Well, I'm now back at university and loving it. Freshers week was good with virtually no alcohol, and so have been the other two weeks I have had here so far (okay, with the small exception of the few days of flu that may or may not have been of the swine variety that caused me to miss my first lecture of the module I will talk about in this post) have been good.
So anyway, onto today's lecture, one which is very fresh in my mind, having just come from it. As a management student, I decided to take a module in Human Resources Management - and so this was my first lecture. Now, when the lecturer starts off the lecture with "there is no God", you know the next 2 hours are not going to go well. He shows the first slide, which I adore. Following the horror of the bad HR management I experienced in my year in industry, this slide tells me everything that I already know - so wha does this have to do with God? Well, apparently, according to my lecturer, We have transformed society into one that was originally dependent on rules and regulations, one that was dependent on the state, one that said that everybody was useless, which is (apparently) what religion teaches. (hold your horses, I'll get to that in a minute - that isn't the hilarious bit). This is the age of the self - this is a world that now revolves around you, with you at the centre of it. Some psychoanalysts found that if you strip away everything that is on a person, all of their culture, their societal rules, you free them to do whatever they want. These people were free from society, free to be their own person. These people created their new subcultures, with different ideas about what they liked, and how they saw the world. They were free...? Er, no. What these psychoanalysts had developed was a technique to strip away one culture for another to take it's place. The old culture was built by... people, oddly enough. This was not the age of the self, this was the age of being taught how to try a different society. Besides, this was touted as good. I don't think it is. I think, having observed people, that those who act on what they want, what they desire, are the ones who end up foolish, and the ones who end up lost - because you do not know what you want. These new people, that were free from society telling them what they wanted, all of a sudden, became very open to the new corporations who were doing something new - telling people that if they bought their product, they would be free - that this is what they wanted. People need to be led. This is the ultimate conclusion of Marxist and Communist Philosophy - we can try to get people to work for themselves, and be their own leaders, but ultimately new leaders will find their way in this place.
So why did I find his HR values so fresh and exciting, and agree with them? Because they were all about valuing the person, and making the person feel needed, valuable, etc. Nothing to do with the psychobabble in the video - people need to feel valued because it is a great motivator - if you tell someone that they are useless, they will be - this is something I learnt first hand at work. The moment I slipped up, I was told that I was useless. This did nothing for my self-confidence. The way to treat people is to make them feel valuable, help people realise why they made the mistake, back them up, encourage them so that they don't make the same mistake again. This is nothing new. This is Christian Ethics. People have the idea that religion is based on making someone feel bad about themselves, making them feel useless, that they are unable to help themselves. This is why my lecturer said what he did at the beginning of the lecture, because he thought because of this idea, people are rejecting it. Perhaps he is right, maybe that is why people reject the gospel message, because of this misunderstanding.
But I have news for you. This is NOT the Christian Message! The Christian message is full of love. It tells you that this God, the most powerful being in the universe, who put the stars in space, who created the heavens and the earth, who created the most beautiful nebulae in space, to the most magnificent mountains on earth. This God, who can control the forces of nature - cares about YOU. He Values YOU. He wants YOU for the skills and abilities that YOU have. This is My God. Someone who cares about Me. Not some distant entity that I cannot reach, but one who reached down to me and lives in me. One who cares about the smallest issue that I have. One who cared about me so much, one who loved me so much, one who thought that both you and I were so valuable to him that he came down to visit, to show his glory here, to die for us, to save us. That is My God. One who cares about YOU and ME.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Freshers week!
Ah, Fresher's week - I remember mine, something I am proud of, as I am probably one of the few at my uni who do - I love freshers week, so many new faces, new people, all looking to get as much cheap alcohol as possible because they are now free of their parents, free to do absolutely anything they want - but as I have said in one of my earlier posts, with freedom comes responsibility - and this is what this years new freshers will all learn - eventually. University is the biggest step to maturity for most people - developing people to realise what impact they have on the world around them, what influences them to make thier decisions, who they are, and finally, what they want to do for the rest of their life. But I don't think that Student unions are doing enough to help them learn these vital lessons quickly enough - I can guarantee that over 75% of all students at Lancaster, my own uni, will drink some alcohol this week, most of them in excess - this is not cynicism, this is reality - I have seen several freshers weeks already, this one will be no different. Now there is nothing wrong with drinking alcohol, in my opinion - a few drinks is a great way to get to know some people and make good friends - alcohol loosens you up, it makes you more prepared to get engaged in conversation and have a great night - it is what I describe as the social lubricant - but it is not without the dangers of too much:
You start coming around - your eyes are bleary and tired - you open them, and as light starts coming through them, the pounding begins - boom, boom, boom - you feel like a slow moving jackhammer is penetrating your skull, and the surgeon isn't using any anaesthetic - you drag yourself off the bed- wait, something's not right - you look around the room, seems normal enough, but then you start seeing different posters on the wall to your normal room - the duvet covers are different - this is not your room. Your ears start tuning into what you can hear - the shower in the en-suite is running. You hurriedly get up, headache still pounding, mouth is feeling dry. You find your underpants on the floor and put them on - backwards - you don't care, you just want to get out, what happened last night? you can't find the rest of your clothes, so still blurry eyed, you stride out into the corridor and trip over the traffic cone on the floor. finding your trousers in the hall, you make your way towards the door to the flat - until you hear the shower stop, and the lumbering beast of a woman is now standing in the corridor. You slept with HER? my goodness, you must've been wasted, you think - you stagger out, wanting to wake up and this nightmare to end - finding your shirt on the staircase, you lumber down and walk hurriedly back to your own room. After getting a spare key from your residence office for your flat, you get back in, and all over facebook are the pictures of you passed out on the floor, with various obscenities drawn in black marker on your face. you glance accross to the mirror and see them still there. you look back, and see the next picture - that woman, snogging you, is all over the internet. But the worst is, you will never forget the screams she made after you left her flat -"I have syphilis you know!"
Now okay, this is quite a story, but is quite real, for many people - it does happen, and it is totally not worth it - this would probably be the worst morning of your life - and even worse is that all too often, it happens the other way around, with the genders swapped. There is an easy way to tell the difference between your real friends, and the ones you oughtn't hang out with - your real friends will tell you the truth and tell you if you have had enough - the ones you want to keep away from are the friends who tell you to drink more because "you haven't had enough yet".
Freshers week can be such a dangerous week - like I said, alcohol removes inhibitions, so my advice is to go easy - you can have a great time without drinking too much! Here's my top tips for reasons to avoid too much alcohol:
1. I remember a friend of mine said once: "wow, I must have had such a great time last night, because I can't remember it!" I am sure you can see the stupidity - what is the point in having a good time that alcohol will just make you forget all about it anyway? It's as if it never happened.
2. having alcohol can make you do things you will regret later - would you rather go on a night out and have a good time, or go on a night out and say/do something that you regretted later?
3. Alcohol gives hangovers - Alcohol is not a substitute for water, and it will dehydrate you - this causes a hangover - whilst as there are some touted "hangover cures", the sure one to avoid it is to only go to sleep whilst sober - if you drink too much, this could take a while and lead to you missing vital lectures, or missing events that you really wanted to go to - such as freshers fair.
4. Alcohol is an addictive drug - A little while ago a report showed that due to it's effects, alcohol would be a banned substance if it was introduced now - it is only because we have been drinking it for thousands of years that it is not banned.
5. It's addiction can lead to serious problems - you may tout the phrase "it won't happen to me", but then I challenge you to give up drinking for a month if you say that - if you can still go out and have a good time without alcohol, then good - if not, if you are miserable without it, then you need help - it has already happened to you.
6. The health problems with alcohol are serious - you liver can shut down, and without it your body cannot cope and you need a new one. Another fact about your body and alcohol, you can only process one unit per hour - your body cannot work faster. If you drink 36 units in one night, that means that the following night, your body is still processing through the alcohol in your bloodstream.
7. Tolerance to alcohol is NOT a good thing - this only means that your brain is no longer as affected by the effects of alcohol, which means that it is used to having alcohol in your bloodstream - this means you have been drinking too much, and when you don't have alcohol, you will most likely feel worse for it - it is like when you are a regular coffee drinker - my parents now have coffee mid-late evening so that they will get to sleep - their brains are so used to the caffeine that they will pump extra serototin, a hormone to relax them, into their bloodstream - when the caffeine is taken out of the blood by the liver and kidneys, the serototin is still there and makes them tired and ready for bed - the same with alcohol, your brain will compensate by adding hormones to your bloodstream to counter the effects of alcohol - when the alcohol is removed, then you will feel the full effects of those hormones till they are too reduced - this causes an addiction, because your brain may then want the alcohol to dumb down the effects of these hormones.
8. You can have a good time without alcohol - I drink only in moderation, and I kinda know when I am starting to get a bit tipsy - so I hold back - because I know if I pass a certain threshold, my attitude will not be reserved towards my drinks and I will say "Oh what the heck!" - but every time I am out with my friends, even if I have had nothing to drink, I have an awesome time.
I wanted to make it to 10, but hopefully the reasons above are suitably good. Note that not once have I mentioned God/religious reasons - because usually for every biblical law there is good reason behind it - such as the eight above.
You start coming around - your eyes are bleary and tired - you open them, and as light starts coming through them, the pounding begins - boom, boom, boom - you feel like a slow moving jackhammer is penetrating your skull, and the surgeon isn't using any anaesthetic - you drag yourself off the bed- wait, something's not right - you look around the room, seems normal enough, but then you start seeing different posters on the wall to your normal room - the duvet covers are different - this is not your room. Your ears start tuning into what you can hear - the shower in the en-suite is running. You hurriedly get up, headache still pounding, mouth is feeling dry. You find your underpants on the floor and put them on - backwards - you don't care, you just want to get out, what happened last night? you can't find the rest of your clothes, so still blurry eyed, you stride out into the corridor and trip over the traffic cone on the floor. finding your trousers in the hall, you make your way towards the door to the flat - until you hear the shower stop, and the lumbering beast of a woman is now standing in the corridor. You slept with HER? my goodness, you must've been wasted, you think - you stagger out, wanting to wake up and this nightmare to end - finding your shirt on the staircase, you lumber down and walk hurriedly back to your own room. After getting a spare key from your residence office for your flat, you get back in, and all over facebook are the pictures of you passed out on the floor, with various obscenities drawn in black marker on your face. you glance accross to the mirror and see them still there. you look back, and see the next picture - that woman, snogging you, is all over the internet. But the worst is, you will never forget the screams she made after you left her flat -"I have syphilis you know!"
Now okay, this is quite a story, but is quite real, for many people - it does happen, and it is totally not worth it - this would probably be the worst morning of your life - and even worse is that all too often, it happens the other way around, with the genders swapped. There is an easy way to tell the difference between your real friends, and the ones you oughtn't hang out with - your real friends will tell you the truth and tell you if you have had enough - the ones you want to keep away from are the friends who tell you to drink more because "you haven't had enough yet".
Freshers week can be such a dangerous week - like I said, alcohol removes inhibitions, so my advice is to go easy - you can have a great time without drinking too much! Here's my top tips for reasons to avoid too much alcohol:
1. I remember a friend of mine said once: "wow, I must have had such a great time last night, because I can't remember it!" I am sure you can see the stupidity - what is the point in having a good time that alcohol will just make you forget all about it anyway? It's as if it never happened.
2. having alcohol can make you do things you will regret later - would you rather go on a night out and have a good time, or go on a night out and say/do something that you regretted later?
3. Alcohol gives hangovers - Alcohol is not a substitute for water, and it will dehydrate you - this causes a hangover - whilst as there are some touted "hangover cures", the sure one to avoid it is to only go to sleep whilst sober - if you drink too much, this could take a while and lead to you missing vital lectures, or missing events that you really wanted to go to - such as freshers fair.
4. Alcohol is an addictive drug - A little while ago a report showed that due to it's effects, alcohol would be a banned substance if it was introduced now - it is only because we have been drinking it for thousands of years that it is not banned.
5. It's addiction can lead to serious problems - you may tout the phrase "it won't happen to me", but then I challenge you to give up drinking for a month if you say that - if you can still go out and have a good time without alcohol, then good - if not, if you are miserable without it, then you need help - it has already happened to you.
6. The health problems with alcohol are serious - you liver can shut down, and without it your body cannot cope and you need a new one. Another fact about your body and alcohol, you can only process one unit per hour - your body cannot work faster. If you drink 36 units in one night, that means that the following night, your body is still processing through the alcohol in your bloodstream.
7. Tolerance to alcohol is NOT a good thing - this only means that your brain is no longer as affected by the effects of alcohol, which means that it is used to having alcohol in your bloodstream - this means you have been drinking too much, and when you don't have alcohol, you will most likely feel worse for it - it is like when you are a regular coffee drinker - my parents now have coffee mid-late evening so that they will get to sleep - their brains are so used to the caffeine that they will pump extra serototin, a hormone to relax them, into their bloodstream - when the caffeine is taken out of the blood by the liver and kidneys, the serototin is still there and makes them tired and ready for bed - the same with alcohol, your brain will compensate by adding hormones to your bloodstream to counter the effects of alcohol - when the alcohol is removed, then you will feel the full effects of those hormones till they are too reduced - this causes an addiction, because your brain may then want the alcohol to dumb down the effects of these hormones.
8. You can have a good time without alcohol - I drink only in moderation, and I kinda know when I am starting to get a bit tipsy - so I hold back - because I know if I pass a certain threshold, my attitude will not be reserved towards my drinks and I will say "Oh what the heck!" - but every time I am out with my friends, even if I have had nothing to drink, I have an awesome time.
I wanted to make it to 10, but hopefully the reasons above are suitably good. Note that not once have I mentioned God/religious reasons - because usually for every biblical law there is good reason behind it - such as the eight above.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
whose blood runs reddest?
In The Merchant of Venice, one of Shakespeare's plays, and a piece of literature that totured me through GCSE English Literature, Portia, a beautiful woman whose fate is decided by her suitors opening different boxes, meets a moroccan gentleman who tries to wed her in accordance with this little game - a shakesperian Deal or No Deal if you were. She does not take a huge liking to the fellow, remarking at the end, after he goes home empty handed, that she hopes nobody of his "complexion" should come to her again - despite his attempts beforehand to make straight that albeit he has a different skin colour, his blood is just as red as hers.
On a recent trip to Germany, I visited Buchenwald, a former concentration camp during world war II. Having not really studied WWII in great depth before, I learnt a few things, the ignorant person that I am - it was not just Jews who were persecuted, but Homosexuals, political opponents, gypsies, and biblical scholars, to name but a few of the categories of people at the camp. The Nazi regime was about the cold, efficient method of "cleaning" the world of this so called "scum", because these people were inferior - did not uphold the ideals in Hitler's world, and had no place in mankind. One thing I noticed at the place was the memorial, a metal plate with the countries of all the people known to have died at the camp. The artist who installed it built in a special feature - the metal plate is heated to 37 degrees centigrade - Body Temperature. The idea was to unite every single nation on earth and say that we all have something in common - the Nazi Regime was purely about segregation, seperation, classification of everyone. Therefore, in stark contrast, the artist has united all those people whom the Nazis seperated and classified under our one thing. We are all Human.
Have we learnt from this? I don't think we have at all.
Under the Bush Jr Administration, for fear of terrorism, people were racially profiled because of their skin colour, and detained in guantanamo bay without trial, submitted to various methods of humiliation and torture.
We have had, in the last couple of decades, several regimes in which either white or black people were driven out of the country - in some areas of South Africa, which was liberated from the Apartheid movement, whites now cannot go because of fear of racial hatred.
In the Middle East, a war has been waging for centuries, in a "king of the hill" style battle, where two sets of forces both lay claim to one city as their "holy land". Each nation oppresses the other.
A big debate opening up in the UK is whether or not we should pull British troops out of Afghanistan, which on closer examination, is a debate as to whether or not we should save british troops but not Afghan citizens, who would fall to the taliban regime, which has already enforced the brutal elements of Sharia Law in the provinces that it controls - a law which puts women to a lower state in society, and carries brutal punishments, including death, for people who convert out of Islam, or practice homosexuality.
There is a fine line between patriotism and racism. Whose blood runs reddest in this world? Nobody's. We should not pull out of a country because we are losing one soldier per day. In both world wars, we kept on going through both of them, whilst losing thousands each day, and eventually we crushed the enemy - in WWII, we eventually crushed an enemy of the world - a powerful dictatorship to which the phrase "human rights" never even existed in their vocabularies.
I think we are all guilty. I will admit that if I see someone wearing a turban, I find it a little strange. If I see a woman wearing a full face covering, I find it a little off-ish, simply because it is out of the norm.
A Man stood up and said "I have a dream" - It is one of the most powerful and well known speeches in American History, in fact, throughout the world - Where Martin Luther King Jr stood up and gave a speech condemning racism in the USA, and stating that he wanted to see a country where white folk and black folk could talk to each other. Where white kids and black kids could play with each other without fear of retribution. He had a dream about desegregation of the races.
I have a dream, too. I have a dream that one day, our cities will not be made up of ghettos where "the black people live" or "the asian people live". I have a dream that one day, should we get caught up in battle, the safety of our troops will not take precedence over the safety of the citizen's whose rights we are fighting for. I have a dream that that is all that we will fight for. I have a dream, that one day, nation will stop rising up against nation over battles of wills, territory, religion or politics. I have a dream, that I will be able to walk down the street and not find it strange to see someone wearing a turban, because it will be normal to see someone, such is the integration that we would have produced. I have a dream that we do not need to worry about absurd political correctness, because we are educated enough to know what can be said and what can't. I have a dream that this does not stretch to racism, but also to homophobia, sexism, ageism, persecution against someone's religion, disability, or physical appearance. I have a dream, that one day, the world would be one.
On a recent trip to Germany, I visited Buchenwald, a former concentration camp during world war II. Having not really studied WWII in great depth before, I learnt a few things, the ignorant person that I am - it was not just Jews who were persecuted, but Homosexuals, political opponents, gypsies, and biblical scholars, to name but a few of the categories of people at the camp. The Nazi regime was about the cold, efficient method of "cleaning" the world of this so called "scum", because these people were inferior - did not uphold the ideals in Hitler's world, and had no place in mankind. One thing I noticed at the place was the memorial, a metal plate with the countries of all the people known to have died at the camp. The artist who installed it built in a special feature - the metal plate is heated to 37 degrees centigrade - Body Temperature. The idea was to unite every single nation on earth and say that we all have something in common - the Nazi Regime was purely about segregation, seperation, classification of everyone. Therefore, in stark contrast, the artist has united all those people whom the Nazis seperated and classified under our one thing. We are all Human.
Have we learnt from this? I don't think we have at all.
Under the Bush Jr Administration, for fear of terrorism, people were racially profiled because of their skin colour, and detained in guantanamo bay without trial, submitted to various methods of humiliation and torture.
We have had, in the last couple of decades, several regimes in which either white or black people were driven out of the country - in some areas of South Africa, which was liberated from the Apartheid movement, whites now cannot go because of fear of racial hatred.
In the Middle East, a war has been waging for centuries, in a "king of the hill" style battle, where two sets of forces both lay claim to one city as their "holy land". Each nation oppresses the other.
A big debate opening up in the UK is whether or not we should pull British troops out of Afghanistan, which on closer examination, is a debate as to whether or not we should save british troops but not Afghan citizens, who would fall to the taliban regime, which has already enforced the brutal elements of Sharia Law in the provinces that it controls - a law which puts women to a lower state in society, and carries brutal punishments, including death, for people who convert out of Islam, or practice homosexuality.
There is a fine line between patriotism and racism. Whose blood runs reddest in this world? Nobody's. We should not pull out of a country because we are losing one soldier per day. In both world wars, we kept on going through both of them, whilst losing thousands each day, and eventually we crushed the enemy - in WWII, we eventually crushed an enemy of the world - a powerful dictatorship to which the phrase "human rights" never even existed in their vocabularies.
I think we are all guilty. I will admit that if I see someone wearing a turban, I find it a little strange. If I see a woman wearing a full face covering, I find it a little off-ish, simply because it is out of the norm.
A Man stood up and said "I have a dream" - It is one of the most powerful and well known speeches in American History, in fact, throughout the world - Where Martin Luther King Jr stood up and gave a speech condemning racism in the USA, and stating that he wanted to see a country where white folk and black folk could talk to each other. Where white kids and black kids could play with each other without fear of retribution. He had a dream about desegregation of the races.
I have a dream, too. I have a dream that one day, our cities will not be made up of ghettos where "the black people live" or "the asian people live". I have a dream that one day, should we get caught up in battle, the safety of our troops will not take precedence over the safety of the citizen's whose rights we are fighting for. I have a dream that that is all that we will fight for. I have a dream, that one day, nation will stop rising up against nation over battles of wills, territory, religion or politics. I have a dream, that I will be able to walk down the street and not find it strange to see someone wearing a turban, because it will be normal to see someone, such is the integration that we would have produced. I have a dream that we do not need to worry about absurd political correctness, because we are educated enough to know what can be said and what can't. I have a dream that this does not stretch to racism, but also to homophobia, sexism, ageism, persecution against someone's religion, disability, or physical appearance. I have a dream, that one day, the world would be one.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Split or Steal?
I thought about this decision earlier today - would you split or steal? Let me explain the situation: In the UK we have a program called "Golden Balls", a horrifically complicated gameshow that would take approx 3.5 blog posts to explain. but at the end, you are faced off with another person - and the cash prize that you have accumulated at the end of the show has to be distributed to the two finalists. Each player has the choice to "split" or "steal" - if you both choose split, then you halve the money between you - which on yesterday's jackpot meant splitting around £40,000 - a rather nice sum of money. If one of you chooses split, and the other chooses "steal" - the one who picks "steal" takes all the money - but if you both choose "steal" - then you both go home with nothing. So the question is whether or not YOU would split or steal: and I will explain the reason why you should always pick split - and NOT steal - and the reason might be less obvious than you think.
the two of you have the chance to discuss what you will do - we will have two imaginary contestants for this hypothesis - we'll call them Adam and Ben (A and B for short...) - After all, surely, the only way to get the maximum prize is choosing steal, and not split - if Adam chooses split, the maximum amount of money he will take away is 20 grand - it's either 20 or nothing. If he chooses steal, however, then it is either 40 or nothing, depending on the opponent's decision. So the obvious option is to take "steal", as that is the way to get the most money. Adam, however, is not a greedy beggar, and so he chooses split - and here is why. Let us assume that Ben is greedy and wants all the money - if he chose steal, then there is no way that Adam can get ANY MONEY - no matter what he chooses - if he chooses split, then Ben walks away with all of the money - if he chooses steal, then ben walks away with nothing and so does he - therefore, for the benefit of Ben, he might as well choose split - at least someone is better off if ben chooses to steal - however, the decision is made purely in their minds - whilst as they are allowed to discuss the option first, that doesn't mean they will stick to their promises - the discussion always invariably is each other trying to convince the other that they will split, and means pretty much nothing. This is why most people often choose to steal - because if Ben is convincing enough that they will split the cash, then greed will enter Adam's mind and he might choose steal.
Therefore, the discussion is a red herring and should be ignored - because the same "conclusion" is always reached, with each person having made up in their minds if they are going to split or steal.
But back to the argument - if you start with the assumption that the other person will steal, then you get nothing anyway - the only way that Adam will get any money is if Ben splits - and Ben likewise - therefore this is the decision that they both ought to make in their heads "I might as well split - if he steals, well then at least he's got money, and I never was going to have anything" - if both players reach that decision, then they will both end up getting 20k - which is a rather large amount of money anyway!
So how then to proceed with the discussion? The last thing you want to do is make your opponent convinced that you will split therefore - as he could get greedy and take all the money, leaving you penniless - therefore the choice is simple - you have to convince him that you will steal! If Adam were to choose in his mind that he will split, he has the job of convincing Ben to do the same - so if Adam tells Ben that he will steal and that is all he came to do, Ben might as well choose split so that Adam gets the money anyway - and if adam is convincing enough about how he will need all the money, and 20k is just not enough money to help him out of debt, etc, then ben will look like a scrooge if he chooses steal - and nobody wants to do that on national television - so Ben splits, and Adam, being the nice, kind person that he is, chooses to split.
this would certainly be my tactic if I were on the show and I got into the final - I would not want to steal, since the other person rightfully deserves that money as well, you both earnt it throughout the show - and if I split, and the other person steals? Then I guess the 40k will probably cover the cost of cleaning eggs off the side of his house, and improving the security of his house so he can sleep at night, after his whole town finds out what a complete A***hole he is...
My Mum has objections to the game, and the more I think through the problem, the more I think she is right - because firstly, at face value, it is a game of deception - trying to convince the other players that what you claim is true - and trying to hide the truth - but it goes deeper than that - if we just look at this individual problem and ignore the rest of the game:
The base idea (of producing a problem that tempts both players to steal, so they can get the biger money) is poor - it assumes that both players will try to steal - so automatically it is a game that induces greed, and not only that, assumes that players are in themselves, naturally greedy individuals, thus attempting to make a statement about humanity as a whole. Secondly, and this is just at the first level, each player then has to decieve the other that they will split, when in fact, they will steal - so even at the first level of analysis, this is a game based on greed and deception.
But it then gets worse - at the second level of analysis, you both ought to split - good enough, because it is all about focussing on the other person and letting them have as much money as they choose - but in order to reach that certainty that the other person will split the money with you, you have to lie and tell the nation that you will be greedy - when in fact you intend to split all along - so the situation then forces one opponent to go from a state of righteousness to being a liar and a greedy pig - if only for 5 minutes - to force the opponent into a place of rigteousness, away from any greedy desires he may have. Therefore, the only way to be certain of coming to the best decision for the both of you, is to lie about being greedy.
Therefore, I can see where she is coming from - I have, however, seen two people choose to split the money, a whopping £140 jackpot, which they decided between themselves was not worth stealing off each other... I choose to watch it therefore, not because it produces greed, but because it shows up those that are greedy, and those that are good, honest people - and I always like to see it when two people choose to split - though that said, the episode in which they both split, one of them did add that she was relieved when the other person produced a split - meaning that she mostly expected the other person to walk with all the money - thus meaning that she was using something similar to my analysis - if the other person wants to steal, they can do - after all, it is not a large amount of money.
So in conclusion - greed does not pay - greed only offers the possibility that it would not pay - let's take a look at this whole economy shedoodle - the recession that we are a current part of (although latest figures show that we are going up) - it was caused by people getting too greedy - banks lending money that they didn't have, to people who could not pay it back, just so that they could profit from the returns on the loan - and as the whole situation collapsed around us, have we learnt the lesson of greed? Clearly the two contestants faced with the 40k haven't. They both chose to steal and went home empty handed. Greed does not pay.
the two of you have the chance to discuss what you will do - we will have two imaginary contestants for this hypothesis - we'll call them Adam and Ben (A and B for short...) - After all, surely, the only way to get the maximum prize is choosing steal, and not split - if Adam chooses split, the maximum amount of money he will take away is 20 grand - it's either 20 or nothing. If he chooses steal, however, then it is either 40 or nothing, depending on the opponent's decision. So the obvious option is to take "steal", as that is the way to get the most money. Adam, however, is not a greedy beggar, and so he chooses split - and here is why. Let us assume that Ben is greedy and wants all the money - if he chose steal, then there is no way that Adam can get ANY MONEY - no matter what he chooses - if he chooses split, then Ben walks away with all of the money - if he chooses steal, then ben walks away with nothing and so does he - therefore, for the benefit of Ben, he might as well choose split - at least someone is better off if ben chooses to steal - however, the decision is made purely in their minds - whilst as they are allowed to discuss the option first, that doesn't mean they will stick to their promises - the discussion always invariably is each other trying to convince the other that they will split, and means pretty much nothing. This is why most people often choose to steal - because if Ben is convincing enough that they will split the cash, then greed will enter Adam's mind and he might choose steal.
Therefore, the discussion is a red herring and should be ignored - because the same "conclusion" is always reached, with each person having made up in their minds if they are going to split or steal.
But back to the argument - if you start with the assumption that the other person will steal, then you get nothing anyway - the only way that Adam will get any money is if Ben splits - and Ben likewise - therefore this is the decision that they both ought to make in their heads "I might as well split - if he steals, well then at least he's got money, and I never was going to have anything" - if both players reach that decision, then they will both end up getting 20k - which is a rather large amount of money anyway!
So how then to proceed with the discussion? The last thing you want to do is make your opponent convinced that you will split therefore - as he could get greedy and take all the money, leaving you penniless - therefore the choice is simple - you have to convince him that you will steal! If Adam were to choose in his mind that he will split, he has the job of convincing Ben to do the same - so if Adam tells Ben that he will steal and that is all he came to do, Ben might as well choose split so that Adam gets the money anyway - and if adam is convincing enough about how he will need all the money, and 20k is just not enough money to help him out of debt, etc, then ben will look like a scrooge if he chooses steal - and nobody wants to do that on national television - so Ben splits, and Adam, being the nice, kind person that he is, chooses to split.
this would certainly be my tactic if I were on the show and I got into the final - I would not want to steal, since the other person rightfully deserves that money as well, you both earnt it throughout the show - and if I split, and the other person steals? Then I guess the 40k will probably cover the cost of cleaning eggs off the side of his house, and improving the security of his house so he can sleep at night, after his whole town finds out what a complete A***hole he is...
My Mum has objections to the game, and the more I think through the problem, the more I think she is right - because firstly, at face value, it is a game of deception - trying to convince the other players that what you claim is true - and trying to hide the truth - but it goes deeper than that - if we just look at this individual problem and ignore the rest of the game:
The base idea (of producing a problem that tempts both players to steal, so they can get the biger money) is poor - it assumes that both players will try to steal - so automatically it is a game that induces greed, and not only that, assumes that players are in themselves, naturally greedy individuals, thus attempting to make a statement about humanity as a whole. Secondly, and this is just at the first level, each player then has to decieve the other that they will split, when in fact, they will steal - so even at the first level of analysis, this is a game based on greed and deception.
But it then gets worse - at the second level of analysis, you both ought to split - good enough, because it is all about focussing on the other person and letting them have as much money as they choose - but in order to reach that certainty that the other person will split the money with you, you have to lie and tell the nation that you will be greedy - when in fact you intend to split all along - so the situation then forces one opponent to go from a state of righteousness to being a liar and a greedy pig - if only for 5 minutes - to force the opponent into a place of rigteousness, away from any greedy desires he may have. Therefore, the only way to be certain of coming to the best decision for the both of you, is to lie about being greedy.
Therefore, I can see where she is coming from - I have, however, seen two people choose to split the money, a whopping £140 jackpot, which they decided between themselves was not worth stealing off each other... I choose to watch it therefore, not because it produces greed, but because it shows up those that are greedy, and those that are good, honest people - and I always like to see it when two people choose to split - though that said, the episode in which they both split, one of them did add that she was relieved when the other person produced a split - meaning that she mostly expected the other person to walk with all the money - thus meaning that she was using something similar to my analysis - if the other person wants to steal, they can do - after all, it is not a large amount of money.
So in conclusion - greed does not pay - greed only offers the possibility that it would not pay - let's take a look at this whole economy shedoodle - the recession that we are a current part of (although latest figures show that we are going up) - it was caused by people getting too greedy - banks lending money that they didn't have, to people who could not pay it back, just so that they could profit from the returns on the loan - and as the whole situation collapsed around us, have we learnt the lesson of greed? Clearly the two contestants faced with the 40k haven't. They both chose to steal and went home empty handed. Greed does not pay.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Sex, Death, and Evolution... and Copernicus.
I am in the middle of reading a great book called "13 things that don't make sense" - this brilliant book talks about the thirteen biggest scientific mysteries of our time, and I have just finished reading the chapters on Sex and Death not making sense in an evolutionary context. Let me summarise for you what the book says.
firstly, there is the problem of death - and we mean natural death here, in terms of a lifeform having a limited lifespan. Eukaryotes (these are the more complex cells that make up you and I, as well as plants and animals) and prokaryotes (simpler cells that make up amoebas and bacteria) have one difference, and that is that Eukaryotes will die of old age, prokaryotes will not. And the reason for this difference is telomeres - every time you create a new cell your telomere will reduce - when this is finished, then you will die. Scientists have been able to switch off this in small animals, but are uncertain of the long term effects on humans to be able to prolong life - and the animals died anyway - we cannot live forever yet. But we know how we die, but the question is why? what evolutionary benefit is there? The argument that death evolved and stayed around because overpopulation can lead to the downfall of a species doesn't work here, since, as Richard Dawkins himself put it, evolution cannot possibly function for the benefit of the entire species or group, it can only function for the purpose of the indivdual organism that has the new mutation.
The second problem is Sex - which is, oddly enough, seemingly linked in with death - since the telomeres came about as a result of sexual reproduction - but the fact of the matter is, is that there are much better ways to reproduce (possibly not quite so enjoyable, but that is a different discussion entirely...) - ones that do not have the cost of death. What evolutionary benefit was there in having sexual reproduction? what made it stick? Why do we now have to reproduce with another organism of the same kind, instead of producing an exact replica of ourselves using our own genes to be passed on? after all, there is another cost - by having to find a mate, our offspring may inherit some bad genes, ones which could damage the chance of the species prolonging it's life.
The Author hits upon a revolutionary idea, refencing ancient astronomy. Back in the greek times, Ptolemy observed the planets and postulated that the plantes revolve around the earth - after all, we humans are special, why would God not have us at the centre of the universe? This seemed to fit with Ptolemy's observations, until some fellow astronomers pointed out some issues with their observations. exception upon exception upon exception was produced, and ptolemy's model was constantly refined and rebuilt so that everything could agree - in the end, it was a complete mess. Copernicus simplified things, and realised that the movements of the planets made a lot more sense if everything revolved around the sun, and not the sun and all the planets revolving around the earth. The new age of astronomy was born on this much simpler and more accurate model.
So the author suggests that this is what we are missing in these problems - be have the wrong basis, the wrong foundations for explaining biology - this is why it doesn't make sense yet... you can see where I am going with this. I personally think the author is right - until he starts talking babble about how they both work around each other, sex and death, and one breeds the other etc.
balderdash - so close, but no cigar, because that still does not explain the WHY in this question. Hence why he still ends the chapter with nothing resolved. Because let us stip down to the bare bones of this - what is the one foundation we are working on? Evolution.
Mental exercise here: If we took evolution out of the equation, and placed in an intelligent creator, everything makes more sense - Let us take death, for example - a lot more sensible to keep populations down, because this time an intelligent designer can actually design a species for the benefit of the whole population - evolution is simply not intelligent enough to design the world we have and live in - second to that, in the bible, during the days where people were living to 900 years old, and God saw the people on the earth getting too numerous for their own good, it says that he decided to shorten their lifespan - intelligent input for the benefit of the group. As for sexual reproduction, this is once again another piece of intelligent design - produce only two people on the earth, and by sexual reproduction a hugely diverse population can be created - diversity means that the whole group can survive - since everyone gains their own individual skill - because they might have inherited better intelligence, or stronger muscles and bones, or more nimble hands - so some can provide the law and development of the community, some can be the soldiers to defend the group, while others can be the craftsmen who can build houses and shelters - if you only have a group of intelligent people or strong people, then you are missing other skills - again, evolution is not intelligent enough to explain everything in this world - and as a hypothesis, clearly does not meet up to the standards of what we have discovered in science - and like the ptolemaic astronomic model, should be scrapped before we keep adding any more ridiculous ideas to explain what the hypothesis is just not up to scratch enough to explain.
one final thing I wish to address, and that is that you might discover another problem that we have if you look at the question that was asked - they both start with the same word, "WHY" - WHY have we evolved sexual reproduction? WHY have we evolved death? science has already answered the WHAT and the HOW - but it is simply not built to answer the why - because then it has to fall on evolution - why have we EVOLVED these traits? This is no longer scientific question, but philosophical - and it is after the origins of man - this is not philosophy of science, but the philosophy of religion - the scientific community is now touting evolution as it's new god - the new being that is the answer to all, our creator, that which is untouchable - which is why the author of my book did not question this as the foundation - Evolution is UNFALSIFIABLE - it cannot be falsified! Modern scientific method and assumption does not allow us to try and find fault with evolution. Because as soon as we come up against some evidence, or some argument against it, we immediately do not question evolution as the problem, but we look to find other reasons - despite evolution being the only missing link - we are like the greek astronomers who once they find an anomaly with the position of the planets and stars from where they should be in our earth-centred model, we find a possible addition to the model to overcomplicate things, because it cannot possibly be that our initial premise is wrong.
The search for man's origins by the path of science has become a new religion - and Evolution is it's god - the battle of creation versus evolution is a battle of religions - so for true science to keep to the evolutionary hypothesis is to tout a god as the answer to our origins - so no argument that we should find out where life came from without god is applicable, because evolution is a god in it's own right - atheism, in it's attempt to live life without God, has turned full circle to develop a new one. so how do we answer this? Well, the decision is up to science - we can choose to now rebuke evolution and carry on living our lives to develop new cures, beat cancer, discover new species and new planets, develop new technological advances - and keep god, in whatever form it comes in, out of the science books and in the religious texts, or we have to allow creationism to have a chance in the scientific world - to be credible as an alternative to evolution - and long then may the battle of which theory is right continue. If scientists choose neither and to keep evolution, then I now name you as members of earth's most modern religion, scientism (despite your religious text being 150 years old and "messiah" being 200).
Thank you. Rather important and poignant rant over.
Please note, that Scientism is not to be confused with the rather misleadingly named Scientology, which has actually has no scientific fact behind it at all)
firstly, there is the problem of death - and we mean natural death here, in terms of a lifeform having a limited lifespan. Eukaryotes (these are the more complex cells that make up you and I, as well as plants and animals) and prokaryotes (simpler cells that make up amoebas and bacteria) have one difference, and that is that Eukaryotes will die of old age, prokaryotes will not. And the reason for this difference is telomeres - every time you create a new cell your telomere will reduce - when this is finished, then you will die. Scientists have been able to switch off this in small animals, but are uncertain of the long term effects on humans to be able to prolong life - and the animals died anyway - we cannot live forever yet. But we know how we die, but the question is why? what evolutionary benefit is there? The argument that death evolved and stayed around because overpopulation can lead to the downfall of a species doesn't work here, since, as Richard Dawkins himself put it, evolution cannot possibly function for the benefit of the entire species or group, it can only function for the purpose of the indivdual organism that has the new mutation.
The second problem is Sex - which is, oddly enough, seemingly linked in with death - since the telomeres came about as a result of sexual reproduction - but the fact of the matter is, is that there are much better ways to reproduce (possibly not quite so enjoyable, but that is a different discussion entirely...) - ones that do not have the cost of death. What evolutionary benefit was there in having sexual reproduction? what made it stick? Why do we now have to reproduce with another organism of the same kind, instead of producing an exact replica of ourselves using our own genes to be passed on? after all, there is another cost - by having to find a mate, our offspring may inherit some bad genes, ones which could damage the chance of the species prolonging it's life.
The Author hits upon a revolutionary idea, refencing ancient astronomy. Back in the greek times, Ptolemy observed the planets and postulated that the plantes revolve around the earth - after all, we humans are special, why would God not have us at the centre of the universe? This seemed to fit with Ptolemy's observations, until some fellow astronomers pointed out some issues with their observations. exception upon exception upon exception was produced, and ptolemy's model was constantly refined and rebuilt so that everything could agree - in the end, it was a complete mess. Copernicus simplified things, and realised that the movements of the planets made a lot more sense if everything revolved around the sun, and not the sun and all the planets revolving around the earth. The new age of astronomy was born on this much simpler and more accurate model.
So the author suggests that this is what we are missing in these problems - be have the wrong basis, the wrong foundations for explaining biology - this is why it doesn't make sense yet... you can see where I am going with this. I personally think the author is right - until he starts talking babble about how they both work around each other, sex and death, and one breeds the other etc.
balderdash - so close, but no cigar, because that still does not explain the WHY in this question. Hence why he still ends the chapter with nothing resolved. Because let us stip down to the bare bones of this - what is the one foundation we are working on? Evolution.
Mental exercise here: If we took evolution out of the equation, and placed in an intelligent creator, everything makes more sense - Let us take death, for example - a lot more sensible to keep populations down, because this time an intelligent designer can actually design a species for the benefit of the whole population - evolution is simply not intelligent enough to design the world we have and live in - second to that, in the bible, during the days where people were living to 900 years old, and God saw the people on the earth getting too numerous for their own good, it says that he decided to shorten their lifespan - intelligent input for the benefit of the group. As for sexual reproduction, this is once again another piece of intelligent design - produce only two people on the earth, and by sexual reproduction a hugely diverse population can be created - diversity means that the whole group can survive - since everyone gains their own individual skill - because they might have inherited better intelligence, or stronger muscles and bones, or more nimble hands - so some can provide the law and development of the community, some can be the soldiers to defend the group, while others can be the craftsmen who can build houses and shelters - if you only have a group of intelligent people or strong people, then you are missing other skills - again, evolution is not intelligent enough to explain everything in this world - and as a hypothesis, clearly does not meet up to the standards of what we have discovered in science - and like the ptolemaic astronomic model, should be scrapped before we keep adding any more ridiculous ideas to explain what the hypothesis is just not up to scratch enough to explain.
one final thing I wish to address, and that is that you might discover another problem that we have if you look at the question that was asked - they both start with the same word, "WHY" - WHY have we evolved sexual reproduction? WHY have we evolved death? science has already answered the WHAT and the HOW - but it is simply not built to answer the why - because then it has to fall on evolution - why have we EVOLVED these traits? This is no longer scientific question, but philosophical - and it is after the origins of man - this is not philosophy of science, but the philosophy of religion - the scientific community is now touting evolution as it's new god - the new being that is the answer to all, our creator, that which is untouchable - which is why the author of my book did not question this as the foundation - Evolution is UNFALSIFIABLE - it cannot be falsified! Modern scientific method and assumption does not allow us to try and find fault with evolution. Because as soon as we come up against some evidence, or some argument against it, we immediately do not question evolution as the problem, but we look to find other reasons - despite evolution being the only missing link - we are like the greek astronomers who once they find an anomaly with the position of the planets and stars from where they should be in our earth-centred model, we find a possible addition to the model to overcomplicate things, because it cannot possibly be that our initial premise is wrong.
The search for man's origins by the path of science has become a new religion - and Evolution is it's god - the battle of creation versus evolution is a battle of religions - so for true science to keep to the evolutionary hypothesis is to tout a god as the answer to our origins - so no argument that we should find out where life came from without god is applicable, because evolution is a god in it's own right - atheism, in it's attempt to live life without God, has turned full circle to develop a new one. so how do we answer this? Well, the decision is up to science - we can choose to now rebuke evolution and carry on living our lives to develop new cures, beat cancer, discover new species and new planets, develop new technological advances - and keep god, in whatever form it comes in, out of the science books and in the religious texts, or we have to allow creationism to have a chance in the scientific world - to be credible as an alternative to evolution - and long then may the battle of which theory is right continue. If scientists choose neither and to keep evolution, then I now name you as members of earth's most modern religion, scientism (despite your religious text being 150 years old and "messiah" being 200).
Thank you. Rather important and poignant rant over.
Please note, that Scientism is not to be confused with the rather misleadingly named Scientology, which has actually has no scientific fact behind it at all)
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Pro-equal oppportunities, anti equality, anti-feminist
Ok, just to clarify before people get the wrong idea - it would probably be more accurate to say I am against Female Chauvinism - which is often passed off as feminism, which not only gives true feminism (which is, in reality, simply equal opportunities) a bad name, but also makes itself look better than it actually is. This is the idea of the dominance of women (as opposed to the dominance of men) in today's society - the idea that men are useless, ignoramuses who do nothing to benefit society - that all men are lecherous, decietful, evil, and that women should have nothing to do with them - except to have sex - but they themselves are the only ones who should be capable of wielding that power - that you can only have sex by a woman's acceptance of it, simply because any man would obviously not care who the woman is, as long as they can get what they are always gagging for anyway. The other danger of female chauvinism is equality - and again, before you all come at me with pitchforks and torches, let me explain what I mean - because as you can see in the title, I am PRO- equal opportunities.
Science has proven that men and women are different - on average, men are physically stronger than women, and women have generally more dexterity than men. Generally speaking, men are better at remembering directions, but women are generally speaking, better at remembering landmarks and places. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume, that in the jobs which would favour a man's body more, such as jobs requiring heavy lifting, you will END UP WITH LESS WOMEN THAN MEN IN THAT POSITION, SINCE OUT OF THE JOB APPLICATIONS, THE MEN WILL BE MORE FAVOURED FOR THE JOB. However, imagine yourself being the interviewer for a job where a lot of heavy lifting is required. A small, weedy little man comes in for the application, and the next person up is a female bodybuilder - who should be accepted for the position? the female bodybuilder of course, since she is best suited for the job. But my complaint is against those people who say that it is discriminating against females that there are more men in that job than women - which is simply absurd, if there is any discrimination, it is purely against those who have the least muscle power - which nature has decided should, GENRALLY speaking, be women.
But this also flows out into other jobs - I constantly hear of complaints that there is not an even split of women in the workplace, and that this clearly shows that there is discrimination of women being hired for jobs - not necessarily so, I have done statistics, and you will be unlikely to find a 50:50 split. Besides, we have only just started reaching an age where women are having careers and becominbg breadwinners in their families as well - it will take time to average out - so if you look at the figures, you may well find that if you look at people in the workplace who are 40 years and over, the male-female split will be much greater than if you look at 20-40 age range, or even 20-30. Now that we have laws in place that stop companies from discriminating against gender, colour, age, and disablity, the true feminists should be happy - you have won your fair and just fight, women are equally allowed to get a job and earn money as men are - and I side with you, I believe they should, women were previously an untapped resource for today's world of business.
There is, however, one gripe that has come to my attention on which I must side with the feminists, and that is equal pay - even in huge sporting events such as wimbledon, the women tennis players get a smaller reward for winning than the men - and on average, women are paid less in the same jobs as their male counterparts - this is wrong and does need sorting, the sooner we get a law against this the better - but then that is another war won - no need to keep on harping on about it...
If I finally get back to my first point, which was that you get feminists who can do without men, who are effectively female chauvinists. Your behaviour is dangerous and worse, hypocritical - this is precisely what you criticised us for during the anti-male-chavinist movement - and I say that it is dangerous because you alienate the male gender of your own species - you turn us away from you, and to call yourselves feminists gives feminism a bad name and causes us to decide whether or not giving you this equality was such a good idea - maybe things were better when they were solely in our control. (of course, this is not true, equality is the better thing). But I would guess that the reason you have this idea is because of mistreatment by another man - this man was too a chauvinist, and outright revenge and rebellion is not the way to do things - rise above chauvinism, and fight for equality of every person on this earth.
Science has proven that men and women are different - on average, men are physically stronger than women, and women have generally more dexterity than men. Generally speaking, men are better at remembering directions, but women are generally speaking, better at remembering landmarks and places. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume, that in the jobs which would favour a man's body more, such as jobs requiring heavy lifting, you will END UP WITH LESS WOMEN THAN MEN IN THAT POSITION, SINCE OUT OF THE JOB APPLICATIONS, THE MEN WILL BE MORE FAVOURED FOR THE JOB. However, imagine yourself being the interviewer for a job where a lot of heavy lifting is required. A small, weedy little man comes in for the application, and the next person up is a female bodybuilder - who should be accepted for the position? the female bodybuilder of course, since she is best suited for the job. But my complaint is against those people who say that it is discriminating against females that there are more men in that job than women - which is simply absurd, if there is any discrimination, it is purely against those who have the least muscle power - which nature has decided should, GENRALLY speaking, be women.
But this also flows out into other jobs - I constantly hear of complaints that there is not an even split of women in the workplace, and that this clearly shows that there is discrimination of women being hired for jobs - not necessarily so, I have done statistics, and you will be unlikely to find a 50:50 split. Besides, we have only just started reaching an age where women are having careers and becominbg breadwinners in their families as well - it will take time to average out - so if you look at the figures, you may well find that if you look at people in the workplace who are 40 years and over, the male-female split will be much greater than if you look at 20-40 age range, or even 20-30. Now that we have laws in place that stop companies from discriminating against gender, colour, age, and disablity, the true feminists should be happy - you have won your fair and just fight, women are equally allowed to get a job and earn money as men are - and I side with you, I believe they should, women were previously an untapped resource for today's world of business.
There is, however, one gripe that has come to my attention on which I must side with the feminists, and that is equal pay - even in huge sporting events such as wimbledon, the women tennis players get a smaller reward for winning than the men - and on average, women are paid less in the same jobs as their male counterparts - this is wrong and does need sorting, the sooner we get a law against this the better - but then that is another war won - no need to keep on harping on about it...
If I finally get back to my first point, which was that you get feminists who can do without men, who are effectively female chauvinists. Your behaviour is dangerous and worse, hypocritical - this is precisely what you criticised us for during the anti-male-chavinist movement - and I say that it is dangerous because you alienate the male gender of your own species - you turn us away from you, and to call yourselves feminists gives feminism a bad name and causes us to decide whether or not giving you this equality was such a good idea - maybe things were better when they were solely in our control. (of course, this is not true, equality is the better thing). But I would guess that the reason you have this idea is because of mistreatment by another man - this man was too a chauvinist, and outright revenge and rebellion is not the way to do things - rise above chauvinism, and fight for equality of every person on this earth.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
hmm... I'm sure I was an adult only a few weeks ago
well, I have now finished a year in switzerland and I am back living in the UK - and since I am a student once more, this now means that I am living at home with my parents - and all of a sudden, my attitude and mentality have completely changed - it was only 3 weeks ago that I was a fully fledged adult, and I pledged to my parents that I was now an adult, not a child anymore, and I will therefore end up acting like one - after all, this is something that I had actually become accustomed to in the last year - but now my independence seems to have been revoked, and I have dipped back into childhood manner - no longer wanting to do work, or basically do anything my parents ask of me - I have been home a week and haven't done one of the 30 jobs that has been assigned to me to do (though to be fair, I have another 14 in which to get them done) - and I am even backing up this laziness by suggesting that I have plenty of time to get them done, nothing to worry about!
But the issue I think is this - there is only two things that have changed, the first being which country I am living in, and the second being at home with my parents. The first is unlikely to have that much of an affect - I am not so changed by the residents of the country that I live in that my entire personality is going to change - after all, I was feeling incredibly lazy in France, where I had a 2 week holiday before fionally returning to the UK - but I think there is something about being independent that allows you not just to have a mind of your own, but a body of your own as well - the only things you need to do is what you actually need to do - which for me, is my pending dissertation outline, due in when I return to uni - but that cannot realistically be started till I have completed my interviews, which will be the primary foundation of the aforementioned essay.
I think now I am back in the UK, living back with my parents, that I realise how important independance is, at least, how important it is for me - perhaps you only realise how much you need something when it is taken away from you - living in a country seperate from my parents gave me such a freedom, that I will only enjoy when I return to university.
But perhaps there is a problem on my account as well - I never had the typical "teenage rebellion phase", so I suppose that is what I have ended up with now (just a little bit later than normal) - In self reflection, to keep up my end of the bargain of acting like an adult, I should rise above this self pity and laziness, get off my backside and do some work. Maybe being at home with my parents has just gotten me lazy, because it is too easy to fall back into being a child again and let the laziness take over.
moral of the story? not really this time - perhaps it is that the blame is not always on the other person, or that laziness is not a virtue, or that independence is a good thing and helps to mature oneself - take from it what you will - even if it is just the reading of my musings that you find amusing.
But the issue I think is this - there is only two things that have changed, the first being which country I am living in, and the second being at home with my parents. The first is unlikely to have that much of an affect - I am not so changed by the residents of the country that I live in that my entire personality is going to change - after all, I was feeling incredibly lazy in France, where I had a 2 week holiday before fionally returning to the UK - but I think there is something about being independent that allows you not just to have a mind of your own, but a body of your own as well - the only things you need to do is what you actually need to do - which for me, is my pending dissertation outline, due in when I return to uni - but that cannot realistically be started till I have completed my interviews, which will be the primary foundation of the aforementioned essay.
I think now I am back in the UK, living back with my parents, that I realise how important independance is, at least, how important it is for me - perhaps you only realise how much you need something when it is taken away from you - living in a country seperate from my parents gave me such a freedom, that I will only enjoy when I return to university.
But perhaps there is a problem on my account as well - I never had the typical "teenage rebellion phase", so I suppose that is what I have ended up with now (just a little bit later than normal) - In self reflection, to keep up my end of the bargain of acting like an adult, I should rise above this self pity and laziness, get off my backside and do some work. Maybe being at home with my parents has just gotten me lazy, because it is too easy to fall back into being a child again and let the laziness take over.
moral of the story? not really this time - perhaps it is that the blame is not always on the other person, or that laziness is not a virtue, or that independence is a good thing and helps to mature oneself - take from it what you will - even if it is just the reading of my musings that you find amusing.
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