So just when I get done driving halfway across the country.....I decided to drive across the other half! I'm currently chillin' in the hotel room, listening to the ipod, and updating. Dad and Andrew are busy working out or something (which, if I had known there were workout facilities, I would have brought workout clothes...). So, here's the chronicle of the journeys so far.
We stopped for lunch at this great overlook. It was a picnic area up on a ridge and you have an amazing view down into a valley. The area is so desolate, but there is a beauty to it. I don't know, you can call me weird, but I find something beautiful in the landscape of West Texas. Maybe it's because it is underappreciated.
I was expecting it to be a bad drive, but thanks to the Great State of Texas, the speedlimit is now 80 mph in West Texas, which believe me, makes a world of difference. Thank you Rick Perry, it's one of the only good things you've done and I don't know if I can really say that you did that. And I came within spittin' distance of Mexico, but did not go to Mexico, despite my protestations to the contrary. Triste :(
Tomorrow, we're going to Fort Bowie; my dad says it's pretty cool. It was a staging ground for Union troops for the Battle of Picacho Peak, which is the westernmost Civil War battle, and afterwards, was the site of a outpost on the frontier. There are two battles in the Native American wars near the site as well. I'm excited to be getting out and doing something. We should be reaching San Diego late tomorrow.
Good night all!
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Just Another Night in Austin
So I got to hang out with Jenn for the first time in forever! I saw her for all of 5 minutes as I was leaving the A&M/t.u. game during Thanksgiving...and that was just a chance happening! We had so much to catch up on, and afterwards, I kept thinking of the poem by Sandra Cisneros called "Loose Women." We are two crazy chicas....hee hee. Enjoy!
They say I’m a beast.
And feast on it. When all along
I thought that’s what a woman was.
They say I’m a bitch.
Or a witch. I’ve claimed
The same and never winced.
They say I’m a macha, hell on wheels,
viva-la-vulva, fire and brimstone,
man-hating, devastating,
boogey-woman lesbian.
Not necessarily, but I like the compliment.
The mob arrives with sticks and stones
To maim and lame and do me in.
All the same, when I open my mouth
They wobble like gin.
…
By all accounts I’m a danger to society.
I’m Pancha Villa.
…
I strike terror among the men.
I can’t be bothered what they think.
!Que se vayan a la ching chang chong!
For this, the cross, the calvalry.
In other words, I’m anarchy.
…
I’m an aim-well,
shoot-sharp,
sharp-tongued,
sharp-thinking,
fast speaking,
foot-loose,
loose-tongued,
let-loose,
woman-on-the-loose
loose woman.
Beware, honey.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
And the Truth Shall....
Telling the truth is a funny phenomenon. People say they want to know the truth; but honestly, deep down inside, I don't think a lot of people do. The truth can hurt; it can shatter false hopes and daydreams in a matter of seconds. These can be false hopes that have sustained a person for minutes, weeks, and sometimes years.
Particularly hurtful can be hearing the truth from those closest to us. In my personal experience, hell yeah, it hurts alot, but I have more respect for my friends or family because they had the courage to tell me the truth, first of all, but that they also showed me the respect to tell me the truth. More often than not, they tell me because they want to make me a better person, and for that, I am thankful and respectful to my friends.
Witholding the truth hurts mor than anything else, especially when it is uncovered. We don't mean to hurt the ones we love, but that is part of the human experience. The Truth hurts, but it is necessary.
it shall set you free- in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Particularly hurtful can be hearing the truth from those closest to us. In my personal experience, hell yeah, it hurts alot, but I have more respect for my friends or family because they had the courage to tell me the truth, first of all, but that they also showed me the respect to tell me the truth. More often than not, they tell me because they want to make me a better person, and for that, I am thankful and respectful to my friends.
Witholding the truth hurts mor than anything else, especially when it is uncovered. We don't mean to hurt the ones we love, but that is part of the human experience. The Truth hurts, but it is necessary.
it shall set you free- in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Tis Easier to Seek Forgiveness, Than Ask Permission??
It's forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would've annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive. - 370 of Shantaram
For some odd reason today, I was thinking alot about the topic of forgiveness, possibly because I was finally able to read Shantaram for the first time in forever. Which, by they way, is an amazing book and I recommend for anyone to read. It is a great book with many deep philosophical discussions interlaced with an amazing story.
Forgiveness. It is possibly one of the hardest processes that humans can undertake, whether they are the one granting it or the one seeking it. Too often, we are seeking forgiveness because we have committed a great wrong against the one we love (love in the sense of friends, families, significant others). The process of asking for forgiveness can be arduous; it means facing the person you have wronged, in a humbling position, and owning up to the wrong you have committed and asking for their blessings and understanding.
In turn, the difficultly to grant forgiveness is as great; it includes an empathy with the person asking for the forgiveness and patience. It ultimately comes down to love for that person as well; has the sin the other person has committed so grave that you cannot possibly continue a relationship with that person? The decision to continue association or not lies mostly with the person who has been wronged. In addition, it is important to not confuse healing and forgiveness. Forgiveness means you are willing to help the other person heal and perhaps, seek their help in your healing. Healing means words between the two of you do not evoke the misdeed done; this is an extension of the forgiveness process. More often than not, healing does not begin until forgiveness is found; healing is possibly the second hardest process after forgiveness. This is by no means a process that happens over night; in fact, it is a process that can flounder if it is forced.
Ultimately, forgiveness is an act of love; because you care for the person you wronged, you seek their pardon. And because you love the person who has wronged you, you seek their help to begin the process of healing. It is the decision to forgive that is the greatest test of love you can have for a person.
I conclude with another quote from Shantaram about love, and in a way, relates back to our topic of forgiveness.
They'd lied to me and betrayed, leaving jagged edges where all my trust had been, and I didn't like or respect or admire them any more, but still I loved them. I had no choice. I understood that, perfectly, standing in the white wilderness of snow. You can't kill love. You can't even kill it with hate. You can kill in-love, and loving, and even loveliness. You can kill them all, or numb them into a dense, leaden regret, but you can't kill love itself. Love is the passionate serach for a truth other than your own; and once you feel it, honestly and completely, love is forever.- pg. 740 of Shantaram
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Punk Rock and Anarchy
I was listening to punk rock, and it made me think of anarchy.....post to come sometime. Maybe this is why I'm an anarchist...the music I listen to....
Saturday, December 2, 2006
The Twelve Greats
I have heard a proverb that states "Fate gives all of us three teachers, three friends, three enemies, and three great loves of our lives, but these tweleve are disguised, and we can never know which on is which until we've loved them, left them, or fought them."
The difficulty, also, becomes when one appears to be one of the others: when does a friend become a teacher or a love become an enemy? Perhaps this is a revelation we come to at the end of our lives; while you are in it, the lines become blurred and confused and those you wish to be that great love fail you, your friends betray you, and your enemies turn out to be your greatest teachers.
The difficulty, also, becomes when one appears to be one of the others: when does a friend become a teacher or a love become an enemy? Perhaps this is a revelation we come to at the end of our lives; while you are in it, the lines become blurred and confused and those you wish to be that great love fail you, your friends betray you, and your enemies turn out to be your greatest teachers.
Friday, December 1, 2006
Utopian State of Mind
So recently for my Political Theory Class, I read a book called Picture Imperfect by Russell Jacoby; the book discusses the idea of utopianism and the intellectual history behind it. It is a rather interesting read and by far one of the best I've read for the class. So, it got me to thinking: is utopia possible? and if it is, would we want one, because it seems that the creation of a utopia involves control. Utopias, as well, are not the common notion that everyone has of all living in peace; they are the creation of a new order with ideals dictated by a small elite ruling class.
Most conceptions of utopias, while they did have some shared characteristics (respect, peace, love, etc.) they generally were the embodiment of a perfect society by the person writing it or creating it. Therefore, in a sense, a utopia is the ideal society for a group of people with a shared value and view of the world that is reinforced with force by those in power. This calls into the question, as well, of if a “Marxist” utopia can exist, as Marxism is essentially a liberation theology, not tolerant of any form of control that would be necessary to impose a utopian society. Marxism, as interpreted by Lenin and Stalin (though arguably, he strayed far from Marxism), certainly do involve control, as a means to impose an ideology on a population that has just suffered upheaval. For the failed utopian experiments in histoy, this seems to be the trend: tulmultuous historical periods followed by the feeble attempt to impose a new order. Whether it is the Soviet after the Revolution of 1917 or the Paris Commune after the Revolutions of 1848, or as will be discussed further, the Third Reich after the Versaille "Peace."
Utopias are considered social experiments, and in a sense, they are an experiment in the strict sense of the world. Through strict control of all aspects of society, the ultimate social experiment is being conducted; the ideal conditions are imposed by the governing structure and its rules and laws. Utopians attempt this, but largely fail, for as Jacoby quotes Popper, “ the whole ‘cannot be made the object of scientific study’” (54). Hitler, as Jacoby points out, tried to create a society that he envisioned as ideal, along the lines that he wrote in Mein Kampf; all aspects of society were controlled, from dictating the role of the German woman to the role of races and religions. Fortunately, there were enough who did not share that same idea of utopia and actively worked against it. Those who worked against it were those not included in the view of the utopia; an othering occurs in the creation, or attempt to create, a utopia.
The control used by the Nazis was obvious, yet people still succumbed to it, in part due to the desperate state of Germany in the post-World War I period. The vision offered by Hitler seemed far better than the current state; the offer of a better future, a utopia, so to speak, would be impossible to pass up, especially if it meant having to drag a wheelbarrow of Deutschmarks down the street to buy a loaf of bread.
The promise of a utopia was accompanied by authoritarianism to create the new society that Hitler envisioned; in a sense, the promise of a utopia acted as a cover for the authoritarianism, for as Jacoby points out, from 1984, Winston mistakenly answers that the party has power for the good of the people when it actually has power for its own end, to simply wield power (11). In this sense, utopias are promised to the people so that those who merely seek to practice and exercise power can do so.
This brings me to an interesting question; what is the utopia offered today? Jacoby indicates that not just totalitarian forces but also “the dangers of consumerism and the manipulations of the human psyche concerned Huxley” (9). This speaks today to the extreme consumer culture and the increasing influence of transnational corporations. Society is directed to be more concerned with what the newest products are and what social faux pas they would commit by not having the latest Playstation. Along with this, as Jacoby laments, is the increasing isolation to retreat inside for play, by children, to an environment that is more controlled and limits imagination and thought. Limiting these aspects of human nature makes us susceptible to malleability and easy to control. Coupled with this are the forces of modernity, which, as seen from Giddens, tends to have a homogenizing effect. In a way, the homogenizing effects of modernization have the ability to create groupthink; we have the same values and attitudes. Are we on the way to a utopia centered on the values of consumerism? If this is the case, then this form of utopia formation is far more subversive.
So then, is utopia desireable? Or is "utopia" as humans have conceived it, impossible or is it even wroing? Especially as societies around the world become more divided and diametrically opposed, is it possible to have enough shared values to create this utopia? In one thread, I argue even further that the long intellectual tradition of utopianim does not describe utopia, but rather a form of social engineering. Perhaps anarchists have it right: maybe utopia is a complete and utter lack of control, leaving us at our own wills to determine how to live our lives.
Most conceptions of utopias, while they did have some shared characteristics (respect, peace, love, etc.) they generally were the embodiment of a perfect society by the person writing it or creating it. Therefore, in a sense, a utopia is the ideal society for a group of people with a shared value and view of the world that is reinforced with force by those in power. This calls into the question, as well, of if a “Marxist” utopia can exist, as Marxism is essentially a liberation theology, not tolerant of any form of control that would be necessary to impose a utopian society. Marxism, as interpreted by Lenin and Stalin (though arguably, he strayed far from Marxism), certainly do involve control, as a means to impose an ideology on a population that has just suffered upheaval. For the failed utopian experiments in histoy, this seems to be the trend: tulmultuous historical periods followed by the feeble attempt to impose a new order. Whether it is the Soviet after the Revolution of 1917 or the Paris Commune after the Revolutions of 1848, or as will be discussed further, the Third Reich after the Versaille "Peace."
Utopias are considered social experiments, and in a sense, they are an experiment in the strict sense of the world. Through strict control of all aspects of society, the ultimate social experiment is being conducted; the ideal conditions are imposed by the governing structure and its rules and laws. Utopians attempt this, but largely fail, for as Jacoby quotes Popper, “ the whole ‘cannot be made the object of scientific study’” (54). Hitler, as Jacoby points out, tried to create a society that he envisioned as ideal, along the lines that he wrote in Mein Kampf; all aspects of society were controlled, from dictating the role of the German woman to the role of races and religions. Fortunately, there were enough who did not share that same idea of utopia and actively worked against it. Those who worked against it were those not included in the view of the utopia; an othering occurs in the creation, or attempt to create, a utopia.
The control used by the Nazis was obvious, yet people still succumbed to it, in part due to the desperate state of Germany in the post-World War I period. The vision offered by Hitler seemed far better than the current state; the offer of a better future, a utopia, so to speak, would be impossible to pass up, especially if it meant having to drag a wheelbarrow of Deutschmarks down the street to buy a loaf of bread.
The promise of a utopia was accompanied by authoritarianism to create the new society that Hitler envisioned; in a sense, the promise of a utopia acted as a cover for the authoritarianism, for as Jacoby points out, from 1984, Winston mistakenly answers that the party has power for the good of the people when it actually has power for its own end, to simply wield power (11). In this sense, utopias are promised to the people so that those who merely seek to practice and exercise power can do so.
This brings me to an interesting question; what is the utopia offered today? Jacoby indicates that not just totalitarian forces but also “the dangers of consumerism and the manipulations of the human psyche concerned Huxley” (9). This speaks today to the extreme consumer culture and the increasing influence of transnational corporations. Society is directed to be more concerned with what the newest products are and what social faux pas they would commit by not having the latest Playstation. Along with this, as Jacoby laments, is the increasing isolation to retreat inside for play, by children, to an environment that is more controlled and limits imagination and thought. Limiting these aspects of human nature makes us susceptible to malleability and easy to control. Coupled with this are the forces of modernity, which, as seen from Giddens, tends to have a homogenizing effect. In a way, the homogenizing effects of modernization have the ability to create groupthink; we have the same values and attitudes. Are we on the way to a utopia centered on the values of consumerism? If this is the case, then this form of utopia formation is far more subversive.
So then, is utopia desireable? Or is "utopia" as humans have conceived it, impossible or is it even wroing? Especially as societies around the world become more divided and diametrically opposed, is it possible to have enough shared values to create this utopia? In one thread, I argue even further that the long intellectual tradition of utopianim does not describe utopia, but rather a form of social engineering. Perhaps anarchists have it right: maybe utopia is a complete and utter lack of control, leaving us at our own wills to determine how to live our lives.
Welcome to my Little Corner of the Internet
Once again, as I do every so often, I decided to start a blog/journal/whatever. What I'm hoping will make this one different is that I will write more than "UGH! My family pisses me off" or "WHY ARE BOYS SO STUPID!" I also hope to use it to place my most random thoughts because the Good Lord knows I have plenty of those. And there are some of them that I actually am quite disappointed I don't remember later because they are good thoughts.
I've had Livejournal and Xanga , so we'll see how this goes. Hopefully, I'll have something useful to contribute towards discussions.
Dear reader, all I can promise is this: some posts will be short and some will be long, some will be frequent and others may take months before you hear from me again. It should be all well and interesting, and as always, comments will always be welcome and appreciated.
I've had Livejournal and Xanga , so we'll see how this goes. Hopefully, I'll have something useful to contribute towards discussions.
Dear reader, all I can promise is this: some posts will be short and some will be long, some will be frequent and others may take months before you hear from me again. It should be all well and interesting, and as always, comments will always be welcome and appreciated.
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