Most Important thing I ever learned

We are beautiful because we die. If we lived forever, nothing would ever fade away. No fear of loss... If everything was beautiful, nothing would be.

The End

Hmmm. The End. I won't write anything similar to The Doors' mythic song, "The End", but I will gibber-gabber alot about what I learned. If anything, this class has showed me how terrifying it is to be human. The living, breathing, daily reality, the inner and outer struggles. How amazing is life? But how pointless it is at the same time? Why do we die but our stories live on to be eternally repeated? Why? Why? Why? What is the point? That's the thing I need: what is the point of it all. I get the themes. I get the past and future and the present which was actually a few moments ago. But what does it mean? Why is mind so boggled, mystified, absorbed, sitting on top of a large avalanche with no idea what else is beneath the surface?

I suppose that's where I come in... The student who needs to pick up the pieces and discover what the "mysteries" really mean. It's so easy to live in a world without mystery, so easy to just exist, not explore this stuff further. Ignorance is bliss. Now that the mysteries are revealed what am I going to do from them? How am I going to learn from them? And most importantly what does it all mean? I thought long and hard about what I need to do with my acquired info, I'm going to forget it. Yeah, forget the mysteries, so I can relearn them over and over and over. How can one person hold so many truths and not go crazy? He forgets about them... Until he remembers them again. over and over and over. That's what life is. That's the point. Forgetting and relearning over and over. Anamnesis. Remembering what you forgotten.

So that's what I'm going to do: Forget what I learned.

P.S. I love you, Barkley. Seeya in another life, buddy.

Summary Tomorrow

Well, my dog died today. I loved him more than anything, but I think I can make it through, partly because of this class. That's all I really want to write right now. I'll write a summary tomorrow.

Dr. Smith and Midas

Everytime the story of Midas comes up in class, I can only think of a Lost in Space episode I saw when I was a kid. Dr. Smith was somehow endowed with the ability of turning everything he touched to gold. At first he thought this was a freaking capital idea. He was in paradise, ecstasy of goldness! Then the good doctor realized that EVERY THING HE FREAKING TOUCHED TURNED TO GOLD. And I mean everything: spoons, food, chairs, trees, cats, robots, little monkeys. Finally, he moved out into the planetary wilderness, lived in a home of gold, but was a miserable, miserable man.

Then a poor misguided Penny tried to persuade him to come home. He screamed at her to leave. LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE ME BE. It was an odd moment of empathy uncharacteristic of such a man as Dr. Smith. But it would NOT BE. He touched her on accident, and was mortified that the little girl was now a little golden girl. Egads. Less to say, I don't remember what happened. I do know that greedy Dr. Smith learned another valuable lesson.

eye power paper

A man takes a restless glance at a woman passing by. A girl flutters her eyelids at a cute boy. A child cries himself to sleep at 2'Oclock in the morning. Small tragedies in the course of the day, all brought together by one small connection... What is the first thing you see when you stare at another's face? Is it their rather bulbous nose? Their acne-scarred cheeks? The long, crinkled hair dangling gracelessly from their chin? No, the answer, for most, is the eyes, the window to the soul, to the sea of restless waters, plentiful valleys, and disease inside, beautiful blue, brown, black, green, billions upon billions of combinations of hues, shades, and vomit-themed tinges. For thousands of years the eyes have been seen as a symbol of power, of knowledge, of even the sun. And they are right; there is something special about the eyes. The right pair can stun me into silence, absorb me into their own inner horror, or cause me to immediately thrust hatred toward them. Yet they are all beautiful, showcasing the gods' presence in humans. Perfectly cylindrical, with circles layered upon circles, with intricate red scribbling lines zigzagging along the edges. Fragile, white, beacons to the creature inside.

In much of the ancient world it was believed one could bestow a curse on another by giving them an evil glare. So was the power held within, a person could curse another by simply staring at them the wrong way, quite accidentally. And the results could be disastrous: bad luck, disease, and even death! According to Wikipedia, praise be upon it, the ancient Greeks also believed in the “evil eye”, even going as far as rumor-mongering about the great Socrates, claiming he “possessed the evil eye […] his disciples and admirers were fascinated by Socrates' insistently glaring eyes. His followers were called Blepedaimones, which translates into demon look, not because they were possessors and transmitters of the evil eye, but because they were suspected of being under the hypnotic and dangerous spell of Socrates.” Many cultures throughout the world have gone to great lengths to void off the all threatening eye, fashioning talismans and hamsa to ward the threat off. Wikipedia bestows its unquestionable knowledge on me again: “It is tradition among many Muslims, that if a compliment is to be made, you are always supposed to say "Masha’Allah” to ward off the evil eye; it literally means ‘whatever God wills’.” Muslims take this eye stuff seriously, and so do many other cultures: the Greeks, ancient Romans, Jewish tradition, Indians, Muslims, some Latin Americans, and Voodoo practitioners.

And one need not look far to find evidence of this. In Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles, Oedipus stabs out his eyes upon discovering the terrifying knowledge of his birth. He was blind, even though he could see, and Tiresius, who was blind, could see. The eye is used as a metaphor for knowledge. But counter intuitively, Sophocles warns his audience about the danger of optical vision. Being able to see, that act itself, makes us figuratively blind, and lack of eyes, well that gives us knowledge. Does having the ability to perceive the universe corrupt it? Alan Watts once claimed, “Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.” But we do do that. We classify, order, file things into species, orders, families, genres, sizes, weights, heights, beauty, everything, and we shove it neatly somewhere in a filing cabinet. And this is the very essence of science! The act of grouping things together. But one has to wonder... would we do this if we couldn't see? Do the eyes give us power over the universe that we wouldn't otherwise have?

A famous experiment conducted by quantum theorists involved firing electrons through two slits. When only the outcome was observed, it appeared the electrons acted like waves, but when the scientists actually watched the electrons pass through one of the slits, they acted like particles. By watching the event, they changed its outcome. Take a ball and bounce it in the street. It has equal odds to be anywhere on the street, but by observing you choose its placement. So in truth, you are affecting the reality around you by watching it. According to an article passed widely around on the internet, astronomers may have unwittingly hastened the end of the universe by looking at it. Not to go into too much detail, but apparently the universe may have been supposed to reset, but because we observed it, it continues to expand outward. Theorists believe “a strange yet-to-be detected form of energy called dark energy pervades the universe […] Dark energy is a result of the Big Bang and is accelerating the universe’s expansion. If so, the universe is not in a nice stable zero-vacuum state but simply another ‘false vacuum’ state that may abruptly decay again.” They continue by saying the longer the "reset" button isn't pressed means the better the universe has of becoming stabilized. But the bad news, the article claims, is that the quantum effect may have prevented the universe from "resetting" and now the universe is more likely to decay. The eye makes men into gods, gives us power superman could only dream of.

The eye is what gives us the power over others. The United States knew that when it put the all-seeing eye on the dollar bill, so did George Orwell, and the idea has crossed over into modern culture. Often the television show LOST will open in on a close-up of someone's eye, as do many shows and movies. And of course, the scene in the Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana closes eyes so he isn’t mutilated by the Arc of the Covenant. But I have to wonder, what would the universe be like if we couldn't see it? What would we be like? Living in complete darkness. Would we feel more one with our reality? Would we be in harmony, peace? Maybe to be truly enlightened, one has to SEE that he or she isn't supposed to SEE.

Eyes are terrifying. How else could Medusa turn whoever stared at her to stone? Why would the biblical character turn to ash when she turned around to see her fallen city? Why couldn't Psyche gaze at her lover? Because they would gain power over them, simply by observing their form. If all of this is to be believed, you are the one ultimately in control of the world around you. Your thoughts, your ill-will (be an angry gaze at another) has the power to affect the “real” world in “real” ways. We often see ourselves as victims of the outside, but are we instead victims of the inside? Our own poisons seeping out of our skin and polluting a sandbox. Alan Watts said these words, and I often wonder if they were not true:

I wonder, I wonder, what you would do if you had the power to dream at night any dream you wanted to dream. And you would of course be able to alter your time sense, and slip seventy-five years of subjective time into eight hours of sleep. You would I suppose start out by fulfilling all your wishes. You could design for yourself what would be the most ecstatic life: love affairs, banquets, dancing girls, wonderful journeys, gardens, and music beyond belief. And then after a couple of months of this sort of thing at seventy-five years a night, you’d be getting a little taste for something different, and you’d move over to an adventurous dimension, where there were certain dangers involved, and the thrill of dealing with dangers. And you could rescue princesses from dragons, and go on dangerous journeys, and eventually get into contests with enemies. And after you had done that for awhile, you’d think up a new wrinkle, to forget that you were dreaming, and think that is was all for real.

Is reality just a dream that we forgot to wake up from?

Would there even be a universe without something to observe it? Do the two complete each other, humans and the universe? Just like Aristophanes described man and woman at one time being one, so is the universe and man. Maybe the itch in your shoulders isn't only the longing to return to stability of "oneness with your mate", but also with the universe itself; to return to the peace of death, to finally be free from the chaos of life and just BE?

The Epiphany Toilet

Epiphany = sudden manifestation of the divine

The Power of Eyes

A man takes a wrestless glance at a woman passing by. A girl flutters her eyelids at a cute boy. A child cries himself to sleep at 2'Oclock in the morning. Small tragedies in the course of the day, all brought together by one small connection... What is the first thing you see when you stare at another's face? Is it their rather bulbous nose? Their acne-scarred cheeks? The long, crinkled hair dangling gracelessly from their chin? No, the answer, for most, is the eyes, the window to the soul, to the sea of wrestless waters, plentiful valleys, and disease inside, beautiful blue, brown, black, green, billions upon billions of combinations of hues, shades, and vomit-themed tinges. For thousands of years the eyes have been seen as a symbol of power, of knowledge, of even the sun. And they are right, there is something special about the eyes. The right pair can stun me into silence, absorb me into their own inner horror, or cause me to immediatelly thrust hatred toward them. Yet they are all beautiful, showcasing the gods' presence in humans. Perfectly cylindrical, with circles layered upon cirlces, with intricate red scribbling lines zigzagging along the edges. Fragile, white, beacons to the creature inside.

In much of the ancient world it was believed one could bestow a curse on another by giving them an evil glare. So was the power held within, a person could curse another by simply staring at them the wrong way, quite accidentally. And the results could be disastrous: bad luck, disease, and even death! According to Wikipedia, praise be upon it, the ancient Greeks also believed in the "evil eye", even going as far as rumor-mongering about the great Socrates, claiming he "possessed the evil eye and that his disciples and admirers were fascinated by Socrates' insistently glaring eyes. His followers were called Blepedaimones, which translates into demon look, not because they were possessors and transmitters of the evil eye, but because they were suspected of being under the hypnotic and dangerous spell of Socrates." So sayth the mighty Wikipedia, how dare I criticize its knowlege? Many cultures throughout the world have gone to great lengths to void off the all threatening eye, fashioning talismans and hamsa to ward the threat off. Wikipedia bestows its unquestionable knowledge on me again: "It is tradition among many Muslims, that if a compliment is to be made, you are always supposed to say "Masha'Allah" to ward off the evil eye; it literally means "whatever God wills"." Muslims take this eye sh*t seriously, man. And so do many other cultures: the Greeks, ancient Romans, Jewish tradition, Indians, Muslims, some Latin Americans, and Voodoo practicianers.

And one need not look far to find evidence of this. In Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, Oedipus stabs out his eyes upon discovering the terrifying knowledge of his birth. He was blind, even though he could see, and Tiresius, who was blind, could see... Confusing. Anyhow. The eye in this story is used as a metaphor for knowledge. But counterintuitively, Sochocles warns his audience about the danger of optical vision. Being able to see, that act itself, makes us figuratively blind, and lack of eyes, well that gives us knowledge. Does having the ability to perceive the universe, corrupt it? Alan Watts once claimed, "Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations." But we do do that. We classify, order, file things into species, orders, families, genres, sizes, weights, heights, beauty, everything, and we shove it neatly some where in a filing cabinet. And this is the very essence of science! The act of grouping things together. But one has to wonder... would we do this if we couldn't see? Do the eyes give us power over the universe that we wouldn't otherwise have?



By seeing an event you change it. Take a ball and bounce it in the street. It has equal odds to be anywhere on the street, but by observing you choose its placement. Quantum theorists have known this for years. It has even been claimed that "astromoners may have unwittingly hastened the the end of the Universe by simply looking at it". The eye makes men into gods, gives us power superman could only dream of. Would there even be a universe without someone to observe it?
Eyes are terrifying. How else could Medusa turn whoever stares at her to stone? Why would the biblical character turn to ash when she turned around to see her fallen city? Why couldn't Psyche gaze at her lover? Because they would gain power over them, simply by observing their form. The United States knew that:



So did George Orwell, and the idea has crossed over into modern culture. Often the television show LOST will open in on a closeup of someone's eye, as do many shows and movies. But I have to wonder, what would the universe be like if we couldn't see it? What would we be like? Living in complete darkness. Would we feel more one with our reality? Would we be in harmony, peace? Maybe to be truly enlightened, one has to SEE that he or she isn't supposed to SEE.

Golden Ass Street Performers

I found this video sort of amusing.

Old Comedy vs. New Comedy

I found an excellent site that explains the differences between old and new comedy: http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/netshots/genrecm.htm

Old comedy is focused more on "slapstick action, scatological and sexual jokes and just about every other device of humor know to man", and is often used to parody "tragic" plays. Old Comedy does not typically base its story from tradition like tragedy, but is based primarily on the poet's fancy, or as the site puts it, "characterized by free comic fantasy". Political and social satire are also paradigms of Old Comedy, and can be based on "plausible solutions to contempory problems". An example would be in Lysistrata when the women come up with a plan to deny their husbands sex to stop the war. "political and intellecutal figures from contemporary Athenian scene such as Pericles, Cleon, Socrates and Euripides are [also] targets of harsh comic censure". (On a side note, according to wikipedia, Socrates didn't much care for this abuse, even going as far as blaming Aristophanes for leading to his death. Curious that Aristophanes is in the Symposium, wouldn't you say so?) Another important part of Old Comedy is the chorus, whose presense declines in New Comedy.

New Comedy "focuses on family matters such as complications in love relationships, with no interest in the concerns of the polis, which were central to Old Comedy". The site describes New Comedy as more universal, which made it easier to transfer to Rome, Italy and England, and later, to our television screens. The site declares, "Old Comedy, on the other hand, was tied to the political and social milieu of fifth century Athens and therefore could not be as easily transplanted. But the spirit of Old Comedy still survives, for example, in modern political cartoons, occasional musical comedies, and comedy skits on television which satirize political figures and current trends". So Daily Show, Colbert Report, South Park would be considered a form of Old Comedy. They are satire, and focus on absurdities in our lives and the world at large. Judd Appatow style comedies, Arrested Development, Big Bang Theory, and most sitcoms are New Comedy, that is they focus on humor in relationships. It is also important to remember that comedy usually ends in celebration, weddings, feasts, dances, confetti, balloon animals, clowns, dancing kittens, hamsters on pianos, chimpanzees riding segways, and hypnotoad.

Everything is one

"The Big Thing is everything. It is the universe. You, me, your family, my family, everyone we know, every piece of sand on a beach, every tree in the forest, every flittering butterfly, every flower blooming in the prairie, rabbit, dog, cat, mouse, demon, beast, and decaying body. And like the great Alan Watts said, 'the clammy foreign-feeling world of the ocean’s depths, the wastes of ice, the reptiles of the swamp, the spiders and scorpions, the deserts of lifeless planets... Our feelings about the crawling world of the wasps’ nest and the snake pit are feelings about hidden aspects of our own bodies and brains, and all of their potentialities for unfamiliar creeps and shivers, for unsightly diseases, and unimaginable pains.' Everything is one, the good and the bad, black and white, death and life, woman and man, light and dark, happy and sad. You are not a soul encaged inside a flesh prison. You weren't thrown into an alien world. An alien universe. You are part of this universe. You are this universe. Look around you, everything, everything in the room you are in, it all came from earth, the sun, the galaxy, the universe. Stars, black holes, nebula clouds, exploding super novas and dying white dwarves, all you. All you. You didn't spring from no where. No. You are materials made of this planet. We all are. And that's what makes you special. Your ability to influence it."

Lycaon

Here is a picture of a freshly transformed Lycaon. You may notice the blood seeping under his hand. Some have claimed this is the blood of his first victim. As he howled into the night, fleeing through the underbrush, steam from his molten breath. Growling, grunting as he scrapes his arm on a branch. The intensity of the pain shocks him, but doesn't deter. He is hungry. So hungry for human flesh. Humming, humming, humming. A woman stumbles into the cool night air. Spinning in cirlces after a lovely date. Smiling, the world perfectly happy. BAM! Lycaon lunges on her, transforming her into a newt with his magical voodoo stick. Grabbing the squiggling creature in his canine palm, he licks it. Yum, tastes like amphibian. Ym ym. He pours katchup on it, his lips wet with anticipation. He eats it. Yum. And that's the story of Lycaon right after the transformation.

Ovid's Imaginary Life

Wow. An Imaginary Life was quite the book. At first I thought the first-person, poetical dialogue would grow old. There wasn't a single sentence of dialogue in the entire book, and it's somewhat amazing that I became attached to the characters at all. But I did, and I liked it. Especially near the end. One of the closest attachments to Ovid's Metamorphesis would have to be the theme of change. In An Imaginary Life, everything is always changing. The seasons, Ovid himself as he lives with the natives progressively longer, and especially the Child as he transforms into some sort of animal-human chimera. An animal caged inside mankind's world. There was a particular quote that I really enjoyed. It went something to effect of death is just giving up on the constant change of life.

There also seemed to be an overarching theme of destiny. Ovid, even though he didn't know it when he was young, was always marching to the ends of the known world. It was his destiny, and the universe was always nudging him toward whether he knew it or not. Reminds me of the television show LOST. Anyway, you could go on for hours about how this relates to class. Another obvious example would be the relationship between men and women. Women being the mysterious gender, and men the less mysterious. I don't know if this view comes from the author being a man. Perhaps if the author was a woman it would be the reverse.

Fictional Ovid discusses the Child like he had met him before in Salma (that word is very wrong, but I know it begins with an "s"). I am a little confused still on the context of this statement. Does it have to do with the Child being a metaphor for his own youth and innocence before he entered the world of men? Ovid looked on the Child nostalgically, reminding him of his own childhood. I have to wonder if the whole entire story wasn't just a metaphor for lost innocence, and the need to return to that innocence (afterall, it is called the Imaginary Life). The Child also appears to represent nature and is ONE with it. Does this relates to man's desire to be at peace with oneself? Is this story trying to reconcile man's desire to be free of nature and also be ONE with it? What is the relationship between childhood and nature? What the hell did I really just read?

Blame Lycon

Wow, the story of Lycon goes from highs to lows. Starts out sorta beautiful with the creation of earth. Its very lovely and everything is happy and good. Sunrises and sunsets and pretty little flowers and Lucy Lui's smiling face, then BAM! Everything goes to hell and humanity is massacred in a pretty cool genocide. Why did those old guys love floods so much? Seriously, Gilgamesh, Ovid, the Old Testament. But what the hey? I love genocide as much as the next guy. Haha... No. That's for the New World Order... or Cylons... or frankly, both. I could totally see being eliminated by Cylons in the future.

Anyway, you can blame humanity's mass drowning on Lycon, the first werewolf. Jupiter and his cronies sit on some high mountain discussing how much humans suck hardcore, oh so hardcore, we all hate humans, kill! kill! kill! Jupiter bellows with his mighty muzzle, "And this one time I was walkin around earth, you know like I do? I was in man form, cuz you know. Then I showed up at Lycon's party and everyone bowed cuz I showed them my signal. But that Lycon dude didn't believe me. What a dick!" murmurings of agreement from the other gods. "Yeah, I know. So Lycon grabs one of his servants behind my back, slits his throat, then, oh you are not going to believe this, my gods, he tries to disguise the corpse and feed it to me!" gasps. "Yeah guys, I know, humans suck hardcore! I told you. And so I zap him with a lightning bolt. It goes through his body. And don't laugh, but his hair was all staticy like when you put your head against something fuzzy. Then get this, he tries to run, but he turns into wolf. Oh gods, humanity sure does suck. Let's kill them all." Yeah you're right. Kill them all.

So there you go, the story of Lycon. Jupiter uses it for his justification when he drowns humanity in one HUMONGOUS flood. Lycon? Where have I heard that before? Oh that's right: those terrible underworld movies with all the werewolves. I guess they are not terrible, just bland. But bland is worse than terrible. You can't even laugh at it. It's just there.

What I found the most interesting is that there are no survivors. You though Jehovah was bad! The gods just kill humanity. That's right: There no Noah! Or that one dude in Gilgamesh, I don't remember his name! It's just pure destruction. The Romans were kind of downers. I mean, the other guys at least gave humanity a chance. Nah, the Romans kill us all. (One more thing: Jehovah is similar to Jove. And Bachus is similar to Jesus. Then you start seeing connections all over the place.)

Speaking of awesome. That Battlestar finale was really good.

Helen whose daughter?

Like many ancient Greek characters, there seems to be some confusion on what Helen's actual parentage is. In the article Helen of Troy - Heroine or Goddess?, Karen Pierce concludes that her origins were influenced by Euripides. Leda is often attributed as Helen's mother, but this only came after the playwrite's works. Earlier, it appeared it was Nemesis who was the mother. The stories are very similar:

Pierce: "Commonly referred to as the Goddess of Retribution, ... Zeus also raped Nemesis, and thus Helen was born. In Greek mythology it is not unusual that Zeus should rape his own daughter, he does after all live in marriage with his own sister. This rape, however, caused shame and indignation for Nemesis, and she attempted to flee Zeus' advances by shape-changing into many different creatures, as he pursued her (see Cypria - Athenaeus 8.334B). Zeus finally caught up with her when she was in the form of a goose, and he a swan. After the rape, Nemesis subsequently gave birth to an egg from which Helen eventually hatched. The egg was found and brought to Leda who brought up Helen as her own daughter."

The more well known origin, of course, is that of Zeus descending from the heavens and raping Leda in the form of swan. Personally, neither are very appealing. Sure it's not Cannibal Holocaust or 100 Days of Sodom, but a god descending from the heavens and raping a woman? That has to be terrifying, and calls into question why the Greeks worshipped such a terrifying figure. And a woman laying an egg? Disturbing stuff. One wonders if the movie series "Alien" didn't recall some of this stuff. For the uninitiated, the aliens would attach themselves to a human and implant an egg inside their body. The guy or gal would then wake up oky-doky with the parasite-alien incubating inside their guts. Later, the beast would burst from the chest, squeak, sneer, and run off. To add to this, art depicting Leda shows her being horrified by what she wrought. Pierce: "The pictures that depict Leda with an egg show her discovering it, and often looking surprised or shocked (she sometimes even runs away from the scene). Helen is sometimes shown emerging from the egg as a miniature human, rather than as a baby. "

Pierce concludes, "Although Leda is the traditionally known mother of Helen it is highly probable that the Nemesis version is of older origin.
Prior to Euripides' Helen there is no evidence of Leda having been raped by Zeus in the form of a swan. In fact there does not appear to be any rape story at all associated with Leda and the birth of Helen, until we reach Euripides. This is in contrast to the myth attached to Leda's bearing of the Dioscuri (see Homeric Hymn to the Dioscuri ). Iconographically Leda is seen finding the egg prior to Euripides, and afterwards she is depicted with a swan.
With the Nemesis version of the myth established Helen is revealed to have two divine parents, and thus should be regarded as divine herself.
If Leda does have any valid claim to be her mother, then Helen is the only mortal daughter of Zeus, this is significant in its exceptionality."

hmmm

Sense of Nonsense

I think this really relates to what we are talking about in class. It deals with making sense out of nonsense and why we love music, dancing, and jumblings of words, just like James Joyce. Alan Watts rocks.
The Sense of Nonsense

I also found this site kinda funny. It's the top 8 worse Greek God punishments:
Top 8 Greek God Punishments

Some interesting Greek sayings:
Greek Sayings

Story of a Rock

A rock sits out in the sun, round, red, undisturbed. It has rested there for hundreds of years, minding its own business. Watching the sun rise and fall every day, watching the world turn dark every night. Watching the leaves and flowers grow green, dazzling, watching them wilt and fade, watching the snow fall in the massacre of winter, then watch it rise just as beautiful. The clouds constantly transforming before its eyes, that pattern above never the same one moment to the next. Sometimes the heavens above would be overcome with darkness, lightning, thunder, and rain. The rock would be drenched, but it was still minding its own business. In the spring, it would watch as the elk raised their young. They would eat the grass and the flowers, and the mountains in the distance would shimmer blue. In the summer, the wolves would come and hunt the elk in the evenings, catching one of the babes. In autumn, the elk would migrate away, the wolves with them, and leave the rock to itself. To contemplate nothing, just to watch the world transform itself year after year. Watch as one thing turned to another thing. This was the way it was year after year after year.

On just another day the rock was lying low, minding its business, when it spotted a strange creature. It stood on two legs, unlike the rest, and was wearing fur that should have been on the elk! Two of the creatures strode past it, growling at one other, their upper holes moving up and down. What were they doing? The rock had never gazed at anything like this before. Were they some sort of new species of elk? Or were they wolves? As the rock sat there, the pair of them walked closer and closer, eventually stiing down next the rock, placing their sharpened sticks closest to it. But the two continued to growl at each other. Sometimes one would exclaim a particular loud growl, that sounded like rocks rolling down a mountain, bouncing, and hitting cliffs. They had the strangest muzzles. Flat, not like the elk or wolf, and protruding noses, unlike the birds that sometimes pecked the earth. Fur only seemed to be falling from their heads, unlike the bear who's body was covered in it, or Mammoth, who sometimes boomed their feet. The creatures would often touch each other lightly, unlike the elk and deer who rammed each other's heads together, or wolf who wrestled down moose. Now the creatures took something out of a sack, and started shoving food inside their upper holes, still making that growling noise.

When they left, the rock was relieved. But they wouldn't go away, no. The next time it saw them, the two were wrestling. Throwing their limbs at each other, not growling. Red water leaked out of one of them, just like the elk or moose. A wail like a goose escaped into the air, reverberating deep inside the earth and through the mountains. Finally one stopped moving, and the other walked away, leaving the rock in the presense of the thing. But it disappeared like anything else that died, leaving him alone. Days past, day after day after day. Oh no! Another appeared, a different one. Water falling from its moving holes. Bending down to the disappearing thing, digging a hole in the earth, and burrying the thing. Why did it bother? Why did it care? The creature finally left after a few days, but it did return. This time it brought with it others. They began constructing mounds with hollow enteriors. The creatures would go inside and disappear. Eventually the mounds got bigger and bigger and more and more, and the creature with the water eyes started growing plants where the other had died. The rock hated them. The seasons stopped changing like they had, and the elk and wolves stopped coming at all. Even the nights didn't feel as dark, and the days not as bright. It wished they would go away, and let it be.

Sometimes they would leave for awhile, but they always came back. When they did, they would often bring littler, smaller creatures with them. The rock found these ones the most irritating. They would run past it, skipping, howling like a wolf. Once, one picked it up and chucked it far away. Finally the rock felt at peace, but no, the water-eyed creature found it and brought it back to where it was before. Next to its garden that grew on top of the dead one. The creatures seemed to waste everything. Throwing away dead elk and moose and deer, leaving garbage outside their mounds. The rock had watched them scream like geese at each other, throw things, kill one other in the middle of the night. He watched them be impatient, stare into the sky and howl. Throw their fists up toward the heavens, and curse when it didn't rain. It watched as they made fire and dance and howl. It watched them growl and it watched them touch faces. It watched little creatures being born, and it watched them die. Every day after sunset, the water eyed creature, who was now crinkled and pale, would go to its garden and cry. Leak its own water into its own garden. Slowly, the rock grew to love its people. It would bless the crying creature, and miss the little ones when they grew older. One day, the old water eyed creature died, and its littler ones burried it deep in its garden. Sooner or later, the littler people would get bigger and die too. This was the way it was year after year after year.

On just another day the rock was lying low, minding its own business. The day proceded like normal. It watched as the creatures went about their daily business. Growling, whistling like birds, chasing each other. They started their fire and threw out their garbage. One creature was arguing with another about nothing. Smaller creatures played, almost stepping on the rock. Just like normal. A sudden shot reverberated through the air, sounding like nothing the rock had ever heard before. The creatures stared at each other nervously, pointing out east. Bam. Bam. Bam. Creatures on top of four-legs burst into the rock's people. Creatures with sticks that blasted fire at the others. They howled, their legs trying to flee. BAM. BAM. BAM. Red water poured onto the earth and into the garden. BAM. BAM. BAM. Howling, growling, screaming, that's what it was, screaming for it stop. Then it was over, and the rock's people were dead. The men with four legs went away, and left the others to sit there. Gradually, the bodies disappeared, and then their mounds drifted a way in the breeze. Finally, the water eyed creature's garden wilted. Green petals falling away until nothing was left but one sprout. Then that disappeared too, and the rock was alone. It waited and waited for its people to return, no longer caring about the elk or wolf. It only wished its people would return to it. It forgot about the sky and the earth and all the other things it once loved. This was the way it was year after year after year.

One day, just like any other, the creatures returned. Covered in material the rock had never seen them wearing before, and growling in all new tones. One creature pointed to the earth and then the sky, smiling, its head with an odd creature on top of it. It sniffed, and pointed straight at the rock, its upper mouth flapping, the caterpillar under its nose smirking. The rock was delighted. Finally, they had returned to it. Finally, they came back for it. Finally, it was going to have people again. It waited the whole night eagerly anticipating the next day, because it knew the people enjoyed the light more than the dark. Then the day came, and the rock could barely hold back its excitement. The creature returned, this time with a mammoth creature. It pointed at the rock, then thrusted its hand in the other direction, winking at the mammoth. The mammoth moved forward, thrusting its tusks into the earth, picking the rock up. The rock couldn't wait as the clouds moved with him. Where were the creatures taking him now? The sky stopped, and the mammoth moved its tusks. The rock fell, sliding into the bottom of a lake. It drifted slowly down, watching the sun fade away, until it was dark and the light disappeared.

HERCULES

The philosophers

The Greek philosophers. They represent the power, the culture, the math, and all the greatness that seeped from Greece across the globe. Greece and Rome are still idolized today. Their empires stretched through Asia and Africa, and Europe was the center of the world. After the fall of Rome, Europe regressed into savagry, illiteracy, fuedalism, pretty much crap. They were dirty people, living in shacks and bathing once or twice a year. The peasantry rarely lived past 40 years, and the kings and queens were often corrupt and inbred. Eventually, after more than 400 years of darkness, the peoples of Europe again emerged from the abyss. But the ages after the empire fell, intellectual Europeans longed to return to that rational thought that philosophers represented, wishing they could live in another time then the one they were lving in. It was this longing that created the high-tech world we live in now. The world of math, science, and discipline.

Socrates was the teacher of Plato. Having never written any of teachings down, it is only through Plato and his other students that we know anything about Socrates. What we do know is fascinating. To outsiders, Socrates was a crazy old man (senex if you will), he spent his days wandering around Athens, questioning people exhaustively until he knew exactly what they were doing and why they were doing it. Socrates handed down to us the Socratic method of teaching through dialogue. Socrates proved his theories through discussions, similar to how a mathematician uses prooofs to prove equations. Instead of giving the whole picture all at once, he went through it step by step, making it easier for the reader’s mind to digest. Also from Socrates came the idea of the illusionary world, the cave, and the famous question: Is it good because the gods like it, or do the gods like it because it is good? With both sides of that question raising huge moral dilemmas. But Socrates also pushed how far a Democracy was willing to accept weirdos, way out there guys who badgered you endlessly, constantly balancing a tolerancy tight rope. Finally, because of the way he acted, and the general populace growing frustrated with the old dude, he was sentenced to death. Even after he was given the chance to escape, Socrates refused to flee. He believed it was his duty to die, to prove he was right.

Plato's student was Aristotle. He was the teacher of Alexander the Great who proceded over the Greek Empire. Here are my notes about him from my philosophy class oh so many semesters ago:

What does Aristotle believe? He lived from 384 to 322 BC in Greece and was the student of Plato, who was the student of Socrates. He asked what is the good life for human beings? How can I be a good person? What wold a virtuous person do?

According to Aristotle, what is it to be virtuous are these: Intellectual virtues are the character traits necessary for correct virtue. It is aquired by teaching. On the other hand, moral virtues are character traits that are necessary for the right action and a good life. These are aquired by practice. He argues that the virtue is a "means between two vices." That is when you are confronted with a problem, you should ask yourself this: how much is too little and how much is too much. Generosity: give too much hurt yourself, give to little seen as stingy. Bravery: suicidal situations, or coward. The danger is this though, it is not simply splitting the difference. The question is what would a generous person do? For example, if you someone asks you for a million dollars the correct answer would not to be giving them 500 thousand instead.

How is good character developed for Aristotle?
1. Development of natural capacities through habitation and training
2. We need a purpose or telos
3. This is the good life from Aristotles's vantage, a natural goal or purpose
4. a human being is good if he rationalizes well

What are some objections to Aristotle's view? It is difficult to apply to certain cases because it is ambiguous. Acting like a virtuous person is a vague goal, because there is no guidelines.

The three great Greek philosophers formed the root of all that was to come. Believing in pathos far more than mythos, tentacles of Western civilization were already in formation. Through it, Western man created the most advanced (or craziest) civilization he ever has. It gave birth to the airplane, computer, skyscraper, even a rocket to the moon. This is the world Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle dreamed of.

The Trickster

The trickster character is most prevalent in modern media. He is the anti-hero, the anarchist, selfish and unpredictable, and he stretches far, far back in time. To the Greeks, to the Native Americans, and to the Norwegians. He celebrates the spirit and intelligence, as well as of the anti-social. Why are we attracted to him? Is it his inner playfulness? His willingness to not be afraid to embarass himself in front of others? And why has this character trait of the rebellion hit such a chord with a modern day audience? Just a few examples: Han Solo from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, practically any character Harrison Ford plays. A plethora of characters from Harry Potter series, the most obvious being Fred and George Weasley, Peeves, The Marauders, even Harry has a little anarchist spirit. All the adult cartoon shows: Eric Cartman from South Park, Stewie Griffin from Family Guy, Bender from Futurama, Bart Simpson from the Simpsons. From television dramas including Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, and Sawyer from Lost. And from the world of comic books: The Joker, Spiderman, Deadpool, and even Ironman.

A few things these characters have in common: they are loners, they are used for comic relief, they are often despised by others, and they are never truly good or truly evil. Why are these characters so appealing? Something about the dark anti-hero, mocking, making fun of everything he sees. Staring at the world with venomous eyes and poking holes in it. That clicks with me. The first time I read (or rather, was forced to read) the play Romeo and Juliet, I immediately had a bond with Mercutio. He was an outsider, a funny man, above the system. Yes, he has allegiances, but he was really thinking of himself. When he died, I was genuinely shocked. I don't if it was because I wasn't sure of his fate at the beginning like I was the other main characters, but it hit me the hardest. Why has this trait become so popular today, when before we were more focused on the wholesome image of the hero who would always do the right thing? It is because we are more repressed than we have ever been before. Rebellion is the definition of cool. Why is that? Why have we become a nation of men and women afraid to speak out? Political correctness is the devil's tool.