The Filthy Roots of Ignorance

Ever wonder if society wants us to be ignorant? To constantly rot our minds with TV and whore ourselves out on myspace as if it were necessary for servival. It seems as if societies attitude has turned most of us the color of misty's eye shaddow... blue.

Think about it, when someone sees you reading a book, or otherwise conducting yourself in a progressive, educational fashon, the first response is allmost allways "What are you doing?". What fails to be aknowledged is that its not what you are doing its rather, a lack of what they are doing. Is it not? Sure its something, but its an act with no pourpose or otherwise gain. It realy hurts to be looked upon as a freak, or a "geek" or an "idiot" for doing something the average person wouldn't do, or dosn't do. So what we must do, is question what makes it out of the ordinary, extraordinary.

I. Reading
Why is reading viewed upon as such a chore, as a burden, as an exausting act. This is not to say that i'm not guilty, often I see reading as something i'm not mentaly prepared to do, but why is it that for so many, its just not an option. Why is it that summer reading has become a race to sparknotes, cliffnotes, pink monkey or whatever? Beucase people have become desensitized to reading, people have become, grown further and further away from reading. There is a median, a fog, a haze that disallows man to see why we read, or for that matter why any medium of conversation exists to this date. Conversation, and discourse have been preserved mainly becuase man needs communication, man needs to be able to express abstract thoughts in terms of tangible discourse witch, although will inevitabley lose some detail, through the effective use of comunication, we can decrease this loss. So can it be possible that reading is simply "out of style" that it is growing obsolete and the new age methods of communication are TV and speech? If so, exclude me out. I cant speak for all, but this is why I read: Reading is my way to understand others, others far away, others i've never met... without being trapped in a timeframe. Its my way of escaping from everything... yet solving it all. Its my way of learning outside of curriculum. That is why I read. For the knowledge of others.

II. Speech
Speech is often syphoned by the majority of society - using big words, or rather "Big" words in every day speech constitutes that you are better than someone, that you are perhaps more educated and are trying to showcase that.. trying establish your domination over others...but as someone who uses "big" words in every day speech my motives are quite the contrary. Language is a powrful tool to express yourself, to transcend your emotions past your mind and into anothers. I have found that good, or rather descriptive language is key to doing so. Also, its you that constitutes them as "big" words, why not out of the ordinary?

Whatever guys, call me what you want - Nerd / Dumbass / Smartass / Overachiever whatever you want. Just know that my actions aren't to please others- when I spend time on an essay, its not simply to get an A on it. Knowledge is important, Learning is important. I could care less if you disagree.


-Shikhar




"Deterioration of education take backseat to world domination thats why we hustle in the back street know when to pack heat just to eat no exaduration" - Rico Pabon

Comments and Complaints

English is hard - I'm bad at symbolism, I'm bad at understanding "why" (or even worse, why for the why for why of why)

School days are long- especialy after lunch... There's a mathematical formula to perceptional time after lunch... [ L=1/c (t) ] where L is the the time after lunch, C is the number of chockolate milks you drank and T is the amount of time you have left normaly.

There's nothing harder than finding shoes- except ofcourse, finding and purchasing them.

Rain is sweet - see explanation below

Driving school is a waste of time - My teacher spells license with an "o" (don't ask)

For life to be valued, it must be human - erm, or atleast thats what society preaches us, why is it that we can walk away from an animal on the road, after it has been mowed over like common grass... yet moap when someone dies naturaly?

The stench of death is what makes us uncomfortable - not the sight of it... ever wondered waht it is about sensing the stench of a decomposing corpse that makes us uncomfortable, is it the sheer smell? or is it death itself?

People are mean - aren't they?

Thoughts on Janmashtami Celebration / Garba - This is for all you people who have stopped and wondered why the hell you go to janmashtami / garba celebrations every year. Dont. Its pointless, no i'm not sacreligious - the concept behind it is pretty sweet, but going to socialize is a big no no. Lets just think about what happens, you see these people that you havn't seen in a fucking year, you talk to them about how you've been in the past year, they lie to you... tell you they miss you and they want to keep in touch. Then the night is over, and they never even attempt to talk to you more than once, they forget about you... the next year when you see them, its the same damn conversation. Blast that conversation to hell... back where it came from

TaliBBQ- hehe, I'm horrible i know. I ended up going to a place called "BBQ Tonight" an indo-pak restaurant (yes its scaled as per the sign), for some guys graduation party (dad's friends) Allthough the food wasn't extravagant, the experience i shall allways remember - something about seperating men, from women, from children just dosn't settle in my stomach, ironicly - neither does the food. And yes, to rip on you islamic readers, its the TaliBBQ =)

Authority angers me - Authority allways constructs itself as a higher power, as someone greater then you - in some variable, this can be height, stature, economic position, or even in its work. Its constructed heirchialy, mutilated, formulated to make the controlled feel lesser. It works to tell you things, at a 100 miles per hour without stopping to ask if you understood one, or rather, cared to understand one. It constructs itself as such that it is angry when something dosn't get done correctly, as per its standard. So it works incessantly to point out flaws in the work you have done, it cites directions it gave you in the past, without realizing that the directions contradicted themselves... this inherant contradiction is exactly what authority is. Crap.

Its getting late - and i have things to do, better things, well... atleast more important things.

Thanks for the time...


Shikhar

Natural Observations

You're sitting inside... alone, when in the corner of your eye you see the rain pouring down outside. You look up; the sky is grey, almost angry at the world. You open the door to feel the wind. It feels cool; it feels like childhood, like happiness, so you move closer to the door. As you sit down again you feel tempted, almost as if the wind you let in is calling to you, asking you, begging you to come outside. It’s begging you to come outside and open your arms to feel its cold face against your chest, calling for you to embrace it.... so you do.

You walk outside, and the sky suddenly doesn’t seem so grey. The wind wraps you and you feel warm, you feel like you did before you were born, you feel safe yet at the same time vulnerable. The wind has wrapped you as it said it would, its howling creates awe, a sort of ambience. You begin to notice other sounds, the beats of raindrops on your neighbor’s roof, the fluid awe created with puddles growing with every drop. Now the rain is calling you, you kiss the wind goodbye as you are now infatuated by the rain.

R A I N continues to fall...you submerge yourself in its cool aura. It acts like the wind and wraps you tight, but at the same time you feel free. It’s different though, it feels wet it calms you, and every drop takes you further away from reality. You feel the grass with your feet... it tempts you as the wind had done before. You make sure no ones looking, but pretend to trip anyways as you fall to the ground it’s the best trip of your life. The grass is like linen against your skin, soft to the touch. You turn over so your lying face up looking at what once was the angry sky, its size makes you feel small, and though its the center of your focus, in your peripheral vision you see color as you have never seen it before...

The vibrant color attracts your eyes... it bursts, it looks energized almost replenished by the heavenly waters. You let your eyes relax they follow the color, Bright red of the flower, The rich green of the stem... and the deep brown of the dirt you know its soft without touching it. As you look into the deep colors you wish for you could be them, you wish you could stay as you are forever... The rain begins to slow to a drizzle. You can see the plants begin to dull and the wind calms. You turn your face away from the flowers and you look back to the sky... It looks bright and happy again, but you feel disheartened. The rain stops... you look to your left then your right, and then you wonder why again... why are you lying in a dirty puddle in your back yard?

So much can happen in a matter of minutes, observe life.


-Shikhar



Thank you Rain.

Sexual Injustice

So, i feel as if i've done injustice to this here blog - have been ignoring you lately blog, i'm sorry.

So whats todays post about? Well just as the title implies, sexuality. What constructs our sexuality? Society, Experience, Genetics, or a combination of the three? An exploration of each can help us narrow this down... i think. Well here it is.

Societal Influences - rather apparent and self explanitory, most when living in such a hetero-normative society are influenced by it. Ridiculing the "outsiders" witch are in this case the G/L/B/T. What if however, one is constantly shunned away from this norm of being a heterosexual. Even if by definition he is included - what if he is rejected in societies eyes, witch is constantly pushing him to the others. However the others is exactly what he tries to get away from, for he knows he's not. What can we conclude his sexuality to be? Obviously society shapes us in many ways, at what point do we simply accept that we don't belong to the norm - if so, do we automaticaly become the alternative, or do we languish between the binary?

Experience - Do our experiences define what we are, in terms of sexuality? Well I suppose we can apply the situation to another question to possibly get an answer. Someone is constantly exposed to violence throughout there childhood, everything they see is violence, Gang Fights, Domestic Violence to the one they call "mother", even the poliece are violent. What could beocme of such a person. According to absolutely nothing outisde of my logic, I would infer that that person would either become a violent person himself or a pascifist... becuase he' can see through the disguize violence puts on, and understands how truely arbetrary it is. Does sexuality work the same way? If someone is put through fucking hell in every heterosexual relationship he has, does that constitute a change of sexuality?

Genetics - Modern science has suggested what is commonly reffered to as a "Gay gene". Apparently there is a certain amount of grey matter in your brain witch determines your sexuality. Suggesting that before you are boarn your sexuality is predtermined. Another theory indicates that perhaps sexuality is determined when you are in the womb and certain conditions witch you are exposed to can shape your development and control your sexuality.

Personaly, I don't understand how sexuality works. I don't understand why my sexuality is called into question all so often.
I dont understand - and i'f that makes me stupid then so be it.



Shikhar Singh

mood: Kansas - "Dust in the wind"

note: these are pure thoughts, didn't edit thise once yet - exausted and i dont care to look over it. disagree? comment.


**edit**

happy 2 month aniversary blog.

Critical Thinking

As I think about education, I find myself more and more fascinated by the racial fabric that seems to have woven our society. Fabric witch is seemingly impossible to tear, that no matter how hard one tries - will still exist in the under roots of American society. So, in attempts to do the unthinkable - I have devoted this post to the underlying racism that occurs in relation to a place most of us will have to go back to in the next few days - School.
A few days ago, well this i suppose was the first time i had noticed, I found myself in a conversation about how a school was going to close soon if its scores wouldn't go up (some HISD school). Anywho, this is what I heard - "Its all because of them damn niggers that don’t want to learn nothin' [...] They just go to school and waste that teachers time, and then bitch about why they cant get a job [...] the problem is, they don't value education." - Aaphauling I know, - unfortunately I didn't respond to this. Let’s take a moment however, to analyze the above. One of the things that stands out most in this thought is "The problem is, they don't value education." Oh really? Do they not value education, or does education not value them? Or in a more correct sense, does the state not value them? Now please don’t any of you try to respond to this with claims of racial recognition by the state through programs like Affirmative Action, for to this day I have yet to see a program that strengthens my claims of the racial fabric of society. America feeds to us that we are all equal... how? How the hell are we all equal when kids that go to schools in the ghetto are deprived of teachers witch are truly devoted to education, why then is it seen as a promotion to move to a school in a better area? The state seems to think that programs like AA are the fuckign solution to problems like this, they have the mentality that "oh, poor you - I’m sorry you had crappy teachers. Here, you want to go to North Western? Allright, go." This mentality only further greatens the dichotomy witch exists between urban culture and everyone else. This "Compensation" if it can really be called that fails to understand that RACE is not a handicap! The systematic deprivation that exists in America’s schools is not a problem witch is going to go away; critical education is the only way to solve such a deficit.
Another rather revealing part of this quote lies in the assumption that it’s the "niggers" that are messing up grades. Without any report, without any outside education - the fact that the school is closing must be because of the damn niggers huh... This prime assumption is proof of the racial fabric witch still engulfs the minds of the youth. In response: I feel as if even after hundreds of years of slavery, Americans still haven’t learned, or rather - Refuse to accept, what our country was founded on. (Yes I said OUR) - Equality. As seemingly impossible as it sounds, Equality - in my eyes, can be achieved. Maybe not financial equality but the mere acceptance of every one as a contributing member of society, I believe can be done, but only if we can look past race. (Witch through previous assertions seems impossible).
Finally, let’s look at the middle, and most paradoxical line of this quote. "[...] They just go to school and waste that teachers time, and then bitch about why they cant get a job" Immediately "They waste teachers time" catches my eye. What the fuck does that even mean? How can one propose that they are wasting the teachers time, when because of programs like no child left behind (NLCB) the curriculum is based soaly on "passing" the TAKS! If anything, this illustrates how the teacher, or rather the curriculum, is wasting the students’ time! For how much can u actually learn simply practicing for a test for an entire year? This proves NLCB to be a failure, at the point when they reward schools that attain higher scores, they clearly project to the schools what is truly important, and thus setting an agenda witch focuses simply on improving scores, not education. Lastly let’s look at "and then they bitch about why they can’t get a job". This inability to get a job demonstrates the true lack of praxial skills taught by school, and you can look at bitching as complaining - why wouldn't you complain about a school system that’s failed? Hell I’m bitching right now!
We all must learn to see the racism clearly portrayed by American system of "education". Comments like the one analyzed above will continue to be made unless we learn to see each other as equals, until we break down racism. As impossible of a task this is - it must be done.
I understand I’ve made a mistake by not attempting to correct the mentality of the person who said the above - and I’m sorry for that, But learn from my mistakes my friends - if faced with a situation witch can potentially open the eyes of someone who refuses to see reality, engage in doing so.

Current Mood: Freedom Time - Lauryn Hill

Science and Metaphysics.

We start today's thought with a question, Why. Why are we all forced to accept things? Why is it absolutely impossible to deviate from them? Why is science seen as wholely true, and even if not seen this way - why is it argued like this?
As much as i can contest to loving Mr. Darwin's work I also feel that in a way, its blown up and reguarded as truth. Take into concideration however, what truth is? - - Without delving into this lets discuss the conclusion that is drawn from darwinism through his discourse of survival and reproduction: man is inherately selfish. Man will constantly work for his survival man will never devote himself to a cause or sacrefice himself, ofcourse not- thats unheard of. But once we accept this what is the point of even thinking of a future where this was changed? Does accepting this hinder thought? Take into concideration Marxism - a system of government based on communal thought and a communal effort, based on a conclusion that man strives for society to be better, that if we all just did our part this goal isn't so distant. If man is truely inherately selfish a distruction of capitolism would mean that there is no longer any drive for man to work, that its no longer for HIS servival persay, but now is for communal growth. What i mean to say is that Marxism has allways made the argument that all people are equal. This sparks the question : Why, why do i work? Why do I ,the Marxist Scientist, work so hard going through school for 15 years while Cleetus the unruely redneck does nothing but plant crops all day? I'm not exactly sure why, but i feel that maybe darwins asertions are only true for a capitolistic society. That maybe in a marxist society we wouldn't think like this. Maybe we wouldn't differenciate between how much work Cleetus and the scientist do. Or maybe he' is right... maybe his assertions are true in ever instance.
The basic problem i'm having is at what point does this, all of what i just wrote, all of what i've ever thought - become pointless? At what point do i just give up, and realise that my thoughts are absolutely insignificant that there is absolutely NO value in me even thinking about this.


Thats a tough cookie, maybe you guys can help me answer this...

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