Everyone is a liar!

The television show House is based on the detective allegory.  On wikipedia, and I think on the dvd commentaries but I'm not sure, it says that House the Doctor is based on Sherlock Holmes.  When we talk about the detective allegory, it could just as easily be Batman (of Detective Comics fame);  or Nancy Drew;  or really any detective in general.  The upshot is that we are all detectives in some way, and that this is how we are able to empathize with the detective role.  Perhaps, for example, you are curious about what I'm about to write.  You are a detective!

There's also a tension and release to the detective novel; whereupon the main character solves the mystery.  I don't need to remind you about how many mysteries in real life are really, really hard to solve (if you forgot: these can quickly get down to the basic existential ones; as in God, Life's Purpose, and problems with Free Will and Fate;  but they can also be like why am I sometimes more successful than other times? or that one chemistry problem that you just don't have the caliber to solve yet because you haven't done the prerequisite work).   

So the release of watching someone solve their mystery gives us a sort of reassurance that we can solve our mysteries.

Meanwhile, the most complex creatures on this planet at least, are humans.  And humans lie!  Dr. House's catch phrase is "Everyone lies."  That's the catch phrase!  Pretty harsh right?

It's cooler and more complex than straight up lying, however.  We tell embellishments.  We tell romances.  We talk obscurely so that people can tell that we believe in something when we don't believe in that.  We exaggerate for humor of the story and people take for granted that that humor is real.  We rationalize our behaviors after we do them.  We justify our behaviors after we do them.  We habitually say the same thing;  so that something we say one time that is true that just slips out the next time might not be true.  Example of the last one:  water treatment guy goes to his boss every day to say that the water level is at the red line.  Boss says it's okay everyday.  One day, however, the water is not at the line, but because it's a habit, the minion accidentally says that it is at the red line.  

We lie to ourselves.  We lie to other people.  We argue so well for something that we actually believe our arguments.  That is, we make the worse seem the better.   Socrates was put to death for making the worse seem the better.  That is, we make mistakes, and sometimes they look like lies.  What is the difference between a mistake and a lie?  Motives!  At least I think it's motives....

I liked Mistakes were made, but not by me by Aronson and Tavris, which gives a pretty good view of how cognitive dissonance theory applies to everyday life.

So it's a facade!  There's a phenomenological thing we can say:  every time we empathize, we acknowledge ourselves in others.  When we empathize in a character, we acknowledge that character within ourselves, and that character's needs, ability to meet challenges and so on.  

It's a facade!  Lies are the surface, by their very nature.  Because there are motives behind them, there is a nakedness.  There is a fear:  fear that we don't live after we die, fear that there is no bigger father figure in the sky, fear that we won't see our dads again.  There is a fear that people won't like us, fear that we did the wrong thing and it's done irreversible damage.  There is hope that everyone likes our daughter, or everyone will treat us right, or that everyone will think that we are cool.  There's a lie because we don't want her to think that everyone thinks she's fat, even if she is fat.    

You are not connected to the Internet

Short answer is obviously.  We are obviously connected in relationships to everything.  I've been thinking lately;  if this is what you believe, that if every thought that we have is really a series of chemical firings, then every thought that we have is real in this way.  This is a bridge from thought to reality.  In fact, it looks more like a bridge from one part of reality to another.

Such a bridge has shocking consequences.  So, when you think of a unicorn, that unicorn is real to the extent that it is chemicals in the brain.  There's another sense of falsity, whereupon we can logically write out that something is false by using a negation sign.  The negation sign is fortunately the same minus sign that you use for subtraction, albeit with a parallel and different meaning.

When you put a not sign in front of something, it means that that statement is true as it is written as false.

So the sentence 'I am the Walrus' is really, 'not 'I am the Walrus'' because let's face it, we know the Walrus, and you are not him.   

The New Newspapers

Here, in a Slate magazine article *slate is an online magazine*  it says that the problem with the end of the newspaper industry is that reporters are getting fired.

Solution:  What about articles for higher?  As a professional journalist-private investigator type.  So companies or groups would higher journalists for investigative reporting that is unbiased.

http://www.slate.com/id/2223381/pagenum/2

You're overthinking it

First off, overthinking it does not even come up on spellcheck.  Hello?

Anyway, the other day someone told me I was overthinking it.  I had made this intricate poster of dance music.

What's to think about with dance music, anyway?  Well turns out that there's a lot, and I put it on a poster just to organize my thoughts.  People weren't buying it, though.  

I'm thinking about dance music because I associate it with good times, and also because I'm in a band that will play tonight at the Village Tavern in Clinton.  Dance music has a few common denominators, and functions similarly to pop music.  This is perfectly unsurprising when we think that american pop music, like on pop music stations, is dance music.  I just wanted you to notice the important distinction.

The commonalities to dance music are a steady beat, around 120 beats per measure;  and this beat should be characterized by a pulse.  Pulse is used intentionally here, because we know that hitting the bass drum on notes 1 and 3 of the measure, and hitting the snare on beats 2 and 4 resembles the human heart beat.  It does, however, have to stay steady, and be something reliable;  so actual heart beats are out.  I'm thinking, why wouldn't anyone just record over an actual recording of a hear beat? in order to get this answer.

There should be some external motivation, outside of the music, in order to dance.  There should be an easy chord progression.   Again, I'm using easy here out of deliberation:  some Intelligent Dance Music (IDM) and Ballets have intricate chords.  Easy chord progressions seem to revolve around a basic mode, like the pentatonic;  or two or three chords;  but the rules are subject to change around this basic cluster concept.

Songs like Twist and Shout have three chords, whereas basic disco songs have two chords, songs by Squarepusher sometimes have no chords, songs by instrumentalists (sometimes called Classical) have tons of chords. 

Additionally, there has to be some sort of tension.  This is the case in all music, but it is especially noticeable in dance music because of the use of our evil sounding chords, the minor chords.  

I have more to write on this topic, but I'll have to type some more later.

New Technician Article

I hope it gets accepted, I just submitted this today:

> Word Count:  546 > > Title:  Some Tips and Suggestions for State's Library System >         I have some library findings and suggestions that could make our lives > easier.  For one, DH Hill circulates books to all of the satellite > libraries on campus.  So if you need a book from DH Hill and you live in > Wood Hall, you can request that the book be delivered on that same day to > the Natural Resources Library, which is 50 feet away from Wood Hall and 3 > other dormitory-apartment buildings.  It’s same day service; so if you > request a book from the DH Hill in the morning, you can get it by that > afternoon in the NRL.  You can drop off books at the NRL that belong to > the DH Hill; thus returning that book without having to walk very far at > all.  This can be done at all satellite libraries, including the > Education Library in POE Hall, the Veterinary Library, the Design > Library, the Textiles Library, and a Distance Education Students’ > delivery.  You can request titles from all of these places and have it > delivered to the DH Hill, or any combination of the libraries (as in, > request one from the Design Library, and have it sent to the Textiles > Library).  The request function is after you select a book from the > catalogue on the website, or call the on the phone.  It can also be done > by email or in person. > Certain dormitories could have mini-library functions.  None of the > dormitories keep up even the most basic 3-book libraries.  Books that > could help all of us for checkout without having to go to the main > libraries would be great:  math tips books, chemistry help books, books on > writing papers, and so on would all be readily available at the CA’s > desks. > In a different way, the arts village could have a book drop off and pick > up in their dormitory because they are especially dependent on arts books > from the Design Library; or the Honors Quad could have a book drop off and > pick up in their dormitory.  We should not have to cultivate friendships > in order in order for Departments to lend books out;  when is the last > time anyone borrowed a helpful or fascinating book from your department, > whether it has to do with assigned material or not? (This means you > Philosophy Department).  In front of all departments, it is alienating > when I walk by the professors’ research-books showcase.  They are like > rare and exotic birds; never to be read by students or faculty peers, but > rather glanced at through glass while passing by. > We need a drive through drop box near the DH Hill.  We should not have to > walk all the way into DH Hill Library in order to deliver a book back. > The big purple drop box is already a big hassle anyway, because we have to > go through a flight of stairs and human traffic to get there. > If you ever have any complaints, you can tell the reference desk by > sending them an instant message on the “Ask Us” feature.  You could > contact them any other way, including the toll free number, or in person, > too.  They appreciate the suggestions.  Lastly, you can always tell them > thank you for the great job that they are doing.  I am sure they never get > enough of that. >

Not Really an Aside at All, But a Head On Collision

The fun with working with appearances, and assumptions in general, is that there is no emotional investment lost when we do ditch them.  Often times we do have to cast away facades when we are forced to, when we are wrong.  But if we end up being right, so much the better.  

I think that this is a pretty good argument for cognitive dissonance theory and studying its effects with justification.  

By the way, I do realize that I haven't posted on any actual Kant on this blog in a while, so I promise to type some primary or secondary source about Kant or from Kant in the near (like in the upcoming week) future.  

The nature of Kant's phenomenon (appearances from sense data) and noumenon (things-in-themselves) is actually arguable after what he wrote.  We (philosophy academia and me) are not entirely sure what he means by things in and themselves versus appearances.  By that I mean people stake careers on esoteric essays arguing for and against their positions.  There are two basic interpretations of Kant that Thomson notes, that I will offer up in another post.

This problem of appearances versus reality is one of the fundamentals of Kantian philosophy.  The reason why it is so important a distinction is because of the problem of skepticism.  Skepticism was not just the time your friend was bullshitting you about all those chicks he banged in high school and you didn't believe him, it is an actual school of thought in philosophy.  It basically means what you think it means:  doubt.  

The Moderns  are our main 6 or 7, by Kant's distinction:  Berkeley, Hume, Locke, Leibniz, Spinoza, and Descartes; give or take 10 more, out of a list of perhaps 100 thinkers who characterize the Enlightenment.  These philosophers were philosophers because they were creating science.  How do you go about saying, praytell, without any real authority except for the Church, Aristotle, and your own reasoning and experience, how we can know what we know?  Or that you know what you know?

Skepticism is the thing that all of these guys are battling. (School of thought is a complex idiom here.  I don't think that there are actually any skeptic Professors actually out there;  Pyrrho, one of the ancient philosophers, was a really really strict Skeptic;  Sextus Empiricus was a student of the Pyrrhonian School, and pretty good at espousing some classic Skeptical arguments, too).  But Skepticism is basically obvious: it's the really annoying doubt that all of us face.  It's also the complex doubts that you have to think about.  For example, while most of us can describe why we think the sky is blue, not all of us can describe why this is the absolutely correct view past all problems and potential problems.  Contemporary philosophy, which I use as a term to distinguish between the Moderns discussed in this blog and the present 100-ish years, Contemporary Philosophy actually has some pretty cool answers to this;  many of these contemporary papers are heavily indebted to Kant.  For example, the use of propositions are influenced by Kant's Transcendental Deduction (and I think but I'm not sure that they are specifically referring to the Transcendental Unity of Apperception).

  Kant focuses on the fact that we do have knowledge.  This is different from showing what knowledge is and displaying that you have it so that others will follow you.  Kant does not need to prove that knowledge can be known and is accessible without complicated genius-level philosophy.  This might explain why he did not seek to establish himself in anything except philosophy; although he did make a contribution to Cosmology.  Other Moderns, like Descartes and Leibniz, had contributions in Math (the coordinate plane for Descartes and Calculus for Leibniz), science (Descartes in Biology), politics (Leibniz in Habsburgs' Prussia), and even 20th century computers (Leibniz's binary).  Even Spinoza felt like he had to show he was a professional optician (from the looks of the biography Within Reason, he wasn't too good at it) and one of Berkeley's greatest philosophical works is on the medicinal uses of black tar.   

Face Oddity = Facadity

Like the name of this post?  It has nothing to do with what I want to write about.  It was a facade.

All told, the name is  a pun on a David Bowie album.  I don't know why I wrote it.

The last post of this blog is a Sonnet that I memorized.  One realizes that in this day and age, cut and paste works wonders, but I had some emotional investment in this one.  I memorized it when I lost some friends along the way a couple of years ago.  Don't fret!  They weren't gone gone.  They were just moving away or doing study abroad for the summer or something.  At the time, it must have seemed irrevocable in that really serious way; and I must have felt as if a whole ton of them were leaving, and that all of them were leaving forever.  This was even after I went to college; which is to say that it didn't feel like this when I graduated High School.

There was a buildup to the actual act of memorizing this sonnet, too.  In High School, I read a whole bunch of Shakespearean sonnets on my own.  I was on a poetry kick.

I remembered this sonnet like calling up an old friend to talk to;  which is to say that I had forgotten it in the mix between when I first read it and when I found it again.  I might have the wrong one in mind, but I swear there was this one night of reading it and I just read it over and over.  In my mind right now, I see myself getting really charged about it, but in the wrong way;  because I thought it was a heady love trip and it sounded nice.  Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, which we had to read for school; and also Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings had parts where the authors read Shakespeare to themselves, saying it out loud.  This might have had something to do with it.

At one point (not in the time when I was actively memorizing it), I sent it to a girlfriend, not quite understanding what it meant.  It combined into a monster:  she was a) freaked out by me sending it, b) nonplussed and unsurprised that I had sent it, and c)  the sonnet bored her and she did not understand it.  

 

But it was better that she didn't.  Are you ready for the reveal?  To put away childish things?  To put facadesaside?

This sonnet is a resignation.  It's after letting go of a relationship.  It's  a love sonnet, sure. Some online references that I read last year (I'm sorry I can't remember them to cite them)  said that this poem is actually about Shakespeare, or the Shakespeare-Sonnet Narrator, after breaking it off with one of his close friends.

In this way, it's not really a love poem in the sense that it praises the lover in that old fashioned way, or even in a way that expects a return.  There can be no reconciliation.  The final couplet says, "But do not so, I love thee in such sort/ As thou being mine, mine is thy good report."  Report is generally, according to the online texts, assessed as reputation, but I think you could interpret it as just keeping in touch.  In common language these days, I might say, "What's the report?"  and this kind of thing.  Between facebook, emails, blogs, cell phones, and everything else, it is very demanding.  We want people to report back to us.  

What is he telling her (or him) to do?  But do not so, I love thee in such sort.  The turn of this is from the middle there when he writes, "I may not evermore acknowledge thee, lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame/  Nor thou, with public kindness honor me, unless thou take that honor from thy name,"  he is saying, "I might not ever (never) acknowledge you, unless my pride fails and then gives you shame,"  and then in parallel, neither will you.  It's like neither of them will come off of their high horse.

But I feel this.  It's the spirit, the geist, the uncompromising and intangible weight of normal social structures.  People move away.  And they are incredibly close.  We see them on facebook and we know that they are a phone call away and we can't call them.  It has been like this for ages for humans.  

And it is pride!  It's the shame that we experience when we see these people we miss and it's not the same when we see them again.  But the terrible thing is to get caught in that trap in the first place.  We have to be divided before we are awkwardly reconnected.  

It says, "let me confess," and this sonnet is a confession of the resignation.  Resignation is when you are complacent, when you can't do anything about something and you quit.  In the office, a quitting letter is a resignation letter.  It can also be a resignation from obstacles, as if you are resigned from a task.  But we can't even say that as humans, that we are resigned to this division.  Jews and Africans talk about each culture's diasporas.  Diaspora is a large scale division of culture and people.  But talking about this, aren't we all divided on the large scale?  

I'm handling the problems that I've got by myself, he says.  So shall those blots (problems) that do with me remain, without thy help by me be borne alone, he says.  The relationship wasn't about the problems, and needing help.  It was about the joy experienced when they were together.  The love and the problems are separable (able to be separated), and he says, "In our two loves, there is but one respect, but in our lives, a separable spite"  (spite means bad mojo);  and even though the Love was great, there was a spite in their lives.  The love was good, the spite was bad.

Sure, it's one love, but there is a separable spite.  The relationship had to end.  Here, this could mean anything.  In the previous paragraph I had it as bad mojo, but spite could be anything.  It could have been fights, but it also could have been something that the two were working against that finally claimed the relationship.  

Burnett's studies of rhetorical theory features an excerpt by Mikhail Bakhtin, who in turn has a footnote that says neo-Kantian philosophy says that the nature of communication reveals objective truth of that which is communicated.  

Basically, when someone says 'table' and you understand it, that act of communication, that 'table' was communicated means it was objective.  It's weighted down by the two people.  In our two loves there is but one respect is this communication, this universal ubiquity.  We all know what 2+2 = 4 means;  we all know what Love is.  This is opposite from our analysis of spite, above.  

But the relationship is already over, and we know this because he's talking about never (he says, "not evermore") seeing her again.  

So the real conflict here is this letting go process.  I feel guilty when I don't see people.  We feel obligated.  Shakespeare feels guilty, "bewailed guilt".  She probably doesn't feel any better about it, either.  She's got that pride, that honor to uphold, too. 

Don't fret, says Shakespeare.  Don't worry, he says.  As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.  As long as you are good, I am good.  You don't even have to tell me, you can know that what I want is what is best for you, and I don't even have to hear that in order to know it;  and to feel it.   

Some Shakespeare

Let me confess that we two must be twain,

Although our undivided loves are one,

So shall those blots that do with me remain,

Without thy help by me be borne alone,

In our two Loves, there is but one respect,

Though in our lives, a separable spite,

Which though it alter not Love's sole effect,

Yet doth it steal sweet hours from loves delight,

I may not evermore acknowledge thee,

Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,

Nor thou with public kindness honor me,

Unless thou take that honor from thy name,

But do not so, I love thee in such sort,

As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

Word Bank:

Twain:  separate, between

Blots:  Problems, think like spots on your shirt, but worse, in the metaphoric sense.

Put your Facades where I can see them

Okay, okay, so we can learn a lot from the world of appearances.  

Barack Obama said, in his inauguration speech, that the time has come to put away childish things.  My dad said that this was from Corinthians, in the Bible.  

Quick facades-game:  Obama probably wrote some of his inauguration speech.  He also spoke it literally.  With his own input, he used a patchwork of quotes, but he probably used speechwriters, too.  He could have had a great deal of impact on writing the speech, or he could have had very little;  he could have only spoken the speech.  I don't mean any offense to Obamaniacs, but I just want to consider the different values of the speech.  

Quick point against things-in-themselves:  I dislike when anyone talks of intrinsic values.  Intrinsic means inside something.  If you ever have a true love who tells you about the intrinsic value of your combined love, get out of the relationship.  It means that he or she does not know what they like about you except that they should.  

There's still a lot of work to do with appearances, is all.  Likewise, there is something that college age indie rockers like myself do when we assess an artist's talent(s).  For example, Ween is a good band under this assumption because they write their own original songs, but opposing this is Britney Spears who does not always write her own material.  Somehow my friends and I don't like Britney Spears for this reason (among others).  There is a legerdemain (sleight of hand;  magic trick, shell game) that we are not getting exactly what we see.  It is especially part of the cognitive dissonance that part of us actually wants to know that Britney feels it when she says she loves her boyfriend, when in actuality she does not.  Combine this with new technology, where Britney's voice can be and increasingly is just played on the computer in order to write her songs, and now we have something where the singer does not even sing;  and the whole enterprise is something akin to pornography.  This is way too close to home with Britney Spears.  

But I disagree with this!  In the history of music, people have generally covered songs and used other writers.  The person who reads the speech is the one who is liable!  

The only thing constant is a facade

"The only constant is change," is an obvious contradiction, but I never saw it like that before.  Constant means that a things won't change and change means that they will.  Of course this maxim (is it a maxim if it's not an imperative?) is not really true if we're going to use it in science.  Science has a similar theory (among others) called entropy.  Entropy is really just disorder.  But there is another contradiction in the fact that if you call something disorder, that is a type of order that you are declaring the 'disorder' to have.  You have categorized it.  By calling the disorder order, you have ordered it.  Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.  (Look it up.)  So my physics teacher in High School Mr. Bashant famously asked when disorder becomes order, and when order becomes disorder.  

Now that that's in order (pun intended), we can move on to our own lovely lives.  

Change gets down to the very root of our selves.  If you have any experience, then you are a changed person.  If you are a changed person, you are a different person.  If you are a different person, you are not the same person who was before.   I had a really intense conversation with Professor Smythe one time in class like this.  Who am I if I am not the same person I was?  I was desperate. I said something along those lines.  Professor Smythe said, "Then you're a philosopher."

The ship of Theseus problem goes something like this.  I've seen it on wikipedia, and I went over it in class with Professor Auerbach;  and perhaps  Professor Jesseph.  I also went over it with my adviser Professor Kasser one time  (same one from earlier this blog).  Jesseph also had a cool philosophy-of-self problem that I would like to present.

Theseus has this ship, and it was brand new.  But, because Theseus was a perfectionist, if any board looked slightly scratched, the crew had to throw it overboard;  they then would have to replace it with a brand new one.  A lot of times, Theseus would just throw them over if he got a hunch that they looked bad, even when they didn't.

Well, lo and behold, over the course of months, the boards floated to the other end of the port, and another King took all of the boards, and had his crew make a ship in the same exact style as the original ship of Theseus.  This one used all of the original boards that floated down.  When it was ready, King Facadesaside took his ship down to Theseus.

The question is, between the original ship with the replaced boards, and the ship with all of the original boards that looks exactly the same, which one is the real ship?

This is really a problem of self.  I fully understand where one could substitute in a person for the ship, but there is something that resonates with me here.  

Kasser's answer was that a person is the same person, and the ship is the same ship, so long as the changes happen slowly, over time.  

So here is an answer to our problem of experience (that changes you);  it's Kasser's answer that we just rewrote.

A person is the same person so long as the change happens over time;  slowly.  The only reason that we have a problem is when we take a big break.  Right now, I'm thinking of how a person could consider themselves when they are three years old when they are in their twenties.  That's a big break.  One reason that everyone can consider that person the same as the three year old is because it happened gradually.  

1)

The other day Judith came up to me.  She said, "Did you hear the one about the woman who ran across the United States?"

I said, "No, I haven't."

She said, "Yeah, she had a sponsor and everything."

I said, "Judy that's not funny."

She said, "I'm not joking."

2)  

For a while, I was going up to people and asking, "Did you hear about the circus fire?"

They say, "No,"  and then I say, "Well, it was intense."

Then they say, "Was everyone all right?  What about the monkeys?"

Then I have to explain that it's not a serious thing, it's just a joke.  

3)

One time I said to my ancient philosophy professor Dr. Puryear the quote by Wittgenstein that a whole work of philosophy could be written in joke form.

Dr. Puryear said, "It's funny that he didn't."  Dr. Puryear didn't crack a smile as he said this.  

4)

I messed up my ankle a couple of weeks ago.  Again, this isn't a joke.  I just messed it up running too hard.  I did end up running a 52 minute one, which, depending on my secondsmight be  a season-personal best.  (Funny story, I actually got really adrenalinized  and started yelling with my running buddy.  When he started sprinting ahead I yelled at the people around me.  I was also able to run a brutal 9-miler NOT the Boilermaker, with my friend Kevin on this injury.)  

There's some cool stuff we can talk about when we talk about pain.  First of all, I want to specify:  I'm talking about the analytic as opposed to emotional pain.  We could say that all pain is emotional, but I want you to consider some sort of at least hypothetically precise firing of neurons that everyone has.  I have this to a very dull degree in my ankle, when I walk on it in a certain way.

  Earlier in this blog I might have mentioned Descartes and the problem of Dualism.  Descartes, who invented what we call Snell's law, but the French call Descartes' Law, who also invented the coordinate plane, and various miscellaneous inventions and discoveries;  also was a decent biologist-philosopher.  The question is:  if we are in a world of stuff, what are the mental processes that go on in our brains?  

   The question is very important because it supposes that there even is a difference between brains and mental processes.  People who have taken their feelings to the extreme end up believing so much that mental processes are separate from the body that we have an un-seeable energy unit in us.  It's really hard to describe, because what is energy?  When you get up on a monday and you want to take a shower?  Some people might say that your energy doesn't come from your puny body, but rather is motivated by the energy-unit's eagerness.  Some say that the biggest energy-unit in the whole universe is what makes you want to take that shower so bad.  Unfortunately, it never quite forces you to do boring stuff like read complicated Cartesian Philosophy.  (Have you ever noticed that?  No one ever gets A Calling from the biggest Energy Unit to be a cashier, a truck driver, or a doctor of chemistry...)  It turns out that the energy-unit is fairly believable to most people.  People call it the soul.

They couldn't find it when they first opened up skulls.  Digging and digging, it seemed that the soul had been only a superstition.  Disproving it would have made a lot of people unhappy.In light of this he switched: Descartes thought that the soul was in the hypothalmus!    

We will redeem Professor Descartes' and the concept of the soul later, when we do some more Immanuel Kant.  

It's nice to have some sort of resistance.  Why?  It gives us something to work in.  I say work in  because without the very substance of being, we would not be able to work at all. 

"Can I kick it?  Yes you can," says Q-Tip of the rap group Tribe Called Quest. 

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

    Old Time is still a-flying,

And this same flower that smiles today

    Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,  

   The higher he's a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

   And nearer he's to setting,

That age is best which is the first,

   When youth and blood are warmer,

But being spent, the worse, and worst

   Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;

   And while ye may, go marry;

For having lost but once your prime,

   You may forever tarry.

-Robert Herrick  (1591-1674)

Judy's got these menthol toothpicks that I can role around in my mouth, but when  I bite too hard on them I get a blast of menthol so fierce that it stings my tongue.  Great Scott!

Here's a three pronged question for you:

At what point can we make success more successful by calling it success?  Kurt Vonnegut said something to the effect of, be careful of who you pretend to be because that is who you become.  Socrates was put to death for making the worse seem the better.  

What is success?  Is it possible?  Is it rooted and based on free will?  If we had free will, would it be possible to be successful?  How?  If we didn't have free will, would the circumstances change?  How much does motivation concern itself with these things?    

That is, it's a compound question of:

1)  Success in a materially real sense

2)  Success in a rhetorical sense

3)  Success in a way that we can force the move of 2 to 3

The other name for 3)  is the placebo effect, the end-plot to Disney's Dumbo;  and also the basis of much self-help, and new age spirituality literature.  The flip-side of this is bullshit;  also known as the quote from Vonnegut above.   

The best conclusion I can give right now is that there is a very fine line between the three, and we have to be very, very careful.  

School Newspaper Portfolio 10

College Media Network

Home

• CONTACT US
• ADVERTISE
• BUY PHOTOS

 

• HOME
• NEWS
• FEATURES
• VIEWPOINT
• SPORTS
• BLOGS
• MULTIMEDIA
• PUZZLES
• CLASSIFIEDS
• CORRECTIONS

Technician > Viewpoint

Bring back Zach

Jake Goldbas, Staff Columnist

Print this article

Share this article

Published: Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Updated: Thursday, July 2, 2009

There's a movie out right now that features an N.C. State alumnus (sort of).

Zach Galifianakis, who stars in the movie "The Hangover" and is known for his work on the Absolut Vodka commercials and Kanye West's "Can't Tell me Nothing" music video (both on Youtube), was recently profiled in the New York Times Magazine.

I think Zach Galifianakis should come back to NCSU. Not just because he's a great comedian, but more importantly for us at State, he never finished his degree in Communications. As the great comedian that he is, he even made this failure funny, missing graduation by a mere three credit hours.

In the NYT Magazine, he said about his experience, "I didn't make any friends at NCSU. NCSU is an agriculture school."

In a gesture of goodwill, we should invite him down and show him some (more) southern hospitality by giving him an honorary degree and hosting one of his comedy shows, which are definitely funny.  

Meanwhile, Galifianakis can show us a thing or two about agriculture, seeing as he's from the country -- Wilkesboro in fact. The Kanye West video has him goofing off at his farm there and it is hilarious.

I say we start a petition to get him here. We should also see what kind of money we could entice him with from our University activities board (that Easley money is looking sweet now).

There is a coolness factor going on here as well, we can claim a famous comedian as one of our own because he went here. Beyond that, I think it's important to be supportive of someone who went here.  

There's also an ethical problem warranting his visit: Zach didn't think he made any friends when he was at school here. Most of us know that the agriculture school at State is bar none -- all of those students throw awesome parties.  

Aside from that, we could rally here, at this side comment: I am a fan of Zach Galifianakis, and you should be one too. If everyone at school saw his videos, I think they would love them just as much as me and the other people who have seen them. Anyone who sees these videos is a friend of his.

Galifianakis, who has built a comedic career over the course of two decades, seems to be making his move from the B list to the A list. Any sort of support he can get is crucial to ensure his success, and any success for Galifianakis is success for State.

The point about all of this is to right a perceived wrong. The solution is simple: we should invite him to come back home and entertain all the friends he never had.

In the Kanye West video Galifianakis says, "Wait till I get my money right. Then you can't tell me nothin', right?"  So lastly, I want to address Mr.

Galifianakis' New York Times comment: wait 'till we get our money right. Then you can’t tell us nothin’, right?

Send your thoughts on Zach Galifianakis' NCSU experience to letters@technicianonline.com.

 

Comments

1 comments

kimberly shearer

Fri Jul 3 2009 14:43

where's the petition... i'm ready to sign up...

Log in Log in to be able to post comments.

Log In

• E-mail:
• Password:
• Not already a member? Register now

Need Cigars for Spring Break?

Get a free credit report in NC

Start a checking account in Raleigh

Get your Custom Coffee Mugs here

Find DUI Attorneys in NC.

Learn about credit card offers online

Open publication - Free publishing - More ncsu

© 2009 NCSU Student Media

Powered by  and 

Privacy Policy|Terms of Use|Copyright Policy (4/27/2009)