Topic 3: Home

So this week's topic is home. This topic is more about figuring out what exactly home is, generally, subjectively, superficially, existentially. I strongly believe in open ended responses, so it's up to the writer to come up with what they'd like to discuss. If no ideas come up, try these.

• Going home
• Defining home
• Expectations of home
• Leaving home
• Finding home
• Losing home

It's my hope that you'll realize your own definition of home is more complicated than it seems...

Topic 2: Character - Matt Litzsinger

Definition

Whenever one talks about character, one usually refers to the parts of a person that make them act in a certain way time and time again. It seems to me that character therefore refers to the amalgamation of unchanging habits of an individual.

Origin of Character in an Individual

1. Character Must be Developed

This leads us to question of where character originates from. You might say that it comes naturally. You have always remembered being patient, for instance. However, you would not classify a baby as being 'patient', as it cannot outwardly exude patience or impatience. Babies have not interacted with the world long enough for any of their tendencies to be described as unchanging, so don't have character. Therefore, there has to be a point in which you developed a trait or in which that trait became outwardly evident. You may have been born with tendencies to form certain habits, but they only became part of your character through action.

2. Theory of Character Acquisition

Aristotle wrote about the topic of character acquisition in his Nicomachean Ethics. A small part of his theory says that the ability to acquire any virtue or vice is present at birth, but characters (which are composed of virtues and vices) only develop through performing the corresponding actions to develop the corresponding habits. I would argue, however, that there is major portion that Aristotle missed, namely that we learn most of our early habits through imitation.

Picture by jlorenz1

3. Character Acquired by Imitation

From birth to age 18, children spend a large amount of their time with their parents, and because they strongly imitate them, they develop many of the same habits as their parents. Presumably the children will receive the most exposure to the habits of the parents which are unchanging. A parent could go through a mid-life crisis, but these are recently developed habits, and the children won't have as much exposure to them as they do to unchanging habits. Unchanging habits of the parents which are learned through imitation by the children, are reinforced by the parents throughout their childhood, so are also unchanging. Therefore, children inherit some of their character from their parents, as these imitated habits are a part of their character. Certainly, there are also some outside influences that determine character, but I think that it's predominantly inherited from parents.

Are you Responsible for Your Character?

1. You Control Your Surroundings

As discussed previously, your parents determine much of your character as they are your primary example of what a person should be. As a child, you have a choice on how much to idealize each parent, which determines how much of each parent you will imitate. Thus, even though there are only two choices of people to imitate, the child has a little control over what they idealize, and what they subsequently imitate.

More control over character emerges as one leaves home (particularly work or school). As discussed in my post last week, you can decide who you spend the most time with and who you develop friendships with. These friends will determine many of your character traits. Presumably you are friends with them because you see them as good people, worthy of imitation, and thus imitate them.

2. There is Time to Change

Although you may have limited choices about who to imitate as a child, when you are in your late teenage years, you develop rational thinking independent of your parents and have the ability to make decisions for yourself. This ability gives you the power to change your habits and thus your character.

Changing habits is a slow process, but a majority of your life is still ahead of you, so changing your character to match your ideal as closely as possible is a worthwhile thing for you to do. In the end, I believe that if we indeed have free will, we are responsible for our character. Additionally, because we have the ability to improve our habits to make us and those around us happier, I believe that we should do so.

Picture by Matt Litzsinger, taken at the Berlin Wall.

Improving Yourself

1. Introspection

The first step on improving yourself is to understand what your character currently is and what you desire it to be. There are many tests you can take to tell you what your character is, such as the VIAsurvey and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test, although honest introspection is also quite helpful.

2. Persistence

This week, I challenge you to develop a new habit and then stick with it. Share it with your friends and carefully develop incentives to make sure that you follow through with your habit. This week and following, I will make my sleep cycle more regular; specifically, I will go to bed and wake within the same 30 minute window every day (10:30 - 11:00 PM sleep and 6:30 - 7:00 AM wake). I will report my results on this blog to help ensure my success.

Topic 2: Character - Jaehyeong Lee

To me, character is social signage. It exists to help let people know what to expect of you should a certain event or action happen. If a person falls, depending on a person's character, their reaction will be different. Helpful, kind, considerate character will aid the fallen. Apathetic, selfish, busy character will not have enough time to aid. It's important because if the time should come when someone of your character is necessary, people will know who to reference or come to for response. Yes, character is something unique to a person; however, that doesn't mean it isn't influenced by the environment. Character is built naturally as one communicates with other people. The amount that it can change is dependent on how many interactions one has with however many different people. I'll consider how one can build their character and how one can help someone else build their character

1) How one can build character

There are a number of solutions. You can meet people, out topic of consideration last week, you can make more promises and keep them, you can take on more responsibility, you can try to break old habits, you can try to reduce the amount of hypocrisy you have, you can do nice things for others, the list goes on. Find something you have fun doing with a community of people, like group study, dance or music (those are the ones I do). 

For group study, break a difficult chapter into sections and have each person do their little section before the group gets together and then present the information in the most succinct way possible to the rest of the group. Sure, there will be some people who don't do their fair share of work - work around it. Get motivated about the upcoming material, appreciate the coursework, help others with their sections. Make it enjoyable, and people will come back and work hard to give to the group. When the payoff comes with that last A you received on your paper, the number of people interested in studying with you will rise dramatically. This will help you become more responsible, considerate and helpful, improving your character every moment of the way.

For dance, have everyone choreograph to their own music and present it to everyone the next practice. Have some of them teach it and perform it later. When making your dance, pick your favorite song, get the feel for it, add your own styles, nuances and moves. My motto when dancing is, if you think it looks awesome when you do it, everyone else will think it looks awesome too. If you hesitate, you've already made the rest of your audience doubt whether you can do the next move or not. There's no time to take steps back, just do it, evaluate, improve, do it again. This will build a sense of passion and motivation for your work, helping your character be more positive, upbeat and progressive. This is infectious at school, work and home.

For music, orchestras, bands and big groups are excellent forms of responsibility. The conductor already expects a great deal from you, so just do one better. Why stop there? You're already lovin' it, you're already groovin' to the music. Move your body to the music. Change the way you play the instrument. Breathe. Flow. Feel the sound come out of your fingers. The entire world changes if you've ever experienced playing music in this way. This will help you embody your work and give your character an insatiable drive for curiosity. What if I tried applying these new ways of perceiving music to different pieces, scores, styles? What kind of interesting things will happen then? Is there more to learn, to improve, to play? It can only get better from there. Others will notice, some will follow the same path. Charisma is contagious.

2) How one can help others build their character

Well, you've learned about meeting people. Maybe you realize they are shy, non-confrontational, independent. Get acquainted with them. Help them learn to build their character by showing them some of these things you might do that help your character grow. Don't force them to do anything - just show them that you, having build your character in such a way, are shining, and convince them that they can shine too. 

Be a role model. Be yourself.

Topic 2: Character

The topic for week two involves character and how it affects our interaction with other people. Here are some guiding questions:

• How should character be defined and what is it?
• How does your character develop?
•  How does it determine how you relate to other people, and, connecting to last week, make friends?
• Is there a character which is most ideal? If so, what is it like, or what motivates it?

Have fun with this one, and I hope that writing about this will improve your character.

Topic 1: Meeting New People - Jesse Wu

Let's get this started shall we. Meeting new people. Hmm. I actually come to a roadblock (or should I say writer's block) and would like to generalize this to experiencing anything new.

I have found that experiencing anything new for the first time is an incredible feeling that really cannot be repeated. For example, say I watch a movie which I didn't know anything about what would happen in it. A recent one I've watched is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. In this case, suppose the watcher had never read the book. The movie would have been pretty entertaining in that you really would not know what would happen. Would Bilbo succumb to the draw of adventure and journey with the dwarves? Would the group get eaten by some trolls? Who is this brown wizard? What is this ring and will Bilbo make it out past this mysterious creature to escape with it? Will Bilbo kill the creature to get past it? When does this movie even end (since its the first part of a trilogy, one really can't guess where it would end)?

From these questions, there are  answers which really say plot-twist! Experiencing this story for the first time allows one to enjoy being surprised and/or mind-blown. Knowing the story already makes experiencing it somewhat boring. Why is giving away plot sometimes called spoiling and why do people say "Spoiler Warning! Do not read ahead!" before spoilers? The element of surprise is a powerful tool for storytelling. I would bet that story lovers would rather get sick or lose money as opposed to being told spoilers because it ruins their experience.

Speaking of The Hobbit, that movie had some amazing music. I've found that the first time hearing a great song has one of two effects. One is that I hear it and I think "this is pretty strange," and I play it again and then start to think of it as a great song when I hear it the second or third time. The first time hearing it is just a warm-up in a way. This is kind of like developing love or not judging a book by its cover. The second effect is that the first time hearing the song makes me instantly enjoy it. This is like love at first sight. However, listening to a great song repeatedly for many times makes the song become boring after a while, which I kind of find depressing. New songs are always surpassing older ones because people get bored of music which they have already listened to many times.

The same effect of enjoying something the most on the first time extends to stories in books, stories in video games, video games in general, food, places, and even pure knowledge. Maybe it is better to not know everything in this universe (have omniscience). Being constantly curious has its benefits. One would prefer to not know everything. I guess being an omniscient being like a god wouldn't be a very exciting job.

Topic 1: Meeting New People - Jaehyeong Lee

Meeting new people is inevitable, if not in physical reality, online or even in the mind. We make our own interactions to contemplate and reflect, and that need to interact is a fundamental element of our humanity. Without further ado, I'll address this topic from three perspectives.

1. Meeting People in General

2. The Person being Met

3. The Person doing the Meeting

1) Meeting people will happen. It's the same thing as kinetic molecular theory. It's impossible for humans to pass through solid boundaries per the characteristics of solid matter. All of the molecules in a contained space will collide with another molecule inevitably. The only thing that is different is, with enough conscious thought, we can decide a number of collisions. This is picking your battles, and this is extremely important. Depending on your goal, who you meet will change. To me, I decide who to meet by intuitively guessing their level of individual happiness. Others meet others based on looks, on talent, on sociability, on dependability, etc. But it's important to remember. It's very difficult to meet everyone. It isn't impossible, but one's personal bias will always factor. I have yet to meet anyone who was able to get along with everyone, and as far as experience is concerned, that shall hold. Another thing that holds true is one shouldn't feel entitled to be with anyone. If you don't want to be with someone else, you shouldn't force it. That's not meeting someone, that's just realizing you're very uncomfortable, a.k.a. meeting yourself. It happens naturally, and if you feel overwhelmed or pressured, you're not meeting someone.

That's not to say don't be scared to meet someone. And if you are met, don't be frightened right away. Keep an open mind - this segways nicely into #2.

2) The person being met will have any number of reactions to being met. They can be emotional or apathetic, happy or angry, frightened or excited. The point is understanding people's boundaries and carefully navigating them to find your way to the person. It's not easy, especially if the people are either full of previous scars or have never met another person before. Usually the people who are most easy to meet are the ones who have overcome something in their lives or have some feeling of self-confidence. They open up easier and have more stories to tell about themselves because they have fewer reasons to hold back. They have no more obstacles to overcome. These yield interesting discussions, but the visitations they provide are usually short - they open up too fast for much room to exercise mental dexterity. The most interesting people to meet are the ones that won't open up because of past history. The process is longer and more difficult, the effort is greater, and the result is usually much more appreciable. It's like opening a door with many locks. The more work is put in, the more the reward tends to be. Only great secrets lie behind guarded doors.

I admit, this sounds very inconsiderate, but I'll tell you why this is how I analyze people. This is because the ones with the greatest secrets are the ones who need the lockpick, and this moves right into #3.

3) Being a meet-er is great responsibility. For the ones who look for power and feel the need to control, being able to meet is a weapon that can cause a great deal of damage. For the ones who help heal and aim for general human happiness, being able to meet is a tool that enables a great deal of good work to be done. For me, being able to meet people out of my comfort zone opens many doors. I can establish myself easily within complete strangers and find their mental grief and sadness with relative ease. Coupled with patience, this becomes the path to healing and overcoming psychological burdens for many people. For one of my friends, we'll call him C, it is simply a way of gaining what is wanted and hurting people's feelings. The desire to control and overwhelm clouds C's judgement, and his ability to meet people becomes the ultimate hunting tool. Society accepts his presence, trust is easily given, and the abuse begins. Many realize too late the result of accepting C into their life; however, it is up to the ones who meet for altruistic reasons to stop the process before it is too late.

Everyone has the potential to be happy, and to push this forward with the ability to meet other people, one finds that it's not drugs and pills that solve the problems. Sometimes, all it takes is a friend.

Sometimes, all it takes is to meet someone who care.

Topic 1: Meeting New People - Matt Litzsinger

Wherever I go, I see different groups of friends among all different types of people. Even the shiest people have friends, though it may be uncomfortable for them to make new ones, and they have more friends than you might think. I know this because I used to be shy. To me, the fact that shy people have friends says that making friends is a universal skill - everyone knows how to do it, and everyone seeks friendship. But, you can’t possibly be friends with everyone, so you must know how to choose friends carefully if you want to maximize happiness. In this post, I will explore a couple of questions regarding making friends, and through these questions unearth a few criteria that one could use. Let's get to it!

Picture by Santa Banta

Is making friends ever bad?

Any friendship should be mutually beneficial to both people. Friendships that are not mutually beneficial are likely unhealthy. For example, being friends with someone who you know is a serial killer is probably a bad idea; it is likely that either you won't trust them or they will hurt you. While this is an extreme example, this type of person shows a couple of characteristics that denote a bad friendship, such as dishonesty and untrustworthiness. 

So, friends who use you to accomplish a goal or have not shown themselves to be trustworthy in the slightest one should steer away from, as they would only be interested in their desires, not yours. The tricky part is that the more that you learn about how good of a friend someone would be, the more you are already friends with them. In other words, the more you know about how good of a friend someone would be, the less power you have to change it. Thus, it is crucially important to maximize that period of time, so as to make the best choice of friends possible.

Picture by Factoryjoe

What are the benefits of making friends?

As we saw in the example in the previous question, having friends means having your guard down, or in other words, feeling safe. Friends make you feel safe, and they also provide safety, whether this is through physical means (it's much harder to harm 2 people than 1), emotional means (providing you with encouragement), or through other means. The above diagram shows Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which is a theory of how our needs can be met. Presumably, the reason for going through all this trouble to meet needs is that the higher needs, when met, provide much more intense and lasting feelings of happiness than the lower needs. Safety is required for higher states of happiness, and friends are a crucial part of securing safety. Going along with this need for safety, being part of a group is a natural human need as well, and for good reason. Imagine mankind before agriculture was invented; those who stayed in groups were much more likely to survive than those who didn't because predators are more likely to hunt an individual than a group. It was naturally selected, therefore, for us to desire to be in groups, as this helped survival in our hunter and gatherer days. Having friends helps fulfill this need to fit in as well, as well as the need for self-validation, allowing you to reach the green level of love and belonging.



Picture by Superior Platform

How do you make friends?

Making friends is actually quite easy. Cherishing common experiences, especially those that are difficult, brings people closer together and makes friendship all that much sweeter. Happenstance situations can bring the most unlikely people together, and while you have some control over who you are friends with, you will not always know when you will encounter friends, so you should be friendly all the time. Paradoxically, it seems that the best way to make friends is to not worry about it. Being friendly to everyone, comfortable in your own shoes, and generally happy goes a long way. Choosing your friends comes in when choosing who to spend time with, as this is where the influence of your friends matters. Whichever friend enables you to meet the highest level needs in Maslow's hierarchy of needs will be the one you should spend most time with.


Photo by Antti Kempainien

Making friends and the camaraderie that comes with it to me is one of the most meaningful human experiences. Enjoying spectacles of man or nature, such as this firework show and background lightning, brings even strangers very close to one another. There is something magical about special bonding like this, and certainly you should take advantage of every such experience that you can.

So, what are you waiting for? Go out today and make a new friend - it'll be more fun than you might think!

Topic 1: Meeting New People

Our first week's topic is meeting new people. We chose this since this is our first real post and you (our readers) are trying to get to know us, so it is fitting. Speaking of getting to know people, all three of us wrote personal biographies which you can access by clicking on the "Personal Bios" tab above. However, meeting new people is a bit more complicated than just writing about oneself and posting it on the internet. In this topic, we will look at the philosophy behind meeting new people. By "philosophy" we mean talking about all you can think of related to meeting new people. For example, the psychology behind it would probably be a huge subject. We will all also try to think outside the box. We won't give too much information in order to make this as open ended as possible, to allow each of us to have different thoughts. This is what we will do: each of us will write posts for this topic and put them online.

Welcome

Photo by Martin Pugh

The purpose of this blog is to allow discussion of deep, philosophical topics through the means of blogging, to improve our and our readers' speaking/writing skills, and to allow three friends to stay in touch. Our names are Matt Litzsinger, Jesse Wu,and Jaehyeong Lee. The three of us graduated from the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) as part of the Class of 2013. The planned format of this blog is to have weekly topics posted on Saturdays beginning on November 9th, 2013. Then we will post our responses to these topics on the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday following that Saturday (one response per day). We will begin on Saturday, November 9th with the posting of the first topic. If you have any topics that you would like us to discuss, please leave a comment or send us an e-mail at mjlitzster@gmail.com (Matt), j95wu@yahoo.com (Jesse), or jaehyeong.lee@gmail.com (Jaehyeong). We might also post some of our work (e.g. programs, games, composed music, performed music, links, etc.). We look forward to interacting with all of you in the future.