Kyle's Academy Blog

A week ago I was playing with my dog, Callie, in my backyard. As I was walking along the gravel path, I watched her sprint through the yard joyfully, seeming to be perfectly content. As my flip flops scuffed against the gravel, I started thinking about how come I don't feel that. I don't feel content just sitting outside. I can't just run. I don't feel right just being outside. I need to be doing something, I need to be wearing shoes, I need to be warm, I need to be dry, etcetera etcetera. But as I was thinking this, I realized that I wanted that. I wanted to feel (this is sooooooo cheesy) at one with the earth. I wanted to feel like I belonged, not that I was intruding on something that was so much bigger than me. Dogs have this, as do all animals. Some humans have this. But I don't, and most other people don't have it either, but why? We've become so domesticated, so used to our nice, comfortable indoor lives that we lack this ability. As I'm typing this right now, I'm lying on my bed, warm and dry. In maybe half an hour I'll go and eat dinner. But I haven't forgotten this feeling. I'd like to feel content with the earth, but maybe what's wrong with humans is also what makes them great? If we felt content with what he had, would he have built houses? Computers? Cars, and loads of other great things. But what I'd really like to have is both, both a contentedness with nature and the comforts of every day life. But I don't even know if that's possible.

On wednesday of this week, it was Blog Action Day 2008. The whole point of this event was to raise awareness of poverty through blogging about it. It was estimated that the message reached 13,498,532 people through 12,836 blogs. That's a massive amount of people that would have read about poverty, assuming the website didn't exaggerate. But is this a good use of everybody's time? I'll probably spend 15-20 minutes writing this blog post, and I I'm assuming that the 12,836 bloggers spend approximately the same time writing their average blog post. The time that all the bloggers spent comes out to approximately 150 days of time. Couldn't more to be done in a 150 days than just creating blog posts? A person could go to volunteer their time in Africa, or in any place with a large poor population. 150 days of a person working at a minimum wage job comes out to 26,100 dollars. Wouldn't that do more good donated to a good cause than spent sitting in front of the computer? I guess it kind of depends on what the readers of the blogs are gonna do. Because me, I'm already aware of poverty. You've got to be kind of dense not to be. You see it on the news everyday, you see beggars in the street, etc, etc. So what is all this time spent blogging accomplice? Hopefully some of the readers of these blogs will donate some of their time and money to helping the cause. But we can't really see this, can we? We've got to be more content with knowing that maybe this is helping someone. Though the numbers that I mentioned at the beginning of this post are impressive, you've really got to ask yourself, what are these numbers doing?

This is my response to Kate K's 360 degree look on soul mates. In her post, she questions whether or not everybody has soul mates out their, and how they find them.

"I'm not sure whether I believe in soulmates or not. At the moment, I'm leaning towards not. What I believe is that there are multiple people, spread across the world, who would make you equally happy. I can't believe in just one soulmate, who God (or whatever) intended you to be with. But if you think about it, there are billions of people in the world. Chances are, there are hundreds of people that serve as perfect partners to you.

In a way, this theory is more comforting to me than the theory of having just one soulmate. What if that soulmate dies, or lives in China? Or finds someone else who they think is their soulmate? With my theory, you've got multiple chances to find somebody to love.

We see this happen all the time. Some people haves spouses die, but they can find love again. Could this happen if people just had one perfect soulmate?

People all like to think that they'll find love someday, and I'm not any different than that. Hopefully we all will, whether they're are "soulmates" or not. Because really, isn't "soulmate" just a term for someone we love unconditionally?"
I also really enjoyed the post it note. To me, it really speaks of an optimistic hope that we should have. Reading that quote brightened my morning.

In responding to the question at the end of your post, I immediately thought of Kite Runner. In the introduction to me essay, about how secrets drive the story forward, I talked about Post Secret. According to my thesis, people's stories are driven by their secrets. Maybe the people sent in the secrets to let them go, to follow a new, clean path in their life?

We all have some secrets, no matter how big or small they are. There's a big relief in letting go of your secrets. Some people might not think that guys do this, but I've shared a few secrets with my friends, and they with me. It's nice to know that somebody else knows, and postsecret allows you to have that feeling anonymously."

Recently I started watching Iron Man the movie. I haven't finished it yet, but what I've seen so far has made me think about the impacts that weapons manufacturers have on the world and war. People keep developing weapons that can kill in a more sophisticated manner. In some ways, I believe that this is necessary. It's slightly ironic, but it could be possible that having weapons is actually a prerequisite to peace. Because if somebody wants power, and they get there hands on weapons, then somebody else will also need to have weapons in order to stop them. But if nobody made weapons in the first place, and nobody had weapons, then there wouldn't be a problem. But won't humans never feel safe unless they have weapons to protect themselves, because they believe that everybody else has weapons to? But doesn't it become overkill eventually. Doesn't the USA have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the earth ten times over? Why is it necessary to have this many weapons. And what about the people who work for the weapon's manufacturers. How do they feel about their line of work? Are they okay with it as long as they only sell to countries that will use it for good? But, like in Iron Man, some weapons will fall into the wrong hands, or are sold to them. Either way, people will die. Another question is, will creating more advanced weaponry decrease the amount of deaths or increase them? Would it be better if we resorted to having men line up with their swords across from each other, and the last side standing the victor? Wouldn't this shed less blood than dropping a nuclear bomb onto somebody? How can weapon's manufacturers answer these moral dilemmas and come to peace with them selves?