cooperation

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Cooperation and PVP

Our last in class discussion regarding the differences between cooperation and one on one actions, perhaps eventually leading to the discussion of the symbiotic nature of our systems or all systems made me start questioning the nature of cooperation. Is cooperation simply that, two or more beings or institutions that work together selflessly in order to achieve a common goal, or is cooperation another form self-serving contest under the guise of collaboration. What do we gain from collaboration? Why do we collaborate? Lets look at the most basic form of collaboration we see, the family. The family is the most basic collaborative system in humanity and if we look at the most simple classical model of it we have mother, father, and child. Mother and father need each other to propagate their genes. Mother, classically and in certain contemporary cases (especially late in the pregnancy) rely on the father for protection and provisions and the father needs to do these things in order to guarantee the safety of his genetic deposit. The child obviously needs the parents to survive for a very long time and the parents need to protect the child again to insure their genetic legacy. Not a selfless cooperative relationship but three individuals banding together in order to necessitate two forms of survival.

Companies and corporations are two forms of cooperation that are common in modern society but again they are, in essence, individuals vying for their own benefit. The employees work to make a wage necessary to sustain themselves, the companies promote products to drive profit to necessitate the wages of the individual workers. My point is made I believe, individuals join cooperative groups for self gain. What happens when parts of the cooperative group conflicts with other parts? Well we can see that in the corporation example; firing, layoffs etc. In the family system divorce and sometimes serious neglect and abuse of the child are the outcome of individual interests clashing in a cooperative group.

“What about groups like non profits and charity groups?” you may ask. These groups seemingly join together in the goal of selflessly helping individuals in need all around the world. Still I argue there is a base survival desire in these actions; people acting to advance and aid others in order to maintain the existence of our species as a whole. Its seems to me even the most selfless actions can eventually be construed as self serving in some fashion so I have begun to doubt the true collaborative nature of my fellow man.

AWWWW LOVE!!!

I had a profound conversation while shopping the other day. I never imagined that I would find perception changing inspiration at a Macy’s in a mall but I found it in the words of a watch sales woman. They had a pretty decent sale on watch’s at the time, considering it was the valentines/presidents day sale madness that engulfed shopping centers the country over but on a pizza drivers salary even a 20% of sale doesn’t make a decent watch affordable. I asked the helpful and rather song filled attendant if sales like this happened often on watch’s and she said “Oh im sure soon because…oh…well im sure there’s some holiday next month and then another one after that, you know how it is.” That is a profound statement.

The holiday that the sale was attributed to was president’s day, as I mentioned before. I began to think about what the watch salesperson said, and realized I don’t fully grasp the importance of the holiday. I am not aware of any traditions that surround the holiday nor do I really register it as anything more than a sale day and a day off. I can’t think of anyone that I know that does either. Presumably it has to do with honoring the former presidents of our country but when was the last time you or anyone you know spent the day somberly honoring the presidents of old? Most Americans spend it by recovering from chocolate and romance overdoes from valentines via shopping for more tangible products rather then chocolate and flowers. How many holidays do we celebrate in our nation that have become similar in tradition?

Valentines day, the day that we use to define love, is the paramount example of the commercialization of holidays. Just look at the massive amount of importance that we put on this single day in defining relationships between humans. If you have a significant other on this day, you are essentially required to do something “special” for them; not doing so can have dire consequences for your relationship. If you are single on valentines day it serves as a glaring reminder that you are not fulfilling your duties properly in regards to love and relationships and that you must do your best to find this brand of corporate defined love as soon as you can, that you may celebrate next valentines day properly instead of alone, possibly contemplating suicide as statistics show is a common pass time for this loveliest of days. This disparity is a fantastic depiction of the wedge that corporations drive into our psyche; a terrible view of just how much control they wield on our minds. January 14^th, relationship normal. You can be with your lover in any capacity, no call to be especially romantic and no call to even be with each other. Same goes for basically every other 14^th of every other month. What changes on the 14^th of February? Clearly we have a holiday but what literally changes between two people on this date. Absolutely nothing. Nothing literally changes between a couple, or rather nothing should however one day can wield so much power over the future or lack there of for a couple.

It seems kind of lame and Christmas specially to say the following (Christmas, another prime example of what this paper is about) but why do we need a defined day to express a certain breed of romance? Its because this day, though indeed having historical importance, has been taken over by entities who have realized that there is a lot of money to be made in the industry of “love.” There seems to be noting, in my mind, that carries more weight then saying “I love you” directly to your lovers face but that doesn’t matter any more. You must say it with chocolate, flowers, greeting cards and other temporary objects, nothing definite, nothing built to last so next year on valentines the process can be repeated. Perhaps this explains the push for diamonds. Some certainly have picked up on the lack of staying power of cards and chocolate so along comes a diamond conglomerate to inform us that diamonds are forever, making us pay excessive sums for a tightly controlled and generally corrupt industrial byproduct.

Why can’t we move beyond these callous materialistic ideals of our holidays, our love and celebrations of our lives? I don’t have a connection to the reading with this rant but I think it holds within the context of the class as a whole because clearly we have been infected with the parasite of consumerism, making us do things, believe things, attach to things that deserve none of these reactions. Love is our most complex and desired emotion, and its been made into a product for us to abide by. To the world it seems callous to say it but I didn’t do shit for my girlfriend on valentines day beyond the ordinary, but that’s because I take her out all the time. I don’t use a day or a collection of products to define my relationship, I simply act my best at all times, and I believe more people would find more definite relationships if they did the same.

Ghost blog.

I have been thinking about ghosts a lot recently for a number of reasons, and our conversations about interruptions have fueled my theories about their existence or non-existence. A few years ago I began seriously considering a possible explanation for the existence of the paranormal, fueled partly by my recent introduction to the study of physics but mostly from my then recent encounters with possible ghost activity. I have always been curious about ghosts and the like considering that, of all the myths and legends humans believe or argue about, paranormal encounters seem to be the most prevalent across cultures. Think about it, how many people have you met in your life who have had some form of paranormal encounter. The frequency of these encounters leads me to believe that at least a small portion are probably accurate, and with my experience now counter among them, I am even more of a believer.

I had volunteered on a film shoot that took place at Northern State Asylum, the abandoned mental institution in Sedro Wooly. The history of this place is as crazy as the people who once occupied it; fire, flood, one of the first places to experiment and perfect full frontal lobotomies, mass graves and the general mistreatment that came hand and hand with early 1900s asylums, all supporting evidence for the theory I will get to in a moment. My two months there had many strange and difficult to explain occurrences, sudden power outages, camera audio pops (a hard wired camera mic would not pop in this manner unless there was a very power wireless power signal next to it, and since no one was holding a cell phone directly next to the mic it doesn’t seem like any of the crew could have caused it), strange shadows, noises, voices, sudden temperature drops, places in the building where our walkie talkies would just go straight to static even though they worked just fine in the same locations days before. Yeah, you get the point lots of odd happenings that scared the pants off most of us. After this I really began thinking about possible reasons why such occurrences would happen, accepting the paranormal.

First, could there be a scientific explanation for why spirits or ghosts exist? Consider that, at our base, we are just a collection of atoms and, if you accept string theory, we could be considered as energy waves. When we die its not as though these atoms automatically disperse from the are or lose charge, so, given an a certain set of circumstances, is it so unlikely that your atoms may energize in a manner that may form a version of “you” or interact with objects in small amounts in rare occasions? Perhaps it would require, as it seems to be the case in most reported paranormal events, that the death of the individual would have to be a situation in which said individual was in a lightened state of alert; fear, self defense, extreme pain etc. This brings me to my consideration of our in class discussion.

The energized atom argument seems like it would be applicable to any dead thing. However, as mentioned it only seems like those who die in heightened emotional or traumatic states that reappear as sprits or general “hauntings.” The traumatic states could play a role but more importantly I believe they remain in a state open to being partially re-energized because their deaths were a particularly unexpected and unwanted interruption in the continuity of their existence. Is that not basically what we seek in life? An existence that conforms to our vision of what it should be without interruption? There are many interruptions, bad jobs, school, annoying friends, anything you can think of but ultimately, though they are interruptions, we can assimilate them into some context in which they cease to be interruptions and more stepping stones or “challenges” for us to best and as a result improve. A murder or other violent death is the last, worst interruption of an existence, and leaves the victim with no chance to put such an interruption in context. That, I think, is the ultimate reason why trace elements of what these people once were may still linger beyond their deaths.