It’s not that I have anything of substance at the moment to write- it’s just that I promised myself that I would write something every day just to keep up.
Today I learned that words have roots. They have relations with each other that are both in their ancestral roots and in the sounds that they emit. Such as in the German vater the more Latin (if I recall correctly) vader and the English word father. Hell, we can even go south and find padre and a bit east to find poder. I’ve often thought about the relationships that words have with each other across the language barriers and thought, “Perhaps these things are similar in some way, and they are all derived from some crazy language that nobody uses anymore.” A part of me then was thinking it was part of the Babylonic catastrophe that scattered the people of the world and gave them different languages so they couldn’t understand each other. Why then are we so integrated that we are finding the similarities once again? Here we have the conflict of our languages- that we are more similar than we once thought we were. Here, we have a story about how we couldn’t understand each other one day because God confused the languages. Yet, even today I can look at sentence structure and some of the words that we are talking about and say, “If we are this similar today in some of our words, wouldn’t it be no stretch of imagination that at the time of the supposed tower of Babel, the scattering of languages would’ve been more similar to each other, and though the human race was dispersed, wouldn’t it have been no small feat to come back together and talk because there wasn’t too much regarding cognates relationship between the scattered languages at the onset?
I’ve learned to question things over the years. Not because I doubt everything, but I think it’s healthy for any movement, or any structure to have a bit of doubt mixed in to keep it in check. Some organizations see doubt as a sign of weakness, but I see it as a strength. I see it as something that makes us seek new paths, and discover innovations that we would otherwise dismiss outright. What if a bunch of Biblical young earth creationists found dinosaur fossils in their search for the tomb of King David or whatever? What would their hypothesis be on such creatures, because the Bible does not go into any detail about all the flora and fauna of the ancient times. What about the Pterodactyl, the Stegosaurus, the existence of the entirety of that time period all wiped out. What, during a flood? Shouldn’t there have been some evidence of their preservation if every animal by two’s were brought into the ark? Find me the descendant of the T-Rex. Find me the Stegosaurus’ descendant. What about the sea creatures of prehistoric times? I suppose they survived more of the flood than anything? The existence of these fossils puts a kink in the armor of their theology, so they would eventually have no answers to these questions. Yet, the ones discovering these fossils are bit more open-minded to discovering what might not be written in a religious text. They might have some insight to methods of investigation that one with such a close-mind about the history of the world would not have access to.
I think we are better equipped to handle new information if we are willing to admit that we might not have all the answers. The evidences we look for to solidify our preset notions might never be found, and we may find something contrary that will rock our present understandings. We need to look at these as scientists, and not as men of this or that or the other- but as aware of our position in the vastness of all this as possible. Our lives are but a short span of turmoil and ridicule. We have things that will come at us and challenge us in ways we never thought possible. Our ability to adapt, and make moves accordingly will determine whether we advance or stagnate on the spot.
With that said, we move on to what we have today.
Having read those two books for my linguistics course, I feel better equipped to handle the class. Often, and more often than I would like, I get a bit of this panic in my mind, albeit slight, because I wasn’t able to read all of a certain article or book or chapter within a certain time period. I probably had ample time to get it done, but for some reason I flopped and got distracted by some bullshit on the net or someone’s status that needed a comment or a new online sitcom. I remember when it was only television that had this shit, and when I gave it up I found myself with a ton of time to get certain things done in my day. I would walk the dog to the beach, I would pick up some kids from school, I would cook, I would clean, I would attend study sessions (for a cult, but that’s beside the point) and I had no T.V. The computer in those days was a tool for getting shit done, as I would print out reports and studies on certain things and listen to some music every now and then as I cleaned. And yeah, it had the occasional porn on there that I would download from Kazaa or Sharebear and that would kill a good 5-10 minutes in my day. Yet, I was productive. Now- we have fucking Hulu and Netflix and Amazon and Youtube with sitcoms that are just as funny as the shows on television. A new medium of distraction has infiltrated what was traditionally a tool for my use in all things work-ish related. I don’t know if it’s progress in terms of how society gets their entertainment, but if feels like regression in terms of my productivity. I still don’t have a T.V., and I don’t intend to buy one anytime soon. I won’t even get into how much porn is available.
Despite this, I feel like I genuinely accomplished something by the readings. I freaked out a bit because I thought I needed to do something for my Entertainment Journalism class, but I found out I needed to do some investigation into what aspect of the beat I needed. So I did that, and narrowed my focus to Film only. Done. But the real thing was the linguistics class reading- I actually took notes regarding what I was able to glean from both books. From myths regarding language to all of the definitions of how languages are defined and how they change over time and the progression that sounds make within a language to their sentence structure (syntax)… all that. 4 pages of notes. I feel accomplished. I think I mentioned that already.
I’ve had three cups of coffee and I decided I should write something out before the real beginning of my day, when I start working on my bike to get the back tire fixed. I swear, someone is putting a damn nail in my back tire every time. It’s always the back tire for some reason, and it doesn’t follow because- shouldn’t the front tire get the puncture first ? I’m traveling up the hill, and all of a sudden I’m putting a shit ton of work on my calves to get up this thing. Not like it’s an ordinary hill, mind you. My legs feel like they’re on fire when I’m going up that thing, regardless of whether I’m on a flat or not. But yesterday, that flat really caused my legs to work overtime. I noted I was sweating a bit more than usual just to get up the hill, so I looked at my back tire once I was nearing my complex (at the top of the hill- makes for an effortless ride down to school, but a bitch getting back home) and saw a huge ass nail coming out from the back. I’ve already had a puncture in my tire last semester (thankfully) on the last day. Now, I got this thing on week 2 of the spring semester. How the hell is this going to work out? Is it going to be every 2 weeks I’ll have to pull a nail out because some idiot construction worker can’t keep the box of nails in the back of his truck taped shut as he takes a right turn? Or is someone, unbeknownst to me, just puncturing holes in random bike tires at my school while I’m happily taking my classes and working my shifts at the Dean’s office?
I’m resolved to take a different path up to my house. An intersection that is less likely to have construction worker nail spill-off or broken pieces of glass from cars in accidents from a long time ago.
I think I’ve written enough. My only complaint about this site is that it doesn’t have a word count on here. I could easily just copy and paste this onto word doc and find the count, but opening that thing just sucks up memory like a Bangkok whore sucks up dicks. The promise I made to myself was that I would write at least 5k words each day, to keep up with it and stay my mind on a certain subject so I’d be better at it with each passing day. That’s so when it comes time to do my 50 page thesis or even sooner, my 10 page paper on Linguistics or Entertainment Journalism or even the paper that is coming up for my English Writing class, the process will be like shooting the breeze, because I will have been writing that much already on a daily basis.
I’ll probably find it easier to keep that promise without all these damned online sitcoms distracting me though.
And now as I feel I am near 10k words, I’m realizing I need to start opening the Word program and begin the waiting process. I’m still waiting for the sun to come up, and it’s 7:33am. I need a certain amount of light available to get that wheel properly fixed, otherwise I’m not going to have too much enjoyment out of the process. I go to class in about 3 hours, and I was hoping to have some time to do a run this morning as well as lift some weights so I’m not a complete weakling by the time I have to do acrobatics class this Friday.
As I look out across the horizon, I see the sun attempting to peak out from behind the mountains, and begin the light the fountain and the forest beyond my apartment front door. The two ducks that would wander the grounds during the spring are not present, and I suspect are enjoying some more habitable weather more to the south of us. The California morning is colder than what the natives are used to, yet as a native Oregonian I find it tolerable. Yeah, I’ve been here for a while, so I’ve gotten a bit of a chill from the 65 degree weather that hits usually for the winter time down here, but in my acclimated roots, it’s actually nothing to be too concerned about. I tell myself the days of pneumonia and strep throat are gone for good, and this is nothing compared to those times.
And now we’re at 10k.
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