"Since you're gone, nights are getting strange. Since you're gone, nothing's making sense." - The Cars, Since You're Gone My guinea pig, Autumn, passed away recently, so I'm doing both of my Moral Compass quotes for this week in memory of her. My first quote is from one of my favorite songs by The Cars, an 80's band who favors the synthesizer. It also depicts my emotions after her death quite accurately: a sense of a hole opening inside of myself, a constant feeling like something is missing in my life. Through this experience, I can connect to the narrator of Night, by Elie Wiesel. It is a memoir, so Elie himself is the narrator. Elie is a Jewish boy of 15 when he and his town are taken by the Nazi Empire and made to live in concentration camps for 1 - 2 years. He feels this sense of a great hole opening up inside of himself twice: once when his faith in a God of absolute justice is killed by the unheeded suffering around him, and once when his father is murdered by an SS officer with a club. The only difference between Elie and me at those times was that Elie was numb to pain, emotional or physical, due to all that he had been through.
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"If I am walking with two men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself." -Confucius As we advance in rank in Karate, this is how my Sensei likes to teach us. Instead of showing us how to do something and then having us practice it as he makes corrections (although that still is necessary), he likes to have us try to spot our own mistakes and correct them on our own. This includes observing the Katas, or forms, of others, and learning from them in precisely the same way as the above quote describes. One might assume that we watch the Katas of higher belts and imitate the good points, then watch the Katas of the lower belts and correct the bad points in ourselves, but this is not the case. Both groups are observed evenly; trying to pick out bad points in the higher belts' Katas is much harder, and requires more introspection, and trying to find good points in the lower belts' Katas that we can imitate is more about introspection also: What am I not doing in my Kata that I should be? What are they doing in their Katas that I am not? I think that learning by example is one of the best ways to learn, and actually I talk about this in my Synthesis Essay: empathic people must be willing to be the change that they want to see in the
"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop." -Confucius This is an interesting quote; directly, it relates to momentum, a large concept in physics (always move forward, for if you stop you will have a hard time starting again). However, that definition that I just gave in parentheses works both literally and metaphorically. When I read this quote, the first thing that comes to mind is the philosophy of one of my Boy Scout troop leaders, with respect to hiking: when he leads hikes, he does not like to take breaks. If the going is tough, or uphill, and you stop, it makes it even harder when you begin to hike again. Instead, he asks people to just walk as slowly as they need to when going uphill, as long as they are, in fact, still moving. We then make up for the lost time by going as fast as is humanly possible without
When we wrote our synthesis essays in class this week, one of the sources that we could have chosen was Feeding America, San Diego. I found this interesting because I have volunteered there before. It is absolutely incredible what they do; I was helping to box food, and when I arrived I was led into a literal warehouse, with boxes and crates of food stacked to the ceiling. If empathy is what gets people to donate to charities like Feeding America SD, then those people running the organization must be some of the most empathic people around!
I actually enjoy shooting sports. I don't have many opportunities to shoot guns; I don't own any, and I don't have any nearby shooting ranges. So, I jump at any chances I get to shoot. One pretty neat experience that I had recently with shooting was at Philmont Scout Ranch (again!), when I had the opportunity to do Cowboy Action shooting. For those of you who don't know what this is, Cowboy Action shooting was created by some gun fanatics who got bored with having to buy all of the latest models to win competitions. One day, someone said, "Hey, guys! Let's just grab some old, outdated guns and go mess around with them! It'll be fun." And Cowboy Action shooting was born. (click below to read more)
"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." - Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird I take a lot of leadership positions in my boy scout troop, and I have an assertive personality, but in reality leadership mostly stresses me out. I have heard many people say that they wish that they could rule the world, or that they aspire to be president. I have heard as many people say that they would not want to be president, and I am firmly in that camp. The above quote from To Kill a Mockingbird tells us to refrain from judging a book by its cover; the job of president gets you instant access to fame and money . . . and drops a ton of responsibilities on you. You would constantly have aides, coworkers, and many other people besides on your heels, asking you questions, and while some people thrive under those conditions I do not. Really, I don't know how Barack Obama manages to get from one day to the next without some part of his brain spontaneously combusting from an excessive energy usage. Anyone who can handle leadership like he can has my respect.
"I've been everywhere, man. I've crossed the deserts bare, man. I've breathed the mountain air, man. Of travel I've had my share, man, I've been everywhere." - Johnny Cash, I've Been Everywhere No, I haven't actually been to Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota, and all of those other places that the song talks about (with the exception of Buffalo and Toronto -- I actually have visited those places). More's the pity; I wish I traveled that frequently and widely. I have crossed the deserts bare and breathed the mountain air, though. As soon as you saw the title and/or read the quote, you probably realized what this was going to be about: backpacking. Backpacking with my boy scout troop, I've done those things and others besides. I know that I've done many moral compass entries about backpacking already, and there's more to come; it'll take the whole year for me to exhaust my supply of BSA Troop 680 stories. Here's another one. (click below to read more)
"There's always a chance to get restarted to a new world, new life, scarred but smarter." - Drivin' N' Cryin', Scarred but Smarter I make myself look like an idiot all the time. Nearly everyone does at some point in their life. I'm human, I make mistakes -- and making mistakes isn't necessarily a bad thing if you learn from them. That's the trick. Some people say in life that there are no second chances. I think that there are more second chances in life than you could possibly count, if you know where to look. You encounter many of them every day. When I make a minor mistake, I can many times get a second chance, and when I do I try to learn from my mistake from before. In this way, I can avoid making the bigger mistakes later on that I can't have a second chance on. (click below to read more)
"We don't need no education. . . . No dark sarcasm in the classroom. . . . Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!" - Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall Part II If Bruce Springsteen is my favorite music artist, Pink Floyd is a close second. This quote is from one of the band's most famous songs. I actually like school, but this tie in very closely with the first experience from school with Scout, the narrator from To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. Her first experience starts off bad, with her teacher, Miss Caroline, becoming annoyed at the fact that Scout is already literate. Miss Caroline tells Scout to stop reading at home, which she would hate to do. It is Miss Caroline's turn to have her day ruined when Burris Ewell, the son of Mr. Ewell, the main antagonist in the book, insults her deeply and walks out of the classroom while Miss Caroline cries on her desk, her feelings wounded. Scout simply sits by while this happens; she can't do anything about it. It doesn't serve to improve her day any, though. All in all, Scout has a miserable first day of school, and the rest of her time in school isn't any better.
"He climbed cathedral mountains; he saw silver clouds below. He saw everything, as far as you can see." - John Denver, Colorado Rocky Mountain High Been there, done that. It's really cold at 14,000 feet elevation above sea level. Seriously, though, I have climbed a 14,000-foot mountain before: Pico Blanca; it's not the most fun experience while you're going up, or easy on your knees going down, but it is something that everyone, at some point in their lives, should do. It doesn't have to be on that scale - not everyone can climb a 14,000-foot mountain for various reasons - but everyone needs to have the opportunity to do something that they would have looked at before and said, "I could never do that." Summitting Pico Blanca was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I think that I saw silver clouds below, and I definitely saw everything as far as you could see. (click below to read more)
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Author My name is Peter Fisher. I am a freshman at High Tech High North County, and this page is for the Moral Compass project that we are currently working on in my Humanities class. Archives
April 2014
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