jg

Stories

Sorry about my extended break from blogging, and unfortunately it will be continued for another week or so. My cousins are coming (Leaving little to no time for blogging) and then we are heading to canada for a trip to our cabin.

One thing I have observed is that lots of time when there is a really good book/movie/tv show or any other kind of story, the people that like it most seem to have a habit of trying to rewrite, extend, or otherwise change the story. I have a theory that is probably completely false and can be easily disproved by anyone with the vaguest of vague understanding of the human mind.

Basically, we all have a story held somewhere with in our subconscious, which is something like our life with more of whatever genre we like in it. We can try,but we can never get the whole thing. Whenever a story gets close, we get excited and try to alter it to be more like our own story. We switch the protagonist with ourselves, the  antagonist with someone we hate, and the supporting characters with our closest friends. Then when someone tries to read it and doesn't like it, because they have a different story, and theirs has different protagonists, antagonists, and supporting characters. It is an odd mixture of two people's ideas. This makes sense with movies that were based off of books, because it is a fan of the books changing everything. That is why a movie close to the books works. Often when someone it my class says they wrote it a story, it is another story changed to their needs.

I have often tried to write down my story, but to no avail. My life keeps changing, and my story along with it. Before I can get down a hundred pages the story I want to write has been washed away from my memory.

Individual intelectuals

I was having a conversation with my brother over dinner (Our parents were out, so it was just me and him) and I said that no one really reads the paper anymore. Most people get their news online. Despite the fact that it is more environmentally friendly, I still feel like the internet has one big problem, anyone can comment. With a paper, sure you can send in an editorial, but they don't run every editorial, especially if it has three swears a sentence like many comments do (Luckily, few comments are longer than a sentence). Plus you have to go through the trouble of sending it in (Or emailing it) while with a comment, it takes you ten seconds to type a short one.
Anyways, my brother said I was wrong because he reads the newspaper every day. I always thought it would be cool to read the newspaper everyday, a nice little skill you could have. To make sure my brother didn't start bragging, I told him he was an intellectual, so he didn't count. But what makes someone an individual intellectual (I don't really there can be an intellectual who isn't an individual).
I have thought about this  a lot and have come to the conclusion that the thing that makes someone an intellectual is whether or not you parents are smart. This is not saying that you somehow inherit the "Smart" gene, or that you succeed because your parents are smart, and therefore rich (Plenty of upper class people aren't smart and plenty of middle class or lower class people are), but because your parents influence your childhood, teaching you what is important. For me, for example, intelligence is valued in my family. In other families sports or other things are high priorities. Your parent's/guardian's priorities encourage you in certain areas and so you succeed in those areas.
As far as being an individual, it really depends on whether you are or aren't afraid of too much negative attention. Conformity is, all in all, caused by fear.

Music

My brother and father are planning on going to a fleet foxes concert, which frankly annoys me. Not that there is anything wrong in general with their music, but I have always felt like listening to it was like listening to a church choir, which, despite my religious beliefs, I have always had a dislike for. So the fact that you would pay to listen to that is, in my opinion, weird. I'm glad I'm not going.

Pretty much I just like bands that are or sound similar to U2. 

I have wondered a lot, what if everybody had different tastes, but everybody perceived it differently. For example, let's say everybody's favorite color is green, but their eye perceive it different, so to them, green things look blue, for example. Everyone calls the sky blue, so, even though they think the sky is green, they call it blue because they think that is what the word for green is. So they say their favorite color is blue. It could work the same way with taste in food, music, and art. 

Obviously, if I spend my time thinking about this I have too much free time on my hands.

Sacrifice

Last night I had an interesting and sad dream. There was a boy my age who was going to be executed because of something his parents did (Obviously my subconscious does not abide by the United States government) unless I stepped in and offered my own life for the life of this stranger. I asked someone if it were possible for me to take his place. The answer was that it was. I had just opened my mouth to say I would take his place, when I realized I just couldn't do it. I walked away and let him get killed. It was such a relief to wake up and realized I hadn't been responsible for a innocent person's life. 

But a sickness crept into my stomach as I realized I hadn't wanted to sacrifice my life for his because he would live. It was the image in my mind of god clapping me on the back and saying "Job well done", or something along those lines. And the last few minutes of my dream were me hanging out with friends while being scared out of my wits of what my afterlife would be like when I did die, basically exactly what was described in Dante`'s Inferno.

What scares me most is not that I would willingly give up a persons life just so I could live. It is that the only reason I would sacrifice my life just to get into heaven. That is the same logic that the suicide bombers used (That they would be in paradise as soon as they crashed into the twin towers), and it is disturbing that I would use it in  my own mind.

That is what made Jesus' sacrifice so incredible. He was not doing it for a better afterlife or to save his kids or his wife (Though it would still be noble if he did it for the last two). He did it because, well, I don't know exactly. The response "To save us from our sins" seems to lack any detail, and everyone I ask gives different answers. But he did it for no personal gain or love towards an individual. he did it out of love towards everybody, that much is clear. And who knows, maybe my dream is trying to tell me something, so I had to take the actions I did.

  

Malice

I was riding my bike along when I saw a sign that said "For sale by owner". Right by the word "For" it said "Toys", which was underlined twice and written in sharpie, so the sign read "Toys for sale by owner". As soon as I saw it, my mind got on a train of thought. I was wondering if he had old lego technic sets (Some sell for several hundred dollars on ebay) when I realized that this seemed suspiciously like some kind of prank. I could just imagine me going on the phone with the number underneath the "For sale by owner sign" and looking like a complete idiot.

You have to live in extremely sheltered living to avoid malice. It comes from people that lick all the chocolate bars when still in their wrappers at star-bucks or push you out the door with a censor before you have paid for the item and gotten the magnetic strip removed, or at least threaten to do that. So why do they do that? Do they take inherit joy from that or is there something encoded in their brain that makes them evil like that by nature?

My conclusion is that when they aren't doing stupid, mean stuff, they are really desperate for friendship or at least someone that doesn't hate them. They do the maliceful stuff in fits of thoughtlessness. So as long as you don't call the number, wipe the chocolate bars off, or  cling onto a bookshelf before he can push you out the door, you'll be okay. 

Villians

It is odd, but I can not think of many stories at all that do not have some kind of villains. Seriously, there are hundreds of embodiments of evil in movies, TV shows, and books. Most are murderers. Most are self-serving, and almost all are killed in the end.
I don't know why, but I find it annoying that stories are thought of as original when they have an antagonist that act exactly like this. Of course, if I ever write a novel, the antagonist will almost definently fit this stereotype. Still, it makes me wonder how generation after generation (Because this idea of the villain is not by any means new) get by after having stories broadcasted this way. I guess at least a good amount of people know enough to separate fact from fiction.  

Nostalgia

I saw an commercial or the new Winnie the Pooh movie, and to be honest, I can't think of a single movie this year that has been animated without computer animation besides Winnie the Pooh. At first it stumped me, why take the risk that people will judge your movie poorly and therefore not see it based on the animation technology from the commercials. But then I realized, it isn't aimed towards children at all, it is aimed towards 50-year olds who want to remember their childhood, which included different animation.
In one way or another, almost everyone will want to remember being young. I sure do. The big thing that I remember from my childhood was Bionicle. In case you don't know, Bionicle is a line of action figures put out by the Lego corporation that has been recently discontinued. When it was discontinued, I was crestfallen, and the thing that replaced it, Hero Factory is pretty much one big cliche. But the more I think about it, the more Bionicle wasn't much better. In fact, by the end, the story was confusing and downright stupid.
But the reason I like to remember Bionicles is because when I discovered them, it was a time when a cliche didn't exist in my world (I was 3 at the time). Everything was new and interesting, and anything seemed possible. My world was small and full of mysteries. Now I know the world is a lot bigger and I have the attention span to answer or at least guess at those mysteries.
I guess the same thing goes for Winnie the Pooh. I can imagine my mom or dad 43 years ago watching Hephelumps and Weasels march across the screen.
Frankly, I think it is a genius idea. when the rest of the world is transfixed watching a noseless guy kill people with green lightning, there is a group remembering their childhood. And if anyone ever makes a bionicle movie, I can tell you I will be at the theater the opening day.

faith without works is dead

I have had many conversations with my youth minister. One of the ones I remember most is works vs. faith.
My youth minister says they are both equal, and I can see how that could work. Faith causes works, and works support faith. It would make sense if that was how they worked, all equal, but the more I think about it, the more it doesn't seem to make sense at all.
If they were both equal, it would mean that a christian that went to church weekly and was deeply religious and prayed every night and never faltered in belief, would be at least half right, but if that was true, then Mohandas K. Gahndi would be half wrong, even though he did great and followed many Christian ideas, even though he wasn't christian.
 The way that I see it (And remember, this is all completely hypothetical), if you are perfect in faith but do no works, it would be a net loss for the good of everyone. But if you are perfect in faith but have no faith or a faith other than christianity, then what you do is a net gain for the good of everyone, despite the fact that one more seat was empty during church.
It says in the bible, "If you have faith enough to move mountains, but do not love, you are nothing." Love as I understand it, love is root of all true good works, and it can come from a Hindu, Atheist, Muslim, Jew, or even a cult member. So even if it is a bit uneven, I think works overrule faith in most cases.

24

I heard about that show. Supposedly, each show is one hour and each season is 24 episodes long. I wonder what it would be like in real life.

2-3 o'clock: sleeping
6-7 o'clock: newspaper reading and yogurt eating
8-9 o'clock: traffic jam


See what I mean?

Missinterpretations

I remember being at school a few days after the first Iron Man movie came out. Now, if you have seen Iron Man, you would know it is the only marvel movie I have ever seen that has a theme that is not a complete cliche (See, I finally learned how to spell that word).
Basically, it is against military action. In fact, the main antagonist was a weapons producer. However, the week after it came out I over heard someone saying the the movie demands more military action in the middle east.
That kid did something really common, he took something great and channeled it to meet his own means (The kid was a Hyper- Conservative). I will admit, I have done similar things. But have you ever considered that we have misinterpreted the personality of Jesus?
Have you ever considered he may have a sense of humor? Many people don't. I mean, he was doing important things like healing people or preaching the word of god. In fact, he was gods son, so why shouldn't he be above human emotions?
Because that is what made him special. He was both god and human, so why  not have a sense of humor? Personally, I think Jesus would be a bit boring if he didn't have one.
So when did he ever crack a joke? I can think of one example. Once Jesus said to Peter "You are the rock on which my church is built". But when you think about it, Peter was the least stable of the disciples, and the least rock-like, so to speak. Maybe we misinterpreted his words as a serious sentence, maybe he is light-heartedly making fun of Peter. Of course, it is bad to make fun of someone at a large extent, but if Jesus could walk on water and heal dead people, I doubt he wouldn't be able to make fun of someone without hurting their feelings.

Newspapers, Vampires, and America

Last year, around valentines day I read in the paper a whole article about the founding fathers being vampires.
Of course, it was a joke, and a funny one at that. I cracked up when I read it. Unfortunently, some other people had different views. That day the newspaper company was swamped with angry letters and editorials complaining. The next day a retraction was printed.
But the worst part (Other than the genius who wrote it getting in trouble) was that they thought that it was a heresy to write this.
I'm more than fine with respecting, learn about, and admiring the people who founded this country, but the people who wrote the angry letters seemed to treat the founding fathers as gods, and not only that, linking them to the god from abrahamic religions.
 That seems wrong in many ways. For one thing, Jesus had been born, raised, persecuted, killed, resurrected, and had ascended more than a thousand years before europeans even started coming to this country, much less colonizing it and creating a country from those colonies. Its not that I think god is unhappy or apathetic about the U.S., but I also don't think that it is more holy than any other country, and it is unfair to say to other countries that the founding fathers are up in gods right hand (In fact, they weren't even Christian! They believed god came down, made everything, and then left us to do what we want with what we've got, an interesting theology).
There is a comic strip I like called Pearls Before Swine. In one series of strips he decided to have the main characters bring back Abraham Lincoln. He is happy at first, then finds out he gets assassinated and gets all drunk and depressed. Then he decides to go back to his own time, where he is later shot.
The creator, Stephen Patsis got a lot of angry letters about showing Abraham Lincoln acting not like a historical figure, but actually acting like a real human. Patsis said in response (Quote approximated) "I've been reading up about Abraham Lincoln... (And) I've found he joked about death a lot, so I think Abraham would on my side with this one.", which is pretty much the stance I take with the founding fathers/vampire thing.

Being wrong

I had a conversation with my youth minister that went something like thins
Me: Is it a sin to be wrong?
Youth Minister: Um, no, I don't think so
Me: Then why is it considered a sin to be the wrong religion?
The youth minister never really answered that.
I remember when I was (Very) young, I thought anyone who didn't believe in "The Right God" were evil. I know this seems very extreme, but unfortunently some people have opinions the aren't all that different.
For that reason I think that it is not a bad thing to be a different religion than I am, and if there is any judgement by god, they will not be judged by their faith but their deed. We have all been wrong on pretty major thing. I have no doubt I would be Jewish, Muslim, Atheist,  Buddhist, Hindu, or whatever religion my parents were had I been into a different family.
Incase that this post is confusing, let me explain:
When I was young, I was wrong about something that I thought very major (Thinking anyone a non-Christian were "Bad" and because I was Christian I was "Good"). Everybody has had similar misconceptions, so it is therefore not a sin to be a different religion, or else it is a sin everybody has committed.  

4th (Or rather 5th) of July

I heard somewhere that in England they celebrate it by sitting around, drinking cheap beer, and mocking us. While here we set off highly dangerous explosives into the air for entertainment and drink the exact same (Brand of) beer.
Of course, unless you are under the influence of alcohol, fireworks are perfectly safe devices.
You normally think of our country as wonderful and great, because, of course, it is. However, think of something else for a moment. The american revolution was formed because of anger at the British, much of which comes from the boston "Massacre". The history book I read in 6th grade said that (Quote approximated) "Some boys were  throwing snowballs and making fun of british soldiers. They got angry and shot 5 of them". What really happened was boys and men were throwing snowballs at soldiers, yes. But the snowballs were filled with sharp ice. Clubs were also being thrown. On of the soldiers was knocked down by one of the clubs and his finger accidentally tightened around the trigger. The rest of the men thought that they had been given the order to fire, so the shot. 5 lives were lost, yes. But they were not from evil, menacing british soldiers, but rather an accident resulting from a violent riot.
There were other causes for the American revolution, some of which are moral, but at any rate the british are and never were not some evil race of anti-Americans as some sources say (Such as the the play Paul Revere, the Musical!)
My point? That, even in the class room, history picks its heroes and villains. We are Americas, so therefore the beginning of our country is supposed to be thought of as a fight as good vs. Evil, even when it isn't. I don't know what I would do if I were a teacher. Do I stick with the history books or sympathize with the British?

Proteges

Proteges. I've dealt with quite a few of them. There isn't anything wrong with them, in fact, there being something unusually right about them is what defines them as a protege. Being able to do advanced algebra at age eleven, write thousands of lines of code, read a 400 page book in two days, and so on. They are, in my mind the ones that will succeed in life, but then again, maybe not.
I read somewhere that there was an extremely smart person, but he had no social skills and ultimently failed. I'm sorry that that was so vague, but as you are reading this likely you have a story of your own that fits in with this.
But people with all social skills don't get all that far either. I can sure think of a lot of people like that. Someone that has something about them, some charisma, that make you want to follow them. I'm not saying all people with a lot of social skills are like this, but I know some people with a social spark so intoxicating, that they could tell you something so stupid that it's laughable... and you will still want to believe that because of the way they say it.
You need a combination to succeed. I know it seems unprofessional to quote a children's book (Then again, I'm not a professional) but as Theodore Geizel (Or Dr. Suess) said "Life is a great balancing act" and I have to believe it.
The greeks believed in something called the golden ratio, which basically says that you are happiest when youare in the middle of the spectrum, which is basically my point. Truly successful, happy people are both talented and social. Of course there are exceptions, but that is basically how it works.