Welcome to the good life. We have pie and punch.
Intrigued? Well the good life, or rather, the concept of the good life is essentially that simple. As Americans, we are bombarded from all sides by images of what the good life entails, and thus everyone has built a perspective of "the good life". I propose that the good life is a life of awareness - most people are not aware that they are being controlled and impacted by pop culture and living what they think is their idea of a good life, an idea supplanted into each of their minds. Many people have their own take on the good life, some people I interviewed, some people who broadcast their ideas through music and others who sell it to us by other means. Perhaps the good life doesn't exist, and it is only a concept created by corporations to help sell their products. Perhaps it does exist and it is easier to attain than one would think. Based on many perspectives, we can work towards debunking the concept of a "good life".
Perhaps the best way to start unraveling the theory of a good and meaningful life is to start with my own belief system. I hold it true that a good life is something people must strive for, not something that you can be born into, such as may be the case with material wealth. No, I find that a truly good life is a life where you operate in full awareness of the factors guiding your life, factors trying to mold you into their image. Becoming aware in the sense that you can see the puppet strings that try to attach themselves o you is not an easy task, one that I am not versed in too deeply. It is the case for many people to subconsciously adopt the motto "ignorance is bliss" wherein what you don't know cannot hurt you. In this case it can be inferred that if you are ignorant of an assailant creeping up behind you, you will be perfectly fine, but if you are aware of his presence, then you are in some serious danger. What good can it do you to be unaware of the puppeteer that is controlling your every action and controlling every thought you think is your own? The way I see it (or perhaps I have been conditioned to see it this way, it is certainly a possibility) someone should try to be as aware of both themselves and everything impacting them as they can.
I am well aware that my ideas are not my own. I doubt that any of my ideas concerning my life and attitude have anything to do with me. I am a product of my environment. I can tell you, it’s a very uncomfortable position to be in; you don't know exactly what your beliefs are, you second-guess everything because you know that it came from one source or another. That's why I believe I find the most meaning in writing. True, most plot devices and in general, plots, have been created before. But the truth remains that when you put pen to paper or words to a screen, it is an original burst of thought from yourself. Even for those not gifted in writing can create something original and meaningful. The quality of the work doesn't have to be good, but it is meaningful in that it was created from the author's originality. Creating a fictional story, a poem, really any form of creative writing has meaning because it defies corporate media. If it's original, it's unaffected by anything but imagination. Perhaps it is cliché to say this, but imagination ultimately boils down to the best tool to defy social norms.
I talked to several people to determine what they felt made a good and meaningful life. Talking to these people made it evident that some people have not given a whole lot of thought to their life’s meaning, and much less to the concept of meaning in general. Person A said "Meaning, well that's the stuff that has importance to you, like, the stuff you like." similar to this was Person B who said that meaning "isn't something that can be easily tossed away, more like the stuff that's precious to you." From these two, we're left to wonder exactly what importance is - what makes something a necessity to someone? I think people have been greatly encouraged to not think critically about "abstract" things like the meaning of life and what makes a good life. Instead, people focus on the more concrete concepts of "things". People put significance into objects, like their new phone, their clothes, and their cars. It seems that people hold things important, and the better the thing makes you look in person, the better and more important it becomes to you. Things in themselves hold little actual value, however. Sometimes people use these things to stimulate other ideas. A person may find a photo album important, as it documents what they see as important events in their lives or the lives of loved ones.
In America we are greatly exposed and more or less run our lives by Popular culture. Within Pop culture lay three different but not necessarily separate categories: Corporate, Folk Culture, and Big Subcultures. For this unit we have delved deeply into personifying Corporate Culture. Within this subcategory of Pop culture lie more subcategories that classify the messages broadcasted by corporate culture. These categories are Dominant, Marginal/Fringe, and Prohibited/Unacceptable. Dominant messages are those that are the basis of the music videos, movies, and books that we all consume. They typically involve "good" values of misogyny, heroism, and going with the flow. Marginal or fringe messages are those like "You can smoke pot and be a drug addict while you're young and single, as long as you clean yourself up and get settled with a nice wife and 2.5 kids.” They start off "bad" and end up "good". In prohibited messages, however, you will only see the direct opposition to the Dominant culture, and this is why you hardly ever see these kinds of messages being tossed around casually. The instances where these are shown are often found alongside the marginal messages, as the two are related. A prohibited message might encourage you to take to the streets and start the revolution, destroying every piece of corporate anything you find.
One medium that essentially serves up corporate messages to teens on a silver platter is the ever-expanding world of video gaming. With 3 current-gen gaming consoles, the attraction to video gaming ranges between age groups of 8 to 20s and
30s. Most every video game has a plot in which you must defeat a foe of some kind. In most of these you play the story's hero. You are the cream of your village's crop, there's something special about you, and you have a predetermined destiny for greatness. This serves as a drag for many teens, albeit subconsciously. They need the affirmation that they can be better than what they are now, that they can do more. Other than that, gaming is like a new sport between teens, a new form of competition where you can truly outshine your peers and earn your bragging rights without ever actually accomplishing much. It is a form of grandstanding, with every game becoming worse and worse, making you capable of doing more and more to humiliate your friends. Not to mention that the games' level of violence is another huge draw; it gives teens the ability to commit deviant crimes without suffering punishment. It allows teens to battle against armies of "evil" creatures, without doing much to reflect on the evil of killing said creature. For social devolution we can all count video games as a major player, no pun intended.
Another method of providing corporate messages is through literary media. Institutions like publishers and bookstores have a huge say in what we the people read. The process of putting a book through publishing from first draft to final, printed copy is a long and hard ordeal involving many rewrites and drafts. Typically we end up with the watered down and editor approved version of the author’s ideas. When the writer first sets his pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) he or she puts out an unpolished brick of a story, one that needs refining in order to pass through to publishing. The first brick of text contains all the author’s ideas for the work and everything he sees going into it. Some of those ideas get lost in the editing process and thus the author is limiting the ideas and the opinions in the text. Clever authors are the ones who lose very little to the crippling gaze of the publishing fiend. Take for example that most Fantasy stories follow the same string of plot as every other one. However, we do have those that pop up to take a different tact. Every story has a hero. Every story has a villain. Every story with a hero has a conclusion where typically the hero is victorious over the villain. He may even fall in love throughout the course of the story.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Thanksgiving/BlackFriday Thoughts
November 27 was the typical American holiday of over-indulgence and "good feelings" for loved ones. Thanksgiving is known to everyone as the day that Americans gather around to eat together and to give thanks for whatever they are thankful for. Initial thoughts going into this holiday were to clear room for the food I planned to eat. Just because it is an ultimately empty holiday doesn't mean that I don't have to refuse copious amounts of free food. In class the week leading up to the holiday break, Andy made it very clear that the holiday was based around early American genocide, where the white European settlers came in and essentially destroyed the indigenous Native American population. Since those early years, America has emulated the holiday in joyous celebration, gradually forgetting the circumstances surrounding the origins of the holiday.
The day before thanksgiving I spent time with my girlfriend Desiree and I first told her Happy Genocide day as we sat down to make our gingerbread house for the big meal. She responded with literally "Chyeeahh," acknowledging the thought as a joke in initially, but then expanding by saying how sad it was that people chose not to remember the killing of Native Americans. "there really isn't any point to this holiday. People take it more as a way to eat a lot and not care, and then to shop a lot the day after. Consumerism rocks!"(This was fairly clearly sarcastic, and it is hard to represent sarcasm in typeface)On Thanksgiving, I wished my parents a happy Genocide day as well, to which my father, looking up from his book, responded "Yep" and my mother gave me a silencing look. It would seem that the atmosphere didn't allow for questioning of the holiday's motives.
On Black Friday I stayed home. This was not, however, out of some anti-corporate and anti-consumerist motive. It was because there is actually nothing out there on the market that I really want right now. Thus, no driving force directing me to whatever bargains may have plagued the minds of the other reckless consumers. I stayed home and sat on y couch and read a book. Though I am aware that had there been something I wanted, I would've likely gone to go and get it. Saturday I went shopping to grab some necessities (admittedly along with some not-so-necessary items) such as new pants and sweater. The crowds had thinned greatly, and I realized that these sales, whatever they had been, would almost certainly drop to lower on January 2nd, after Christmas and new years, where whatever is left over needs to be gotten rid of. People had flocked to sales simply because the TV told them to.
Additionally worth mentioning was the Monday we returned to school and reunited after the small break and I asked people what they had given thanks for. Not surprisingly, I found that everyone I asked said they hadn't actually given thanks and had just begun to tuck into their meal. Perhaps (and this is most certainly an optomistic view) this indicates a decline in the Holiday's importance, and ultimately thanksgiving as we know it will cease to exist in anything more than name.
The day before thanksgiving I spent time with my girlfriend Desiree and I first told her Happy Genocide day as we sat down to make our gingerbread house for the big meal. She responded with literally "Chyeeahh," acknowledging the thought as a joke in initially, but then expanding by saying how sad it was that people chose not to remember the killing of Native Americans. "there really isn't any point to this holiday. People take it more as a way to eat a lot and not care, and then to shop a lot the day after. Consumerism rocks!"(This was fairly clearly sarcastic, and it is hard to represent sarcasm in typeface)On Thanksgiving, I wished my parents a happy Genocide day as well, to which my father, looking up from his book, responded "Yep" and my mother gave me a silencing look. It would seem that the atmosphere didn't allow for questioning of the holiday's motives.
On Black Friday I stayed home. This was not, however, out of some anti-corporate and anti-consumerist motive. It was because there is actually nothing out there on the market that I really want right now. Thus, no driving force directing me to whatever bargains may have plagued the minds of the other reckless consumers. I stayed home and sat on y couch and read a book. Though I am aware that had there been something I wanted, I would've likely gone to go and get it. Saturday I went shopping to grab some necessities (admittedly along with some not-so-necessary items) such as new pants and sweater. The crowds had thinned greatly, and I realized that these sales, whatever they had been, would almost certainly drop to lower on January 2nd, after Christmas and new years, where whatever is left over needs to be gotten rid of. People had flocked to sales simply because the TV told them to.
Additionally worth mentioning was the Monday we returned to school and reunited after the small break and I asked people what they had given thanks for. Not surprisingly, I found that everyone I asked said they hadn't actually given thanks and had just begun to tuck into their meal. Perhaps (and this is most certainly an optomistic view) this indicates a decline in the Holiday's importance, and ultimately thanksgiving as we know it will cease to exist in anything more than name.
Friday, November 28, 2008
What makes a Meaningful and Good life? (Exhibition style paper)
Welcome to the good life. We have pie and punch.
Intrigued? Well the good life, or rather, the concept of the good life is essentially that simple. As Americans, we are bombarded from all sides by images of what the good life entails, and thus everyone has built a perspective of "the good life". I propose that the good life is a life of awareness - most people are not aware that they are being controlled and impacted by pop culture and living what they think is their idea of a good life, an idea supplanted into each of their minds. Many people have their own take on the good life, some people I interviewed, some people who broadcast their ideas through music and others who sell it to us by other means. Perhaps the good life doesn't exist, and it is only a concept created by corporations to help sell their products. Perhaps it does exist and it is easier to attain than one would think. Based on many perspectives, we can work towards debunking the concept of a "good life".
Perhaps the best way to start unraveling the theory of a good and meaningful life is to start with my own belief system. I hold it true that a good life is something people must strive for, not something that you can be born into, such as may be the case with material wealth. No, I find that a truly good life is a life where you operate in full awareness of the factors guiding your life, factors trying to mold you into their image. Becoming aware in the sense that you can see the puppet strings that try to attach themselves o you is not an easy task, one that I am not versed in too deeply. It is the case for many people to subconsciously adopt the motto "ignorance is bliss" wherein what you don't know cannot hurt you. In this case it can be inferred that if you are ignorant of an assailant creeping up behind you, you will be perfectly fine, but if you are aware of his presence, then you are in some serious danger. What good can it do you to be unaware of the puppeteer that is controlling your every action and controlling every thought you think is your own? The way I see it (or perhaps I have been conditioned to see it this way, it is certainly a possibility) someone should try to be as aware of both themselves and everything impacting them as they can.
I am well aware that my ideas are not my own. I doubt that any of my ideas concerning my life and attitude have anything to do with me. I am a product of my environment. I can tell you, its a very uncomfortable position to be in; you don't know exactly what your beliefs are, you second-guess everything because you know that it came from one source or another. That's why I beleive I find the most meaning in writing. True, most plot devices and in general, plots, have been created before. but the truth remains that when you put pen to paper or words to a screen, it is an original burst of thought from yourself. even for those not gifted in writing can create something original and meaningful. The quality of the work doesn't have to be good, but it is meaningful in that it was created from the author's originality. Creating a fictional story, a poem, really any form of creative writing has meaning because it defies corporate media. If it's original, it's unaffected by anything but imagination. perhaps it is cliché to say this, but imagination ultimately boils down to the best tool to defy social norms.
I talked to several people to determine what they felt made a good and meaningful life. Talking to these people made it evident that some people have not given a whole lot of thought to their live's meaning, and much less to the concept of meaning in general. Person A said "Meaning, well that's the stuff that has importance to you, like, the stuff you like." similar to this was Person B who said that meaning "isn't something that can be easily tossed away, more like the stuff that's precious to you." From these two, we're left to wonder exactly what importance is - what makes something a necessity to someone? I think people have been greatly encouraged to not think critically about "abstract" things like the meaning of life and what makes a good life. Instead, people focus on the more concrete concepts of "things". People put significance into objects, like their new phone, their clothes, their cars. it seems that people hoid things important, and the better the thing makes you look in person, the better and more important it becomes to you. Things in themselves hold little actual value, however. Sometimes people use these things to stimulate other ideas. A person may find a photo album important, as it documents what they see as important events in their lives or the lives of loved ones.
In America we are greatly exposed and more or less run our lives by Popular culture. Within Pop culture lie three different but not necessarily separate categories; Corporate, Folk Culture, and Big Subcultures. For this unit we have delved deeply into personifying Corporate Culture. Within this subcategory of Pop culture lie more subcategories that classify the messages broadcasted by corporate culture. These categories are Dominant, Marginal/Fringe, and Prohibited/Unacceptable. Dominant messages are those that are the basis of the music videos, movies, and books that we all consume. They typically involve "good" values of misogyny, heroism, and going with the flow. Marginal or fringe messages are those like "You can smoke pot and be a drug addict while you're young and single, as long as you clean yourself up and get settled with a nice wife and 2.5 kids.". They start off "bad" and end up "good". In prohibited messages, however, you will only see the direct opposition to the Dominant culture, and this is why you hardly ever see these kinds of messages being tossed around casually. The instances where these are shown are often found alongside the marginal messages, as the two are related. A prohibited message might encourage you to take to the streets and start the revolution, destroying every piece of corporate anything you find.
One medium that essentially serves up corporate messages to teens on a silver platter is the ever-expanding world of video gaming. With 3 current-gen gaming consoles, the attraction to video gaming ranges between age groups of 8 to 20s and
30s. Most every video game has a plot in which you must defeat a foe of some kind. In most of these you play the story's hero. You are the cream of your village's crop, there's something special about you, you have a predetermined destiny for greatness. This serves as a drag for many teens, albeit subconsciously. They need the affirmation that they can be better than what they are now, they can do more. Other than that, gaming is like a new sport between teens, a new form of competition where you can truly outshine your peers and earn your bragging rights without ever actually accomplishing much. It is a form of grandstanding, with every game becoming worse and worse, making you capable of doing more and more to humiliate your friends. not to mention that the games' level of violence is another huge draw; it gives teens the ability to commit deviant crimes without suffering punishment. It allows teens to battle against armies of "evil" creatures, without doing much to reflect on the eveil of killing said creature. For social deevoltuion we can all count video games as a mjor player, no pun intended.
Intrigued? Well the good life, or rather, the concept of the good life is essentially that simple. As Americans, we are bombarded from all sides by images of what the good life entails, and thus everyone has built a perspective of "the good life". I propose that the good life is a life of awareness - most people are not aware that they are being controlled and impacted by pop culture and living what they think is their idea of a good life, an idea supplanted into each of their minds. Many people have their own take on the good life, some people I interviewed, some people who broadcast their ideas through music and others who sell it to us by other means. Perhaps the good life doesn't exist, and it is only a concept created by corporations to help sell their products. Perhaps it does exist and it is easier to attain than one would think. Based on many perspectives, we can work towards debunking the concept of a "good life".
Perhaps the best way to start unraveling the theory of a good and meaningful life is to start with my own belief system. I hold it true that a good life is something people must strive for, not something that you can be born into, such as may be the case with material wealth. No, I find that a truly good life is a life where you operate in full awareness of the factors guiding your life, factors trying to mold you into their image. Becoming aware in the sense that you can see the puppet strings that try to attach themselves o you is not an easy task, one that I am not versed in too deeply. It is the case for many people to subconsciously adopt the motto "ignorance is bliss" wherein what you don't know cannot hurt you. In this case it can be inferred that if you are ignorant of an assailant creeping up behind you, you will be perfectly fine, but if you are aware of his presence, then you are in some serious danger. What good can it do you to be unaware of the puppeteer that is controlling your every action and controlling every thought you think is your own? The way I see it (or perhaps I have been conditioned to see it this way, it is certainly a possibility) someone should try to be as aware of both themselves and everything impacting them as they can.
I am well aware that my ideas are not my own. I doubt that any of my ideas concerning my life and attitude have anything to do with me. I am a product of my environment. I can tell you, its a very uncomfortable position to be in; you don't know exactly what your beliefs are, you second-guess everything because you know that it came from one source or another. That's why I beleive I find the most meaning in writing. True, most plot devices and in general, plots, have been created before. but the truth remains that when you put pen to paper or words to a screen, it is an original burst of thought from yourself. even for those not gifted in writing can create something original and meaningful. The quality of the work doesn't have to be good, but it is meaningful in that it was created from the author's originality. Creating a fictional story, a poem, really any form of creative writing has meaning because it defies corporate media. If it's original, it's unaffected by anything but imagination. perhaps it is cliché to say this, but imagination ultimately boils down to the best tool to defy social norms.
I talked to several people to determine what they felt made a good and meaningful life. Talking to these people made it evident that some people have not given a whole lot of thought to their live's meaning, and much less to the concept of meaning in general. Person A said "Meaning, well that's the stuff that has importance to you, like, the stuff you like." similar to this was Person B who said that meaning "isn't something that can be easily tossed away, more like the stuff that's precious to you." From these two, we're left to wonder exactly what importance is - what makes something a necessity to someone? I think people have been greatly encouraged to not think critically about "abstract" things like the meaning of life and what makes a good life. Instead, people focus on the more concrete concepts of "things". People put significance into objects, like their new phone, their clothes, their cars. it seems that people hoid things important, and the better the thing makes you look in person, the better and more important it becomes to you. Things in themselves hold little actual value, however. Sometimes people use these things to stimulate other ideas. A person may find a photo album important, as it documents what they see as important events in their lives or the lives of loved ones.
In America we are greatly exposed and more or less run our lives by Popular culture. Within Pop culture lie three different but not necessarily separate categories; Corporate, Folk Culture, and Big Subcultures. For this unit we have delved deeply into personifying Corporate Culture. Within this subcategory of Pop culture lie more subcategories that classify the messages broadcasted by corporate culture. These categories are Dominant, Marginal/Fringe, and Prohibited/Unacceptable. Dominant messages are those that are the basis of the music videos, movies, and books that we all consume. They typically involve "good" values of misogyny, heroism, and going with the flow. Marginal or fringe messages are those like "You can smoke pot and be a drug addict while you're young and single, as long as you clean yourself up and get settled with a nice wife and 2.5 kids.". They start off "bad" and end up "good". In prohibited messages, however, you will only see the direct opposition to the Dominant culture, and this is why you hardly ever see these kinds of messages being tossed around casually. The instances where these are shown are often found alongside the marginal messages, as the two are related. A prohibited message might encourage you to take to the streets and start the revolution, destroying every piece of corporate anything you find.
One medium that essentially serves up corporate messages to teens on a silver platter is the ever-expanding world of video gaming. With 3 current-gen gaming consoles, the attraction to video gaming ranges between age groups of 8 to 20s and
30s. Most every video game has a plot in which you must defeat a foe of some kind. In most of these you play the story's hero. You are the cream of your village's crop, there's something special about you, you have a predetermined destiny for greatness. This serves as a drag for many teens, albeit subconsciously. They need the affirmation that they can be better than what they are now, they can do more. Other than that, gaming is like a new sport between teens, a new form of competition where you can truly outshine your peers and earn your bragging rights without ever actually accomplishing much. It is a form of grandstanding, with every game becoming worse and worse, making you capable of doing more and more to humiliate your friends. not to mention that the games' level of violence is another huge draw; it gives teens the ability to commit deviant crimes without suffering punishment. It allows teens to battle against armies of "evil" creatures, without doing much to reflect on the eveil of killing said creature. For social deevoltuion we can all count video games as a mjor player, no pun intended.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Looking at corporate messages
The first corporate message I looked at for this assignment was the music video for the song Pork & Beans by Weezer. The video is essentially a compilation of internet trends that have recieved huge appraisal by viewers around the world. The lyrics of the song are about how the singer, as a representaion of normal people, is defiant of the typical messages broadcasted to us by society. "Imma do the things that I want to do, I aint got a thing to prove to you" is a clip of lyrics from the song, clearly stating how this person is independent and doesn't need to live life based on how the owrld says he/she should. To emphasize the concept, the video shows clips of people like Chris Crocker, famous for his internet rant "Leave Britney alone", the afro ninja, and the bassist imitating a video of a man who sets out to conquer the world record for most shirts worn at a single time. These images coincide with the mesage of doing what you want to do regardless of other people's opinions on things. Also, the song reflects on the sheep mentality of people today, saying "everyone likes to dance to a happy song, with a catchy chorus and beat so they can sing along". The message in those words being fairly clear, the video uses a clip of people performing the Soulja Boy, a trendy dance from 2006-2007. I would say that this is a marginal to mainstream message of doing whatever you feel, marginal because it ridicules people for being sheep but mainstream because every musician says to be different.
The second corporate message I looked at for this assignment was the movie Jackass 2.5. In it, a group of young white men perform "stunts" that involve publicly humiliating themselves, hurting themselves in some way, or stirring up disturbances in public areas. The people involved are personified as stupid and reckless, and for the most part they try to fufill that personification. This movie is a compilation of unused clips from the 2006 film "Jackass number 2" and the ones excluded. An example of some of the stunts in the movie are painting and dressing up one of the actors as king kong and standing him up on top of a port-a-potty to "defend" the damsel in distress, who was another actor, a dwarf dressed as a woman. The other actors were made to fly hand-controlled RC planes into the two standing atop the port-a-potty so as to reenact the final scene in King Kong. This kind of stunt serves the purpose of dissuading people to do something like this, and serves the purpose of being a mainstream message; don't be a fool. Don't try this stuff in front of your friends or anybody. At the same time it also says that it is reallt cool to hang around with your friends and do whatever you find to be really fun. by not saying that explicitly, they get the message across indirectly, making this a spokesperson for the mainstream message of don't be stupid on the outside, and the marginal message of do it because it's fun and you'll make people laugh.
The last bit of corporate culture I examined was an Ad for the Wii game "Wii Music". The ad features many different kinds of people using the Wii controller to make various notes using various instuments to contribute to the general Super Mario theme. The ad featured people like an elderly couple, many teens, and several young adults, aged 20-26 or so. There seemed to be a lack of emphasis on the child audience for once, showing that Nintendo is trying to make its product more relatable to more people of different age groups. It had many teenagers performing music with "cool" instruments like drums and electric guitars, and it had the nice-looking sensibly dressed people playing instruments like the fulte or the piano. It profiled all these age groups into musical preference, and had everyone beaming ecstatically, as though they were enraptured by the game, as though it were something never witnessed before, when in actuality it is just Nintendo trying to tap into an already successful francise of musical video gaming. The message was wordless, and was very mainstream- buy this product so you can be happy and have fun! You want to be like all these smiling people because they are all just like you!
The second corporate message I looked at for this assignment was the movie Jackass 2.5. In it, a group of young white men perform "stunts" that involve publicly humiliating themselves, hurting themselves in some way, or stirring up disturbances in public areas. The people involved are personified as stupid and reckless, and for the most part they try to fufill that personification. This movie is a compilation of unused clips from the 2006 film "Jackass number 2" and the ones excluded. An example of some of the stunts in the movie are painting and dressing up one of the actors as king kong and standing him up on top of a port-a-potty to "defend" the damsel in distress, who was another actor, a dwarf dressed as a woman. The other actors were made to fly hand-controlled RC planes into the two standing atop the port-a-potty so as to reenact the final scene in King Kong. This kind of stunt serves the purpose of dissuading people to do something like this, and serves the purpose of being a mainstream message; don't be a fool. Don't try this stuff in front of your friends or anybody. At the same time it also says that it is reallt cool to hang around with your friends and do whatever you find to be really fun. by not saying that explicitly, they get the message across indirectly, making this a spokesperson for the mainstream message of don't be stupid on the outside, and the marginal message of do it because it's fun and you'll make people laugh.
The last bit of corporate culture I examined was an Ad for the Wii game "Wii Music". The ad features many different kinds of people using the Wii controller to make various notes using various instuments to contribute to the general Super Mario theme. The ad featured people like an elderly couple, many teens, and several young adults, aged 20-26 or so. There seemed to be a lack of emphasis on the child audience for once, showing that Nintendo is trying to make its product more relatable to more people of different age groups. It had many teenagers performing music with "cool" instruments like drums and electric guitars, and it had the nice-looking sensibly dressed people playing instruments like the fulte or the piano. It profiled all these age groups into musical preference, and had everyone beaming ecstatically, as though they were enraptured by the game, as though it were something never witnessed before, when in actuality it is just Nintendo trying to tap into an already successful francise of musical video gaming. The message was wordless, and was very mainstream- buy this product so you can be happy and have fun! You want to be like all these smiling people because they are all just like you!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Election Reflection
The votes have been cast, the campaigning is finally finished with, the ballots are final. Barack Obama stands today as our new President-elect, now a piece of this country's history, America's first black president. The iconic "Yes We Can" campaign has proved superior to McCain's mud-slinging style of promotion. Barack Obama is very much the best president the country has had in a very long time, if not the best of all, period. So why don't I feel as hopelessly ecstatic as everyone else? I mean I did in the rush of the nation's first black man for president and also the Palin bullet being successfully dodged, but now that I have time to reflect, I can see that there is very much work to be done. With the economy in the toilet and with the US fighting the good ol' fight and losing on both fronts, the future of America seems grim. Granted, Obama is the morale boost that many needed and will put the good foot forward in making something out of this mess, but it is key that he delivers some sort of appeasment in his early months in office, if only to keep people satisfied in their new president.
Something that actually makes me nervous is the fact that ballots still have to be counted, states to be ACTUALLY won, and ultimately what scares me most (however unfounded the fear may be) that Obama being declared the winner is a projection. When it comes down to it, McCain may still hold more votes than Obama. Scary thought and I admit I may be misguided in my thoughts, but I won't feel safe in Obama's presidency until he actually sits behind the desk in the oval office.
Something that actually makes me nervous is the fact that ballots still have to be counted, states to be ACTUALLY won, and ultimately what scares me most (however unfounded the fear may be) that Obama being declared the winner is a projection. When it comes down to it, McCain may still hold more votes than Obama. Scary thought and I admit I may be misguided in my thoughts, but I won't feel safe in Obama's presidency until he actually sits behind the desk in the oval office.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
What makes a good and meaningful life? (Paper)
Welcome to the good life. We have pie and punch.
Intrigued? Well the good life, or rather, the concept of the good life is essentially that simple. As Americans, we are bombarded from all sides by images of what the good life entails, and thus everyone has built a perspective of "the good life". I propose that the good life is a life of awareness - most people are not aware that they are being controlled and impacted by pop culture and living what they think is their idea of a good life, an idea supplanted into each of their minds. Many people have their own take on the good life, some people I interviewed, some people who broadcast their ideas through music and others who sell it to us by other means. Perhaps the good life doesn't exist, and it is only a concept created by corporations to help sell their products. Perhaps it does exist and it is easier to attain than one would think. Based on many perspectives, we can work towards debunking the concept of a "good life".
Perhaps the best way to start unraveling the theory of a good and meaningful life is to start with my own belief system. I hold it true that a good life is something people must strive for, not something that you can be born into, such as may be the case with material wealth. No, I find that a truly good life is a life where you operate in full awareness of the factors guiding your life, factors trying to mold you into their image. Becoming aware in the sense that you can see the puppet strings that try to attach themselves o you is not an easy task, one that I am not versed in too deeply. It is the case for many people to subconsciously adopt the motto "ignorance is bliss" wherein what you don't know cannot hurt you. In this case it can be inferred that if you are ignorant of an assailant creeping up behind you, you will be perfectly fine, but if you are aware of his presence, then you are in some serious danger. What good can it do you to be unaware of the puppeteer that is controlling your every action and controlling every thought you think is your own? The way I see it (or perhaps I have been conditioned to see it this way, it is certainly a possibility) someone should try to be as aware of both themselves and everything impacting them as they can.
I am well aware that my ideas are not my own. I doubt that any of my ideas concerning my life and attitude have anything to do with me. I am a product of my environment. I can tell you, its a very uncomfortable position to be in; you don't know exactly what your beliefs are, you second-guess everything because you know that it came from one source or another. That's why I beleive I find the most meaning in writing. True, most plot devices and in general, plots, have been created before. but the truth remains that when you put pen to paper or words to a screen, it is an original burst of thought from yourself. even for those not gifted in writing can create something original and meaningful. The quality of the work doesn't have to be good, but it is meaningful in that it was created from the author's originality. Creating a fictional story, a poem, really any form of creative writing has meaning because it defies corporate media. If it's original, it's unaffected by anything but imagination. perhaps it is cliché to say this, but imagination ultimately boils down to the best tool to defy social norms.
I talked to several people to determine what they felt made a good and meaningful life. Talking to these people made it evident that some people have not given a whole lot of thought to their live's meaning, and much less to the concept of meaning in general. Person A said "Meaning, well that's the stuff that has importance to you, like, the stuff you like." similar to this was Person B who said that meaning "isn't something that can be easily tossed away, more like the stuff that's precious to you." From these two, we're left to wonder exactly what importance is - what makes something a necessity to someone? I think people have been greatly encouraged to not think critically about "abstract" things like the meaning of life and what makes a good life.
One medium that essentially serves up corporate messages to teens on a silver platter is the ever-expanding world of video gaming. With 3 current-gen gaming consoles, the attraction to video gaming ranges between age groups of 8 to 20s and
30s. Most every video game has a plot in which you must defeat a foe of some kind. In most of these you play the story's hero. You are the cream of your village's crop, there's something special about you, you have a predetermined destiny for greatness. This serves as a drag for many teens, albeit subconsciously. They need the affirmation that they can be better than what they are now, they can do more. Other than that, gaming is like a new sport between teens, a new form of competition where you can truly outshine your peers and earn your bragging rights without ever actually accomplishing much. It is a form of grandstanding, with every game becoming worse and worse, making you capable of doing more and more to humiliate your friends. not to mention that the games' level of violence is another huge draw; it gives teens the ability to commit deviant crimes without suffering punishment. It allows teens to battle against armies of "evil" creatures, without doing much to reflect on the eveil of killing said creature. For social deevoltuion we can all count video games as a mjor player, no pun intended.
Intrigued? Well the good life, or rather, the concept of the good life is essentially that simple. As Americans, we are bombarded from all sides by images of what the good life entails, and thus everyone has built a perspective of "the good life". I propose that the good life is a life of awareness - most people are not aware that they are being controlled and impacted by pop culture and living what they think is their idea of a good life, an idea supplanted into each of their minds. Many people have their own take on the good life, some people I interviewed, some people who broadcast their ideas through music and others who sell it to us by other means. Perhaps the good life doesn't exist, and it is only a concept created by corporations to help sell their products. Perhaps it does exist and it is easier to attain than one would think. Based on many perspectives, we can work towards debunking the concept of a "good life".
Perhaps the best way to start unraveling the theory of a good and meaningful life is to start with my own belief system. I hold it true that a good life is something people must strive for, not something that you can be born into, such as may be the case with material wealth. No, I find that a truly good life is a life where you operate in full awareness of the factors guiding your life, factors trying to mold you into their image. Becoming aware in the sense that you can see the puppet strings that try to attach themselves o you is not an easy task, one that I am not versed in too deeply. It is the case for many people to subconsciously adopt the motto "ignorance is bliss" wherein what you don't know cannot hurt you. In this case it can be inferred that if you are ignorant of an assailant creeping up behind you, you will be perfectly fine, but if you are aware of his presence, then you are in some serious danger. What good can it do you to be unaware of the puppeteer that is controlling your every action and controlling every thought you think is your own? The way I see it (or perhaps I have been conditioned to see it this way, it is certainly a possibility) someone should try to be as aware of both themselves and everything impacting them as they can.
I am well aware that my ideas are not my own. I doubt that any of my ideas concerning my life and attitude have anything to do with me. I am a product of my environment. I can tell you, its a very uncomfortable position to be in; you don't know exactly what your beliefs are, you second-guess everything because you know that it came from one source or another. That's why I beleive I find the most meaning in writing. True, most plot devices and in general, plots, have been created before. but the truth remains that when you put pen to paper or words to a screen, it is an original burst of thought from yourself. even for those not gifted in writing can create something original and meaningful. The quality of the work doesn't have to be good, but it is meaningful in that it was created from the author's originality. Creating a fictional story, a poem, really any form of creative writing has meaning because it defies corporate media. If it's original, it's unaffected by anything but imagination. perhaps it is cliché to say this, but imagination ultimately boils down to the best tool to defy social norms.
I talked to several people to determine what they felt made a good and meaningful life. Talking to these people made it evident that some people have not given a whole lot of thought to their live's meaning, and much less to the concept of meaning in general. Person A said "Meaning, well that's the stuff that has importance to you, like, the stuff you like." similar to this was Person B who said that meaning "isn't something that can be easily tossed away, more like the stuff that's precious to you." From these two, we're left to wonder exactly what importance is - what makes something a necessity to someone? I think people have been greatly encouraged to not think critically about "abstract" things like the meaning of life and what makes a good life.
One medium that essentially serves up corporate messages to teens on a silver platter is the ever-expanding world of video gaming. With 3 current-gen gaming consoles, the attraction to video gaming ranges between age groups of 8 to 20s and
30s. Most every video game has a plot in which you must defeat a foe of some kind. In most of these you play the story's hero. You are the cream of your village's crop, there's something special about you, you have a predetermined destiny for greatness. This serves as a drag for many teens, albeit subconsciously. They need the affirmation that they can be better than what they are now, they can do more. Other than that, gaming is like a new sport between teens, a new form of competition where you can truly outshine your peers and earn your bragging rights without ever actually accomplishing much. It is a form of grandstanding, with every game becoming worse and worse, making you capable of doing more and more to humiliate your friends. not to mention that the games' level of violence is another huge draw; it gives teens the ability to commit deviant crimes without suffering punishment. It allows teens to battle against armies of "evil" creatures, without doing much to reflect on the eveil of killing said creature. For social deevoltuion we can all count video games as a mjor player, no pun intended.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Assignment 4 pt. 2
I think you had some good insight when you said that she started the video wearing all black clothes and really wouldn't stand out among a crowd, and with her lip gloss on, her outfit suddenly changed to the eye catching purple and white outfit with her jewelry sparkling. It really casts a new light on the subtleties of the video's superficiality. (Posted to Henry)
I think that your analysis of the video is dead-on. However I would try to analyze another possibility - Lil Mama says "what you know 'bout me" and so perhaps she is saying how we're all so caught up in being "cool" that we never know the person under the cool, all we know is that they're the cool kid for a reason.
I think the best thing you pointed out was "So even the authority figures are conspiring to support the extraordinariness of the teen. This extraordinariness, then, can't be a rebellion against the established authority figures, but it can be a dance party in the lunch room" I didnt put real thought into that part at first, but thinking about it now, doesn't it make your extraordinariness a hollow position? WIth no one to contest it, you havent really accomplished all that much. (Posted to Andy)
I think that your analysis of the video is dead-on. However I would try to analyze another possibility - Lil Mama says "what you know 'bout me" and so perhaps she is saying how we're all so caught up in being "cool" that we never know the person under the cool, all we know is that they're the cool kid for a reason.
I think the best thing you pointed out was "So even the authority figures are conspiring to support the extraordinariness of the teen. This extraordinariness, then, can't be a rebellion against the established authority figures, but it can be a dance party in the lunch room" I didnt put real thought into that part at first, but thinking about it now, doesn't it make your extraordinariness a hollow position? WIth no one to contest it, you havent really accomplished all that much. (Posted to Andy)
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Assignment 4
1. What is the song basically saying about how to live a good life? Paraphrase the main idea.
The song "Good Life" by Kanye West and T-Pain says basically that living a good life is based on being rich and successful, having nice cars and things that catch women's eyes. Specifically good looking or "sexy" women. Generally they mean to say the living a good life is making money and living life with luxury, though to get there you have to be different than others, you need to stand out in some way.
2. What lyrics particularly speak to that perspective? Use quotes as evidence.
Specifically, lyrics that depict the image of the good life being a life where you live luxuriously are in the lines "And if they hate let em' hate and watch the money pile up, the good life." He says "watch the money pile up, the good life" - this tells us that having money leads to having Kanye's version of the "good life", wherein a man lives comfortably with his riches. Preceding the first quote he says "50 told me go 'head switch the style up" meaning that in the industry, for someone to make their riches, they have to stand out in a crowd, a reflection on the modern music industry where music all generally follow similar themes.
Something else worth mentioning is that Kanye West references several American cities in the song. These cities include Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Atlanta, and Chicago. The major similarity between all of these areas is that they are urban environments where "street" culture is the dominant subculture. He says "The good life, it feel like Atlanta, It feel like L.A., it feel Like Miami, It feel like N.Y., feel like summertime Chi, ahh" so he's saying that the people who live the good life live in these areas, and the one thing they have in common is their "street cred" and their urbanity.
3. How do the video images support, re-orient, or challenge the dominant theme of the lyrics? Analyze.
The video both correlates with the lyrics and disagrees with the underlying message of the song. In the video we see T-Pain and Kanye West singing the song alongside images that match with the lyrics, i.e. a ferrari, good looking women, and the various cities that he mentions represent the "good life." Ergo, we associate the urban lifestyles prominent in the cities as a good life. However, contradictory to the message of originality he intends to send when he says "50 told me go 'head switch the style up...watch the money pile up", the song focuses on a good life derived from getting women, money and power.
4. What else do you notice that's interesting? Look for internal contradictions, aspects of the message that resonate with other messages from the pop culture, points that connect to your own perspective, etc. Analyze squared.
As I have said before, the message is contradictory in that Kanye tries to say that he is original among the music industry today, thus leading to his general success, even though this song is just another song that depicts men living a good life because of they women they sleep with, the money they acquire, and the things they own. The concept of a good life being a hedonistic existence is prevalent in most of modern culture, get the girl, live life hassle-free, live a pleasurable life. Connecting this to my own perspective, I understand how true meaning is derived from whatever brings happiness to someone's life, that if you find it most meaningful to own a ferrari and be rich and live life luxuriously, then you are entitled to it and though some may not find it so, that is a meaningful life, at least to you.
The song "Good Life" by Kanye West and T-Pain says basically that living a good life is based on being rich and successful, having nice cars and things that catch women's eyes. Specifically good looking or "sexy" women. Generally they mean to say the living a good life is making money and living life with luxury, though to get there you have to be different than others, you need to stand out in some way.
2. What lyrics particularly speak to that perspective? Use quotes as evidence.
Specifically, lyrics that depict the image of the good life being a life where you live luxuriously are in the lines "And if they hate let em' hate and watch the money pile up, the good life." He says "watch the money pile up, the good life" - this tells us that having money leads to having Kanye's version of the "good life", wherein a man lives comfortably with his riches. Preceding the first quote he says "50 told me go 'head switch the style up" meaning that in the industry, for someone to make their riches, they have to stand out in a crowd, a reflection on the modern music industry where music all generally follow similar themes.
Something else worth mentioning is that Kanye West references several American cities in the song. These cities include Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Atlanta, and Chicago. The major similarity between all of these areas is that they are urban environments where "street" culture is the dominant subculture. He says "The good life, it feel like Atlanta, It feel like L.A., it feel Like Miami, It feel like N.Y., feel like summertime Chi, ahh" so he's saying that the people who live the good life live in these areas, and the one thing they have in common is their "street cred" and their urbanity.
3. How do the video images support, re-orient, or challenge the dominant theme of the lyrics? Analyze.
The video both correlates with the lyrics and disagrees with the underlying message of the song. In the video we see T-Pain and Kanye West singing the song alongside images that match with the lyrics, i.e. a ferrari, good looking women, and the various cities that he mentions represent the "good life." Ergo, we associate the urban lifestyles prominent in the cities as a good life. However, contradictory to the message of originality he intends to send when he says "50 told me go 'head switch the style up...watch the money pile up", the song focuses on a good life derived from getting women, money and power.
4. What else do you notice that's interesting? Look for internal contradictions, aspects of the message that resonate with other messages from the pop culture, points that connect to your own perspective, etc. Analyze squared.
As I have said before, the message is contradictory in that Kanye tries to say that he is original among the music industry today, thus leading to his general success, even though this song is just another song that depicts men living a good life because of they women they sleep with, the money they acquire, and the things they own. The concept of a good life being a hedonistic existence is prevalent in most of modern culture, get the girl, live life hassle-free, live a pleasurable life. Connecting this to my own perspective, I understand how true meaning is derived from whatever brings happiness to someone's life, that if you find it most meaningful to own a ferrari and be rich and live life luxuriously, then you are entitled to it and though some may not find it so, that is a meaningful life, at least to you.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Assignment 3
Meaning seems to be a very subjective phrase. It would appear to be that everybody has a take on what meaning even if they haven't put much thought into their own lives' meaning. For instance, 2 of my six interviews were similar in that these people had clearly never given more than an ounce of thought into what their meaning is. Person A said "Meaning, well that's the stuff that has importance to you, like, the stuff you like." similar to this was Person B who said that meaning "isn't something that can be easily tossed away, more like the stuff that's precious to you." From these two, we're left to wonder exactly what importance is - what makes something a necessity to someone? Why is it that what one person finds important is a simple trifle to another? For this we can examine another person's idea, where she stated that "life is what's important, whether you are rich or poor, what you do with [your life] is what is carried with us as important." When asked to elaborate, she replied that "if your life benefits someone else's life in some way or another, you have brought meaning into both your life and theirs, however small it may have been." This is clearly a more specific interpretation of importance. Changing tracks for a minute, we can see how psychoanalyst Victor E. Frankl, the founder of logotherapy, describes importance in his book Man's Search for Meaning. Paraphrasing, Frankl describes meaning from the perspective of an Auschwitz prisoner during World War II, where he states that a man's meaning, his importance, especially in times of suffering, is supported wit ha goal that the man is striving for. Specifically, Frankl says that a man who is the camp might live on only for the chance of ever seeing his family alive again on the outside. Frankl sums this up when he says that "Such furtive hopes gave these men their courage even amidst all the suffering in which they presently found themselves."
There was another rift in people’s responses to the question of what they could do to make their lives more meaningful. On the one hand, I found that maybe 60% of people answered that they could start a family and settle down. Elaborating, Person C said that She would like to find herself a steady husband and have two kids with him. She went on to say that she would like to move out of the city when she finishes school, and eventually raise her family in a quiet suburb. She finished by saying “Life isn’t confined to a schedule, which means we have the freedom to make what we want of it. If I make my life into what I really want it to be, then my life would be the most meaningful, because I made it so.” A man from uptown Manhattan had some ideas that conflicted with Person C’s meaningful life. He said that his life meaning was not up to him to determine; his life and his fate determine his meaning, both of which are out of his own hands. “The most control I have over my fate is going to church every Sunday.” He said that closeness to god is closeness to meaning, because “God put us all here on earth, and it isn’t our place to question his meaning.” I asked him whether God has given us parameters for determining meaning, to which he said only that God’s “divine plan encompasses all human emotion and all of the people in the world, so our meaning is predetermined, even if we think we have determined our ‘meaning’, all we’ve done is found what God wanted us to.”
Ultimately, what I’ve gathered from the interviews I conducted is that meaning is a very personal thing for most people. Personal in the fact that you cannot put a blanket description to what meaning really is, meaning is different for everybody. Everybody I interviewed had their own take on meaning, and while some certainly had similarities, they were all different, unique. It seems as though meaning is like a fingerprint or a snowflake - no two are the same. Some people draw their own meanings, and some others draw meaning from something like religion. One might argue that taking meaning from religion or something of the sort means that your meaning is not unique; you’re only a sheep. In theory, this might be true, but in practice, everybody adopts their own system of belief from their respective religion, making them still unique.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Assignment 2
1) I really liked how you edited the video of your brother playing guitar so that it became background music when it jumped back to the two of you, I thought it was very creative. (posted to John LI)
2) I really liked the tone of the video, like the song is very upbeat sounding, but I also agree with Sandy in which it makes it seem like you have some dirty little secrets about your life. (posted to Kate D'auria)
3) I like how the video has a clear simplicity, getting straight to the point that basketball makes up a lot of your life's meaning. The song choice felt a little awkward, because I think the game should go with a song that has a tempo akin to the game's pace, but that's really neither here nor there. (posted to Jace Cherwin)
4) I liked this video basically because it wasn't very flashy, and you focused on informing the viewer, not so much entertaining them, which helped fuel your point. One thing I found specifically interesting was how you said the iphone and the nano don't have meaning because they don't improve our lives that much, if at all. That got me wondering, do people always assess meaning as something that improves daily life? (Posted to Marco G)
5) What I really liked about this was that Italy is like... beautiful. And like the video really shows how important your family is to you, and i guess kind of subconsciously it also shows how important your culture is. (Posted to Mara Ruoco)
Insights I have gathered from this assignment:
Well I would first start by saying that meaning is very generic. It seems like everyone focused on their family and friends, and not so much naything else. That partly why my video is filmed where you see almost nothing pertaining to my home life. You woukld think that people take their families and friends as meaningful enough to understand they don't have to be incorporated into the video. To me, it would seem as it's a no-brainer that family and friends are meaningful, and a given.
2) I really liked the tone of the video, like the song is very upbeat sounding, but I also agree with Sandy in which it makes it seem like you have some dirty little secrets about your life. (posted to Kate D'auria)
3) I like how the video has a clear simplicity, getting straight to the point that basketball makes up a lot of your life's meaning. The song choice felt a little awkward, because I think the game should go with a song that has a tempo akin to the game's pace, but that's really neither here nor there. (posted to Jace Cherwin)
4) I liked this video basically because it wasn't very flashy, and you focused on informing the viewer, not so much entertaining them, which helped fuel your point. One thing I found specifically interesting was how you said the iphone and the nano don't have meaning because they don't improve our lives that much, if at all. That got me wondering, do people always assess meaning as something that improves daily life? (Posted to Marco G)
5) What I really liked about this was that Italy is like... beautiful. And like the video really shows how important your family is to you, and i guess kind of subconsciously it also shows how important your culture is. (Posted to Mara Ruoco)
Insights I have gathered from this assignment:
Well I would first start by saying that meaning is very generic. It seems like everyone focused on their family and friends, and not so much naything else. That partly why my video is filmed where you see almost nothing pertaining to my home life. You woukld think that people take their families and friends as meaningful enough to understand they don't have to be incorporated into the video. To me, it would seem as it's a no-brainer that family and friends are meaningful, and a given.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Meaning of Life
In this video, you will see a collection of videos taken while I was longboarding through my favorite parts of the city. It is filmed from my perspective so the experience feels first-hand. You will also see photos of the most meaningful things in my life, as well as a couple of monologues to sum up my thoughts in a little more concise fashion. The parts of my life that are most meaningful to me include any part where I am on my longboard, looking at the city, reading a book (or when books are clearly displayed in the video or any time where you can see the word revolution somewhere in the picture or video. I structured it in this fashion as a kind of subtle label to identify what is and is not truly meaningful to me. The way I see it, there is nothing "meaningless" in life as far as I'm concerned, so I gave no truly definitive indication of either meaningful or meaningless. Truly I think that all of life is meaningful, so the entirety of the video is meaningful to me. I feel like these are the things that make a life worth living. Your life is what you do, and doingthese things make my life interesting, at least to me. I would certainly have liked to include to revolution taking place, but the world isn't quite ready for the revolution just yet. Thinking about it, I would have included the demolition of old rules and the new, rule-less society being instated. I would have liked to include videos of me climbing Mt. Everest and kayaking down the white water rapids, but I haven't done those things (yet).
VIDEO
Real Meaning Vid from Tom O'Brien on Vimeo.
Analysis
4. What seem to be some of the main criteria you use (emotionally +/or mentally) to assess how meaningful an aspect of your life is?
Ultimately, the things that I consider meaningful in my life have to meet certain criteria that I have established. The criteria are vast which means I allow a lot of things to bear the title meaningful, and I accept that things have meaning for others, even If I feel like they don't. So perosnally anything is meaningful if you find yourself thinking about it even when you are away from it. Like longboarding for me. When I'm sitting at a desk in class, I'm just dying to go out and crush some pavement all day long. The same goes for my hometown NYC. When I go away on vacation, despite it being a nice change of scenery, I long for the ozone and gasoline smell of the city, the shuffling interactions between people on cramped subway cars, and the general urban lullaby composed of ambulances, sirens, helicopters, and the cacophany of people. I choose these as examples because they are represented most prominently in my video, but I find many other things meaningful, though perhaps not as much as these two.
5. Is there a pattern in what you find meaningful or meaningless? What are some of the elements in that pattern?
I suppose that I might have answered that question in the answer above, but if not, then the pattern between what's meaningful is that it seems to be like NYC, in that a lot of the prominent things in my life are urban based or affected by urban environments. I love my city and it has the most mening to me. From this, i go into my love for longboarding, easiest to ride in a paved urban environment. I guess you might say that the area I grew up in profoundly affected my interets and how much they mean to me.
6. Looking at the video as a whole – is it a fairly honest/accurate depiction of your life? Does it make you seem interesting/special/exciting?
I'd say that for a fair and balanced representation of my life it would have to be longer and it would be a little more profane. In all honesty it more or less sums up a large part of my interests, not necessarily my life. And I honestly could care less wheteher it makes me look cool or intersting. It's what I love to do, people just have to take for what it is. Some people might like it, others might hate it. I can't provide their argument. If I had to say so, it probably makes me seem like no more or less than I would be in class.
7. Does your life seem meaningful from an outside perspective? Is it from an inside perspective? Why?
From an outside perspective looking in, and I'm assuming the person looking in won't be digging too far under the surface and truly analyzing this, I guess this looks more like a video journey of NYC from a longboard perspective. I think if people look at it with an x-ray analysis, considering the song choices for backdrop, they might see that it isn't entirely made up of teenage bullshit angst, and that something in here is insightful. From my inside perspective, I find it to be a meaningful video because of how it combines what i hold dear and makes it easy to digest.
8. What questions do you have about living a meaningful life at this point?
Truthfully, none. No one is going to tell me whether or not my life is meaningful. Hakuna Matata.
VIDEO
Real Meaning Vid from Tom O'Brien on Vimeo.
Analysis
4. What seem to be some of the main criteria you use (emotionally +/or mentally) to assess how meaningful an aspect of your life is?
Ultimately, the things that I consider meaningful in my life have to meet certain criteria that I have established. The criteria are vast which means I allow a lot of things to bear the title meaningful, and I accept that things have meaning for others, even If I feel like they don't. So perosnally anything is meaningful if you find yourself thinking about it even when you are away from it. Like longboarding for me. When I'm sitting at a desk in class, I'm just dying to go out and crush some pavement all day long. The same goes for my hometown NYC. When I go away on vacation, despite it being a nice change of scenery, I long for the ozone and gasoline smell of the city, the shuffling interactions between people on cramped subway cars, and the general urban lullaby composed of ambulances, sirens, helicopters, and the cacophany of people. I choose these as examples because they are represented most prominently in my video, but I find many other things meaningful, though perhaps not as much as these two.
5. Is there a pattern in what you find meaningful or meaningless? What are some of the elements in that pattern?
I suppose that I might have answered that question in the answer above, but if not, then the pattern between what's meaningful is that it seems to be like NYC, in that a lot of the prominent things in my life are urban based or affected by urban environments. I love my city and it has the most mening to me. From this, i go into my love for longboarding, easiest to ride in a paved urban environment. I guess you might say that the area I grew up in profoundly affected my interets and how much they mean to me.
6. Looking at the video as a whole – is it a fairly honest/accurate depiction of your life? Does it make you seem interesting/special/exciting?
I'd say that for a fair and balanced representation of my life it would have to be longer and it would be a little more profane. In all honesty it more or less sums up a large part of my interests, not necessarily my life. And I honestly could care less wheteher it makes me look cool or intersting. It's what I love to do, people just have to take for what it is. Some people might like it, others might hate it. I can't provide their argument. If I had to say so, it probably makes me seem like no more or less than I would be in class.
7. Does your life seem meaningful from an outside perspective? Is it from an inside perspective? Why?
From an outside perspective looking in, and I'm assuming the person looking in won't be digging too far under the surface and truly analyzing this, I guess this looks more like a video journey of NYC from a longboard perspective. I think if people look at it with an x-ray analysis, considering the song choices for backdrop, they might see that it isn't entirely made up of teenage bullshit angst, and that something in here is insightful. From my inside perspective, I find it to be a meaningful video because of how it combines what i hold dear and makes it easy to digest.
8. What questions do you have about living a meaningful life at this point?
Truthfully, none. No one is going to tell me whether or not my life is meaningful. Hakuna Matata.
Monday, September 15, 2008
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