Civil Disobedience and Me

      Now is the best time to be alive in the history of the world. That is what many say to the youth of America and the youth of the world. If one asks why, they will say that technology has never been this advances, the overall quality of life is better, and people are, overall, more prosperous than ever. While all of these are true, they are leaving out key facts. These facts include facts such as the fact that the environment is rapidly deteriorating, the world is dependent on a fossil fuel that is going to run out in the next 40 to 50 tears, the United States alone is in 16 trillion dollars of debt, extremism is on the rise, the list goes on and on. With such grievances as this people are going to protest.

      For the youth of America, protesting is something of an exotic thing. The Occupy Wall Street movement is probably the closest thing that can compare to the massive protests that occurred during the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement. Protests during this time were massive, attracting crowds of over one million people. These were things that the majority of America could get behind and support. People back in those days were very passionate about what they stood for and rebellious. In America today, you will find rebellious youths and passionate youths, but I must agree with an article that I read this summer called "The Organization Kid", in which the author talks about that, on the whole, many American youths, especially those attending prestigious colleges, are more respectful and less likely to challenge authority than the youth of the 60s and 70s. I also must agree that this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something that will affect protesting. Someone who has also known that being quite and non-combative and agreeable will continue to be that way because they know that is the behavior that will lead to their success.

      As for myself, I'd like to believe that I am somewhere between the extremely passionate protesters of the 60s and 70s and the docile youth that are in America's colleges today. I know what i believe in and I know what I do not believe in. When it comes to protesting, I am not one to immediately see something that I do not like and go start a protest. I know some people that are like this and they honestly come off as over-the-top and tend to be the ones that shove their beliefs down your throat so to speak. However, people that are not willing to protest at all because they are afraid of the consequences come off as people who do not have a spine and will roll over the second someone challenges them. I do not wish to be either of those people. If I am going to go and protest, it would have to be about something that either I strongly believe is happening and should not happen, or is not happening and believe should happen. I would join any protest if I truly believed in their cause and I believed that they way that they were protesting would work. For example, if the price of milk went up $5.00 and their was a protest group that began looting stores, I would most likely not join that protest.

      Protesting is necessary in a society like ours because it offers a route for people to voice their opinions about issues and for the government to hear them. It is this disagreement with the government that keeps the government accountable to all of its citizens, not just the most rich and powerful or the ones who can complain the loudest. Protesting and disagreement is the most American and democratic attribute a society can have.

Darkness in the Dark Knight

      In the pictures above are two men. One is the Dark Knight, Batman, who wants to protect Gotham, and the other is the Joker, the one who wants to watch Gotham burn. Many would say that these two are polar opposites, and in some instances, they are. However, both represent something inside of all of us that is dark, and in that sense, they are alike.

     Most of us know the story of Batman; his parents were killed when he was a boy and he grew up and began to fight crime. In doing this, he had to dawn a mask and a costume, use a fake identity, and make up alibis. He effectively had to create an entirely separate personality. In one personality he was the billionaire reclusive man named Bruce Wayne. In the other, he was Batman, the dark hero of Gotham. While he is a superhero in his second life, he does have a secret second life like so many people do today. Normal, everyday people, people you may think you know well, think you know everything about, could very easily have a second life. They could secretly be drug addicts, sex addicts, in a gang, in debt to the mob, depressed, or a number of other things. While these people that have this level of bad stuff going on in their life may be few and far between, they are out there. People always have something to hide, something that people need not know about, something that they don't want to come to light. Everyone, even Batman, has demons in their closet.

      The Joker, probably one of the most interesting characters of the Batman series (I know for myself he is the most interesting). Not much can be told about his past from the movies, not even how he got his scars. But one thing is known for certain, and Alfred put it exactly how it is, "some people just want to watch the world burn". People like this take pleasure from watching other in pain or someone else struggle and fail. So the question is, have you ever felt this way? Most of you will say no to this, and that is a good thing because hopefully there aren't a lot of people out there that take pleasure in watching others suffer, but noticed how I said some and not all. There are people out there with twisted minds that enjoy watching others suffer and enjoy others failing. Since people are not born with a mind like this, it must have developed into this. There must have been something from his past to cause this. Was it his father? Was it the way his wife was depressed? Both of these come from stories that he told in the movie, saying that he got the scars on his face from them. However, he says that each specific event caused the scars, but I want to propose the idea that they both caused them, if they are true that is. All of the mistreatment, neglect, and feelings of loneliness culminated in those scars. In real life, people may not cut a smile onto their face, but experiences shape people to be who they are. If a kid is raised by neglectful parents and is abused in his home, he is much more likely to become aggressive. So the Joker represents how people can become so twisted from past experiences, and part of the reason people are so infatuated with him is because they do not know how he became this way, only that he is now this way.

      So the real question is this: why are people so interested with dark characters like this? The answer is a simple one: These characters represent the darker parts of the human psyche that exist in all of us. They may not exist to the extent that they do in these characters, but they are there nonetheless. The characters allow us to make connections to their lives and experiences, and get a glimpse into the darker parts of ourselves that may never (hopefully) become as pronounced as they don in these characters.

Changes - A Fire

      Fire and change go hand in hand. The burning down of a forest leads to new life and growth, and the burning down of a building, however tragic, paves the way for a new structure to be built in its stead. However, to view change, one only needs to look at the fire itself and how it progresses through its proverbial life.

      A fire begins as nothing but a pile of wood or other burnable substances. In it there is nothing special and it could be easily mistaken for a pile of garbage. In this form, it is lifeless. Then someone introduces a spark or a flame. Someone breathes life into this lifeless pile. If the conditions are right for the pile to catch, then that spark or flame is carried over into the pile of material and a small flame is finally visible. However small or weak, this pile now has life. As the minutes go by, this flame begins to catch other pieces of wood near itself on fire as it begins to spread throughout the pile, bringing to life the entire thing. The life inside of this fire is young and ready to grow to its full potential. As the fire burns bigger and brighter, one must feed it fuel in the same way a living organism must be fed or obtain food. If it is not fed it will simply burn itself out. It is during this time that the fire reaches its peak, its apex. It is burning the brightest, hottest, and biggest that it ever will. This is when it is the most full of life. As time continues to pass, the fire gradually begins to get dimmer and less hot. It is entering the final stages of its life. The fire will continue to burn all of the wood it has until nothing is left except a pile of ashes and embers. This is how all fires will end: in a pile of ash and a few warm embers that eventually go cold. This is when its life is completely gone.

      This is how the fire that I observed acted in my fireplace acted. We lit it with a match and the gas in the fireplace helped to get it going. As it grew the fire got warmer and brighter until eventually the entire pile of original wood was consumed in a fiery ball of flames. It was at this point we began to feed the fire to keep it going. As long as we fed the fire more wood when it started to wane in strength, the fire would continue to stay bright and warm. When it was almost time for us to go to bed, we stopped feeding the fire. The fire then began to slowly shrink and get less warm so that, by the time we were heading off to bed, it was nothing but ash and a few glowing embers. In the morning when I got up I went downstairs and over to the fireplace. Upon placing my hand over the ash, I felt no heat, no warmth whatsoever. This is when the fire was completely out, completely dead.

      The life of a fire is, in its most basic form, the life of any organism. It begins lifelessly and life is then breathed into it. It then continues to grow and mature until it is at its fullest. It is at this point that if no sustenance is given to it, it will surely die. So the organism continues to eat and to live. Then however, it begins to die. It does not happen immediately and occurs slowly over time, similar in the way that the fire slowly began to dim. Finally, the organism, like the embers and ash, is near death, simply waiting for the last embers to extinguish themselves. Then it happens; the last ember dies out, and it is all over. The fire came from nothing and went to nothing. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Being a Lifeguard: The People-Watching Job

      At my job as a lifeguard, I am a people-watcher. I am paid to sit on a stand and observe everyone in the pool for 15 to 30 minutes at a time. During this time I often find myself thinking about who these patrons are or once were. They all are people, just like you and I, who live there life practically the same way, and yet, they  are all inherently different. They have different clothes, different attitudes, different schedules, and so on. I chose this one night to observe people in the pool ,as I sat there on the stand, in as much detail as I possibly could.

      The first man that I observed was at the pool with his wife. Both of them were older people, and I would have to guess between 75 and 80 years old. The wife helps the man, who moves quite slow outside of the pool, get ready to swim and then he gets in the pool and just walks from one end to the other, which is good for someone of that age to do. I have noticed that his hands shake quite a bit, so he must have some sort of disorder. The wife just sits by the side of the pool and reads until the the man is ready to get out, at which point she is ready with a towel and has his things for him. Given what I have observed, the wife probably loves the man dearly and she is doing this for him out of that love for him. She is always happy to help him and she always has a smile on her face. Given the way the man's hands shake, they way that his wife helps him, his slowness outside of the pool, and the low-impact of his routine, I would have to assume that he has at least mild arthritis and another disorder to cause his hands to shake. Given the fact that they come in everyday almost and admission is $2.12 per senior, they must be at least somewhat well off, because that starts to add up after a while.

      The next man I observed was here with his wife as well, but in this case both of them get into the pool together. These people were younger than the previous couple, but they were still at least 50-60 years old. They both exercise together in the pool and mainly just swim laps together. By together I mean that they occasionally swim side by side and tend to talk at the ends of the pool, but for the most part swim independently. They walk in wearing clothes that are what you might imagine any middle-class, older couple to wear; they had jeans, shirts, and average tennis-shoes on. They also keep their workouts in the pool light, mainly swimming leisurely from one end to the other, leading me to believe that this this is mainly just to get out and do something. Since I know that they are middle-class (they also come in every night and it is $4.50 each for them) and both of them are somewhat large, I believe that their jobs are probably well-paying ones that require mainly sedentary work.

The final person that I observed is an older gentleman who comes in alone a few times a week. He is probably around the same age as the previous people (50-60), but he actually quite muscular. He has well defined abs and looks like he could bench around 275 pounds. He keeps his head completely blond and is tan year-round, so he must use than tanning bed or get spray tans (he does not have a naturally tan complexion because the tan is faintly orange/golden). So for an older gentleman, he looks younger than he probably is. When he comes in, he is always wearing nice clothes and his keys have the BMW logo on them. From this information, I believe that he has or had a job that was quite well paying and would put him in the upper upper-middle class. However, since he puts a lot of money into his exterior appearance (tan, body, clothes, car), I believe that he is concerned of the way that people perceive him to be and therefore attempts to look the best he possibly can.

Inception - An Oddly Transcendentalist Movie

      While a movie about a group of men who are bent on corrupting the mind of an unsuspecting businessman and go around blasting guns and shooting bullets like there is no tomorrow seems like it would have nothing to do with transcendentalism, surprisingly, there are some transcendental elements within this action-packed movie.

      The main character in this movie is Cobb, a man who has a special set of skills: breaking into the minds of others. Along with this set of skills is a list of personal demons, most notably the suicide of his wife. Cobb is a "part" and the de facto leader of a team of like-minded individuals, who plan on carrying out a mission of implanting an idea in a businessman's subconscious to make him dissolve his father's company. Notice that "part" is in quotation marks. While Cobb is technically a member of the team, his main objective is getting back to his daughters. This is where the first of the transcendentalist ideas can be found: Individualism. His self-centered concerns and willingness to lead that group into his troubled subconscious represent in him his individualistic nature. He is not the only one who exemplifies these tendencies in the movie however. Mr. Siato, the man who hired this group and promised Cobb a clean-slate, has only the interests of himself and his company at mind during the duration of the film.

      As in many action movies, there is a rookie who is new to the game and knows little about what will happen, but surprisingly has a natural affinity for it and ends up counseling the more experienced members of the team. In this movie, that rookie is Ariadne. She is introduced, by Cobb, into the realm of dreams. Not in the sense that you and I probably know them, but in a way that she can control them. She is introduced into a world with limitless possibilities and it is a place where she can do and build whatever she wants. This concept of individual expression and the ability to create whatever you want is a key component of the rebellious Romantic philosophy. The Romantics believed in freedom of expression quite deeply and welcomed practically all ways in which one could freely express themselves. This included writing, poetry, artwork, and physical creation like sculpting. While they probably did not include building huge metropolises and vast landscapes in one's dreams as one of their forms of expression, what Ariadne is doing, building whatever she feels or desires, expressing herself through her creations, is precisely what the Romantics wanted.

      Even though in this movie thousands of rounds of ammunition were expended and many people were killed in what amounts to a mini war (something that neither the Romantics or Transcendentalists probably wanted), there are elements of both philosophies hidden within it. The creativity that dreams offer and one man's self-concerned agenda both offer the elements one would look for to discover these hidden elements.

Wonders of Nature - Vasquez Rocks, CA

      Vasquez Rocks - from Star Trek to Planet of the Apes, this park in Southern California has been the host in filming countless movies. This is due to the fact that it is a landscape that can look other-worldly at points. For a transcendentalist, this seemingly barren landscape may at first seem too desolate for there to be much life other than underbrush, but upon closer examination, that is simply not the case. As I was running through the park, competing in orienteering, I was given the opportunity to see much of the park from places other than the trails. Even though I was focused on winning the competition, I could not help but notice all the different animals an plants the park plays host to. From green little lizards to the buzzards circling overhead, and from the prickly cacti to the pointy Yucca plant, this park is surprisingly bio diverse. But back to the feeling of being in Nature.

      There were really two places in this park where I could feel alone and disconnected from the world and the bustles of society, places of peace and tranquility. The first was when I was out on the course running. Orienteering for the varsity runners is meant to be completely in the wilderness and mainly free of trails, and since they separate the starting times of runners on this course by 6-8 minutes, this meant that for the majority of the race, I was alone. Even though I was focused on finding the points and winning the race, I felt surprisingly in touch with nature and almost in harmony with the landscape as I craftily maneuvered through the ravines and across the rocks. The other place I found this feeling was at the top of one of the many rocks in the park. Up on top of the rocks, the tall ones at least, one can see for miles. From up high on the rocks, all the people below really do look like small ants and it gives insight as to how small and insignificant people really are in the grand scheme of things and how vast and expansive nature is. For me personally, The feelings I got while I was up on the rock were more powerful than when I was running. I was overcome with a sense of awe. Looking out over the park, seeing people wandering around the parking lot, the vast expanse of the arid grassland, and the towering hills (practically mountains) out in the distance was truly a humbling experience. It was also an exhilarating one because at the top of the rock, I was straddling the top with one foot on a semi-steep rock face and the other one hanging over a 60-foot drop off.

      These kinds of places are slowing and slowly vanishing in the world, and paces like Vasquez Rocks may soon be completely surrounded by developed cities. This was already occurring while I was there, and if you turned around 180 degrees in the top picture, you would see a growing city not even two miles away. Places like this must be preserved for future generations because they need to have the feeling that I and people that have also climbed the rocks have had. They nee to be able to view nature in all of its glory, untarnished by human influences and interference. These places allow people to escape from society, even if only for a few hours, and return to nature. They can walk the trails, breathe in the fresh air, and observe nature as it was originally created. This is why Vasquez Rocks is important, not because of the fact that Captain Kirk defeated the green spacemen here, but because of the fact that it is a place where people can connect with nature and escape from the busy lives that almost everyone has nowadays.