I'm not Smart

The concept of smart has already been classified into categories already and everyone knows them, the only problem is that not everyone realizes what they actually mean. The two categories are Street-Smart, and Book-Smart. In truth one of these is not actually smart, it is skill. To begin, I'd like to change their names so that the meanings behind them are more obvious.

Street-Smart is a very broad way of defining smart. The idea that we should be looking at is the smartness of logicality and reasoning. Anything logical fits into this category and anything that requires reasoning also fits here. Logic and Reasoning are one of the most important features to a human being.

Book-Smart is very different. Book smart is the ability of memorization and retaining the memory. It is the smartness of knowledge. Humans are unique that they want to know everything, they are curious. As a result of their curiosity, they create systems of storage outside the human brain. Because most people are capable of only holding a limited amount of knowledge, we store the knowledge elsewhere which can then be learned later on or by another human. 

Having both of these characteristics is something everyone wants, however the problem with having one word to envelop both of these definitions is the problem. In school, you may have been called smart once, but for what reason? Was it because your reasoning in a situation was excellent, or was it because of your ability to bring something you knew to the table that no one else knew? School systems praise Knowledge but shut down Logic and Reasoning. It's good to be strong in one, but you must also be strong in the other. While many school are noticing that Logic and Reasoning is required, the majority of school systems still lack Logic and Reasoning. Our grades in school are completely dependent on Knowledge. That's why some people are considered smart while they may have bad grades. To bring back what I mentioned before, I said, "In truth one of these is not actually smart, it is skill." Which one do you think is skill, and which one is smart? 

The 7 Necessary Sins

Lust
Lust can be defined as the intense desire. This intense desire is something that is classified as a sin, however this isn't what people should really be like. Without a desire, we would all fall into confusion and despair. The one thing that we should all have a desire for would be a goal. Without a goal in life we are not really living. Not having a desire would actually be a sin.

Gluttony 
While Gluttony is primary concerned with food consumption, it is commonly used to refer to selfishness. No one can deny the fact that everyone is selfish. This is a fact. Here is what people get wrong, being selfish isn't bad. Everyone is selfish because we are all human. Selfishness is something necessary for survival. If we were placed on an abandoned island with seven people, and a single slice of pizza, we need to be selfish or we would die. Regardless if we are selfish or not the majority of the group is guaranteed to instinctively go for that slice of pizza and eat it themselves. This is an excessive amount of selfishness, but it's not good to have no selfishness either.  

Greed
Greed is the desire of material possessions. As children we have the idea that we shouldn't be greedy drilled into our heads. No matter what society you belong to, this idea will always be in your head. Whether you follow it or not is a different story. The idea is a global one that needs to be there or else society will not function. Although having no desire for material possessions is completely out of the question. We humans reside in a physical world of three dimensions. To survive we must use all that we can in the three dimensions given to us to survive. If we choose to ignore the physical world, our life would come crashing down and we would probably die. Everyone needs shelter and consumables. These are physical desires that everyone must learn that they need to have. We humans reside in a physical realm and until the day we ascend and remove ourselves from our physical restraints, we will need greed.

Sloth
This is the sin of laziness, one of the hardest to understand why we need it. There is a difference between lazy and relaxed. Relaxed is taking a break from work, while laziness is not having work to do and not doing work. Relaxation is always important, but laziness is something that everyone sees as bad. The reason people see this as bad is because a lazy person doesn't have a goal and without a goal, they won't know what to do. Being lazy all the time is in every situation bad, no one likes a lazy person and no one likes someone that seeks to be lazy, however, there is a situation where you need to be lazy. You should be lazy once in your life. When you become lazy you will see how relaxing it is but you will soon realize how no work is being accomplished, at this point you need to break your laziness and pop back into work. If you can accomplish this shift back into work and not fail, you will never want to be lazy again and it will be hard to be lazy.

Wraith
Wraith is anger. Anger is an expression of emotion. Emotions are very important. Emotional expression is important for social communication. Side Note: I have emotions, I just don't express them (I'm working on it).

Envy
Envy is the want to be someone else other than you. While logic tells us that we should be ourselves and be unique, what are the odds of being perfectly unique. To start we are all human and the chance that we are one in seven billion, is pretty low. Basing yourself of someone is the best thing to do. You must begin by envying that person and building yourself like them, at a certain point it will be impossible to mimic them exactly. This is the point where you must diverge and create your own life. This is the path to a successful life. The people that come before you come for a reason. They are there to teach you what to do since they have already walked that path. If they can successfully transfer their wisdom to you, you will surpass them and become successful.

Pride
How can you succeed in business without pride in what you do? If you lack pride in what you do, you won't be confident in anything you do. As an artist, one will realize that without pride or acknowledgement of one's own skill, you will fail to succeed no matter what. However, there is always a specific amount of pride you can hold. If you hold too much you can hurt others, but if you hold too little you can also hurt others. Every individual must be aware of oneself, if not those who watch them think fools of themselves. Some don't realize that others can take pain because they have no pride in themselves. As a result, others take deep pain in themselves, thinking that they are even worse because the other person doesn't acknowledge their own success. If one can't even catch up to someone working at mediocre level, how can that person possible bridge the gap between an expert.

Anonymous Heroism

The definition of a hero is someone admired for their achievements or favorable qualities. A hero is a public figure. The heroes we praise in our society are people that have done something good and upon further examination, they have favorable qualities. Then this person becomes a hero. What people don't understand is that heroes live for that major achievement in their lives, such as rescuing the princess or saving someone from a burning house. These major achievements bring them fame and as a result, they become heroes. Once this achievements is accomplished, the hero does not need to do anymore. They have finished. People always say they want to become heroes but is that really what they want? Being a hero is not the only way to do good. There are those who strive for the benefit of others but never request anything back. These people do good but are anonymous. They do small things to help others and they live their lives satisfied. Not being noticed doesn't mean an unsuccessful life. As long as you are pleased with yourself, you can live a successful life.

Parkour is Popular. What of it?

In today's society parkour has recently gained some unusual popularity. Parkour is a form of training in which the practitioner gets from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible. The most common misconception with parkour is that it involves flips and stunts. Parkour is the same as freerunning but freerunning involves the flips and stunts, parkour does not require flips and stunts. Freerunning is the art of parkour. The question is, why is it getting so popular.

The first and most obvious thing is new marketing. In recent video games parkour has been portrayed as a skill that the protagonist possesses and uses to save the world. The first game and the most prominent one is Mirror's Edge. This game puts the protagonist in the role of a parkour master who is fighting against the government. The next game also puts the protagonist in the role of a parkour master. In the Assassins's Creed series, the main protagonist always knows parkour and uses that to stealthy assassinate all the villains. Even in newer games are being marketed toward parkour practitioners. One of the games that are coming out soon, Watch Dogs, is even has been tagged as parkour. In today's day and age parkour is deemed as the skill of the protagonist. It is quite obvious why people want to follow the role of the protagonist.

Parkour is about efficiency and control. Performing parkour involves efficiency of getting from point A to point B. To perform these feats of agility one must be strong, fit, and able to accurately control their body. Parkour is all about control of the body. Once you master full control of your body, you will be able to perform any trick or stunt you want. You need to have control over both your mental and physical body. Without the physical part you can't perform the stunts. Without the mental part you won't be able to overcome your fears.

Why do people practice parkour if it's so dangerous? The point of parkour is control and the people who practice parkour want that control. Maybe not in the actual sense of physical control. It might be a physiological effect. The people who want to master parkour want to gain control of their own life. Parkour is the sense of rebellion and control. In Mirror's edge the protagonist is rebelling against the government and wrestling for control over the corrupt government.

People want control, is this what our society is coming to? When someone wants more control, they are lacking it or need more. Our society used to be institutionalized and now our society is slowly obtaining more freedom. Getting that small taste of freedom has led to people wanting more freedom. This is why parkour has become so popular.

Taxonomy of Hate

Why do people hate? Everyone has heard of "Hate is a strong word." It is truly a strong word and we need to stop using. The question I'm solving today is why people hate other people. While this can be applied to objects, this post will be directed at interactions between people.

Have you ever hated someone? Are you currently someone? It's something everyone should think about once in a while. When you hate someone why do you hate them? Even if this is just a minor set of dislike, all of these can still apply. So what specific reason do you dislike this person? There is a variety of different reasons that people dislike others while most of them have no stable basis in a solid argument.

The first category of hatred is physical difference. We hate them because they look different. In today's day and age most people are moving away from this set of ideas that physical difference doesn't define a person. That is what people should learn, physical appearance doesn't define a person, it only gives us a physical memory of what to associate a person with. If you look at your friend you will know exactly what he/she is like in the inside, while if your friend had their brain/soul transplanted to another person, you would still associate the physical appearance of your original friend with the way they are. You will find it extremely difficult to adjust to your "new" friend. Physical appearance is only a way to easily distinguish people.

The second classification of hatred is psychological differences/preferences. This involves the way people think, this is what people take as a rationale for hating someone. This is what everyone thinks is the right way to hate someone. However this is no real way to hate someone. In America we believe that people have the freedom to express what we believe without persecution. This principle is almost impossible to reinforce. People who want to commit to a revolutionary idea tend to find themselves alone and ostracized. In this way they pull back and stop their provocation. People hate them because they have different ideas.

The third category is their decisions and actions. This category covers physical acts and choices. This may seem like it's under the category of differences but it's not. When someone is posed the option to help someone, some people will say no. Many will say that they hate this person and their decision. You must note that I gave no context to the situation of helping someone. When context is put in, people will often reconsider. Everyone's decisions and actions are made out of their personality. Everyone has noticed this in which you can predict the answers to questions by various people based on your knowledge of them. They will have their own rationale and reasons for making the decision, what right does another person have to judge the other. While judgement is a trait that stems from human nature, in modern society people need to move away from cursory judgement. How many people do you know that you have judged unfairly. Give them another chance, they might surprise you.

The last grouping is envy. This is simple. You hate someone because they have something that you don't. Either it's something that you can't get or they can't share. Both way's it's hatred. When you encounter this kind of hatred often the solution is that you are overlooking the fact that people are unique in one way but are often not unique in other ways. You may think that someone has something that you want, but you fail to consider what you would lose to get that.

Think of someone you hate. Try to find out why you hate them, if you have trouble, put it in a category first then solve it from there. Once you figure out why you hate them, try to solve the problem. If you end up figuring out that it's impossible to solve, might as well tell them up front that you hate them, with the reason. Maybe it's something that only they can solve. It's often worth it to give it a try.

The World Sucks, Doesn't It? (2)

This is not a continuation of my previous post, it's simply a shortening of it, think of it as a summary written in a more declarative tone.


Most people agree that the world sucks in one way or another, although the extent to which it sucks may vary from person to person. Everyone thinks this way. While everyone thinks this way, everyone should think in the opposite way. The majority of people consider life to be boring and they would rather live in that fantasy world of their dreams where they play the protagonist and always wins. Living in this fantasy world is the wrong approach to life.

In the fantasy world you always win, that's what's wrong about it. If you always win, you will not know defeat. That might sound like a good thing, however 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 and learn from their mistakes. In this fantasy world of constant victory, when something upsets you it will simply cease to exist or it will have never 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 would look very different.

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 you see someone that is setting their goals in the right spot? You  need to set your goals just out of your reach, then all you have to do is push yourself to stretch a bit to reach it. Changing is quite hard, but one should not 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 and re-adjust it. If it looks a bit bad do you scrap the whole thing? No, you simply try to fix your mistakes. What if it is bad?

In art, one can say this is too bad and irreparable, I'll just have to scrap this. This is where art and real life differ, you should never give up. In art you can start new, but in real life, you only have one canvas. You were only given one canvas to work with. 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 deformed canvas to your advantage. Create something different then others.

Some say the world is fair. That's not true. People get different opportunities and some live better lives than others. Yet 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 if your piece is unfinished, maybe the people next to you glanced over and have been inspired. This inspiration is a spark of hope. You've given something to the world that can't be taken away.

What if you've already done enough. 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 means you've given up. You need to wait patiently for the teacher. 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, he will not come, you are not done. You are sitting on your life doing nothing. Death by old age is everyone's goal. Wisdom comes with old age. Once enough wisdom is accumulated, your death becomes inevitable. Maybe death shouldn't be such a bad word. Why not lighten up the mood? You have that chance in your life, drive your life forward and upward.

The Fallacies of the American Education System

To get my argument across. A lot of people will agree with me that the American Education System currently in place is flawed and probably should be revised however impossible it may seem. The current education system is not a determination of how smart you are but on the contrary, it determines nothing in particular. It does however determine certain traits. The problem is, it's hard to distinguish these traits from one another with this current system. The one trait that this education system is aimed at is dedication. The point is that if you are dedicated to anything and you are a somewhat healthy human being, you will receive great grades and probably beat everyone in terms of grade point average.

The misconception here about the education system is that it grades you based on how "smart" you are. Smart is a very broad term that has no specific meaning. Smart refers to someone that excels in one particular field. As long as you excel in that one field, you can be considered smart without needing too much knowledge in the other fields. Intelligence is in basic principle the concept of being very adaptable. Adaptable in the way of being able to easily grasp concepts and to formulate "new" ideas based on previous preconceptions you may have had. This is not what the education system in America is actually grading you on. The American system only focuses on dedication. If you are smart and have no dedication, your grades will reflect badly. If you are not smart and have extreme dedication, your grades will reflect well. The optimum place people should be at is generally smart and more than average dedication. This is where people will get the most from their grades. Dedication will weigh much more heavily on your grade than smarts do. Even though smarts will effect your grade.

Another thing that people don't realize is that while our educational hierarchy preaches dedication, in the process of doing so, it teaches us how to be dumb. The primary example here is that the education system teaches us, "There is one right answer." When you apply this one right answer concept to anything else outside of school, it seems to collapse. As a result, after students leave high school, they still look for this one right answer. Their mind has been dumbed down and now has forgotten the idea of creative thinking and formulating unique thoughts based on previous information. A multiple choice answer always has one answer. This one answer concept almost never applies in real life. When in reality does one actually have to choose between right and wrong. Every single answer to a question has some right parts of it and some wrong parts of it. We just have to choose one and hope that there was more right than wrong. There in lies another problem. What's right and what's wrong, although this is another topic.

Do I believe that we can reform the education system today? No, it would not be possible. The education system works in this respect. While it does not grade us based on our intelligence, it grades us on our dedication. Dedication is what people want in the work place. Society works as an assembly line. People get created (Education), People are put through a trial to test if creation was a success(Grades), based on results, people get moved to different places (Jobs). If you have good grades, you will likely be hired because of this concept of dedication. While most workplaces don't realize it, dedication is what they look for. It's simply, getting people with good grades in our workplace makes it better, therefore if we get more people that have good grades it will work better. While some workplaces don't realize this concept, they are completely tied to the education system that we have today. While there are propositions to change it, such as getting rid of one answer questions in everything and teaching students to think from all viewpoints, it's not going to be likely to change anything. I believe even with the faulty education system, it should not change because it's still a working system. The problem I have with this system is it's name, why call it an education system where you are simply dumbing people down instead of making them smarter?