round and round

In class throughout our schooling lives, we are always told to analyse texts - take English for example. In History we analyse sources, in Art we anaylse artworks, and the same for Music too. So why does this analysis not work in or apply to everyday life as well?
Take my private life for example. I have conversations with my "boyfriend" after which I scrutinise and analyse every single word - and I mean every. single. word. and to me, it make sense, when I phrase sentences I'm careful with what I say, I formulate sentences and use certain words to get my point across. So why wouldn't he? If he wanted to seem cold, he may to this, if he wanted to seem allusive, he may do that, and if he wanted to fade out - well then clearly he'd do this.

Now by what i've just said, I don't mean i sit and ponder every phrase before entering a conversation with someone, but I mean, formualtion is just a natural part of conversation.
But however, apparently I over analyse, I look "way too into things", and overthink things.

So tell me, why does my brain seem to work overtime? Why do I naturally look into things way more than other people do?

Sometimes I reckon the reason i can't keep cool, calm and collected when talking to my "boyfriend" or reading messages he's sent me is because it's my own situation. I can't objectively and sensibly look at the situation because i'm too emotionally connected to it. I would say this idea has merit - this is why doctors arent allowed to treat relatives, why police officers aren't allowed to work on relative's cases and why people hire pschologists to help them out.

Sometimes I figure that my overanalysis comes from an intense insecurity or feeling of worthlessness. I don't see why this boy would like me or be into me and therefore try and find holes in his kindness or lies in his flatteries.

Other times i think, maybe its just one of my flaws. Everyone has flaws, some people are mardy all the time, some people don't read people well at all, some people are anal and somepeople (me for instance) read way too into things. Its just one of those things and practice and experience will eventually lead to the flaw disappearing.

However, I must argue with that and say that most of the time my "over-analysis" and feelings of rejection come from my gut instinct and what my body is telling me. If that feeling or intuition is normally wrong, because i'm a naturally negative person, does that mean I have to assume that my instincts are wrong? Surely instincts are instincts for a reason?

Also, if all of our knowledge is based on past experiences - and all of my past experiences with boys has been bad - then surely it is logical to assume and to believe that this "boyfriend" will hurt me like the others did? And if our instinct is based on past experiences as well then that explains why they'd make me feel the way i do.

However, this is sort of becoming a deductive/inductive (whichever one it is) slash scientific method sort of situation. Its like this:

"Boy comes along and hurts me, later another boy comes along and hurts me, soon another boy comes along and surprise suprise he hurts me, oh and yet another..."

you get my drift.

If A has never happened without B happening afterwards, then why would anything change? In terms of reliability in science, I have done many "trials" each time obtaining the same results. They say the definition of madness is repeating the same action and expecting a different outcome, so therefore I must be really sane... right?

But let's be realistic, in terms of relationships, i guess there is no deductive/inductive logic. Hopefully Clearly, I won't go the rest of my life without finding the right guy, he's bound to come along eventually, so why do I have so little hope?

I really do hope that purple bunny crops up soon..

dave salmoni

Being a huge fan of zoologist Dave Salmoni, i have recently started watching his new show on the discovery channel called 'Rogue Nature'.

Rogue Nature is about animals in the wild that have been claimed to act in a way that is out of their 'ordinary' behavior; that is, to attack and kill humans.

Dave interviews specialised behaviorists and people who were witnesses to the brutal attacks and asks them to show their opinions. He then spends time with someone who shows him the more docile side of the animals, as they believe they are not rogue, just the circumstances were particularly bad, and then the people who believe the animals to be purely vicious and do believe the animals to be rogue. After he has done that, he studies the animals behavior himself by observing them in their natural habitat and then formulates his own opinions.

So far the animals he has investigated are Brown Bears, Chimpanzees, Humboldt Squid, Hippopotamuses and Crocodiles.

The show is really interesting but and I always agree with Dave's final conclusions, but what I really want to tackle is the idea that an animals that attacks a human is considered rogue.

Yet again I think this may turn into another stab at humans for having some sort of hierarchical idea when it comes to them vs. the 'animals' as quite a few of my posts have been about.
I'm just not sure i understand why animals aren't meant to have an instinct to kill humans like they do every other animals in their habitat.
Why do we consider it unnatural for us to have any predators and face every other animal as if they are our prey?
I tried to find a definition of the term 'rogue' to see if there was more elaboration on the one i gave earlier and found this:

–adjective
10. (of an animal) having an abnormally savage or unpredictable disposition, as a rogue elephant.

11. no longer obedient, belonging, or accepted and hence not controllable or answerable; deviating, renegade
 
So i guess that does help to elaborate on my point. A rogue is abnormally savage. Okay - that's is a perfectly understandable definition, except if that were the case, then 'Rogue Nature' would also see if the animals under question have acted abnormally savage to other animals, to its own kind etc. and not just to humans.
 
I feel as if the second definition is more applicable to a lot of people's idea of the word rogue.
And I think what a lot of people forget is that is that we are animals too. Maybe we should reflect upon definition number 10 and see what it says about us

doctor doctor give me the news

The other day when I was watching the news they said that they had created an injection that has the potential to cure all strains of the flu.

The flu is a viral infection which although isn't normally deadly, can kill elderly people as well as young infant and babies who have weaker immune systems.

Thinking back to 50, 200 or even 500 years ago there definitely wasn't the kind of technology that we have now, and people were certainly not making the kind of medical discoveries that they are today.

There was no cure for the flu. There was no cure for leprosy. No cure for small pox, it had long yet to be eradicated. They have cures for venereal diseases. If you became ill, you fought the disease. If you couldn't fight the disease you inevitably died.

But now, all of us 1st world countries citizens and all of the 1st world doctors, are seeking and finding cures for all of these diseases.

And it is nice, not having to worry about contracting one of those diseases and not being able to receive treatment, but that is life.

We have no predators and we are, by ridding ourselves of the threat of these diseases, slowly eliminating all of our weaknesses.

We are eliminating natural selection.

How can we be so bold? So egotistical and selfish to think that we have the right to make ourselves invincible to nature?

Even time is becoming something which we have decided to try and conquer. Since the paleolithic era our life-expectancy has slowly increased bit by bit and scientists today are looking for new ways to regenerate organs and tissues in order to remove the damage from the wear and tear of time on our bodies.

Living to be 150 would be great i'm sure, but we have to look at the repercussions of living longer. Living longer and removing natural selection means that people who may have died from illness or disease, will now be alive and will be alive for longer. Therefore there will be more people on Earth, meaning more crowding, and a much higher demand for resources.

I'm not one to believe that we shouldn't try to change the way the world turned out to some extent, such as trying to transform all of the 2nd and 3rd world countries into 1st world countries. Or even by finding better treatments for diseases, for cancer, and increasing AIDS prevention. But curing the flu? curing every disease? and changing the way nature intended us to be? not so much.

I think that the 'god complex' style train of thought that a lot of humans are taking on is going to end up putting us in a lot of trouble, whether it be now or in several years time. There's a reason we weren't given those kind of powers in the first place.

animal precinct

as a lover of animals, i quite frequently watch animal planet and i often find myself watching the vast array of animal cop shows that deal with animal abuse.

one of the things that i have noticed from watching these shows is the severe lack of justice for the animals that are abused.

one instance that i watched today in fact, featured a pitbull who the people at the Arizona humane society named Lewis. Lewis was hog-tied, severely beaten, thrown into a dustbin, closed in there and then placed in an alleyway bin. Left there to die.

What's even more incredulous than the sheer brutality of Lewis's abuse, is the fact that the person who inflicted such abuse was never found, and thus never convicted.

And worse than that, is the fact that even when they know the people who have caused the animals pain and trauma, and even when they send them to court, and even when the animals have to be put down as a result of the abuse they suffered, what punishment do the people receive?

a $400 fine. a week in jail. a month's community service.

How is it in any way justice for the crimes that they have committed?

Why is it that our justice system for humans is so different from our justice system for animals?

If the sort of crime that had happened to Lewis had happened to a human; an adult or even a child, the law enforcement would be using leagues of crime scene investigators and detectives in order to try and find the culprit and when found, they would be serving a lot more than one week in jail.

I understand that due to the fact that we are one of the only "animals" on the Earth with sentient abilities and because we are certainly the most sophisticated and evolved animals on the planet may mean that we feel as if we are "above" all the other creatures and that we rule this planet over them, but surely, since we are so civilised and so highly sophisticated we would be able to put aside our narcissistic customs and serve equal justice for all crimes of that manner.

i just don't know how we can call ourselves civilised if we allow our people to treat seemingly "inferior" animals like that, with little consequence.

the other thing that baffles me, is that we hold quite severe punishment for people who poach in Africa and for people who sell animals parts on the black market, yet when it comes to domesticated animals, the level of importance seems to drop quite exponentially. Why?

perhaps because we have made domesticated animals, as they are, domesticated, we have little respect for them because they are not wild, they do not surpass us in any way and they have been changed to suit us and therefore we see them as even less important than or 'dignified' than the animals that still put up a 'fight' and that still have their primal instincts in full swing.

and i think that's particular poignant too. by making dogs and cats domestic as well as horses and other pets, we have stripped them of their fighting nature, their protective instincts and have left them at the will of man, defenseless. that should give us even more incentive to protect them. it was us that made them so powerless. we did that to them. making any action of abuse purely unexplainable. inexcusable.

Justice?  my ass.

oh no you didn't

what amazes me is the way that a person's mentality can change once their anonymity changes too.
my excellent friend and IB graduate was talking to me about it the other day and he said

"anyone who has the benefit of anonymity is always going to be unnecessarily harsh, even if they dont believe what theyre saying. I studied it in psychology. Anonymity gives people power to say and do things that they know are wrong. Thats why you see people laughing on facebook groups about people who die because insensitivity becomes irrelevant if you dont have an identity"

I think that last line is fantastic - insensitivity becomes irrelevant when you don't have an identity

And i think its exactly right. When people don't have to worry about being identified they suddenly decide to throw all their morals out the window and become a new person, whether for the better or for the worst. This is evident throughout many forums, blogs and all over facebook. Anonymous comments can be seen all over the web attacking people for their beliefs and making purely insulting and unsubstantiated comments about people the don't even know.

this could also work the other way around. Insensitivity become irrelevant when you're doing it to someone who doesn't have an identithy. I believe that sort of mentality may have some relevance when mentioning certain aspects of torture during periods of war and civil unrest such as WW2. This is not in any way an excuse for the actions of course, but acts merely as a statement of the possible frame of mind and concept belief that those people may have held.

Why is this so however?

I guess a lot of people love the idea of being able to act without consequences, something that is unlikely to happen in their everyday life but in the anonymous world of the internet can be a frequent occurence.

What this says about us as people i don't really know. And i dont even know what this says about us as knowers.

But i suppose it is a good thing that we all have identities, they put boundaries on us and on our actions and make us think twice before acting the way we do.

censor censor

The other day in TOK i had to present an issue that i thought was relevant and that i had come across in everyday life.

I decided to focus on an issue that my parents and i were talking about the other day during dinner.

We were talking about issues from the past, such as the Vietnam War and the Apartheid as well as the genocide with Pol Pot.

My mum then said to my dad

"god i remember when i was much younger and i was watching the news with my parents when they showed this man getting shot by one of Pol Pot's men on the tv, do you remember that?"

and it got me thinking.

When was the last time we saw something like that on our news?

We very seldom get shown any violent footage on the news anymore, nothing compared to what they used to show, and although i would agree world issues has become more televised as a whole, i would argue that the content has been lessened in violence.

If this is the case, should it be up to the news, to decide the extent to which we see things?

As suggested in class the reason behind the news's choice to not show such violent footage could be due to the fact that the public may react negatively and cause problems for the news companies.

But I still don't believe that this is morally right. A lot of people rely on the news to show them important world issues. And although a lot of people may not want to see violent or disturbing footage on the news, it is the truth and just because it makes us uncomfortable doesn't mean we should detach ourselves from it.

In terms of parental issues. I think that it is their responsibility to shield the violent footage from their children if they wish, but not the news channel's decision to not even give the public the choice either way.

As knowers, this says that we may not actually know a lot of what we think we know, and that a lot of our knowledge claims could be more altered or censored than we realise. I guess this particular issue really highlights the concern of truth and reality compared to the perception of reality.

little town it's a quiet village

during tok issue presentation time, lauren brought up the issue of how disney builds up false expectations of life. this then lead to further discussion upon how the capitalist society we live in wants to make us feel sad and inadequate in order so that we buy things, and how we constantly spend time making out our world to be an ugly place.

this topic really interested me as, as a disney fan myself, spent my childhood and even to this day, watching disney movies.

and it really is true. disney tells us things that are utterly untrue and does so through even more false situations. every character is flawless, petite, a wonderful singer, friends to the animals and waiting for their 'prince charming' to come and rescue them. of course, they all end up with their 'handsome hubbies' and live happily ever after.

why?

why do we feel the need to create all these false expectations and ideals if the result is a feeling of inadequacy and failure? and why do we constantly belittle all we have on this earth?

is it not completely strange to be brought up watching disney films with gorgeous heroines, handsome heroes, and perfect scenarios, just to get chucked into the real world and get told ''its what's inside that counts"?

 i guess this shows how conflicting our societies beliefs are, or at least, how different people go about achieving the same goals. as well as showing how little adults value children's opinions, thoughts and ability to remember things. i understand why adults may not desire to smother their children with ''real life'' situations, such as divorces, depression and grocery shopping, but why they need to portray stories through the personas of perfection elludes me. are we not always told "there is no such thing as perfect"

maybe its because people think that what children watch won't effect them in ten years time, that it won't matter in the long run. well i can tell you that it does. my friends and i constantly compare ourselves to the ideals that we were brought up on. we set unachievable standards for guys,

(what do you mean you're not tall, dark, handsome with a thick head of hair, a great singer with style and a magic carpet?!)

and set unattainable goals for ourselves because believe it or  not, your hair will never look like auroras.

what are we trying to achieve? because to me the only ''whole new world'' out there is the supposedly dull and ugly one that we live in.