20) Unrivaled Ego Squared

The Unites States of America is a country born from a lustrous history. Its origins take root in the captivating struggles of freedom that sparked off reform of world governments. It is a wonder how a country with one of the shortest lifespans is also one of the strongest in the world.

As one ponders such success, they may question the leadership, the form of government, or the premise of freedom from which the United States was built on. But others, like me, may question not the origins, but the effects.

There is little doubt the United States was shaped by its respected and honorable military tradition. Through countless wars and conflicts, the U.S. has prevailed, becoming stronger and better. This has formed a foreign policy not afraid to use excessive force. It is through this brute force that Americans love to rely on for change.

But after how many success before you begin to believe in your invincibility? And how many wars will be lost before you realize otherwise?

Few patriots in any country want to admit failures. Not even regular people like you and me want to either. So when you ask a true American patriot about the Vietnam War, or perhaps the current war in the Middle East, they many shy away from a straight and honest answer.

This is not to say that they're wrong, but rather to prove an ego.

Let's admit it: why shouldn't Americans have an ego? They were able to build a world superpower in less than 300 years. Compared to a country like China, which has been around for more than 2000 years, America seems to be filled with unrivaled leadership and military strength.

It is debatable as to whether the United States is the best country in the world. It contains numerous flaws, as any human has. One of these flaws just happens to be an ego.

In my eyes, as a young student, I question the influence egos have in running a country. As a warrior, I believe it to be dangerous and foolish. As a pacifist, I see it as a vice. And as a leader, I see it as the devil himself.

19) Desperation and Liberation

In a whole hearted attempt to kill Mr. Writer's Block, I've decided to undertake a writing exercise I've been itching to do for some time. If my reflections are any indication, it's that I really can't back down from some writing innovation if I have the chance. So I'm here to combine the two things I always do when I blog: typing, and listening to The Killers.

Ladies and Gentleman: Desperate

Send me a way out

Anywhere away from this hellhole of my house.

I'm here on my own
I was always on my own. Still am.
Interlude with some good notes. Hard and heavy.

Hammer, stutter now
Let's smash in some skulls.
Lets rock, lets roll now
The calm before the storm is liberating.
She says I'm obsessed
I say I'm in love
Who will ever love me?
Hold me
Pipe dreams that won't happen.
You've done it now
Now send me way out
I feel insecure
Who really doesn't?
And desperate
But not right now
I feel it now
I feel your hate for me.

And you don't see
You don't see how I have soul.
The way I see
I've got it now
I understand. I'm destined to suffer.
I'm desperate
Realized it on my 13th birthday.

Desperate
Nobody gives a shit when I say it.
Desperate
But I have to care when you say it.

I'm better off like this
You keep telling yourself that.
I'm better off
I'm better off like this
No I'm not. And you wouldn't care either way.
Don't you know I care
Yeah. I do care. More than you will ever know.
No, no

Desperate
Sing along now boys and girls.
Desperate
Listen to that guitar play.
Desperate
That a solo?
Desperate
I remember that time I tried to die.

I'm better off like this
I'm better off
If I say it enough times it might come true.
I'm better off like this

Don't you know I care
No, no

I wish I was myself
Close now.
Again
Back when I was still innocent?
I wish I was myself
Maybe. Just maybe.
Again

Interlude: Fitzgerald

Scott Fitzgerald has a unique way of expressing a character. Normally we find the same style with several variations, pockmarked with dialogue, along with inner descriptions of context. What distinguishes Fitzgerald from others is his ability to describe characters in the shortest amount of time without much background.

He relates to people's own experiences to force them to guess what is not there. In his short story "The Homes of the Stars", the main character, Pat Hobby, capitalizes on a mistaken situation. A couple mistakes him for a tour guide, and he decides to go on with the charade to gain some money. Pat's simple request of "Would you be able to pay in advance?" is a simple way to describe his personality. As a general sentence, we can already infer that our protagonist is in financial trouble.

Later in the story, most of the dialogue is filler conversation between Pat and the couple. As they approach a home, which the couple assumes to be Shirley Temple's house, Pat begins to panic: "Not here...I made a mistake." Most of his dialogue can be interpreted as improvisation and worry. Here, we understand the full scope of his fear, and Pat begins to realize what he's gotten himself into.

All in all, Fitzgerald shines in his short stories when he makes characters as vague as possible. He makes them come alive by provoking people's imagination. In the context of the story, a made up background is just as effective as the unwritten one, if not more so.

18) Imperfect Integrity

When I decided to join track and field this year, I didn't take the decision lightly. I was afraid I wouldn't have enough time to do my homework. The major factor was that I needed to get away from my computer more. I wanted to get in shape.

So like everyone else, I signed the athletic packet, which required physical clearance from my family doctor. Off I went to the health care center in Oakland, supposedly stopping in at the last appointment of the day.

I expected a fifteen minute checkup. I stayed for two hours.

My doctor started asking questions, supposedly to calm me down, or to fill in some of the forms I had. At first I thought it was normal, until he got in depth about my future career and my grades. Then he started to tangent off.

I sat there listening to him rant on about society. About not limiting yourself. About being noble.

I didn't want to hear his speech, but I was intrigued. I sat and looked straight into his eyes as he spoke. He didn't waver once in what he wanted to tell me.

He proposed an analogy about current situations. That life was one part intelligence, nine parts effort. He referenced the smart people in every classroom who were fully capable on succeeding, except that they lacked the motivation and effort. He told me that when a person is shown a video of their ethnic group being discriminated against, they would fail their math test the next day. If they saw a motivation speech by a person of their race, they would ace that math test. He told me that the only person limiting yourself is you.

He went on to explain that his time at Harvard was not in vain, even though he went on to become a lowly clinic doctor. He was perfectly content on being himself due to the modesty he practiced in nobility. "Who is more noble?" he asked, "The high school dropout garbage man who never fails to collect trash, or the Harvard graduate CEO who's taking government bailout money to grab bonuses for himself?"

He concluded by simply stating that all he wanted to do was motivate me to become noble, and become whoever I wanted to be. I shrugged on what I thought was my first experience in a major faux pas.

I say this because I felt some unexplainable anger. At first I thought it was disgust at how the wrong person is telling me how to live my life. He was my doctor, not my father. Then I realized it was because I had never heard this from my father at all.

Did I start to hate my dad? The one who neglected to make this speech in my life?

My father and I don't talk for days at a time. When we do, it's not about anything important. Even though we live under the same roof, I grow more distant from him everyday. He doesn't know how to be a father. My grandfather died of smoking when he was young, so my he doesn't know the first thing about parenting. He and I share the mutual passive attitudes of not bothering each other, making it up as we go. Even as he continues to smoke himself to death like his father did.

With that, I finally decided not to ever take up smoking, no matter what. I decided that if I ever have children, I'll give them what I now dub the "Doctor Speech". And most of all, I'll make sure that I never stop putting in nine parts effort to one part intelligence, especially when it comes to my own life.

I think I'll be able to join track with my head held high.

17) Capacity and Venture

Having enough time to process and ponder The Dumbest Generation from a previous post, I've formulated a theory on why the book is right, even though it's not the premise the book advocates. I respect the book for the perspective it's given me, but I hate it begrudgingly for failing to convince effectively. And if it can't convince a 16 year-old effectively, I don't think it would convince others.

And so I see the folly that proves my theory. The book claims that the younger generation of today is much dumber than the previous, due to their reliance and obsession with modern technologies. But what I see is not lack of intelligence, but a lack of effort.

In the beginning of the 20th century, when standardized schooling become more mainstream in America, the social norms at the time demanded that students learn without resistance. That was a time where you did not talk back to your parents.

By the time World War 2 rolled around, and the GI bill was introduced, education was necessary for success. Colleges and universities became a symbol of a respectable way of life for the American youth.

What do these times have in common that does not exist today? Effort.

In those two times, effort was an asset and not a liability. You had to try hard or realize your failure catching up behind you. There was little argument that the American dream demanded that the young never stop trying to exceed their parents. Social developments and generational shift has loosened the need to try your hardest for the many things that can be taken for granted.

The way I see it, it used to be full effort and little intelligence. Now it's full intelligence and little effort.

These days, technology has diminished the need for effort. You don't need to walk to the library to get a book and read it for a report. You can go online to copy and paste from Wikipedia. The information is easier to obtain, letting technological dependence make us lazy.

I scour the web daily and see insightful arguments in the realms of YouTube and online forums. They go in-depth about the world, ranging from politics to religion.

The problem is that such intelligence stays at the computer. I believe most are now more comfortable expressing themselves in ways that demand the least effort.

Intelligence has not regressed or stopped. It's just being expressed in unprecedented forms. That's why the evidence is more difficult to obtain.

And mostly because we're too lazy to find said evidence.

English Final: Analyzation

Blogger and the overall idea of blogging has changed little about me, even though teachers would claim it is beneficial to my writing skills. My problem is that I don't see whatever improvements I'm supposed to have made. My doubt into this matter is a result of my constant writer's block.

I'm not accustomed to "freedom" writing in school. I doubt many others are either. There are very few writing assignments where you have full flexibility in what you wish to express. This is most likely due to fears of what you can write about in school and get away with. People love to bend this thin line of school ethics whenever they can.

This year, when I decided to take creative writing and required English, one of my main objectives was to defeat my adversary, Mr. Writer's Block. Now I have two classes that force me to do what I am not used to: exercise creative freedom. The number of assignments I have with such flexibility is on the rise. Right now, I'm juggling between blog posts and a few fictional stories I intend to finish.

Such creative independence is daunting. I am not accustomed to freedom over my actions. Most of the time, somebody controls or influences what I wear and eat. In my previous schooling, over numerous assignments, I've always had direction that forced me to work with guidelines.

This lack of dependency now has forced me into an ocean of topics that I hesitate to choose from. It's not because there's so little to work with, but because there is far too much. I don't like jumping into the ocean of creativity without a lifesaver. I often drown.

This is why most of my blog posts are drawn from random moments of inspiration. These are often influenced by others, which I still consider to be guidelines from fake teachers. They indicate what I should write about. These moments are seemingly random, and there is a subconscious response that reminds me I have a post due as an assignment. Sometimes I write these ideas down, and then disregard them later because I deem them stupid or impractical. The one idea I do keep, I write about.

This brings me to my second problem. When I don't discover moments of inspirational clarity, my mind enters a narrow alley. I just want to get the work done and disregard my creative voice. Some may be able to pull ideas out of nowhere on the spot, but the assignments I work on have a deadline. Although it is to be expected, you can't control creativity. I can't pop up with writing ideas at any given moment. My lemon of a brain doesn't like to be squeezed as a last ditch effort to complete homework, especially not the night before it's due.

When I started weekly blogging with YOM, I was enthusiastic about the idea. My first post was a prelude to the great endeavors I would undertake. As time wore on, my idea pool became exhausted, and I began writing ideas without efficiency and thoughtful prose. By the time I got here, my writing style was lacking in terms of language diversity and purpose. I was writing because I had to, not because I wanted to. This still holds true today.

Part of it is that I do some of the blog posts at school, or that I'm simply repulsed with being forced to make ideas out of thin air. My distaste for blogging has grown into an untimely chore rather than an outlet for my spirit. I'm still struggling with writer's block on my blog, along with the overall construction of this entire self-analyzation. The evidence is in my old blog, Shattered Infinity. Writer's block forced me to kill it with extreme self loathing.

When I do write, my current blog follows a trend. I generally just write about media and politics. Everything else falls into the miscellaneous category.

Media is an easy choice for me, as it is for many others on their blogs, obviously because of the impact it has on our lives. My obsession comes with people's interactions with media, and exactly how trends work. More specifically, this goes into the booming video game industry I am so very fond of. This is reflective on the video gamer in me.

Politics is the second fail safe option. It's tempting to write about, but must be done carefully to avoid confusion and criticism, even though both are expected in the final result. I fear the outcome enough to shy away from it.

The bright side on writing about political affairs is that you can relate to everyone on a personal level, as many have a political opinion. Also, you choose who to write about without getting easily stuck. There are many influences to draw from. Barrack Obama is clearly one of the major characters that come to mind. Following my mission statement, I have an inner craving to urge readers of my blog to think more about politics. After all, the government controls many aspects of your life.

Other times, I speculate on combining the two. I often visit www.gamepolitics.com, where I can get inspiration on the two topics that inspire me to write. I've started many hybrids of game politics posts, but they've turned video game posts every time. I hate politics more than I love video games.

I'm dissatisfied with restricting myself to these topics. I want to break the trend, but alas, Mr. Writer's Block has his gun to my head.

If there is anything I learned in the past few months, it's that I should broaden my writing horizons. I'm trying to overcome my fear of writing without being stuck. I've started to save unfinished blog posts and rants instead of deleting them. Looking over them might give me inspiration, and tell me what I shouldn't do when it comes to writing in general.

First, writer's block killed Shattered Infinity. Now it's forced me into a ditch with my current blog YOM. I feel I need to gain some revenge against Mr. Block.

Third time's a charm.

Interlude: Quickwriting Groups

In an effort to help Mr. Sutherland with his writing groups, I want to help him gain perspective on what I really think about the whole idea.

Personally, I am against the entire thing because I don't think people are comfortable enough with the students on the opposite sides of the room to work with each other on something as personal as writing. Most of the people in the class are often clustered and do not like to stray from the people they sit next to and know so very well.

If you wish to encourage stronger bonds in helping each other with writing, I don't suggest you do it with groups of more than 2 or 3. It is also important that students are able to work together with someone they know and are comfortable working with to maximize efficiency.

The only real advantage I see to writing groups in addition to our current discussions is to help with writer's block. For people who discuss the quick write in a short five minutes, half the class is actually talking about the topic at hand, while the other half are socializing or sleeping. As such, unless executed with minor deviation from our current procedure, I think these groups are a waste of time.

16) Innovation and Expectation

Above is a picture of Sony's hardware dedicated to their game Warhawk. Instead of forcing players to host games on their own consoles, players get to host their games on a select PS3 in the server cluster owned by Sony. Not only does this make the games faster and smoother, it is also a staggering example of innovation in technology use.

Of course, I bring this up to segway into discussing game industry innovations in the last few years. The past year showed progress in the form of new games:

Demon's Souls: A classic role playing game that brings the dungeons and dragons fantasy into the gaming world. This certainty isn't the first of its kind, nor will it be the last. But it introduces a new system of multiplayer interactivity not seen before.

First and foremost, you are online at all times. You see the "ghosts" of other players in your section of the game world. This is a real-time image of what that player is doing in the area you're in. This is vital, as players can help each other in unsuspecting ways.

Watching these other players provides insight into whether or not there are enemies nearby, what strategy to follow, or where certain items are. If a player dies, you can find their death spot to witness their last actions in the game world. This can clue you in on what to do and what not to do if you are intent on succeeding where they failed.

Players can even leave messages anywhere on the ground to be read by others, advice that can be followed or ignored. These notes can be rated by readers to provide a health boost to the author of the note.

Players can also team up in co-op with two others to take on a boss. And you can even invade others people's games, in which case you are no longer a ghost on their screen. You get to kill them and loot their items. As a matter of fact, one major boss fight in the game requires that you fight an invader. In such a case, you might either be the defender, or the boss.

Heavy Rain: A brand new unreleased epic that builds on the increasingly popular trend of experimental games. In Heavy Rain, you don't follow just one path. Rather, you are incorporated into a world where you must make free form decisions that can change game elements. No two play sessions will be the same.

You control characters in their natural and sensual environments, laced with events in which you must make quick button presses to perform actions. This includes everything from drawing a picture, to shaving, or a heavy fist fight.

What if you make a bad decision and your character dies? They are dead for the rest of the game. You must continue in the eyes of another protagonist.

Needless to say, there is still a long way to go before we delve into the realm of realism that games will one day achieve. As for now, we are seeing the starting steps to new and unprecedented ideas that can and will change our perspectives of entertainment and media.

So don't worry folks. Life is just a game....

15) Apocalypse How?

Let's face the facts. America is not in a good shape right now. You don't read the front page of the newspaper or watch the local news without seeing some disturbing, convoluted, or depressing image.

And yet here we are, nearing the most holy of days, and the general aura around me seems to be getting sadder and sadder. There is an unspoken, unrealized trend of depression going on, seeping into the very fabric of our lives, dragging us down into the depths of our own private hells.

But who's to blame? You can't really be optimistic when you see the long list of things this current society gets to complain about. There's global warming, the war in the middle east, the destroyed housing market, the collapsed economy, the rising unemployment rate, etc. The list goes on.

I try to remember the happier days, when others around me weren't so grouchy and pessimistic about everything. You could sense the shift from the happier times to the current hell. You might not have seen it, but I did, in very subtle and nearly unnoticeable ways.

Take the slackers for example. There are always a group of people in school that don't do the work, joke around, disrupt class, etc. I always used to think that they really didn't care about their future. But now, I start to question whether they are subconsciously smart enough just not to care anymore. What good does an education do you when the world is ending? Why not laugh it up while you still can? Isn't the guy with no brains and a stable low-paying job worth more nowadays?

I don't really know. All I can know is how to pull through. But if I survive long enough to see the next generation suffer, I can tell them what an idol of mine once said:

If you're going through hell, keep going.

- Winston Churchill

14) Ego Stroke.

It was all started in 1899 by Rudyard Kipling. "The White Man's Burden" unleashed a hell of what is today, arguably, a policy of global intervention and imperialism. Granted, the poem can be interpreted many different ways, but the main message persists: It is the white man's way to try and help the other, lower, inferior races.

It all started the spiral of Eurocentric racism, and more importantly, it is still a vital part of many countries today. However, I bring this up to remind you of the repercussions.

Racism is what is too natural in compulsive human behavior. Nobody can be blamed for prejudiced behaviors and opinions because they cannot be easily controlled. There is still no effective way, in this day and age, to eliminate racism.

But when it comes to conquering other countries and killing their people to satisfy the "White Man's Burden", how far is too far? Where does the global superpower draw the line between the improvement of other countries and genocide?

Take the Philippine-American War for instance. When the U.S. tried to annex the Philippines, what happened? The country, expectantly, fought back. And then the U.S. government now had an obligation to correct the wrongs of the country and instill "peace". And that's exactly what happened. The Philippines would not become independent until 1946.

And so it continued, and continues to this day. The fact is that Imperialism is just another form of racism, clear and simple. I said you couldn't prevent it. That you couldn't get rid of it. But when people realize it, and do absolutely nothing against it, we have a serious issue on our hands. Forget the moral implications. Isn't it more central to American ideals that all men should be able to live with their creed and beliefs? Without being punished for it? Without being forced to change it?

What gives a country the right to impose on another, when they have been doing perfectly fine by themselves for the past thousand years?

And yet, we see the paradoxes that have occurred. Today, the war in Iraq serves as a prime example of the American ego that has not yet been quelled. Of course the war is justified on some means. But you want to be fair? Put U.S. troops in every single major conflict in the world. Put them in Israel-Palestine, put them in Africa, and then we can talk.

And then I'll be able to look you in the eye and tell you humanity has advanced themselves for the past two millennium. That they've risen beyond selfish compulsions of resorting to violence.