Get Organized: iTunes

Organizing is something I love to do. I know that may not be a typical teenage thing to say but I do tend to find some fun and entertainment in organizing something. These somethings can range from organizing my house to organizing my pens and pencils for school. There is just something about the feeling of feeling neat and tidy that makes organizing fun to me. So, when I got this assignment I immediately thought it would be a piece of cake considering I pretty much had already organized everything. Unfortunately, as the time came closer for me to actually do the project, I was stumped. I had organized almost everything at least once before and It would be boring to write about something that I had already done. So I sat and thought for a while on what I could organize. So after about 5 minutes (Yes I consider that a while) I decided to do it later and turn on my music. I pressed shuffle and I continued on with the rest of my homework. 

The first song that came on was a Christmas song, and considering it is not yet Thanksgiving I decided to press next. This next song that came up was a song I listened to before every basketball game last year. Considering I was not about to go play in a basketball game, I pressed next one more time. This next song that came on was one of my favorite summer songs. But the thing that made me press the button one more time was simply because it wasn't summer and I didn't want to trick myself into thinking it was coming soon. It was obvious that my music was disorganized. 

After realizing in that exact moment that I finally had something to organize, I dropped everything I was doing and started to organize. The only problem with organizing my music, and even organizing anything, is that it is always hard to find a place to start. So, once again I sat there staring at the screen. I soon decided to start by organizing my Christmas music into on long playlist, considering the season is coming soon. By doing this I not only started the project but I also started with a simple job. I found this job to be particularly upsetting, mainly because I realized that I only had six Christmas songs on my iTunes. How could I be a preacher of Christmas Music if I had none for myself to listen to? Therefore, I made a note on my computer to find Christmas songs and to put them in the playlist. 

Making this note did calm me down a bit, but found myself still frustrated with the outcome, so I decided to next organize my country playlist. I knew this one would not disappoint me because I listen to country all the time. I even came to conclusion that I had to make two separate country playlist considering I have so much country. The first playlist was dedicated to one band. I called it " Country: Rascal Flatts." As you can tell this playlist consisted of Rascal Flatts music and only Rascal Flatts music.  The next playlist was "Country: All of the best." I called it this because every song in there is the rest of my country music and they really all are the best.

I continued to make these playlist with pump up music for basketball games and a sleep playlist for when I'm trying to fall asleep. There are playlists called 2010, 2011, and 2012. In these playlists I separated all the favorite songs and separated them by year. These songs are the songs that I guess I could say were "popular" at the time. 

Now I realize that this project wasn't simply for fun, even though it really was to me.  There was something more behind why we were told to do this. By organizing my music into separate playlist I not only helped me find my music better, but I also found that I understood it better. I not only understood the words but I understood where they came from, what made them belong to that playlist they were put in. Those words and those musical notes that were combined and made in to a song.  That song belonged to a specific group of mine. It kinda makes this song an individual within a group of similar individuals.  Each song is different yet each song in that playlist is the same. 

I guess you could say that after finishing this project of mine, I was rather pleased with myself. I not only made my life a whole lot earlier when it comes to listening to music but I also found out a lot about my music and how it all flows together. If I could take away one thing from this project it would be the fact that all my music flows. Each song is separated into a playlist they belong to. Each playlist consists of songs that are similar to each other in a certain way.  And each playlist is similar to each other because each playlist consists of songs that I like. Each playlist has songs that are mine, songs that mean a lot to me. And in the end thats's all that really matters to me. 

Change of Mind: We Are Happiness

Happiness is the state of being happy. Sadness is the state of being sad. The english language really couldn't get any simpler than that. We have happiness when we are happy, therefore I have happiness when I look out the window and see snow on the ground for this first time. We have sadness when we are sad, therefore I cry every time I watch The Titanic.

This simple concept is something that lives in every human being, and I could even say that it exists in all mammals. We've grown over the years to associate things that bring happiness and things that bring sadness. We do this without hesitation, it is an instinctual feeling one gets that makes one decide whether he is happy or sad. Because this instinct has developed amongst human beings, I have never once stopped myself and asked the simplest question: What is happiness?

Many would answer, " Oh it's a time when you are happy. Yeah that's happiness." I am ashamed to say that a few days ago I would have said the exact same thing. However, it wasn't until one day in english class that I realized I was wrong. I don't know what happiness is. I don't know how it is achieved. Therefore, I question myself, do I  have happiness?

In the book Sophie's World, the philosopher talks to Sophie about Hellenistic Philosophy and the history behind it. The things that struck me were located on the last two lines of the page. It mentions how "the main emphasis of this [philosophy] was on finding out what true happiness was and how it could be achieved." I couldn't believe that a concept so simple was something that philosophers had to question. It seriously blew my mind.

Out of pure curiosity, I went home and opened my computer and googled happiness. I asked for its definition and how it could be obtained. I was disappointed to find that every answer was the same. Happiness was just as I thought it had been. It was obtained when one is happy and its definition is the state of being happy. So if the answer was so obvious, why would any one try to question it? What was I missing from this understanding?

I found myself quickly typing in the words Urban Dictionary into the google search bar. I clicked on the linked and typed in happiness. I pressed enter and waited for it to load. As I read through pages and pages of the definition of happiness, I found a certain pattern to the answers. Page one consisted of the definition that we all know by heart; if your happy you have happiness. However, and I got to the next few pages I saw the definitions start to change. The amazing thing about this was that these definitions were not what may be "correct" to most of society, but these answers were correct to the person writing it. That is the whole magic to Urban Dictionary. It is your own definition, it is your own interpretation.

Even though these interpretations many not be mine, or yours, we can still find connections to one or many different interpretations. Yes, I believe a plateful of bacon is happiness. To a vegetarian that may not be true. Yes, I believe happiness is the night I don't have to do homework. To that crazy student whom I have not met yet, that may not be true. But the one interpretation that that not only changed my mind on happiness and helped me answer these simple and easy questions was located right on the first page.

"Happiness, the greatest gift I possess." 

Instead of asking the questions what and how, why not ask the questions who and where. You are happiness. I am happiness. You have happiness within you. I have happiness within me. We both have this special gift that we can call our own. We can do whatever we want with this gift. We can decide to hide it and store it in a place where no one can see it, or we can decide to show it and not let anything to stop it from shining.

Connection: It's Crazy Man

It's crazy man. These three words are words that I have heard throughout my life. It's crazy that he made that winning basket. It's crazy that she is having another baby. It's crazy how good of a cook your mother is. It's crazy how well work went today. It's crazy man, just crazy.

Some might say that my father, the man behind these words, tends to over use them, and I sometimes would agree with such people. My father always thinks everything is crazy. No matter what happened, why it happened or how it happened, it is simply just crazy. Therefore, growing up with this repetition, I've learned to adjust to his obsession and ignore the crazy phrase completely.

However, this adjustment of mine was quickly brought back one night. My father got a magazine in the mail about our universe and the science behind it.  I specifically remember the front cover displaying a picture of what looked like an explosion of magenta, blue, black and red color but was later described as the universe. My dad, who usually spends his week nights watching a basketball game, spent the whole night reading every last word of this magazine. He didn't move one muscle. The only things moving were his eyes as they scanned the pages. I was curious to see what could possibly be more interesting than watching a Bulls game and screaming at the refs as if they could hear him. The only problem was he had seemed to be too interested to take his eyes off the page.

So I sat there waiting for him to be done. As he read the magazine, turning page after page, I sat there staring at the only thing I could possibly see on that magazine; our universe blown up on a 8' by 11' sheet of paper. I swear I stared at that picture for what seemed like a half an hour, but what broke my focus was the movement of my dads lips and the sound that came out, "It's crazy man."

He had to say no more.

As I looked at that picture of the universe, so may questions popped into my head. How did this form? What is it made of? Why is it like this? I felt like a pretty stupid human being when I couldn't answer the simplest questions. Because of this occurrence, I've recently compared that moment of my life to the moments happening to Sophie in Sophie's World.  She is being overwhelmed with questions that seem so simply, so easy, but are really something that we find the human brain can't even begin to answer. So once again Sophie and I are both feeling pretty useless.

Even though we may seem useless to the knowledge of these question, we are not useless to each other. By reading the novel, I have expanded on my previous questions and may have gotten the slightest bit closer to understanding these basic questions about our universe. By understanding that everything is made of the same one thing that form different objects, I can understand or even question the bang theory. Yes, the universe started with a bang, literally. However, the substance that started this bang couldn't be absolutely nothing, it had to be something, therefore something must have already existed. It's crazy man.

It blows my mind every time I begin to think of such things.  Philosophy is a crazy subject to think about. But the thing that holds both me and Sophie together was that first initial state of wonder that came upon us when we were first asked that question. And just like any other human being the only thing we had to say was it's crazy man, just crazy.