Until I became a fan of The Beatles in around 2009, I always thought the word beetle (as in, insect) was spelled beatle. Even now, the 'correct' spelling looks strange to me and I guess that says a lot about the language; it is, after all, just nonsense. There is no reason one spelling of a word is right, and another wrong, other than the fact that a dictionary says so. In the past, a spelling which is incorrect today, may well have been one of the more common ones, not that the modern one would have been wrong, they just didn't care. I guess that system had its upsides and its downsides: on the one hand, reading would probably hard if somebody was spelling the word 'what' as 'whaghte' but, on the other, there'd be much less need for proof reading. Also, by the way, wouldn't it be cool to become so famous that your own version of a common word replaced the normal one in the minds of some people?
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Just the other day, I was watching an episode of my favourite webseries, Jake and Amir. Currently, they are in the middle of a multi-part story called 'Double Date' and, in this story, there is a recurring joke which is really ridiculous. There is a character named Emily and several times they cut so that you can only see her legs and every time they use the unshaven legs of a man. This isn't funny at all, in fact, it is just offensive and sexist, boiling down to them basically just saying "Gee guys, wouldn't it be funny if a woman didn't shave her legs? Just like a man!" It bothers me because something like this shouldn't be a joke, it should be a perfectly normal and acceptable thing which some females happily do. It makes me sad that Jake and Amir, a series which I really like, should feature such ridiculousness. Plus, in reverse, a male who shaved his legs (or any other part of his body for that matter) would most likely have people rudely calling him 'gay'. But I guess it's just a product of our society.
It seems to me that there are far too many objectionable things, such as this, that so many people in our society adhere to. I mean take, for example, a transsexual man; I can't imagine a man, particularly one of a rather masculine build, being able to walk freely down the streets wearing a dress without receiving all kinds of strange comments and looks. In fact, even somebody whose outfit deviates too far from accepted fashion would likely recieve similar treatment. Furthermore, how about revealing outfits? A female would certainly be branded with unpleasant stereotypes if she were to wear a revealing set of clothes, and males seemingly never wear revealing outfits (probably feeling that they can't). Now, I'll admit, I personally don't care all that much for revealing outfits, but I certainly wouldn't want to take away people's rights to wear them. It seems to me, that the only reason somebody would seriously object to revealing outfits is if they were unable to realise that the exposed human body is not simply an object of sexual desire, even nakedness can easily have no sexual connection. Anybody who fails to notice this, is much more deserving of those unpleasant labels than those who wear the revealing outfits (not that anybody deserves labels). But it isn't just clothes. What about lots of people's attitudes to sexual behaviour, the old "males can sleep with lots of people, and it makes them cool, but if a female does it, that makes her completely undesirable" why does it matter? Any person should be allowed to sleep with as many people as they like, without receiving any scrutiny. Sure, it WOULD be immoral if somebody took advantage of a drunken person, or lied to somebody to get them to sleep with them, but when it's two truthful consenting adults, who cares? It doesn't affect anybody but them. Not that I'm saying that everybody should be going out and having lots of sex, indeed, people should feel fine waiting until marriage or any other significant point with their partner, it is YOUR choice, and anybody who tries to tell people what to do when it comes to this should be ignored, it does not concern them. I'd like to follow that point by talking about virginity. I think, quite frakly, that the idea of viginity is something which should be done away with entirely, it only really leads to unhappiness. Either, people who have passed the age of consent and remained virgins will think "Oh, deary me, why am I still a virgin? I must be pathetic because nobody wants to sleep with me" or does who have lost it will thing "Oh no, I lost my virginity during a one night stand at a crazy house party, now I've lost my innocence! I must be a bad person" both of which will just bring them sadness (obviously). I want to say that loss of virginity does NOT mean loss of innocence! I mean, murdering somebody, raping somebody or doing very mean things to somebody could easily be called a loss of innocence, but simply sleeping with somebody? I don't understand who it equates loss of innocence: all it is, is, two people agreeing to take part in a physical activity, it does not reflect on innocence or morality at all. Is a murderer virgin an innocent person? Deary me, I've turned this entry into a rather angry sounding rant, and I do apologise, but why should women have to shave their whole body? Why shouldn't a man wear a dress? Why shouldn't somebody wear a revealing outfit? Why shouldn't people have lots of (safe) sex? Or none at all? I know of no credible arguments against any of these things. I had more points, but it was pretty long, so I left it at this. If this entry is popular, I might write them in future. _ One suggestion that's been sitting in my suggestion box for quite some time is that I write an entry on America. Now, this was such a broad suggestion, so I never really knew what to write, but I've decided now to simply make an entry about all American things that I like.
Firstly, my internet friends! I have three internet friends who live in America: Riley Barlow, Devna Desai and Iris Martinez. I always enjoy chatting to the three of them because, well, they're nice people! Furthermore, since they are all roughly the same age as me, I'm able to get nice insights into how things would be different if I lived in America as opposed to England. Admittedly, I don't speak with them all that often, but I still value them highly! Secondly, there are several TV shows which I really like which all originate in America. There's The Waltons which is, potentially, my favourite TV show and is about a family living through the 1930s and 1940s, and during the first five years focuses on the family's attractive, intelligent, kind, endearing, agreeable eldest son John-Boy and his attempts as an amateur writer. There's also Friends, a sit-com which, I'm pretty sure everybody will be rather familiar with! I also rather enjoy Futurama (about a regular guy named Phillip Fry finding himself in the future), it is by far my favourite animated comedy series due to the fact that, rather than being silly all the time, it occasionally takes the time to be serious. Recently I've also started watching The Big Bang Theory and it too is quickly becoming one of my favourite shows, mostly due to Sheldon Cooper! There's also House (how couldn't I like something based on Sherlock Holmes?) and I've already mentioned my thoughts on Star Trek. Finally, I'd also like to mention a couple of American authors I like. First, Earl Hamner (I've reviewed some of his books before) whose novels are what led to the creation of The Waltons (which he also played a significant role in, behind the scenes)! I'm also a pretty big fan of H. P. Lovecraft and the ideas behind his stories: basically his stories are set in a very unhappy universe were humans are utterly insignificant and could be casually wiped out by the squabbles between ancient alien beings at any time. But yes, those are my favourite American things! Oh, plus, it's quite nice that Coca Cola with Vanilla is still available in the USA. I decided against mentioning films or music because most films are American made so there'd be too many, and music-wise I don't usually tend to like specific artists a lot, it tends more to be a few songs from a variety of people. But anyway, that's my American entry done! I don't know whether this is just me, or whether it's something that applies to everybody, but I must say that I am awfully attached to each piece of clothing that I own. Now, this isn't because I have some materialistic love of all of my clothes, rather, it is because they are attached to the memories of all the times I was wearing them.
Let me specify with an example: I have a regular black t-shirt. I can remember several English lessons from my last year in sixth form where I was wearing it (I really loved those English lessons), I wore it at my sixth form leaver's party, I wore it when I first visited my internet friend Mairi Mac Arthur, I wore it when I took part in my friend David Tubb's At the Castle Gate video (and subsequently, while observing a strange man on the bus) and I can also remember just odd days while spending time with various friends when I was wearing it. As such, whenever I wear this shirt, I'll be reminded of all of the fun things I did while wearing it in the past, and since it's attached to all of these memories it's infinitely more valuable than any old black shirt. And, of course, every single piece of clothing I own is attached to various memories of mine. I'm not sure if everybody thinks like this or not, it's not something which is commonly discussed. But I see my clothes as a clear connection to things which happened in the past. I may be in different states of mind and change in appearance as I get older, but these clothes always look the same and they all make me feel nicely nostalgic when I think about their previous outings. Plus, whenever I buy a new shirt, I can’t help but wonder what days it will see… I've made this entry to clear up a few misconceptions about myself; as you may have gathered from other posts on here, there are a lot of things I choose not to take part in/do. Let me just list a few:
- Alcohol (and other recreational legal drugs) - Eating meat - Illegal recreational drugs - Religion - Sexually explicit activities - Swearing Now the reason I don't do these things is because I don't want to. If you're a carnivorous Christian who likes to smoke weed, while drinking alcohol at a swinger's party, it doesn't bother me. Just because I don't DO the things on this list, it does not mean I don't APPROVE. Let me go through each point individually. Firstly, alcohol. There are several things I don't like about alcohol: the taste, its effect on people and, well, no, that's about it. In the past I've been around drunken people a lot and it looks like one of the most embarrassing things in the world, to have yourself suddenly become so strange and erratic. I would much rather a drink a Trusty Water Bottle full of delicious water and remain perfectly level headed. As such, I choose not to drink any alcohol. Now, you might say "well you've never tried it, you don't know!" but I have tried it twice actually, and it wasn't very fun :(. Now, that's my reasoning behind not drinking alcohol, clearly it is all subjective, so why would I object to other people drinking it? I wouldn't. It would be wrong of me to disapprove of people drinking alcohol, because it is their free choice to do so and I would think it immoral to try and stop them. The same, as you can guess, is true of my view of illegal drugs. It would be wrong to stop people and prevent their free will. It may be against the law, but drug usage is perfectly fine in my eyes, so long as nobody other than the user is harmed. Secondly, eating meat. Since I was a child, I have been a vegetarian; it was the choice of my mother. Since then, I have decided to stay a vegetarian for two reasons: the taste of meat makes me physically ill, and I do believe it is moral not to eat meat. But that's my decision based on studying the facts about it, other people may study the same thing and come to a different conclusion. When I see a friend of mine eat meat, I don't see them as morally inferior; I just see that they have decided differently to me. It would be wrong for me to eat meat, because I believe it is morally wrong to, but it would be fine for somebody else since, by their own moral code, it is fine. Thirdly, religion. My view on the universe is this: there could indeed be some fantastical thing (perhaps God-like) behind all of the universe, but I don't believe that any of the world's religions (that I know of) are the correct answer and that science is the most likely route to the answer. After looking at all of the evidence, reading up on many different religions and philosophies from around the world and judging based on my own experience, I have decided this view is the one most likely to be correct. Other people have done the exact same thing as me, but to them it looks as if Christianity is the correct answer, or that Islam is the correct answer etc. I have no objections at all to people who follow religions and worship accordingly. Again, it would be against liberty for me to object to these views. However, having said that, I do object quite strongly to people who are taught blatantly false and offensive things through religion (e.g. anti-homosexual beliefs). Fourthly, sexually explicit activities. I have no desire to take part in these, so I do not. Anybody else, I believe, should feel free to take part in these and do anything and everything they like with any consenting partner (so long as nobody is hurt by them). That's pretty self-explanatory really. Finally, swearing. I get asked a lot by people if their swearing bothers me, and the answer is always no. Swear words are just words, and I take no offense at hearing them. I choose not to swear, because I try to make myself as inoffensive as possible and wouldn't like to offend anyone (I similarly do not blaspheme). How silly is it to object to people for just saying a word? I hope this clears up so misconceptions it seems that some people have about me. It also may be good to bear in mind that not doing and not approving are different things when talking to somebody with a different point of view than you. (Not to sound arrogant of course, I’m sure that point’s obvious). One suggestion that's been sitting in my suggestion box (please put things in it!) for a while has been to write an entry about relationships. For quite a while, I just left it, because, well, I didn't really know what exactly I should write about it. But after talking about the subject with a friend of mine the other day, and thinking about it since, I decided that this could be a 'bloggable' subject. By relationships, I think I should mention before I continue, that I mean romantic relationships.
My friend has quite a good point against the idea: most probably people would want to treat their friends equally, so why put somebody above everybody else? And I do believe this is a good point, it would be unfair to suddenly treat one person better than you treat everybody else. But at the same time, I do partially disagree. What if somebody does lots of nice things to you? Then it would be a little unfair of you not to return the favour. Well, that is assuming they're not some person who does things for you even if you tell them not too. Furthermore, while a lot of pleasure can be gained from friendships, the sad truth is that quite often, after a while, you'll probably find yourself in a situation where you can't see them regularly anymore. As such, you would have to develop new friendships and go through this cycle over and over again. In my opinion, it would be nice to have a permanent partner, somebody you always stay together with, thus ensuring some consistency in your life while everything else changes. Of course, this 'partner' would have to have been somebody with whom you had already cultivated a very good friendship with so that you can be sure you can trust them and every other important thing like that. I think it would be nice to have a long-lasting, close relationship with somebody. Of course, there's one thing I have yet to mention, something which is often linked with relationships of this kind, especially when it involved consenting adults: sex. Now, quite frankly, sex isn't something which is all that appealing to me. Should I ever get a partner like I described, I'd be quite happy for sex never to come up at all. However, this seems to be quite unlikely. If I did have a partner, and they wanted to have sex, I suppose I would for their sake. I'd see it as a favour to them. Plus it would be a crucial activity should children ever be considered. So those're my views on relationships. I suppose this may have turned out to be the most personal blog entry on here. Ah well, I'm not particularly bothered by that! And remember, put more things in the suggestion box! As you may or may not know, there is a popular rhyme explaining the problem with baked beans, it goes like this: beans, beans, they’re good for your heart, the more you eat the more you... well. I'm sure you can figure out how it ends (if not, here's a clue: it rhymes with heart and is a word linked to a certain noisy bodily process). But that's not the main problem in my opinion, let me draw a diagram of a dinner for you: That's pretty easy to follow right? Food 1 is the food which is rated most highly and so the one which is eaten last, whereas Food 3 is the one which is the worst (probably something mediocre) and so you'd eat your dinner in reverse numerical order, 3, 2, 1. This means that you get to enjoy the meal because it gets better as it goes along. Now, let me show you a diagram showing a dinner which includes baked beans: In this hypothetical meal, the beans are Food 3 (and so the least appealing of them) but the problem still exists even if they were given the honour of being Food 1. As you can see, Foods 1 & 2 are inside Food 3, this is due to the liquid nature of Food 3. This completely destroys the dinner-eating method described in the previous paragraph; you can't start by eating your least favourite food, because it's all over the other two foods, tainting their flavour throughout the meal. On the other hand, if it was your favourite, you have to be eating it throughout, rather than building up towards it. However, while those pesky beans can be a problem, here's my solution: With a second plate, you can eat normally without any contamination! Surely this is the logical thing to do? But my family seem to think I'm crazy. I can't be the only one who does this!
The title of today's post is a quote by a good friend of mine, and comes specifically from part of their high quality series of fantasy stories.
Now, you may think that the quote is a pretty pessimistic thing to say, when I first registered it, at least, it seemed awfully pessimistic. You think, oh so there's no beauty in the universe? Wilderness isn't a beautiful piece of nature; it's actually a huge ecosystem of things fighting for survival. Likewise, when you look at a human being, it's not a beautiful thing; instead it's just the end result of millions of years of evolution and with nothing significant at all about it. Beauty is a human construct with no meaning whatsoever. But that's not how I interpreted it. Now, if you were a particularly unhappy person, or just somebody with a somewhat gloomy view of existence, you may well view things like that. But, I, for one, take the idea that there is no beauty as a very nice idea indeed. With no beauty, people wouldn't be constantly comparing themselves with things that are more aesthetically pleasing than them. They wouldn't worry that others are judging them against the more beautiful either. Indeed, imagine a world where the concept of beauty had never existed: things may well have just been seen as they are. You wouldn't look at somebody and think "Sheesh, they're hideously ugly" you'd just think that that is the way they are, and it changing would be odd, it's always odd when things change, but a good thing nonetheless. People wouldn't worry about wearing some new clothes or hair style they're unsure about, because it would only be thought of as a good thing as it would make them happy, and not be judged on a popular scale of beauty. Nobody could argue that looking a certain way could be bad, if it made somebody happy. So, that was nice wasn't it? The title may give the impression that I hate this song, but actually I quite like it. Adele has a nice voice, the instruments sound nice and it's just generally not bad. However, if you think about it, the lyrics seem to be quite immoral in a way.
"Never mind," she says, "I'll find someone like you." And then "I wish nothing but the best for you." That sounds nice, but really, it seems she's only thinking about herself and her ex and not the future someone like [them]. That someone is very unlucky really: let’s say he meets Adele they get on really well and eventually get married etc. He thinks it's because she loves him and thinks he's a good person, but actually it's because he reminds her of somebody she met years ago… So either his self-esteem is going to take quite a blow when he finds out, or he'll spend his life living a lie. Of course, maybe he'd be fine about it, and then there'd be no problem, but I don't think it's likely. The desire to find someone just like your ex as your next partner really seems like rather unhealthy behaviour, the kind of thing that leads to you buying them the same clothes your ex wore and asking them to style their hair similarly. Surely, it'd be much better to find somebody very different, because people love different people in different ways, then it won't be able to be weighed up against her ex-partner so easily and there'll be less of that moral ambiguity. And surely someone like them would just leave her as well anyway? One thing I have a big problem with is the idea of Heaven and Hell (of Christian theology in particular, I don't know enough about other religions). How an 'all loving' God could burn somebody forever is quite beyond me. I was told once that, rather than being a God who loves everyone, I should look at this way: that God isn't 'all loving' but rather that he (or she, or it) is concerned with administering perfect justice to the universe. I can understand that, worshipping an all-powerful judge who will ensure perfect justice sounds perfectly reasonable (two side points though: I'm not going to go into arguments for or against God in this entry, and also Plato's Republic shows the 'perfect' society and that was arrived at via ideas of 'perfect justice' and that society would be pretty darn horrifying in real life!).
Anyway, I think the ideas of Heaven and Hell are very far from perfect justice; a mockery of justice really. Imagine a real-life judge: if the person being trailed tells the judge that he really loves him, regardless of the crime, he is let off and, not only is he let off, he's given a reward! That reward being endless pleasure in paradise. However, if the people don't tell him they love him, he sentences them to be tortured forever. Even if they didn't know they could just tell him they loved him, they still get the torture. I imagine lots of them would really despise him for sending people off to be tortured too. How is that perfect justice? Bringing it back to the main point, nobody will ever deserve to be punished forever, because they can't have done any bad which lasts forever. Meanwhile, you could also say that nobody deserves happiness forever, because everybody does some bad, although, this sounds quite mean to me, if I could give everyone utter happiness forever, I would do it right away. Now, I'm going to explain how I imagine an afterlife which was truly based on perfect justice would be (and it is a little similar to some ideas of reincarnation really). When you die, all of a sudden you're a foetus again (or maybe even a sperm) and you're actually about to live your life all over again! You get to re-live your childhood! Meet all your old friends! Be reunited with dead family members! etc.! Except, every bad thing that happens to you, and every good things that happens to you, are directly caused by what happened in your previous life. If you were really mean, then in your next run through of life, lots of things will go badly for you. It would go on and on until a 'perfect' person came about, somebody who never did any wrong (and no, consensual sexual explicitries are not immoral) this person would then live there life again, but this time in a perfect world... Heaven basically. But they wouldn't stay there forever, if they're 'perfect' again, there next life will be there too, but if, this time, they acted quite jerkish, then their next life would be a little worse. Like I said, it’s quite like ideas of reincarnation, but without the horrible nightmare of being separated from all your loved ones and having your memory erased so that you forget them entirely! Feel free to comment if you disagree with me, or you have different ideas! I'm interested in other thoughts. |
About the AuthorAdam Randall is the author of the blog. Is he a good or bad writer? Who knows? Why not read a few entries and make a decision! New to this Site?
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