Sunday, January 30, 2011

Fan.

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All the orange boxes are scattered.
We get to Safeway's supermarket in the rain.
And everybody feels so determined
Not to feel anyone else's pain.

(You know that) No one's making no commitments
To anybody but themselves,
Hidin' behind closed doorways,
Tryin' to get outside, outside of empty shells

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I have a new project. I'm not quite ready to talk about it yet, but it goes a little something like this:

Albert Einstein : "The crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a perparation for his future career."

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Capitalism.

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Read the first 25 pages of this book by Marion Nestle. (Click "book")

Does capitalism really work? Once all aspects of our society were based on profit and business, everything was corrupted. The corporations have too much sway (if not complete) of our political system and media and it's creating a degenerate society. I do not believe that a capitalist model is a enlightened form of government. And I believe it is failing—right now, as our society continues to slip in education, over-spend, over-medicate, and eat their way to obesity. Read that book for a sweet read on the food industry.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Days like this.

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Because today was not as easy as the rest.

Today I learned;

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To acknowledge and encourage beauty and discourage darkness.

Something switched "on" in me over the past few days. A burst of clarity or something like it. I'm going to take advantage of it.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

The unexamined life is not worth living.

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What do you think about? In order to fully understand something wouldn't you have to understand all the circumstances that produced the end product? For example, to understand why cats meow, wouldn't you have to understand exactly how cats evolved and all the situations their predecessors have experienced and how their voice developed and so on? Everything. To understand a war, you would have to understand what happened with every entity involved and probably down to minute events that no one but those present witnessed, maybe past experiences of leaders that made them act or think in a certain way? Anyway, what that brings me to is what do we actually know? I'm learning everyday, trying to "know" something but the end conclusion is I know almost nothing because I can't know everything because 1. I am human and we don't understand the fundamentals of time/space/ and life. 2. I don't have the brain capacity or will to understand even the smallest fraction of the "truth" in the universe even if it was actually apparent to human beings. Sometimes I feel completely stupid because I can't understand or don't already know so many things that other do, and yet other times I feel that most people aren't really thinking about anything important at all and are just partaking in a simple distraction they call life; using personal drama or gossip or television to create something to spend their time on.

So is it better to spend your time and thoughts on trivial things that happen in your tiny life or is it more beneficial to try to understand even a part of the truth that humans could theoretically interpret of the universe? The more I learn about events, politics, philosophy, relationships, humans, etc. the more I am concerned with the biggest issues at hand. Perpetuating the human race, meaning not allowing us to over-pollute or over-populate the Earth to the point of self-destruction, questioning the validity of economy-based society and what kind of people it actually creates, what is love and is it rightfully the single most important thing in my life, is morality created by man and is it the best to act accordingly or is it for suckers and fools because so many others aren't following the same rules? Am I going to be weird for the rest of my life now that these thoughts are in my head? I don't see them going away or losing value on my life's priority list. Does contemplation create social outcasts, because it seems most people (including myself) are endlessly concerned with vanity, money, and distractions.

I travel by plane, I eat meat, am self-absorbed, an avid consumer, get drunk, have stolen, lied and cheated. BUT, I've learned or at least am aware of the unrighteousness of many of these acts and as I sit on my bed writing this I can honestly attest to my pursuit of something good, true or meaningful within my given timeframe. Some kind of progress. I don't really know much of anything but I want to. I want to talk and think about real questions and concerns that should be central to all human life. What was it about ancient greek society that produced thinkers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle all within such a relatively short period of time? And how far exactly, have we contemporaries strayed?

I'm out, I gotta go check what's happening on Facebook. 

Saturday, January 22, 2011

The Tragedy of the Commons

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"We want the maximum good per person; but what is good? To one person it is wilderness, to another it is ski lodges for thousands. To one it is estuaries to nourish ducks for hunters to shoot; to another it is factory land. Comparing one good with another is, we usually say, impossible because goods are incommensurable. Incommensurables cannot be compared."

Garrett Hardin

Friday, January 21, 2011

You and I.

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There is honestly nothing else that makes me more whole than realizing how wonderful all the people in my life are. Daily. 

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Side note:

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I just think this adds to what I was rambling about yesterday:
“We are born unjust, for each of us is out for himself. That is against all order. We should work for the general good, and the tendency towards self-interest is the beginning of all disorder, in warfare, government, economy, etc.”
“That is perfectly in order. It is as impossible for a society to be formed and be durable without self-interest as it would be to produce children without carnal desire or to think of eating without appetite, etc. It is love of self that encourages love of others, it is through our mutual needs that we are useful to the human race. That is the foundation of all commerce, the eternal link between men. Without it not a single art would have been invented, no society of ten people formed.” 
-Voltaire's Letter on England 

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Rational thought.

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Human Behavior and Rational Thought 101. Let's go to school.

Two people are accused of a crime and must either confess to the crime or remain quiet. They are put in separate rooms, if one testifies and not the other, then the person who confesses is free and the other goes to jail for 10 years. If they both confess they each spend five years in jail. If they both keep quiet they each serve 1 year for other minor crimes. So it looks like this:

                       Confess               Keep Silent
Confess             5/5                        0/10
Keep Silent      10/0                       1/1

When my new prof proposed this question he immediately labeled confession as the most rational choice. This symbolizes human rationality and collective irrationality. Acting individually despite the needs of the larger whole or "the tragedy of the commons," as it was explained to our class.

When I first looked at it, I immediately saw a combined two year sentence as the result of mutual silence to be the most profitable for both parties and therefore the most rational. But when I raised my hand to protest, he gave me an answer similar to this:
"No matter what a suspect believes his partner is going to do, is is always best to confess. If the partner in the other cell is not confessing, you would be free instead of serving 1 year if both were not confessing. If the partner in the other cell is confessing, you will both serve 5 instead of him being free and you serving 10 years. You are far better assuming the other person is going to act according to their self-interests."

My roommate and I were talking about "The Game," and I was trying to see if she thought human nature was inherently selfish or altruistic.  By this I was just assuming that whichever was natural was right or the best, because if we were designed to be altruistic it would benefit the common good, but maybe we were designed to be selfish for independent survival. She without hesitating, explained that she determined human nature to be self serving but that this was wrong. We had evolved in a way that changed our natural desire to fulfill basic needs into a skewed vision of what is necessary for survival or "happiness" and developed an excessive thirst for money and basically materialistic junk. Ava thought the human race was failing and this is because we do not consider the bigger picture as we make our daily choices. The thought of doing so seems pretty futile when the rest of society is seemingly working against you.

Ava has a delightful way of expressing opinions on topics that I've spent hours/days/months trying to even understand, as if it has always been apparent to her or is just completely obvious. My friend from D.C. had explained to me that he didn't think it was beneficial to actively pursue "the common good" because it actually alienates you from the rest of society. He thought our civilization is actually set up so if you were to act and sacrifice in order to be aligned with the greater good of mankind as a whole and the health of our planet (what exactly both of those entail are not obvious to me) you would be so far removed from "mainstream" society that you would actually end up suffering from it. Ava explained to me, "I don't want to live my life in vain." And honestly, that makes perfect sense, why dedicate your life to a failure?

My only question is, if "the life of man, [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" what other cause is worthy of dedication at all?

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The Beginning of the End.

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Classes began today. It seems funny that whenever I feel perplexed by a situation I do not know how to handle best, if I just concentrate on what is happening around me, I learn what to do. In a way, the universe seems to teach me lessons when I'm in need, or maybe they only make sense when I'm in search of the answer. Anyway, today I went to my first two classes of my last college semester. I've been calling it "THE BEGINNING OF THE END." The first was "The Idea of the Beautiful" and the second was "Politics of China". Earlier today I thought I was going to talk about the second lecture, but the last few hours of my night changed my mind. These are the lessons I learned today:

Firstly; Bonds are strongest when founded on genuine intent of mutual betterment. I am finding that in relationships, when you are genuine and truly concerned with the well being of those you care about, it will surprise you how many people will act accordingly towards you. It seems that although you are very lucky to find someone who fully loves and understands you, there are many that can love you in their own unique way and understand a part of you better than the rest. Accept this. Absorb this. They all help you learn to love better, the more people you learn the love, the broader benefits you will be able to reap.

Secondly; "In itself none...is better than any other; how it comes out depends entirely on how it is performed." The class titled "The Idea of the Beautiful" assigned Plato's "Symposium" for tonights reading. How fitting. Every so often my core beliefs are shaken and it makes everyday decisions hard to make until I rebalance myself. The Symposium is the story of a gathering of ancient Greeks including Socrates and a handful of other thoughtful men who express what they understand the deity "Love" to be. Each man gives a different account of love (besides Socrates, that's Thursday's reading) and how they interpret the God/s they identify with it. They seemed to agree that their were different degrees of love, some that were noble and others that were of a lesser quality. These are the ideas that stuck out to me:

Pausanias;
"love is, like everything else, complex: considered simply in itself, it is neither honorable nor a disgrace—its character depends entirely on the behavior it gives rise to...it is the common, vulgar lover, who loves the body rather than the soul, the man whose love is bound to be inconstant, since what he loves is itself mutable and unstable."
Side note: Don't several different philosophies/beliefs agree that the root of suffering is the attachment  to the transient? Or perhaps even, the "love" of the less relevant or ultimately unfulfilling as in superficial attachment of the body, money, or power?

"If someone decides to put himself at another's disposal because he thinks that this will make him better in wisdom or in any other part of virtue, we approve of his voluntary subjection"
Lesson one?

Eryximachus:
"it is far greater when Love is directed, in temperance and justice, toward the good, whether in heaven or on earth: happiness and good fortune, the bonds of human society, concord with the gods above—all these are among his gifts."
This makes me think of the ultimate goal of uplifting as many as possible.

Agathon:
"Love fills us with togetherness and drains all of our divisiveness away...In pain, in fear, in desire or speech, Love is our best guide and guard; he is our comrade and our savior."
Be guided.

Monday, January 17, 2011

The four-part cure

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Tetrapharmakos

Don't fear god,
Don't worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure

Epicurus

For more: Thank you Wiki

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Today's discovery: Flower of Life.

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My friend Sarah was telling me about this last night. A few days prior I had a long conversation with my new friend from Washington D.C. who hitchhiked with us from New Orleans to Austin on his way to New Mexico. He was explaining to me in very simplistic terms what the "golden ratio" was. I think it's best explained here: Golden Number

It's suposed to depict beauty and balance in structures and be the most visually appealing to human senses. I never fully understood when philosophers or mathematicians would decipher the whole world with mathematic formulas but this could be the start of a shallow understanding.

Flower of Life

"These are not words I'm making up, these are the actual words that were used in ancient times to describe this. I think they called it the Flower of Life because it looks like a flower and because it [represents] the laws and proportions for everything alive and even not alive; everything that's manifested."
-Drunvalo Melchizedek 

A Human Being is Part of the Whole

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"A human being is part of the whole, called by us "universe," limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons close to us. 


Our task must be to free ourselves from our prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all humanity and the whole of nature in its beauty."


-Albert Einstein

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Let me introduce myself.

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My name is Samantha Vetrano. I am a 21 year old female studying government at The University of Texas in the city of Austin. I moved to Texas my sophomore year after attending one year at a state school an hour south of my hometown in New Jersey. My first goal after graduation this upcoming May is to be accepted into the Peace Corps and serve in either Africa or Latin America teaching english. I've been living a constant experiment since the start of my college career in order to determine if a life guided by personal passions and morals can be properly channeled into my ultimate pursuit of fulfillment and wisdom in a society that tends to demand conformity and squash optimism. My theory is that every experience you have can bring you closer to a larger understanding and in order to really live a life, you must free yourself from every thought that hinders you. It seems that if you understand basic principles of living, the unimportant things seems less relevant and have less impact on your experiences. Your reality is how you perceive the outside world and being able to see beauty and solutions instead of the walls and ugliness put you in the position to live a happy life and leave you optimistic enough to try and solve issues ailing others. Updates will come daily. This is my journey.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Independent Philosophy.

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I'm trying to develop at philosophy on human life for the goal of bringing myself and as large of a sphere of people around me the most benefits and fulfillment as possible. The filter in which we interpret our world has a tremendous impact on the experience of our lives. I am attempting to follow a personal awareness of beauty in all and internal ethics in pursuit of positivity influencing my experiences, relationships and advance my own personal growth. Nothing taken too seriously. I want to show you the lens I use to filter.


Timeline/Goals for 2011:
  • Last semester at The University of Texas.
  • Ireland; Saint Patrick's Day
  • College Graduation; May
  • Backpack through Europe; June
  • Live in Los Angeles; Summer
  • Travel to New Zealand; September 
  • Be accepted into the Peace Corps for 2012
 

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