Letter to The Prospective Philosophy Student

Dear Prospective Philosophy Student,
Your experience in the philosophy in literature class will most likely vary widely depending on which teacher you have, as well as which group you would end up in, so there's little I could really say to prepare you for it. If you end up with circumstances similar to mine, you will have more than a couple units which aren't typically included in a philosophy in literature class. In a way, philosophy is too vague an idea to have a set curriculum between teachers, but this class is an example of one which uses completely different course material than most other philosophy classes. Almost all of the authors that typically come to mind when one thinks of philosophy are only briefly mentioned if even that. That's not necessarily a bad thing - there is philosophical value in every work, undoubtedly - but if you're expecting Nietzsche or Rousseau, you may be disappointed. At very least, the class wouldn't interfere with any of your philosophical pursuits outside of school significantly, except for perhaps in terms of the opportunity cost. Everything is what you make of it; you can learn a lot from any situation if you're willing.

Thoughts About Earlier Thinking

Taking "earlier thinking" to mean earlier blog entries, I actually have been thinking of using them in some way recently. I think some of the earlier entries which I actually bothered to write well could be used to apply to a creative writing program. They aren't fantastic, so I'm not sure exactly what the outcome would be, but I need a couple writing samples and this blog seems to be a good place to pull them from. I remember some mention of a former philosophy student using her blog posts to get some internship or something like that, so maybe I could do the same. My earlier thinking isn't really very well demonstrated in my earlier blog posts, I think.

Surrounded by Cuckoos, but I was the crazy one

I've never really felt I've been surrounded by cuckoos, or really that anyone is really any more crazy than any other. Everyone functions differently in some way, so to say some certain way is crazier than any other lacks basis in anything very substantive. Craziness is in the eye of the beholder.

There's an artist named David Firth who has created videos which I think are particularly deranged in an intriguing kind of way. For some reason the disturbed nature present in all of his works is oddly calming or pleasant. He's probably most known for the video series Salad Fingers, but that's really just the tip of the iceberg. I first discovered him when I was much younger, and while a few of his videos were somewhat terrifying for me, I didn't want to stop watching. I just recently re-watched a few of the videos in question and had nearly the same reaction.

If my situation is as the title of this blog implies, I suppose I should feel privileged to be the only crazy one among the cuckoos as craziness can be enjoyable.

Together

I have the ACT next week on Thursday, so I'm not going to want to write a blog entry then. I'll take the opportunity to write a little something right now.

Think of this blog entry as a continuation of the "Alone" entry, especially in the goofy nonsense way.

My "Alone" playlist will have to wait; I will now search for the word "together"

There are significantly more songs in the Alone playlist than in the Together playlist. This is obviously indicative of the nature music has taken these days. Music these days is bad because it's fashionable to dislike things these days, especially music! While I'm at it, popular music is bad too!!! Wow, I sure am edgy!

I sometimes find it difficult to be together with others because I'm such a nonconformist rebel and I make fun of all the popular things everyone else likes. Everyone else is on the other side of this issue; underground music exists in the absence of a market for it because I'm the only person that has any taste in music and listens to anything but mainstream garbage!! What an anomaly! Everyone knows that if something has more than a couple fans it can't be good!

I'm done with that now I think.

My together playlist is pretty good. I kinda like the lyrics in the song playing now.

Alone

This blog entry will be total stream of consciousness blather (with a semi-humorous tone).

The Strokes have a song called Alone, Together - pretty similar to this week's and next week's blog entry titles!!! Seems like copyright infringement to me!!!

Being alone means being by oneself; it means being without company. Sometimes it can be fun to be alone if you have fun being alone. Other times, it is useful to be around others.

I know a song that has a lyric "have you ever been alone in a crowded room?" called Dark Blue. I think that song is by Jack's Mannequin, but I can't quite remember. It's a pretty good song, but it is alone in that it's the only Jack's Mannequin song I've really listened to very much. That actually isn't true; I've listened to a few others I think. It's only nearly alone then. I wrote a blog entry that had a little about aloneness earlier this week, but it was a bit more serious than I want to be with this entry, so I'll leave them separate (or alone!!!)

Thinking about the two songs I've mentioned so far in this blog entry, I decided to search my itunes library for the word "alone" and it made a pretty interesting little playlist. I think I'll go listen to those songs now.

Save the Earth, Do this!

We shouldn't do anything to save the Earth; the Earth isn't worth saving. In the grand meaninglessness of life in this universe, there is no purpose to ensuring the survival of any given planet. To assign any objective value to the one we live on is an attempt to impose meaning on a pointless system. Also, to save the Earth as it is assumes that its current state is preferable to one in which it is not saved. Global warming causing mass extinction isn't a bad thing just because it's inconvenient for our species. There is no saving the Earth, just existing on it.

Invisible

Sometimes invisibility does not have to be caused by something or someone being unable to be seen, but rather by the refusal of others to see. Everyone is invisible to the majority of the world, since any given person isn't likely to be known by even their entire city, excluding small towns. Even people with significant fame, people that are known by others all around the world, are invisible because few know them personally. All of this assumes that we could ever really truly know another person's innermost self. In class, Bill Gates was given as an example of a visible person because "if he wants something he could get it" or some other silly reasoning, but that assumption itself makes Bill Gates invisible. We assume we understand Bill Gates because he we see his desires or actions, all while never bothering to question whether those are really his true desires. Maybe Bill Gates is a completely different person than the majority of those that know of him perceive him to be; we would never really know. Everyone is invisible, so it's a somewhat fruitless topic for conversation. Also, it seems really melodramatic to think that everyone should or even could focus on knowing an invisible person. It's really ironic how, in a book pointing out that we don't bother to understand others, the characterization is so poor. Maybe it was intentional.

A Book to Read

Well that is typically what books are for. I think I'll take this chance to actually speak on topic. So far, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man has been a somewhat major letdown. Ralph Ellison does a very poor job of writing an engaging novel. I mostly only feel apathetic in regard to his protagonist. I'm given very little reason to care about what happens to a character that really isn't very compelling whatsoever. Poignant social commentary or not, a narrative is a failure if it feels like a chore to pick it up. It might be only me, but I'm only continuing with reading it because I want to be done with it so I can move onto something more interesting. To be fair, I'll open my own selection to criticism. The next thing I will read will most likely be How to Be Alone by Jonathan Franzen.

Movie Review

I've decided to give up TV for lent (mostly for the purpose of freeing up time), so I'm actually not sure what movie I last saw outside of school. As such, I think I'll just talk about the movies we've watched in class. I did rather like Exit Through the Gift Shop, but I didn't think it was anything spectacular. Do the Right Thing was awful. I was really bored while we watched that, so I mostly just tried to tune it out and read or do something else. The movie adaptation of The Autobiography of Malcolm X left very much to be desired as well. All excuses of time constraints aside, valid as they are, it was a mediocre movie. Since those are the only two movies directed by Spike Lee I've seen (that I know of) I think I can safely say he's off to a poor start in my book. I don't intend on watching any more of his movies, however, so I guess that's how it'll stay. I didn't really care about the Copyright Criminals thing. I've heard good things about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, so I'm looking forward to seeing the end of that and commend this selection. The Road was probably by far the worst movie we've seen to date.

Art Review

I google'd "art" and found this. I think it's somewhat interesting. I probably wouldn't buy it or anything, but it's pretty cool I guess. 

We Have the Right

We have a lot of rights. Defining freedom as the ability to act according to our will, we have nearly unlimited freedom. The only thing we are ultimately limited by is our own capability. We cannot perform some action which is logically impossble, and as such we do not have the freedom to act according to our whims. Penalties do not restrict rights, however; just because there is a punishment for some action does not mean the action is impossible. blahblahblah

McCarthy's Birthday Week

I'm not really sure what to say to this more than happy birthday week.

X is Known

One of my favorite quotes from the Autobiography of Malcolm X so far is, "I have never previously told anyone my sordid past in detail. I haven't done it now as though I might be proud of how bad, how evil, I was. But people are always speculating- why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from birth, must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that has ever happened to us is an ingredient."
Since I couldn't possibly know of every detail of Malcolm X's life, there is no way he could be fully known to me by this standard. I know the things he has deemed important enough to be included, and therefore I know which types of experiences he thinks most shape a person's personality, however.

X Marks the Spot

This blog entry has a double meaning; it may be referring to the X that typically shows the location of treasure on a map, or it may be referring to Malcolm X's favorite hobby. You see, Malcolm X very much enjoyed marking spots. Wherever he went, he liked to leave a playing card with an X on it. While these two meanings may seem separate, they are much more related than they may seem on the surface. They are interrelated in that those X's on the treasure maps were in fact drawn by Malcolm X! Malcolm X realized the impending pirate takeover of the world, and in a heroic effort to prevent another ninja-pirate war he created thousands of treasure maps to distract the pirates. If not for "X marking the spot," the world would be a very different place today; we would all be pirates.

2/11 ​Album/Track Review

The album I've been listening to most recently has been First Temple by Closure in Moscow. My favorite track so far is probably Sweet#hart. I think the vocals are really nice, and the song transitions very well from really different sounding parts. It's a pretty good album overall... That's all I have to say.

I Know This Means Something

I'm not sure what "this" is, so I can't be sure it actually does mean something. In addition to that, I'm not sure what it would be to "mean something" in this context. Because of the vagueness of this title, I'm going to assume the only possible conclusion: "the word 'this' has a definition." "This" is a demonstrative pronoun that deontes something that is present or near in place or time, or something just mentioned, or that is just about to be mentioned. As an adjective, "this" has the same demonstrative force as the pronoun, but is followed by a noun. There are clear definitions for "this," and as such certainly means something. I know it does...




Source for definitions: brainyquote.com

Ultimate Recipe

The TurBaconEpic (a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig)
Ingredients:
20 lb pig
8 lb turkey
6 lb duck
4 lb chicken
Cornish hen
quail
10 lbs of bacon
1.5 lbs of veal / pork sausage meat
12 croissants
2 L Dr. Pepper
6 lbs of butter

Get the 5 birds (turkey, duck, chicken, Cornish hen, quail) and take the bones out of them. Mix bacon and croissants to make stuffing. Create meat glue from bacon and veal / pork sausage meat. Add in the following order:
Turkey then meat glue, then seared duck, then meat glue, and bacon strips and bacon strips and bacon strips and bacon strips and bacon strips. layer chicken on top, then stuffing and Cornish hen then meat glue and quail.
Roll it all together then sew it shut. Wrap it in bacon strips. Bacon strips. Season the pig with dry rub, then put the 5 birds inside of it and fill the cavities with bacon stuffing. Sew it shut. Tenderize (important) then smoke the pig. Cover it in a glaze made from Dr. Pepper and butter, then wrap it in bacon strips and garnish it with baconators. Then serve.

Credit for this recipe goes to Epicmealtime.

Good Food Review

To review “good food” it would probably be helpful to pick a food in specific that is good, as a review of good food overall would be pretty much limited to the sentence “good food is good.” I dislike spicy things, so that helps to narrow the search for what “good food” is in my opinion. Beyond that, there are some ingredients that I dislike (onions, zucchini, etc) that also limit out a significant number of dishes. My favorite foods usually involve seafood in some capacity, and I also like rice very much, so it seems the natural assumption that sushi is good food. Sushi is great because there’s little that can be done wrong. Sushi is such a simple food; the most basic pieces are just rice and fish wrapped in seaweed. Because of its simplicity it can be very easily made at home with few supplies (it’s also a lot of fun to do). There’s a lot that can be done with sushi such as some pieces containing cream cheese and other unusual ingredients. Wasabi is much too spicy for me, however, so I usually stick to soy sauce as my only addition. Sushi is good, I’m not really sure what else to say about it.

King Still King?

I'm not really sure what this prompt is supposed to mean. It's too vague for me to write anything meaningful that wouldn't feel hopelessly contrived. I'm going to take it as a question of whether or not leaders still function as monarchs. There are monarchies in the world I suppose, so some leaders must be monarchs. In other systems a case-by-case analysis is necessary. More charismatic leaders tend to achieve power akin to that of a monarch while others obviously do not.

I'm a Shoe

I guess I'm a shoe.

Edit: I can't say I believe any given shoe is the symbol of some group of people I belong to; I hate that type of thing. In this entry I had a choice between being contrived or barely writing anything. I chose the latter. I'm have too much of an angst-filled, teenager mindset for this type of thing right now.

Winter Poem

Since I have no talent for poetry and the title of this entry doesn't specify whether the poem is one I wrote or one I like, I'm going to assume it's the latter.
My favorite winter-themed poem is probably Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I particularly like the last stanza of the poem.