How "Everything" is Relative

At first I was going to make a post about how there is not set definition for smart, but in the end I'm going very general. Everything is relative. By everything, I mean everything. I'll split this post into various topics to keep it more readable.

Smart
I'm sure you've heard someone say, "He/She's smart." But what does that really mean? He/She gets good grades would be a simple definition for it, but is that really what smart means? Does being smart in school really directly relate to being smart in real life? The answer to that is No. How intelligence actually works is that our intelligence needs to be split up into various topics and groupings. The first two things I want to differentiate now is Wisdom and Intelligence. Each have their own sub-categories within them. Wisdom is something I'll touch in the next topic. Wisdom is defined by me simply as the knowledge we obtain over time. This includes what we learn in school. Intelligence on the other hand covers everything else you would associate with smart including, the ability to learn fast, memorization, quick thinking, logic, imagination, and other such things. Memorization directly ties in with Wisdom. While if you look at this, some people you call smart for the wrong reason. Smart is a term that is improperly used. Because one person get's good grades doesn't mean that they are smart as long as you are looking at it with the current education system we have. Because of this "faulty" system, people are classified as smart only because they work hard. People that work hard receive the title of smart. They don't require any of the abilities that true intelligence has, but they are still qualified as smart. On the other hand, there are people that receive bad grades and can be considered smart. Those are the types of people that are smart but lack this hardworking ability. In a way the education system is not flawed, it judges people on their ability to work hard, which is a good indicator for the future. In other ways, it is completely senseless. To be smart is very broad and it truly depends on the scenario. No matter how you look at it, people define smart differently. Intelligence in current society, ignoring my definition of it, is relative to another. When you are called smart, it's usually a comparison between the person complementing you and yourself. They compare themselves to you and see that you have more desirable traits in regards to either Wisdom or Intelligence. I'm sure we've all been called smart but at the same time we've all been called dumb. Smart is relative to the person that is talking.

Wisdom
This also falls under the category of smart. Wisdom is highly relative. There are so many types of wisdom that it's foolish to group them together. People also call people smart because they know something that that person didn't know. Although this is truly the worst way to classify smart. Because you excel in one topic, doesn't mean you know everything. Although this is complicated in itself. If you know a topic you can be called smart, but on the other hand you may be ignored or disregard. If for example, you know about telluric currents and another person doesn't, the usual result is that you are considered smart. While on the other hand if you knew about The Beatles, you would be ignored or disregard. Why? It's simple. One topic is more esoteric than the other. If everyone in the world knew about telluric currents, then you would also be ignored. Wisdom is relative in this sense. In a way everything is relative based on society if you want to be specific. The societal norm is what everything is based on, take for example morality

Morality
The topic of morality was why I changed this from a simple talk of why smart is relative to, everything is relative. We had to write on this topic in English and this kind of sparked the idea. I'll be short with this one. Morality stems from individual thoughts. Morality is heavily effected by your environment around you especially if you are young. Morality is always constantly changing as more things effect you even this second. A easy way to understand this is a cube of clay. When you are born you start with a certain shape of or morality. When you get a fresh block of clay, it's very easy to mold and shape. As time goes on and the less you touch it the harder it becomes. Overtime the clay hardens. Your morality will slowly become more stable, but when you are born it's mushy and very easy to change. While you are really old, your morality can still change, it's just that much more force required. Morality is all based on what each person thinks. Although the majority of people have their morality influenced by society of the current time period. This revolves heavily around the concept of Good and Bad.

Good and Bad
This is a topic that bothers me a lot, it's easy to understand yet some people don't fully grasp it. There is no such thing as good or bad, it's simply a figment of your imagination. Good is what is socially accepted as good in the world. That means the majority of people in a certain community believe that doing such an act is beneficial and is accepted. Bad on the other hand is what that majority of people in the community believe as unacceptable and unsatisfactory. While this definition is wildly accepted, a much better way to explain it is in terms of morals. Each individual thinks one thing is good and another is bad based on their morals, which means good and bad are defined in your interactions with your environment.

These are just some of things that are relative. Everything is relative, maybe that's why Einstein was considered "Smart", although his grades certainty don't show he's smart.

My Ideology on Friendship

I think I wrote a lot again, I grouped my thoughts into small subtitles for organization purposes.

Introduction

This is a tricky topic to start, not because it goes against other people's beliefs, but because of the fact that the word "Friend" has been warped too much by society. Let me ask you a question, how many people are on your Facebook friend's list? A lot huh? Well out of those hundred or more, how many are actually your friend? Do you talk to them on a daily basis? Or do you simply keep them on your friends list because you know them, or talked to them once? The truth is, almost everyone I know would answer no, that these people aren't actually friends. This isn't what friends are, well at least what the point of friendship was. In this post I will use the word "Friend" lightly as anyone else would in colloquial context, so be aware of my usage.

Let's start off by defining what "Friend" actually means. When I first got a Facebook I was certainty hesitant about adding so many people on my friends list, and honest I don't care about friends on Facebook to this day. I don't bother adding people on Facebook, all I do is have people add me instead. This list of "Friends", or a better word might be acquaintances, don't really mean anything to me. Acquaintances might be putting it too far ever. This list is nothing more than a database of people that you've met or have any sort of relationship with them. Some of our friends on Facebook, may be strangers that simply sent you a "Friend Request" without knowing you. Friend has a very blurry definition these days and I want to clear this up. The first way I found to clear this up is to simply group people into different groups.

Group Classification

First we will make a large circle which we call "People". This is using the general terminology of "Facebook Friend". Anyone in this circle is a person that you would add on Facebook. Inside this circle would be the next group of friends, people that you actually know in real life. This isn't even close to what one would consider friend. The important part of this group is that you actually know these people in real life. The relationship between these people and you ranges from mutual to close friends. This group could be called something along the lines of, "I know them".

The next group lies within the "I know them" group. I would like to title this group as, "Good Relations". These are the people that you have good relations with to best friends. This is the stage where you can freely talk to these people about stuff. Although you would never trust your deepest darkest secrets to some of them. You simply don't trust them enough. You trust them enough to be nice to you and in return you are nice to them and can have conversations on an almost daily basis. This group of people are what most people would actually call friends if asked about. Although this does not fit my definition of "Friend".

The next bubble inside is much more vague. As we delve deeper into these smaller groups the boundaries are much harder to see and sometimes aren't even solid. This next group is the "Close Friends". These are the kinds of people that you've known for a long time, and talk to much more. You probably have gone to their house, or gone somewhere with them to do something fun. These people you might even call best friends, while when I use the term "Close Friends", I don't actually mean that they are friends. Just because you know someone for a long time, doesn't mean that they are actually "Friends." A better name for this group might be "Close Acquaintances." Although that term is also quite vague.

The next group also lies within "Good Relations" but doesn't actually fit inside "Close Acquaintances". This group is something along the lines of "Almost Friend". These are the people that you haven't known for a long time, but you know for a fact that they are great friend's and you would gladly be around them all the time. They are fun and enjoyable to be with. Conversations are always friendly and they don't pester you past any kind of breaking point. The only problem they lack is that they are not that close and there is the problem of being with them more. You are distant from them but still retain that sense of friendship. These friendships have a tendency to end abruptly because of unforeseen consequences, or simply a shift in the environment around you.

The next group doesn't actually lie inside many different groups. This group is what I call "Friends." This group usually overlaps with "Close Acquaintances", but also lies partly in the group "Good Relations", and yet also partly lies partly within "Almost Friend". This person is someone everyone wants, this is what people would call a best friend. Usually there is only one of these people simply because they are so hard to find. There is the chance that you have more than one though. They have all the good characteristics of "Almost Friend" and they are not distant. They stay by your side and are willing to help and give effort to help you do things. They are the kind of friend that knows they want to do something but will be willing to give that up to help you do something else. Although this relationship is commonly confused with the relationship between master and servant. While he/she is willing to help you and spend time, you must be willing to help them back. Without that co-beneficial relationship, you aren't truly "Friends".

You may have noticed that this is getting complicated, and I agree. You may also notice that what I consider "Friend" may differ severely from what you call a friend, that I have a very small circle of friends. I'll tell you we're not done. There's one more group left.

This is the group that fits inside "Friend". This is one of those things that is almost impossible to find. Usually most people don't have this person. This is almost guaranteed as only one person can take this role. Most people living right now will never find this person, and I don't think I have either, though I could easily be proven wrong. This person has all the positive characteristics of all the groups above and one more thing. They are willing to sacrifice for you. They are willing to put everything they have on the line to help you and support you. It doesn't matter the circumstances. This is what I call "The True Friend" He/She, is that person that will help you no matter what, and will believe you no matter how absurd you may sound. They will always look for the best for you. This is one of those relationships that both people must agree on. You can only be a "True Friend" to one person if they are a "True Friend" to you too.

This is getting a little too complicated so I added a diagram. Don't you love diagrams too? I added color. I hope that you can get a better idea of what's going on. This diagrams is meant simply to be a visual aid. The sizes of the circle don't signify how large the groups should be. I'm just bad at making properly spaced circles.

Movement of People in these Groups

When you place someone in one of these groups, it's almost never permanent.The only people I can think of that can be permanent are either "Friend" or "True Friend". These people will usually never change or shift out of their groups. Otherwise, people will commonly shift out of their groups and move all over the place. I've had people move from "Almost Friend" all the way to I know them, in personal experience this has happened to people because I lose touch with them after the school year ends. Then it ends up that we don't cross paths often. I have although noticed that they tend to come back into their old group on occasion. Recently I've had a "friend" move from "Good Relations" to "People". While this barely seems possible it has happened. The also forgot my name, which definitely made me sad, yet that's what happened. I have observed that movement from groups become difficult as the groups get smaller. It's almost as if the walls surrounding the groups get taller as you head deeper in. It is however possible to move someone from the inner chambers to the extreme outer chambers, although that would require effort on your part to isolate yourself from them. There is no reason to move them that far however, if you are truly close friends with them, there's no reason to move them. It's even harder now a days since people can access the internet and contact you that way.


Closing Statement

Friendship is something that I don't take lightly, or have ever taken lightly. Right now though because of the change in society I'm trying to expand my perception of friendship and in a way make the circles larger. I also want to make a note about relativity. This system is based on one person at a time. For example, if you (Person A), classify me (Person B) as "Good Relations", it doesn't mean the same the other way around. I (Person B) might classify you, (Person A) as "People". While it may seem insulting, it is one of the things that I think should be understood. Person A and Person B don't have the same perspective on everything. While in the category of "Friend" and "True Friend", as I've stated before, both Person A and Person B need to agree that each other is actually in the same category.

I find that people take friendship more lightly. This is something that don't really understand too much. While I don't have much in the way of anything else to say, I will offer one more thing. For those of you that like watching anime, a good anime to watch regarding this topic would be , "Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni".

Death or Life

When I offer the word death, what comes to mind? Sadness, doom, despair, other such pessimistic words? Though I pose the question, why is death such a negative tone. Although I think for now, society is moving away from this negative outlook. While it still is negative, many things have changed from back then. If you look closely you'll notice that death is much openly received. Death back in the old days, was always more brutal, that's the kind of society we were. Think back to any wars back to world war 2 or before. They were brutal. The brutality now is nothing compared to back then. In today's society death is much more trivial, if any of you in STAC remember watching Frankenstein, you might recall the high age rating on the movie yet we never really saw anything brutal or gruesome. Death was much more negative back then, now our perception of death is much more lighthearted and it takes much more to scare people. Horror films now a days, offer brutality and torture as the way to go. Back then, simple death could make anyone scream. While death has taken a turn toward being lighthearted, because of history it's still associated with gloomy words. People are afraid of dying early, they fear that they have more left in their life. While we will truly never know if that is the case. I think, when the time right, it's time, maybe it's just me but death should not take such a dark tone. We've integrated notions of death and occult symbolism into our society in various bands and other works of art. While it may not be the right thing to go on a mass suicide revelation type event, people still need to understand that maybe in certain situations accepting death is the right thing to do. Instead of fighting it.

Mirror's Edge

To be honest, this doesn't fit with the theme of anything I have on this blog so far but. This is cool, not that I'm saying everyone should do it. This guy is a professional, yeah it's a guy dressed as Faith (Main character in Mirror's Edge (Female)). But none the less this is pretty good, for how hard it is to do those rolls with the camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-mEnMMmSrQ

The World Sucks, Doesn't It?

Warning: I wrote a lot this time, I guess.

This is a heavily heated topic about how the world sucks. I sure everyone has to agree that the world sucks in one way or another, although the extent to which it sucks may vary from person to person I'm sure everyone thinks this way sometime in their life. If you have never thought this way before, go ahead prove me wrong. Though I'm bringing up this topic for a different reason. I'm here to talk about the opposite. Most people right now consider life to be boring and they would rather live in that fantasy world of their dreams where they play the protagonist that always wins. However, this is not the way to go.

Let's start with what's wrong with that fantasy world. If you always win, you will not know defeat. That might sound like a good thing but let's be honest. Failure is better than winning. When you win you learn nothing, when you fail you have the opportunity to learn everything. One needs to seize this opportunity by the hand and learn from their mistakes. When you always win, you learn nothing and remain dumb and ignorant forever. With this always winning world, when something upsets you it will simply cease to exist or never have existed at all. If this was the case with the real world, the world would have ended long ago. If we look to our mistakes as our achievements in life instead of our failures, the world looks different.

Take a step back, look at your life, what do you see? I worthless human striving for something so high yet they can't reach it? A being setting their goals to where no improvement is gained? Or that possibility that you see someone that is setting their goals in the right spot? I'll tell you to change your goals to that person that set's goals just about their reach, then all they have to do is push themselves to stretch a bit to reach it. You may think changing is quite hard. It might be but the point is not to give up. When you make a piece of art, it's always good to take a step back from your work while you're working on it. Take a second to look at the whole picture and re-adjust. When you take that moment to look back, if it looks a bit bad do you scrap the whole thing? No, you simply try to fix your mistakes. Now let's take a scenario of the whole thing is bad.

In art one might say, this is too bad and not fixable, I'll just have to scrap this. Though this is where art and real life differ, you should never give up. In art you can start a new one, but in real life, you only have that one canvas. You were only given one canvas to work with, you are not getting another one. This is not the time to mess up, this is your chance to shine, if it means changing everything maybe it's for the better. If you were given a dilapidated canvas it doesn't matter. As long as you have one you can make something, maybe you can even utilize the materiality of the messed up canvas to your advantage. Create something different then others.

You may hear people say, the world is fair. In my eyes, it's not true. People get different opportunities and some live better lives than others. Although this isn't the point, we only have one life and we need to live it to the extent that we can, when our lives end, you should not be sad that you ran out of time. Your life ends for a reason, it means you are done. While the piece may look incomplete to you, it's done, and it's over. It's time to put down the brush. Even that chance that your piece is actually unfinished, maybe the person next to you, or even the people next to you glanced over and have been inspired. This inspiration is the spark of hope. You've given something to the world that can't be taken away.

Maybe you've already done enough with your life. Although, it's never okay to use that as a reason to end your life. Putting down your brush intentionally doesn't mean you're done, it mean's you've given up. You need to wait patiently for the teacher to put down your brush. Only he can tell you when you are done, no one else, and if you sit there waiting for the teacher to say you are done, yet he never comes, you are not done. You are sitting on your life doing nothing. Death by old age is everyone's dream. Wisdom comes with old age. Once enough wisdom is accumulated, your death becomes inevitable. Maybe death shouldn't be associated as such a bad word or it will seem that my post ends on a dark note. Why not lighten up the mood? You have that chance in your life, drive your life forward and upward.

Tech over Flesh

Remote Controlled Dogs

Well, this might be an improvement but it is probably an extremely controversial topic of moving away from flesh and going to technology. We've already become a technologically dependent race, I'm sure you've seen all the movies about how once technology is taken away from us, we become savages. Revert to our primal states. Though with remote controlled dogs I don't see the point in this, can't we just make robots that do this for us? They would be much more responsive to controls and would also be much more accurate than the dog's sense of smell. Maybe I'm thinking too far ahead in the future, I'm sure robots will replace dogs one day.

The Unspoken Theory of Human Preeminence

While this post may sound extremely biased toward the societal theory of human ego-centrism. To start off people are selfish, that's the one thing that most people can agree on. Although some believe that all humans are selfish. They back up this theory with the theory of evolution. Humans are creatures at their basic level. All natural creatures consider their lives as important. The extent of this importance will vary going from creature to creature, but it will always be there. Although this is not the theory I am going to discuss. There is what I feel is an unspoken theory that pops up but isn't directly mentioned too much. It's the hypothesis that the human brain is unlike anything in the universe. While this may sound obvious, what I mean is the fact that the human brain is made to manipulate the fabric of space and time. This may sound completely ridiculous at first yet the more you look into it, you will start to notice things. I'm sure you have heard the so called power of the human mind. It's not something I don't believe in but think for a second how this exactly works. What this power of the human mind is saying is that we do have the ability to manipulate and control everything about our body. We can create pain, erase it, perform superhuman feats such as lifting weights normally impossible for our bodies, and going dormant for weeks without too many consequences. We can even heal our bodies to an extent. I'm also sure you've heard of the fact that we can only use a very small percentage of our brain. The rest is locked, and once we unlock it we can ascend to a higher state. Consider this, how many books, movies, shows, or any other literature have you read or seen that poses the potential of the human brain as a manipulator of the space time continuum? There's actually quite a bit, even the ones that don't outright mention it, it's still showing the power of the human mind, for example telling the future, telekinesis, and all sorts of things. This theory may or may not be real, we will probably never know yet it ties into our lives that we live. People say that if you put your mind to it, it will come to you, or you will prevail. If this is such an unspoken topic yet used colloquially surely it has some truth in it. Right?