Yay! I won, I won! I got a gold metal and a lightsabre! C.J. got the silver, too! Hooray for us!

And Amber has finally inspired me to write something. The bruise on your arm is probably from an IV (last time I had one, even I got a huge bruise from it and I do not bruise easily). Actually, I like that poem (which is a one-syllable word, I've decided, despite my movement teacher and her po-ems). Here, I lifted it right from your page: by W.H. Auden.

I cannot grow;
I have no shadow
To run away from,
I only play.

I cannot err;
There is no creature
Whom I belong to,
Whom I could wrong.

I am defeat
When it knows it
Can now do nothing
By suffering.

All you lived through,
Dancing because you
No longer need it
For any deed.

I shall never be
Different.  Love me.

I don't think I can make it relate to chain-gang suffering enough to count for class, though, or Ty-whathisface (the one who shoots the 'negro' coming around the corner because he had to be dangerous would be gone. As it is, yes, I have to find the essence of it and abstract from it. I did some writing before class on Tue. about why I danced and how it has nothing to do with abstraction and how abstraction impedes communication, but may lead to inspiration. So, if you are trying to communicate an idea, go ahead and say it. If you want to spark feeling and the imagination, dance is dandy. If you want to show individualized responses, dance with music. That about sums it up. We're recreating the "Rainbow Etude" (Which is a social commentary dance about Southern prison chain-gangs early in the the 20th century) from the labanotation score and a video (mostly the video, since labanotation is hard to read). It was choreographed in the 50s. Usually, dances are just passed from teachers to students and changed each time and original choreography very often lost. Labanotation is one of the attempts to write down choreography, but modern videos seem to be the real key. The instument is just so diverse. Matt's learning to play the clarinet. That boy learns the most useful stuff, like the cello and how to fence foil left-handed (though he's still officially a right-handed saberist). It really is the crazy week and, although we spent an entire class going over the Hogen disturbance, it isn't mentioned in any of our 4 text-books. It's a real shame Berl-san didn't come to class. I am offically going to lunch and then taking that history test. Must...memorize...dates.... I offically don't know the arabic word for 'man,' just so you're clear. It's not like it was on the test in 3 places or anything... Sheesh, talk about useless vocab. Hombre, hito, virus, yes, raja (that's not how it's spelled but I can't portray the letters properly right now, but that's close to how it's pronounced) no. Sigh. We don't even Know the word for narrow. It was a great test, really, and tomorrow's will be even better. Good ol' Quantum. Jeff came to visit me, though, and I talked to Jenny at the new physics building (while running away from the conference). I so enjoy class advising. New rule of thumb "Don't take any class starting with an I exept Italian and International Studies." Integration is only good after class and in calculus. Materialists of the world, untie!

Read this, eh? The Secret of the Unicorn Queen Books, quite long lost and found and GOOOOOOD!

"I can hear the sea" - an interesting anime, notable for the fact that every single person looks Japanese (yes, they all have black hair) and are still distinguishable from each other and all other Miyazaki characters.

Episode 15 : Lina on the seas of chaos.
Episode 16 : Zel finds a guitar and plays it.
Episode 17 : Yes, Gourry unwilling crossdresses.

Laura Chapin
March 10, 2002
Philosophy 200
Second Paper

......Excluding the possibility of God, the closest group of beings to humans are plants and animals. Aliens would be allowed, too, but they generally turn out to be modified animals, humans, or gods (or demons), and so I will not treat them as a separate category. Humans demonstratively have a great deal of power over both plants and animals, and so, no matter how much we may admire and respect certain attributes, aspiring to become one of the flora or fauna results in regression. Humans are dynamic and have to keep aspiring to become something they aren't yet.

...... I am arguing that people should believe in God, not because of the rewards or punishments, but for what it lets them become closer to. However, believing in a version of God with limitations and imperfections is not enough because we can then find aspects where we would be better than such a God and see ourselves surpassing him and thus defeat the purpose of believing in him. If God wanted to be worshiped in a certain way, really wanted it, he could go right ahead and tell each and every person how specifically and individually (not too big a task at all) and so have many more worshipers. Yet God doesn't continually offer corrections for distorted or even fundamentally different reportings of his word, as easy as that would be for him. That leads me to believe that it is not fundamentally important how or if he's worshiped, but rather just that he is recognized as the existence of the highest being, the like of which we are striving to be, the highest ideal. The highest ideal includes people feeling the opposite of lonely. Being lonely is one of the greatest fears and torments of the human race. Believing in God causes them to be united, not as one, but as billions. That the face of God is so diverse, but still remains the same perfection, the common dream, allows and even encourages people to unite without requiring assimilation. Those different ideas can then
interact to reveal the truth of what 'good' is.

...... No progress will be made in understanding 'good' if ideas are not tried on others. An idea kept to yourself, only discussed with yourself, just goes in a circle. Discussing it with other people causes it to branch and lengthen, giving it a chance to reach the sky if it doesn't die (but that is ok, too). Taking a stand is not a 'til death do we part commitment. You are allowed and able (and keeping reason and experience in agreement often requires you) to change your mind, even with a cause you were willing to fight for. In answer to the protest that "I believe what I believe and I can't choose to believe something else, even if I think it is more advantageous to believe it and no amount of choosing is going to make me any more than a liar." Yet, I say that that is placing psychology as the most respected power and not your own will.

...... An example situation is that person A believes in God because she has had God drilled into her head since she was little, so she simply believes with no worries about it. Person B doesn't believe in God because he wasn't listed as an undeniable fact for her when she was young. Neither of them had to go to any effort to get to the state of belief they are in. There is no virtue in either of their beliefs. Clifford is right in that how you acquire a belief matters considerably. Now let's say that when they grew to be teenagers and started worrying about right and wrong and such, they thought deeply and spoke extensively about what God's existence would mean. Person A came to the conclusion that God was unnecessary and made her look foolish in the sense that intellectual, thinking people don't cling to the simple ideas they were taught as children and have no other reason to believe in. But, because she couldn't help believing, she was forced to live in denial, continually having to tell herself that looking to God was stupid and she was stupid for believing. Person B decided that her life was missing something, something she felt could be fulfilled by believing in God, that she wouldn't feel so alone if she just could believe. But, knowing that people can't make themselves believe anything, and besides she can't possibly believe because she can think of doubts, she thinks that, although it would be better if she believed, she just can't, she'd be pretending if she claimed to believe in God. Both people end up believing they are inferior people and, despite knowing what would be better, feeling they have no power to change anything. People must simply act on training and instinct.

...... That is ridiculous. The benefit of being able to think is that we can evaluate the situation ourselves and decide what we want to take as our functional truth, the reality we assume when we make decisions including the foreseen consequences of our actions and the options available to us. That is not to say that we should block out all other possibilities of truth, but that we look at them and decide which version we choose to act on. For example, you can reason that the cashier shortchanged you because they didn't like you or that they miscounted (just two possibilities). You can't know the truth (asking can produce lies as easily as explanation), but you can choose to get mad and complain to their manager or politely ask them to count again. Just because you decide to give them 'the benefit of the doubt,' which generally means assuming people are good unless they go to great lengths to prove they're really trying to be mean doesn't mean that you're a hypocrite because the idea occurs to you that they could be trying to cheat you, rather the fact that the idea occurred to you and you decided not to apply it shows greater virtue (with the assumption that free will is a great thing and so it is better to exercise it than to not, justified by the claim that we have free will when it would have been simpler to not have it: It is easy to make people memorize procedures, it is harder to get them to think, weigh, and choose what to do.). Innocence is inferior to chosen kindness. In the same way, chosen faith (in the existence or the nonexistence of God for one case) is superior to the blind faith of someone who has never seen any other possibilities, who doesn't even think about other possibilities, a person who doesn't doubt. So we do possess the power of choice of belief and it is not lying to say we believe it, even with doubt and counter arguments in our heads if we consistently act as if what we profess to believe is true. The key is consistency, which is what makes it so hard, but not impossible. Note that the wish for consistency may make it difficult to change what you believe, but by no means does it make it impossible. Almost every suspect manner exhibited by your society and yourself immediately following your change in convictions will fade in time. It's a matter of determination. No excuse of powerlessness will be accepted and you can't get out of thinking and responsibility like that.

...... As for God making you look foolish, seeing doubting possibilities is an important skill for being a real 'intellectual.' You need to work to avoid holding false beliefs so that you don't start working to avoid questions or to avoid thinking (some intellectual, not even thinking!). If questions destroy your faith, your ability to act on what you chose to believe with your clear vision of the possibilities, then you need to question further. An intellectual who believes that God doesn't exist has limited possibilities. For instance, there can be no satisfactory answer to the whys of the universe. "Why?" "Because …" "And why is that?" "Because …" "And why is that?" "Just Because it is!" "Oh…" : An answer I, for one, do not find helpful. If it is all a big coincidence that the laws of the universe keep working, there is absolutely no guarantee that they will continue to do so, up to and including any propagation of the mulitverse where we happen to stay in the one universe that keeps working out of the infinite failed universes. The continued propagation simply can not be counted upon, and so nothing can be predictable. One that believes simply that God exists has yet to discover the nature of God, what perfection could imply, what reasons or purpose could exist, whether God is good or vengeful or some variant, what God would want from us if anything. Believing in God is a pure concept with few strings attached.

...... Believing in God means that perfection is possible. Recall that my stated purpose for believing in God was for a hero, for something that we could aspire to and never surpass but without having stop or retreat in our progress, something perfect. So the very idea of perfection is the idea of God. If something were to become perfect, it would be God. If I believe that God exists, I must believe that something perfect exists. If God is possible, perfection must be possible. I can not aspire to something I do not believe is possible, yet I need to aspire to perfection if I am to avoid worrying about meeting my limits and being forced to stop growing as a human, if I am to be free to try as hard as I can immediately and all of the time. Abstractly, we know that anything is possible, but practically we act as if things that we have seen the like of happening are the only possibilities. It is possible that this computer may turn into a duck and start mooing at me, but I tend to consider the possibility that it will crash and offer me the blue screen of death on a regular basis (because I have seen it happen) and ignore the duck possibility (something I have never seen or heard of) unless it becomes absolutely apparent that that is what is happening. I cannot bring myself to sit here and hope that my computer will turn into a duck or to build a little nest to encourage it to transform. That would be silly and it would not even occur to me. I would naturally do nothing about the possible, but unlikely transformation because it would not occur to me that I had anything to do with a possibility that I had no reason for drawing attention to in the first place. In the same way, I could abstractly say that perfection is possible, but I lack the power to do anything to encourage it unless I believe that perfection exists. This is not a proof for the existence of God, it is an argument that one should believe in God because it gives us the energy and interest to work for perfection; it gives us a dream and a hope of reaching it.

...... Believing in God may not entail religion, but it implies that the only reason we wouldn't be perfect is that we haven't worked hard enough, something that can be really hard to deal with, especially after tryouts that don't give you a part and the test you studied so hard for and still barely passed. If you refuse to acknowledge the existence of any perfect being and thus exclude (your idea of) God, then nothing is perfect and it isn't your fault, you're only human and no perfection is possible. You can only do your best to tip the scale, but really, no matter how hard you try, there are just some limits you will never be able to cross. Being able to shrug off most of the responsibility is very tempting. I do not find it motivational, though.

...... On the other side, believing that perfection is possible can give you the energy to keep working, no matter how much it looks like you aren't making significant progress. It can comfort you and empower you. Having that perfection possible keeps people from having to be 'only human' and lets them aspire reasonably to being greater than they are, to living in a better world than they were born into, and to not ever feeling lonely.

Amber's Updates

A photoessay for the day: I don't care if you know where they are from, look at them! People seem to take after my dad's worst traits much more ofter than his great ones. He'd overwater a plant one day a month and ignore it the rest of the time. Concentration, real concentration can only go on for a few hours at a time, so concentrate on complex things and get them figured out and write them out right after. Tedius tasks don't require concentration; they require dedication. You see, they shouldn't be done in one long go, but in spurts, between everything else. They fill chinks while complex things shove a wedge in and shift everything over and so you should only concentrate on important things because it upsets the peace. People need to work on concentration, but more on dedication, it seems. So I considered the doctor bit, but I think my ideal idea is the same : a doctor of education. It makes sense. I'm studying the things that are hardest for me to learn so that I can understand when things are hard for other people (because most things have been easy for me), not because I think they're big, impressive hard things (even though they are!), but because they're hard for me. If I can get this, anyone can get what they want. I think the dedication/concentration idea has merit, but it needs more testing. Learning how to learn, that's my business. Notably, I'm really good at tests. I think this is where my talent lies. Great, she's going to teach study skills!, well, in a way. I'm going to be a teacher, but first I have to get suitably wise. Patrick (my ballet teacher) was one of the few wise teachers I've ever had : most were no where near enough ready to teach, but simply expected to recite what they'd learned in the way they'd learned it so that the information depriciated with each transmission instead of being enriched. After all, isn't knowledge a companion of love?

For the anime record, I got pocky for signing up for anime club, I downloaded all of "Whisper of the heart" and "Spirited Away" and "Full Metal Panic!" 14, 15, and 16. I also got the 2nd Kodocha manga from the TC Borders, which 21st century comics still doesn't have (though they have the first one now). Some connections there... Leslie, do you particularly want the "Angelic Layer" manga (it's there)? For the Library anime festival, it's Sept. 21 (I'm fairly sure and the schedule says they'll be showing "Read or Die," "Kare Kano," and "Trigun." The last two are licensed, though, so I don't know. It's 2:56 AM. I went to bed at 2:30 yesterday morning and got up at 5:30 AM to get musical tickets. It was 5:30 AM to 9:00 AM that I slept on Friday. Sorry Ven, we forgot you'd still be here for Les Mis and didn't get you a ticket, but if you aren't working then, I'll sell you my ticket. There was DDR in the lounge this evening (with pads, though, which kept slipping, for the playstation). I got once dance session in and then went to play "Mafia" (it's quotes day) at the invitation of a guy in a top hat called alternately P.J. and Jebadia. There were two P.J.s there and a T.S. and possibly a few more initials and maybe someone named Charles Wallace, but that's debatable. There were a few annoying people and a few stupid people making racial/various slurs, but most of the 25 or so people were nice. There were Mounties and Canadian Vampire Ninjas involved. Working the fencing table at the party at the aud wasn't so bad. Johanna, Maggie, and Aggie were there the whole time and Donovan and Dave showed up. I saw Ginger (but she didn't see me : it was scary crowded) and Adam from my philosophy class was the first one to sign up for fencing e-mail. It was funny 'cause I ran into Kyle from that same class right after. They're two of the few people in that class I care to ever meet again and are pretty cool. I met the two experienced female foilists Mary found, too, and they were quite nice. I didn't care about eating all day, but I cared again after playing Mafia for a while and went and made the free popcorn from move-in day and ate it. I was trying to sleep today and Mom kept calling me and I had to keep jumping down because there's nothing to climb on in reach. My head hurt so bad when I woke up, just like it did Friday morning. I don't want to go to sleep now and risk it again (not that staying awake would help). I went to the library, too. I saw "Moulin Rouge" by myself on Friday and enjoyed that alot, though I thought the consumption superfluous. Well, it's interesting anyway, even if I can only tell myself about it, but at least I can now. I have dance tickets, too. Tomorrow, I need to find tights. I bought milk, too!

Pretty [cool]