Having recently ventured into the mystical land known as “the real world,” several ideas and curiosities have come to my attention. I am naïve in this world, distant from my previous home full of obnoxious party goers and dedicated academics. In this world, there are responsibilities and questions of the future. Two subjects keep arising that have grabbed my attention, that of marriage and that of having children. However, the questions are not whether or not to partake in these institutions and obligations. The questions are of when to marry, who to marry, how many kids to have, and what to name them. I started thinking, why would I get married and why would I have kids? Did I consciously decide to marry and have kids or did I simply follow social norms and biological urges? I want questions like that to be answered long before I undertake such dedicated steps in my life. Sure, the challenges are distant still, but why would it ever be too early to question these immense life steps?
Category Archives: May ’13
Operant Conditioning: Reshaping the world’s worst dog
My family’s Ruby is a monster bitch. And I don’t mean this is some cutesy, “I secretly love her,” kind of way. I actually really don’t like her. I know this sounds crazy, how could someone not like their cute dog. It’s simple. Ruby’s not cute. She’s not fluffy or cuddly. She has nearly no redeeming qualities beyond being a biological vacuum cleaner for food scraps. So harsh, I know. Let me explain where this blunt frustration stems from. She stares at me while I am eating or watching a movie or hanging out with friends or family and if I don’t tend to her within her designated time frame, she moves closer, proceeding closer and closer until eventually her nose is inches from my face. If at that moment I still do not give her the attention she demands, she lets loose a roaring, deep, menacing rottweiler-mutt bark, threatening to pierce right through my ear drum with her blaring decibels. If then I continue to hold my increasingly forlorn ground, she will not resign and admit defeat. Instead she whips out her third line of attack: untrimmed claws that Lucifer himself would fear.
Continue reading Operant Conditioning: Reshaping the world’s worst dog
They can be beaten
Last week I bought a refrigerator from Lowe’s and have had an enlighteningly difficult experience dealing with them. I have so often heard about the crimes of such superstores on small town living and after my most recent experience, have even more reason to find those claims absolutely hilarious. So many people have such bitterness towards Walmart and other such superstores, citing them as a terror to their town, the customers embarrassed to admit when they are forced through those well lit doors. But why such a taboo around these stores? Most can’t explain it in a logical manner, citing frustration with them ending the reign of local stores and the demise of humanity and still most people find the cheap prices of increased efficiency attractive. The funny thing I find though is that these same people seem to put these corporations on a pedestal of invincibility, essentially admitting that nothing can compete with them other than laws and their silly masqueraded protests. But with my most recent experience, a local store could easily trump the frustration and poor customer service I experienced. Continue reading They can be beaten
“The Universe manifested into self recognition”
“Seeing as we are the Universe manifested into self recognition we have the right to explore itself. Stop thinking of us as earthlings but rather, as how Carl Sagan put it, hydrogen given 15 billion years of evolution”
This was a comment posted on a facebook picture about the question of how to manage our space travels and interactions with alien lifeforms. This is amazing statement, and one that with adequate knowledge is not hard to recognize, but is seemingly impossible to grasp. We are exactly that; we are atoms trying to understand themselves. We are the universe trying to understand itself. That is a mind boggling realization and makes me soooo happy to acknowledge it. Continue reading “The Universe manifested into self recognition”