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As this blogging adventure comes to a close this week, I decided that the topic should be the number one philosophical question out there: what is the meaning of life?

Now if you’ve been reading my blog for any extended period of time, you can probably guess the tone of my answer. There is no meaning to life. The entirety of human existence is subjective on some level, because none of us can ever really understand what’s going on in someone else’s head. There are billions of worlds on this one planet, and the more we are aware of that, the easier it is to communicate and cope with the people around us. The people near you and on the opposite side of the globe all exist in the same way that you yourself do, and their existence is just as valuable and significant as yours is.

I am not attempting to undermine any religious belief or deeply held spiritual notion of there being a purpose to existence. I am not attempting to tell you that if you believe in a reason for living you are wrong. Quite the opposite, really; I am telling you that any reason you have for living is the reason you exist. You define your life for yourself, and no one else can do that unless you let them. If you see the world through the actions of other people, and you want to make it a better place for them, that is your purpose. The subjectivity of human nature allows each of us to choose a reason to exist.

There is no answer, but by default that means that no answer can be wrong. The catch is that because no answer can be wrong, your own answer is not inherently right for everyone on the planet. Therefore everyone else should not be held to the beliefs you choose for yourself, and theirs should be respected as right in the same way yours are. It is often frustrating when others cannot see why you are doing something or acting some way, simply because it is different from how they go about their own lives. And there are often cases where large groups of people agree on one way of doing something, and then someone comes along with a different opinion and stirs up controversy. There will always be difficulties accepting the way of others because of how subjectively humanity lives, but the solution is to keep in mind that there are commonalities between you and every other person on this planet. People fall in love; people get hurt; people experience complex emotions and perform a multitude of activities and if nothing else, all people are united in the fact that they are biologically identical on the inside.

Perception is reality; but that is not an excuse to avoid communication and acceptance. Explain to someone why you are upset by their actions without yelling. Answer the questions of people who are ignorant of the way you live. The meaning of life is not something that everyone agrees on and accepts; it is dynamic and flawed, just like the humans who came up with the question. And keep in mind that though you may exist in your own world, all people share the planet.

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The concept of blame is always interesting. It can be shared, or put entirely on one individual or event, or some complicated combination of the two. The concept of fault is a strange one, as it is so abstract and complex, but even the smallest child can point their finger at someone else and distribute it as they see fit. The origin of blame probably relates to some animal somewhere along the evolutionary chain realizing that certain behaviors caused bad things to happen (like getting eaten or dying of disease) and so began to blame them for the consequences so that those behaviors were avoided by the rest of the population.

However, though it may be useful in some cases, assigning responsibility is often extremely subjective. From the perspective of one person, another could have completely shaped the outcome of an event; yet for that other person, it was a mild occurrence they may not even remember the following day or week. This causes tensions and gives rise to the idea of a misunderstanding; which is often little comfort to those who have been seriously affected. Though some events obviously have more impact than others, it is often difficult for one person to determine the effect their actions will have on another person, as their perceptions and priorities may be drastically varied.

Responsibility also has developed a negative connotation. Instead of taking responsibility being seen as a positive thing, it always seems to be a punishment more than a reward. The language used to speak of something good is never referred to as accepting fault; it is more likely to be described as “accomplished” or “made happen.” Children are told to take responsibility for their actions, which is usually followed by a swiftly dealt punishment if they actually do; or at least it used to be. It seems more and more now that blame is simply shifted to someone else, without any consequence ever really following an action. This is not difficult to believe, as to say one person is at fault would alleviate the other party, when really it belongs to both parties, whether equally distributed or not. Pointing fingers will accomplish nothing if both parties perceive themselves in the right.

What is there to do then? Not much, really. Frustrating as it is, there is often no solution to disputes where the blame is shared or unclear to one involved party. Subjectivity prevents the issue from being determined fairly for both parties. That is the real reason life isn’t fair: there’s no such thing.

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Human lives revolve around numbers. We are dependent upon pieces of paper or metal with numbers on them or associated with them to function on society. The monetary system in America today allows for people, businesses, and large groups to hold power in the form of money. Money comes in many shapes and sizes, and is different almost anywhere you go around the world. Money was introduced long ago to supplement the barter system that had been in place before. It worked as a credit system; money could be traded rather than goods, and then that money could be used to purchase other goods or services.

The problem currently surrounding money is it no longer has the value it used to possess, and no one ever seems to have enough of it. Money is thought by some to be the root of evil, as the need to possess it can drive some people to commit horrible acts they would not normally be seen as capable of doing. Money corrupts and destroys as much as it helps.

The value of money changes depending on what system it’s being incorporated into. A dollar here is not the same as what we would consider a dollar if we were in Europe or Asia. A unit of money is subjective to each government or enterprise, and any form can be refused or accepted at the whim of the establishment. Inflation depletes the values money used to be associated with, so that a dollar now would not be the same as a dollar was 20 years ago, regardless of which part of the country you’re in.

Money can also be digital. This further decreases the value, because the currency you have available to you is nothing more than a few digits on a screen; it cannot be touched or moved or its existence confirmed outside of that image. Yet the idea of money is central to the way human life works. Without money, you’re considered poor, and are deprived of most things because you cannot trade a numerical value for an item or service. If you have enough money to waste it on things you don’t need or won’t use, you’re considered rich, and your quality of life is exponentially improved over someone who is poor, regardless of other factors.

This system is flawed to say the least. Money is something humans invented to simplify their lives, when in fact it has decimated many and compromised others to the extent that it has taken lives away. When a single piece of paper is compared to the person next to you, most would agree that the person is more valuable. However make that single paper into millions or billions of papers with ever increasing digits printed on them, and for some, the value of the human life becomes less than that of the stack of papers. This is due to the weight humans place on these pieces of paper; and because this association is so deeply ingrained in the population, it will only get worse.

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One of the things that today’s youth likes to collectively admonish is the education system. Kids complain about having too much homework or to many projects, that their teachers don’t teach or that the material is never going to be relevant to their real live careers. As a student myself, I can sympathize with the need to complain occasionally, but recently I have begun to realize that all of that complaining may not be too far from the truth.

The most frustrating things in college is failing an exam or assignment you felt good about just because of the subjectivity of the grading process. I respect the right of a teacher to grade for the quality of the work, but it seems that they occasionally take this concept too far, grading for imperfection rather than comprehension. This may seem trivial, but it is certainly not if the main portion of your grade is derived from the scores of those exams and assignments. The fact of the matter is that it’s extremely disheartening to fail; especially when it seems out of your own control to succeed.

Some students are simply lazy. They expect the world to be handed to them on a silver platter, and refuse to contribute to their own education. In such cases, there is little that can be done to rectify an injured GPA – and it’s not the teacher’s responsibility to pass them just because they think they should be allowed to pass. However the system is flawed, because of the structure of most university level classes. The weight put on huge exams does not account for the biological or environmental elements of college that are out of a students’ control. Illnesses that are not severe can still hinder the performance of a student; a loud roommate can eliminate all the preparation that went into an exam if the student can’t sleep to be rested enough to recall the information. Many teachers see excuses where student are experiencing the everyday symptoms of existing.

I cannot see the system being fixed any time soon, though, for two reasons. One: the teachers who choose to look past the consequences of being a person and expect students to overcome things they cannot control are too set in their ways, and their worldview does not allow for a change to be made. Two: there is no obvious solution. And thus the infinite frustration that is relevant only in the realm of human beings and the system they created that fails to account for their own weaknesses continues.

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Family structures have always been confusing to me. There is what’s considered to be a normal family, with slight variations; then there are families that are perfectly capable of functioning and being happy, welcoming environments, but are perceived as less valuable or weaker versions of what a family should be.

The idea of a normal family consisting of a father, mother, sister, and brother has been perpetuated throughout the entertainment industry as well as others. Any variation from this cookie cutter model is considered an abnormal family structure, and is often used when portraying a character or advertising a product that is considered to be abnormal in some way. Single parent households are considered unbalanced, while families with many children are chaotic and disorderly. Television shows and books run the gambit with parents who’ve abandoned their children, or who have adopted strange kids from difficult circumstances, and there is always something that ends horribly wrong, or the writers try too hard to make it seem like these “broken” families are just as happy or appear just as normal as, well, a normal family would.

These stories call into question the definition of a family. If you look up the definition online, there are a dozen different definitions for what exactly a family should be defined as. However the words do not do the concept any justice. A family is idealized as a group of people you feel close to, feel safe with, or belong to. It’s about the people you surround yourself with, both by blood and by heart. Take for example the idea of an extended family, or a family that expands or contracts due to divorce or death. All of the people involved may not share the same genetics, but they would tell you they are (or were) part of the same family.

A family is another construct of humanity trying to control the society that they’ve built. The idea pigeonholes people into believing that there is only one combination of people that they are allowed to call family, and have forced the creation of a multitude of words to attempt to describe the people involved with someone’s life. Legal disputes try to keep the definitions carefully cultivated, but there is no way to do so based on the profound ways humans connect with each other and form social units.

There is no such thing as a “normal” family; if you look at your own, I’m sure you’d agree. Family are the people that love and care about you, even during the times when you feel you don’t need it or don’t deserve it. Family extends beyond biology, and the connections humans make with each other will never be able to be simplified into a single set of words.

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One of the things that is the most entertaining and confusing to me is the idea humanity has created that one person can “win” something. I am not attempting to say that all people should get a prize for just breathing, as that is definitely not how I feel. What I’m referring to is more along the lines of how everyone thinks there should always be a prize at the end, but for getting through something. Rewards must be given, or something must be taken away for failing to complete something. This is not how the world was designed to function.

In the wilderness, animals are trained through games and similar tasks how to function as an adult in their respective environments. Thy are rewarded with food or general survival skills that may someday save their lives, but never a toy or a trophy. Humans historically follow similar patterns of behavior; we have games that teach us how to interact with others to further the social dynamic of our society, we have games that teach us what shapes and colors the adults use so we can have the tools necessary to navigate their world as we are gradually initiated into it. However human beings are rewarded with objects that we have created to catch our own attention, and desire above all else. This has created a societal paradox: children are rewarded for becoming adults, but adults are expected to reward children for functioning normally. The compromise we came up with was to simply reward adults as well, so they would continue to strive for things the way they did as a child; only they could not be won over with a meaningless toy. This desire fueled the construction of the society we currently live in, but it has also caused people to expect to be rewarded to the point that no reward is sufficient at this point.

This in essence is driving our society into the ground, as the motivation of humans is being burned out due to the lack of shiny things at the end of the race. Rewards are handed out because they participate, and the rational is it boosts morale and causes people to feel pride in what they’re doing, making them want to do it better and more efficiently. All it’s really doing, though, is using the mechanism that conditions animals to tend toward one set of actions over another to create a society of adults who believe that they should get a trophy for surviving instead of just the benefit of remaining alive.

There is no good way to solve this problem, as it is becoming ingrained into the general populous to the point that the entire community has come to agree that things should be done this way, as it’s the only thing they know. This will perpetuate the problem until people start seeking new rewards that get so extreme that they start injuring the population as a whole; and by then it may be too late to go back. Being alive should not win you a prize, because winning is a construct of humanity’s need to have a purpose to survive. Survival is the prize, whether it’s shiny or not.

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I have been working a lot with classification recently in a microbiology class. This has brought to my attention the absolute mess that is the scientific classification system. When you’re in high school, the way to name organisms is explained as a simple process where the genus and species are used to determine the lineage of the organism. What they do not reveal is the fact that the system used to classify these organisms is not actually a system at all, but mostly guesswork.

To determine the relation of one organism to another, the most common method today is genetic comparison. There are also phenotypic comparisons, which relate certain characteristics of one animal to another. The problem with these is that there is so much variation even within a single population that essentially every organism could be considered its own species if looked at under the right microscope. While this may be a slight exaggeration, it emphasizes the point that most of these names are given out of humanity’s need to name things, not the actual relation of one organism to another.

These systems are also by no means proven to be correct. Even the organisms that have been called one thing for decades or centuries have been proven to belong somewhere else on the tree of life several years down the road. This highlights the shortcomings of biology’s ability to classify and categorize living things, as there is simply no way to be sure that two things belong in the same group unless you place them there – making the entire system subjective to whichever humans came up with it and carry out its procedures. There is no guarantee that these names are accurate at all, and yet they are the only method we have of connecting the dots between all of the life that coexists on this planet.

It is also a fallacy that all the organisms on this planet have been classified. New animals are discovered all over the planet, in peoples’ backyards as well as deep ocean dwellers or remote island insects. Microorganisms especially are always developing new strains or variations of themselves, making the amount of names needed to identify each of these as infinite as the potential for them to be labeled incorrectly.

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The complexity of the universe is often said to be governed by math. Whether or not that’s “true” in the grand scheme of things, I have no clue – physics and I have never gotten along. What I do know is that numbers themselves are not as absolute as any math teacher you’ve ever had would like you to believe. The necessity of numbers in our current society is irrefutable; but this is because humanity has built its existence out of numerical codes and data collection.

The human brain can only perceive groups of up to 4 objects before you have to consciously count the number of things in front of you. This makes sense biologically, as being able to keep track of small numbers of objects probably helps to keep family groups together in large crowds or in the case of hunting animals, to keep track of prey. The astronomical numbers that humans deal with on a day to day basis, though, cannot be processed by our brains. We cannot comprehend the number of people we share the planet with, or how many stars are a part of our galaxy, or how many bacteria have colonized our intestines. We cannot really ever understand how many dollars are won in the lottery, or how many grains of sand are on a beach. How can we be so certain that there is a finite number of items if we cannot fathom its value?

Quantity is something that humans pride themselves in. Lives and industry alike are governed by statistics and amounts that to those dealing with them are abstract and uncertain. Even money, which seems so concrete to so many people, is often exchanged not in paper and coins but the increase or decrease of numbers on a screen. The concept of infinity exists because humans need to be able to control the expansion of their own universe; if someone needs a number that’s larger than another one, they can just add another zero and its a perfectly valid number. However its impossible to quantify infinity, because nothing can really go on forever. Or can it? It is impossible to prove either way; it’s the deconstruction that counts.

A lot of things that happen to humans “hurt.” Pain is widely accepted as a part of everyday existence, though at varying degrees and taking on many different forms. To be in pain is a statement that has very little substance, yet could resonate with a vast majority of the population. Pain is one of humanity’s favorite things to ignore, and is often associated with weakness or inferiority. For that reason and others people avoid talking of pain as something that happens in general, and only bring it up when it strikes at a moment they aren’t expecting.

If you try to define pain, though, it would be very difficult for you to communicate what you were feeling. You could say something hurts, but what does hurting feel like? The truth of the matter is that this is impossible to generalize, as each instance of pain is entirely subjective, and also a unique experience every time it occurs. No two people feel pain the same way; there are thresholds of pain that humans can tolerate, but even these vary between people. Humans can become immune to the feeling of pain, if they experience it for a prolonged period of time. It’s not that the pain disappears, it’s simply that they feel it all the time, and therefore it cannot be considered pain in the way an anomalous headache or stubbing your toe can. Each instance of pain is also unique to itself. If you try to remember a painful experience, because you cannot (or at least wouldn’t want to) inflict the same physical or emotional injury on yourself again, you simply remember that you were in pain, not what the pain actually felt like. You can associate different sensations to the feeling of an injury, but the response to it as a memory and as the incident will be very different.

Pain cannot be re-felt, so to speak. So it turns out that the old saying “pain is temporary” has some merit in saying not that any pain you experience will quickly dissipate, but rather that you cannot feel pain forever. It can be dulled by time and new experiences, or you may feel a worse kind of pain that will replace that of the past. It’s also possible that you can just forget that you’re in pain; the brain can ignore pain in order to cope with other life tasks that may be disrupted by a response to pain.

There is also emotional pain versus physical pain. While chopping off a body part may cause pain, it is not necessarily the same as the pain you experience after a bad break up or the death of a loved one. Is one a more “real” pain than the other? Some will say yes, that physical pain hurts more, because it is more tangible. However some research suggests that emotional distress is actually worse than physical pain (read article). This may be because of the human mind’s tendency to exaggerate things that are being felt to amplify them to a person; it may also have to do with biology. Humans being social animals, if they experience pain linked with emotions, they need an incentive to avoid doing the action that caused it; without a broken bone poking their nerves, they wouldn’t have this unless the brain manufactured its own mechanisms to account for prevention of emotional pain and social isolation because of it.

All that being said, then, there is no way to say with any validity that one type of pain hurts more than another, or that one individual is in more pain because they were physically injured rather than emotionally damaged. Pain itself may not be tangible, but those who experience similar occurrences of pain can empathize over their own suffering. Pain itself does not exist in a way that humans can conceive it outside of the instant they feel it. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but that isn’t the only thing that can hurt you.

(Picture: http://www.savagelightstudios.com/warpedlens/?p=89)

Everyone seems to have survived their first semester, and after a few weeks, things are starting to get back to normal. As normal as they ever will be, anyways. This week I decided it’d be interesting to deconstruct a topic that’s been relevant to all of us recently: holidays.

Holidays are strange things. They are days in the year where everyone agrees to stop performing their everyday routines, and instead spends hundreds of dollars and hours of time preparing food, decorating with items that are only relevant for a few days, and putting up with a bunch of people they’d rather avoid. This is something that is unique to humans, and has no real justification anywhere outside the societal norms of humanity. You wouldn’t see dogs celebrating birthdays unless their humans put on their party hat; cows don’t come together to mourn the passing of what will soon become your hamburger.

The most rational explanation for why holidays still exist – and why there are so many of them – ties back in to the idea that humans have to micromanage their entire universe. People can’t work straight through the year without ever taking a break; it would tire them out to the point that our system of jobs and schools and governments and such would never be able to function. So to alleviate this stress, we built in our own backup: holidays. They’re randomly spread across the calendar to break up the monotony of human life, and contribute to our ability to function. There is no pattern to their occurrence, and each holiday has its own rules about when it will occur and what will happen at the time of its celebration.

The most impressive aspect of the holiday is by far the atmosphere created by each of them. Christmas is the most prominent because it counteracts the depressive nature of winter. However holidays are not really what they appear to be in many cases. People are confronted with the option to either participate or be judged by their friends, family, and community. Different groups of people have different sets of holidays, whether religious, national, industrial, or otherwise. Each member of each group is expected to partake in the festivities based on tradition, and to veer off the path is to commit social suicide. This pack mentality is what causes the association of happiness with twinkling lights, colorful eggs, or fireworks, among many other holiday symbols. The traditions are performed almost like rituals, to keep the balance of the universe in check. There is often more fighting or bickering on holidays than any other times of the year, because they are no longer serving their purpose as a break. They are now marketing nightmares, iPhone festivals, and bunches of angry, lonely people forced to don a smile, whether surrounded by relatives or alone on the street.

While this may seem a very negative take on holidays, they do have their upsides. I’m sure you know what those are, though, so I see no need to point them out. Holidays can be a time of actual enjoyment, where people are filled with love and bonded by their respective traditions. However you may be hard-pressed to think of a time when something didn’t go wrong on a holiday; even little things can sometimes ruin the most joyous of occasions. Whether my perceptions are an exception to the rule or not, if you try to explain why holidays exist (outside of religion or other such practices) they don’t make much sense. No matter how you see them or what you celebrate, happy holidays.

(Picture source: http://www.blueacorn.com/blog/analytics-important-holidays/)