Christmas-Holiday Songs

What Child is this?
Away in a Manger
Silent Night
Oh Holy Night

When you look at Christmas Music (songs made to represent Christianity and Christ's birth) from a folklore perspective, you immediately classify them as "hero worship" songs--songs that are designed to praise the deeds of a hero, someone who has done something outstanding that affects the lives of others.

But I have a question: Why don't we have more Holiday hero worship songs--sure, we have Santa, but he's not real--the metaphor is real, but the person isn't ACTUALLY real.

Things have changed in my life and I need to find the true meaning of Christmas all over again--to me it will always be "Christmas" but what am I really celebrating?

I think the thing that I'm celebrating on Christmas time is the good deeds of those around me. The charitable acts, the dignity, the respect, the courage of man--these are the things I care about. 

To me, Christmas is a time of year to recommit myself to being a man. It's a time of year to recommit myself to being forgiving and merciful. To be thankful. To love. Christmas is about performing kind deeds and helping others.

This year, I'm going to focus on searching for those people who are honorable, who are courageous, who are capable of putting their own wants and desires aside in order to accommodate others. I have a great respect for those people, even though I don't always recognize or acknowledge them. That's what the true spirit of Christmas is about, and I wish more songs were written about these people and their deeds as opposed to some king born long ago whose affect continues to reach me only because his followers continue to worship him even though he died long before they were born and his kingdom is no longer his own.

USU Makes a Deal

If you live in Logan, UT or Cache Valley...or anywhere near there, I am hosting a fund-raising event for a non-profit organization, Wasatch Social Ventures,  which is the organization responsible for raising funds for the Huntsman SEED program. The fund-raising event is called USU Makes a Deal, and is patterned after the TV show "Let's Make a Deal." We are going to charge $5 for admission (or $8 at the door).

Here is the event page for USU Makes a Deal
https://www.facebook.com/events/117270405089323/

And here is some more information about the SEED program, which sends students to 3rd world countries on a mission to educate people about starting businesses and to extend those people micro-loans to start up their dreams:
http://huntsman.usu.edu/seed/


Tell all your friends for me!

'Analyze this for me'

When people tell you to analyze something, what they're really saying is, "give me your expert opinion."
This is different from "synthesize," which more or less means, "Dig up all the information you can and tell me about everything you find--both good and bad."

Most of the time, when someone asks you a question, they're asking you to analyze something--to use your reasoning skills and come up with your own argument about whatever their question is.

Do you like eggs? --analyze this carefully and tell me if you like eggs. it's your opinion.
Where do you live? --analyze this carefully and tell me where you live.

Who is better, Romney, or Obama? --Again...analyze this carefully and tell me who is better (it's an opinion regardless of how good your argument is).

But what about when they say:

What are some options I could use to solve x? --synthesize all of the possible outcomes and summarize them for me. Don't give me your opinion, but based on what you come up with give me the pros and cons.
What is Obama's stance and Romney's stance on topic z?--Synthesize the two arguments (Obama's argument, and Romney's argument) and summarize them for me. Don't give me your opinion.

Typically, people want your Analysis of information more than your Synthesis--synthesizing something can take way too much time and people want simple answers.

Isn't it amazing that your brain can perform two similar, but vastly different functions when someone asks you a question, even without knowing the distinction between what synthesizing or analyzing is?

1%

Everyone who has ever lived is at least 1% persuadable.

Arguments are all around us--this is the basis of Rhetoric Theory.
People are always taking one side or the other--sometimes they do it knowingly, other times they do it ignorantly, but they always take a side.

Some people appear to be unconvincable. They seem like they will never change their stance on an arugment.

The truth is... no one is 100% firm on their opinions and stances. Everyone can be persuaded one way or another. People who seem to be 100% in behalf of their argument are really only 99%; the argument then becomes a matter of discovering in what way they can be pursuaded and whether the cost-benefit of persuading them is worth it.

Most people who are 99% aren't worth arguing with because people tend to be more firm on trivial matters than important ones, and trivial matters aren't worth arguing over.

The Film Director's Magic

Film Directors have magic powers--everyone knows that. You watch a movie and they talk about "movie magic."

Some directors are better at it than others.

But to be a movie Director means that you have honed your ability to understand human beings. The director's main responsibility is to portray real human beings in unreal circumstances; but to do that, they need to know how humans think, act, react, feel, and express themselves.

Whether sadly or fortunately, the Film Director's "magic abilities" extend to real life: they know better than most people how others around them are going to think, act, react, feel, or express themselves. These others can be friends, loved ones, family, and even enemies.

Few people understand the depth that a film director can perceive--nor do they trust in their experience. But after everything is said and done, it was the film director who chose to take this responsibility. In society, film directors are responsible for making mankind know and understand its biggest strengths and weaknesses: it's people.

Bad People

Even bad people have consciences.

Though we don't know his true motivation, Hitler's motive for killing himself can be narrowed down to a few things:
1. He realized how many people he killed in his quest for global domination
2. He realized he could never achieve the things he wanted to in life
3. He wanted to die for the things he believed in and not be captured like others who came before him (Napoleon)

I find comfort in these three motivations because, 1) shows that even he had a conscious, 2) reinforces that bad people will never succeed, 3) we can rest assured that in order to do such evil things you really do have to give up your life to them, and very few people throughout history have given so much of their lives to one thing so evil so there will be very few incredibly bad people.

Consensus, Competition and Universal Balance

This is a photo of plants competing for sunlight.

I was going to include a picture of the yin and yang, but I think everyone knows what that is, what it symbolizes and what it looks like.

Competition is in the Yin and Yang just like it is in this photo. Universal Balance can be seen in this photo and the Yin and Yang--universal balance is the yin and yang! But where is consensus?

When you observe life, consensus is found in rhetoric. It is found in every tongue of every living being. Consensus is a large part of the glue that holds society together. Consensus is supposed to be a tool created by mankind that achieves universal balance peacefully.

However, the natural world does not use consensus. It doesn't need to. It just competes.
And although the man-made world uses consensus, it often uses consensus to the benefit of one group of individual over another group of individual. The difference is that in the name of consensus the mighty either force the weak to submit to their demands or the weak force the mighty to make sacrifices. The mighty, though never completely hobbled, will still continue to shape the weak in whatever way they want, they will merely be forced to deal with additional setbacks along the way.

Consensus is not the end all of the universe; balance is. Things will happen that are supposed to happen, no matter how hard you try to prevent them or slow them down.
The masters of the universe are those people who are mighty--those who are capable of making sacrifices because those sacrifices won't set them back, and those who are capable of making advantageous deals, because the weak are weak enough to submit to them.

In the end every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You choose this day who you will be in the future . Will you be weak or mighty?