Raven Song

Death is before me today:
like the recovery of a sick man,
like going forth into a garden after sickness.


Death is before me today:
like the odor of myrrh,
like sitting under a sail in a good wind.


Death is before me today:
like the course of a stream
like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house.


Death is before me today:
like the home that a man longs to see,
after years spent as a captive.



~That forgotten poet~

Crime Think

CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective

Just go there, try reading any of their free information or order a few stickers to use. It's one of the more worthwhile things out there in the world right now.

~Sol

"Expectations Essay" (Just because....)

alright so this is one of those silly essays from collage that often don't do much in the way of anything... however I was unusually forthcoming on this one so I figured why not I'll just post it here and it'll be somewhat interesting for what it's worth *grins*

peace all

Sol


Expectations Essay

My expectations for time spent at the University are to develop my abilities in studying and research. Also to expand my knowledge base on the whole and to develop more detailed and specific knowledge and skills in my chosen areas of study. Those areas are Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, Political Science, and Software Technology. The goal of these areas being combined in my study is to create new methods of learning and study so that everyone will be more able to learn than they are currently equipped to do by the time they finish most High School and/or Collage curricular systems. Further I seek to design an informational systems analysis system to map the broad trends of human cultural, political, and economic behavior such that (much like is currently done with the weather) the probabilities of given events based on current (or theoretical) policies could be determined with greater accuracy.
Additionally I wish to program advances in cryptography and personal privacy suites that is based on a “smart” design so as to enhance the integrity of personally privacy in the face of all current and continuing violations by both corporate and governmental institutions who have in each case blithely disregarded the fundamentals of the constitution for the sake of convince in perpetuating their personal agendas. I hope to make sufficient money doing this research and development work such that I am able to acquire land of my own and build an ecologically sound and sustainable living environment for myself and what could in brief be termed my family. To these ends I seek to develop my own ability to think clearly, analytically, and (most importantly) creatively. To enhance my own knowledge base and to expand my network of like minded persons so that I have a larger peer group within which to frame questions as to my current methods and to co-operate with on the development and implementation of new means to remove the current repugnant social trends towards materialism and homogeny. And to afford myself the opportunity to associate with a larger number of persons who possess the intellectual insight and personal integrity to make their choices based on their own sight and paradigm without distortion from the current popularity of given fashions be those guised in political, economic, medical, chemical, social, or theological garb. As a more immediate step I am taking courses with the intent to enter grad school and possibly to transfer to the University of Calgary in Canada due to their internationally pre-eminent computer development and research department and also due to their focus on interdisciplinary studies which are integral to the types of learning I currently seek. The degrees that I seek eventually are a PhD is Psychology with specializations in Forensics and Behavioral Finance. Both of these are areas that deal with the motives for given actions and developing profiles of behavior both as it pertains to group trends and to individual persons so as to predict probable future actions. And a degree in computer programing and development. This is so that I am able to provide the software support and computer applications side of my new learning and behavioral analysis systems. To summarize my focus in my time as an undergraduate are to learn how people learn and what are effective ways to study and also to learn how people operate in groups and individually as well as the programming skills to describe this knowledge in a digital paradigm.

Roses

"You darling are a true gentleman, you know how to treat a lady, so it seems. People say diamonds are the way to a woman's heart but that is entirely incorrect.
BUt yet I am still to wonder why a rose represents love if a rose dies."


And my response:


all things die, or so they say, but I rose will last for years and years. If you take a rose even cut and open the end to place it in water, floating there in the solution that was likely life for us all sometime way back. The Rose will grow small roots allowing you to, if you so wish, move it into soil and keep it watered and sheltered. After that you may move it yet again to the out of doors where it will flourish and grow into a bush of it's own producing many roses and even tho' the buds may wax and wain there are always more to come from the bush that is the core of the rose and there are always seeds for another day from each bud that's danced it's waltz and come to rest.
To me when the rose is looked at as a whole, to show life rather than as a token only. It is then as you see it's roots and it's seeds, it's leaves and thorns all along with the 'jewel' of it's buds and blooms, that is when our roses truly become a symbol of love. For they remind us that love will change but if we care for it love will also grow and endure even if during it's time it will wax and wain through many cycles just as does the rose with it's blooms throughout it's rather long life.

There is another way to look at this just as apt, even if beauty fades, even if love or ourselves may die there is still joy to be found. The petals of a rose inspire something in the heart, the beauty strikes a chord and for a time the heart is lifted by these wings of joy. Perhaps it is sad when these wings have flown themselves till exhausted and must have new inspiration to fly again, yet even so once our hearts were exulted to the sky. The exultation does not have to be immortal to be real, or to be savored. And there is then the chance to seek it anew.

Together these show the rose, as love, to be both fleeting and eternal, for having seen a rose is not that image left on your minds eye ever after? Have you ever forgotten roses where since you learned of them?
The rose is at once both transient as it's smallest petal and lasting as it's largest root. So too is love, we must simply remember that love, like the rose, is alive and needs care or like the rose it will wither and die if starved of sustenance.

It's how I strive to treat both romance and friendship, for in the end they are not so truly different than one breed of rose is to another.

Regards,
Sol