...Then it must be time for some different nonsense!
Farmer Duddle had a fiddle,
But he dropped it in a puddle.
When the fiddle wouldn't function,
Farmer Duddle was befuddled.
Now the farmer favors riddles
Over fickle, feeble fiddles
And it happened in the Downy Wood.
Miss Eliza had a lover
With an angry, grumpy mother.
Miss Eliza's love was clever
And escaped across the river.
There he married his Eliza
With what house and goods he gathered,
And it happened in the Downy Wood.
Little Lee was hit by thunder
When the sky was torn asunder.
It made mostly all to wonder
At his loving mother's blunder.
But the child was fine at that,
(And was even rather fat)
And it happened in the Downy Wood.
Farmer Duddle's father Froddle
Wouldn't walk, but only waddle.
Widely wandering, ever talking,
He'd stop by and tell tried twaddle.
Well, the neighbors held a council
And they told him, "listen, scoundrel,
If you hold your mouth the hound will."
Well, it happened in the Downy Wood.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Thanksgiving
Sorry for posting so late this week.
I have for you today a poem I wrote in late September, shortly before I was to leave Delaware. When I wrote it I was tired and homesick in anticipation. Bear that in mind!
Never
I was an explorer, alive,
And the world was a blank page
Covered in beauty for me to see,
And anyone else, with me.
A landscape of miracles.
But the more there was around me, the more
There was at home, in the garden, in the walls,
Too.
And life was good because
Because, there was a place
That made everywhere else
Somewhere else.
The saddest words I know
Are,
Never,
Never Again.
In keeping with Thanksgiving spirit, I'm proclaiming to the internet my gratitude for my friends and life in Delaware and that things have gone so well here in Utah!
Until next week,
Ian
I have for you today a poem I wrote in late September, shortly before I was to leave Delaware. When I wrote it I was tired and homesick in anticipation. Bear that in mind!
Never
I was an explorer, alive,
And the world was a blank page
Covered in beauty for me to see,
And anyone else, with me.
A landscape of miracles.
But the more there was around me, the more
There was at home, in the garden, in the walls,
Too.
And life was good because
Because, there was a place
That made everywhere else
Somewhere else.
The saddest words I know
Are,
Never,
Never Again.
In keeping with Thanksgiving spirit, I'm proclaiming to the internet my gratitude for my friends and life in Delaware and that things have gone so well here in Utah!
Until next week,
Ian
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Conflict
In my English class at school we've been reading some rather iconic/philosophical literature lately. These include Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance", Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience", Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter From Birmingham Jail" and "The Indispensable Opposition" by W. Lippman. I recommend them all, especially those last two. These works got me thinking about conflict, communication, and their role in human life. I'm going to have to warn you: Today, we go deep.
There's so much to talk about with all of this, I'm not sure where to start. Let's begin, I guess, by talking about ideas.
To begin, we'd better have a workable definition of an idea. Let's just say that an idea is an abstract mental conception of something. Some people might argue that memories are ideas, or that an idea should be defined as something new that nobody else has previously thought of. But this will do for me.
One of the really stupendous things about the human race is our ability to have these - to think about things that we can't physically sense. We, homo sapiens, are very gifted among life on Earth with our ability to contemplate the future. The world is full of consequences, immediate and long-term, physical, mental and spiritual. Humankind has grown to what I would consider rather impressive heights because we can anticipate something that might occur, and make decisions based on that anticipation. That's not to say that other animals are unintelligent - chimpanzees and dolphins, for instance, have proven remarkably adept learners and tool users. My point is that in the capacity to introspect, reflect on intangible possibilities, and come to conscious decision, man is alone on our planet. We can believe something and choose to act in a different way because of it, but we can also choose to act contrary to our beliefs and feelings.
What really propels us forward is that once we have allowed our complex - unimaginably complex - minds to grunt and fizz and whirl and compute and create an original thought, we have devised ways of communicating that thing with others. An idea isn't tied to one person; it doesn't even spread through imitation, or subconsciously, necessarily. One person can think of something - potentially something that cannot be seen, touched, heard, or in any concrete way sensed - and then, through speaking, writing, pantomiming, playing music, allow another person to comprehend that same spectral thought!
The hallmarks of human progress I've discussed to this point are introspection, abstract thought, cognizance of the future, and communication. They're all incredible. One of the things that fascinates me the most is communication, because it allows for efficient interaction between two minds. Considering the unique situation and experiences and tendencies of each person, the potential of one individual in so many directions is astounding. And then to put all of those conglomerations of information, decision and feeling together in match after match, situation after situation (each different from the last) together and apart again and again over thousands of years... that could go almost anywhere. That's really powerful stuff, and fascinating. What happens in just such a circumstance? Everything on earth at this moment is unique. Things will never be this way again. Things have never been just this way before.
In a way, the only definition of a thing is its relationship and response to another thing. Would a twig be the same thing if one could not snap it, swish it, and make fire with it? What is something but its interaction with other things?
In a similar vein, the only way to know something is to compare it with something else. One classic example is, or course, color and sight. What is blindness? Is it not the inability to differentiate the distinctions in light from one place and time to the next, functionally? Blindness is portrayed as uniform black, because black is the absence of light. But wouldn't uniform yellow be just as blind? Wouldn't a person, able to see only a beautiful shade of blue across their whole vision wherever they looked, be just as unable to see as one in complete darkness?
It is in the face of difference and variety that sameness, or indeed anything, has meaning. The significance of even good and evil is that we, as creatures with the capacity to differentiate the two, can choose one as opposed to the other. Someone who does not know pain cannot find any meaning in joy.
That is, in part, why differing ideas and opinions are so crucial. Another is the need for progress.
Change is hard. It is a fact of life that it is easier to do what has already been done. Follow the same road. Follow the same process. Do the same activities. Act in habit. Think the same thoughs. Repeat the same grammatical pattern. Go along with the established norm...
Yet progress, by its very nature, demands change. That is why progress is hard. And sameness is so easy that when we group together and communicate, instead of growing closer to the truth through contrasting our differing experiences, instead of being enriched by the complementary but different things each of us brings to a discussion, we just allow the momentum of the group to carry us wherever they are going. Society values order more than it values originality. It values inertia more than it values justice; so when the system and the right thing are at odds, or when a new idea or rising improvement to some aspect of life occurs, society fights it. We would rather accept a safely flawed existence than uncertainty.
The real value of communication and freedom of speech is when two people or groups have different perspectives - which we all do, being different people - and then both sides listen to the other. I don't mean that one viewpoint passively accepts the other. I also don't mean that both sides listen to the other only to the extent that they can carry on a conversation and criticize their partner in discussion. What I do mean is that two opposing, or at least differing, ideas are first listened to with sincere intent to understand. If necessary, through calm, even if opposed, discussion they then resolve or address points of contention.
The point of communication is the transference of information. This information could be explicit - "I got a dog yesterday." Usually, though, communication gives us deeper knowledge - about how a person acts, about their feelings and mannerisms, their tendencies. The way someone communicates, and when and why, are just as relevant as what they say.
Therefore, sometimes all that is necessary in effective, fulfilling communication is listening. By listening to your words, I learn things about you. If you disagree with me, I learn about another way of thinking. That's a good thing. It can inform my decisions and educate my own point of view. Disagreement, in the right context, is a very helpful thing. One of the best ways to improve an argument or plan is to have someone else try to tear it down. It's like running a truck over a bridge to test its stability.
So to sum up:
What is new is not always wrong;
What is accepted is not always best;
Contrast is meaning;
Disagreement is the root progress;
And listening is not only polite, it's fulfilling and very informative.
I could probably write all day about this, but for now, that will have to do.
To you, ladies and gentlemen, and to life. Thank you for your time.
Ian
There's so much to talk about with all of this, I'm not sure where to start. Let's begin, I guess, by talking about ideas.
To begin, we'd better have a workable definition of an idea. Let's just say that an idea is an abstract mental conception of something. Some people might argue that memories are ideas, or that an idea should be defined as something new that nobody else has previously thought of. But this will do for me.
One of the really stupendous things about the human race is our ability to have these - to think about things that we can't physically sense. We, homo sapiens, are very gifted among life on Earth with our ability to contemplate the future. The world is full of consequences, immediate and long-term, physical, mental and spiritual. Humankind has grown to what I would consider rather impressive heights because we can anticipate something that might occur, and make decisions based on that anticipation. That's not to say that other animals are unintelligent - chimpanzees and dolphins, for instance, have proven remarkably adept learners and tool users. My point is that in the capacity to introspect, reflect on intangible possibilities, and come to conscious decision, man is alone on our planet. We can believe something and choose to act in a different way because of it, but we can also choose to act contrary to our beliefs and feelings.
What really propels us forward is that once we have allowed our complex - unimaginably complex - minds to grunt and fizz and whirl and compute and create an original thought, we have devised ways of communicating that thing with others. An idea isn't tied to one person; it doesn't even spread through imitation, or subconsciously, necessarily. One person can think of something - potentially something that cannot be seen, touched, heard, or in any concrete way sensed - and then, through speaking, writing, pantomiming, playing music, allow another person to comprehend that same spectral thought!
The hallmarks of human progress I've discussed to this point are introspection, abstract thought, cognizance of the future, and communication. They're all incredible. One of the things that fascinates me the most is communication, because it allows for efficient interaction between two minds. Considering the unique situation and experiences and tendencies of each person, the potential of one individual in so many directions is astounding. And then to put all of those conglomerations of information, decision and feeling together in match after match, situation after situation (each different from the last) together and apart again and again over thousands of years... that could go almost anywhere. That's really powerful stuff, and fascinating. What happens in just such a circumstance? Everything on earth at this moment is unique. Things will never be this way again. Things have never been just this way before.
In a way, the only definition of a thing is its relationship and response to another thing. Would a twig be the same thing if one could not snap it, swish it, and make fire with it? What is something but its interaction with other things?
In a similar vein, the only way to know something is to compare it with something else. One classic example is, or course, color and sight. What is blindness? Is it not the inability to differentiate the distinctions in light from one place and time to the next, functionally? Blindness is portrayed as uniform black, because black is the absence of light. But wouldn't uniform yellow be just as blind? Wouldn't a person, able to see only a beautiful shade of blue across their whole vision wherever they looked, be just as unable to see as one in complete darkness?
It is in the face of difference and variety that sameness, or indeed anything, has meaning. The significance of even good and evil is that we, as creatures with the capacity to differentiate the two, can choose one as opposed to the other. Someone who does not know pain cannot find any meaning in joy.
That is, in part, why differing ideas and opinions are so crucial. Another is the need for progress.
Change is hard. It is a fact of life that it is easier to do what has already been done. Follow the same road. Follow the same process. Do the same activities. Act in habit. Think the same thoughs. Repeat the same grammatical pattern. Go along with the established norm...
Yet progress, by its very nature, demands change. That is why progress is hard. And sameness is so easy that when we group together and communicate, instead of growing closer to the truth through contrasting our differing experiences, instead of being enriched by the complementary but different things each of us brings to a discussion, we just allow the momentum of the group to carry us wherever they are going. Society values order more than it values originality. It values inertia more than it values justice; so when the system and the right thing are at odds, or when a new idea or rising improvement to some aspect of life occurs, society fights it. We would rather accept a safely flawed existence than uncertainty.
The real value of communication and freedom of speech is when two people or groups have different perspectives - which we all do, being different people - and then both sides listen to the other. I don't mean that one viewpoint passively accepts the other. I also don't mean that both sides listen to the other only to the extent that they can carry on a conversation and criticize their partner in discussion. What I do mean is that two opposing, or at least differing, ideas are first listened to with sincere intent to understand. If necessary, through calm, even if opposed, discussion they then resolve or address points of contention.
The point of communication is the transference of information. This information could be explicit - "I got a dog yesterday." Usually, though, communication gives us deeper knowledge - about how a person acts, about their feelings and mannerisms, their tendencies. The way someone communicates, and when and why, are just as relevant as what they say.
Therefore, sometimes all that is necessary in effective, fulfilling communication is listening. By listening to your words, I learn things about you. If you disagree with me, I learn about another way of thinking. That's a good thing. It can inform my decisions and educate my own point of view. Disagreement, in the right context, is a very helpful thing. One of the best ways to improve an argument or plan is to have someone else try to tear it down. It's like running a truck over a bridge to test its stability.
So to sum up:
What is new is not always wrong;
What is accepted is not always best;
Contrast is meaning;
Disagreement is the root progress;
And listening is not only polite, it's fulfilling and very informative.
I could probably write all day about this, but for now, that will have to do.
To you, ladies and gentlemen, and to life. Thank you for your time.
Ian
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Fun Facts
I was planning on going all deep philosophy today in my post and talking about freedom of speech, the nature of communication and a tiny bit of politics. Having told you this, I want to apologize for not actually writing about it. While I feel surprisingly lucid currently, especially considering how tired I felt two hours ago, I don't want to push it. Turns out I'm expected to contribute to my own education tomorrow - the horror! - so I'm turning this into a conglomeration of random things that have been on my mind instead.
First of all, I wasted some time today on this solar system simulator which my physics teacher actually told us about for a lab. While it's fun to start with the presets, what's probably a lot more fun is messing with the settings to make stuff go crazy and/or crash into each other.
Secondly, I came up with a delicious pun yesterday, but it requires knowledge of Lord of the Rings and/or D&D. Here it is:
Why are dwarves so stubborn?
It takes a big person to admit you were wrong.
Also, basically everything in life is happening on Friday. My uncle is coming here, where he will stay for around the rest of the month. Also the next Magic set is coming out, and my parent-funded candy--free year is up (hello, ferrero rochers and jolly rancher jelly beans!), and I'm playing in a school veterans day assembly, and it's veterans day AND 11/11, and nominally I'm allowed to drive by myself starting then, and I'm going on a weekend camping trip to Moab (which I'm told is an incredible place). I think there was more, but my memory can only keep track of so much at once.
My Eagle Scout court of honor is in a little more than two weeks. Yay! I can life!
And finally, according to at least one website, if polar bears and penguins lived in the same place, a polar bear could eat as many as 86 penguins in one sitting?
Keep up with good things, everyone. Until next week!
First of all, I wasted some time today on this solar system simulator which my physics teacher actually told us about for a lab. While it's fun to start with the presets, what's probably a lot more fun is messing with the settings to make stuff go crazy and/or crash into each other.
Secondly, I came up with a delicious pun yesterday, but it requires knowledge of Lord of the Rings and/or D&D. Here it is:
Why are dwarves so stubborn?
It takes a big person to admit you were wrong.
Also, basically everything in life is happening on Friday. My uncle is coming here, where he will stay for around the rest of the month. Also the next Magic set is coming out, and my parent-funded candy--free year is up (hello, ferrero rochers and jolly rancher jelly beans!), and I'm playing in a school veterans day assembly, and it's veterans day AND 11/11, and nominally I'm allowed to drive by myself starting then, and I'm going on a weekend camping trip to Moab (which I'm told is an incredible place). I think there was more, but my memory can only keep track of so much at once.
My Eagle Scout court of honor is in a little more than two weeks. Yay! I can life!
And finally, according to at least one website, if polar bears and penguins lived in the same place, a polar bear could eat as many as 86 penguins in one sitting?
Keep up with good things, everyone. Until next week!
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Today
Dear Readers,
My blog post today is that I am too busy to make a blog post, because despite the fact that I have already taken Calc AB, I still have to do the homework.
And still don't understand some of it.
As a side note, scientific studies have shown that teacher views of student intelligence are to some extent self-fulfilling prophecies. (I'm not saying it applies to me specifically, I was just reminded.)
On the upside, you don't have to read a ton this week!
So there you have it.
-Ian
My blog post today is that I am too busy to make a blog post, because despite the fact that I have already taken Calc AB, I still have to do the homework.
And still don't understand some of it.
As a side note, scientific studies have shown that teacher views of student intelligence are to some extent self-fulfilling prophecies. (I'm not saying it applies to me specifically, I was just reminded.)
On the upside, you don't have to read a ton this week!
So there you have it.
-Ian
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