Thoughts of a Young Man...

An Experience All of Its Own

2009-12-31T09:25:00.000-08:00

There seems to be many universal excuses people use: “my dog ate it”, “I just lost track of time”, and so on. But one probably seems like the the real go-to for when people can't get rid of something, “Oh, it has sentimental value, I can't get rid of that.”

Sentimental value. It's something people can not understand for others, but justify for themselves. Your collection of Hot Wheels has sentimental value to you, but you can't see why your wife needs to keep all those magazines. Issues like that often arise when sentimental value is involved. However, one place where sentimental value is almost always involved is music.

I would be willing to put money on the fact that around 75% of people still have some records (vinyl LP's) from when they were young. Now, they may not ever listen to them, nor even have the means to listen to them, but they still have them. The real question is why.

The easy answer is sentimental value. Which is mostly true for most people. They have good memories of their childhood, probably hanging out in the basement listening to the newest Beatles or Led Zeppelin album with their friends. And that's all great, and for those reasons, vinyls should be kept.

This year for Christmas, my mom got a converter, which is a turn table that plugs in to the computer and records the album so you can have it digitally. This is a great machine. I've already converted two Beatles albums, a huge Christmas set of four records, and two other miscellaneous albums. But still, this has taught me to love the culture of my parent's era, and it brought me to see the sentimental value in the albums.

So now I jump to my generation. The generation of kids who have virtually unlimited access to music, most of it free. If you look on a kid's iPod today, and ask them how much of their music they either paid for, bought/received the album, or even got the album/mix cd burned, they would say not very much. HP says “The computer is personal again.” Well the way I see it, music is becoming less personal.

It's because of technologies these days. When kids think of music, they don't think of records, or 8-tracks, or cassette tapes like their parents did, instead they think of the little icon in a giant list int their My Music folder. Most of their albums are mislabeled, so iTunes can't find the album art, and so they don't get to experience the full act of listening to music.

About a year ago I was at a wrestling tournament in downtown Sacramento, CA. I was just roaming around, and I saw this music store,The Beat (1700 J street). I figured I had never really been in a record store, so why not. I wanted a new cd, but I just didn't know who to get. I had forty minutes to browse, and I used up most of it. Just going through the cd racks, seeing all the album art that artists have on their cd's truly opened my eyes to how much people are loosing nowadays. They even had a row of vinyls there as well, although I didn't go through it because I knew our record player was in the garage somewhere and I couldn't listen to it. So I decided on a Pearl Jam cd, and left.

That experience was one of the most memorable in my life. Just going through the racks, seeing all the music that is out there in its physical form, was truly fun. I felt like what my parents must have felt like, going through the albums of their time. That gave music sentimental value to me. So I hope my parent's don't get rid of their records, cause I want them. They have sentimental value to me as well. As for cds, most of them do. There are a few that I didn't enjoy as much as I thought I would, but for others, like the anticipation of waiting for Stadium Arcadium to come out by the Red Hot Chili Peppers I will always hold. For many people these days, music is simply something you listen to. But for those who truly love music, music is an experience all of its own.

Old School is Still the School

2009-10-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

This post in and of itself is an irony.

It was Sunday morning, and my family had not gone to church. Everybody was sleeping in, and i had the whole house to myself. I woke up, checked my email, read my rss feeds, even perused through a few stories of my local newspaper online. Then, I did something that was rare for me. I got up, grabbed my cell phone, iPod, and my latest edition of Wired, and went out back, sat down in my beach chair, and read. With the iPod softly going in my ears, I was sitting, enjoying the calmness of my backyard, reading a magazine.

And then is when the thought hit me: Why am I doing this? I could still be still be sitting in my room, and i could be reading the magazine online like i did the paper, and not have moved an inch.

So here is where I find myself now. Looking back on the situation, it was probably the most enjoyable thing I did all day. It was the fact that I wasn't all wrapped up in who was tweeting what, or how I could further customize my computer to make it more me. I was simply sitting, enjoying the moment.

The newspaper industry has really been hurt by the internet. More and more local papers are closing because they are loosing revenue from no one buying because they can get the information online. I am one of those people. I subscribe to my local paper's rss feed and get all the headlines on my laptop without even having to go to the website. It is simply more convenient to have it all in one place(internet), and when the news is instant(internet), it makes it ten times better.

And so I found myself sitting there, in my back yard, reading the hard copy of Wired, delivered to me by my local mailman, and I was happy. Let's face it. In today's day and age, sitting down to read either a newspaper or a magazine is old school compared to the new ways to get information. But what do you gain? Relaxation. Serenity. Maybe even a chance to slow down what's going on around you.

Living in the moment. That's what's old school. Whether it be taking the time to hand write thank you letters and mail them, or sitting down relaxing and reading the paper drinking coffee (if it's Duncan, all the more to you). The fact is, that's what people enjoy. So if living in the moment, being aware of your surroundings, and appreciating all that is happening in this world is considered old school, than shoot, old school is alive and kickin'!

A Very Necessary Evil

2009-08-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

The institution of school has been something has has haunted young people for thousands of years. Many view it as a place where they are forced to go and not do what they want to do. Students would rather be on the lake than in the classroom. However, the institution we know as school has often times proved to be more productive than an outing on the lake, or watching a movie with one's friends. School is what enables people to do these things, to gain the knowledge to create these forms of leisure. So in essence, school is a catalyst for change, not a captive place for teens.

For me, school starts on Monday, and it is my last year of high school. Last time I will be forced by law to go to school. Last time I will have to arrive early to pick up my schedule. Still, although I know it is better for me in the end, I find myself resenting the fact that i have to go to school. Isn't America the land of the free? Why am then forced to not be free and go to school?

Over the years I have adopted this mindset: It's a law for a reason, someone older and wiser than me knows what's best in the long run. That's how I explain why the drinking age is 21, yet the voting and smoking age is 18: someone with more knowledge knows why and made it so. And so this mindset must be adopted to the institution of school. We are compelled to go because it will give us more knowledge in the long run and make society more productive. And although I myself know this, I still do not want to go back.

Teenagers, and all young people in general, are instant gratifiers. We want what we want, when we want it. So obviously the thought of sitting in a classroom is not as appealing as sitting at home watching a Law and Order marathon, but nonetheless, it is something we all must do. Without school, or at least the mandatory schooling, many people would not have been inspired to go on and do great things. Technology would not be advancing as it is if it weren't for school. I know that I myself would probably not be the motivated young man I am today if it were not for some of the teachers I have been fortunate to have throughout my life.

So school is better for everyone in the long run. It sparks interests and thoughts and inspirations that otherwise might not have ever been discovered. And as only natural, kids have adapted to the rules of the school to make it a place where they actually look forward to going, whether it be through texting in class (which I do NOT promote), or even creating a lunch ritual by goiung to a certain place on a certain day (like taco bell tuesday). Nonetheless, school has found its place in society as a hated institution that kids these days can't live without. School, in a very tainted light, is a necessary evil.

Pleasure for Thought

2009-07-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

I was reading some literature on obesity today and the question came to me: Why do people eat so much. At first, the question may stun people. Eating is a natural process in which the body receives energy. This is how it has been done for years. But really. If one can gain all the energy it needs by simply eating, why then do people eat more than they need?

I found the answer in asking this question to myself: I eat a lot because it tastes good. That's it. food tastes good. Food can bring out sensations and emotions that can be matched by no other action. This is partly the reason for restaurants: people want to experience something that they can not make for themselves.

It is these sensations that give us pleasure. If they were not pleasureful sensations, people would not eat, they would find ulterior motives to gain energy. So now can see that people eat because they find pleasure form it. Still, why do people eat so much? obviously, they gain a lot of pleasure from it. In fact, they gain so much that they are not able to bring themselves to stop until their body tells them to do so by giving the command "I AM FULL!!!"

From there the person stops eating and then is so full, he/she finds themselves incapacitated for the next half hour. So from that train of thought, people eat so much because they lack self control. They are so happy and content with the food they are experiencing, that they don't want it to stop. Only when they are physically incapable of eating more do they finish.

Now this is not true of all over eaters. Nor is this true as to why people are obese. Everyone's body is different (or at least that's what I learned in kindergarten) and so different things happen. Lack of control is only one reason as to why people often overeat. I myself am guilty of overeating. The true test is how you deal with it.

So next time you think "Dude. I'm sooo hungry right now. I want some food", what you're really saying is "Dude. I want to feel good." Feeling good means finding pleasure. And that is something we all want: to find pleasure.

Kids These Days

2009-07-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

I recently got back from the coast on a football camp trip. There I saw the best and worst of man. but still, there was one thing that bugged me: how can there be people in this world who seem to lack the common sense that to most is inherent in our nature? This question recently came around when i was reminiscing about this trip.

I found myself in a beautiful setting, a high school located not 100 yards away from the beach, with probably one of the most relaxing climates one could ask for. Mind you, there was a constant breeze that often picked up, but still, compared to the 110 degree weather at home in Redding, this was paradise. Yet, despite this bliss that all of of were enjoying, some not-so-smart young men decided to screw up the last night for all. The last night that was supposed to be a night of laughs and good times, was quickly turned into a night of blame and high anger and tempers.

Throughout all of this, things calmed down, but no one felt as though the night went the way it was supposed to. here lies the root of the first question: a group of individuals felt they had the right to screw up the final night of a trip that, up until then, had been going so smoothly. From what I could gather, there were no complaints so far about the trip, except this.

This behavior/viewpoint is one I see in most of the piers of this group of boys. They think that because they are where they are in life, they have certain rights and privileges. These are the same rights and privileges that people of my generation earned. So what makes this group of kids so special?... The truth: nothing. In fact, this generation does not deserve these privileges because they are not able to earn them.

Their past experiences and consequence ending in "That's ok, you're too young to deserve that punishment" has created a mentality amongst the generation that they do not require punishment for their actions, not because they are too young anymore, but because they are a special group of individuals. And because of that, they have not learned the same rules of society that the older generations have. This creates a problem, one that is severe and alarming: this generation is rapidly entering society, yet does not know how to properly function in it. The rest of us in society are having to deal with the screw-ups and miss haps that this younger generation keeps on doing.

So... Is society doomed? Maybe. One can only hope that the rules of society will kick in to this younger generation and spawn a "Great Awakening" in them that will instill a common sense in them that we all seem to already have.

So in response to my initial question, I guess I must answer with this: it was never there to begin with. These people were told right form wrong, but were never fully taught it. Will they learn the rules of society, eventually. Will it be easy for them, no. But one thing is for sure, it will be equally as hard for the rest of us.