The Meaning of Love

Lately, a lot of different scientists have been researching what love is.

Scientifically love is the emotions that we feel as a result of certain

chemicals/hormones firing off in our brains and through out body.

Historically, people who believe in God usually call it matrimony, when

two people are bonded for life because they have strong feelings for

each other. But then again, people have been married before that don't

care about each other let alone know each other. Those types of

marriages are usually arranged marriages...

So- what is love? Is it chemicals firing off in our brain? Is it something

that's destined to be (like Romeo and Juliet)? Or is it what you feel for

family?

In society, people are defined by their relationships- usually by how well

those relationships are going, or how many different relationships that

person is in. When you look at all the different types of relationships there

can be in society- it really makes me wonder what love is. Love can be

friendship, or someone you meet on the street that you don't know (random

acts of kindness), or it could be family or a boyfriend or fiancee. Love can

come in any shape or form, so its strange that something that can change

shape so easily, defines our lives so strongly. But then again, it's also

strange that people are so defined by who they know or what they've

done in their lives.

So what is love? Is the sexual relationship you have with somebody? Is

it marriage? Is it friendship or family ties? Is it just randomly walking by

somebody you don't know on the street? Honestly I think it could be

anyone of those things- but it could be more. I think love is something that

isn't defined by time, why? Because time has no meaning when your in

love. Yes it's true that when you're in love with someone (a boyfriend or

girlfriend) it feels like an eternity when you're away from them, but for

example, the reason why Romeo and Juliet are so famous now is

because of their impossible love. They loved each other when it

should've been impossible. One a Capulet and one a Montague- and yet

they were star crossed lovers. They were destined to be together. And so

even now, they're story is still remembered- hundreds of years later.

People who define love as just being hormones or chemicals are wrong.

It's so much more than that. Because love defines who we are to such a

degree, it should have meaning if we fall in love or even who we are in

love with. It defines us through our relationships with our friends and family.

In this way, love is powerful because it affects so many different aspects of our lives.

Beliefs

Random thoughts lately...

Why would someone chase after someone else if they don't want to be

chased, or they don't like the person chasing after them to begin with?

What's the point? Why keep chasing after someone if you're not

wanted? Shouldn't you just give up and stop chasing that person if

you're not wanted?

It's my senior year of high school and I'm still seeing things that make it

hard to believe in the people of this world. Yesterday, someone brought a

gun to school. Now, the gun wasn't loaded but I seriously wonder what this

kid was thinking? Last year there were a ton a lock downs at the school

because of things related to violence and then this kid brings a gun to

school?!?! Even if the gun wasn't loaded, that's still something pretty

serious to do.

When I look at people around me, I wonder what causes them to act the

way they do- what do they believe in that makes them act so passionately?

Some believe in God, Abba, and many other types of gods. Some don't

believe there's a god at all... All I wonder though, besides the fact that

people believe in these things, is any of this true? Do any of these gods

exist? Many people point to miracles to prove the existence of their god,

but then again such acts can easily be faked now-a-days with the

technology we have. Personally I don't know what to believe. I think

there's a god somewhere out there, but can you be sure even of that? At

one point, I was wondering what if all of these people, all over the world

believed in God, but they were wrong and he doesn't exist at all. What

then? Then, all of those people would be wrong, and then all these

people who have died for what they believed in (in the past) would have

died for nothing. They would have died for believing in something that

doesn't even exist. Some would say, that what I'm saying right now is

blasphemy, but honestly I don't know anything anymore. I love the songs

of the church, its music, and the youth group, but some people honestly

don't make any sense to me. I've just been thinking about this stuff for a

long time and haven't wanted to come to a conclusion that would cause me

to hurt others that I care about. Honestly though, I'm not sure what to believe in anymore.

Random Thoughts

Previously, I used this blog for my world lit. class, now I think I'll use it to talk about stuff going on randomly in my life. I don't know when I'll write or why, but we'll see where I go with this.

Right now, I'm supposed to be doing homework for school. I'm supposed to be writing a narrative essay for AP language and then watch some show on food network and then write about it. I am supposed to be concentrating on what I have to do, not my friend on the other side of the world, who's in Thailand right now- having the experience of a lifetime!!! I wish I could join her right now, be by her side- experiencing what she's experiencing, and be with her so that she doesn't have to be alone. But then again, who knows? She could get stronger because of all of this, because of all that she's been through. And its only the beginning.

Lately it feels like there's been a lot of new beginnings. I'm a senior in high school and just this year I went to my first high school party (drinking and all), I'll probably also go to prom which is also a first, and then another first which is seeing my friend for the last time before she leaves for a four month trip. Another first has been taking the ACT (no big deal right?- WRONG!), applying to college and being accepted to my first choice college!!! That was a big deal to me especially since I wanted to go so badly despite the possible costs and how far away from home it would be.

Mainly though, I wonder why my high school makes such a big deal out of everything. Why? It's not like it's a private school and although its a good school so far as public schools go, everything is still so serious. Year after year though it's only been getting worse. First, enforcing the dress code more; second, making it a worse offense if you're late a lot; thirdly, changing the schedule around a lot and making our school an IB school. THE WHOLE SCHOOL. Honestly, that doesn't make any sense to me. Why make the whole school an IB school? Yes I think that most of the kids could keep up with the curriculum, but in general it would be very difficult for everybody. I just hope the administrators know what they're getting themselves into. Another thing is that this year we also got a new gym- it's really great too, a seemingly labyrinth of rooms yet to be explored. And its only the beginning.

Second Post For The Iliad

There are two passages I would like to comment/analyze for this post. I'll only type up one passage though, the other passage I'll mention.
"The son of Kronos took pity on them as he watched them mourning
and immediately spoke in winged words to Athene:
'My child, have you utterly abandoned the man of your choice?
Is there no longer deep concern in your heart for Achilleus?
Now he has sat down before the steep horned ships and is mourning
for his own beloved companion, while all the others
have gone to take their dinner, but he is fasting and unfed.
Go then to him and distil nectar inside his chest, and delicate
ambrosia, so the weakness of hunger will not come upon him.'
Speaking so, he stirred Athene, who was eager before this,
and she in the likeness of a wide-winged, thin-crying
hawk plummeted from the sky through the bright air. Now the Achaians
were arming at once along the encampment. She dropped the delicate
ambrosia and the nectar inside the breast of Achilleus
softly, so no sad weakness of hunger would come on his knees,
and she herself went back to the close house of her powerful
father, while they were scattering out away from the fast ships.
As when in their thickness the pride of the helms bright shining
were carried out from the ships, and shields massive in the middle
and the corselets strongly hollowed and the ash spears were worn forth.
The shining swept to the sky and all earth was laughing about them
under the glitter of bronze and beneath their feet stirred the thunder
of men, within whose midst brillant Achilleus helmed him.
A clash went from the grinding of his teeth, and his eyes glowed
as if they were the stare of a fire, and the heart inside him
was entered with sorrow beyond endurance. Raging at the Trojans
he put on the gifts of the god, the Hephaistos wrought him with much
toil.
First he placed along his legs the fair greaves linked with
silver fastenings to hold the greaves at the ankles.
Afterward he girt on about his chest the corselet,
and across his shoulders he slung the sword with the nails of silver,
a bronze sword, and caught up the great shield, huge and heavy
next, and from it the light glimmered far, as from the moon.
And as when from across water a light shines to mariners
from a blazing fire, when the fire is burning high in the mountains
in desolate steading, as the mariners are carried unwilling
by storm winds over the fish-swarming sea, far away from their loved
ones;
so the light from the fair elaborate shield of Achilleus
shot into the high air. And lifting the helm he set it
massive upon his head, and the helmet crested with horse-hair
shone light a star, the golden fringes were shaken about it
which Hephaistos had driven close along the horn of the helmet.
And brilliant Achilleus tried himself in his armour, to see
if it fitted close, and how his glorious limbs ran within it,
and the armour became as wings and upheld the shepherd of the people.
Next he pulled out from its standing place the spear of his father,
huge, heavy, thick, which no one else of all the Achaians
could handle, but Achilleus alone knew how to wield it,
the Pelian as spear which Cheiron had brought to his father
from high on Pelion, to be death for fighters in battle.
Automedon and Alkimos, in charge of the horses,
yoked them, and put the fair breast straps about them, and forced the bits
home
between their jaws, and pulled the reins back against the compacted
chariot seat, and one, Automedon, took up the shining
whip caught close in his hand and vaulted up to the chariot,
while behind him Achilleus helmed for battle took his stance
shining in all his armour like the sun when he crosses above us,
and cried in a terrible voice on the horses of his father:
'Xanthos, Balios, Bay and Dapple, famed sons of Podarge,
take care to bring in another way your charioteer back
to the company of the Danaans, when we give over fighting,
not leave him to lie fallen there, as you did to Patroklos.'
Then from beneath the yoke the gleam-footed horse answered him,
Xanthos, and as he spoke bowed his head, so that all the mane
fell away from the pad and swept the ground by the cross-yoke;
the goddess of the white arms, Hera, had put a voice in him:
'We shall still keep you safe for this time, o hard Achilleus.
And yet the day of your death is near, but it is not we
who are to blame, but a great god and powerful Destiny.
For it was not because we were slow, because we were careless,
that the Trojans have taken the armour from the shoulders of Patroklos,
but it was that high god, the child of lovely-haired Leto,
who killed him among the champions and gave the glory to Hector.
But for us, we two could run the blast of the west wind
who they say is the lightest of all things; yet still for you
there is destiny to be killed in force by a god and a mortal.'
When he had spoken so the Furies stopped the voice in him,
but deeply disturbed, Achilleus of the swift feet answered him:
'Xanthos, why do you prophesy my death? This is not for you.
I myself know well it is destined for me to die here
far from my beloved father and mother. But for all that
I will not stop till the Trojans have had enough of my fighting.'
He spoke, and shouting held on in the foremost his single-footed horses."

In one sense, I think that this passage is a form of third person characterization, where someone else is describing Achilles and therefore his character becomes more defined. Both in this book and in Book 18 where Hephaistos is making Achilles' new armour- the descriptions are very real, very intense. The fact that Homer took so much time in describing Achilles' armour and his final moments before going into battle let the reader know that these are the defining moments, the important moments of Achilles. It's interesting to me that so many gods at once pity and try to help Achilles before he dies- why is he so important to all of them? Zeus tells Athene to give Achilles nectar and ambrosia; Hephaistos gives Achilles new armour, glorious armour; Thetis sees to it that Achilles gets his honor, armour, and support from her along with Zeus; and Hera makes Achilles' horses talk to Achilles! Out of all the things that could happen before a man goes into a battle- man is that something! Is it because in the end Achilles is a hero, just like Patroklos and Hector for that matter, in this story that the gods give him so much support and pity him so much as he gets ready to enter the battlefield? We'll see what this means for Achilleus in the end...
-katthegreat08

First Iliad Post

Passage:

"Now Dawn the yellow-robed scattered over all the earth. Zeus

who joys in the thunder made an assembly of all the immortals

upon the highest peak of rugged Olympose. There he

spoke to them himself, and the other divinities listened:

'Hear me, all you gods and all you goddesses: hear me

while I speak forth what the heart within my breast urges.

Now let no female divinity, nor male god either,

presume to cut across the way of my word, but consent to it

all of you, so that I can make an end in speed of these matters.

And any one I perceive against the gods' will attempting

to go among the Trojans and help them, or among the Danaans,

he shall go whipped against his dignity back to Olympos;

or I shall take him and dash him down to the murk of Tartaros,

far below, where the uttermost depth of the pit liew under

earth, where there are gates of iron and a brazen doorstone,

as far beneath the house of Hades as from earth the sky lies.

Then he will see how far I am strongest of all the immortals.

Come, you gods, make this endeavour, that you all may learn this.

Let down out of the sky a cord of gold; lay hold of it

all you who are gods and all who are goddesses, yet not

even so can you drag down Zeus from the sky to the ground, not

Zeus the high lord of counsel, though you try until you grow weary.

Yet whenever I might strongly be minded to pull you,

I could drag you up, earth and all and sea and all with you,

then fetch the golden rope about the horn of Olympos

and make it fast, so that all once more should dangle in mid air.

So much stronger am I than the gods, and stonger than mortlas.'

So he spoke, and all of them stayed stricken to silence,

stunned at his word, for indeed he had spoken to them very strongly."



analysis:

I think this passage is important because it helps with the characterization of Zeus. Up until this point (well at least in the books we've read so far) Zeus isn't mentioned that much. Yeah, we have the "mortals" in the books calling out to Zeus or whatever, but we don't really get to know Zeus very well. Here, Zeus is shown as a strong character with an even stonger personality, very much the father figure, the man of the house, whatever you want to call it- that's Zeus in this passage. Zeus is saying that he has the muscle power to back up what he's saying (quite literally) and he's ready to do whatever it takes to keep the unruly children (the other gods) in line. Personally, I thought this passage was very interesting. Someone once told me that in almost every play or story that had Zeus in it, Zeus was almost always portrayed as a weak god who can't make up his mind and always wants to get in the ladies' pants (well I guess togas in this case). So far this is the Zeus that I've read about and the Zeus I've experienced in the other stuff I've read. So it was interesting, refreshing if you will, to read about a Zeus that was completely different, who is actually being a stern father figure and a god that the mortals seem to pray to or look up to the most.
-katthegreat08

Harold and Oedipus

In the movie "Stranger than fiction" the following questions are answered: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8- all of the above questions are answered in this movie. I choose to answer the following questions: #1, #2, #4, and #7.

Question: "Does the world shape how we think or what shapes our lives?" The world shapes both how we think and also shapes our lives. Things that happen in the world shapes what and how we think which in turn shapes our actions which then affects what we end up doing in our lives. But then again this is believing that we have the freewill or the choice to decide what we want to do with our lives. If you take out the idea of freewill- then the whole equation changes. With that in mind- even though the world may shape how we think, it won't affect what we end up doing in our lives.

Question: "Do we really know who we are and what our role is in the world?" Yes and no. The movie "Stranger than fiction" begins with Harold following the same pattern everyday and not really having any individuality and as a result not really knowing who he is. Towards the end of the movie, Harold started learning how to play the quitar and as a result he becomes more of an individual and therefore knows himself better. I think that once a person or a character knows themselves better then they know what their role is in the world better. Then again, the person could think that they are someone else entirely than who they really are and as a result things get really confusing. In that case, the person would have to find their true selves in order to know what their role (or goal) in life is. In other words- having your own goals sets who you will be in life.

Question: "Do the choices we make lead us to our fate even though we are the ones making the choices?" Yes the choices we make lead us to our fate because I think that any one person had multiple "paths" laid out before them based on the choices they could make in any one situation. So I guess, the answer is yes- that the choices we make lead us to our fate even if we're the ones making the choices.

Question: "Can we change our fate?" I think that yes we can change our fate. In the movie- "Stranger than fiction" Herald is able to change his fate because he finds the author and tells her not to kill him, but then after he finishes reading the book he tells her to keep that ending where he dies. In the end, him telling her to keep the ending where he dies, affects her in a such a way where she changes her mind and Herald doesn't die.

-katthegreat08

What I believe

3 possibilities: complete freewill, destiny and determinism.
Freewill and determinism seem the most plausible to me- maybe because I've seen these things in my life and have experienced them for myself. I've grown up as an only child and as a result I've always been pretty close to my parents. Well, growing up my mom and dad never got along that well, in fact about 3 yrs ago my parents divorced. For the longest time I was having the hardest time dealing with the divorce and only just recently have things started to patch up between my Dad and I. Anyways- at that time I was going with this guy in my neighborhood (around the time my parents got divorced). I had the freewill to choose to be with him, I was also determined for my relationship with this guy to not end up anything like my parents relationship had and this also included any future relationships with any other guys. Thinking about it now though, I think I was destined to be with him and be friends with this guy because he was and is the kind of person where just being around him can get your thoughts flowing to where it can affect you in a profound way if you let it. I'll admit it- he did affect me and I think it was a combination of freewill, destiny, and my own determination that led to it.
For the longest time I've been questioning whether there really is a "God" out there and whether or not there are other "higher beings". In a way there must be a god somewhere out there but I think that even if there is another "higher being" or god that they only affect our lives at a minimal. I think that our own free will and determination have more of an affect over our destiny that anything a god decides, along with our DNA. Our DNA has a huge affect on our daily lives but that doesn't mean that we'll let it keep us from going on. Like for example, my grandfather has 2 different eye diseases that are hereditary and that have made him almost completely blind but this hasn't kept him from living a somewhat "normal" life. Both of my grandparents have had cancer and many doctors have said that your chances are doubled for getting cancer if someone in your family has cancer or gets cancer- but knowing this fact won't keep me from living my life or keep me from doing what I want to do (ex: dying my hair weird colors, eating the foods that I want to eat, or lazing around in the sunshine).
-katthegreat08