Quote of the Day ~ Kant

I like to think that the tears that welled up in my eyes when I submitted my first college application today was some sort of bodily disorder, but five hours on and I'm still alive. 

I think I cried of relief when I clicked that submit button. 

Oh well, one done; six to go...

Anyway, I should probably introduce this quote before I go start a pity party haha. I was going to do a Cheshire Cat themed Halloween post (I appreciate Hollywood's latest depiction of that cat; now he's just creepy enough to be a Halloween costume!), but then Immanuel Kant came along, and I now have a Cheshire Cat meets Kant quote analysis..

I was a bit shocked when I first read this quote. That’s the kind of blatant pessimism no one really wants to hear. That happiness is impossible in our world unless we imagine it is probably the rudest thing anyone could say about it. Right?

Is the American Dream dead?

But, before I pronounce the idea dead, I need to find its corpse (excuse the analogy), because the American Dream is as elusive as the Higgs Boson.
        I posted a discussion on BlogCatalog last week, and I received such an overwhelmingly diverse collection of definitions for this one ideal, that I've decided to clarify what the American Dream is (or at least what I think it is) before I hold a funeral service...

Here are some of the ideas I heard from my discussion:

"[the American Dream is]getting a good job, getting married, buying a house and having kids who did a little bit better than you. " ~ Rhumperd

Quote of the Day ~ Carl Sandburg

Last week my English teacher pointed out that "quote" is a verb, and the noun form of the verb should be "quotation". So this post series of mine, should actually be named "Quotation of the Day" (I don't like it either). Isn't that ridiculous?

             We've all gotten so used to saying "Quote of the Day" that we don't even realize that it's grammatically wrong (can you imagine the number of other things we're doing wrong and don't notice because we do them all the time?).

Anyway, here's the quotation:

   

At one time, Carl Sandburg was one of the most talked about men in America. I can imagine that he comes from a time when the American dream of a rags-to-riches story was still alive and burning, a time when the country was still idealistic. 

I'm not a (complete) nostalgic, but maybe the world was a better place in the 1960s...I mean what's happened to the American Dream today? Where's the idealistic optimism for change?

What's the Use of Social Experiments?

My weekly art requirement is met by my weekend movie (or two or three). Last week, I watched a TV movie called The Pregnancy Project. It’s an adaptation of true-story about a Washington State high schooler - Gaby Rodriguez - who pretended to be pregnant to study the social stigma towards teen moms. This was, I learned, a social experiment.

                 I’ve never thought of society as a laboratory, and I’ve never dreamed of testing my hypotheses. But that is exactly what Gaby Rodriguez did- she had a hypothesis: that girls who accidentally became pregnant in high school were stereotyped and belittled for their mistake, and she had her model to test the hypothesis: pretending to have an unplanned teen pregnancy. What she found were what was expected, people sighing about her being a waste, and classmates jeering at her unideal future prospects.

Suffering in Tartarus

A million needles rain down on me as I sit still, trying to put what I feel into words.
Is there a way to describe pain without using the word itself?

The problem is that I can't explain what it feels like to be in pain. Pain is well, painful. (The idea that words are simply incapable of describing pain, or any feeling for that matter, shows how important emotions are to us humans.) Emotions can never be described; they can only be felt.

I'm not out to write about what pain is like, but what pain is. What is pain?

Quote of the Day ~ J. G Ballard

In this chaotic world of floating delirium, reason is the one thing that stands still. Logic is our fair compass, always pointing due Reason. But few take a peek at their navigation instruments.

If the world was to run on reason, logic, and the objective truth, it would be a cold, hard place.

It would be the kind of place where stars aren't the lanterns in the sky that wink at us conspiratorially, challenging us to reach for them, they'd be large (impersonal) orbs of burning gases that are light years away. 

It would be the kind of place where calculations are more popular than colorful speculations.

It would be a world where guesses and quirks and anything out of the ordinary would be regarded as a mistake, a deviation from the straight line of purpose.

Do you believe in Happy Endings?

The sunset was a medley of all colors red, and it was like a fire in the sky; the French Alps were in sharp contrast to the blazing fire above them. The couple stood leaning into each other- they were only a silhouette.

           “I’m soo happy for you,” my mother stated, her voice wasn’t emotionless as much as it was truthful; she was really just happy for the woman in front of her, and stoically devoid of any other thoughts on the matter.

I simply stared at the picture our guest was showing us with my best imitation of a calm demeanor, while my mind shrieked, “She got married in France, in the Alps! There was even a sunset behind her!!”

…

I sat at the kitchen counter, my elbows on the table, and my feet dangling off of the absurdly high chairs. My mother bustled about the kitchen and produced my breakfast (of pancakes with chocolate syrup) with a happy smile. We hadn’t done this kind of thing in a long, long time.

Maybe it was because I was swinging my legs and eating chocolate covered pancakes, or maybe it was just the smile on my mother’s face, but I felt five again, and I wanted to talk to my mother like I had talked to her then- not our usual, mundane, and potentially alienating, topics of chores and grades, but about things: thoughts, hypotheses, crises etc. - just things.

         “The news from yesterday was really cool,” I began, “Imagine getting married in France. The picture made the place look so beautiful!”

              “Well the French have always liked to do things in style,” she said - or something like that anyway. I was drifting away into my thoughts of sailing off into the sunset and getting happy endings; I was dreaming of a day when the movie of my life would end, and was wondering who my director-inspiration was- Woody Allen maybe? No, someone with a Jane Austen-y inclination..

               “I can’t believe it,” I said, “here I am, facing important decisions at 17, and I get to see what a happy ending looks like. Was this some sort of cruel joke to tease me with?” I really meant it; my life lacked that Jane Austen factor- at the rate I was going, I was worried about whether I could even have an ending at all, let alone a happy one.

               “A happy ending?” my mother snorted, “Isn’t that concept a bit too juvenile? Even for you?” I swear that the last three words were spoken contempt even if she is my mother and she loves me.

…

Is the concept of happy endings juvenile?

Well, for starters, life doesn’t just end like movies and books do. So, I suppose it’s childish to thinking of such things. But phases of life do end, and new ones start.

Happy ending is not a singular term. We all have many endings in our life, and whether these are happy or not depends on us.

Isn’t looking forward to a happy ending similar to looking forward to the completion of a long term-goal? Happy endings are simply moments in the future when the emotional rollercoaster or life reaches a high, what’s so wrong about thinking about them?

It's all for the highs.
From: angelicarbrem.blogspot.com

I’m not stupid (no, really); I know that living changes as we go through the course of life. There are times when things will never ever be the same again: those turning points can be the fulfillment of goals, or simply a change in personality or personal outlook.

Shouldn’t we all be working towards such turning points? Shouldn’t we all be working to better ourselves or climbing mountains that will get us where we want to go? Isn’t working towards change the purpose of life?

Happy endings are successful turning points; in reality, there are no unsuccessful turning points, because you reach one until you have succeeded. What’s so juvenile about happy endings? They’re goals, and they’re the perpetrators of change- what’s life without change, and what fun is a roller coaster without any highs?