Alone, Alone, Alone.

I like to be alone at times. Me being alone is not me being lonely. Alone is complete solitude, isolation from the outside world by choice. Lonely is being isolated by others. I feel that it is very important for one to be alone because there is no other way to learn about oneself than being alone and away from all other influences. Even being alone in our rooms is not enough because we all most likely live with at least one family member thus solitude may not last as long. I believe that in order to be completely alone, you must go to a place where there is nothing around but nature and silence for silence is the biggest canvas for your thoughts. Living in Chicago provides minimum access to quiet areas like these. Either one is distracted by the noisy planes above, the cars speeding down the street, or the everlasting sirens approaching a tragedy nearby. Nonetheless, this place exist. Once you find this place of complete isolation, you have nothing left to do but to associate with yourself. You can only think and express your thoughts to yourself, you can only talk to yourself, dance with yourself, and potentially get to know yourself. If you see a bee coming towards you, you will react the way that you would react, whether you are afraid of bees or not. If you are a male and you see a flower that you find to be beautiful, you will speak "Oh what a pretty flower" and pick it up all the while forgetting this role of being a male that society has put into your head. Solitude is the only way we can find ourselves because who we are now are complete figures of influence. Most of this is not us and the little bit that is took the biggest inner struggle of going against the majority.

I know this means something...at least to me.

Music and dance hold a very special place in my heart. When words can't explain how I feel and when no human can console me, I mentally exit the world and stuff my ears with my earbuds. I find myself thinking about the weirdest things, things that I've heard and never thought about, memories, and most importantly, dance. I seriously cannnot listen to music without the impulse or urge to dance. If I'm singing along, I'm dancing. For every song on my iPod, I've come up with some type of choreography for it. Music and Dance are my escapes from the world. They're both very expressive art forms that allow me to be me and to convey in them what vernacular cannot. Music and Dance have been a prt of my life since I was 3 and life without them wouldn't be life.

Classmates I'm thankful for

I am thankful for two classmates, Tyler and Aleta. I appreciate these two ladies so much. Tyler forever holds me down with rides to school and if I want to do something afte school like go downtown, she doesn't hesitate to tag along. Tyler also exposed me to Taylor Swift, whom I still can't stand, but I do admit that I like a handful of songs on her latest CD. I even considered using one for my senior piece this year in the dance show. Tyler has a dry sense of humor but it's humor nonetheless. She is one of the few friends who have stuck with me all 4 years of high school. Next, Aleta. Ifirst met Aleta in sophomore year gym with Franken. We both cheated every workout and constantly cracked jokes about Franken. Junior year we had Brit. Lit together where should we let me have some of her potbellys and kill her iPod from playing Temple Run throughout the whole class. This year we have lunch and philosophy together. Aleta always reminds me of the work I was supposed to have done the night before and if I'm not feeling well, she'll go pick up my lunch for me. If you examined our relationship from the outside, you'd think she hated me but it's really just her way of showing her love.

Who would Voltaire and Camu vote for?

Would they even vote? I feel that their views are so much more complex and go so much more into detail that they couldn't settle for either candidate/party. They are philosohpers. The candidates are muich more staright forward with their views and make their points blunt. Voltaire and Camu like to challenge view points and they are one to look into the future rather than settling for what looks good in the now. I can see these two moving away from society onto their own little alienated islands. I can't see them starting a riot to prove their points or even trying to start a new party but I can see them disagreeing and explaining why in detail if asked. You can't really make the views of a philosopher relatable to society because the whole purpose of the mind of a philoshoper is trying to challenge the general.

Stranger Meaning, Meaning of Life

       What is my meaning of life? I honestly believe we're put on this Earth just to live. All the school we go through is unecessary in my point of view. We all live to potentially die and in my religious views, we go to Heaven afterwards. Everything we do on this Earth is just to make ourselves look better. Why do we care about schools like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale? Why does having a 4.0 GPA matter to who you truly are as a person? We don't need an education to survive life. We naturally know how to breathe, eat, drink, use the bathroom, and sleep. All the vital things are not taught to us through school. Life has become a big competition. Everyone wants to become a doctor, a singer, or an actor/actress. I don't understand the want to be noticed. Why not just express your passion because you love it? Why must you be publicized. Well, there is an answer to all of this and the answer is money. Money rules the world. We learn so we can become some exertise professional and earn money. People make music sometimes just to be noticed and make money. The human civilization has placed the value of everything on money. Whether we realize it or not, money makes this world go round.

Does Candide's Punishments Fit His Crimes?

Since the prompt is about Candide,  I assume majority of the class is going to write about whether or not the punishment Candide deserved was just or unjust. Me on the other hand, I want to use another example to try and bring a different perspective into Voltaire's story. The first example I thought of when I thought of punishment was The Scarlet Letter. Just to recap, The Scarlet Letter tells of a young woman, Hester Prynne, who has committed adultery that resulted in her child, Pearl. Her punishment for this crime was to wear a scarlet letter "A" that stood for adultery, every day. When first reading this book, this doesn't seem like much of a punishment. But, we see how hard life is for Hester for the simple fact that everyone knows of her crime.  The belittle her and seclude from everything. Ultimately, we discover that her punishment is not wearing this scarlet letter but in fact be scorned by everyone of her crime/sin. Now to tie this back to Candide. Both of these stories were written a long time ago so punishments that these characters received would of course seem unjust to us now. I believe that these villages and towns placed these punishments so high to scare the citizens into behaving and following the law. When someone did misbehave, like Candide and Hester, they were punished to set an example to everyone else of what could happen to them. One specific example is when Candide was exiled from the castle for messing with Cunegonde. It was interesting to me how Candide was punished for something similar to Hester yet not as extreme and how these values, unlike others in the books, are still withheld today. A lot of countries today are still very strict on keeping marriage the key thing  before anything else. We see this in the United States but it very much so not enforced.

How do I know what I know?

                                    That's a really good question to ponder on. Of course, my parents have helped me learn some things, most of the basic things. Then, everything from middle school till now has been learned through experience. But what about the things I couldn't learn? The things that I just know (or assume) to be true. Things that can't necessarily be explained through science or reasoning. For example, how do I know that doors are supposed to open? My parents never came up to me and said "Look Indigoe, it does this!"
I learned and know they open from seeing it open several times. Or for example, how do I know that people on TV shows are not behind the screen? I actually don't understand that whole technical process but I've known for forever that those people couldn't possibly be in my house. I guess you can say that's just common sense. The more I think about this question, the more confused I get about how exactly I know what I know. It's really hard for me to think about something that I wasn't taught or that I haven't experienced. That seems to be the only two ways in which I've learned what I know today. No one comes out the womb knowing information. We all learn and experience. Even for things that don't make sense or things that our parents go "Because!" to. I'm guessing since it's repeated to us over and over again and since the human race as whole pretty much follows these rules that we register it in our minds of common sense that this has to be right. Thus, we no longer question these things. I'm getting lost in my thoughts now.

Modern Day Socrates AND The Unexamined Life, worth living or not?

                    So I was thinking hard, really hard on who I know personally or on a fan base who could be considered a modern day Socrates and honestly, no one came to mind. I believe that we as a society today have had so much influence from people like Socrates that as an unit, we have come to ultimately behave similar to him. A lot of our shows today have satire in them and these shows have some of the highest rankings yet. We see these things in the media and feel confident enough to say what we want and stand behind it with confidence. We may not all be like Socrates in the sense that we necessarily try to make people see the truth but we do speak our minds regardless. Anyway, I found this example of how Howard Stern was a modern day Socrates because he is an atheist who speaks his mind about himself and his beliefs, he interviews anyone and everyone, asks them personal questions without remorse, and his audience is mainly young adults. I also found this example of Dalai Lama but he wasn't so modern. And that is how I came to a conclusion that we all have some type of Socrates in us. We may not be as influential as he nor do we try to get people to see their ignorance but behind our "jokes", we're trying to get a point across.


The Unexamined Life

                  I did further research on this quote to better understand it and I came across some interesting thoughts. I believe that with this quote Socrates was proving his point. The interpretation that I get out of this is if we automatically assume everything about life instead of trying to actually find out if there's more to it, then is it really worth it? Are you really living or are you following rules? I agree with this quote. If you don't do your own research and find out for yourself life's answers, then there is no purpose in living because the answers are provided. We have to experience life for ourselves, find our own purposes, make our own choices because being told what is right and wrong is not giving the human the ability to make choices of their own and discover LIFE on their own. The statement itself is interesting. Since the word examine can be interpreted in different ways, it gets people thinking, which is the point, but instead of trying to take their own meaning out of it, they go and asks someone what it means. It's unexamined.

Eulogy

 Indigoe Timms was born in San Diego, California and moved to Chicago when she was about 2 years old. She also goes by nicknames "Diggy" and "Indy" and reluctantly "Crayola" and "Blue." Indigoe is a very active person. She has been singing since the age of 3 and dancing and playing the piano since age 7. She is also a part of the Whitney Young Girl's Track Team but due to countless injuries may not be running this year. Indigoe is the oldest of 4 and the only girl so life for her is interesting. She plans on majoring in either Biology or Criminalistics (crime scene investigation.) Indigoe's favorite artists consist of: Nas. Alicia Keys, Birdy, Angus & Julian Stone, Lucia, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, and Ellie Goulding. Some of Indigoe's favorite dancers are Misty Copeland, Maureya Lebowitz, April Giangeruso, and Desmond Richardson. An interesting fact about her is that she hasn't grown since 7th grade. She still resides at the height of 4'11. Indigoe loves NYC and wouldn't mind living there any day.  She also loves to smile and is very very very silly. Indigoe tries to live each day to the fullest despite bad attitudes, bad hair days, and bad food.  You'll constantly hear her say "Tomorrow isn't promised" and "Let it go. Get it over it. It's not that serious." She hopes to enjoy her last year at Whitney Young and can not wait to graduate.