Why Do We Find Joy in Pain?

We have all seen America's Funniest Videos or watched funny videos of people doing stupid things, and ending up hurting themselves, sometimes very seriously. The very sentence I just wrote conveys my point exactly. We find these videos funny. Why?

In this video, "Scarlet Takes a Tumble," we see a woman, who decides to climb up onto a structurally unsound table, and proceed to dance and move her body in motions that do not equally distribute her weight along all support structures of the table. Scarlet proceeds to dance, proceeds to sing, proceeds to fall, as the table flies out from under her when she unfortunately walks too far forward, thereby unevenly distributing her weight to the front part of the table, causing said tumble.

Just while typing this description of this video, I am struggling to contain my laughter. But why? Why do we laugh at the pain of others? Why does the pain of others seem to amuse us to no end? When we see others, such as Scarlet, in unfortunate situations of unexpected pain and trauma, a number of things go through our minds. First off, humans have the innate, and not always becoming trait of finding cruel humor amusing. Secondly, and primarily, we have the urge to laugh at others pain because when we see someone else in an unfortunate situation, we have the "funny feeling" of relief that we are not in that situation. We are looking at Scarlet take her "tumble" and we say to ourselves "Wow... Glad that wasn't me." We then proceed to laugh because we know that she is alright, or the video wouldn't be online, and also because we have something that we are able to look at and be grateful we aren't in that persons shoes.

Three Books I would like to Read

I would like to read 19 Minutes, because Natasha and others have recommended this book to me and I heard it was really well written. I would also like to read The Red Tent, recommended to me by Ms. Weygandt, about Joseph's sister who was little mentioned in the Bible. Lastly, I want to read Among the Hidden, also recommended to me by Ms. Weygandt. I trust her recommendations because she has recommended me some very good books to read in the past.

My Independent Reading This Quarter

This quarter, I have established a regular habit of reading. I read every night now before I go to bed, even if it is just by Bible reading. I have had a few issues with keeping up with my reading earlier in the quarter, but now I am doing really good with it. I honestly probably wouldn't be reading 150 minutes a week if I didn't think I needed to do it just for the grade. Life right now is just so busy I don't always have that much time to read. I have a relatively balanced reading diet, some frill reads, along with some mroe serious reads, like Inexcusable. Reading this quarter has really been hard to squeeze in, but I think over the long run, I have learned how to make and keep some good habits that will stick with me for a long time.

Getting in my required number of books was hard. I read some really good books, but then my reading became kind of stagnant and boring for a while. I just need to be sure to stay in the swing of reading every day and finding good books to read that keep me thinking and entertained at the same time.

Socratic Seminar Reflection

The Socratic Seminars we took part in during class proved to be a very interesting and enlightening way to explore ideas and pick each other's minds on topics from Brave New World. In the seminars, my group and I spoke about the differing viewpoints of John the Savage and Mustapha Mond. I also spoke about John's use of Shakespearean quotes in his speech when he is talking to people in the "civilized world."

While preparing for the seminars, I was pleased to find in myself the ability to look at a text and actually interpret a deeper meaning than the impression given on the surface. I was proud of myself that I was actually able to exercise that extra level of critical thinking in a practical manner by taking notes and pondering ideas Huxley presented, for example, the differing viewpoints of Mond and John on the topic of having something more to believe in than just emotion.

I encountered many new and intriguing points of view from my peers during the seminars. For example, my peers pointed out how the words of Shakespeare could have been chosen by Huxley because Shakespearean literature is so timeless and appeals to every human emotion in the most simple, yet at the same time complex, ways. Therefore, John could have been quoting Shakespeare in times of trouble not only for comfort of tradition (my original viewpoint) but because he understood some surface meaning in the words of Shakespeare.

In participating in the seminars, I discovered that I am naturally inclined to initiate conversation with people, and ask lots of questions. I most enjoyed being able to talk to my peers in a smaller group without fear of interruption and hearing the views of some I don't normally have the opportunity to talk to.

The Socratic seminar was very challenging. I was really nervous about it, because I was afraid I would either monopolize the conversation or not speak at all. However, they went really well, I think we all did a great job in my group. The most difficult part for me in the seminar was being sure to pause and give others in my group time to speak and really hearing their ideas. Once I was able to open myself up and listen to the things everyone said, I really felt enlightened on the subjects we spoke about. It was quite interesting to discuss the ideas in "Brave New World" with my peers instead of the usual style of debate. If I had a do-over of the seminar, I would devote more time to listening to my peers and their ideas.

Pink's Purpose

Pink's sarcastic, grim observation of the shift in lifestyle in America, combined with his observation of the shift in thinking of Americans, aims to show our change of mindset and how we are taking our abundance for granted, possibly giving us cause to change. Staples is "a 20,000 square foot box selling 7,500 different school and office supplies." Pink is using this example of something we see every day to show us the massive nature of how we as a people seem to need a thousand different choices when over half of them do the exact same thing. He is bringing to light the fact that our forgetfulness of our abundance has led to a change in mindset. We have gone from I need this to survive, to I want this because I like it. When we can't store things, we just throw them away. Pink's frank statement of this visible fact shows the obvious American wasteful attitude and his effort to bring to light this change of mindset. Americans need to buy things we need, so therefore we won't have more stuff than space. We are drowning in our waste of our abundant resources, and Pink uses tactful sarcastic humor and straightforwardness to make us aware of our current state.

Use Rhetoric...invest in victory!

Everyone wants to help out Uncle Sam, right? This advertisement for Scotch tape from the 1940's uses Logos, Pathos, and Ethos to advertise their unique and new (at the time) brand of tape.

First and foremost, this ad obviously appeals to Logos, by showing readers the practical uses of their tape. For example, Scotch tape is being highlighted in this ad as a valuable tool in the war effort. The tape is used to hold together care packages for soldiers and hold together parts in factories producing wartime goods.

This ad also uses Ethos, giving it credibility, by telling of those same ways Scotch brand tape is helping Uncle Sam, and telling of the many places in which scotch brand tape can be found and used.

This ad is also more than an ad. It is a notice, telling faithful users of Scotch brand items that the reason their favorite products can not be found on shelves anymore is that they are helping out the country. An obvious appeal to Pathos, Scotch is spending their money to tell consumers of their efforts to aide in American Victory (notice the use of Victory, a positive description) and advising citizens to invest in war bonds, a completely non profit to Scotch action. Scotch is appealing to the hard ingrained emotions of patriotism within the hearts of Americans.

Another appeal to Pathos that this ad uses is the obvious display of an aesthetically pleasing woman in a bright red dress as an attention getter, drawing people in, particularly men, to read on in the advertisement and be delivered Scotch's intended message. Also notice that everyone in the picture is smiling and happy, showing readers that Scotch has a positive attitude and wants America to win the war.

Scotch's 1944 ad, or public announcement to be more accurate, uses at least a tidbit of every type of Rhetoric, to effectively draw readers attention, sell them on the product, and keep spirits up in America's time of trouble.

Are we becoming tweeting Twits?

How reliant have we as humans become on the use of technology for the everyday acts of communications? As shown in Mashable's article, "Twitter's official tweet button has arived,"referenced on CNN.com, twitter has come up with yet another way for users to tweet, keep track of other's tweets, forward tweets, and follow tweets, and just about any other action that uses the word tweet. Have we gone too far? Is the urge to be able to communicate with others 24/7 overtaking our lives?

Twitter's new button lets users keep track of how many "retweets" (reposts) they get on their own posts, and also lets other users "retweet" something that someone else has posted easily and with the push of a button. Am I the only one who is taken aback by this statement? Have we stooped to the point of being too lazy to type out our own responses? Going deeper, what ever happened to writing?

These questions may seem old fashioned and weird, but let me be the first to say, I love facebook. I am on that website more than the average person, and even the average person is on it more than necessary. I am just asking the questions to make us think. We as individuals and as a society must get out of our computer chairs and do something. If we let the lazy attitude that society has adopted start to overtake our lives, we will soon be sitting in the middle of a crumbling world.

Mashable's article illustrates just one of the many ways our society, already amazingly blessed with everything we have, is becoming more and more dependent on technology and more accustomed to instant gratification. This doesn't mean we should all throw our computers out on the sidewalk and only ever communicate through handwritten letters ever again. This does mean, however, that we need to take a step back and reevaluate where the line should be drawn between convenience, and laziness.