The relativity of time

Most everyone knows the basics of the theory of relativity. As Einstein put it:

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity.

Basically, it simply states that time moves at different speeds when you are moving at different speeds. Although this may seem a little abstract for most of us, it can easily be put into perspective. Doesn't it seem that as you get older time seems to go faster and faster? Suddenly, you don't have to wait as long for Christmas or your birthday? Well, this is because the time that passes gets smaller and smaller as you get older and older. Like, 1 year when you are 10 is 10% of your entire lifetime, while when you're 50 years old it is only 2% of your entire lifetime.This is the reason that time seems to go faster and faster; simply because time periods seems shorter in relation to the rest of your lifespan. gives you something to think about, right? When I graduate, I will have spent approximately 24% of my life in high school.

Why is it so hard for me to just sit down and work on something? It seems that I have to be doing all my homework assignments when the most stress is put on me. What is this crazy addiction I, and many other students have, on the philosophy that what can be done tomorrow can be put off until tomorrow? I don't think like a procrastinator, though, that's the weird thing. I go home and say, YEAH! I'm gonna sit right down for 5 hours and finish this essay! Then I get distracted. Have a bite to eat. Check facebook. Maybe call my girlfriend as a break. What do you know, 5 hours laterm and I've written 1 whole paragraph. Another thing I do is put off things to the next day by making an excuse, or convincing myself I will have more quality work if I work on it the next day. At least, the good thing is I'm not just lazy and say, yeah, screw this, I'll do it tomorrow. I feel like I actually attempted to work. Or, well, attempted to attempt to work. I really need to work on my work ethic. Well, then again, maybe I'll do that tomorrow, when I'm less tired.

So, as a little kid, I always thought when my grandmother told me that she sewed me something, that she literally weaved each individual piece of fabric together. I spent many a night with my blanket wondering how she could have possibly arranged each thread in the specific fashion to create the wonderful patterns on it. I always thought that each part of technology was hand made as well, every toy painted by some amazilng artist in some far away land, and that every teddy bear had each hair put in manually. Boy, my childhood world sure was delusional. Well, I also did believe that we actually lived under the earths crust, and the earths crust's bottom was the color blue. Also, I pretended I was a dinosaur for about 2 years. I was a really weird child.

Often, when driving down the highway near a residential neighborhood, I find myself fascinated by the number of people that can possibly exist in this world. I'm blown away by the fact that there can be 1 million different faces, minds, bodies, fingerprints. 6 billion is an impossible to imagine number. And nearly every single one has an incredibly unique face. There's just so many combinations of eyes, noses, mouths, ears, colors, cheek bones, jaws. Isn't there some sort of limit at one point or another? You'd think that there would be a lot more look-a-likes in this world, but surprisingly, there aren't. Another thing, the shear amount of possible individual minds just blows my mind. And each one of those individuals has there very own story.
Kinda makes me feel really insignificant, like looking at the starry night sky.

So, I'm watching some lame drama on television with my mom, and the show took on an interesting dilemma. A man, after being put in prison since 1970, is about to be put on parole. While talking to his parole officer, he says that he wants her to lie to the parole board, tell them that he's dangerous. His rationale behind this is that he's been in prison for his entire life. He went into prison when Nixon was president. He doesn't know of computers, of the technology available today. He doesn't know what society is like. All of his friends are in prison, his entire life is prison. The parole officer argues, every man should have another chance at freedom, whether they want it or not, and lets him go on parole. Low and behold, he commits a crime to get right back where he has been his entire life. If I was the parole officer, I would have just given the man his wish. I mean, how could he have possibly tried to reintegrate himself into society? He's been in prison for 40 years; its all he knows. I'm surprised she wasn't expecting to do anything he could to get back in prison.

So, this year of schooling may be the most difficult and challenging year of schooling thus far in my scholastic career. Most homework, hardest tests, and the longest essays. But you know what the weird part about it is? I absolutely love it. Now, don't get me wrong, I hate how much work I have to do. The thing is, I love the feeling I get from participating in the IB Diploma Programme. For one, I like the feeling that I'm taking the most rigorous courses offered at the high school (much to the dispute of the AP students). Another thing is, I love the feeling of being in a family, a community of students who are going through the same hell I am. Plus, the outcome of this program(me) will be fantastic, getting me into awesome colleges and universities, and even then with extra credits, maybe even skipping freshman year. Whenever I do a lot of work, like write blogs that I procrastinated on for ToK, I just think that after I get through this, the benefits will be fantastic. Just gotta get through Junior and Senior year.

Mr. Radtke has brought an interesting subject to my attention. It seems that, as a society, technology is both advancing and regressing at the same time. One particular area is in cell phones. Texting, the worlds latest fad, is simply telegrams, but mobile. No body particularly wants to use that fancy old invention of actually speaking to the person, much less seeing them face to face. Same thing with e-mail. Would it really be all that bad just to call someone? Maybe I'm just old fashioned cause I never had e-mail till about 4 years ago, texting just last year, but still. Why is there such aversion to having telephone conversations with people. It can't be that bad, right?

I really do wish I could fly. Sure, this is basically every human on the planet's dream after they see a bird for the first time, but still. The concept is absolutely fantastic. Although, what seperates me from all the other people who are wishing, me being my inventive self, have been looking into some awesome DIY projects to get up in the air. One has particularly caught my attention, as is actually one I started working on in grade school. Its a hovercraft powered by a vacuum. Simply, its just a circular piece of ply wood with a vacuum pushing air down below it, inflating a plastic air skirt, lifting the craft off the ground, and can hold several hundred pounds. Plus, because it creates a nearly frictional surface in which to move over, the slightest push just keeps you going and going. Far away from being Icarus wings, but just as exciting to me. But, it raises the question, just where is that jetpack that I was promised 10 years ago?

So, I just finished reading Dante's Inferno the other day, and I must say, that man was creative with his punishments. Every single layer of hell had different punishments, some with 10 different sublevels. Each sin was addressed with a representative punishment. As well, Dante accounted for the "virtuous heathen", those who did not believe in God but lived good lives, and the unbaptized babies by placing them in a suffer-free but somber lever known as Limbo. He was basically pervieved as a heretic of his time, as he placed numerous Popes in his own personal Hell. Now, you've gotta give the guy props on that one, he has some major guts. Nobody during the 1300's just goes and puts like 6 popes in Hell. It was like he was asking to get exiled! Well, he kinda did, but still, the man was pretty gutsy. Anyways, his whole interpretation of Hell is really interesting. Plus, in the next part of The Divine Comedy, he introduces The Purgatory, where sinners can repent to earn redemption to gain entrance to Heaven. I like this religious stuff.

So, one of the most influential songs in my life must be Minority, by Green Day. The song goes:

I wanna be the minority
I don't need your authority
Down with the moral majority
Cause I wanna be the minority

Seems pretty usual punk stuff, nothing to original. Well, to my 5th grade self, this was the most awe inspiring amazing piece of artwork ever to grace my ears. The guitar. The bass. The drums. The sweet sweet rebelious yells. I thought it was fantastic. Ever since then, I've always tried to make myself a little bit different. I always thought of those 4 lines, and said, this moral majority, it isn't all that moral, is it? Does your opinion really have any authority over me? My parents always said I was like a fish swimming upriver during middle school. Well, I wasn't all that original, every punk kid has gotta go against society, but I took that ideal to heart. My main bands were Green Day, and The Clash. I thought I was the coolest kid. Now that I've grown out of that little phase though, I still hold onto that ideal. I work hard. I'm decently nice to my peers. School comes way before anything to me. I still feel like I'm the minority.

A great musician once asked, "If you could make everybody work, while you just laid on your back, would you do it?". I find this to be a great moral dilemma that really shows the laziness of today's society. I can tell you one thing, many of us would say yes. One example is on instructables.com. It's a website dedicated to, you guessed it, instructing people on projects and how to do things. By searching just for a little bit, you can at least find one person commenting on a project asking the creator of the project, well, how much could I pay you to build this thing for me? Another is just personal experience. I, for one, would not miind if I had some one else type of my Math Portfolio and my Theory of Knowledge journals while I just got to relax. But, is that really right? I mean, isn't that our whole problem with monarchies, the king just relaxes in luxioury, while the peasants do all the manual labor?I Isn't that why the lower class has such a huge problem with the upper class? The lower class claims they do much more work, but are paid less and get less free time. We live in such a hypocritical society, don't we? Well, the great musician went on to say, "We cannot know ourselves, or what we'd really do with all our power". Seems spot on.

So, here's something I think about all the time. How can an atom hold things up? i mean, its 90% empty space, right? So how is it a billion of these little atoms constitute the chair I'm sitting in? Why doesn't my chair just collapse right now. Sure, science says, oh intermolecular forces and bonds between atoms, but that's just a scientists way of saying, "Well, hell if I know how they stay together. They just do." Sure, there's patterns to how the atoms stay together, but HOW do they stay together? Why does giving one electron to another atom make the atoms stick together, and hold me up? This begs the question, what composes our thoughts? How am I going about coming up with all these questions and hypothesi? Are there molecules that are making my thoughts form? If so, am I really an individual, or am I exactly the same as everyone else on a molecular level? Ugh, my head hurts... do atoms cause the ache as well?

This blog post is about our blog posts. Mr. Wilcox, you tell us we can write whatever we want in these blogs, as long as we show some insight and thought. You're giving us the illusion of freedom, while still remaining well in control. Now, even if you just say "Write whatever you want", we as students still won't do so. We will write about what we think that you will approve of in order to attain the higher grade. While we're under the illusion of freedom, you still remain happily in control. Now, you may say, "What are you talking about? You guys aren't catering towards my tastes and expectations in order to receive a higher grade!". To that, I say, we are. While many of the things that we write may be in our interest, they don't really show what we truly want to write about. If I was to write about whatever I wanted, I would be writing movie and video game reviews. But, because my target audience is not that of my peers, but of my Theory of Knowledge teacher, I've edited what I write about in order to please you, Mr. Wilcox. I can make a reasonable assumption that all of us are writing what we think you will approve of simply to get that A we IB kids so truly desire. After all, its another tenth of our GPA we can get up if we get that A!

So Glee is doing Rocky Horror Picture Show for their next episode. Am I the only one who is against this? Well, part of it stems from my hate for Glee in general. Absolutely no originality at all. At least come up with one original song. Covers done by bands that have original work is fine, but someone or a group that profits off of another's success? Thats just blatant copywrite infringment. Anyways, back on topic. Well, Rocky Horror is a risque cult classic from the 80's. Glee is one of the most popular television shows right now. See how these two things don't mix? And anyways, I keep hearing from the fans of Glee just how excited they are for the Rocky Horror show. In response, I ask if they're fans of Rocky Horror. The overwhelming response? "Well, I've never seen it". HOW CAN YOU BE EXCITED FOR A REMAKE OF A MOVIE THAT YOU'VE NEVER SEEN!? Do they know the music? No. Do they know the characters? No. Do they go to midnight showings of the movie and dingy Cleveland theatres surrounded by at least 100 transexuals and crossdressers, and still enjoy the movie? NO! I just find it a bit contradictory when people say, "Oh, I love all the glee songs!", yet either don't know the songs beforehand, or would never listen to the original songs because they hate that type of music. it really grinds. my. gears.

For all of the rules that are strictly enforced at our school, there's some glaring contrasts to this trend. Like, say our school policies on bullies. We have 25 minute videos we watch on bullying, saying our school is dedicated to stopping all the bullies Aurora has. Or take for example the fact we have a cop on duty for half the week. But then, we have a huge assembly at the beginning of the year on dress code, yet it isn't enforced in the least. I see some girls walk around with the skimpiest of outfits on, yet not a single teacher, out of the eight that these girls have all day long, do a thing about it. It just brings to mind my school in Georgia, where anyone who broke the dress code had to wear a XXXL white shirt that read, "DRESS CODE". I just wish a few teachers would actually enforce what they describe as an interruption to the learning process, because, honestly, its quite an interruption when the girl in front of you is wearing skin tight short spaghetti strapped dress. I mean, come one, obvious violation, right? Well, now that I'm in IB I don't have to deal with it as much as before, as most of my classmates are a tad bit more studious than the average bunch here in Aurora.

I can always seem to remember people and things by their smell. Like, my grandmas house smells exactly like LaGuardia Airport, or my mother smells like her favorite perfume. I just find it a bit weird that a smell can instantly bring to mind a person or place. Especially places, nearly every house I've been in has a very distinct smell. One smell can smelt, like that of my childhood home, and bring to mind an entire childhood of memories. I think it's really weird how our senses can have such an association with memories. This is the same way with music. Have me listen to a song that i listened to a bunch a few years ago, and a whole new wave of nostalgia comes along. I find it pretty crazy, this whole sense-thought-memory association thing.

My issue with the subject of the color blind.

So, this is something I've thought about since I was, say, around 8. Its something I could never quite wrap my brain around. How does a person with colorblindness know that they are colorblind? I mean, if they see the color red as the color blue, and vise versa, how can they know? They grow up knowing red as blue and blue as red. I mean, theres no true way to enter a persons mind and see what they see. Red might look completely different to someone else, but they will still know it as red, right? This raises another issue with sound. Do all human ears interpret sound the same way? Do all our brains decypher sound waves exactly the same way? Does one band sound the same to another? Is what I hear high sound low to some one else? Too many questions, not enough answers.