The Intellectual Mind

The Intellectual Mind

There are two type of people in this world; there are those that make decisions based on their emotions like I do, and those who rationalize every situation and make their decisions based on what they interpret as logic. Personally, that is a boring way to live in my mind, but I won't judge those who choose to live that way because in the end they probably think I am rash and illogical for my decisions. When I think of someone who decides to, or rather is forced to make intellectual decisions are teachers. There are of course some teachers who choose to act on their emotions for what they think would best benefit their students, but most teachers choose to go by the book for fear of judgement or the potential loss of employment. For example, when teachers are confronted with an unruly student, what do most teachers do? They send them to the office to receive their 'punishment', but there are some teachers who might know that it is something more than how they are acting, a family situation perhaps that they try to deal with themselves first. Like every decision, these both have their pros and cons and so do intellectual and emotional decision makers.

Being an intellectual decision maker does have many positive attributes, even though I do not usually use logic for every simple decision I make, it isn't always a bad thing to rationalize. In the situation I described, the logical thinker chose to send the student to the office while the emotional thinker chose to intervene themselves. But what if the student was violent, and attacked the teacher, then the student would not only have been sent to a detention home but the teacher would have had to deal with a black eye! The way I see it, being a logical thinker produces less negative consequences since using logic can usually keep you out of bad situations, but withholds so many more possible rewards in life. A logical thinker would call the police if he saw a woman being mugged instead of taking action, and the woman might be saved and have her stolen items returned, or she could have potentially been hurt or even killed due to the 'logical thinking' of the bystander who witnessed the crime ad it happened. No mindset is ever foolproof, every action, whether positive or negative, holds a consequence.

Just as thinking rationally can be a positive thing, it can just as easily become a terrible decision in the blink of an eye. So what if that bystander in the last theoretical situation would have taken action, he might have gotten himself killed, or would the victim have been sparred a terrible fait? And the student, what if he had just gone through the death of a relative, or the loss of a close friend, then does he deserve an emotional thinker to ask him what's wrong? Or should he simply be sent out to go to the principal to be assigned his punishment? No matter how you think about it, there are always consequences to a mindset, no way of thinking or making decisions if a perfect one. But one thing is for sure, thinking emotionally or deciding rationally in every situation is only asking for trouble, a truly smart person learns when to use logic to solve a problem, and when to sympathize and take risks. 

"The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven."

- John Milton, Paradise Lost

Love

Love 

Love is one of the very first feelings that we distinguish as human beings, whether through experience or lack there of, and is important for healthy human development and a healthy life in itself. One reason why love is so important is because man is a social creature, who needs companionship and compassion to survive in a healthy state of mind. It is an obvious fact that children who aren't shown love and affection grow up without the ability to love others themselves, and in some cases, react violently to human stimulus. A person that has to endure the hardships of a childhood without love also usually endure intense struggle in life because of their lack of ability or willingness to communicate with others because of their experiences as children. And because of the way that society is and has always been, people who cannot effectively cooperate with others that still achieve any kind of personal or materialistic success are rare or nonexistent. 
Another reason that love is such an important factor in the life of a human being is that people use the love of others as consolation in times of despair. Without love, common problems encountered in everyday life could potentially become unbearable to a person without moral support from friends and family. With the love and encouragement of others, the impossible becomes possible, and the insurmountable becomes doable. True success and advancement comes with hard work, dedication, and above all success comes with help. 
Lastly, along with love, companionship is essential not only for materialistic success but also for genuine happiness in life. Although some may say that companionship isn't a factor in success, I disagree. "Behind every good man, is a great woman", like the famous quote states, although everyone has the capability to achieve success for themselves, true inspiration and greatness stems from the love for another. In a sense, it is debatable whether or not you can live without love and companionship; of course you can survive without love, but is that really a life worth living? Is a life lived in solitude a life at all? At one point or another, every desolate person must ask themselves that question; maybe it is only a lucky guess, but I think the conclusion is always the same, a life without another to love and to be loved by is a meaningless one. 

Love, like a river, will cut a new path whenever it meets an obstacle.

- Crystal Middlemas 

#ForeverAlone

#ForeverAlone

The video above illustrates how epeated rejection can lead to a multitude of responses depending on the individual's natural response. But no matter who the subject of the rejection is, it always hurts; rejection can take a heavy mental and emotional toll on a person. In my mind, the worst reactions to rejection are depression and anger; depression not only effects the person, but also the people around them. And anger can be the most dangerous response to rejection. A person who is rejected to the point where anger takes place of the solitude they feel, is normally the kind of person who can create violent, and even deadly responses as a defense mechanism. No one deserves to be rejected, no one deserves to have to deal with the pain of loneliness.

The Conundrum of Personal Responsibility

Responsibility

What is personal responsibility? Before this prompt, I had never thought about the meaning of the phrase; when I hear personal responsibility, what comes to mind is the ability to take responsibility for one's own actions and the extent to which a person is willing to take responsibility. For me learning to take responsibility is something that has never come naturally, I would rather make an elaborate excuse or blame the situation on someone else, but I have slowly but surely learned the the "easy" way out is never the best way out. It is easy to relate to a subject like this one by making a scenario that explains the importance of the subject through a real-life example.

Imagine this, you have a group of very trusted friends and they all want to go to a rated-R movie (even though you are underage) and tell you that there is no chance of getting caught. Being the gullible person you are, you take their offer and go out to see the rated-R. Shortly after entering the theatre they make lots of noise and are soon taken out of the theatre along with you and then proceed to put the blame on you since, you are, the gullible one. So are you to blame for their noise? The answer varies from person to person, but the answer is simple. Yes you are. 

WHY you are responsible, is an easy question to answer as well. If you knowingly agreed to take a risk by going to the movie, you also unknowingly agree to take responsibility for the many possible consequences for that action. No matter what terrible repercussion may have happened at that theatre, you are automatically partly responsible because you, of your own free will, chose to venture out to the movies. That is a simple way of explaining the meaning of personal responsibility, and how to distinguish whether or not a situation is your responsibility or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjjSPzvY8OQ

Like the video above illustrates, the woman has to take obvious responsibility for her actions, and now knows that many situations can yield unexpected consequences if not handled with care.

The Exploration of the Unknown

The Unknown

              People throughout the ages have explored the unknown one way or another. Some have explored the unknown by traveling to new foreign lands, like the first character in Frankenstein, writing to his sister of his travels and his expedition to the Arctic Circle. Others have explored the unknown simply by trying new foods, traveling down a back road they have until then avoided, or maybe even just breaking away from their daily routines. And there are some like me, who use music to express their individualism and have in the past experimented, tried, failed, and succeeded in triumphantly exploring the unknown borders of music and sound that no one else had tread. I think that people choose to devote themselves to going where others haven't gone before for the same reason I play my music. They do this to discover, or even create something new and uncommon that they can call their own; they do this to show the world that there are still beautiful things yet to be stumbled upon, and to bring new hope to those who think they have experienced this world to it's fullest but haven't yet begun to live. Although it is a noble effort, to want to change people's perspective of this world, a success of that caliber doesn't come easy. To truly make a change, it takes dedication, commitment, diligence, and huge sacrifices of time and sometimes even sleep. To explore the unknown is an enormously daunting task for one reason, because it is unknown; because a person can never know for sure what they might find or what they might lose, only that in order to truly succeed, they must hope for the best and expect the very worst.

"A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown."

Denis Waitley