The odd duality of these things...

Let's talk about why I hate these blogs, and love them.

I'll start on the lighter note to appease Mr. Flaherty, I love these blogs because I can put down what I think for free. By right I should be paying for this, just as I would pay for paper or a pencil, but someone decided that the advertisers money is plenty; just as the advertisers decided that people who saw their add on a website would instantly want a free iPod so long as you sign up for five other sites! Anyway, that and the fact that it allows me a little closer look into the true nature of my classmates.

I get to see which ones think, and that's a lot to know. I know some of you just write our discussions down, you can't think of anything, well Hell, neither can I. That's pretty much it, I get to put my ideas down, and see which of us are cowards.

Now as to why I hate them, simply the time restraints. Sometimes I can't write about something one week because nothing interesting happens. When that happens I have to think, sit down and really take a look into my head. Yes class, even I hate it when I'm forced to think, I would much rather just take all of our collective words and write them down as mine. But I can't do that, it wouldn't be fair to myself.

"Wouldn't be fair to myself." Ha! I'm the worst offender of being unfair to myself, but that's another conversation for another time.


. . .


I love fighting, not with words, but taking the english departments swords and fighting with anyone is so much fun. There's no logic to it, it solves nothing, it increases violent tendencies, and you can get a little hurt, but it's so damn fun. I'm not fighting for an ideal, not fighting for someone or myself, but every once in awhile I just want to have a fight, who wants to fight?

Seriously, who wants to fight?






A fight ever now and then does make life more interesting, don't you think?

I'm really bored... (make up for when I was absent for some doctor appointment)

In honor of how bored I am I'm going to ramble a bit, once again. I've just finished my cool writing presentation (took me 40 minutes, but who's counting?) and now I realized that I need three more blogs. But I have nothing to write about, I have nothing I care to talk about. There's nothing to say to anyone.

I could take the direction I've seen a multitude of times in these blogs where we simply restate the discussion in class, but that doesn't take brain power and if I'm going to waste my time with this I'll be damned if I don't use my brain on it. My mind keeps straying to the game I want to design, but I figure I'll get this grade first. I'm anxious over how my audition went for our school drama "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot", the show is going to be amazing be sure to make it. I'm excited because I get to skip most of wednesday to sing for the Blue Notes Holiday Tour (that's right, I've got a gorgeous voice). But through all this I have nothing to write on.

Why are most the blog posts I see just rewritten versions of things we discussed in class. I realize that these are supposed to be based off our class periods, but when I peruse your writings and find four posts that say almost word-for-word what we said in class, along with some creative differences to make the words "yours". I have to ask, how much are people actually thinking when they do these blogs?

Then I'll see a one paragraph entry that says "censorship sucks" with about the same grace as a drunk stumbling down the street. The craziest part of all this is that you all chose to be in this class, and the blog assignment was announced before the drop-out deadline. So we were all aware of what we'd have to do, and this class is an elective in the first place.

I guess this is an appeal really, as much as I've tried I can't ignore it when I see potential wasted. I should be able to look at those blogs and move on, but to see the brilliant minds of this class wasted because you can't be bothered to put yourself out there, to show the world how smart you really are, is terrifying.

Maybe that's it, that's the core of the issue. Fear. Maybe you're all afraid of what we'd say if you put an original thought out there, and there are some of you for whom this post does not apply. And to you I'm thankful. But those of you who do this know who you are, or you're telling yourself you're not. Because for the few that do think and do put down those thoughts are agreeing with me. Because those of us that think know what it looks like, we know what it sounds like. It's the pure confidence that there's nothing you can be threatened with, nothing anyone can do to you. This post may draw fire, pure fire, but it won't mean anything. The one's that try to deny it are only trying to convince themselves, none of you have anything to say to me.

Ramblings of Daniel DeBoer

As much as it would be so simple to write off a blog with no meaning (but don't be fooled, I'll be damned if I couldn't make you think it was there), that's no fun and I seem to be incapable lately of writing something that means nothing to me.  That's a good thing, of course, if you write something that has no personal meaning to it there's no point for you to write it.  So as I peruse the lunch schedule, re-organize my iPod, and look up online forums I'll try to give you all something interesting to look at.  Of course, you wouldn't be reading this if you didn't find my work interesting, so that was really just a throwaway statement to get the blog even longer.

It's odd, normally I don't start things rambling this way but it's sure more fun and provides a way to artificially lengthen the blog, not that they need it.  I suppose right now it's hard to write because I have nothing to write against.  There's plenty of topics I could cover, the ideals of capitalism, the absurdity of religion, how people come to believe censorship is great, and why people think it's kinder to avoid talking than it is to just give me a straight answer.  Show of hands, who noticed the malice in that last example?  But at the end of the day (I love that expression), I don't care.  I don't think it's a conscious effort, like people's willingness to ignore what they know to be true.  But it's deeper than not caring too, or more shallow depending on your take.  I can't find a reason to care or to not care, I just don't think about it.

What I really want to do right now is get back to developing my storyline and aspects of gameplay for a game I'm designing, but I waste enough classtime doing that so I suppose I owe it to Kunkle to write something of note.  No, I don't owe him, at least that's not the reason I feel obligated to write this.  Maybe I'll examine that right now, it'll be an experiment alright?  You and me, let's figure out why I feel obligated to put something here.

It has to be something personal, I don't operate on any other level (no one does).  I'm not doing it for grades, not fully at least.  If I did it for grades this would refer back to class.  So I'm partially doing it just because my grade depends on it.  Hmm, do I feel a need for someone to know what I'm thinking besides myself?  That's not personal so I always discard it, but let's look at it.  Do I feel a need for others to recognize my existence?

A smart person once said "It takes two to make a very great career: The man who is great, and the man-- almost rarer-- who is great enough to see greatness and say so."  And I think he's right, so perhaps I do seek for you all to think I'm great, but then I shouldn't be so tenacious about myself.  Could that be part of it?  Do I want you to recognize me, but then accept me as is?  Then I'm creating some grand contradiction, or something of that nature.  I realize that for my own sake no one needs to recognize my ability, I know my ability better than all of you.  But if I seek that recognition I want to know why...

I think that's a topic for later, because I don't think that's the issue.  Perhaps it does just come down to what I always thought.  I do this so I can materialize my thoughts,  when they're materialized they seem rational and concrete.  Also it gives me greater satisfaction to know that I can materialize my thoughts and do it in such a verbose and eloquent manner.  Let's leave it at that, I'm doing this to see how much I can do with my thoughts.  Because when I give myself an assignment of this manner (to just write something) I think I'm really doing it to see what I do.  Then of course I'm curious to see how it's reacted too.  I must admit my last venture was less successful than I wanted, with Kunkle never responding.  But the one prior was much more fun, I wonder, did you all enjoy the show me and Sam gave you?  We knew what we were doing, but him playing the devil of the game made it more fun.  So I leave you with what I may use as my cool reading excerpt (I may do this from now on, I need an extra blog for the class I missed anyway, and giving you all a cool quote I like is certainly fun)--

"I never promised you a rose garden. I never promised you perfect justice, and I never promised you peace of happiness. My help is so that you can be free to fight for all of those things. The only reality I offer is challenge, and being well is being free to accept it or not at whatever level you are capable. I never promise lies, and the rose-garden world of perfection is a lie - and a bore too."

Absurdism?

As my brain is still buzzing from the math test I doubt this will be nearly as coherent as my other posts, so I apologize for that. But it's clearing fast, and I'm realizing I don't care to write about anything. I could address the discussion Alyssa and I were having over absurdism, but that's much shorter than I want it to be. I do need a post however, so let's do that. Before we go into it I'll give you something to munch on. Why can these so-called absurdists only show the absurdity of the world by presenting their stories with an absurd premise? I thought logical people called that begging the question.


I'll assume you all noticed our discussion, Kunkle brought attention to it after all, and a few probably overheard us. For the benefit of those that didn't I will try to give a synopsis. It was something along the lines of, I was losing because I hadn't thought about the fight. I was asking what's the meaning of it and she recognized that it didn't matter if I knew the point if it meant something to them.

She's right, of course, it doesn't matter if I can understand the meaning or not. What does matter though, is the amount of effort put into the performance. Not just during it, but in preparation of it. Some may argue it took more effort to try and put emotions or feelings into animal sounds, and if you believe that I have no argument against you. There's no point, you believe it takes more effort to be animal than to be human. Were the gutteral animal cries the best their effort could produce? Couldn't they do better? Couldn't they do it human?

If you want to argue that animal sounds are better or equal to some glorious speech made so all can understand then I have nothing for you. By that fact, you believe that anything can be art. Drawing from that statement, then I propose that daily conversation is art as well. So why not talk to others in your animal language? It's no different, whether talking, discussing, singing, playing an instrument, or writing a novel you're attempting to deliver a message. And it's best if that message can be understood.

Maybe we're turning to an age where people don't care to have their messages understood. But then I propose that they've taken individualism to a dangerous level. Not an extreme, it's not very smart to deliver a message that won't be understood. People wouldn't buy it and you'd be forced to fend for yourself. Perhaps that's better, to teach people to think for themselves. Some people need to learn that skill, and maybe only those really needing to learn it are trying to turn art into this animalistic orgy of sounds. So perhaps I'll let you run your course, it's only you that will suffer from it. I don't intend to try and help you when you realize how much you've alienated yourselves from being human.

The Destruction of People due to Apathy

There's an answer to a question I've held ever since I've entered high school. And the answer is more terrifying than one I've ever found. I got the idea to write this after talking about blogs on the first day and Justin told me that "Whenever someone says something and I don't know what they're talking about, I'm just like 'Yea totally, I think you're right because you sound sure of yourself.'" I couldn't understand that statement and then I realized that's how we've gotten where we are now.



The question was, how did we end up this way? Originally I wanted to blame the system, this was the easy way out of course, but it also isn't necessarily a wrong answer. There's multitudes of papers on the subject that do a very good job of convincing people that they're not at fault. They say that they're all victims of the society, or system, they're living in. This may be the right answer, but I don't buy into that and I don't believe any of you do either.

I've had arguments on the subject with my father too many times, he believes the system runs everything, that social factors are the only thing that matter. He has a favorite phrase to utter every time I bring up someone like Barack Obama, a man who, under this system, shouldn't have even had a chance to run for president. That phrase is "Well it's the exception that proves the rule." What? Exceptions don't prove rules, they break them. Scientists don't take a theory with one exception and accept it as truth simply because "The exception proves the rule."

So no, I don't buy the idea that society is to blame. I don't believe capitalism allows those with bad intentions to get greater profits. I believe the world will get exactly what it deserves. If people insist on being apathetic then they can't complain when the world comes crashing down around them. They deserve to suffer the consequences of their apathy.

Justin agreed with my blog simply because he didn't want to look further into it. While Kelsey came in and found the one point that I slipped up on. I was impressed, I didn't catch it.


Apathy and a refusal to see what's going on around you is why we are in the state we are. If everyone continues to not think about things, really think, you're going to lose. I don't mean go out and research other's opinions, that's not thinking. If you just go to the opinion section of a paper you're getting someone elses thoughts. If you want to think you have to do it yourself, no one can think for you, no one can tell you the truth. If you don't think about your opinions you're taking them on faith and maybe that's enough for some people, but for those I say "Good Luck!" If you truly think your faith can save you then I can't reason with you, and you shouldn't be reading this because you disagreed with me in the first blog I wrote.


If you're still looking for me to bluntly point out the answer to the question, no I did not answer it in the last paragraph. Apathy and blindness are a product, a product of your human mind. Apathy is a conscious decision by you to not look deeper and critically think about something. The reason we're in the state we are is people, people like you and me, who are to apathetic to take a look at what's really destroying the world. People are the most important thing to the world right now, we hold the power to save or destroy it. And it's not a majority decision, the choice is in all of us.

The Depreciative Trend of Subjective Media

I've recently noticed a certain trend happening in all forms of media lately. Our current authors, directors, musicians, and the creative engines of our society in general have taken it upon themselves to create a new class of intelligentsia where everything is subjective.

I was tired of it when I first heard about a painter who would take hours to create something that could be replicated by giving a tantrum-throwing four-year-old a paintbrush and a few paint cups. I was told that it was "genius" and that the paintings were being sold for thousands of dollars. I was confused so I asked my mom, who told me the story, if it was really true. She told me of course it was, beauty is in the eye of the beholder anyway. But it wasn't beautiful, and no one has given me a reason for why a random spattering of paint was put under the facade of genius.

A different type of horror is arising as well, though it's in the same vein. There's an enormous amount of art that doesn't even have a meaning. But it does, or at least we're told it does. With these last two stories we've read I had to wonder, why? Why did someone write these stories? What purpose do they serve? What message do they send? And maybe the second one is part of a larger purpose, we didn't get the full story after all. But the first one was presented as a whole story, but I couldn't find the meaning to it. Sure the father refused to let go of the past, and the child was torn between pleasing his father and facing the consequences of his actions. But those ideas were only gotten after we tore the story to shreds trying to find meaning. What's preventing authors from just telling their story? Why are we entering this trend of layering everything until it seems as though there is no meaning at all? Why do we assume meanings are more meaningful when they're hidden?

I've seen such an occurance with other types of media as well. I recently finished an extremely well designed game, but the story and gameplay were held in seperate rooms, where you could only look at the story through a small hole and there was a curtain in the way. The creator attempted to justify himself by saying that the game was deeper than saving the princess. He tried to say it was about loss and regret, but only those taking shots in the dark are barely grasping the surface of his true "meaning". Why are creators so obsessed with hiding their meaning? If you have something good to say, or something meaningful to say you're shouting it from the rooftops, not hiding it in the sewars.


The only reason to hide something is if you're not proud of it, you stole it or it's not good in the first place.

Why wouldn't an author be proud of his work?
Why would an author steal work and pretend it's his own?
Why would an author publish something that doesn't have a good message?