to strip or not to strip

i don't understand the ways in which our society works.

for instance, why is it acceptable to walk around in a bikini, yet scandalous to walk around in a bra and underpants? do they not hide the same things and reveal the same things? in fact i would say some bikinis actually reveal a little more than underpants do.

it goes the same with being naked. why is it so taboo to be naked, to be natural, to hide nothing.

we all know what's down there, we've seen our own, we've learnt about the way they work and i'm sure we will all, in our lifetimes, see other peoples. yet, if i walked down the street in the buff, i can guarantee you i would be yelled at, pointed at and even arrested.

even more confusing, is the fact that our society, although against the naked body, is obsessed with superficiality. if that were so, then wouldn't we want to show off our 'assets' so that we could truly judge and evaluate each other? why does our society spend so much money on plastic surgery; nips here, tucks there,  and waxes right there just to cover it up with clothes?

i don't know what else to say. apart from i am confused.

private vs public

would you read someones diary if it was wide open? fully accessible, almost public you could say. would you really pick it up and read it? okay. lets say you pick it up and you see the writer has created a code or has left out names. would you really spend that extra effort and time just to find out who they're talking about?

how about if you don't even really talk to the person who's diary you are reading? do you think you have the right to know what they feel and their raw emotions? that you deserve to know it? after all they were foolish enough to leave their diary on the ground.

what i've written above, isn't the exact issue that i want to talk about, but certainly relates to it. in fact, in a way its an analogy for what i'm about to discuss.

as you know there are many different websites on the internet; especially lots of websites, like blogspot, which contain hundreds of thousands of peoples' personal thoughts and opinions. now you may argue that these blogs are public domain because they are on the internet, but are they really?

legally, things that are posted onto the internet are generally available to the public. however does that mean that you can ruthlessly search for someone's blog and then feel as if you have the right to pore over their personal thoughts and feelings and then discuss it with your friends?

where do we draw the line between public and private? is there not an important distinction to be made between talking about public and private legally and talking about it morally? of course you may argue, 'well if you don't want people to read it then don't write it', but if that's your expectation then are you not also suggesting that 'if you don't want anyone to hear it don't say it?' or 'if you don't want anyone to see it don't do it?' does this then not lead to the overall suggestion that we are not free to do anything secretive or private at all and should therefore all become introverted and not express ourselves to anyone?

i know that what i have just said may seem a bit far fetched based on the original suggestion, but it is something to seriously consider if your main argument is reliant upon what is above.

even if this isn't the case. lets say you find the person's blog and read it, should you then be at license to discuss it with others? surely when we discuss things with others we are either subconsciously or consciously altering them to an extent, adding our own bias and making inferences based upon what has been written? therefore are you possibly changing what was originally said or meant, because you may not have understood it, into some other completely untrue statement?

furthermore, if those people and their discussions of your feelings and emotions get to the point where you feel ashamed to feel the way you do, unable to express yourself through your blog and forced to change the url has it gone too far? should there be some penalization for making people feel unable to express themselves in their chosen way? if i am not mistaken that is indeed and infringement of human rights.

why is the internet becoming such an abused medium? where people think that they deserve to judge, criticise and speculate everything that is on there because after all, it is public domain. if i were to want to keep a diary in this day and age and with the technologies available to us, i don't see why the internet would not be the most effective medium to use. it can't get lost and allows you to quickly enter your thoughts and then support them by a vast array of pictures available to you. but i would think twice about it now after seeing what some people do with the information found on blogs.

just because we have access to something, does not mean we should exploit it.

can you repeat that?

today i was in the canteen line and there was a boy and a girl in front of me, and the girl was obviously flirting with the boy. but during the conversation, something which happens a lot, happened; but this time to a whole new extreme. this is how it went down.

'hey, i have to go to the library after lunch' says the boy

'wait what?' responds the girl

'i said i have to go to the library after lunch' the boy repeats

'what? i have something on my face?!' said the girl, nervously and surprised.

basically, what happened is that the girl misheard the boy, and quite badly as well, which is slightly embarrassing, but more importantly, interesting.


it made me think, do the sentences we come up with when we mishear someone, tell us anything about what we are feeling, what we think of the person we are talking to, or do they reveal a deeper side of our character.


this is quite similar to the idea of the 'Freudian Slip' named after Sigmund Freud. the theory of the 'Freudian Slip' is as follows (off wikipedia)

'A Freudian slip, or parapraxis, is an error in speech, memory, or physical action that is interpreted as occurring due to the interference of some unconscious ('dynamically repressed') wish, conflict, or train of thought. The concept is thus part of classical psychoanalysis.'

if this is so, then i believe that the girl made a 'Freudian Slip' and i've inferred from this slip that the girl must have been to some extent, self conscious whilst she was talking to the boy. 

i remember when i was younger, in fact we were still on the other campus, and my friends and i were having a discussion at lunch. this is how this conversation went

'oh my god, euan totally shaves his legs' said one girl

to which i replied 'oh my god, euan likes seamus's legs?!'

we all laughed, but it makes me think now, what does that say about me or my feelings towards euan? there was no seamus in the year so that presumption of what the girl had said was even more bizarre. it is mean for me to say this, but i do remember that we all though euan was a bit strange, so that could have had something to do with it.

maybe there is more truth to be found in not what we say, but what we think we hear? there was a quote that we talked about in class the other day. i don't quite remember the quote or who it was by but it went along these lines

'a word is half the person saying it, and the other half, the person hearing it'

maybe if we spent more time mumbling and less time listening then we would hear more truths about ourselves and one another than we would in a deep and meaningful conversation. would life be better if we were all more open about our opinions? if we were self-conscious and we just admitted it?

however, maybe it is a good thing that these 'Freudian Slips' are so infrequent, because in that way, we can of course save ourselves from awkward and uncomfortable moments where our subconscious desire may or may not get the better of us. just imagine if we had much less control of our psyche and things like this happened all the time,

boy approaches girl 'hi, how are you today?'

'wait what? you love me and think i'm beautiful?! oh my gosh i totally like you too!' shrieks girl.

boy walks away.

thank god for our need to shield our true desires from one another.

curious...

i find it interesting how many words in our language have several meanings, or connotations. these connotations, whether negative or positive, whether intentional or unintentional, sure do say a lot about the world we live in, or at least the world we used to live in. here is a list of definitions from dictionary.com

heathen
–noun

1.an unconverted individual of a people that do not acknowledge the God of the Bible; a person who is neither a Jew, Christian, nor Muslim; pagan.

2.an irreligious, uncultured, or uncivilized person.
 
black  
–adjective
1.lacking hue and brightness; absorbing light without reflecting any of the rays composing it.

2.characterized by absence of light; enveloped in darkness: a black night.

3.(sometimes initial capital letter)

a.pertaining or belonging to any of the various populations characterized by dark skin pigmentation, specifically the dark-skinned peoples of Africa, Oceania, and Australia.

b.African-American.

4.soiled or stained with dirt: That shirt was black within an hour.

5.gloomy; pessimistic; dismal: a black outlook.

6.deliberately; harmful; inexcusable: a black lie.

7.boding ill; sullen or hostile; threatening: black words; black looks.

8.(of coffee or tea) without milk or cream.

9.without any moral quality or goodness; evil; wicked: His black heart has concocted yet another black deed.

10.indicating censure, disgrace, or liability to punishment: a black mark on one's record.

11.marked by disaster or misfortune: black areas of drought; Black Friday.

12.wearing black or dark clothing or armor: the black prince.

13.based on the grotesque, morbid, or unpleasant aspects of life: black comedy; black humor.

14.(of a check mark, flag, etc.) done or written in black to indicate, as on a list, that which is undesirable, sub-standard, potentially dangerous, etc.: Pilots put a black flag next to the ten most dangerous airports.

15.illegal or underground: The black economy pays no taxes.

16.showing a profit; not showing any losses: the first black quarter in two years.

17.deliberately false or intentionally misleading: black propaganda.

18.British. boycotted, as certain goods or products by a trade union.

19.(of steel) in the form in which it comes from the rolling mill or forge; unfinished.

white
–adjective
1.of the color of pure snow, of the margins of this page, etc.; reflecting nearly all the rays of sunlight or a similar light.

2.light or comparatively light in color.

3.(of human beings) marked by slight pigmentation of the skin, as of many Caucasoids.

4.for, limited to, or predominantly made up of persons whose racial heritage is Caucasian: a white club; a white neighborhood.

5.pallid or pale, as from fear or other strong emotion: white with rage.

6.silvery, gray, or hoary: white hair.

7.snowy: a white Christmas.

8.lacking color; transparent.

9.(politically) ultraconservative.

10.blank, as an unoccupied space in printed matter: Fill in the white space below.

11.Armor. composed entirely of polished steel plates without fabric or other covering; alwite.

12.wearing white clothing: a white monk.

13.Slang. decent, honorable, or dependable: That's very white of you.

14.auspicious or fortunate.

15.morally pure; innocent.

16.without malice; harmless: white magic.

17.(of wines) light-colored or yellowish, as opposed to red.

18.British. (of coffee) containing milk

sally vs russell

why is it human nature to want to pit two things against one another?

dog fights
girls vs boys
football matches
wrestling
wars
team jacob vs team edward
heaven vs hell

why is there a constant need to have a vindicated winner and loser?
one superior to the other; who is now wounded either emotionally or physically from the conflict.

even if we seem to mean it in a joking way, the subconcious desire to eliminate the weaker ones and to triumph with the victor always seems present. what can we take from this subconcious urge to self serve and to belittle others?

does this go back to our caveman days where survival of the fittest was the only way to progress or have we winched ourselves so high up on the hierarchal table that we have lost sight of what put us there in the first place? are we, by our own terms, behaving like animals? hiding our still barbaric and basal needs behind banking systems, 6.8 litres engines and an air of sophistication?

even in global terms we find the need to grade things from best to worst
(1st world countries and 3rd world countries anyone?)
yet we scorned and criticised pretty much everyone from the middle ages to the 1800s when we saw how much they relied on their social system.

maybe our need to derogate others comes from the fact that it is so frowned upon in our day and age. we never got to act like primates, were never given the chance to act without consequence and have never lived in a world without morals and ethics.

somehow, i believe the latter to be an excuse for the truth that we are surrounded by.

perception vs reality. how ironic.

masquerade paper faces on parade

" Language was given to man to disguise his thoughts "

Talleyrand 1754 - 1888

a dream is a wish your heart makes when you're fast asleep

my dreams have always been important to me, and more now so than ever, my dreams have been realistic, vivid and all relating to things i've been thinking about. whilst researching about dreams, i found this rather interesting article, and i loved the way the writer talks about the meaning of dreams.

"An approach to meaning that most people ignore is that of pattern recognition and the correspondence between patterns. The correspondence may be direct and exact, analogous, or formal, as in mathematics. One understanding of meaning is that when we say that one thing means something we are saying that the patterns we see in it correspond to the patterns we see in something else. We may correlate the patterns we see in a person’s life to patterns we perceive in the wisdom literature, or in history.

Does the sport of basketball mean anything? Throwing a basketball through a hoop, the rules of the game--do they mean anything? Was meaning intended by the designer of the game? Why do people get so excited by the game? We intuitively and emotionally respond to the correspondences between the patterns in the sport of basketball and patterns of effort, competition, risk taking and skill in our own lives.

I believe it is perhaps to miss the point to ask if dreams have meaning. Nothing can have meaning without reference to a corresponding pool of patterns with which to make the connection. Rather I would say, can you find patterns in dreams that correspond to patterns in people’s lives? Are the correspondences of any interest?

Clearly the answer is yes. Dreams are a wealth of metaphors and analogies that pertain to important issues in people’s lives. The clinical literature of dream interpretation is full of such data. It can’t be denied."

to say that this is true, would be incorrect, as how would we ever know this for certain? to me i would say this is partially true, as some of the dreams i am currently having are so related to my life that they may aswell be my life. but at the same time i can think of two dreams in particular which as far as i can conciously understand, have no relation to my life at all.

however, like Henry Reed mentions above, those two dreams that i am thinking of, could be metaphors or analogies that pertain to issues in my life. these metaphors just being too convuleted or abstract for my concious brain to decipher, along with the fact that the account of the dream is only based on what i can remember, meaning the most important clues to what the dream could mean, could have been easily forgotten.

maybe our dreams are portals into another world? another life that we have lived, or will live someday. or maybe just insight into our purest of thoughts, free of all inhibition and prejudice.
on the other hand our dreams could just be a random simulation that we play through based on memories.

do we have freedom in our dreams? do we actually play out a role, deciding how the story will play out, or is it all predetermined? i'm trying to think through any dreams that i have remembered, trying to find a memory of myself actively choosing or changing something in a dream, but i just can't remember in enough detail.

maybe that's the reason why we can never remember our dreams completely and accurately. maybe if we did it would unwravel the whole mystery of dreams, it would allow us to see far into our brains, allow us to travel into some other universe, or allow us to live in our dreams forever. maybe we just can't know what's really happening in our dreams, because the truth is too unimaginable, too unbearable or too simple.

i find that we make our dreams seem so overly complicated that they are just too intricate to understand. can they really be so complex and so metaphorical if other animals can dream too? my dogs, do something in their sleep that i can only assume to be dreaming. if we work under the principle that they are 'inferior' to us, then can they really be dreaming? can they really be thinking up and playing through their desires and life problems? to suggest such a thing sounds ridiculous, but it is a valid question.

my mum once said to me, that when i was a baby i used to make sounds and twitch in my sleep the way that the dogs do. does this relate somehow to the relation between their mental capacity and that of a baby?

i don't know the answers to any of my questions, but feel like finding them would turn our dreams into just another bodily function, just another mystery solved. do we really need to solve this one?

a dream is defined as both of the thoughts above.

1.a succession of images, thoughts, or emotions passing through the mind during sleep.

2.the sleeping state in which this occurs.

3.an object seen in a dream.

4.an involuntary vision occurring to a person when awake.

5.a vision voluntarily indulged in while awake; daydream; reverie.

6.an aspiration; goal; aim: A trip to Europe is his dream.

7.a wild or vain fancy.

8.something of an unreal beauty, charm, or excellence.

i know which ones i'd rather believe in...

seatbelt schmeatbelt

so recently, the australian government has decided to impose a new safety rule for young passengers. they have decided that it is now a neccessity for a child seven years or younger to be placed in a specially made car seat. when i heard the news, i was slightly baffled and a little annoyed.

why does a seven year old need to have a car seat? i remember being seven, it was only about nine years ago. i was living in holland and my mum drove a red renault twingo. it was a two door car. i went to the BSN and i once navigated family friends, and strangers to the country, from the airport to my house, by myself.

these random facts about my mother's car and other things may seem irrelevant but i can't imagine being able to think they way i did when i was seven, having the maturity i did when i was seven, imploring the reasoning skills and remembering information the way i did when i was seven, yet having to be restrained like some toddler in a car seat.

i guess this leads me to ask, what makes a seven year old so different from a six year old? do you suddenly hit seven and magically obtain powers that make you able to withstand a car crash whilst sitting in an ordinary car seat? physically, i would imagine the difference is not much at all, and even less mentally.

but then you could ask, well if thats so, then whats so different between a six year old and a five year old? or a five year old and a four year old? and before you know it, babies and toddlers are free to sit in a normal passenger seat.

so therefore, there has to be a limit.

a limit is defined as

• 
  
  The point, edge, or line beyond which something cannot or may not proceed.
• 
  
  A confining or restricting object, agent, or influence.
• 
  
  To confine or restrict within a boundary or bounds.
• 
  
  To fix definitely; to specify.

but who decides where the limit lies? is it something measurable? in mathematical cases, the limit can be measured. is it the same, however, for this circumstance? who should make the final decision on this limit? should it be a doctor, who can use their expertise to decide how a child's body will react?

should it be safety testers of cars? who can use their previous experiments to determine a age where a child can protect themselves better when in a crash?

or should it be the mother? who subjectively knows their child better than anyone else? who's child it concerns?

furthermore, i don't recall the rule of having to put a seven year old in a car seat being around when i was younger so why is it so now? why had the old rule suddenly become 'not enough' to protect children? if a limit is a limit can you really limit it further?

limit limit limit limit limit limit limit limit limit limit limit limit limit limit

wolfman

on the weekend i went to see 'the wolfman' starring benicio del toro, emily blunt, anthony hopkins and hugo weaving. surprisingly enough it raised the issue of different perspectives and how they can affect your actions.

in the movie, benicio del toro is turned into a werewolf by another werewolf, who turns out to be his father. he is tricked by his father, and finds out that his dad was also responsible for the death of not only his mother but his brother as well. his lover in the movie, emily blunt is the last person who loves him and knows the truth.

the townsfolk, along with hugo weaving, a detective from scotland yard, wish to kill benecio, because they see him as nothing but a monster, responsible for killing many people.

obviously, the film was set up in a way that makes the audience empathize with benicio; thus adding to the film but its just interesting how the knowledge that the detective and the townspeople recieved completely changed their impression of the werewolf.

beam me up

i was watching an episode of star trek: next generation with my parents this evening when a real knowledge issue was raised. the klingon people had just seen the return of the supposed 'kahless', a man who was a legend in their culture, much like beowulf, and who was seen as a hero and role model.

commander data, an android, approaches lieutenant warf, who is a klingon and proceeds to have this conversation.

"in the absence of emperical data how can you tell if this is the real Kahless?"

"it is not an empirical matter, it is a matter of faith"

"faith. and you do believe Kahless may have supernatural attributes?as an android i am unable to accept that which cannot be proven through rational means, i'd appreciate hearing your insights on this matter"

"perhaps another time commander, i do not believe i can provide much insight at this moment."

this is exactly what we have been discussing in class for the past couple of weeks. what makes something truth? does it have to be absolute, or justified empirically? it's nice to know we aren't the only ones discussing knowledge issues.