Does Anyone Know Anything At All!?

After taking Seeing Sideways and having seen What the Bleep Do We Know?, I think I'm a little bit less stressed out about everything, for the most part.  Once you catch a glimpse of what reality is like outside of our busy, silly human lives... you sort of get the big picture.  That vision is hard to forget about, that there's far more to our existence then having a good resume.  In fact, it makes just about everything we do on this planet look like a joke.  That should be something to take comfort in, in my opinion.  Why stress out and worry needlessly when, in the end, it's all going to be alright.  You'll have your time for delicious peace, but for now... we do human stuff.

Creatively, I find myself delving deeper into my ideas and deciding what is acceptable or what would work.  More often then not now, just about anything is fair game.  If I have the drive to do something and I'm excited about the idea - nothing can stop me aside from myself.

Me?

Why are you here?:  That's both a difficult and an easy question to answer.  In a literal sense, no one knows why we are here... not only on this planet, but in this Universe.  The fact that ANYTHING exists is an almost unfathomable idea, but that seems to be the reality we have been born into. We live in a physical world that has existed for a very long time... but this also implies a period of nonexistence?  We hope that, in time, the mysteries will unravel and the answers to these questions will eventually show themselves. Of course, not without years, decades and sometimes centuries of passionate pursuit by none-other than our curious, fellow human beings.  The meaning of our existence, of everything's existence, I cannot say.  For all we know, there may not even be any reason at all for the existence of anything.  However... I CAN and DO decide the reasoning for my PERSONAL existence, given the "situation".  In short, I am here to be happy.  That's it, 100%.  Happiness is the greatest gift to any creature and in my opinion, nothing surpasses it. It is the ultimate goal to strive for until the day you rest in peace.  I do my best to surround myself with wonderful things that I hold close.  Things like music, humor, knowledge, entertainment, the company of others, the studies of our planet and the wonders of our Universe.  These things and ideas inspire me, capture my imagination and ultimately make me happy - that's why I am alive right now and it is why I will continue to do my best STAY alive.


No book or doctrine tells me this, no one person or being has made me this way.  I am in charge of myself, my feelings and my purpose.  I make my own decisions and create my own beliefs from what I know, feel and think.  Happiness paired with the thirst for knowledge is what drives me to get out of bed every day, even when I feel like there is absolutely no point.  In the end, there actually may BE no point... and I'm fine with that. My time here on Earth will not be totally wasted if even just for a second I was happy.  So far so good.


Who are you in the eyes/perception of others?: hilarious, spontaneous, kind, rational, logical, cautious, charismatic, timid, non-confrontational, intelligent, funny, jaded, reflective, calculating, talented, fat (haha).  

How do you see/perceive yourself?: skeptical, dreamer, curious, compassionate, tired, frustrated, anxious, humorous, intelligent, open-minded, introverted, sarcastic, fascinated, competitive, disappointed, fun-loving, contemplative, appreciative, musical, respectful, unmotivated, average-looking, different, aware, goofy.

What are the implications of your identity to others?:  I effect other people even if they have never met me before.  My existence, my identity, whether it's exactly what I want to be or not, is still another variable in the sea of life and its possibilities.  Who knows what I'll be responsible for next.


How are you effected by the identity of others?: I feed off of their existence and subsequent identities just like they do mine.  We all bounce off of each other and spur actions, thoughts, ideas, conflicts, creations, life in general.  Their identities are necessary in the evolution of all of our realities - the one global reality.


Is identity static?:  Something can change over any amount of time but stay the same, in fact - it should.  The fact that we look back and notice the differences in our lives at earlier points and we can do this at any point and still say "wow, I was so different back then".  We notice that one thing, ironically, stays consistent: our change.  The fact that change is always there, no matter what, means that it, in a way, is static.  I am who I am because I can and do change.  My change becomes my identity every time I subconsciously check for it.

Final Project:  http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TDZ9D109

FEAR.

For my fear experiment (if you can call it that), I think it's possible some of my classmates will reflect inward on their on lives and futures and others will shrug it off and won't give it a second thought.

Reactions:  I was actually relieved to see that more than a few people in the class had mentioned that they too had tinnitus and it did make me feel a bit better knowing that I wasn't the only one to ever have to deal with a problem like that.  Ultimately, it was tough to judge people's reactions because the room was fairly dark, but I do think that people WERE paying attention and more than a few people attempted to help me find ways to deal with my fear, and for that I am definitely grateful.  Most importantly, when I ran the experiment (playing the tinnitus sound sample) I could see and hear how a few people reacted.  The sound made people uncomfortable, and for good reason.  Some groaned as soon as they heard the sound, instant discomfort.  Others winced and cringed.  Ultimately this WAS the reaction I was hoping to get.

Compare:  For my "predicted" reaction I was actually planning on doing a different fear experiment when I wrote it, so it doesn't really work with what I actually did, but regardless I'd say pretty much the same thing: some people hopefully listened to what I was saying and in some ways applied that to their life while others were just waiting for me to sit down.  Or maybe it was something in between, it's hard to say...

Changes:  If I were to change the experiment I'd definitely keep the lights on, but mainly for me and so I could see the reactions of people's faces, as well as their body language.  I would still ask people to be very quiet and keep their eyes closed, however.  Another thing I would do if I had the means would give each person their own set of headphones to bring the sound that much closer and to make it more personal.

Finally, I would say that everyone's fear/experiment had merit, but James' impacted me the most overall.  James discussed his difficulties with drugs, socializing, anxiety, materialism, cutting and depression.  I responded to his pretty strongly because I felt I could absolutely relate to what he was going through, even if it wasn't to the same degree as him.  I too have had quite a bit of trouble dealing with the pressures of socializing, school and everyday life and often I too think about just ending it all, as I think many people have.  Sometimes the stress of life can get to you and make you think about everything differently, it can even compromise who you are fundamentally.  Seeing that the evils of life don't just effect you, but everybody, even people who you wouldn't expect, was a sobering and powerful experience.  In the end it made me see my project the same, only in a slightly different light.  Everyone has issues and struggles through life and those struggles come in a variety of nasty colors... and sometimes the people who you least expect have the same issues and worries as you.  You couldn't tell by looking at me that I have a fear of losing my senses, and the same could be said about anyone else regarding any other fear... and that's something to keep in mind.

Creations.

One specific time where I was pleased with something I created would be in my graphic design class that I took at Ivy Tech.  For one of our projects we were told to create a concert poster for a band, fictional or real.  At the time Metallica was my favorite band, next to Led Zeppelin so I found some images of the band members on the Internet and did some Photoshoppin'.  Ultimately the poster came out pretty decent and I would consider it to be one of the better things I've managed to create in Photoshop, even if it wasn't absolutely spectacular.  I'll see if I can take a picture of it and upload it at a later date.

Limitations Limit and Sadden. :C

I recall right after I got out of high school I had to go to Ivy Tech for almost two years instead of going straight to IUPUI and starting my college career there.   Why?  Because I was 1 mathematics point away from being accepted into IUPUI.  This means I had to complete certain math classes before I could do ANYTHING at our lovely school.  This not only put a very real limitation on myself and my college career, but it was also pretty demoralizing to know that I couldn't really start doing what I WANTED to do (music, sound design) until I had made all of the bureaucrats happy with my oh-so-important math scores.  Eventually I made it into the School of Informatics, but not without a lot of time and energy being put into stuff that, quite frankly, is totally irrelevant to me and my life.  Thanks superficiality, you win again.

I Was 55 Once.

I will say that I find this assignment, as well as the previous one, to be fairly odd.  I don't base many thoughts around paper clips and what I would do with them, so I suppose I must commend the assignment for changing that up a little bit!  You may have read some of the feel-good stories from my past in my previous blog post and if you didn't, well, you should.  They're important... and they're classics.  You may have noticed that the title of this post doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I am talking about!  Aha, good!  That's good!


EDIT:  Boom, throwin' another edit in this here blog.  I will say this... If I was 55 and I saw the 5ish-year old me and the slightly-older-than-5ish me either sticking paperclips in electrical sockets OR attempting to pick locks in someone's HOUSE with paperclips... I would quite frankly tell them to stop, that's rude.  Again, gotta read that previous blog post or else I'm going to sound like a lunatic.  OR ELSE.   Beth, please don't fail me.  :C

I Was 5 Once.

I distinctly remember one winter when I was a child... It was almost Christmas and like every year, my Grandpa had his glorious tree up, covered in lights and ornaments and all that Christmas jazz.  Like most little kids, I was very curious and like most little kids -- I didn't know what was good for me.  I remember being in the living room while my mother and her sister talked about who knows what and I remember going through my Grandpa's random crap on his book shelf where I found the perfect example of a paperclip.  Excellent, I thought.  I remember having the overwhelming desire to to stick said paperclip into whatever I came across and what I came across just happened to be a power outlet.  Luckily before I could do any serious damage I was apprehended by The Mom, probably for the best.  Shortly after I was caught pulling dirt out of one of the potted plants... I got in trouble a lot.  :]  There's a picture of me throwing the dirt everywhere somewhere around my house, will post it if I find it.

EDIT:  Yeeeah, I'm gonna have to throw in a small edit here.  When I was young-er (maybe not 5, but bare with me) I would try to pick the locks around my house, odd right? I thought it was really cool/I wanted to be like James Bond who was always breaking into places.  I used credit cards and occasionally...!!! paperclips.  That it is all really.  This assignment was hard, however I felt like I could, ya know, spice it up a little and tell a few stories from my past.  So I did.  :D?