Equality of Opportunity

Sometimes I wish that I was the writer for a globally popular blog that would stage large online debates about everything I wrote. I mean like even if the issue was entirely meaningless that people would find it worth their time to subscribe their time to read my blog. Or even better when the blog was heart wrenching or controversial that people would find it worth their time to comment and continue to check back and debate with other people. But when I have these ideas I think back to something that a professor once said, "Writing is actually quite arrogant because it means that you think people care about what you write."

Regardless that isn't what I wanted to write about. My main thing that I wanted to write about is brief and open ended because I'm still trying to piece together all my thoughts so I thought that I would see if anybody else had any thoughts, and then in the next day or two I would share mine. You see I view this blog as a relationship with the readers and good communication makes for a great relationship. So here is my question and background to the question.

Today while I was in my history class we were talking about social revolutions and the beginning of socialism. When talking about the definition of socialism it was basically said that it was working for the best interest of the group and when the best interest of the group is met that is when the individual will thrive. That being said generally the best interest of the group from a socialist perspective is ultimately equality, i.e. no social classes, little to no differences in wages and everyone helps each other.

Now when this was happening we talked about what the liberals would believe to counter this and that was that they would say that their system also promotes equality. But that Equality is through Equal Opportunity. Now here is the question, Is there really such thing as equal opportunity? I will just leave it at that, like I said very open ended. Tell me what you think. Hopefully I have motivated you to all engage in conversation. And really even if you don't respond I am still going to tell you what I think regardless in a few days anyways. Happy responding.

Just Another Daily Rambling

I was encouraged the other day by a famous young man. It wasn't his soft baby like facial features or perfectly flipped hair that inspired me. Nor was it his large amount of fame or his musical abilities. I'm sure you can probably guess who I am talking about by now, but I am not going to tell you until the end.

As some of you might know I think that one day I would like to write a book, or maybe have a book written about me by someone else. Now I am not entirely sure what I want the book to be about, I'm not incredibly creative so that leaves fiction out of the question and although I am incredibly interested in people in general and the way that they act and the things that they do I am not all that interested in writing a biography on someone else. I think that if I wrote a book on a specific topic it would feel more like an essay assignment for school, so really my only hope is that one day I have enough life experience to write a book about my findings and wisdom that I can acquire. That would involve living a life that other people find intriguing and worth reading about. Thanks the aforementioned young man named Justin Bieber I am fully confident that I can one day sell a book.

He recently came out with his autobiography. And I mean good for him but really? How much life experience and insight does he have that he could have a book written about him. Thanks to him I am fully confident that anybody can write their own autobiography and probably be somewhat successful. The irony of this is that clearly writing a book about yourself is not a big deal any more because it seems as if anybody can do it, regardless of the life or wisdom that you have achieved.

Resolutions

I have never really been one to make a resolution at New Years and this year is like no other. The reason being because I always feel that I don't need a New Year to decide to change something suddenly. Plus every year my New Year resolution is usually the same thing like lose weight, or stay in shape throughout the whole year and not just for like four months at a time, or maybe workout three times a week and don't go for seconds. But really I think that I New Years resolution should benefit more people then just yourself, right? Maybe it doesn't necessarily matter if it benefits more then just yourself, and I mean yes my personal physical physique (note the alliteration) does make me more pleasing to your eyes it really does not benefit anyone other then me.

That being said I don't think that Resolutions are bad at all and it's probably just my pride that I don't want to submit to the idea that we all must resolve to be better somehow in the New Year. But this is a little poem/proverb that I found and I think that it would probably count as a good Resolution. Although the last line kind of goes against my whole idea of benefitting everyone but hopefully you will still understand.

Fear less, hope more;

Whine less, breathe more;

Talk less, say more;

Hate less, love more;

And all good things are yours.

Anyways I just think that is a good thing to resolve to. Maybe I am softer in my older years choosing a poem as my "mantra" for the New Year, but I just think this puts it nicely. And despite the last line of all good things are yours, I think that if you are going along with the other parts of the poem good things will come for all. At least that is how I am choosing to defend my point.

Happy New Year everybody.

Efficiency

Here is a post for all of you. Thanks for the resounding response to the last post and by resounding I mean I think that there were 7 different people who commented which inspired me to continue to keep on writing on here.

Today as I was taking a shower (don't get any dirty ideas kids) I realized that even though I cut my hair to really short a few weeks ago already I am still in the routine of taking far too much shampoo. And it just drives me crazy. Today I easily took enough shampoo for three hair washings worth, and this was not the first time. Imagine I have done this three times that is like nine showers worth. I just decreased the life of my current shampoo bottle by a week. This is probably something we all do all the time, but only I have the time to think about something as useless as that. But imagine this with anything else that you have, every time that you have food in the house that you let go bad. Just imagine if either you ate it before it went bad or if you didn't buy the food at all how much you could be saving.

I know everyone isn't as frugal as I am about these things, but really just think about it and be thankful that you have enough to make leftovers and let things go bad without even using. Especially around Christmas right now when I am sure everybody received something they will never use, or even never wanted and doesn't need. Let's all just be thankful for what we have.

That is what I have to leave with you all on this last day of 2010. I look forward to sharing more with all of you in 2011. Happy New Years to everyone.

Reading

So I decided I would share a new revelation that I had the other day. I know you are probably thinking that I never blog so why does it matter that I am posting something. Well I am hoping to blog a bit more often with the main intention of hopefully becoming a better writer one day. Now on to the main point.

I came to the conclusion today that an important asset in life is acquiring knowledge. No I am not talking about knowing every article on Perez Hilton's blog on the latest celebrity gossip, I'm talking about just knowing about important things, really anything for that matter. If this is true the best way to acquire knowledge is to read, so my new goal is to read... a lot. I think it is important to know things and be able to reference important events and such. So other then of course your standard history books which I will read a lot because of school I have also made it priority to also read any other book that has been deemed popular or important in the past say I dunno 500 years. Yes that is a lot of books. It just seems like the right thing to do. Anyways all the books that I am reading or have received lately are for different interests just so that I can have a vast array of knowledge when I am done. Here is a list of books that I am planning to or have read recently:

The Prince - Machiavelli

Hipster Christianity - Brett McCracken

Animal Farm - George Orwell

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

Divine Comedy - Dante

The Chronicles of Narnia

1984 - George Orwell

And the list goes on to of course continue to read the bible more and really any other book that I may find anywhere. I just think that is important to know about things and it seems that all books even fiction have some sort of message within them somewhere that is wisdom the other has to be passed on to someone.

Now is where I incorporate you, the reader, to give your input. Perhaps you have a book that you would like to recommend. Although my list is long of books to read I hope that eventually I will be able to get to them all.