The Meaning of Life

Today I'm only going to write one post, and then get some sleep; I have to wake up early Monday and then begin my school sleep cycle again (midnight till 6 or 7). So, I picked a nice little bit of philosophy: the Meaning of Life. I reserve the right to write more about this at any time until my death however.

To begin, we must consider what the 'Meaning of Life' is. Is it '42'? Is there some definite answer? No. The meaning of life can be considered in two contexts.

I'll preface them by saying that the product and motivation for the meaning of lie is happiness. At the end of the day a person who has truly achieved the meaning of life is happy, and no matter what we do, we consider what will make us the most happy. People have different ways of doing this; some will not be happy if they don't stick by their moral code (they won't be able to live with themselves and thus won't be happy). For others, happy is getting your next high. Some people want to be president, a spaceman, have children. It depends.

The first context is achieved by asking the question "what can I d0 to make myself most happy." Frankly, if I knew the answer to that I'd be pretty happy, and I'd tell you, and I'd probably be able to sell it and get rich and/or famous. (Hint: that was foreshadowing!) One group of people who do seem to know all the answers is hollywood however, pretty much every chick flick (yes. I live with 3 women. 10, 13, 40 something. I watch a few too many) And movie for kids (see the 10 year old sister and/or HS musical, which you've watched as well) and a lot of the college/high school movies (someone dates another person on a dare/for revenge, ends up falling in love, they break up because the other person found out, then get back together (wedding crashers- pretty much the same. They're in it for the girls, but then they meet ones they actually like) (notice how all the movies you've ever watched are now the same)). Has the same message: follow your heart, don't become a rich stock broker like your rich daddy wants you too (or a doctor, etc.- be a (insert every sporting event from disney channel movies (jump roping I remember seeing adds for). Yeah. I think i'll write about that later. Anways. For answers, consider asking hollywood, but I'm not going to promise that they're right.

Right. Anyways, the one I'm actually going to write about is the more scientific context, framed by the questions "What motivates people to do what they do" and "How can I predict a persons actions". Now. Overarching goal of all actions: happiness. Sure it doesn't always work, but thats what the person was aiming for. Maybe it was short term happiness, and thats why they're not happy now. Maybe it's long term happiness, and thats why they'll be happy in twenty years. Anyways, until you're out of high school, you'll be protected from this. People go to high school to go to college to (possibly insert grad school) get a good job to get rich. At least, thats the stereotypical career path, and frankly thats at least what people are trying to do (right now, I'm at that state), on some level. At least the stupid ones that is. Because inevitably, people are pretty successful (contrary to popular opinion, if you work hard, this isn't so hard in America). And they turn forty, or fifty, and realize they're working sixty to a hundred hours a week, or working from 7pm till 3am, or always on call, and it's destroying their family. And then they realize that, as 'great' as their life is, they work 100 hours a week, are always on call, and never see their children. Then they have a 'midlife crisis'. Because they realize something about why they wake up in the morning.
First: you wake up to go to school, because your parents make you
Second: you wake up to go to school because you want to be succesful
Third: you wake up to go to work because you want to be succesful...
and you are. And you still have to wake up really early.
So, when you make a decision, a job, consider "Will I be able to get up in the morning, will I want to get up in the morning, will it be worth it? Will it, in the long run, make me happy?" Most importantly, "Will I have/survive a midlife crisis?"

Moving on, I still haven't answered the question of what motivates people. I think people can be grouped into two or three groups

1. Power
   Just so we're clear. Power is money, as well as true power. This group consists of people who are made happy by power. That means being able to manipulate other people, put them down, or rule them. For example, the infamous cliques. The leader is someone who wants to manipulate people, and put them down. Those who follow grab on to their coattails; by allowing the leader to manipulate them, they can in turn manipulate others. And hence government; at every level control. We can pretend that Clinton and Guliani truly care about our country, and they do. But they also want power. They want to be in charge. It can also be abusive spouses or parents, who want someone they control; either their spouse, or perhaps their children.
2. 'Leaving Your Mark'
   These are the people who want to do one of two things; be remembered, or change the world. By changing the world, they can, if not be remembered, know that there will be evidence they were there. These are the people who donate to charity/devote their lives to charity. I truly hope there are a few of these in our government.
3. Children
   These are in a way a subdomain of the 'Markists' (haha, get it? I'm not sure I agree with what I insinuated, but, meh). I wrote 'two or three' because in a way these people have children so the children can be their marks on the world. They then work to improve the lives of their children. However, in some ways, they are the 'Power' group because children can be viewed as an extension of their parents, and they work to give power to their children/selves
4. The Inbetweens
   Some people work for charity because they are philanthropists at heart. But they might do it for public image (example: Bill Gates being time man of the year was probably good for his reputation, and even his company). They might do it because they do then head a powerful organization (In no way am I insinuating that charities/the government have anything but the people's best interests at hear *cough*)

I'll conclude that everything I just said is completely unwarranted, and possibly disagreeable to you. Therefore, I based all of my reasoning to arrive at the above off the following analysis:

1. People work to better the lives of their children
2. People have mid life crises and want to do their hobbies, and get closer to their families
3. People try to get rich and powerful

And I think just about everything can be boiled down to the above. Even purely charitable actions (being nice, 1. makes people nicer to you, hence power, in a way, and second, the midlife crisis problem, whereby people want to be able to live with themselves)

Extrapolate differently from that, or else argue with the analysis, but tell me what you think in the comments.

Note: I don't capitalize things that should be unless I respect them.
Also: I'll probably write about religion next, and the two are really intertwined

With just a couple nights left in the frozen waste land (jk) that is Minneapolis
Good Night, I hope something I wrote helps you,
-Ravi Charan

Home/School Dichotomy

First, for all but the one person who was up tonight and read these as I posted them, I suggest you read all the previous posts, because it's not like you've been ignoring this blog for months and don't want to go back and read months of stuff, it's more like they're one nights worth of stuff, and you should read it.

So, funny thing about going to school halfway across the country is that I can be a completely different person there than I am here. And I think I'm probably a good bit different; we all have different personalities for our friends, family, guests, the general public. Maybe you don't. If so, good for you little miss/mister 'I'm perfect.' Honest, that would be awesome. Anyways, the audience addressed in this blog is somewhat dual. Primarily I'm writing to my friends from my local high school. So there are some things that I wouldn't write if people from my current high school were to read this. Some stuff I'd tone down, some stuff I would add it. Nonetheless, I can't rule out the possibility that someone from my school will read this, or my parents, or perhaps some other random person. (Even now, colleges look at Facebook. I wonder if they'll search for blogs too.) Hence, I try to write with a somewhat professional attitude, and with the knowledge this is on the world wide web. There are a lot of things that I might otherwise write.

So, this is the last post of the night, which has basically defined what this blog will be. I will append two things to this blog; first that I'll probably write about school somewhat, and second that I reserve the right to post random two sentence things about what I find interesting.

Good night everybody, hope you have had and will have a good thanksgiving break. I'm kind of optimistic at this point in the night, so I'll say that life probably isn't as bad as it seems. Everyone talks about how bad high school is; maybe it is/will be, maybe it isn't/won't be. But statistically, most people don't commit suicide, and so we must conclude that life is worth living. Remind me to write about that later. I will restrain myself for now.

Good Night again, and Good Luck,
Ravi Charan '10, in Minneapolis, MN

Rambling, and Thought

Right, well, I've got a couple more in me this fine evening.

First, about rambling:

If I wrote these as I might (although sometimes I write papers a good deal like I write this), It would be no better than a paper, or an article. I'm writing what I think, so the only planning that really goes into these is what I'm going to write about. After that, I pretty much write as I think. So yes, some of my posts might look like they were written with sentences in chronological order. I'll try to keep a little bit of that, but not make it too obvious.

Second: philosophy of thinking

Thinking is interesting: I've found, and I think many people will agree with me, that thinking too much is bad for you. Things work much better when people stop thinking. Sure you do stupid stuff, but you have fun and you are no longer nearly as nervous and self conscious. If you have to think all the time, then its because you're unable to let the real you lead. Hence why people love drugs (and alcohol), because you can stop worrying about stuff. The consequences are not good. But in the meantime you can relax. Hence, I suggest learning to relax. If you can just zone out, and think about meaningless stuff, you'll be fine. In a way, I guess, there are two kinds of thinking; introverted, and extroverted. Too much introverted and you'll start worrying about yourself. Too little and you'll fail to improve yourself. So, to make sure you stop thinking (or worrying) about life, everybody needs their 'drugs.' some people don't do it naturally and use straight up drugs. Others read. Some people think about completely random stuff (Philosophy is my favorite). As long as you don't think about life too much, it'll be fine.
P.S. To all those English teachers who might be reading this: No. There was neither a clear thesis nor any sort of poorly constructed thesis. Take from it what you will.

Purely Meta Blogging

So, I just said I was going to start every blog with a meta blog. This is the exclusion. This post will be all about this blog itself, or about blogging.

I'm going to start with some... we'll lump it under grammar. First of all I can never figure out where to punctuate parentheses (should I put a comma before this? I can't figure out where to put the period at the end of this.) (Maybe it come after the parenthesis). I hope that doesn't bug you because I'm going to be very inconsistent about it. This brings me to another thing, first grammar. I WILL spell everything right, if I don't, it will be intentional (an occasional 'cause' etc.) Second, Capitalization, you might have noticed I highlight some stuff. If this seems to conform to the 'I'm some teenager complaining about my annoying problems nobody cares about, and i use 'lol', 'omg', and terrbl grmmr adn spllng' stereotype, or just annoys you, email you. I kind of want an excuse to stop. Also, the following is probably where I heard someone complain about that stereotype: The Best Page In The Universe (Maddox). It is also really funny, and you should read it. Just don't be offended. On that note, if my blog begins to conform to anything involving lots of complaining, or arrogance, please, please tell me. I'm aiming for some intelligence/thought in this. Something thats actually worth reading. Kind of like this post isn't. I'm also debating how random this blog should be...

Right. Last thing. Feel free to email me. Be it responses to the blog (although the comments are there for that) or just things you want me to write about (honestly, I don't think anyone cares enough to do that, so I won't actually expect emails.) Yeah... I've kinda been rambling for a while. So, I'll cut the metablogging.

The Bourne Trilogy

So, I guess I'm going to start all my posts with some meta blogging about the blog itself. (Please learn the correct use of the 'meta' prefix, because used properly its exceptionally descriptive and... just cool) So yeah, that's the meta meta blogging du jour. The meta blogging is that I've been writing down a list of topics as I wrote the previous two posts, and I'm probably not going to sleep for about 2 hours. This post: the Bourne Trilogy.

So for all you suckers who bought the movie, you haven't a clue in hell what happened. So, many many years ago I saw the first Bourne movie (at a family friends... whom I haven't seen in FOREVER.) And I LOVED it. Didn't we all? And I'm sure you loved the next two when they came out. Unfortunately, I HATED them. Why? I read the book. So in the interest of 'flow charts' or whatever:
Similarities Differences
the name 'Bourne' Everything else
the name 'Treadstone'
the chick who Bourne
picks up off the street

yup. That means NOTHING. Bourne is not a '70 million dollar machine gone wrong.' Its kinda unclear, but he isn't even Jason Bourne: He was some criminal who was hired to go behind enemy lines during 'nam (think of the 'Delta Force'). I'm a little blurry on the details, so I'll check wikipedia. Okay HIS REAL NAME IS (something) WEBB. NOT BOURNE. He was a criminal who was recruited after his wife and children died, and he killed a double agent who was in the same 'Medusa' Project, and took his name, Jason Bourne. He was also known as Delta. Essentially a pardoned assassin, Bourne (WARNING: PLOT SPOILERS GALORE) it turns out was working FOR the CIA, FOR tread stone with one objective: take down 'Charley,' another assassin. That was his sole objective. Guess what. You have no clue who Charley was, cause HE WASN'T IN THE FIRST MOVIE!!! (I think he might have been in the second, but when I watched it, i hated it so I didn't pay attention.) Anyways, to talk further would be pointless because you no longer have a frame of reference unless you've read the book in which case, I wouldn't be telling you anything.

So I'll talk about how bad movies are. Take the Harry Potter movies, the Bourne trilogy, I could rant all day, and the book = (movie*e12!). Movies with books that are (probably) good that I haven't read:

I, Robot (Assimov)
The Matrix trilogy

There are more, but I can't think of them now.
Please leave in the comments:
Lists of movies with books that are better, that I should read
Lists of movies with books that are worse (please, I like counter examples, always feel free to provide them)
Anything else

And it continues: Crichton

So I'm in what my dad will tell me is a bad habit of staying up till 4am (usually reading) and then sleeping in. Except, I don't live here (I'm on vacation from school) so I don't have any books from the library or anything to read. So I'm writing.

I just remembered that I have read ONE book since school started. And it was over break. Actually I read two more, but I spent about 4 hours a week discussing them , for two to three weeks (1 chapter per day, 50 minutes per day.) It was Crichton, 'Prey,' so I'll have to include Jurrasic park (probably read spring or summer '07). So the reason I'm really into Crichton is because I was at Great Clips(tm) after (or maybe before) reading it, and some woman pulled this great link about how Crichton says global warming doesn't exist (or is natural.) For those of you who have READ the book (not seen the movie, which, while based on the book, includes only about the name of a few characters(LIKE THE BOURNE IDENTITY (remind me to write about that later)), Crichton talks about 'balance.' He says that by trying to control all the counter acting forces, the humans had to diminish them, and that made it more fragile. He says that if you want things to be stable, you need two STRONG forces. Take this analogy: put two or three little twigs against each other, and they fall over. A little breeze knocks them over. Fall three trees and lie them against each other, and very little will knock them down. I might have phrased his argument poorly, so I'll elaborate more. He says that these forces cause cycles. Since the humans were trying to control these cycles they caused disaster, whereas if they had designed the system to match the cycles they would have survived. Think of it like a tree swaying in a hurricane strength wind: if you try to stop the tree, you have to pull really hard, and you run the risk of the tree snapping. Anyways, take out of it what you will. Prey is about nanobots gone awry, a similar situation. Except now they've become artificially intelligent. Anyways, its a creepy book and I should probably get out of the habit of reading till 4am, cause then its dark. and quiet. yeah. There was an important message, but I kinda forget what it was. It was basically another 'don't mess with nature or it will kill you' book. Like Jurassic park (here the movie and book) people died. LOTS of people died. He has this really good (bad) habit of basically making you think you're there (like all your English teachers want you to do, except I just realized that as I was writing this and I could picture the scenery. He's REALLY good at it cause I guess I didn't realize he was doing it till now.) Anyways, READ it. Its GOOD. And he is a moderately prolific writer, so I'll have to read some more, and then write about it! Anyways, hope you can take something out of this.

Here goes again

So. I've been prodded into writing again. I'll *try* to. My foremost interest is probably politics. I suggest you read the comics I posted under links TownHall Funnies. Um, yeah... I pretty much switch candidate loyalties after each article... I'm liking McCain now- Veteran, Honest, Will stay in the war. Except you've got the immigration policy. And he IS feasible- hes gaining ground on Guiliani. I'd like Guliani though, look what hes done in NY, (one of the most democratic places around). Problem: probably loses the Catholic (Hispanic)/Evangelical vote. Advantages: great fiscal policy, and he's actually implemented it. You say 'sanctuary city,' I say he used the cops to get murders, not hardworking immigrants. Cross appeal on being from NY (candidates don't lose their home states = +20 electoral votes). And the immigration issue. To any person who says Guliani has had too many wives: 1. The media can't exactly capitalize on that, I mean, what are they gonna do? Present Billary as a better family values candidate? Anyways, it goes to show that the republican candidates are just really really bad. REALLY REALLY bad. Cause after writing this I'm supporting Guliani again. Yeah... well it'll be 4 (please god I hope) years of Clinton, followed by several terrorist attacks and then McCain or like Cheney probably (lol, I hope not)(yes. 'lol'. I really did) Anyways, enough of mourning Hillarycare...