Being Human

ok, so to start off with i just need to say that i think the "search for identity" is a load of bullshit. as soon as i heard that that was the topic for the world cafe thing i started mentally beating my head on the table and asking why me. Most people seem to have this idea that to be happy and complete you have to figure out "who" you are. this is retarted and limiting. "do i contradict myself? very well then i contradict myself. i am large and contain multitudes." god bless walt whitman.

now with this in mind i really liked and really disliked some of the things illich and brown said. illich's view on schools and education is amazing. the first professor i had here at evergreen was a pretty close friend of his and talked about the meetings which they mentioned. and they'd do exactly as they said. sit around a table with food and wine and talk. but back on subject.

on the one hand i think they're off on saying that being changed by the institutionalized objects is a bad thing. now i admit in some cases it is but most of that is just human stupidity and i think as far as those people are concerned they're just part of the population i'm hoping won't breed. But, on the whole, isn't that what evolution and growing up is? we are changed and shapped by our enviroments. it just so happens that our environment revolves around technology. i am blessed in that i got to grow up living right infront of a protected green belt and would like the same for my children but just because someone is raised in the city away from forests and swamps and all manner of wild life doesn't make the deficiant in any ways. it just makes them proficiant in another environment.

 i do agree with the "degrading the majority of people" however. but people can also learn to have their fore-father's/-mother's strenght of character and self confidence.

i LOVED the relationship as a "quint" but also want to say lay of bach, it was just a new era of music.

are we made (for lack of a better word) who we are more by our society/environment or our biology/genetics?

i wanted to bring up the book Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. This is an amazing book and though there are a few things i don't completely agree with on the whole it puts form to a lot of the theories and questions and thoughts about human nature and religion etc etc. The main focus of the book is "thou art God." I'm not gonna tie this in with Christopher Moore's Lamb with the explanation of the "holy ghost" aka "the divine spark" which resides in all of us. God is everything, in everything, a part of everything right? right ok. so that would logically make him part of us. So what's to say that we aren't him completely? Who's to say that we have control over everything that surounds us? and in saying that i could possibly be justifying our flourishing while we kill other species because they don't have, what is it? imortal souls? something like that. which is not my point. bringing in another book, a comic book actually, Neil Gaiman's Sandman i don't remember what issue or book but there's a part where Death (a cute little punk girl) tells one of her siblings that we KNOW everything. Past, future, present. We have all the questions and answers (no answer is 42, damn what's the question kinda thing) but the reason we don't know/acknowledge that knowledge (god i hate words sometimes) is because there's no way to handle that, it's easier to "forget" rather than be swamped by so much. Kind of like how in Stranger In A Strange Land the main character (a human man raised by martians and brought back to earth) "groks" humans and why they laugh as being, "They laugh because it hurts... because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting." shit this is long. ok there are my ideas and thoughts for the moment. out.

annie

ok so i appologize for posting late, i had intended to do it wednesday night before i went to cali but the site was still having problems and some how gave me two things but would only let me sign on to the wrong one. anyways, this is my post on my thoughts on the reading:

• Pg 17, last paragraph. HA! religion is just a crutch! well, in some cases. and don't go all bitchy on my ass it is simply my belief that religion was created by humans who were too weak minded to simply believe in their own beauty and existence. now, on the other hand i do believe in God, and gods, and any deity who's ever been worshipped but i believe that it is our belief that makes them real. if you wanna get into a long discussion email me.
• Pg 25, last line. I really, really, really like the last line: "...healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death."
• Pg 50, first paragraph (not of the interview). WTF so the reason i believe that people should just work that little extra bit to make life better for everyone (responsibility to the world) is a fucking genetic trait that i just happen to have cause i have a vagina? though considering the male and female answers it makes sense. though, why didn't they interview both of them to the same depth? perhaps because men do not commonly like to converse? hmm....

k, i'm done. see you all wednesday ^_^

annie