School has come, and hopefully more frequent blogging will follow. I have missed updating my blog, and being able to look over at it to see what comments people have about my entries, and getting random IMs or comments at parties about how much people love my latest blog entry. The truth is though, that over the summer I didn't feel I grew very much or learned anything new about myself. I basically just worked alot, made some money, and kind of kicked back intellectually. Except for a few key points during the summer, I didn't explore my life or think about it as much. I just kind of took it as it was, accepting that my life was somewhat in neutral until I got back to school. I guess there is a time and a place for that, but now the time has come to explore more and to grow further as a person, and I am really happy about that.

Going into this school year I think I have finally become comfortable enough with myself and with who I am that I am able to put myself out more into situations to meet people or to try new things. Being places where I don't know that many people has become less awkward for me, and I find myself to be increasingly less self critical in such situations. I remember as a freshman, and even sometimes as a sophomore, being at a party or something where I didn't know people that well, and ticking off every possible thing that people could find wrong with me. I couldn't speak because I was afraid that people would think I was a moron or uncool or some other silly thing. So in many situations I would come off as a basketcase or I just wouldn't be noticed. Hence I never met all that many people. At some point, though, I realized that being afraid all the time never did anything for me. It didn't prevent all that much embarrassment; it just caused me to be isolated from others, and to not meet people that I might actually like.

I still think I have some self confidence issues that pop up once in a while, but with the help of some great people I think I am starting to truly believe that I really do have alot to offer, and even some funny, insightful stuff to say.

So with all the interesting political news going round I have decided tonight to talk about aleins, mainly because its much more interesting than going over the many reasons why I dislike George Bush, and who I think did a good job trashing him.  I think in many ways we are facinated with aliens today because they have become the replacement for the litany of fantastic characters that people generally don't believe in anymore (i.e. elves, faeries, Grendel).  Also they are just simply very mysterious characters that we can do anything with.  They can give us hope for an easy solution to all of our problems from a technically and morally superior species (see Vulcans).  They can also inhabit our nightmares with terrifying visions of a Hitler-like species bent on our extermination (see those things from Signs).  

 

My perception of what aliens would be like lies in neither the area of savior nor exterminator.  I rather think that any alien species will be so beyond us that it will be impossible to comprehend them at first.  Think of how difficult it is for a human to understand and predict the actions of a chimp.  Some peoplke have dedicated their entire lives to understanding the creatures, and yet we still have a very limited perception of how those creatures decide what actions to take, what their societies are like, and what exactly it is like to be a chimp.  With such difficulties understanding a chimp I cannot imagine what we would have to go through to understand life from the perspective of something 10x more foreign and more complex than a chimp.  I expect the real benefit of contact with aliens would not be the magical solutions they could offer us, but the process of discovering what life looks like from the perspective of something so radically different from ourselves.  Think of the amazing insight into ourselves that we could garner from such a different perspective.   I guess the closest thing I can give as an example is the experience the main character has with the Tralfamadorians in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5.    That is too complex to explain in a blog entry, so read the book and find out.  Also, try to imagine what's out there for yourself, and perhaps you might even be inclined to put in a  comment about thoughts.

Big crushes ( and I mean the 'i think about person X all the time' crushes) that can never be fullfilled can sometimes serve as a blessing in disguise. Though they are extremely painful experiences, they at least show us that we can feel that enthralled about another person, and that we haven't lost the ability to love someone intensely.