seriously and you know when I am taking something seriously. Otherwise, you just assume that it is innocent fun and I do not mean anything by it. Some have called me passive aggressive with my humor, which I suppose one could say I am, but that was not the case in this instance. Others have not been able to take my humor seriously, so I have had to tone it down a lot, especially when I am working. However, this was around a group of people who I hang out with quite frequently. Anyways, the story goes one from here, but I just thought I would clarify a bit.

So I was joking around and made some comment to which this person commented back that my comment could be taken offensively and they gave me a bit of a mini lecture on correctness and such. Granted, my joke was religious, but it was not a malicious religious joke. I merely said that I was a rabbi (clearly I am not considering I was raised Christian and there is really no way I could be a real Jew...except in the more liberal branches of Judaism, but I digress). This person made the observation that my comment could be considered blasphemous since I was not really a rabbi and Jews may take it the wrong way and be offended.

This person surprised me to a degree because when I had said it I did not mean anything by it and was just trying to be silly and random, as goes my humor the majority of the time. This person is always conscious of words that may offend someone, but in this moment, I think they took it a bit too far. I was merely joking around (it somehow fit into the scenario) and did not mean anything by it.

Where is this post going then, you may ask. Well, I am going to tell you right now, other than a complaining rant, which I am going to try and not post on here.

Anyway, I think what really disturbed this person was not the fact that I was joking around and could possibly offend the absent Jewish person, but that I was not telling the truth because I am not truly a rabbi. First of all, is this really lying? I suppose in the conventional definition of the term, I would have been lying, but then every time anyone jokes around, couldn't they be lying? I suppose some jokes are free of lies, but in this instance, was I really lying? I did not think I was, but the way this person framed their response to my joke made it seem that they had a big issue with lying, which is understandable considering their background.

From this comment, I suppose I made the assumption that this person is really concerned with telling the truth and reality. That is to say, they are more concerned with telling the truth than telling an untruth for the sake of comedy. I suppose I can respect that. But I have to go back to my first statement in this block of text: that they are concerned with telling the truth and reality. After I had written that on my scrap sheet of paper, it made me think about the nature of truth in conjunction with reality. Is reality really the truth? (Note: I am saying 'truth' not 'Truth' or 'True.') That is to say, can we assume reality to be true? Can you trust your experiences as being true? I would lean towards the affirmative on this position and declare that our subjective realities are truth for us. What I experience every day is true, what you experience every day is true, what the Dalai Lama experiences every day, and what Barack Obama experiences every day is true. And when I say that they are true, then that means that they are, by extension, the truth for those individuals. When asked what you did today, you can be certain that what you say, based on what you said, is true (unless you have CRS, in which case remembering what you did today would be difficult and you may lie to make your life look interesting).

Assuming that this person is in agreement with me, in that what you do is true, then how can she read fiction? Granted, you may go into the reading and claim that what you are about to read is no true and never happened, therefore making the act of you reading the book true while the content in that book is not true. However, I continued to think along those lines and questioned as to whether you could read non-fiction. How can you be certain that what you read in this book is true. Certainly the author cites their sources extensively, but how can we be certain that we can trust those sources? I think that I would like to say one more thing on this subject, and then move on to the bigger idea behind this experience, so long as your brain has not exploded or you are merely utterly confused. So, you can say that you read a non-fiction book, which would mean that you are telling the truth: you indeed did read that biography of Abraham Lincoln. However, that does not mean that the content of that book is necessarily true. I think the same can be said about a fiction book: who is to say that what occurs in the novel (which we assume to be false) is not actually true?

After tying that, I realized that what I had just typed makes more sense in person/in my head and I do not blame you if you do not understand a word of what I just said. It may even be the case that what I said is a bunch of rubbish. However, this leads me to an idea that I have held for an extremely long time and has become somewhat of a personal philosophy of mine, though it certainly does not apply to all aspects of my life. The idea is this: in order to discern whether what you are reading is actually true or not, would not you have to experience it for yourself. This goes back to the first point that I made in this post and I just realized how nicely these two ideas mesh. To reassert my personal maxim: in order for something to be true, you have to experience it for yourself.

I can think of at least one example from my own personal life in which this maxim is particularly relevant. First, when someone gets hit really hard and they start crying or whining and moaning, I am, in all seriousness, a bit skeptical. How do I know for certain that they are hurting? Furthermore, how do I know that their pain is as great as they are making it seem? It seems to me that the only way to truly understand their experience is to actually experience it for myself, in the exact same manner. The only way I will ever understand how much that ball to the face hurt, I would personally have to get hit in the face just as hard.

Therefore, it is extremely important to me, at least at this point, to fill my life with experiences so that when someone speaks to me about their own experience, I can truly empathize. I will better understand what they are talking about. I think that is about it on this topic. At this point, one may object and question as to why I am a history major then, if I cannot trust information until I experience it for myself. As I stated at the outset of this discussion, this does not affect all aspects of my life. I feel just fine trusting historical documents and other sources of information. It is difficult to explain, but that is basically how I feel. Comment on this if you want/need/desire clarification.

This post is already getting really long, so I think I may stop here even though I have a few other topics to talk about.

REGISTRATION FOR FALL 2011 TOMORROW! :D

Science, Religion and Morality

As I have said many times before, I love Luther college's lecture program. I have been to so many good ones in my four months here that I cannot wait to return this fall to hear even more. I attended a lecture Wednesday this week that was hosted by the Secular Society here on campus that had recruited two philosophy professors (one that teaches in the religion department as well), one professor from the religion department, and an evolutionary biologist. As I settled into my seat, there was a professor of religion acting as moderator in this discussion and he explained to us how this was going to work. All of the professors had been given specific quotes from various individuals that they were going to respond to. They were to provide their own personal beliefs on the subjects presented in the quotes and then provide some reasoning behind their thinking.

Rather than walking through the entire lecture, which I was silly enough not to bring pen and paper to, I am going to pull out specific points that I found interesting and thought provoking. After I got to the lecture, as a side note, I realized how silly it was of me to not bring paper and pen: there were philosophers here, which are individuals that provide society with thoughtful reflections all the time. Anyhow, rather than dwelling on my forgetfulness, on to the topics presented.

As I mentioned in the title of this post, all of the quotes in this two hour discussion were concerning either the role of science, the role of religion, or morality. I found that most of the quotes were quite heavily loaded with anti-religious sentiment, however. Nonetheless, we had fairly religious people up on stage to provide some counterarguments to these positions.

One of the philosophers made an astute observation concerning the dichotomy or duel between religion and science. As this is a hotly contested subject with varying opinions and viewpoints, I thought that it was quite brave of him to even bring up, not to mention openly criticize. He made the bold claim that this whole religion vs. science debate in our society today is not actually science vs. religion. Rather, he claimed, it was science vs. science. After making this claim, he paused and the entire audience was silent, to use a cliche, you could have heard a pin drop it was so silent. This was a completely different spin on this issue that many members of the audience, I am sure, had not heard before. I, for one, was completely astounded, and I even talked to one of my friends about this claim and he was equally astounded.

The professor backed up his claim and seemed to define what he meant by this assertion. What he meant by saying that it was a debate of science vs. science was that it was a belief/adherence to science of the first century in the common era vs. science of the twenty-first century of the common era. I believe he made some more in-depth arguments and astute observations concerning this, but the overall idea that I began to think about was the validity of such a claim. As a side note, he did mention two individuals, whose names I cannot remember, that adhered to either first century or twenty-first century science. Nonetheless, the fact of the matter, the main idea presented in this declaration was that there were those individuals that see legitimacy in contemporary science while others are a bit more skeptical and tend to disagree with science in the modern age.

I talked to one of my friends about this assertion, as I mentioned before, and after I explained what the professor had said, he made the counter-argument that it was still religion vs. science. However, I do not tend to agree with his position, as even though the science of the first century may have been heavily influenced by religion, it was still science in its day. It was as cutting-edge as science is today. The people back then did not understand that cutting people's veins open in the hopes that he would feel better seemed like a foolish idea. They were of the mind that this was what you were supposed to do. I used an example of more modern times with cancer and chemotherapy. I pointed out that what if, in a hundred years, we had advanced to a stage in our development wherein we had found the cure for cancer. (I suppose my argument assumes the end of the world will not come this may nor in December of 2012. Therefore, if you do truly believe that we are going to die within a few years, you can completely disregard and skip this portion of my post.) I pointed out to him that if we had found a cure for cancer in one hundred years, that the scientists then may find it quite silly that we had ever used chemotherapy in the first place, I mean, look at all the nasty side effects of this treatment.

That was basically where the argument ended, but getting back to the professor's original comment, it does sort of seem to me that what we are fighting over is not whether religion is right or science is right, but whether my version of science is right or your version of science is right. Which leads me to my next point of the role of religion and science.

I believe it was the same sage professor that pointed out our erroneous assumption that there is a debate between religion and science that spoke about the role of religion and science. He claimed that if you are looking for a description of how the world is, then look to science, if you are looking for something more, something deeper that science cannot tell you about, about what is most important in life, then look to religion. I found this statement to be profoundly true. If you are wondering how the brain works, how muscles function, what food is healthy for you, what the circumference of the earth is, you better go ask a scientist, because they are the ones that can tell you about that. However, if you are searching for something deeper and less quantitative than science, then go to a religion and ask those questions, because that is the proper role of religious institutions.

A question that was not sequentially near this question, but is linked to this question, is whether there is a right or wrong religion. And contrary to what seems to me to be mostly popular belief, there is no "right" or "wrong" religion...at least in moderate eyes. Of course there are extremists that will kill you because their religion is most definitely right and yours is wrong, but in many people's estimation, religion is subjective to the personal experience. It has been my experience that most good natured individuals do not tend to push one religious creed upon others as being the only, true way. However, the professor said that there was a better religion than another, to which the audience chuckled because hitherto this man had not espoused radical or extremist views. He again backed up this claim by saying that the correct religion is the one that you choose. He said that if Islam does not work for you, go try Christianity, and if that does not work, go ahead and try Buddhism. Keep searching for a religious tradition that makes you realize that there is something deeper, something that science cannot tell you about. There is more to life than being able to determine which foods are healthy, how muscles function and the circumference of the earth, which is the question of what is most important in life. So, I guess that the whole dichotomy of science and religion ought not look like how we represent it, but rather, their functions are completely different. Religion has this this area to deal with while science deals with this area.

The other philosophy professor made a completely unrelated statement when confronted with the question of whether morality and moral people can exist outside of a religious tradition, to which he said yes. He described religion and morality as two distinct areas of thinking (or something like that. A better phrasing is not coming to me at this moment). He also said that religion relies on morality rather than the other way around. I think the question he was getting at answering here was which came first: the chicken or the egg? Which came first religion or morality? He claimed that morality came first and that religion was a response to how to behave morally. Religion offers a codification of how to behave in a moral way.

One last observation that I remembered from this discussion was that religion is not God. Yes, as wild a claim as that sounds, it seems to be an accurate statement. Religion does not automatically equal God, rather religion is our interpretation of this world/God. The question of whether our sacred texts (in this example, the Bible) were directly written by God seems to me to be quite contrary to what has made it into the Bible. There are so many different stories depicting one even, such as the two creation stories in Genesis, the three stories of how David came to the throne in 1 Samuel, and countless others. However, just because there are multiple accounts of the same event does not mean that God does not exist. It does mean that the Bible was written by previous humans, how were just as malleable and fallible as we are today, so we have to take that into account. I suppose, thinking about it now, that the different interpretations or accounts found in the Bible depicting the same scene are in a sense different experiences felt by different individuals. I think that this means that we cannot discount them because since there are multiple versions that gives us the freedom to choose which we think is more closely related to our own beliefs. Maybe I am wildly wrong on this, but nonetheless, religion is not God, rather religion is our interpretation of the divine/this world.

Just a few more things to talk about and then I will end this insanely long post. First of all, my dad and aunt were talking and they came to the conclusion that, in response to my previous post, desire is the root of violence, and if we were to get rid of all desire, then there would be no violence in the world. I do not think that a whole lot of explanation is going to go into that comment, but you might want to look at my previous post and then put it into context, because otherwise, that statement standing along pretty much explains itself. I think that this is a particularly good observation that I had not thought about before, so thank you dad and Auntie Sue for bringing this to the forefront.

Additionally, I had an interview on Tuesday for a job this next year in the history department. I got an email back on Friday (I was astounded by how rapid the response was) saying that I got the job. I was quite ecstatic the rest of the day and wanted to tell everyone about my great triumph. That means that this fall, I will no longer be working in the dishroom or any other part of the caf, but rather I will be an administrative assistant in the history department and will have another job in the Language Learning Center either helping students in need of help or assisting professors if they need help. I am pretty excited to start next fall.

I think that is it... So...until next post...

War and Peace

I was watching this video and it made me think about a lot of issues in the world. As a random side note that I have discovered as I have gotten older is that the world is a crazy, intricate and insanely complex place. Seriously. Some time (if you get the time) you should really just think and contemplate about how people interact and how when you are faced with new situations where completely new faces appear, how insane it is to think that those people have been living in your neighborhood, or in your city, or in your state, or in your country and you have never even interacted or talked to them. I once had this idea about creating this picture with my bubble at the center (Of course! Who else would fill that position? No one!!!) and then connecting with a line to all of the other bubbles that I have had contact with at some point in my life and then continuing this process. If we did that, then I think it could be argued that everyone is connected to everyone else. And after thinking about this while typing it, it seems that this idea has already been put into action. People have already implemented this idea in the form of the 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Anyhow, back to the video. Watch it if you want. It is one of my favorite bands making a video for their song. I think that the quality of the video and such aside, which was great in my opinion, it forced me to think about some of the themes it talked about. Maybe I made some gigantic leaps in my thinking when I was watching the video, but I do not think they are that huge and even if they are, this is my brain we are talking about and you consent to this type of torture when you read my first post.

The stated mission of the band at the beginning of the video is that this is a song for peace, ironic considering the title of the song is "This is War" usually a declarative statement made my some talking head made in an effort to encourage the populace to support his/her decisions and actions. However, it made me think: what if we were to take away all weapons, of any scale? Many countries have been trying to get rid of their weapons of mass destruction after the Cold War and the tensions associated with that period, but they still retain guns. Guns can do some damage as well. Granted, they cannot do as much wide-spread instantaneous or long-term damage as nukes, but they can still kill people and do on a daily basis. So, what if we were to band together as a world and get rid of all of our weapons?

Well, the first problem I thought about when I considered this possibility was that even if we were to get rid of all the guns, knives and nukes in the world, people would get creative and resort to something else. They would get broom handles and start beating people with them, they would take their headphones and choke someone they did not like. So, ultimately even if we were to completely eradicate weapons from the face of the earth, that would not mean that peace would ensue. People would get creative and start using random, seemingly harmless objects and use them as weapons.

This then led me to believe that fighting would have to cease in order for real world peace to ensue. You can take away all of the objects that do the killing, but humans are still here, coupled with other objects with the potential of killing. In order for world peace to ensue we would have to end the desire for fighting and conflict in human beings. Is this even conceivable? Can we completely eradicate any sense of fighting in humans, or is it simply part of human nature to be desirous of fighting? Perhaps not as desirous as I seem to have put it, but I hope you can get my point. Is fighting with violence simply part of human nature and thus unchangeable? Is violence one more characteristic that makes us human?

One more considerable question I thought about but was hesitant to put on my little scrap of paper I had available when watching this video and am still unsure about as I write about it now, is can there be fighting without violence? Alright, say we can't get rid of fighting because it is too deeply ingrained in the human psyche/nature but can we keep our fighting nature but do it without the resort to physical violence? Or are these two intricately intertwined issues to the extent that untangling them would be a hassle/impossible?

Anyway, I think that is about it for now. I went to a lecture tonight about science, religion and morality -- which was absolutely awesome. I will definitely be posting some more interesting questions the lecture brought up, along with an update on various academic things as tomorrow is a big academic-oriented day for me.

First Post

Hello and welcome. In this blog, prepare yourself for an adventure, the likes of which has never been attempted before: going inside Andy's head. If you are too afraid of the prospect that goes on within my skull, then I would advise you to leave now while you still can. Good. Now that we have weeded out the weaklings, we can now proceed to some more serious business.

First off, my day at work today was ________(adjective I have yet to determine). I was supposed to work on deli line and then we were short so they switched me to the typical breakfast line, which was understandably busier because there are not a whole lot of people that want sandwiches and wraps at 10am. Anyhow, I got over to the line and busted my butt to get through the line that snaked through the cafeteria serving area. Also per usual, the cooks could not keep up with the demand they were facing, so I was constantly short of food, so I switched over to the line with more food since my own line was deprived of food. Mike and I were throwing the food (both figuratively and sometimes literally) at the hungry mob of college students.

After the cafeteria was shut down for brunch was when things started to get even more interesting. I started to talking to Mike, and we shared a lot of information for never talking to each other before. Potential friend I think. Anyhow, he is from Andover and went to AR for a year and a half, worked at Bunker Beach for several years, and just transferred to Luther as well. Needless to say, it was awesome to share stories with him and find someone that I had so much in common with. We started cleaning the line and then when it was all done, I went out into the actual dining room and started assisted in cleaning tables and such. This is when my great revelation and the push that I needed to create this blog came from. I noticed two phenomena while I was cleaning tables.

First of all, and perhaps not surprisingly, (undergrad) college kids are generally lazy yet destructive. The tables were absolutely disgusting, it was as if a renegade group of two year old who cannot feed themselves had come to the cafeteria. Food was all over the floor, syrup was on the tables, and dishes were left at the tables. First of all, you pass the dish return on your way out of the cafeteria (which, by the way, I will henceforth refer to as the "caf") so it is not like it is some great inconvenience to put your dishes on the turnstyle. Secondly, really?! What were you doing while you were eating? Did you lose all hand-eye coordination or forget where your mouth is? Grr... Anyhow, I was doing my duty nonetheless. This is where my college kids are lazy observation comes in. I had just busted my ass off (in my opinion at least) and I am sure everyone else did as well, yet there were kids slacking, sitting down and texting, and just generally being dinks. This is not a new phenomenon either. I understand wanting to take a little break from standing for a couple hours, but you can do something productive while you do this. Seriously. Not that difficult. I just thought about how disappointing our generation is insofar that we do not know what hard work looks like.

As I was cleaning tables, I also thought about how mindless this activity was and about how often people complain about mindless activities being a waste of time. However, consider the following argument that I will hopefully make clear: mindless activities may be demeaning and whatever other negative adjectives you wish to attach to such times, but at the same time you are offered free time for your brain to think about anything. Absolutely anything you want, which is, in my opinion, awesome and ultimately important to being human. For example, since my brain was not needed to concentrate on much else other than a repetitive motion of cleaning, I was able to think about all of the proceeding plus other random thoughts. I have noticed this occurring while I shovel snow (which apparently only falls in Minnesnowta) and when driving somewhere. Both are quite mindless (although you ought to have your mind somewhat on the road when driving), which leaves you to ponder strange or interesting natural or social phenomena. And to conclude this paragraph and post in general (since I am running out of things to write) in light of my recent reading of Plato's "The Apology," consider the quotation Plato attributes to Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

That is all for now, I am sure I will have more tomorrow or the next day because I have a busy schedule this week, including an oral exam in Spanish, an interview for a position in the history department, a lecture from a man who will be talking about his account of the Egyptian Revolution earlier this year, a dialogue given by multiple professors at Luther concerning creationism vs. evolution, which should be interesting and insightful, and then finally I get to talk with my adviser concerning registration for the upcoming fall. Pretty exciting week, one of only 6 or so left this academic year. :))