Shining Thru

“Be the change you wish to see in the world”  -Gandhi

Can one person really make that big of a difference?  This is a great sentiment that I ran across while looking at a wall of quotes, but if everyone’s ideals are different then I have to assume that if everyone were to live according to this particular quote, that there would also be someone who is equally determined to act opposite from your personal ideals for the world….what happens at that point?  Does it become a battle of the wills to force your change onto the world?  Or can people co-exist with different idealistic goals?  Is living according to your own ideals suppose to make a difference in the world?

What if your ideals go against the conventions of society?  What if someone’s ideals go against the laws of their country?  Are they still suppose to openly defy the laws and live according to their ideals anyway?  Do they secretly wish for their ideals to be accepted?

Where is the line of living in accordance to your own ideals and still accepting everyone else’s ideals while still living according to the constraints of society?  How far do you push the line of the taboo?

It’s nice to see quotes from people like Gandhi, but you have to wonder if there really is any truth to their inspirational purpose, or if they are just pretty words to see on a wall….

I was reading a list of memorable quotes listed by USA Today and one of the quotes caught my attention…

“Obviously a major malfunction.”

Steve Nesbitt, NASA public affairs officer, Jan. 28, 1986, shortly after the space shuttle Challenger exploded.

I feel like this quote can be applied to how we feel when looking at something that happens in life.  Sometimes you can only look at a situation and say “oh shit”…..I mean, really, what else is there to say?  It’s done, over with, a major malfunction in the plans that you had set forth and were going well until that point.  But now it’s in the past, you might not even be sure what went wrong, it probably doesn’t matter what went wrong, it simply did, and now you have a mess.  Just like the pieces of the space shuttle, floating out into open space.

Sometimes a moment catches you so off guard that it’s like it happens in slow motion, or in a daze, or just replays over and over in your head…and there is still nothing to say other than….it’s obviously a major malfunction.  Nothing more…nothing less….what else is there to say at that point?

Does it ever feel like things happen without rhyme or reason, that there is no pattern to anything that happens in life?  Even though at other times it feels like everything is linked together and you could never have the same day without every single tiny detail working perfectly….

Why is it that sometimes things come out of no where and hit us like a brick wall?  Why is it that while many events throughout the day are predictable, there is always something that happens that you never would have seen coming, no matter what angle you looked at it before it happened.

Some things are so random in this life that the quote “crazy random happenstance” really stuck out to me from the movie “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog”  I thought that it was cleverly used in the movie as a very ironic situation because the character is speaking of a very planned event.  I have a friend who says that the most important part of spontaneity is careful planning.  That phrase has always interested me.

I think there are moments in all of our lives when we wish we had a freeze ray like Dr. Horrible.  If we could just stop time for a little while and get all of those nagging chores done and still have time to relax, or simply to stop things in order to get our time together.  I can completely understand why someone would want to invent something like that.  Sometimes time goes by so fast that you don’t know where it went.  Other times change is so scary that you want to just freeze things so that you can keep them the same…just a little longer, put off the inevitable change a little bit longer.  Or maybe you’re experiencing such a great moment that you want it to last for awhile.  Who wouldn’t want to be able to stop time?

If you were able to stop time for a little while, what would you do with it?  Take some time to relax?  Get a massage?  Get things done?  Go on a vacation?  Would stopping time actually solve anything?  Would all of the problems and the fear of change still be there when you eventually unfroze everything?  Would you need or want to unfreeze things?  It’s an interesting thought….Like time travel, I wonder if it would be as great as it is in theory.  Theories are great because they never go wrong…everything works in theory.  I still think I would like the option of stopping time….Making sure there is time for all aspects of life.  Not caught up with work and ignoring the social life at all….What moment would you freeze, or who would you freeze if you had the time?

For those of you who have seen Dr. Horrible in action, you know that the freeze ray freezes a person, so who would you choose to freeze in time?  That one person who wont stop talking or who is always knocking on your door or calling your phone?  Is that the person you would like to just sort of take a time out for and stop time for them?  Would you pick the person who annoys you the most?  Or maybe the person you want to look at the most, but just don’t have time for at the moment?…..So many possibilities.

“Look at these people amazing how sheeple show up for the slaughter.”  What a great line from a musical I was recently introduced to, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog.  I think that this line is a great representation of what happens often in our society.  People following the media or their favorite politician…sometimes more likely is that they are following their parents’ favorite politician.  People that have a set time every day set aside to watch the screen of “big brother” and they simply believe everything that is said on their favorite show on Fox News or CNN.

I have to wonder how some people can have so much information stored inside of them and yet seem to almost refuse to use their common sense to actually puzzle out their own original thoughts.  There are a few people who strive for the truth, think through everything…but the majority of people that I see around me most days makes me really wonder if  people even remember how to think for themselves any more?  I know that the younger generation expects answers to simply be handed to them…I have to wonder if they get that because their elders have simply resigned themselves to simply following whatever message is spread the loudest in the gossip lines of neighbors or on the most news channels.

Some people are intimidating with all of their knowledge and their great use of common sense, debate skills, etc….why are these people so hard to find sometimes…???  I’m glad that I have been able to surround myself in my personal life with intelligent people…but when I go to work I see what is outside of my own little circle…..Sometimes you wonder if some people are ever involved in an intelligent conversation about anything…..And if they do get involved if can they give any reasons for the opinions that they so strongly defend because that is what they heard on the latest news report….I love having good conversations and debates with people, but sometimes I am amazed at how people enter into such conversations without any actual facts to back up their opinions…or even solid logic to back themselves up.

Sheeple is a great term for how the majority of our society seems to be acting these days.  People question their best friends but believe what some “specialist” on the evening news says without hesitation….what kind of sense does that make?  I’m afraid for where our society is going if we (as a whole) continue to blindly follow and line up for the slaughter… sooner or later, we wont be able to avoid what we are asking for.  Put the axe in the hand of the executioner…don’t act surprised when your head is rolling on the ground.

Tomorrow my girl, my kids and I will board a plane for SC. I have no fear of anything save being the ‘random bag check’ or being fondled by some guard. I wear my military jacket because it’s the only jacket I own. It seems to make everyone around me feel better, like I’ll turn into Wesley Snipes if some freak does something stupid.

FYI: military anti terrorism training tells us specifically to avoid letting anyone know that we’re military. We’re supposed to hide our ID cards and travel like normal citizens. As a soldier, I don’t have any authority to arrest or detain anyone. I’m also not trained for it. If you need someone to flashbang and clear a building, I can do that. You need a firewall installed or your Cron jobs scheduled, I got you. If you need someone to make a snap judgment and save the airplane – I’m not better at it then your average joe… save that I’m probably more like to use deadly force if I think my kids are in danger. I enjoy all the free drinks I get on the flight. I like that people congratulate me for being in the army. other than that, you better hope there’s a US Marshall on the plane.

What if I did jump on someone? What if I guessed, incorrectly, that Ahmed was carrying an applejuice or breastmilk bomb? I’m going to jail. I have no authority to act or detain. There are no rules of engagement to protect me because I’m only supposed to engage under lawful orders. I’ve been trained on what I can do in the event of a terrorist episode… NOTHING. Asking a US soldier to detect a terrorist plot and save your plane is like asking a Chiropractor to perform open heart surgery. I’m not even staying at a Holiday Inn Express, so everyone is screwed.

Though if, as I mentioned earlier, I KNOW that John-Doe is about to do something, I’ll definitely jump on him. Of course, then Airport Security will prolly Rodney King my black ass.

More information for those that give a damn:
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab got through the second best airport security in the world. What makes a person think he could not have gotten past the best? Why is it Obama’s fault? it wasn’t even our friggin air port.

In case you didn’t know: at Schiphol, for flights leaving the EU, there’s a separate screening setup — X-ray machine and metal detector — at *each gate*. The “security zone” is a glass-walled room from which you board your flight directly — and no other flight. So the security at your airport of origin _could_ be piss-poor, but you’ll still be screened to Dutch standards before you’re allowed to board an onward connection. (And the Dutch, when they do security, seem to have a chip on their shoulder about being insufficiently German.)

Here’s the real problem: Abdulmutallab managed to smuggle his IED through the most secure airport in Europe — far tighter than anything you get in the USA, probably second only to Tel Aviv.

Don’t blame Obama while the honorable senator from SC is blocking our President’s TSA nominee. DeMint equates unions with Satan. As long as he’s beefing with Obama over unions, we’ll be less safe. Don’t blame the security personnel that they didn’t grab this guy’s nuttz. I’m sure anyone who reads this could combine Google with their local Lowes and construct an IED that’d make it thru air port security. I made it thru with a lighter, 2 dollars in change and a diaper bag… Jee-zus, I could’ve burned someone and pelted the pilots with nickels.

Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.
Jessamyn West

This is an excellent quote that reminds me of another quote from the movie V for Vendetta:  “Author’s use lies to tell the truth, Politicians use lies to hide the truth.”  I think that both of these quotes send a great message about how the truth can be revealed in the fiction that is created through people’s creativity….generally, it’s a pretty safe way to expose the truth, because the author can always claim that it was a fictional story that was completely made up, while others can see through the title of fiction and recognize the truth….

I have found in my own readings that I see a lot of things in the world today that have been exposed to me through fictional stories that I probably would not have thought about, or at least not analyzed as in depth if it hadn’t been for the stories that sparked the thoughts and connections to our worlds today.

I believe that artists and authors make such powerful statements through their work that are simply not appreciated as often or as much as they should be.  I think that a lot of a culture and society can be exposed by looking at what kind of creativity comes out of the people of that society.

Have you ever met someone who likes to take classic, cliche sayings and twist them around just a little?  I heard one today that just made me laugh and I loved it instantly; “Imitation is the sincerest form of insanity.”  I heard that on the Dish tonight and I thought it was great, because sometimes it’s true.  Imitation might be flattering in some instances, but sometimes it’s simply because some people are crazy, or stupid and can’t come up with an original thought in their head. 

Hearing expressions like this one be twisted around always makes me think of the power of words.  Changing one word can change the whole saying drastically.  Words are such powerful things that my favorite author, David Turrill, wrote, “we name things to make them real.”  I think that he had a point, without a name, how do we talk about that thing?  If we can’t talk about it, we can’t express thought about a thing and therefore the thoughts are not put out into anyone else’s mind and are then easily lost. 

Words help us to make thoughts into reality.  I really think that sometimes the only barrier between a thought and reality is the words to clearly define and express something.  In a lot of ways, words hold more power than people may realize.  Words can comfort or hurt people.  Words can define and make something important, or blow off and make something disappear into the world of the unimportant.

“Plastic, they’ve learned…”  A quote from X-Men:  The last stand. 

I thought the quote was pretty clever when I watched the movie for the first time today.  It got me thinking if we ever really learn that quickly, or if it takes time and time again of failure before someone figures out that the same thing is going to happen every time. 

Things seem so much clearer in the movies…in reality you watch people make the same painstakingly stupid mistakes, but there’s nothing you can do to convince them that they are being stupid.  So many people want to stick with what they have planned, even when the plan is obviously not working.  They could be going down in flames and still say, don’t do anything, stick to the flight plan….Have we really failed in our society to the point that people can not make on the spot decisions to make things better?  To change direction because things aren’t going as planned?  Why is it so hard for people to see something that is not working and logically say, we need a new plan…instead they generally say let’s try it one more time the same way…..

What is so wrong with change?  Why can’t we learn from our mistakes?  I’m not sure when mistakes became so bad that we can’t own up to them, but I think it would be much more useful for us to embrace our mistakes as learning experiences. 

But people will keep making the same mistakes until we create a society that can think on their feet, is more innovative, and doesn’t keep falling in the same traps, letting history repeat itself, time and time again.

“There it is.  We get used to everything.  We find hope in anything.”  -  Ender’s Shaddow by Orson Scott Card.

I thought this was a very interesting quote as I was reading along.  I was wondering if it was actually true.  I can remember when a teacher once told me of a motif found in Crime and Punishment which was a square foot of space, someone being trapped in a small space, praying for death, but then when faced with it, they choose to stay where they are.  I wonder if that is how it works for most people?  I wonder if most people will adapt and “get use to” ANYTHING rather than choosing death, or not being alive at that time.  …. it can’t work for everyone, or there wouldn’t be suicide….those people have obviously not been able to adapt, and just get use to their situation…or do they just snap and not give themselves time to get use to it? 

As for hope, it’s a concept that I’ve wondered about quite often…what makes us hope in something…a situation, a person, a religion, a higher being; whatever the thing may be that we find great hope in….what is the reason behind it?  Do we need to feel that there is hope?  Or is there really reason to hope?  What good does having hope do for a person?…..

Are there certain emotions and feelings that we search for in life and don’t feel complete until we find them?  Are some people designed to only search for some of those things while others crave to experience all of them?  Does everyone have need of “hope”?  What if they are in their perfect situation?  What about a person who has gotten so use to not having something that they no longer feel hope for anything, have no ambition, have not need for the emotional comfort of hope, since it has only let them down in the past?  What about the people who secretly hope, but don’t want to admit it to anyone, sometimes even themselves?  They want to hope, they still have this “need” for it, but have been let down so many times that they don’t want to give it another chance to knock them down again. 

Are these things instilled in most of us and we just adjust to what we do with the needs and desires we are designed with?  Or are they things that society has drilled into us as needing?  Maybe it’s neither of these options….