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Live? Die? Kill?
I care about a great number of things in this world, including gummi worms, baseball, and beating my opponents in Words With Friends. There are few things, however, for which I would be willing to give my life. There are the obvious choices pertaining to love and family that come to mind when considering worthwhile self-sacrifice, but I think it may be useful to delve past that line of thinking. It is a selfish pursuit, to be sure, but one that offers the possibility of significant self-discovery.
I, as an individual, live primarily for the pursuit of knowledge. I find that as my understanding of the universe expands, my capacity to appreciate it for all its mysteries is also enhanced. I am the quintessential autodidact. I have learned more from independent study and experience than from any classroom. I relish the opportunity to learn from individuals whose insight into certain areas is more complete than my own. It has gotten to the point where I find it difficult to choose my favorite area of study. My good friend Jason, himself a knowledge junkie, has likened me to Eratosthenes of Cyrene, a “jack of all trades, but master of none” among Greeks. I cannot imagine tolerating an existence in which individuals were not allowed to pursue their passions. It is for the prevention of such a state that I would give my life. A world in which humanity is deprived of emotion and passion is a world in which existence becomes meaningless.
I also find myself truly feeling alive when I am in competition. As kind and easygoing as I may seem to be, there is a fiercely passionate side of me that comes to the surface in most competitive environments. It is the promise of this kind of passion and satisfaction for which I continue to endure the more bland portions of day-to-day life. I used to compete on an academic trivia team, an activity that combined my endless lust for knowledge with my competitive nature. I can think of few things in my life that have brought me more enjoyment than mercilessly crushing my enemies as a result of my years upon years of preparation and intimidation. It may be ultimately shallow, but my fierce dedication to the task allowed me to greater experience the satisfaction of victory. This is, of course, true for any pursuit to which one devotes oneself entirely. The most satisfying thing about completing a task is not necessarily the final result, but knowing that all the effort expended has come to fruition. I think every individual should be allowed to feel this way about something. People should pursue their passions to the point that they can sit back and be satisfied that they have done something with purpose, even if that purpose is entirely self-serving. The people who never find their passions, I believe, are forced to occupy a more shallow existence than those who pursue life with gusto and seek out fulfillment through interest. What is existence but empty and hollow without such thirst for something?
Killing is such an extreme act that it is difficult to identify the things for which I would take another life. A human life is so full of potential that ending an individual’s existence is a very difficult thing to justify. There are, however, situations in which such extreme measures are not only justified, but necessary. If all people approached the issue of taking a life in the same manner as most individuals, there would be a greater mutual respect among all people. However, there are those among us who do not see this issue the same way. Some of them have been misled to believe that some people are better off not existing simply based on arbitrary characteristics. This is unacceptable. It is only when a person tries to take the life of another person that they should no longer be allowed to live. If it is absolutely certain that killing an individual will prevent the further loss of human life, then I will pull the trigger myself. This should not be an act of passion except in the passion to defend another’s opportunity to live and pursue a fulfilling existence.
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Mike Shrader
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Mike Shrader
Ecological literacy, in my opinion, is the awareness of how an ecosystem functions. Just as a literate person is capable of examining and understanding a written work, the ecologically literate individual has the capacity to anticipate the impact that certain actions will have upon the ecosystem in which they occur. Although a complete understanding of environmental consequences is understood to be beyond the comprehension of most people, the ecologically literate should be able to see the basic outcome of environmentally significant events before they happen and adjust their actions accordingly. To know the impact of one’s decisions is to be equipped with the ability to shape the future according to one’s own vision. Ecological literacy, I believe, is a nonmoral concept. Such literacy may correlate with an augmented desire to protect the environment, but this is a result of each individual’s literacy being filtered through their morals and not a direct result of the acquisition of knowledge through that literacy. One may understand the world around them completely without acting morally upon that knowledge. A man with selfish intentions may have all the environmental awareness there is, yet use it only for his own aggrandizement. Therefore, I think that it is important to ensure ecological literacy to those equipped with the desire to utilize knowledge to enhance the quality of the world around them, to maintain the capacity of the environment to operate optimally. This alone will guarantee that we have done everything in our power to sustain the planet for future generations to enjoy. The journal assignment in the .pdf file indicated that the writing was to be done before reading Capra’s essay. Therefore, I have not included a citation here, having not yet read the essay. I’m going to read it now, of course. Ha ha!
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Mike Shrader
Now that I’ve started reading the actual essay, it has become clear that Capra is proposing the application of the qualities of a properly functioning ecosystem to human society. As effective this may seem in theory, it feels to me a bit far-fetched. It is difficult to envision a system in which human nature fails to corrupt the balance of things. For all its idealism and good intentions, in practice Communism failed to match the utopian construct presented by Marx and Engels. Why is this? Greed, selfishness, and ambition were brought to the forefront of the human character. The opportunists took advantage of the gullibility of their supposed equals. In such an interdependent society as Capra dreams, the need to place so much trust in our fellow humans exposes us and our system to the same fallibility that has plagued any significant society of “equals” throughout history. It may be a pessimistic view, but it is more realistic. Failure is inevitable until we can remove a very basic component of our human nature. However, is humanity without ambition still humanity? I think not. I will take our human race with all of its present faults over the passionless, artless “human” shells of which an “ideal” society must be composed.
Then again, I’ve only read a small piece of what Capra wrote. I’ll go finish it now.
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Mike Shrader
Certainly, there are lessons to be learned from the manner in which nature conducts itself. I do believe our society can benefit greatly from an application of the concepts presented by Capra. It would be wonderful to see some of these ideas put into action and kept effective! We can all do our parts, I suppose.
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Michael Millasp, 
Meghan Johnson, and 
Mike Gotsch are discussing. 
Mike Shrader is discussing. 
Mike Gotsch 10:52 am on February 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
From what I can see, you need to have a longer essay which means expanding some of the ideas that you have towards something. For instance I do not think you covered the fact of what would you die for. That might help your essay. Also it is kind of weird that living for competition. I was a high school swimmer and the competition was fierce. I understand the adrenaline can be great, but I feel living for it is kind of odd. I do not mean to hate on what you believe in and everything, but it is just odd to me.
Living in the pursuit of knowledge is great. Knowledge is the key to success for people in life, and the more you know, the better. It is great that people still strive on learning these days. Coming from kind of a bad high school which had a low percentage of passing kids, it is very surprising that people want to learn. I give all the credit to the people in the word that can sit in a library, open a book, and read it cover to cover. I surely could not do that. I sometimes feel that I do not have the power to strive and learn the knowledge that I need. I am the kind of person that goes to a class and does the bare minimum, but if it is a music class, I will try and give it my best effort. I want to become a musician, so I can try and pass all my classes that I need to become a musician.
After I have read it a second time I see that you posted, “I cannot imagine tolerating an existence in which individuals were not allowed to pursue their passions. It is for the prevention of such a state that I would give my life”. This had just struck me that you did put something in about dying for. In the beginning of the paragraph, you said living for knowledge is what you live for. I think that you should split this paragraph up and explain more on why you would dye about your passion. Is your passion getting knowledge though? It is kind of hard to comprehend what you are trying to say. You also say competitiveness is what you live fore but is that something your passionate about? Being competitive can be a good thing. You always are striving to be the best which is a great thing to do. I think that people who strive for the best in them is key to life. Striving to something you passionate about can make you do some crazy things. Such as music for me, I was thinking about dropping out, because I had a deal that I did not need to go to school for. They told me I would be touring a lot and playing in a lot of places. I told them no, because I feel that I need to be school. Overall it was a good essay very confusing to me. Good luck with the rest of them.
Meghan Johnson 1:41 am on February 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I want to start by saying that your essay is very sophisticated. I don’t know if that makes sense to you at all but I guess it’s just to me you use very nice educated words. It is not at all a bad thing, it’s just me, myself could never be able to write like that, so in other words, very good writing.
I really enjoy your opening paragraph. You are able to show the little everyday things in life that everyone lives for, all the goofy things we do in a day makes up our life and makes our life more exciting each and everyday. I agree with you that most likely everyone has their obvious choices of things of love, family, etc., so I like how you mixed it up for yourself. It is great that you live for knowledge, I believe that it truly is an important thing to live for. It’s kind of like in my essay I stated that I live for my education so I can somewhat relate for when you say you live for knowledge. I love the fact that you are able to say that you have learned more from other people in your life or in the classrooms because in my life I feel as if I have not recognized things like that so I envy you for that. One day in the future I really hope I can say that too, because I believe life is all about experiences and from those we can learn all types of things! I do have to admit towards the end of your first “live for” paragraph I starting getting confused or lost, I’m guessing it is just me because I really don’t know to much about the Greek times so I so don’t understand how you related all you had to say. But I was able to understand your last sentence in that, and I strongly agree! The world should be filled with all kinds of emotions everyday and if there isn’t then no one has really anything to give the world. I find it funny that you also live for competition because for me competition scares me, well maybe not scares me but gives me the nerves all over! Although I have to somewhat agree because in high school I was on a competitive cheerleading team and as crazy and it sounds I LOVED the nerves it gave me right before we would be called out on to the floor. So what I agree with you about competition is the feeling and the adrenaline it gives you, also the dedication you put into whatever it is your competing for. Overall, I hope this doesn’t make me sound like I have bad sportsmanship, but competition is shitty when you don’t get the outcome you hoped for. Therefore, the whole competition of one thing is something I think I can live without.
For your last paragraph, again I have to say I was a bit confused of what point you were trying to get across. I understand that you also believe that killing for someone or something is a very extreme act to do and if one were to ever consider it I hope it would be all for the write reasons.
Overall, reading your essay was very interesting I thought and I am glad I was able to connect to some of the things you stated. Other than it being educated/well written I do believe it maybe under the amount of words and there was no where in your essay stated what you would die for. If you wouldn’t die for something maybe think about stating that and an explanation why, I believe it could really help your essay.
Michael Millasp 12:05 am on February 16, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Your essay has lots of potential behind it. It could be a great essay with lots of meaning. You need to add 800 more words to it though. From the stuff I read in your essay, that shouldn’t be hard. Expand more on your ideas and bring up more ideas. Give more examples and explain them in deep thought. The pursuit of knowledge is a great thing to live for because knowledge is one of life’s greatest gifts to people. Not a lot of people get the opportunity like most do when it comes to receiving good education. I learn a lot from personal experience. I agree with you that experience helps more than some teacher/professor explaining it to you on a whiteboard or PowerPoint can. I find it difficult myself when it comes to deciding my field of study. I find new things interesting in all sorts of studies everyday that I am unsure about which I would love to study and pursue and education in that field. We both need to decide quickly though because we don’t have all that much time to decide what we want to do for the rest of our lives! I am a very competitive when it comes to sports but not academics. I mean I try to do better than the other person next to me just to show off, but otherwise I try my hardest and in the end that means most to me. The ultimate satisfaction when completing a long hard homework assignment knows that I accomplished it and I put my best effort into. If my teacher doesn’t appreciate it and gives me a bad grade for it, then I don’t take it personally because I know what I did and I am proud of that. I was confused reading your statements about what you “Kill”. You seemed to be very uncertain on what you would kill for, but at the same time it seemed like you don’t want to kill at all because it takes away another’s opportunity to live. I mean I understand that statement, but I think you need to add examples and go into deeper thought when it comes to your “Kill” statements. I’m not very sure, but I didn’t read anything that you would die for. And if you did, I’m sorry it was very unclear then. You did a great job with your choice of vocabulary and grammar, all you really need to do is add in examples and go into even deeper thoughts on your topics that are presented. Make your “kill” statement just as long or maybe even longer than your “live” statement because it seems like you could go on more in your last paragraph. Overall, it is a great paper with great leads. Just add in something’s here and there and make it 800 words longer because this paper needs to be 1500 words long if you didn’t know. Great job and I hoped I helped you like I hope I did.