Confucius Presidents

I personally don't really believe that any of the presidential candidates live up to the expectations of Confucius teachings, except for one. Confucius once said, "Silence is the true friend and never betrays". When we look at many of the popular candidates, we find them out spoken and always talking about someone or some other candidate. Confucius is really talking about being humble, and people who are humble (means being modest in one's own importance) generally don't get into conflicts with others and people like them to the extent of friendliness. Honestly, who has ever wanted to hate someone who was humble?! Ben Carson is one of the most humble politicians (even though he is not, he is a neurosurgeon, but we will consider him as one in regards to the presidential race) I have ever seen (granted, I've only lived for 20 years) and always put humility and faith as the primary characteristics of his person to get him to the white house. Even with the criticism over his comments connecting America and Nazi Germany, and his opinion of Muslims, he has stayed humble and still remains on of the most popular candidates to Americans.

What do you think? Is Carson humble? What do you think about some of Carson's controversial comments? Please leave a comment!

Opposites of Life

I'm no philosopher so pardon me if I might not truly understand Daodejing, but I believe everyone can see something different.

Opposites in Daodejing are thing that are balanced, so one without the other, neither can exist so they complement each other. It's the concept of yin and yang, hot and cold, nice and mean, tortoise and the hare. for example, in life we have fast and slow, but without things being fast, slow computers could not be distinguished by speed, if everything was fast, we would never know the meaning of slow. With darkness there must be light, because if there is no darkness, we would never know light. If light only existed, we would not know light because again we could not distinguish it with darkness so to us, light didn't exist.

Opposites in Daodejing are independent elements of life that are dependent of each other and are what makes life truly wonderful and equal. It gives use the appreciation and desire we seek, and without the the opposite of what we appreciate, we can never appreciate it.

What do you think? Do agree with my annotation of opposites in Daodejing? What things do you appreciate and what is it's opposite? Would you be interested in traveling to Nepal? Please leave a comment!

War

War is something that has been around forever and being in the National Guard, I believe war is natural and so is peace. When you look at the issues, and I mean all all sides of it, in Syria and ISIS and Russia and U.S. and people being affected, I'd say it's a just war (but that could be some bias since I am a soldier and without war, no army, means I'm out of a job) but a war we should fight for human peace. I believe we should all unit with all nations to fight crimes against humanity, and if that government is the culprit, we will unit with the people because they are what makes up the nation. Sadly we are sticking our nose into Syria for political reasons, but we do need to stop the blood shed ISIS and the Syrian government have been committing.

What do you think? Are you pro or anti war in the Middle East? Would you be willing to be drafted into the conflict in the Middle East? Please leave a comment!

Next Stop: Eternal Life

Most religions and societies in the world have some form of eternal life or cycle of life itself, Valhalla, Heaven, Nirvana, Reincarnation just to name a few. When I talk about eternal life, I'm talking about your soul going to some form of haven or cycle of life which you partake for eternity. Usually to attain this eternal life, one must be good in nature or have faith in a higher being. But lets look at the good naturedness of being able to have eternal life, mainly because eternal life isn't usually associated with bad deeds because that would usually lead to unforeseeable things in your moments after you pass (probably why we don't associate eternal life with hell). Eternal life might generally run around some form of karma system that affects our eternal soul, which is a soul that continues on forever to some form of other life itself. Many believe that we need to live on the moments of good and adventure because you get one shot before starting over because we will never remember in our other life. Which is why many do bad things because they think this is the only life they get and their is no eternal glory of any form.

What do you think? I feel like I just babbled about the topic. Did I make any real point on my topic? Do you believe in something that is eternal? Please leave a comment!

From He-Man to Lady-Person (If You're A Guy)

It's a pretty drastic change if one simple becomes a woman over night. You are not only physically different but now you have to act the part. The situation at first would be hectic and crazy, then possibly go in to denial from the drastic change from being a man to a full blown woman. If it was me I would find some type of coping mechanism inside of me that can help me pull through from this predicament. In short, I wanna find a way to stay happy in my gender swapping situation.

Literally this entire situation is pure chaos in its truest form, because no matter what we do, we could never have predicted we would turn in to women. This is something completely random and out of nowhere that we would never expect it, but even if we did, how could have we prevented it (because you know it's weird to spend your whole life as a guy trying to not be a woman).

This is where we would shine in how define ourselves based on our human characteristics, because people can be truly defined how they respond and behave under chaotic conditions. Like I said in my last post, if you turn into a woman, you can either to crazy and depressed or fin the solution you need to carry on. When you apply that to other situations, you might just see how heroes are truly made and that is under chaos itself.

What do you think? Does Chaos make the hero? How can we expect when to become a woman (guy question)? And if so, how can we prevent it? Chinese buffet. . . yes or no? Please leave a comment!

Life Changes

Changes in life can be a constant thing that happens to everyone, yet many of us wish to have simple, stagnant lives. I believe a person can be described by how they behave and overcome change. Someone might loose their job and do nothing but drink and complain how their life sucks, while another might have gotten his car stolen but still managed to get back home and figure out a process to claim his insurance policy to buy a new car and move on. 

When I was 17 in high school, I had my whole life planned out: go to Georgia State University (accepted), apply for a full-ride ROTC Scholarship (pending), then commission into the U.S. Army as a brand new Lieutenant. Unfortunately my mother got sick three days before my eighteenth birthday and died a month later. This didn't crush me (which it did) as much as how it confused me on the outlook of my life. For the first time, how I perceived the world changed in the blink of an eye and I found myself lost and stumbling over what I thought was my goal in life. I lost focus on why I worked hard and 2 weeks later, I went to go see a National Guard recruiter, enlisted, never looked back. It was the push I needed to not only bounce back, but come back stronger to be able to face harder challenges. 

It's a much different experience when someone close to you dies and you have to leave in less then 3 months to face the hardest challenge so far in your life, and then return knowing home isn't the same. From this experience I've learned to make home where you make it as long as you're happy.

What you do you think? Are people best described by their changes? Do you like baking? Please leave a comment!

Sophocles

I found Sophocles's theory on tragedy to be more straight to the point and his characters more human with many flaws. Unlike other stories of tragedies, he wants to illustrate his characters on how they behave and what he or she must do given the harsh circumstances they are in, instead of figuring out why they are in the situation.  Looking at Oedipus the King, we find that even though the oracles say he was fated to kill his father and murder his mother, he still maintain free will throughout the story. We already know what has already happened as readers and audiences, but we are still entertained on how Oedipus acts in his situation.


Reference:
http://osf1.gmu.edu/~lsmithg/astragedy.htm