The Old Volvo

The old Volvo is…the Volvo is the one Vern’s been driving for twenty years.  I can’t explain why right now, but I will present a metaphor.  This is the same idea as where is your home?  Is it always at the house you live in?  Or is it defined by something else like the people you live with?  The way I see it, our homes lie with the people we love and we are loved by.  Home is where we feel at home just as Vern’s Volvo is the car he feels is his Volvo.  The parts don’t actually matter.  The frame of the car and windows could be replaced, but the whole car is still the one that Vern sees as his Volvo.  The entirely new car may be made of different things than it started out with, but it’s still the same car because of how Vern feels about it.

I’m going to offer a rather morbid example.  If I were to get into a horrible accident and all of my limbs had to be replaced with artificial ones, I would still be me.  Even as my “old” arms and legs rotted away somewhere, they are no longer part of me.  My artificial limbs are part of who I am now.  I’m still Bayla with the same essence that is my being.  Just as the Volvo is defined by who is driving and how the driver feels, I am defined by my personality and attitude.  My general mood may darken a little bit and I might change because of how horrible the accident was, but I have a core that can’t be changed.  I will always have a bit of shyness I need to overcome with people and I will always survive.  That will never change.  I overcome my shyness much more easily than I once did and I have crumbled a bit under pressure at times, but the foundation of Bayla remains the same.  

I could even have my entire body replaced—it wouldn’t make a difference.  If I continued to accept myself and allowed others to see me as the same person, I would be me. The old heap of parts just can’t be Vern’s Volvo simply because Vern doesn’t see it that way.  As I said, the Volvo’s identity relies solely on Vern’s view of it.  However, if I were to completely change myself with an entirely different personality, I would no longer be Bayla.  I would not simply be a slightly different version of myself, I wouldn’t be me.  If every part of the Volvo was modified to have new features, then it would no longer be the old Volvo.  I still believe though, if the parts are all the same and maybe just a little bit more strong than the previous ones, it’s the same Volvo.

It wouldn’t make a difference if the old parts were put together to make another car.  It’s just a new, poorly-made car.  My old body parts could be put together to make a robot, but it’s just a robot…not me.

And now as I reflect upon this problem and what I’ve written I’m starting to wonder why any of this matters at all.  Is it of anyone’s concern which set of things is the old Volvo or even if the old Volvo still exists?  I really don’t think so.  Perhaps the reason this question may be so perplexing is that cars are given “human” qualities, often being referred to as “she.”  At the end of the day this problem only affects Vern.  What he feels is what matters most.  Perhaps this question is pertaining to issues of identity.  I remember someone saying in class that we are never the same person as from when we’re born.  I’d have to disagree entirely.  Yes, we develop and change a little as we grow, but I whole-heartedly believe we all have a foundation as I mentioned.  Nothing can change that.  

I think it’s part of our biology and built into who we are.  In our brains and in the chemicals of our bodies we have some underlying person.  And now I would expect Ms. Kimball to ask something along the lines of “What happens when the brain is changed?” and I’d have to respond with that we are changed.  Our brain truly does define us.  Having recently seen a documentary on schizophrenia I’ve come to realize how much of us must be defined by our brains and biology.  The documentary followed a pair of twins and how one twin radically changed in manner, thinking, and attitude once her schizophrenia started showing symptons.  She changed so much that her twin sister felt like she had lost the most intimate relationship she had ever had, but I may be digressing too much here.  

The underlying point of the previous paragraph is that, if this question was meant to raise questions about ourselves, here’s my answer: we are (and the volvo is) the same as long as what defines our basic function isn’t changed.  For people, the defining quality is the brain.  For the car, there is true defining part as far as I can tell from my knowledge of cars.  So as long as the car serves its purpose for Vern and he feels like it’s his car, the one Vern is driving is his old Volvo.  The parts are all the same; they do the same things.  So what if the parts are a little shinier?  People often develop and show the best of themselves as they grow older too.  It doesn’t mean they’re any different. 

Social Contract

a)    a)  Before we were born, we signed a social contract with our government.  The social contract requires that we obey the laws in return for military protection and social benefits.  All these benefits that society provides us whether it’s delivering the mail or fighting off terrorists, can’t be given for free.  Everything has a price or consequence.  We must pay our taxes if we want free health care.  We have to obey the laws that mandate that we must not murder if we want safety.  If we don’t, then there’s no health care and there’s chaos.  These are the reasons as to why the social contract between man and government was originally formed.  However, we continue to uphold this contract because once the contract is made, it’s almost inconceivable to break it.  Whether it’s because the idea never crossed our mind or because it would be too difficult of a feat, we don’t back out of this social contract.  Or it could simply be because the benefits of honoring the social contract outweigh the benefits of breaking off and doing whatever we want.  This last reason, I feel, is the most likely.  Anarchy is the other option to having a social contract with the government.  Does anarchy offer something that the government does not?  I suppose the answer is freedom, but my feeling is that the relinquishing of the right to a few freedoms is worth the benefits that an organized society provides.  The government only limits me from a few things really.  For example, the government forbids me from roaming around buck naked.  I think I could live my life without that right.  On a more serious level, the government also forbids me from murdering or stealing.  These are things we should not do anyway for they are harmful.  The social contract came about for a reason and humans have accepted it since the birth of Mesopotamia. 

b)     b) Society is beholden to us once again through the social contract.  A contract requires a give and take from both sides.  We pay our taxes, so the government must use our taxes for our benefit.  Otherwise, we would never pay our taxes in the first place.  The government and the society as a whole are in place to serve us.  Everything it does is for the overall benefit of our society. I won’t ignore the fact that this overall benefit in society usually results in the harm of certain individuals or the minority.  However, over time, usually these wrongs are fixed as shown through America’s history.  Much of the South’s stability and wealth was built on the backs of the black slaves.  Yet the injustice of this was recognized and there was a civil war to change this wrong.  (This is also an example of when it is right to fight the laws of society.)   In America, specifically, our government officials are elected by us so they must be able to please us.  So long as the government meets the needs of the people, the government continues to exist and the social contract is upheld. 

c)     c) The circumstances under which we could break the laws that society requires us to follow are when the government doesn’t uphold its part of the social contract.  If a tyrant comes in control and acts for his or her benefit at all, then the social contract is broken.  The people no longer need to follow the law and should not follow the law since it’s not in their interest to do so.  The government exists solely for the benefit of the people.  In other words, the only circumstance under which people could disobey societal laws is when the government breaches its part of the social contract.  Some might also suggest that one should not follow a seemingly unjust law.  My feeling is that all laws must be followed, no matter how unjust it may seem assuming the government is still working for the people.  However, moves should be made to recognize the injustice at hand and then change the law.  This is when people campaign outside the White House or write letters to the president.  So far, I think this method to opposing unjust laws has worked for the most part.  

Know Thyself

To know yourself is to truly understand the nature of yourself.  That is, you have to be aware of your weaknesses and strengths.  Limits of stress, irritations, infatuations, talents are all part of the knowledge of yourself.  I could list many other components that make up the nature of a person, but I believe that the traits could be summed as the aspects of a person that explain his or her actions.  If you can understand why you act the way you do, then you can work to utilize or change that attribute.  Knowledge is power, even self-knowledge.  This understanding of yourself will then allow you to understand others.  We all have flaws and we all have great capabilities.  Being aware of your flaws allows you to more easily forgive others when they make mistake.  Being aware of your own talents should make you understand that others will be better at certain things than you.  So in general, understanding yourself gives you a perspective.  Without this perspective, we cannot form true friendships with one another. 

My worst quality has to be my lack of impulse control.  The idea of delaying pleasure is just so unappealing and I rarely listen to the little voice that tells me to do so.  This problem has been the greatest source of distress in my life.  Don’t get me wrong, I get good grades to feed my own pride, but I’m also trying very hard to avoid the wrath of my parents.  Each time I choose pleasure over studying for the test I receive a good half of hour of lecturing and/or yelling.  This sounds trivial, but it’s amazingly distressful.  Outside of the context of school, I have a tendency voice exactly what I think, another manifestation of my lack of impulse control.  So, I come off emotional and way too blunt.  I am emotional and blunt, but I should really try to hide those two qualities a little more if I don’t want to offend people. 

My best quality must be my ability to empathize with people.  I’m not saying that I always understand others or that I never throw around a nasty insult.  I only mean that I can feel the pain someone experiences in their worst moments.  Every now and then people get off the bus that is life and take a pit stop at the wrong place.  I have been there and I’ve stayed there for a while.  I know what it’s like to feel completely alone or just hurt.  So if I see that in someone else, I can guarantee that I’m the first person to take his or her side.  It doesn’t matter if the person deserves the pain or not.  In that moment, he or she truly needs a friend.  I can always be that friend.  Sometimes, unfortunately, my friendship isn’t always welcomed and I really should learn to back off and give that person some space.  But I can’t.  Our friends are what keep us grounded to this world.  If that person can just realize that I care, then I’m satisfied.  I cannot imagine ever allowing someone to feel alone.  I feel and am so strong now, so it almost seems like a duty to give back some of my strength to the world. 

I’m actually not finding it all that difficult to think or write about this, but I think it must be because I’ve done so much self-reflection in the past.  One thing I remember being particularly difficult was admitting my flaws.  If I say it out loud or write it down, all of a sudden my flaws are completely real.  Being aware of my flaws hurt because I all I saw was all that was wrong with me.  Then, if I try to think about my strengths, my mind keeps zeroing back in on my flaws.  Next thing I know, I’m wallowing in self-pity.  However, as soon as I got past that stage I was able to think about myself a little more objectively.  That’s when I got the determination to change what I didn’t like about myself, and use my strengths to gain confidence.  My self-reflection experience has been really healthy and I really have no objections to thinking about myself.  The experience has also made me really grateful for my family.  I can definitely see how parts of my character have been shaped by the fact that I have great parents. 

Things I Want to Experience

Five Things I Want:

Love

Garden

Paint a Room

Let Go of Fear

Children

1) Before I even finished reading the question for this blog, I knew love was one of my answers.  Love just seems so beautiful.  Falling in love must be a sort passage into womanhood.  Just as sex is a kind of knowledge that can’t be “un-known”, falling in love can’t be either.  Perhaps I’m a naive, but being in love must be the ultimate happiness.  All I want in life is happiness and being in love seems to be the most wonderful way to get it.

“Love makes the world go round.”  It’s a cliché but it must be true.  Love is supposed to be one of the strongest emotions for humans.  Emotions are part of our distinction from animals in how intense they can be.  Humanity…

2) The next thing I thought of was having a garden.  I have always wanted one, and it should be ordered in a chaotic way.  I imagine planted vines that swamp walls and create overhangs with all kinds of exotic flowers.  (I’m practically hoping for a Garden of Eden.)  Naturally, I’m imagining an ideal, but a row of flowers and some grape vines would make me pretty satisfied.  A garden must be a great place for a sanctuary and getting in touch with G-d.  I’ve recently rejected the idea of religion, but I still have faith in G-d.  I’ve noticed that I think about Him much more often when I’m alone and outside.  Having a garden would probably really help me find peace when I need it.

As for humanity, a garden represents a sort of bridge between nature and man.  Although humanity implies a separation from nature, man still has his roots in the primal instincts.  We are all still governed by instincts for survival and reproduction.  However, man has found a way to harness and control those two main desires in the form of order and civilization.  A garden acts as the same process in that a garden takes some of the best parts of nature and puts them in neat rows.  This is not to say that everyone should have a garden, but it may be useful in maintaining a sense of humanity—consolidating man and nature. 

3) My desire to paint a room stems from my conception that painting is a great means of expression.  (And, of course, painting a room would just be so much fun.)  Having the ability to haphazardly throw buckets of paint onto a wall would be so freeing for me.  Then I could take the time and carefully paint a scene.  No matter the final product, I know I would be satisfied with it.  Plus, I feel as though painting would help me let loose a little.  Getting some paint in my hair that won’t wash out might be the perfect thing for me.  (I can be such a prima donna sometimes and refuse to jump in a swimming pool just because I prefer not being wet.)  Then I would have to cut my hair and hope for the best, pushing me to be more relaxed about how I look all the time.  Furthermore, painting a room is something I can do tomorrow.  It’s important that I believe in the value of something immediate as well as something that will occur possibly much later in life.  I’m only seventeen and death is still something I can’t really grasp.  The immediate occurrences are what matter most to me. 

Once again, painting a room is a form of expression.  Art is often sorely underrated by people.  If I wanted to be an artist I have no doubt that my parents would do everything they could to stomp the idea out of me.  Being an artist isn’t practical.  Yet art is the core of the culture—the core of human expression and beliefs. 

4) Letting go of fear is my next hope.  By fear I don’t mean fear of a specific item or idea.  I really mean fear in the general sense.  If anything ever stood in the way of my success, it was always fear.  Whether it was my fear of letting others see my terrible writing skills or being considered annoying.  I didn’t call a college to arrange an interview because I wasn’t sure what to say.  These are all fears.  I could achieve so much if I just let go of my fears. 

With all of that said, fear is, just as death is, guaranteed.  I really don’t believe that anyone can be afraid of nothing.  What is not guaranteed, is dealing with the fear.  People will suddenly feel more nervous when a Muslim is on the plane with them.  Is this rational?  No, but the fear is nevertheless there.  Even after Muslim terrorists are no longer a threat, the fear will probably linger among Americans for quite some time.  This irrational response hinders growth of the civilization and humanity is always progressing.  So letting go of fears and working towards that goal allows the growth of society and our ability to be “humane.” 

5) Although having children could be placed in the same category as experiencing love, this love is maternal and I was previously referring to sexual love.  There is nothing more pleasing to me than having a baby smile at me.  There is something so beautiful in that smile and I don’t know how to explain the beauty.  Any mother could tell me that having their child was the best thing she did.  I just hope that I can experience giving birth one day.  This desire for children is probably mainly biological, but I’m perfectly content with the reason.

And the fact is, when a woman is pregnant, she is storing life.  What an amazing feat.  Humanity could never continue without new life and birth.  I could go even as far to say that women are the solution to death for humans. 

Meaning of Life

More than anything, death illustrates this notion of impermanence.  No living organism survives for eternity.  When a tree is formed it will inevitably either be cut down one day or be conquered by other forces whether it’s an invasive plant or a forest fire.  Even when a child who is beaming with life is born, that child is guaranteed a death whether it is sooner or later.  Material objects also demonstrate the impermanence of our world: a chair is made and in the future it will break either under the weight of a person or by decay over time.  The first example of death in the Epic of Gilgamesh occurs when Enkidu passes away.  His death makes not only the reader, but Gilgamesh extremely aware of and suddenly very sensitive to the concept of death.  He immediately begins to realize the fact that much of his youth is gone and this bothers him so much that he strips himself of his worldly goods and heads into the wild. 

So the question is why do people bother at all to live?  Strictly from a biological point of view, we have an instinct to simply live.  Our gut screams to us to do whatever it takes to extend our life on Earth and not take into account the fact that we can’t live forever.  Putting aside this basic behavior, perhaps it is simply the fact that we CAN live that we go on living.  Since we are alive and we are capable of experiencing life, even a supposedly meaningless one, we just do and try to make the best of it.  One could go so far to say that it is from this “trying to make the best of it” that mortal humans try to derive meaning.

I personally believe that the meaning of life is simply to be happy, and happiness is the goal of many.  However, this doesn’t satisfy many people’s desire for immortality.  Because to live forever is truly impossible, glory and fame represent the few manifestations of immortality that many search for.  If people remember and know my name for the rest of time, am I not immortal?  The knowledge of my character and my accomplishment are still known to others.  A contemporary and real-life example of this is Lady Gaga.  She has said multiple times that all she wants is fame.  Her Fame Monster album and songs have reiterated this desire.  Her incessant desire for fame and attention culminates into a desire for immortality.  If nothing else, Lady Gaga probably wants to be remembered for her fame. 

So much of self-value is placed in the judgments of others and so long as other remember me, I live on.  Gilgamesh, after grieving Enkidu’s death, begins this search for immortality.  He originally seeks to physically live forever, but when a serpent steals his plant of youth Gilgamesh fails.  However, on his way home Gilgamesh comes to the realization that he will live on through the greatness of Uruk, his city.  In essence, the serpent frees Gilgamesh from the idea of physical immortality and gives him the gift of immortality through others.  Today we read his story and talk about his greatness – he is indeed immortal.  He had won this when he slew the forest guardian and the Bull of Heaven and when he went on his quest for immortality.  His story will likely continue to be read or talked about until the end of humanity.  However I must repeat that for so many or at least myself, order and meaning of life derives from happiness.  I live to enjoy life. 

Above all, a hero is someone who sacrifices himself or herself for some other cause.  The hero may dismiss his or her own desires or even give up his or her life, but the hero will always have to sacrifice something.  As so often portrayed in novels and movies, heroes are stereotyped with superhuman strength or other such powers.  Others may say it is the journey that every hero must go through that defines such a person, but I believe it is that final act of using the knowledge gained from the journey that ultimately creates a hero.  Heroes can’t just be strong and kill monsters; they must have the right motivations.  That final act of sacrifice for some greater good is what people can look up to and admire.  For example, in the Harry Potter series, Harry consistently puts his own life in danger for the sake of someone else.  He entered the Chamber of Secrets and fought the Basilisk to save Ginny.  He doesn’t think of the reward, he is only concerned with rescuing Ginny and he does so by using the knowledge he gained from Hermione.  In stark contrast in Beowulf, Beowulf puts his life in danger to kill the evil monster Grendel.  Although Beowulf is technically sacrificing his life for the safety of the people terrorized by Grendel, I don’t believe he truly is a hero.  His acts are motivated by a search for fame and “immortality.”  Heroes are role models and if their acts are motivated by selfish desires, then they aren’t heroes. 

There are also the issues of heroines versus heroes such as Hermione.  She knew very well the perils of what Harry got involved in.  She gave up her last year of school to help him destroy all the Horcruxes and was certainly not dull enough to be oblivious to the risks.  She clearly takes on the role of a hero.  However, Hermione is a rare heroine in a world in which males predominantly are the heroic figures.  In Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Odyssey, and The Lord of the Rings the women are either being saved or are situated safely far from the action.  In the Raiders of the Lost Ark we see Marion kidnapped and gagged.  In the two other stories, both women are at home, waiting for their men to return.  Yet, the women play a different crucial role in which even Hermione falls into.  She and Arwen are these wells of wisdom on which the male heroes depend on at some points.  Other times the woman can act as the motivating factor for the male hero’s success.  Throughout time and literature, this has been the role of women: to serve the males.  Luckily, with some more modern writings women have started to come to the forefront and become more and more heroic.  Lara Craft, the Tomb Raider heroine, is just one example.  A new CW television show features Nikita, a woman who used to work for the government as a type of “hit man” is another. 

Bertolt Brecht has said, "Unhappy the land that needs heroes.”  I must disagree though.  Although there must be some sort of problem or danger in order for someone to act heroic, challenges are a necessity of life.  Everyone and everything has something that can be improved, including heroes.  Heroes allow those he or she helps to grow and change, and I consider changing a virtue.  Change helps everyone move towards something better.