It is not that I have seen the light or left the cave. To the contrary, this "old dog" is as blind and in the dark as you, my friend. It is just that I am not afraid to dance in the dark. Well, most the time. And just like I danced in class, my dancing in the dark too is a freak show -- littered with misgivings, mistakes, and moments of "what the f**k was I thinking?" Maybe its stupidity - not fearlessness (or spunk). Or its my utter lack of impulse control. So be it. Or "so it goes."
This old dog needs far more sleep than you young pups. And my brain is consumed with carpool schedules and soccer practices and grocery lists and a really annoying real pup who is scratching my leg for attention. Oh yeah, and I have to go rescue my doppelganger from his book or he'll be up all night. So, tonight my young friend I am going to go ponder the eternal ethical and existential dilemma of whether a 10 year old should be allowed to read Hunger Games just because all his friends have. I really don't want to read it. But if I don't, I'll be standing in the dark.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Aribitrary,yet witty blog title.
Now, if there were ever two more dissimilar seeming individuals,Rachel Sollinger and Demetrious Lymon have not yet met them. I don't know where to take this, similar to my own life. So I figure, similar to my own life, I will simply start writing and see where it takes me. This blog is probably well on track to becoming some strange Frankenstein-esque monstrosity. (As an aside, Frankenstein refers to Dr. Frankenstein and not his creation, which is simply referred to as the monster.) But I digress, this will be a dumping ground for ideas, process, fun, and most of all intellectual mutual masturbation. Because if there is one thing I have learned time and time again about academia is that everyone involved is on one level or another stroking their own inner thirst to not only understand, but to be understood.
Which brings me to the point of this post, and a thought that I often ponder over. I'm sure most people reading this are familiar with the life story of Helen Keller. And for those who aren't you really need to get out more... but for the sake of clarity, Helen Keller was an American author and activist. She was also deaf and blind. This is important to my point not because of the feel-good-story of someone overcoming "adversity" and making something of themselves, but rather the of the unique way in which she was taught the English language. Take a second out of your day, in which you are constantly bombarded with sensory perceptions in a nonstop feedback loop. Human language and comprehension are fundamentally rooted in the visual and the aural, and this holds doubly true for the early 1900's period that Keller grew up in. This means that Keller, from base was deprived of two-fifths of her senses, and that those senses are arguable the most important for mainstreaming into typical society. Needless to say, it was not an easy life.
Check out Disney's bowdlerized version here or go to the library and read a book:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246786/
Annie Sullivan, her teacher, and later in life her friend, eventually broke through the fog of not having those faculties by drawing the letters for the word "water" in her hand(watch the movie, it's heartwarming). It's much more complicated than that, once again watch the movie, but you get the drift. At the end Keller finally understands the concept that we all take for granted, that things and objects and ideas all have some symbolic meaning that can be express with things we call words. Now, Demetrious you might be asking, I've been reading this and you are all over the place, monsters and deafblind hot chicks. Where are you going with this? The answer is simple, we are all Helen Keller. The only difference is, we are all Helen Keller, with very few Annie Sullivan's betwixt us to tell us what's what.
For those of you that don't know, I majored in Philosophy, which was a poor choice for two reasons. The first being that I'm never going to get a job. The second being that I now feel the need to quantify and qualify, not only what I know, but why,how, and if I really do know it. On the grand timeline of things, we are fools to believe we know anything (insert cliched "The man/woman who knows anything knows s/he knows nothing at all" line here). And that's what I want this blog to reflect. We are all blind, deaf and ignorant of the world. And it's the job of those who have even a sliver of clarity of vision to help guide the blind out of the darkness and silence as much as they can. And to do this requires patience, and the ability to seek out a new way to learn, and a new way to understand.
You can't teach an old dog (Solly) new tricks (swag), but you can teach a new dog (Demeter) old tricks (Everything) in a better way.
Demeter
Which brings me to the point of this post, and a thought that I often ponder over. I'm sure most people reading this are familiar with the life story of Helen Keller. And for those who aren't you really need to get out more... but for the sake of clarity, Helen Keller was an American author and activist. She was also deaf and blind. This is important to my point not because of the feel-good-story of someone overcoming "adversity" and making something of themselves, but rather the of the unique way in which she was taught the English language. Take a second out of your day, in which you are constantly bombarded with sensory perceptions in a nonstop feedback loop. Human language and comprehension are fundamentally rooted in the visual and the aural, and this holds doubly true for the early 1900's period that Keller grew up in. This means that Keller, from base was deprived of two-fifths of her senses, and that those senses are arguable the most important for mainstreaming into typical society. Needless to say, it was not an easy life.
Check out Disney's bowdlerized version here or go to the library and read a book:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246786/
Annie Sullivan, her teacher, and later in life her friend, eventually broke through the fog of not having those faculties by drawing the letters for the word "water" in her hand(watch the movie, it's heartwarming). It's much more complicated than that, once again watch the movie, but you get the drift. At the end Keller finally understands the concept that we all take for granted, that things and objects and ideas all have some symbolic meaning that can be express with things we call words. Now, Demetrious you might be asking, I've been reading this and you are all over the place, monsters and deafblind hot chicks. Where are you going with this? The answer is simple, we are all Helen Keller. The only difference is, we are all Helen Keller, with very few Annie Sullivan's betwixt us to tell us what's what.
For those of you that don't know, I majored in Philosophy, which was a poor choice for two reasons. The first being that I'm never going to get a job. The second being that I now feel the need to quantify and qualify, not only what I know, but why,how, and if I really do know it. On the grand timeline of things, we are fools to believe we know anything (insert cliched "The man/woman who knows anything knows s/he knows nothing at all" line here). And that's what I want this blog to reflect. We are all blind, deaf and ignorant of the world. And it's the job of those who have even a sliver of clarity of vision to help guide the blind out of the darkness and silence as much as they can. And to do this requires patience, and the ability to seek out a new way to learn, and a new way to understand.
You can't teach an old dog (Solly) new tricks (swag), but you can teach a new dog (Demeter) old tricks (Everything) in a better way.
Demeter
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