On May 10th, 1933 the Nazis burned 25,000 books — including those written by Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, who had predicted in 1820 that “where books are burned in the end people will burn,” – and eight years later the Holocaust began.

The connection is not too difficult to discern. Books are repositories of histories, of identities, of values. They are the soul of civilization. A society must abandon basic decencies in order to muster the immoral courage to burn books as a celebratory act. Once it starts burning the souls of civilization, human souls will not be left behind.

During TOK class we were discussing books, and literacy and if one is an outcast if they can't read, then I saw this on Palahnuik & Chocolate blog.. I found it quite interesting.

What else can you do?

The other day in chapel, our Chaplin for the day, Mr Chang, told us all the story of how is second child was born with only three toes on one of it's feet. I thought he would start saying how it didn't matter to him because he was gifted with his beautiful baby to call his child, but he actually said "why? why me? I always thought people who did bad would have these things happen to me. But I'm a good christian, I always follow the rules and I am devoted to God, yet this happened to me."

He said it was really difficult for his to get over this, and accept his child, and it's three toes, and love it for who it was.

Which got me thinking, how good do you have to be to be considered "A good person"?

Mr Chang does everything right, he devotes his time to teach children, he attends church regularly, he does charity work, he pretty much does everything that everyone else would classify as "good." Yet his child was not born, let's say, completely intact. I'm not saying he should abandon his child and that his child is no good, that would be horrible of me, but it doesn't make sense as to why everything in his life didn't turn out completely perfect, when he has done everything perfectly for everything and one else.

What is "good"? What defines "being good"? When parents tell their children to "be good" otherwise Santa won't bring them presents, how can they show they are "good"?

Is there a certain action that one can do, no matter who, that will then classify them as "good"? Or do you have to do many things to be apart of this category?

How can we define this?

To die would be an awfully big adventure

Is killing ever morally right? We have always been taught to not kill or hurt people, but then in law people can be sentenced to death, or a life in prison. But isn’t this sentencing the exact same as killing people in everyday life? What makes killing people through law better or more moral? What is the difference between the two?
For example if one person went on a rampage killing and destroying people and things, and then was arrested and sent to court where he was charged with murder and sentenced to death, where he was killed, what happens? What does this achieve? How can someone tell you not to kill, killing is wrong and then kill you? It doesn’t make sense, and it teaches people if you kill for the ‘right reasons’ it’s okay. But is it really okay? Or is it also murder? And should the person who killed the murderer be killed also as they had just killed someone? Does it just become a vicious cycle? When is it ever right or not right to kill someone?

I'm hit with mixed emotions

My friend and I were having a discussion about depression, what is it and why is it not classified as a regular emotion as 1 in 5 people have depression. And then that got me thinking about emotions in general, what is an emotion? How can one classify what an emotion is? It could be a feeling for just a split second, or is it an ongoing feeling that can last for years?

How do you define emotion?

Do you see what I see?

The other day in TOK class one of the student presentations was about perception, and it got me thinking. In years before now there was no such thing as 'editing' or 'photoshop' or 'graphic effects' and what people saw with their own eyes was real, and they believed it. But nowadays because these things are regular things used in everyday life, we never know if what we see if real or not.

How do we know that last picture of [insert someone] was real, or did someone use photoshop to edit what they looked like. Even in the news, how do we know that last video we saw wasn't edited, and there really wasn't an explosion in Lebanon.

How do we know that everything we see isn't fake?

This also reminded me of the movie 'The Truman Show." In this movie a man, called Truman, lives his every day life and believes what he sees is real, however he learns he is actually the main character on a TV show, and everything he has touched, seen, known for the last 40 years is fake and never existed. What if everything we knew and saw wasn't really there?

How do we know what we see and touch and feel is real?

Where in the World?

Something I find frustrating is the fact that Politicians in Australia get to have a lifetime worth of free travel. No matter if they are new, retired, or dismissed, no matter what age they are or who they are, they get this exception for their entire career.

The original reason for this was in case they had to travel somewhere for a meeting, or to do charity work, but recently it has gotten out of hand. Most of them use the privilege now for holidays with the family, or to take a 'break' from work. Why should politicians have this privilege? What have they done to deserve it, that other people haven't?

Politicians have recently become a lot more cocky, thinking they can get everything and anything for free just because they help run our country.

For example.

My father works at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, and at the moment Lady Gaga is performing there. He told me a story of how the Treasurer of NSW called up, a day before her performance mind you, and said "I want 5 tickets to her show." Not even a please, or asking if any were available. He assumed he would get them, because apparently it is part of his privileges as a politician. When the S.E.C said "sorry there aren't any available tickets," the treasurer got mad and complained. I bet the tickets weren't even for him, they were probably for his children and their friends. How rude can you get? Why should they get free tickets to shows and concerts, what the hell have they done for the music business? Nothing I assume. Stop being so greedy, you already get more than you should.

Ahhhh!

DEFINITION -

Stress;

physical, mental, or emotional strain or tension.

Why does it happen?

It destroys us, it frustrates us, it breaks us down, and tires us out.

It can cause you to cry, to scream, to go crazy, and complain.

So this 'stress' thing, it sounds pretty usless, all it does is make people frustrated and upset,

so why was it created? Why did it have to be a thing? Is it not possible for people to live a life

of happiness and have feeling the of peace while feeling carefree?

Whoever created this, whoever designed it, and whoever brought it upon us should feel the most stress than ever before as punishment. Because really it does no good, and we don't need it.

Stress, stress go away, and please don't come back another day!

Cough Cough

Personally I hate smoking and smokers in general.

Something I don't understand is doctors and nurses that smoke. Of all people you would think they know that people shouldn't smoke. They see people die and get cancer everyday from first hand smoking and second hand smoking. So why do they?

I walked past the RNSH (Royal North Shore Hospital) the other day and saw around 15 nurses and doctors, still in their scrubs, taking a smoke break from work. I understand work is stressful, but really?! They should know better! The next doctor or nurse I see smoking, I will walk past cough loudly and sneer. I might even tell them they are smoking hypocrites. I do not respect any smoking doctors or nurses, even if they do save peoples lives.

While in TOK today we asked ourselves...

How does body language influence our knowledge? Does it change depending on your culture? How can it influence our understanding and does it influence/change our world views? Do we think other people are rude depending on their body language and not acknowledge that they only have different cultural mannerisms?
These are a lot of questions to ask yourself. And all of these questions go back to judgement. Are you judgemental? When someone does something you are not familiar with or don’t agree with, do you criticize them? Everyone needs to stop and watch, listen and understand other people are different. Just because they do something that you don’t doesn’t mean its odd, and it certainly doesn’t mean your way is better. Everyone is their own person, everyone is individual and everyone acts and behaves differently, depending on their background, culture and personality. We need to accept this.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Do you believe in ghosts?
Or spirits of any sort?
Do you believe in the afterlife, or reincarnation, or hell and heaven, or anything?
What happens after life? What happens when death takes you from the world as we know it, to a different place? When you die, do you go somewhere, or does your body rot in the earth with worms and beetles?
These are questions everyone wants to know at some time or another. For a long time ghosts and the afterlife has always interested me, I think it is partly because I always wanted to know what happened to the little family I had, when they were living and dead, but the other part because I want to know what’ll happen to me.
Is there a point of life if all we’re going to do is die and sit in the dirt? Or is “life” the lead up to another type of life, do we go into another world when we die?

I always say, ‘I wonder if I’ll be a cat or rabbit in another life,’ I guess I believe in reincarnation... But at the same time, I don’t believe. I don’t believe in heaven and hell, but I always hope I’ll end up in heaven instead of hell. I don’t believe there is another life waiting for us, but I believe we are not intended to rot and do nothing, but at the same time, rotting is the most logical. Everything about death interests me, scares me, confuses me and excites me.
Will I come back as a ghost so I can haunt people who were mean, and see the people that I left? And there is some part of me that wants to see how many people will show up to my funeral, the part of me that wants to be loved. But will I get to know? will I be a ghost? Will Jennifer Love Hewitt have to help me ‘cross over’ on her television show? What will happen?

And what about those people who die early in life or those babies who die at birth. If there is nothing after death, what was the point of them in the first place? Did someone close to them need to be punished, or did they need to feel miserable for some reason? Why?

Why is all I can say? Why this. Why that.

There are so many questions I wish could be answered.

This is just the beginning…

Don't Look Too Far Away!

As humans, I believe we look WAY to into things, whether it is about friendships, books, classes, lovers, or even paintings. For instance, when we study a book in English, or a music piece in music, we look into things to see what the author intended the reader/listener to see/hear. We look for language techniques, foreshadowing, and hidden messages beneath the words on the page. But do you think the reader thought about all this as he was writing? Is it possible that he just had a good idea and decided to write a story that interested him, without the complications? Maybe he added a few metaphors and similes along the way, but I don’t believe he would have created a story and meaning underneath each word and sentence.
Looking way into things not only happens when reading literature, it can also happen in real life. For example, today in TOK class one of my friends spoke about how she looks way to into relationships. If she likes someone and they talk constantly, but then one day the person don’t talk to her, she will start thinking of horrible and exaggerated things as to why he didn’t talk to her. She would think that maybe he found someone else, maybe she said something that turned him away, maybe he stopped liking her all of a sudden, maybe he didn’t even like her to begin with he was just being polite, all of this starts going through her mind, and soon she becomes upset and angry at herself, when the reason for him not talking to her that day might have been because he was busy, and didn’t even have time to sit down, let alone talk to her.
As humans we look way to into things, and this complicates our lives and stresses us out.

I will try to not look TOO into things,

for a while, maybe it will de-stress my life,

so I can just enjoy living.

I Don't Understand You.

The other day in TOK we were discussing how language is a major part in our world today, and many things that have happened through communication are because of language, through voice or symbols or movement. But what happens when language is lost in translation?

Do you think some of the things that have happened in the world only happened because of problems in communication?
It happens to me, only misunderstandings that are during unimportant conversations, but all the same, but still miscommunications. Like for instance, when I say something wrong because I either don’t know the correct word for the situation or I say a wrong word by mistake. It can be in conversations with friends or during class, but always insignificant situations.
But what about the bigger problems, like the holocaust or the conflicts between iraq and America, what if these things occurred because of miscommunication…
I wonder if we would have a more peaceful world/life/society.
I think everyone should listen more closely when people are speaking, and if you get angry about something, go over what they said so you know you didn’t hear something different to what they said, or meant, so you don’t get angry for no apparent reason…

Think and listen people. Think and listen.

Is This Acceptable?

In the 2010 Winter Olympics, the Russian ice dance routine caused
quite a stir throughout the world.

The theme of this years ice dance, was to represent a different cultures type of dance.
Russia didn't represent as much as they did interpret what they believed was a traditional Indigenous Aboriginal dance. But many people saw it as black faced offensive routine, and people around the world have been deeply insulted by this, not just aboriginals.

Earlier this month, just after the performance, although some Aboriginal leaders spoke out to Australian Newspapers stated "It's important for people to tread carefully and respectfully when they are depicting somebody Else's culture, and I don't think this performance does."
While other sources have said most Aboriginal people were not extremely insulted.

My question is if some Aboriginal people didn't see a problem with this, should other people?
surely something that is directed at certain people, but those people don't see an offence, shouldn't offend people it isn't directed to. but on the other hand, this routine would be called racist, and everyone should speak out and say racism it wrong.

In my opinion this is wrong, and unnecessary, but it may not be. Just think about it. How do ever truly know what is wrong and what isn't? Who came up with right and wrong? If we were raised in a different time or society would every ones views be different?
You only know what you've been taught.