Dreams, Dragons and John Lennon

"I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?" John Lennon

How can we believe in things that we are not certain of their existence? I quoted John Lennon because his approach toward existents seems quite different from the general view. As humans, we doubt. Even Descartes who was eager to prove the existence of God started his study with doubting everything first. Then, what does it mean to exist, anyway? It is impossible to make a clear answer to this question, but we can approach closer to the answer by proving our existence. First, it is important to recognize that we are the ones who perceive existents. Think of dreams. Everything presented in a dream is a projection of our mind. It does not matter how real they look. The fact that they are just false images does not change. How about us? Now we know that we are surrounded by those false images while dreaming. Does it make us fake, too? No. Then what distinguish us from them? Consciousness. Even in a dream, we have consciousness since we are able to think, see and listen. And that consciousness is what proves our existence. In other words, although our world surrounding us might not be real, nothing can disprove our existence as long as we have consciousness.

Once we recognize our existence, the next thing we do is to perceive other existents. This is when our individuality comes in. When we are dreaming, our minds are deceived by false images but we cannot never be sure whether they are real or not until we actually wake up. We have no choice but to decide what to believe and what not to believe based on our own judging system. Some based on senses, some based on knowledge, etc. In my case, I always make that decision based on my experiences. So, unlike John Lennon, I do not believe in dragons or fairies. I do not agree with his idea that things can exist as a concept. People ask me, "Why do you believe in God then?" It was not because someone told me to believe. It was a decision that I carefully made based on what I have experienced through my life. Without those experiences, like fairies or dragons, God would have been just another concept to me. Some people would disagree with me. Like I said, everyone has his or her own rule and opinion on existence of certain things. Existence can only be defined by each individual.

Beauty

So you’ve heard that saying, “Beauty is in the Eye of the beholder”. When I view the landscape of our campus in full bloom this spring, and the hustle and bustle of students, I enjoy beauty every single day as I even make it to class on time. Wouldn’t you agree that the flowers budding and healthy trees blowing in the wind are absolutely beautiful? Well, you don’t have to agree with me. I’m comfortable listening to your opinions and respect your thoughts about what defines beauty and what you feel doesn’t.

In 1931, Albert Einstein said “the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science”. Well done Albert, as I definitely agree that opening up to unique or “mysterious” experiences makes life great and helps shape one into a well rounded person. And, I agree that defining true art is open for discussion. If we visit the Nelson together and experience some art exhibits, we should be ready to share a civil discussion about what we just saw. I may feel the exhibit upstairs was too mysterious to be showcased, while you may define that same artistic expression as flat out beautiful.

That’s how we should experience things and enjoy the beauty in our lives every day. Allow people to express their opinions on what is beautiful, and what they feel isn’t. And make sure the next time you walk through the KCAI campus that you take the time to not only smell the roses, but really experience the emotions of what is beautiful – friends, our people on campus and the gifts of nature in full bloom!

No real beauty

Beauty is all in our heads those beautiful landscapes are not really beautiful because beauty is all in our heads it is an opion that is sometimes back up with logic such as when an art work is deemed beautiful by a person or group of people but that can easily be countered with logic saying the piece is ugly but as far as the landscapes and cityscapes some think one is ugly and the other is beautiful some people think both are beautiful. All I'm saying is nothing is really beautiful we just perceive the objects as beautiful or not depending on our opinions.

oh, by the way...

I've been so terrible about blogging lately! I feel like I never really have anything important enough to say to warrant a blog post about it. BUT for some reason my mind has been stuck on the whole Midsummer's Night Dream thing and Shakespeare's views on love. I think the message he was trying to convey with this play is that love is something we have no control over, that it has no rhyme or reason and even more so how easily we can mistake lust or infatuation for love. By that definition I couldn't agree more.

It seems like the world love gets thrown around a lot very loosely with out generation. I think about how many times I use the word a day, I LOVE avocados or I LOVE "insert male musician/actor/athlete here" or saying I love you to a casual acquittance, in passing. I think my friends and I started doing in in high school. Every person we saw in a day people heard some form of the phrase, "ok, love you bye". The word love has become so casual its as if in some instances it has no meaning at all. Now I'm thinking about it and I realize I'm not sure if I even know what love is. Of course you know that you love your family, your dog and your close friends. That's natural, simple as breathing and I'd say for the most part lacks your own decision in the matter.

So then I start thinking about my first boyfriend. "OH GOD NO" you're thinking to yourself right? "Doesn't this belong in a private journal somewhere?!", you're saying. It's part of my thought process though so I'm going to share a little piece of my past with you. I think the reason why I'm ruined on love now is because I thought I knew what it was ages 15-17 when I was under the illusion that a long term relationship was a good idea for a teenage...and then reality hit and people grow apart and I'm left thinking, if a person is always changing how can you love the same person forever? I'm definitely not the same person I was when I was 15. For that matter, I'm not even close to the same person I was 6 months ago. I think for me I feel this underlying pressure to want to get married and have babies and be in LOVE. But who knows if that's the right way, it all seems a little unnatural to me.

I think Shakespeare is right. I think love is fickle and fleeting. As deep as a fairies spell that can be turned on or off in an instant. I'm going to end this little tirade here, but be expecting another one real soon. Lots of blogging to make up!! Trying to learn to love(?) it.

The Beauty of Paint Splotches

In class we discussed beauty in terms of culture. I think most of us agreed that many people are conditioned by either education or popular culture to view certain things as beautiful. As a result, some art (Cy Twombly and Rothko are two examples from class) may only be regarded as beautiful because some people like to be pretentious, and they think that claiming to like this kind of art makes them seem superior. And that is a very valid point. But I think those who disregard these artists' works just for the sake of not being pretentious are missing something very important, and that is experience. Take Jackson Pollock for example. You can relate to his work in an exclusively visual way, but that would detract from its beauty. After all, they are just paint drips and splotches with no traditional consideration of things like composition or imagery. But once you consider the experience that went into the piece, once you can visualize the artist's body lurching over the canvas spread on the ground and once you know about the Native American traditions that Pollock was inspired by while painting it, it is really difficult to not see the beauty in it. However, many people do not see the artist's body in his paintings, and many don't know about his background, and many only think his paintings are beautiful because pretentious people told them that his paintings are beautiful. And I think many of us are turned off by the fact that a person who knows nothing about art will throw down Jackson Pollock's name for the sake of seeming cultured. But I would urge you all to look past that. I urge you all to look more deeply into the artists that you find hard to relate to or think are just too cliche, because they often offer more than just a canvas. They offer an experience, and that is what makes them beautiful.

A MATTER OF OPINION

Who is to say what is good art and what is bad art when art itself is one of the most subjective human experiences. I believe the idea of art derives from the natural urge to want to create, the urge to express ones self. Art is it's own entity, it's able to take on any form that the artist wishes to give it, it is simply a visual description of some point that the artist wants to get across to the viewer. If that is correct then we can not say what is good and what is bad simply because art is not perfect and has no true form.

I also strongly believe that all of our life experiences dictates the development of our taste. Everyone and everything has some kind of effect whether it positive, negative, or neutral on our point of view. I also believe many of us ignore the natural feeling we have towards a piece of work based on the opinion of our peers.

Not what it seems

I have always held the thought of, we think therefore we are, very close to my heart. However, put in the context of Descartes' writings, I feel as though I need to give him less credit. Descartes logic is completely absurd and self contradicting. The writing itself is also very manipulative, and for lack of a better term pretentious. It's interesting to have read the work fully, because I now know that instead of Descartes being a believer in a strong mind being a defining factor of human life, he believes more that life itself could be simplified into an equation.

Who to Trust

If the authority of others means nothing in comparison to reason then I believe you would have no way of knowing anything. There are certain events and circumstances in life where we have to trust the word of others such as the day you were born. Of course you wouldn't remember this day being only an infant so unless you felt like going through an exhaustive process to find the truth for yourself, you don't have much of a choice than to simply trust what you've been told. However that doesn't mean you should blindly follow the judgment of others because people will lie if given the opportunity, no matter who they are. It's up to you to use your own reasoning to decide if you want to believe them or not. And even if you find out that they're lying, you also have to decide whether or not to let them get away with it.

Descartes and the senses

Descartes does not state that the senses have no value, only that understanding is the function of the mind rather than of the senses. It might be said that if one hopes to understand something (even a physical thing) it must be done by the mind rather than relying only on the senses. Descartes had a dream that he argued if he was dreaming or not. this particular dream seemed to be real to him. In his dream he was sitting by a lit fire and while sitting next to it he could feel the warmth brushing against him, which made him argue if his senses can allow him to feel the heat while he's dreaming how does he trust if its lit and warm when he's awake. Descartes sense perception relies on the mind more than the body. Senses are revealed by the mind. I agree it is my mind that gives me reason and knowledge to control my senses. I may see someone walking down the street with an umbrella. My mind says its raining or going to rain or the umbrella is to keep out the sun. It is my mind that is understanding not my senses. But I can smell rain, hear the rain and feel the rain without being out in the rain. My mind controls my senses. When I have a dream and feel like I am falling, my mind is reenacting something I had done before. As if, falling off a bicycle, but in my dream I am falling off a cliff. I believe Descartes' feeling the sense of warmth of the fire is the realization of being familiar with fire and the warmth you get. It is his minds understanding that created the fire and warmth.