Teach Me How to Unplug

We as a modern world have been built around the technology that we possess. Businesses, Education, Sports, everything is about utilizing this advantage we have to get us quicker information and more entertainment.

Business today depends on the qualities of Blackberry phones and Email for quick communication. Education at New Trier uses Blackboard Academic Suite to update students with various homework and notes. Sports use the television along with the internet to satisfy even the most intense sports fans, and as good as this all seems I believe we are overwhelming ourselves with our technology.

I want to focus on the advancement of mobile technology. I see kids in the halls always hooked up to Ipods, and when out of school we are always on our cell phones. we never have down time, because we as a new generation of youth simply don't know how to. We never can find time to be alone because we are always reachable via text, and god forbid any of us ever turn are cell phones off.

It has been scientifically proven that ADD is being diagnosed more often now because of the constant need for entertainment. Also hearing loss is becoming more common due to the amount we use headphones. We don't know how to unplug ourselves, the second we get out of class, or are waiting at the bus stop we put our ear buds in. This simply gives us no time to do higher and superior thinking because our brains are always preoccupied with the music or the cell phones.

The fact that this technology is always reachable any time you want it is not progress because it doesn't let us explore our minds due to the fact that we get bored easily and want to be entertained.

Here is an article about how headphones are causing hearing loss

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/health/09brod.html?_r=1

Highlight, right click, and click on "Search Google For..."

Unecessary "Stuff"

As we approach this holiday season, I see it in a new way due to the ideals I have learned from studying Thoreau. I look at America in a different way, especially the holiday shopping. The sales, and the mayhem all seem so unnecessary when I look at it through the eyes of a transcendentalist.

Something I am getting more and more cognizant of is the immense amount of bad commercials who are trying to target people. They stress how much you need their product, and also how great of a present it would be. Really all of this is not necessary, all we need is the four life necessities: Shelter, Warmth, Food, and Fuel. But I would like to do an experiment...what do you think would happen if I got my family and friends all firewood, a blanket, some ears of corn, and cardboard boxes for shelter. What would happen? I would be hated for the poor effort of gift shopping. Today's society has adjusted to many other things as being "life's necessities" and it really isn't going to change.

It has changed from Shelter, Warmth, Food, and Feul to Ipods, Daimonds, X box's, and designer clothing. Really I don't see are world changing back to bare necessities that Thoreau discovered, and with the rush of the holidays we just need more unnecessary "stuff".

I can't stand the commercials that are being put on the air, I just don't buy it anymore. I don't need any of this stuff. Especially with the holidays every company is trying to get people to shop at their stores, and I can't believe people actually fall for these commercials and say "Wow, those poeple look like they really are in love, so I should go buy that diamond neclace." But it works because people feel like they do need this new stuff even though it is not a necessity. In a Transedentalist world I think it is safe to say that all these stores would be going out of business because they wouldn't fall for their commercials like today society does.

Here I think Jay Leno perfectly portrays that we don't need all this stuff through this Zales daimond commercial.

(Video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w-FOfcySkQ

Higlight, then right click and click on "Search Google For..." to watch video

Thoreau Fashion Police

(Today's Fashion Police would not approve of his Kyle Orton neck beard)

Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden, explore many different aspects of society, and try to look at ways we over complicate things. This is shown through his journey in living in the woods for two years to find the bare necessities of life; "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean..."(Walden 72) So he believes that through simplicity man can reach his best state of mind.

One of the things he explores is the clothes we wear, and how the idea of clothing has a way different meaning than what Thoreau discovers. He makes specific claims about clothing when he says, "...the object of clothing is, first, to retain the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness..."(Walden 16) I believe that this was true, but society abandoned this idea centuries ago. I don't like what it has done to some of the youth I see now at my high school, because it has further divided kids into groups. Many kids dress certain ways that I know are not the way they want to dress, but they do it anyway to impress their peers. whether it be different styles, or the way they wear they wear their hats, fashion has been converted into a way to judge people. Although I know it will never be possible to convert all of mankind back into clothes that just satisfy his two necessary principles, I really hate what clothes have done to people, especially the youth, because it has made kids become more self conscience of themselves also. It has gone to the point were kids become uncomfortable if they are wearing something that isn't approved by their peers. I see it everyday, whether it be in a classroom, the halls, or at lunch. Somebody, whether it be a friend of mine or not may walk in, and immediately there may recieve a rude comment of disapproval if they are wearing some piece of attire that "isn't cool". And sadly chances are even if the kid really likes that new hat or shirt, they will never wear it again to school because of the ridicule they received. So because of that I wish that we could return to clothes that satisfy only Thoreau's necessities of heat, and nakedness so that we won't have to deal with the pressures of new fashion and trends.