There are a point to these, I swear. Yes I took all these and yes they are all real. Makes you think what you miss on a normal day, doesn't it? That my friends is the point to our journey isn't it? Let's find new perspectives remember? I love finding small details in things, and finding the "Hearts" of things, is my favorite find. I have collected almost 30 heart shaped rocks. I love the stories that I make by locating them. They are located in hikes I go on with my Family and Friends. They are located on the beach, on the long walk to class. They are everywhere! This is truly a magical thing to me. If we take the time to slow down and look things are better discovered, things are located, ideas are formed, and that place is where greatness lives. Take time to look for a that perspective and you will find it. That is my promise to you.

A New Perspective

The Holidays are over, a New Year has started, and the interesting thing about this is we are all in the same situation. This is the “Start of a New Year I’m going to make goals to be so amazing and do great things that are so not going to happen” perspective. You know it’s true so don’t you dare roll your eyes at me. This particular perspective hinders all of us at one point in our lives. At some point in history someone decided that we have to make unrealistic goals at the beginning of the New Year. Now, I am not saying that we should not make goals. Oh heavens no I am not. I am simply saying that is high time that we make realistic goals that will better ourselves as a whole rather than depress us when they are not reached. I am sorry you are probably not going to travel around the world in 2012. If you do more power to you that’s awesome! You are probably not going to win a gamy, or win Americas Next Top Model. These are bit more extreme but people do have some odd goals. As you do make your goals though, the realistic ones that are still hard, I have this little bit of wisdom. “Nothing is Impossible. Even the word itself is I’m Possible.” and “If plan ‘a’ didn’t work. Don’t worry. The alphabet 25 more letters! Stay cool.” So on that note. Dream my friends for things that will make you better.

The Hobbit Perspective

            The dragon is dead, the treasure won, and the adventure seemingly complete. What then would possess J.R.R Tolkien to write five more chapters?  I have always detested authors, in past novels that I have read, that decide that they need to continue writing when the adventure is done. This brings up an interesting thought though. Why does it seem like the killing of Smaug is the end? Is it really?

            The first time I read those chapters I was with Bilbo sitting up on the hill looking down at the war going on bellow. Army after army kept appearing. Why couldn’t the dwarves just share their gold and treasures? Why did there have to be a war. I thought that this was completely idiotic of the armies. They were all just killing each other over treasure that could be shared. It was a pointless. Killing each other left and right over a treasure and then a mutual enemy shows up so they all kill them. Was the treasure that important after all? This was simply a hot mess in my mind.  Then Brother Ward made me read those chapters again.

After the second time of reading these chapters, and after sitting for a while just mulling over them I have an epiphany. My roommate was discussing with me a different book entirely. The Great Gatsby to be exact. This book is one I did not enjoy. The greed behind the American Dream was evident in every chapter of this book and that really bothered me. That’s when the insight occurred. Tolkien wasn’t just simply filling pages he was making a point. It is said that Tolkien didn’t ever make up what his characters did but he put them in a situation and then watched them. When presented with a mass of treasure everyone does something different with it. Bilbo wanted to share, the dwarves wanted to keep them for their own want, the men wanted it to rebuild their town with it, and the elves just wanted to be compensated for dealing with the dragon for so long. By showing these last few chapters Tolkien shows us ever layer of greed, and what it can do. Most of the group died in their greed while Bilbo lived safe. Sometimes it isn’t the journey to the treasure that truly helps an adventurer grow but the journey home. By presenting this war of greed Tolkien shows his audience that while there are many different paths to choose it is still our choice. Will we then choose to complete our journey and hoard our treasure, die in our greed, or maybe just go home? It is our choice.

Thus, we see that the last five chapters really did have a point. If they were simply left to journey home we have never discovered the meaning of the adventure. The adventure was to discover what a Hobbit is. In the same the journey was to discover who we were. As we follow Bilbo on his journey we are also put in those situations. We were on that journey too. We thought the journey was done because the treasure had been won but really we hadn’t won it. Every army had a claim on the treasure. The task is what to do with those claims. Situations and choices, this is how Tolkien writes. It seems only fitting that he end a novel of such with yet another situation. So, what would you have done?

The "It's only a developmental error" Perspective

“A developmental error is not a mistake or a failure.” This is how Brother Ward started out our Humanities class on a beautiful Tuesday morning last week. The concept of a Developmental Error threw me a little at first.  Brother ward continued by saying that when you commit to work hard in your studies and that if you don’t get a topic or concept and miss a question on a test you are not a failure. You just haven’t found the way to correctly think about the topic or concept yet. When you have broken away from your previous way of thinking, and discovered the things you need to truly understand that which you do not understand you find deeper thinking which is the goal of the class. That is why when you do get a question wrong you need to not ask how you did after studying so long for the test, but ask why it is that you chose to pick the lesser answer. And also why is it that the correct answer is correct? Continuing on, Brother Ward expands by saying that it is a habit of thinking that keeps us trapped in this state of developmental error. Once again it’s those dang biases.

            Personally when I was in grade school it was my opinion that when I failed a test I was a failure. If I answered a question wrong in class or didn’t understand I was an idiot.  It was just my personal opinion that to get a “C” or heaven forbid an “F” was a serious offence and just showed off my lack of effort. And that was true sometimes. The ACT was the worst for me though. I spent hours studying and taking practice test for that test. Did I do well on it? No. I took the ACT three times and my highest score was only an eighteen. An eighteen! It was devastating. I am dyslexic. I have trouble testing, but honestly I never let that hinder my education. I never get extra help and I am proud of that. I guess when I do fail on a test I look down on myself, as if I haven’t tried enough. As if I am not good enough. Yes, I know that is not a correct way of thinking but its how I thought about incorrect answers.

            When Brother Ward came forward with this concept it finally dawned on me that sometimes you really just have not been able to completely break down the walls between you sub-conscience and conscience in order to truly understand the concept or idea. It was almost liberating in a sense to know that I wasn’t a failure I just had some more work I needed to do in order to truly master a certain concept. While I still don’t understand this idea to its deepest aspect I know now that I can with some work understand it. I am not a failure. I just need to work a little harder with my biases. And that is a wonderful insight.

The Perspective from Failure

In Humanities this week David presented his “Teaching Opportunity” on the director and creator of Titanic, James Cameron. In his presentation he discussed briefly a quote that James lived by.  This quote is what I have decided to do my insight on this week because it had the greatest meaning to me. The quote was as follows: “Failure has to always be an option. Fear is never an option.” In a simple since this means that we have to be able to let ourselves fail because in failure we are able to rediscover and succeed. Fear of failure is what keeps us from the success within failure though. This actually goes really well with something else I heard once too. Fear means False Evidence Appearing Real. So when we fail we find that sweet success in the failure, but if we let the fear take control we will never discover it. By using this as his personal life motto, he was able to accomplish things that people at that time and still to this day believed were impossible.

Before hearing James Cameron’s revision of the classic saying, “failure isn’t an option,” I believed that to fail was to lose. Everyone would always tell me that failure isn’t an option or an outcome if you push yourself hard enough, and if you really put your mind to it. I believed them.  I am a classic perfectionist. If it isn’t right then I discard it. I like to say that I am fine if my ducks get thrown in the air as long as they come back down in a straight row.  I love order, and love to win be right. Although sometimes it takes falling to my knees and getting badly bruised I get up and go on. Sometimes I crawl to a new situation. It just never accrued to me that while falling I was creating calluses that helped in the discover of success. I guess my pride got in the way of my accomplishment and the rough road it took to get there.

Thomas Edison was a man who knew failure very well. He once said “I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”  This man lived what James Cameron’s quote says. He was also able to accomplish things that people thought he was crazy for trying. This quote was a really great find and discovery for me. It has my eyes to the many possibilities I have if I let myself fail sometimes without think of myself as a failure. To fail and give up is when you truly fail.  All I have to do is look at every failure as Edison and James Cameron do. I must look at them and say, “How do I do it better next time,” not, “Well that was a waste of my time.”  It’s a simply choice of attitude. Once you have a “Pollyanna” look on failure you will always be a winner in the end.

The Perspective that Comes with Time

 In humanities this week we talked about the subject of walking away from something in order to make something you hate enjoyable. It’s an odd topic honestly. Bro. Ward began by explain that we have to first “nest” in something. Meaning we have to submerge ourselves into an event, music style, or piece of art completely, somewhat like a bird does in its nest, thus the term “nesting in a topic.” When we have nested in a topic long enough we have to leave it be for awhile. Just leave it alone and wonder over to a new nest.  It is after you have done this that you can come back to the thing you first nested in and have a better enjoyment of it. If you keep doing this over and over again it will help you in any topic. Bro. Ward also continued by saying that we should never pretend to like something if we don’t. By doing that we are simply short changing ourselves and the people we are with.

            I already knew that it was a good idea to walk away when you were having troubles with homework or a project, but it never accrued to me that walking away from Mozart or a Picasso would have the same effect. It must be those biases. They really do play a greater part in our lives then I previously thought. I am such a stubborn person and stuck in my own ways that I would have never thought about my biases being the reason that I was struggling in accepting the finer pieces of art and music. I was born with red hair, and my family thinks that it was a cruel trick to take away my warning label. When I have looked a piece of art in the pass that I have not particularly enjoyed I removed myself from it. My opinion was set in stone and I was not about to change it. The amusing part of that is by creating that bias right there and then I was actually hurting myself, and the greater experiences I would have if I just gave it a chance. I figured that if I simply agree with everyone around me that I was saving relationships that I had from contention.

            It was a brilliant epiphany to have dealing with this particular thought. I don’t have to like what my friends like. I am however required to give a specific topic a chance. It is important to let things sink in and force yourself into enduring a thing. It’s just like life. We are place here to endure and come to a better understanding. If we take that in consideration when we look at art or listen to a piece of art music we will be able to come to a better knowledge and a greater love of that particular piece. It takes work but in the end the reward is sweet, and we become better in that experience.

A Bias Perspective

“To study the life of an artist is to study that which they have not mastered.” This is the one topic that completely intrigued me this week. It was brought to the attention of the class that as members of The Church of Jesus Christ we search out virtuous things and that if god had inspired the great artist such as Mozart and Picasso why is it that they lived such scandalous lives? Why would god inspire people who didn’t know who he was? This led to a rather heated debate about how it was not our place to judge. It isn’t even in god’s nature to condemn men while they are on earth. Thus, we are in no position to judge but only to look upon their works as a way to better ourselves spiritually and intellectually.  Art isn’t meant to be judge by the man or women who created by it. Oh no, that defeats the purpose of the thing entirely. Why is it then that we are all victims of this insanity?

            Biases, my friends, are the devils behind our ignorance. It is true. By identifying the biases of our youth we discover the silliest of things we believe with our whole soul to be incorrect. I, myself fell victim to the harsh judgments given while listening to the argument about the fact that these men and women were not what we believe are a people who lives in a state of moral correctness.  I will blame the biases set up in my life till the day I die, honestly. Before this heated debate I believed with my whole being that to truly understand a piece of art, whether in music, art, or literature, you must also have a great knowledge of the artist behind it. While I still believe that this is true in the sense that it is easier to understand for example the story of Farewell to Arms written by Ernest Hemingway when you understand that Hemingway had a similar experience in his own life, I now see that if you stress over every little thing they did wrong you lose the purpose of the work all together. As I said before, to look only look at the artist and not the art you miss the meaning.

            This was so profound to me. It makes so much sense. We are told to not judge one another, so why would we judge those who are pasted away? They have done so much good, and they have influenced so many great things. The men who wrote the constitution weren’t living moral lives, but look at what they created. It is our duty and our privilege to not judge but to be open to enlightenment.  We must be open to all that the art has to offer. In doing this we will become greater in our understanding of ourselves. God enlightens those open to enlightenment. It’s our choice if we are ready. When the choice come between the life and the art choose the art.