Meta-Post on my Mini-Rants

When looking back at my past posts, I realized that I seem to write a lot about perceptions of different things.  In my first post Ignorance=Violence?, I discuss the how ignorance differs from violence based on how someone reacts or perceives new information on an unfamiliar topic.

In another post, The Land of the Free?, the focus is perception of freedom based on age.  On one hand, age increases freedom; "At sixteen, I can drive."  On the other hand, age can reduce one's freedom; "The older you get, the more you have to pay for the choices you make and accept the consequences for your actions.  Once you hit eighteen, you are now tried as an adult."  


In my most recent post, Haigh Quarry, also deals with perception, but this time it's the idea that we as humans only choose to focus on or read into things that have some connection to ourselves.  All these post are about very different things, but without even realizing it, I have posted about people's perceptions of different themes and ideas.


Another thing I've noticed is how I blog sort of how I speak, just a little more formally.  Especially in my early posts, I tend to rant.  Well, I'm a person that can rant.  If I get on a topic that I am opinionated about, the more I talk, the more whipped up I get, and the more I rant.  I seem to keep going on a topic on my blog and answering questions that were never asked (when I start sentences with "Yes" or "No") which is pretty much what I do when I rant.  Each post is like it's own formal, condensed rant minus the gestures, facial expressions and arm movements.


**Please read The Land of the Free?

Haigh Quarry

Today in class, the idea of only learning or studying a topic due to personal connection was brought up.  One comment was on how people tend to gravitate towards ideas or topics that pertain to them, probably because it is more interesting if you have an actual personal experience or relation to tie into it.  I realized how true this is.

I am a scuba diver.  I've been certified since I was ten and absolutely love diving.  Never have I been scared of diving.  We've all heard the stories of divers disappearing or being attacked or drowning, but its never bothered me really.  Even hearing about the movie, based on a true story, Open Water made me want to dive, and even go on a shark dive.

But about a week ago, something happened that for the first time, has truly scared me.  Haigh Quarry, up in Kankakee, IL, is where I got my open water certification.  I absolutely love it there, as do my dad, cousin and uncle.  It is a place that to most is not the most ideal diving location.  It has no big, beautiful coral reefs, it isn't tropical, there is not really any variety of fish, but for some reason, it's a place that will always be up on my lists of favorite diving locations.

Two days ago, my dad told me a kid, I think my age, drowned at Haigh while diving.  Here is an article about the incident.  This scared me.  How could a place so near and dear to my heart, be the location for such a tragic incident?  I never paid too much attention when a diver was injured or killed, but now that it relates to me, I can't get it out of my head.  It could be considered selfish to only think of things pertaining to yourself, but it's just human nature.  Parents always tell their kids that they will stop doing what they are doing once they get hurt.  Bad incidents are often the way people begin to look critically at his/her surroundings and question what is happening.

Are we silencing the lambs, or are we silencing our own?

Ok, so this post doesn't include music, but it has a movie instead.  Yesterday, I watched Silence of the Lambs.  Ok, so I haven't finished it yet, but I can't wait to see the second half.  As I went downstairs to let my dog out, I slowly walked around corners and kept glancing behind me, thinking the entire time Hannibal Lector would just appear behind me.  This is typical after I watch a scary movie.  But I started thinking about how society looks so negatively at murder.  I mean, I wasn't shocked by that, because obviously it is something that should and does have a negative connotation.  The issue was, why as humans, we only look out for number one, as a whole.  Yes, there are animal rights activists, but as a community, and a nation for that matter, animals are pushed aside, and our species grabs the spotlight.

If a person hunts, whether it's for sport or for food, it is considered socially acceptable.  We can easily take the lives of another species (except endangered species) and have no repercussions.  But when an animal kills a human, oh boy do we hear about it.  Stories cover the news and it becomes a controversial issue, usually resulting in the death of the animal.  I remember the news of the whale that killed its trainer, which happened this past February, and the amount of coverage that story got.  Everyone was up in arms that the whale killed his trainer, but when a human goes out and kills some deer,  rabbit, etc. no one has an issue.  We focus more on ourselves as being the "superior" species.  

This idea of superior species is also an interesting one.  We have been discussing race in class, and how divided human beings themselves can be.  How is it that we see ourselves as a superior species, when we have our own internal turmoil, separation, and disfunction.  People think that humans have many different races, and in today's society, it isn't acceptable to discriminate between these 'races'.  This being said, is it fair to treat animals any differently because they are a different 'race', or are we really the more superior species?