mentor logs

I met my mentor at 6:00 on Saturday afternoon. we sat down and discussed the different ways of invoking a certain response from your target audience, for example my product is a pamphlet with the intention of selling me as a parkour teacher, because of this we needed to word everything very carefully to invoke the proper idea. we decided that you shouldn't use the word risk because it invokes negative connotations, instead we used safety. I learned how important it is to express your intentions and goals in an extremely clear and straightforward manner, and to do this one must have an extensive vocabulary that can be used in ways that guide the reader to a certain perception in order to get the job. I often feel a little self righteous when I talk about the positive aspects of my life, I learned that in order to stick out from your career competition you need to make yourself look extraordinary without telling any untruths. for instance on my brochure I say that I am a founding member of the Athens parkour group, which is completely true but the Athens parkour group is made up of 5-7 friends who all practice, but because we are the only group in Athens this is no exaggeration. I also talk about the fact that I have experience teaching people who are unfamiliar with parkour, which is also true but I don't teach them in a formal manner. I get the idea that most things touting experience are like this, I always feel like I am unqualified because everyone else talks about how qualified they are and I am rather humble. This product has taught me a lot about how to interface with institutions without ever giving up any of my morals or principles, and also without ever having to change my attitude to fit others wants and needs, and instead manipulating opinion so people can accept my views of the world and understand where I am coming from.

mentor log

4/27/08
3:00p.m.-10:00p.m.

I met Rhett Crowe at her house, we sat down and brainstormed different ideas for products. we discussed the possibility of making a video of my personal training regime and documenting my learning experience over the course of the project. we also discussed the possibility of creating a pictorial of training programs, we finally decided on creating a packet that could be used to sell the idea of a parkour class. we spent about two hours coming up with ideas of what possible employers were looking for, how one should present themselves, and other things relating to possible employment. after creating a rough document containing some information about myself and my intentions in teaching a parkour class. after that we began creating a packet of information that could be used to sell the idea of a parkour class to prospective employers, we began by making a brochure in adobe indesign. most of the remaining time was spent creating this document, figuring out the best wording, and deciding on pictures that should be included in this document. I learned a lot about what possible employers look for in a physical activity teacher, what qualifications are needed, such as CPR and first aid certification. because of the extremely new nature of parkour itself there is no regulation on the teaching of parkour classes, there are no standard certification classes for parkour instructors so in this document I really focused on safety and proper progression, making sure to stay away from the extreme sport mentality and thrill seeking attitude.

most of the discussion we had was about how to sell myself to prospective employers, we decided that employers were primarily looking for was skill in the art of parkour, teaching skills, personal dedication, and reliability. we then answered the questions of who what when where why and how? so how would I train people in the art of parkour? I would begin in a safe padded environment to get people used to the movements utilized in parkour. once a elementary level of fitness and technique was attained we would move the students outdoors. now we wondered what I should tell them parkour is? I decided to say that it is a Physical Discipline that focuses on efficient movement by way of training total strength of body and mind. who am I and why am I qualified to teach parkour? I am Carson (obviously) I have been dedicated to training parkour for almost the last 2 years, I am one of the founders of the Athens parkour group, and I am a leader for the south east parkour community. why should someone hire me to offer parkour classes? Parkour is a fairly cutting edge activity that has spread through Europe and is coming to america. if someone were to offer parkour classes it would put this gym at the forefront of physical training methods in Athens. we then took this information and manipulated it into cohesive structure that introduces me and parkour to a possible employer. the most challenging part of this was choosing words carefully to invoke positive ideas and make a possible employer feel like I know what I am talking about, will not put anyone in danger, and provide a service that can help people develop healthy exercise habits.

Brave New World social importance

Brave new world is an extremely important novel, providing many ideas for the consequences of over-socialization, mass production, and homogeneity. This commentary is a very interesting warning of the dehumanization that comes with a large society that holds all the same values. the loss of individuality is a prominent theme in this novel, one cannot have a true utopia without a certain loss of humanity because of the inherent design of humans. we cannot be satisfied unless things are getting better for us, and because of the limited resources if one person gets something good someone else isn't getting it. the key is to make people complacent to never get any better. this constant sameness is pervasive throughout the story, the citizens are perfectly happy to hold a job they were destined to have, never have the possibility of getting rich, never have the possibility of love, but also are totally protected from pain. as world controller Mustapha Mond states, "actual happiness always seems pretty squalid in comparison to the over-compensations for misery." there is no excitement in life, no obstacles to overcome, everything is just sameness.

There are many methods at work in Brave New World used to control the population, completely removing family ties, true relationships, and normalizing death caused everyone to feel less connected even while feeling like they should be more connected. all of the citizens are so preoccupied with what everyone else is thinking that they do no thinking themselves. There is also extensive conditioning at work on children to fit them into society perfectly. All of these concepts seem far-fetched but when you think about it they aren't all that far fetched at all. There is more and more pressure to conform to social norms and to have normalized goals, such as earning lots of money, owning a house, or any other arbitrary measurement of success. homogenization of society is already happening on a large scale, due in part to the otherwise amazing communications technologies that have been developed recently. television and video games are all too often substituted for parenthood in this day and age, if harnessed such technologies could act as a conditioning tool of unprecedented power. 26 years after Brave New World was published Aldous Huxley stated that the world had only gotten closer to the ideas portrayed in BNW. The normalization of sex that is seen in Brave New World is also becoming more and more prominent, "everyone belongs to everyone else" as they say in the book. people aren't as encouraged to have lasting relationships as they are to have quick flings that mean nothing and in the end have no positive effect on your life.

Brave New World is often compared to 1984 because of their respective dystopias. in 1984 everyone was forced to comply to the government, and in Brave New World the government designed the people to never want to rebel against the government. Social Critic Niel Postman stated, "What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us." this goes very far to describe the type of "utopia" that could actually arise because society will be so worried about society we will have no time to worry about the everstrengthening government.

Because of it's surprisingly accurate outlook in some senses, Brave New World should be regarded as having high literary importance in the same way 1984 is important, to serve as a warning of a possible future when not only will people not be allowed to learn, they will be unwilling to. The unwillingness to learn is one of the most dangerous things we face as a society, many people regard knowledge as unimportant and trivial, but having knowledge is the best way to make change in the world. The danger comes in complacency, what makes humans great, and greatly destructive, is our insatiable appetite for expansion and prosperity. we must constantly adapt to the changing world around us by learning and making informed decisions, once we begin to we complacent in our relative happiness is the moment that humanity fails. if we do not seek to improve and change our circumstances what makes any different than a rock or wisp or wisp of air. Life is a chemical reaction and reactions can never sit idle, they must be consuming and distributing energy until there is no more energy to distribute.

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley was born on the 26 of July, 1894 and died 22 of November 1963. He was a premier novelist of the 1920's and onward. Aldous was part of the famous Huxley family, containing famous biologists, humanitarians, and at least one famous author. Huxley was supremely influenced by the industrial and later psychological revolutions that occurred in the 1910s and 20s, and later in the 1950s and 60s, respectively. Huxley's interest in psychoactives can be seen throughout his life, he is often regarded as a pioneer of LSD generation. many of his ideas about the world and it's inhabitants are clearly portrayed in his prose, Brave New World used ideas of consumer culture and mass production to forge a future that is not completely unreasonable. Even in that early work Huxley shows much interest in drugs, mainly as a measure of social regulation in that novel one of the main characters in the story says, "There's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears-that's what soma is."
Huxley was born in Surrey to a writer and biologist named Leonard Huxley, he started learning about biology early due to his father's well equipped botanical laboratory. His grandfather was a famous naturalist, often called "Darwin's Bulldog" for his strong defense of evolution. This upbringing is clearly shown in his work, much of his writing deals with human nature and the tampering one can do with it. This transparency can be found in many of his works, all the ideas that ate floating through his head are clearly interpreted to text, almost becoming a book of ideas and concepts rather than a traditional book that focuses on plot and characters.
Huxley got much inspiration from a brief employment at a technologically advanced Brunner and Mond chemical plant, In Brave New World he actually names the leader of western Europe Mustapha Mond. The industrial revolution as a whole greatly influenced Huxley, mass production and consumer culture are prominent themes in some of his work. In Brave New World Revisited, published 26 years after the original publication, Huxley states that the world is in fact growing closer and closer to the dystopia seen in Brave New World, and at a quicker pace than he had originally predicted.
Only a few years after the publication of Brave New World Huxley moved to Hollywood, California and was introduced the eastern spiritual practice Vedanta. During his time in Hollywood he managed to make some money in the film business as a screenwriter, writing the screenplay for Pride and Prejudice, and producing a screenplay for Alice In Wonderland that was rejected because of it's overly literary style. Despite some successes his work in Hollywood was not a total success, as his literary style was not fit for Hollywood.
Huxley in his later life Huxley became very interested in Psychedelics, using LSD, Mescaline, and other psychedelics extensively from the early fifties until his death in 1963. On his death bed Huxley requested a strong 100μg dose of LSD. These psychedelics greatly influenced his writings, in the book Doors of Perception he openly acknowledges their influence. His final novel, Island, could be considered the antithesis of his most famous one, Brave New World, in the way that it was a genuine utopia. in Brave New World the drug soma is prescribed to control the masses, in Island the inhabitants use a type of psychedelic to gain actual spiritual awareness.
Aldous Huxley was an extremely prolific writer, producing countless novels, short stories, poems, and essays. He was perhaps the most renowned member of the famous Huxley family. Huxley, along with George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov, revolutionized the science fiction genre, not only making predictions at the future but providing poignant social commentary of the present.

Brave New World response 3

It is during it's third act that this book gets most interesting, Bernard, John the Savage, and Linda all come back to London so Bernard can prove that his boss has a son. as soon as they come back John becomes a practical celebrity, being the only person born from "civilized" people, and not conditioned to boot. Bernard revels in the attention he gets from Johns onlookers, almost whoring John's appearances. When John is visiting his dying mother a bokanovsky group undergoing death conditioning enters the room and John breaks down, the sight of tons of twins all moving around the room is too much for him to handle and he goes on a minor rampage, throwing away a lot of soma in order to try to "liberate" the people from it's intoxicating grip. after this John, Helmholtz, and Bernard all go to speak to the world controller Mustapha Mond. Mond threatens to send them to Iceland in exile and Barnard Begins groveling and begging for mercy, he is taken away and Mond reveals that the islands are refuges for free thinkers, all of the most interesting people that society couldn't accept are put on these islands. Mustapha reveals that in his youth he held many of the same "anti-social" ideas that Bernard and Helmholtz have, he was almost sent to an island himself for some radical experiments bordering on real science. He decided that uniformity and happiness for all was more important saying, "actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery." after this John decides to live as a hermit in an abandoned lighthouse, constantly punishing himself because of his self imposed undeservingness. eventually his whereabouts are found and publicized, his peace disturbed by constant visitors and onlookers, eventually causing a massive orgy-fight of passion. the next day John's body is found hanging from the rafters of the lighthouse, dead by suicide.

This entire section of the book raised the most moral questions regarding different ideas of happiness and civilization in the entire book. The "Civilized" society is so utterly homogenous there is never any extraordinary pleasure or pain, everyone is in a perpetual state of sameness. all of us have profound moments of sheer happiness, but also profound moments of sheer discomfort, without these defining moments we are not as human as we once were, we become more like a cell in a body than an individual being. by losing any independence we once had we lose all personal power to those controlling us. the concepts at work in this book can often be sen in our society now, loners are often considered lesser people, people who are unwilling to participate in arbitrary social activities that really do nothing are shunned. people who can see through the veil of irrational human desire are discounted and dismissed from society. it takes a person who can see through this veil and can also see the veil itself to truly affect things. John the savage does not see this, he only sees how incredibly stupid the whole thing is, he cannot see the means to change this stupidity and so he retreats into an irrational life of unnecessary self punishment and religion. this story contains many interesting aspects of society that I myself have been thinking about lately, about the changing of human attitude to fit with society and vice versa. it poses many questions about where to draw the line of the importance between humanity and society. I greatly enjoyed this book and the problems it posed on my own thought processes.

a brave new world response 2

In this portion of the book Bernard and Lenina visited the savage reservation in new Mexico. here we are introduced to the "savages", a group of people living on the equivalent of an Indian reservation. the people here birth their own children and live without higher technology not unlike most tribal cultures. the belief structure is a hybrid of native American beliefs and Christianity that seems like almost any other tribal religion. the vast majority of the people who live in this area cannot read and are of native American descent. it is here that Bernard meets Linda and John the Savage. Linda lived in the "civilized" world when she was younger but on a vacation to the reservation she got lost and was left. at the time of her disappearance she was pregnant, something considered unnatural and taboo in the "civilized" world, because of the lack of contraceptives and abortions she birthed the child, this child was named john. John and Linda are almost shunned from society for their different appearance and attitude due to Linda's conditioning. Unlike almost all other savages john can read due to Linda's tutelage, he only has two books, a notebook from linda's job describing innane techniques needed for such specialized work, and Shakespeare's complete collection. as it so happens the person who was on vacation with Linda when she was lost was none other than Bernard's malevolent boss. Bernard hatches a plan to bring Linda and John back in order to discredit his boss for having a child.

This section of the book is very interesting, at first I though the savages would be what we consider normal people, living in houses and such, and this would create a comedic tone because of the disgust our conditioned main characters would find in what we consider normal life. in reality a more interesting balance was wrought, it seems like Huxley makes the point that there can either be cleanliness, ignorance, bliss, and a lack of self, or utter insanity, but with the ability make your own choices. the "Civilized" world lacks any individuality , choice, or sense of self, but the "savages" offer unscientific, highly superstitious nonsense. there seems to be no middle ground in the book, one cannot make logically informed choices in either situation so the question arises, should we live in a world where there is no individual choice but the overall decisions are scientifically based, or is it better to have personal choice but no scientific logic to base it on.

British novel response 1

I decided to read a brave new world by Aldous Huxley. the book is a very interesting take on a future governed by the laws and values of the industrial revolution taken to an extreme. people are manufactured and manipulated from birth to fit logically and efficiently into society, but ridding people of choice in the meantime. people are conditioned from birth to believe everything the rulers say and to embody the ideal sheep. the governmental structure itself is very odd, at this point in the book it is not well established how everything is actually run. there is a large focus in consumerism in society but there isn't much mention of who produces the consumables and how that system works. the government seems to have a totalitarian rule but it does not take as active a role as most government systems today. Instead this government conditions it's citizens from birth to love the government, behave parfectly according to their caste, and often the extremely judgmental society takes care of any stepping out of line that may occur, instead of governing directly the ruling class trains it's citizens to behave in such a manner to keep them from gaining ideas of their own or making opinions about things. it almost reminds me of the early American puritans who believed in the concept of original sin, that man was naturally sinful because eve ate the fruit of knowledge thus defying god. this concept instills the idea that knowledge is a bad thing, that god doesn't want us to be smart or think for ourselves, ensuring that not only are people uneducated, they are glad about it. This makes the citizenry unable to act against the ruling class, essentially keeping those powerful educated people a step above everyone else, and everyone else is happy about it; ignorance truly is bliss.

society plays a very huge part in this story, everyone is conditioned to be a part of this segmented society, based on a caste system. alphas and betas are the elite whereas deltas are the effective middle class and gammas and epsilons are the lower class. your caste is determined in the test-tube, the lower class people are given chemicals that stunt their growth, effectively making them mentally disabled and only fit for manual labor and dirty work. instead of governing directly people are conditioned from birth to act exactly as the government wants them to. this creates an almost self governing society. everyone is constantly trying to "fit in" everyone as conditioned to want to seem an normal as possible all of the time, reducing civil disobedience or general oddness to a near zero. this homogeneity is indicative of the mass production industrial revolution motif that permeates this story. all the people are mass produced, there are some models that are better than others, but there is absolutely no individuality, people are encouraged to be extremely promiscuous, everyone has sex with everyone else, there is no love or actual personal connection between people, there are no parents, no siblings, no family, no husbands or wives, no real personal connection at all. no one has meaningful connections with anyone thus removing most power people have, the power to form groups of like minded people who are dedicated to a common ideal or action.

the idea of manufactured consent is extremely prevalent in this story, people are conditioned from birth to want things they don't need, people are conditioned to all believe the same things, no one forms their own ideas, no one makes their own decisions, all of the "ideas" and "decisions" that are made are merely forms of the ideas that the government has implanted in them from the earliest age. one could make the argument that the same thing is happening today with advertisements permeating every facet of life these days, and with how well we know the human psyche we know extremely well how to manipulate the ideas and opinions of consumers. the difference is that parents have the ability to teach their children whatever they see fit, with good parents all of that effort of manipulation can be identified and effectively disarmed, imaging how bush's approval rates would be if his cabinet was the one to raise all the citizens, it would probably be amazing.

this story is an extremely interesting one to be sure but it is by no means a possible outcome of society in my opinion. we are approaching this sort of system now and seeing how it is impossible to sustain, the industrial revolution created such a rapid change in environmental content the life has no ability to keep up, and in order to continue to survive and thrive on this planet we need other life and it would not simply be possible to sustain the ecosystem with as large scale industrial application that is proposed by this novel, it would simply be unable to keep itself from collapsing in on itself due to lack of resources or general imperfection in plans. for such a society to exist it would need to be absolutely perfectly balanced or it would fail.

I greatly enjoy this book as it is a very good example of what might happen if humans continue down the course of industry, capitalism, and consumerism. it is interesting how this novel takes many of the concepts usually applied to a competition driven market systems and usues them to form a government that almost embodies a massive corporation.

Beowulf

Beowulf is a very interesting story, it is purported to be the oldest story in the English language, but because of it's immense age it still must be translated into term that can be understood today. Another funny occurrence because of this age there is a change of priorities, it is very apparent in this story that people held lineage in very high regard, when someone is being introduced the narrator speaks of his father, his father's father, and so on, telling the reader of the entire family's conquests and bravery. A good example of this genocentric idea is in the opening of the story,

"Listen:
You have heard of the Danish Kings
in the old days and how
they were great warriors.
Shield, the son of Sheaf,
took many an enemy's chair,
terrified many a warrior...
Shield had a son...
Grain was his name;
he was famous
throughout the North...
Grain ruled the Danes
a long time after his father's death,
and to him was born
the great Healfdene, fierce in battle,
who ruled until he was old.
Healfdene had four children--
Heorogar, Hrothgar, Halga the Good,
and a daughter who married
Onela, King of the Swedes."

This idea shows itself almost every time a character is introduced, which is fairly often in this story, it almost seems like half of the story is telling you about the relatives of the subjects of the story.

Another Anglo-Saxon idea that is very prevalent in this story is that of a tribal warrior culture, the main way these people get things done is by fighting. because of the very basic infrastructure the societies that could operate smoothly were much smaller, having certain regions acting as the countries of today act. these regions may be even smaller than a state of today but they were still independent from the other tribes. the ideas of pride and honor also play a large part in the story, and it is interesting to see decisions made based on cultural norms that have completely changed today. a person would not sail across a large body of water to fight off their neighbor's tormentors, because we have a very well put together protection system, there aren't many demons more powerful than our government.

the language of beowulf is very interesting mainly because it is a translation from (really) old English, it is supposed to be the first tale ever written in English but because English has evolved so much as a language it is completely indistinguishable from what we now speak. because of this completely different style of writing, and the generally young nature of story writing, the story seems fairly disjointed, the flow is often interrupted by an explanation of an extremely long heritage or story of many generations ago, the time line is sometimes confusing.

I didn't find the story itself very interesting, because of it's age it uses extremely basic literary techniques, it is rather disjointed in the timeline, and does not present any new sorts of ideas. I am used to contemporary writing styles that use modern language and intricate plot devices, making for a seemingly more detailed story. Beowulf does not seem to have a particularly poignant social commentary and does not introduce hardly any new ideas into my idea of literature so it doesn't feel like it really adds anything to my knowledge of literature except for my knowledge of the story of beowulf.

I feel like the way beowulf dies is only fitting for a hero, it reminds me of the 300 spartan soldiers who sacrificed themselves at thermopylae to force a war with persia. the spartans won freedom for their people but had to sacrifice themselves in order to attain it, they did not fear their death because they knew they were dying for a reason, it was the same with Beowulf. he was honored to die in an honorable way.