When the time is right...

I've seen the suffering.

Danny is too weak to lift his head for water. He trembles, laying on his side, IV tubes snaking around him like chains. Blind, deaf, and scared, he is living out his last days. Each breath he takes is short, irregular, and possibly his last. But for whatever reason, his lungs are stubborn, and he breaths on and on.
Twice a week he comes in to get fluid drained from his abdomen. Four times a day he takes three pills, medicine that is keeping him alive. He can't walk anymore, he eats mush because he can't chew solid food.
Danny has been in this condition for three years. Euthanasia would be merciful for Danny, but his owners are against any such intervention.

Danny is a Golden Retriever.

I work at a vet, and Danny comes in all the time. At this point he is living artificially. Without even one of his medications, he would die.
Myself and every one of my co-workers will be relieved when he passes away. He isn't living, he doesn't even know what's going on anymore.

It is in these situations when I truly hate the hardcore anti-euthanasia activists of this world. I just want to shake Danny's owners and say, "Look at how your dog is suffering!"

Unlike human medicine, animal medical procedures largely accept euthanasia. This is partly because animal medicine is not as advanced as human medicine. There is so much to be said about the quality of life that older pets experience. Up to a certain point, senior pets can live very happily. They might need some medication, more naps, but that can be said for seniors of any species. However, when a pet's health has deteriorated to the point where Danny's health has been for ages, there's no reason to drag it out for years and let the animal suffer.

Here's where I switch over to euthanasia for people. If it's humane to put down an animal when they're dying or suffering, why is it not logical to allow the same thing for people?

I, for one, have always said that when it's time for me to pack up to go to a nursing home I'm going to pack two things, a bullet and a gun. As far as I'm concerned as soon as I have to get someone else to wipe my butt, life has officially ended.

On a medical note though, if someone is dying of a terminal illness or is living with a painful medical disorder, they should have the right to choose to die with a little dignity.

Now, there's a right and a wrong way to approach this. I'm not claiming to know the correct method of introducing human euthanasia into today's society or even the guidelines for doing so. I'm just saying that when it comes time, my dog will have the benefit of a humane and dignified death.
I only hope that when my time comes I have the same option.

Link: Photo Source

Splitting Hairs

How can my assessment of a dead poets's intended meaning for his poem be less accurate than your assessment?
Our assessments are both just guesses. After all, I've never talked with Robert Frost over tea about hidden meanings in his poetry, and neither have you!
It's silly to assume that anyone can completely understand what an author was feeling or thinking at the time when he was writing a poem or book.

I'm currently having a small problem with my American Literature professor. The problem is that I hate her. The other problem is that professors are less likely to give me an A if I express my hatred for them. Especially this professor.

I'm not in the habit of professor bashing. I find that complaining about a professor's habits and methods just wastes time. Instead, I learn to accommodate for different teaching methods or lack thereof. The likelihood of getting an A is less dependent on the class or professor, and more dependent on how badly you want it. Or in my case, how pigheaded and stubborn I am.

However, with all of this in mind, my American Literature professor is AWEFUL! She is one of those professors who believes that her class is the single most important class that any student will ever take. She publicly humiliates students who answer questions incorrectly.
Evidently no one ever taught her that saying, "Duhh!! Do you have ANY intelligence at all?" is mean. And she takes it personally if students are silent after she asks a question.
Who can blame them for their silence? If they answer wrong, they'll get belittled!

Anyway, my most recent pet peeve has to do with poetry. I love poetry! I enjoy reading it, letting it soak in, discussing it, the whole bit.
Apparently though, Ms. American Literature is the reincarnation of every single poet that ever lived. So even though we are speculating about the poet's inspirations and motives, somehow it's still okay for her to taunt me in class about how wrong my speculations are....

Well, I guess I'm done ranting for tonight.

Extra-Terrestrial Vacation

Who knew that someday it would be possible for an American citizen to go on a vacation.......to outer space?
Today, that day has come.

Thanks to our modern technology, Ashton Kutcher has declared his imminent vacation to space. Soon the shallow sphere around our tiny planet will be graced with a different type of star.

And what is the price tag for this vacation?

For $200,000 dollars, Ashton will experience weightlessness, eat fun freeze-dried food, and see entire continents at once.

Maybe someday that space vacation will be accessible to those not making millions, but until then, I only hope Ashton has a great time.......and takes pictures.

Link: Photo Source

Link: Photo Source

Self-Evaluation

I've been doing some personality tests recently. I think personalities are interesting, and I often find myself analyzing people's reactions and values. Anyway, I've done some tests on my own personality, and I've decided to share some of the results.

Test 1:
I am...
More introverted than extroverted
Interested in the unknown
Tend to have strong principles, detached relationships, and objective viewpoints.

Test 2: (handwriting analysis)
I pasted these results directly, and throughout the report I am putting my own comments on the analysis in brackets. [ ]

Report

You are straightforward in your approach and know your mind basically. You can handle any situation with your poise and maturity.    [Mostly true: I don't know about "any situation". Sometimes I have to take five and come back.]           You are an independent person with fine disposition and no prejudices. Negatively, however, upright writing signifies self-centeredness and rigidity. Your head rules over your heart. [Mostly true: I definitely have prejudices. The head over heart thing is true though.] You are an easygoing kind of person, but that does not mean that you are least concerned. You seek recreation and work on equal scales. [True] You maintain stability while handling money. [True] You are cautious, such that you think several times before taking an action or starting a new venture. [True] You want the world to see the best of you. And hence you try to project the same. [True] You work with the most-favourable pace and hence, do not have to conciliate between the quality and speed. [True] You are a dependable and trustworthy person. [True] You maintain balance between your capability and ambition which helps you to shun difficulties in achieving your goal. [True] You handle criticism with your cool temperament and dignity. [Mostly true: It depends on who it's from and what it's about. It varies] You have reasonable keenness in the task you undertake. [True] You like to be in the limelight and center of attraction in the crowd. [False: The center of attention makes me nervous in almost every situation.] You are least concerned about gratifying the world and rather look forward to your own contentment through the completion of your task. [True] You believe in exacting and being accurate. [True: Do it right or don't do it at all.] You are an extrovert and hence, like to socialize with the people. [False: I am fairly introverted. I do well in social situations, I'm not socially awkward, but I prefer time alone.] You use your agile hands very often and are nimble in doing mechanical work. [True] You believe in living life to the fullest and consider amusement and bliss as very important. [Mostly true: I am also very goal and future oriented. Everything in moderation.] You have an excellent strength of mind and also much desirable fortitude. You put in all your determination to complete your work. [Mostly true: I've given up a few times, but never permanently.] You are flexible and practical which works to your advantage. The balance outlook of yours helps you adapt yourself according to the crowd. [True]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyway, these quizzes were fun and fairly accurate. I might add to this post if I do any more in the future.

Wildling is he...

Must every person on earth be occupied with the search for their soulmate? Don't get me wrong, there is something pure and wonderful in love. I often see those couples, you know, the ones who literally do not seem complete unless they are together.

I've never been obsessed or enslaved by the search for love. I've seen friends absolutely stricken by the search, like it was a disease they could not shake. I have never been struck with that urgency.

In the past, I have told people I could live happily as a single individual for the rest of my life. They keyword there is happily. Plenty of people live unattached, but most are bitter about it.

As a side-note, this is not a conclusion I made because I can't live any other way. I have been fairly successful in my love life, I'm on the average for American females my age. For me, often the end of the relationships came because I view relationships as less important than following my dreams.
I think the only way anyone can make the conclusion that living single would be a happy life, is if they have something else to be passionate about. For me, it's my excitement for the future and the realization of my dreams.

Anyway, I wrote a poem about this very subject. (I believe this is the first time I've mentioned my poetry so I'll explain. I've been writing poetry since I was fourteen, and I've published one so far. At this point, I have written over 100 poems and this number grows every month. Poetry is in my blood. It is more than a hobby, it is a part of me I write both metered line and free-verse poetry. It's just kind of whatever feels right at the time.)
Now that I've said all that, I'll share my poem. This one is in the free-verse style. Enjoy!

Wildling

Your soulmate, your everything.
You join in a waltz for one.
Two, six, twelve; halves becoming wholes.
The dance-floor fills with feet on air, with hearts awakening from slumber.

But wildlings, are they not among us?
Souls born inclusively?
The duos fly around the floor, lost in each other.
But are there not those standing in the shadows?
Ones watching the display with a confusion born in the belief that longings must exist?

Phantoms born....whole.

With such a colossal planet, perhaps soul-mates exist in odd numbers. Maybe it's like a game for pairs with 3 people total. Is it logical for every mortal to have a counterpart?

This shadow envelopes one such phantom.
The odd one out turns away from the swirling couples.
His hand gently rests over his heartbeat, the love is whole.
He smiles in the darkness, the joy is whole.
He closes his eyes, the dreams are vivid, not fragmented, they are...whole.

The shadow turns back to the floor, and watches with appreciation.
Then he steps back, turns away, and fades into the night with no sense of loss.

Wildling is he, the world is his lover.

Smashing weeds is murder!

What are weeds made of?
Weeds are made of cells and tissues which are broken further into atoms, which are composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons.
All of those components are just building blocks behaving the way that they are supposed to behave.
So in simple terms, weeds are just atoms obeying science.

What are humans made of?
Aren't humans also composed of atoms obeying science?
Furthermore, our brains are just made of cells, and they work correctly thanks to electrical currents (and a whole lot of other stuff that has to all synchronize perfectly, but hey, this is a blog not a science class).

So what makes us better than weeds? How come it's okay to smash a weed repeatedly with a sledgehammer, then drown the particles with gasoline, then leave the whole gasoline weed particle mess out in the desert to slowly evaporate and disintegrate? If we did that to a person it would make the news and put people on death row.

But really, if all things in the world, and universe, are just well-behaving scientific building blocks, why are homo-sapiens superior to trees, or worms, or poop?

Maybe it's because humans have independent thought. Maybe it's because we create spaceships and train tigers to purr. But the only thing that allows us to do those things is our brains, right? And brains....are cells behaving as cells are supposed to behave.
People in a vegetative state do not have independent thought, they can not create spaceships or train tigers to purr. Yet somehow they still must be viewed as superior to a weed. So brains can't be the reason we are superior to weeds.
Some people might say it's because we have life.
But life is just because cells are working correctly. Squirrels have life, and although most people agree that squirrels are better than weeds, that doesn't make them equal to people.
Also, somehow dead people are still better than weeds. They get caskets, and people get sued if they are disrespectful in graveyards or if they just throw corpses into ditches.
Therefore, life also can not be the reason for people's superiority to weeds.

Let's put it this way, is one individual cell superior to another individual cell? No, they are equal.
So why would one heap of cells be superior to another heap of cells?

Ladies and gentlemen, we are no greater than weeds.

Displaced Significance

They say that you enter the world with nothing, and you leave the world with nothing. A dead homeless man owns the same amount of possessions as a dead Bill Gates.
The funerals will be different, but does the size or extent of a funeral mean anything to the man in the casket?
Both men are equally cold, both men are equally dead, and no amount of money will keep bugs from eating human flesh.
This is an example of displaced significance.

Displaced significance is one of those age-old occurrences in humanity. It transcends culture, geographical location, social status; it even transcends time since it has been occurring as long as humans have existed.
As far as I know, no one has ever examined this phenomenon in the context of a clump definition before, so I might be adding a new definition to psychology. That's just what psychology needs, right? More definitions.

Anyway, displaced significance is the change in significance of an accomplishment, incident, experience, social status of a person, or even the monetary value of an object. For simplification's sake, let's call anything that can undergo a significance shift (objectA).

Many things can cause this shift in significance. Being in a different social setting can change the significance of objectA.
For example, my high school class went on a trip throughout New England. While in New York City, we went to a small theater. Stuffed in-between two skyscrapers, it was small, quaint, and not very high-budget judging by the stage and interior.
We saw a show called "Samurai". The show consisted of one man, a mime, who spent forty-five minutes telling a story using his hands, body, an array noises, and amazing expressions.
His acting was so rich, and even though he never uttered a single word, and he played over twenty different characters all by himself, I never got confused.
I followed the whole story with ease, hung on every plot twist and marveled at his talent.

Link: Photo source: David Gaines

Link: Youtube video of David Gaines Samurai performance

This whole story I paint with the most descriptive colors that I possibly can. However, despite my attempt to write about it of none of you, the readers, will be able to parallel my concept of its significance. In contrast, if I run into a classmate, we will laugh and gauge this show with the same level of significance.

Another reason for displaced significance is culture differences. If Angelina Jolie visits the rain-forest in Africa, none of the natives will comprehend what a Grammy is. That achievement will have no significance to them.

Yet another example of displaced significance is how the value of money can suddenly seem greater or smaller than it really is.
If you're sitting in an overturned car that is sinking in a river, it no longer matters if you're rich or poor. If you're stranded on the side of the road because you ran out of gas, you need 25 cents to place a phone call, and you realize you only have 24....
See where I'm going here? That penny suddenly hold a lot more significance.

In conclusion, displaced significance is where the significance of something changes based on the setting, social or cultural surroundings, or some other factor.
This is one of the many things that we instantaneously detect and use to adjust our reaction to our environment.


“The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law