I am a very touchy-feely person; I love holding hands and hugging and other things of that nature. Recently, I've been looking at boys' hands and mentally comparing them, and today, in Academy, I had an epiphany: all the hands of the guys I know that play volleyball have really square/circular palms, and their fingers are about the same lengths as their palm, and the hands of those that play basketball have thinner palms and long, thin fingers. Maybe this isn't the most astounding insight ever made, but I felt a strange but oddly satisfying wave of accomplishment hit me as I realized those connections. I'm probably not going to go around at do a clinical trial examining the hands of GBN's volleyball and basketball teams, but it would be very interesting to see the results.
Let's assume that my observations are true for all, or at least a large majority of these athletes. What does that mean? I'm not sure if it would be possible for a sport to alter the hands of a person; they usually seem to be something hereditary that can't be changed. Therefore, is it possible that hands could tell you something about your personality? Chiromancy, the art of palm reading, has been practiced for centuries, and involves evaluating the "lines" of the hands, characteristics of fingers, nails, fingerprints, skin texture and color, shape of the palm and flexibility. Among all the future-predicting/"psychic" arts, I almost think that this one makes the most sense, because rather than relying on crystal globes or tea leaves to predict things about your life, chiromancy is based on something that is inherently yours, that no one else can trick or beguile.
On a darker note, what if humans got this down to a science, and if, at birth, everyone was characterized with a list of possibilities for the kind of person they would become, based on their natural physical features? Or, if parents could be genetically analyzed to predict what kind of person their children would grow up to be? Our world has always been a mad race, a survival of the fittest; how soon do you think it will be until scientists literally take it into their own hands and choose to create the humans with the most potential, based off of their physical, inherited characteristics?
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Dialectics: Romantic Love and Infatuation
(Note before I begin: Mr. Allen, I'm sorry if I do not do this blog correctly. And I'm also sorry that I partially am using one of your examples; I hope that's ok.)
"All You Need Is Love". "Can't Buy Me Love". "I Wanna Love You". "Love Is Gonna Save Us". Across every genre of music, from rock and roll to techno, Love is what it's all about. It's depicted across the silver screen and stage; it's what Romeo and Juliet died for, and the war of Troy was fought for. As a society, we seem to strive for it as much as we do for our own well being, education, or career. Marriage is thought of as a milestone in life, and the ultimate goal for a happy ending. However, modern television is full of secrecy, betrayal, infidelity and sleaze. In the US, approximately 45.8% of all marriages end in divorce, and are now much more casual and less binding as previous decades. Many of these rash decisions portrayed on the small screen and actualized in reality seem to me that immediate infatuation and gratification have replaced love.
And why not? Love takes time, responsibility, care. One can see how in a world of speed dating and one-night-stands, it can easily be bypassed. Infatuation can occur with possibilities of turning into love, but it might just be halted by outside factors like jobs or time. Even in the past, it was difficult to distinguish between true love and simple infatuation. Last year, while reading Romeo & Juliet, we had many discussions about the nature of love and if it really occurred in the novel. Some people strongly argued that they were not in love, because their obsession with each other was only for a short period of time, and they died before anyone could find out if they really loved each other. Psychologists say that a period of infatuation can last between 3 and 18 months, so many hasty marriagers (and teenagers in Verona) could be deceived into believing what they feel will last.
But then again, I would never argue that lasting love does not exist. The most supportive example to me was of my mother's parents; they were together for sixty-nine years. Although divorce has been an unhappy outcome to many marriages, there are still many that have stayed together successfully. And romantic comedies still seem to rake in millions at the box office, showing that although we love scandal, we still love happy ending just as much. I think my dialectic idea is that the most important aspect of separating love and infatuation is time, and also a healthy environment for that love to blossom.
"All You Need Is Love". "Can't Buy Me Love". "I Wanna Love You". "Love Is Gonna Save Us". Across every genre of music, from rock and roll to techno, Love is what it's all about. It's depicted across the silver screen and stage; it's what Romeo and Juliet died for, and the war of Troy was fought for. As a society, we seem to strive for it as much as we do for our own well being, education, or career. Marriage is thought of as a milestone in life, and the ultimate goal for a happy ending. However, modern television is full of secrecy, betrayal, infidelity and sleaze. In the US, approximately 45.8% of all marriages end in divorce, and are now much more casual and less binding as previous decades. Many of these rash decisions portrayed on the small screen and actualized in reality seem to me that immediate infatuation and gratification have replaced love.
And why not? Love takes time, responsibility, care. One can see how in a world of speed dating and one-night-stands, it can easily be bypassed. Infatuation can occur with possibilities of turning into love, but it might just be halted by outside factors like jobs or time. Even in the past, it was difficult to distinguish between true love and simple infatuation. Last year, while reading Romeo & Juliet, we had many discussions about the nature of love and if it really occurred in the novel. Some people strongly argued that they were not in love, because their obsession with each other was only for a short period of time, and they died before anyone could find out if they really loved each other. Psychologists say that a period of infatuation can last between 3 and 18 months, so many hasty marriagers (and teenagers in Verona) could be deceived into believing what they feel will last.
But then again, I would never argue that lasting love does not exist. The most supportive example to me was of my mother's parents; they were together for sixty-nine years. Although divorce has been an unhappy outcome to many marriages, there are still many that have stayed together successfully. And romantic comedies still seem to rake in millions at the box office, showing that although we love scandal, we still love happy ending just as much. I think my dialectic idea is that the most important aspect of separating love and infatuation is time, and also a healthy environment for that love to blossom.
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