Creativity

The documentary we watched on the three legendary guitarists conference in 2008 got me thinking. What inspires creativity and what inhibits? What they all three seemed to have in common were financial limitations as a youth and plenty of free time. The rule of thumb for creativity, at least for me, seems to be simple. Relying on other people for "creativity", such as playing board games or listening and replaying music off of a sheet, is limiting. It inhibits one's own thinking by mimicking that of others. The best analogy I could think of deals with a playground.

As a child in Germany, I was allowed to play tag on the playground. When I moved to the U.S., the game of tag was forbidden at my new school. Rather than dropping the activity overall or conforming to the standard basketball/monkey-bar giggling kids, my friends and I desperately attempted to create acceptable games that allowed for the hunting down of each other on the playground. The point is, we refused to accept the prescribed manners of free time and instead chose to circumvent the set rules. While this did lead to scolding at times, overall, it was a delightful, though guilty, pleasure. However, we achieved creativity!

In this sense, I believe that I can start being more creative in small increments playing the piano. At first, I played straight from the sheet music. Then I modified the sheet music to a more difficult or personally satisfying level. Now I'm trying to write my own songs and learn music by ear. Small steps forward, trying to avoid the creativity of others and find my own.

The Trouble with Modern Day Politics

Stemming off of the conversation had in class over the issues with bipartisan politics, I'd like to discuss what I believe are two of the main problems of the current McDonalds (a metaphorical substitute for an expletive) that is the American government.

Problem 1, rather than attempting to cooperate on key issues that need to be addressed, the government spends overall more time bickering about much less important issues. For example, while I do think that the ethnic factor in admission to colleges is controversial, I think our time would be better spent on resolving the healthcare dilemma. While we are trying to solve the healthcare conundrum, rather than cooperating and trying to create a well-designed though through system, time is being spent arguing about if it should exist. While I do favor universal healthcare, I would much rather the parties quickly resolve to either implement or toss out the system and then work on augmenting the system at hand to the best of their abilities. This way, the people who are being payed with our tax dollars are collaborating productively rather than attacking each other, wasting their time, the people's money and overall achieving nothing. What is achieved in the latter part, is making the United States look immature, divided and incapable of self-government.

Problem 2, looking to treat the symptoms of the problem rather than fixing the problem at its source. Why do people argue about immigration? I would argue that most of the U.S. populace is not xenophobic or racist and that they are generally open to immigration. What causes the escalation of tensions regarding immigration is financial danger, usually for the lower class workers. The lower class workers feel threatened by the very real possibility that an immigrant would do their job for less money and thereby cause the native resident to be unemployed. This reasoning is valid because the two individuals are competing for the same position. However, the premise, competing for the same position could be seen as the root of the issue. Rather than discouraging immigration, if the U.S. government focused on developing permanent jobs, expanding the possibility for employment. Individual A & B wouldn't have to compete for jobs, instead, they might work side by side. While this is an ideal scenario, it is understandable that the number of people who want to immigrate into the U.S. is greater than the number of jobs that are being/will-be created. However, it provides a starting point for resolution. While this is a very general discussion of the idea, the thinking style is similar to Lupe Fiasco's reasoning behind calling Obama a terrorist, although definitely on different planes of possible enragement.

Lupe Fiasco on Obama (...and U.S. Presidents in general I believe)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cU9HdGPDfo

Imagine Dragons- Demons Take 2

The same song a week later.

Imagine Dragons Demons- First Take

Cell Phones

I used to find it acceptable to be on my cell phone around other people when I initially got one, but now... now I see why cell phones can be a social calamity. It is incredibly frustrating when I'm hanging out with friends and they are absent from the conversation, from being in the moment, from sharing their presence, their personality with other people simply because they are on their cell phone. I abhor when I'm sitting down eating with people (I choose eating as an example because I love eating and therefore spend a countless amount of time pursuing the activity), and they are checking their: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, texts, taking selfies (there are apparently an unlimited number of ways to grossly deform ones face and still be ok), checking ESPN and all the other amazing things their phones can do... which should be done when they are alone with their phone. If one is on their phone while "participating" in any form of social interaction, it is essentially, pardon my language, extending a prominent middle finger to the people who would talk to you. If you don't want to socialize, then stay at home, where you don't prove to other people that your phone is prioritized over them. To accentuate this point, here is a melancholic video that I watched recently shedding some truth on cell phone usage.

Learning by Hearing (Piano)

This goes on for a while... there may be a better way to spend 16 minutes of your life than watching this, at least I hope so!

Unfortunately the video is refusing to transfer onto blogger so I'll give a rapid summary. At first, I attempted to play "Lego House" by Ed Sheeran by pure memory. I guessed it was in the key of B and was wrong. The song is in the key of G but I was only a half-step too low overall with the melody I was playing. This marks the beginning of attempting to learn music by simply listening to a song, attempting to play the melody on the piano and then adding the left hand. Hopefully progress is imminent!

Free Will vs. Determinism

Let me be real here, I could care less about whether a person believes that free will or determinism is the correct assessment of life. The fact is that we are probably never going to find out who is right because it involves arguing about the theoretical. This means, philosophically speaking, that both ends of the spectrum, if it is a spectrum, are logically incorrect because they are concluding definitively that one assumption is true while the other is false. Religiously, this is the belief in a deity or atheism. The philosophical in between is atheism, claiming that we as humankind do not have the knowledge available to us to accurately conclude the existence, or lack thereof, of a deity.

The more important part about free will vs. determinism is how you choose to live your life. I believe that we have free will and that if I wanted to, I could lie in bed until I rot and not have to deal with the everyday crap of life. I also believe, that if I dedicate myself to being useful to others in life, I can make my life awesome to the extent that I won't want to rot in my bed. I personally believe, that effort creates ability and that one can generally achieve, if one is willing to dedicate effort. I find it difficult when people say "this is just the way it was meant to happen" because I judge this as a defeatist attitude. The reason there was a negative event in your life is probably because you acted in a way that it would happen. Granted, other people and events can screw you over but overall, I believe that what you put in , you receive in return. Monetarily speaking, if you invest money (conservatively), you will earn money in return; if you hide your money in the drawer below your bathroom sink, its value will decrease as the currency depreciates.

I guess to me, free-will is the ability to live life to your preference, an opportunity that I feel many people pass over and I can't deny that this ignorance elicits both nervousness about our future and occasionally, disdain.