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When I'm sad, like as of now, I try and think of the following two concepts, to remind myself of life's limited fairness, difficulty to figure out, and sheer craziness.
"Language is a virus" William S Burroughs.
Nature can be approached in two concepts, it's relation to culture in terms of being an inner human nature, or it's existence as the external nature, like the ecosystem in which humans live. With a huge belief in science's role as an empirical method, but only as that, I believe it is important to realize, that society is what molds individuals. Culture can be described as the cultivation of humans, and acquiring of various behaviors, beliefs and customs. Whilst obviously humans see a lot of fear in the 'real' natural world, we are all products of nature, just shaped socially, so as that we can acquire language and communicate in our societies.
With this line of human culture identified and simplified to this extent, can we seriously doubt Burroughs analogy? I know, if not in metaphorical terms, it's pretty unlikely, but after all, in cases of feral children we have seen humans that, despite acquiring the biology of a human being show in behavioral aspects not considered human. Instead they only share physiology, and innate needs from birth such as the need to gain energy through eating and drinking and releasing the waste, breathing, keeping warm and safe etc. The verbal language we as humans use to communicate both facilitates development and keeps us unhappy... Why? Because we can communicate to each other greater things, think through things verbally in our heads, rationalize, reason, and develop a greater array of emotions. We can persuade, advertise, argue, compliment, even entertain, or love.
Language is the expression of our value system of consciousness, and this in itself causes objectivity. Moral views and opinions change from individual to individual. Language is a relational concept. It can only exist if other concepts exist. Language is like a loop or cycle that repeats itself. You could sit thinking it through carefully and frustrated, and still return to the beginning of the chain of thought.
"The world's a stage" William Shakespeare.
Action and interaction are two keep aspects that hold together the framework of social life. Though an acting person in a movie or in theater is usually the only type of person labeled by society as an actor, Shakespeare seems to speak the truth. In varying degrees, I can see people from different cultures (from my etic perspective) all showing this same characteristic. Humans need to out act each other in order to reach the top. From the Western style parties in which ladies compliment each others prom dresses then bitch about them later, to the Indian and Italian theatrical way of acting and gesturing compared to the minimalist, subtle way of doing it in the UK. Obviously, as I mention myself as an etic, this is quite an ethnocentric way of describing this observation, only it does inform of cultural relativism, which is important to remember.
For this reason, I've always felt that when in the spotlight one should smile, cooperate with fellow actors, and try one's best not to be hated by the audience, if need be remain neutral if the conscious, being unavoidably objective doesn't agree in everything. Obviously we cannot always act and win an Oscar, unfortunately.
Bad week. Only up side? I've made some really good new friends at college and I'm definitely going to study Anthropology in London in 2010. I wish I could just hibernate for the whole of Winter. This Autumnal air is bringing me down.
"Language is a virus" William S Burroughs.
Nature can be approached in two concepts, it's relation to culture in terms of being an inner human nature, or it's existence as the external nature, like the ecosystem in which humans live. With a huge belief in science's role as an empirical method, but only as that, I believe it is important to realize, that society is what molds individuals. Culture can be described as the cultivation of humans, and acquiring of various behaviors, beliefs and customs. Whilst obviously humans see a lot of fear in the 'real' natural world, we are all products of nature, just shaped socially, so as that we can acquire language and communicate in our societies.
With this line of human culture identified and simplified to this extent, can we seriously doubt Burroughs analogy? I know, if not in metaphorical terms, it's pretty unlikely, but after all, in cases of feral children we have seen humans that, despite acquiring the biology of a human being show in behavioral aspects not considered human. Instead they only share physiology, and innate needs from birth such as the need to gain energy through eating and drinking and releasing the waste, breathing, keeping warm and safe etc. The verbal language we as humans use to communicate both facilitates development and keeps us unhappy... Why? Because we can communicate to each other greater things, think through things verbally in our heads, rationalize, reason, and develop a greater array of emotions. We can persuade, advertise, argue, compliment, even entertain, or love.
Language is the expression of our value system of consciousness, and this in itself causes objectivity. Moral views and opinions change from individual to individual. Language is a relational concept. It can only exist if other concepts exist. Language is like a loop or cycle that repeats itself. You could sit thinking it through carefully and frustrated, and still return to the beginning of the chain of thought.
"The world's a stage" William Shakespeare.
Action and interaction are two keep aspects that hold together the framework of social life. Though an acting person in a movie or in theater is usually the only type of person labeled by society as an actor, Shakespeare seems to speak the truth. In varying degrees, I can see people from different cultures (from my etic perspective) all showing this same characteristic. Humans need to out act each other in order to reach the top. From the Western style parties in which ladies compliment each others prom dresses then bitch about them later, to the Indian and Italian theatrical way of acting and gesturing compared to the minimalist, subtle way of doing it in the UK. Obviously, as I mention myself as an etic, this is quite an ethnocentric way of describing this observation, only it does inform of cultural relativism, which is important to remember.
For this reason, I've always felt that when in the spotlight one should smile, cooperate with fellow actors, and try one's best not to be hated by the audience, if need be remain neutral if the conscious, being unavoidably objective doesn't agree in everything. Obviously we cannot always act and win an Oscar, unfortunately.
Bad week. Only up side? I've made some really good new friends at college and I'm definitely going to study Anthropology in London in 2010. I wish I could just hibernate for the whole of Winter. This Autumnal air is bringing me down.
amused
frustrated
tired
