deepgreen18

History, to me, or even reading about a particular experience, elevates it into something mystical, crazy difficult, unrelatable and unachievable. This feeling is a lie.

Human history was made by the acts of fellow human beings, something I am constantly made aware of in my Music History class. Mozart was a great virtuoso, yes, but he also traveled in horrid conditions, got sick, played string quartets for entertainment, rebelled against his father and employer, had money problems, oh, and along the way learned a lot about and composed many kinds of music.

We can do the things older generations have done. We DO do those things still. Mozart is still played today, for instance. On a more basic level: we speak, sing, teach each other, create art, observe religious practices, create stories, and make many, many things: food, medicine, clothing, shelter.

Sometimes I am amazed at how basic life is. I realized this while I was cooking, first. We only have three main types of food: proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. We only have so many types of meat, veggies, fruits, and grains. Liquids, at their most basic level, all derive from water.

The beauty of food (and any other human activity) is when we mix these ingredients together in new/different/old ways. We can go Spartan-ly simple (fried eggs with salt and pepper), or ridiculously complex (10 ingredient omelet). We can surprise ourselves and others when we take our traditions (which were, once upon a time, innovations) and tweak them just enough to get a new experience.

If we are dedicated to a skill, we are able take something basic to the human experience and turn it into an art.

This all lead me to a question that I really like: What skills do I want to become good at? Personally, a lot of things: Teaching, music, drawing and painting, dancing, cooking, knitting/crocheting, flying, understanding people, having sex, writing, and there will be more as time progresses. This is the essence of human life, I think. Gaining skills and sharing them with others.

What do you want to become good at? What are the basic ingredients of your art?

Aah, the bliss of not going to school for five to seven hours. Saturdays and weekends in general are simply wonderful. As an update, not surprisingly, nothing got done last night. I did not do Homework (I am not sure why I am capitalizing that word, but overall it is unimportant) nor did I go to the Prater, which makes me sad. What did I do? I continued to read a knitting blog's archives and looked at lots of patterns. I don't know if I've explained this yet, but think about this: A person posts maybe fifteen times a month, they have had the blog for 3 years. Multiply 15 x 12 x 3 and you have the number of posts to read. It currently takes me about 45 minutes to an hour to read a months worth of archive. It is very engrossing because a) I enjoy seeing what others can do. b) the blogger is a professional writer, meaning she's very good at it. c) when have you known me to resist serialized good writing? 
In other news, I have thought about interesting subjects to write about (besides the fact that I have read so much about knitting that I dreamt about it last night) and came up with two things that I keep forgetting: Me (surprised?) the chameleon, or, why I have not been getting enough sleep; also, why all teachers are insistent on their own version of a piece of music, and the amusing anecdotes derived from my experiences there. 

I'll go with the chameleon one. I have thought a lot about this over the past couple months, but being here with a new group of people really brought home to me that I am a behavioral chameleon. This means whoever I am with, I adapt to. If I am with a left-wing feminist who has a real problem with Bush, I stay quiet when I disagree and agree when I feel inclined. If I am with a group of students who stay up far too late and seem to bond/have fun doing so, I will do the same simply to be there to observe them in their natural habitat and perhaps bond, too, even though I hate missing sleep and would much rather be rested than many things, including falsely bonded with others.
This is cowardice of sorts, I realize. A lack of moral character? Or simply a lack of conviction of beliefs. 
I don't have many convictions. I was raised in a Christian home, and have tried to keep that belief inside me, but I have yet to do much to counter doubts raised by college classes or things I've read. Preparing to come here, the little books they give you advise you to get current on events and form an opinion. Current on events? Easy, though I am not much for news. An opinion? Much harder, I don't want to have an opinion. Opinions cause agreement and disagreement, I don't want to disagree with others and have them disagree with me. I know this is wishy-washy, but nebulous fear is like that. During our primaries, however, I was reading up on the different candidates views. Just overviews of it all, but I came to a conclusion about abortion. I have been told the arguments for and against abortion for a long time, and I feel that being able to simply abort a baby because you were careless or because it is inconvenient to your lifestyle is wrong, adoption is a viable option there. But, in the case of rape, or danger to the mother, I think that abortion should be available in a legal manner. I realize I have not addressed all possiblilities, so I am still working on it. 
Amazing, huh? I talk about having no opinions and then I spring one on you. It takes me a long time to decide things, and the nebulous fear generally interferes with that process, so I am proud to have an opinion, simply because the fear there is much reduced. 
Let us analyze this: The nebulous fear is of disagreement. What would happen if someone disagrees with you? Umm... Nothing, a 'heated' discussion probably wouldn't happen if you didn't let it. If the parties involved were any kind of sensible, there would be calm explanation of points, and perhaps an agreement to disagree. If the parties involved were a bit more forceful, there might be persuasion or attempted persuasion, but overall, a personal encounter between opinions is not going to hurt anything. 

It has been my experience that when someone holds a strong belief they are respected, because that generally takes thought and courage. If they hold a belief for no real reason, then they are not respected. 

I still don't hold many views, but this has helped me a little. I may still avoid the news but maybe I won't. Perhaps I'll take a bit more control of myself by defining my beliefs. The nebulous fear is still there, but I have a good counter-argument, now.  

Please continue to aid my efforts to map the space/time continuum, and tell me when you read this post and if you couldn't find it earlier. This post should be available either from 5:45am Central time, or the time I posted here: 12:45pm.
Amusing anecdotes about teachers' versions of music will be posted at a later date.  
Greeny