When Life Hands you Lemons

I’m sitting here watching the presidential debate, wishing that more youth got involved.

A common phrase that was said in my Gov class was, “old people vote; young people don’t.” But that’s just the problem. America’s youth (I’d say from the ages between 18 and 35) currently outnumber the elderly (sorry, age 35+ people). If you ask most of the youth in America why they don’t vote, they all say, “I just feel like my vote doesn’t matter.”

Well, this is bollocks. Like I said before, the young outnumber the old. If we as a collective youth get together and actually care about the way our country is run, we wouldn’t have to sit there and take the actions of politicians like we can’t do anything about it. That’s the beauty of democracy, ladies and gentlemen. While your own personal vote may not seem all that impactful, you could at least discuss with people of your own age and background to vote for the things that you care about most.

There was a riot a few years ago in France when the government did something that people didn’t like. You know who made up a majority of the riot?

College students. Yeah. People like you and me can be that passionate about politics.

So why aren’t you voting this election? Don’t tell me you feel like your vote doesn’t mean very much. Don’t tell me you don’t care. It does, and you should.

Get on the ball.

“It’s good to be alive. We all get so caught up in what we’re we’re doing that we forget that we have breath. That we’re human beings. What does that mean to us? That we have two hands, two eyes; that we look a certain way? It’s kind of good, though, that we don’t always realize it. Otherwise we’d all be high all the time. ‘High’ in the sense that we’d always be like, ‘whoaaa, it’s all so coooool!'”

I like this guy. Thinks intellectually. Explains well. I’m excited to learn.

There’s something that I think needs addressing but I’m not sure if I can make a full-length post about it. I’ll try not to do many more of these in the future, but anyway, here goes.

Here is a really great website. And all joking aside, I kind of whish there were more of them. Either way, I’m here to talk about pictures. But not just any old pictures: pictures of people posing.

Now there isn’t really a problem with people posing in a picture. But what happens if you get people to pose in a picture and then take 300 pictures?

You just get 300 of the same poses with the same people in the same lighting in the same–you get the picture (see what I did there?).

Let’s introduce two people. We’ll call them Lucy and Catherine. Lucy is fairly attractive and she knows it–she even came up with her on facial pose. Catherine, on the other hand, is somewhere around average and smiles for pictures but doesn’t do anything special. Now, Lucy has taken 300 pictures of herself with the same facial pose in every single one.

The worst thing about Lucy’s pictures is that one of them probably turns out really great and whatever and it’ll end up getting something around 3,000 likes. And then the next time  she uploads a picture of herself, she’ll get another 3,000 likes on a good picture. While Catherine will get somewhere around two.

Now, even if Lucy won’t admit that getting that many likes secretly satisfies them (after all, why would she take so many pictures of him or herself?), we’ll all just be standing by and feeding her ego. While Catherine, in  desparate need of self-esteem, is watching and waiting for that first like. She cries when it doesn’t come.

But it’s not like Catherine isn’t used to it. In fact, she’s so used to it that she doesn’t even bother uploading pictures of herself anymore–in fact, she doesn’t even like to take pictures anymore. She’s even convinced herself that people don’t like the way she looks and will hide her face everywhere she goes so she doesn’t have to “burden them” with this malice.

You think I’m exaggerating? What is make-up? Plastic surgery? People say, “If the house needs painting; paint it,” but I disagree: true beauty comes from within. It doesn’t matter whether or not the house needs painting; it doesn’t affect the usefulness of the house.

Even so, we should be taking measures to reach the Catherines. Looks are so petty. Why should we allow such a thing to affect people so dramatically?

has got to be the biggest “F U” you can give to your ancestors. I mean, the biggest insult you can give to someone you’re related to is to say that you don’t want to look like him.

Really. what better way is there to deny your genetics? I still can’t believe we’re coming to the age where we can genetically alter our children before they’re born….just because WE want them to be a certain way. Doesn’t that deny them of choice? But no, you’re altering them before there IS a choice. So you’re just killing the one that was supposed to be born and choosing a different one.

Oh well. I’ve blogged about that topic before. This cosmetic surgery stuff, though…. it seems like make-up x 100. Like you’re obscenely desperate to get rid of this history written on your face and body. All for what? So you can feel better about yourself.

/minirant

Definitely Facebook. By a long shot. No questions asked.

By “modern invention,” I mean within the last thirty years.

The internet was “invented” around the 90s, but was the creation of a Swiss engineer (even though someone in America claims to have invented it). Some may say the iPhone or the iPod, but it’s verily not.

Facebook is the one thing that has nearly everybody in the world connected. I’m currently connected with people in my vicinity for sure, but I also have connections now with people in New York, Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, Korea, China, Rome, Brussells, France… the list goes on. It singlehandedly brought together a generation of people to spread news or share about their mundane lives. And it’s brilliant. Nothing else has brought people of the world together so well since World War II.

Why not the iPhone? 

The iPhone is a marvel in its own rite, sure, but it doesn’t bring people together the way Facebook does. It’s restricted to the country in which you’re currently residing, and that’s just how mobile phone carriers want it. Also, this Samsung / Apple debate is just bollocks. But that’s a post for another time.

Why not the computer?

Well, the computer isn’t exactly a “modern invention.” The first computers were seen around World War II, used for deciphering code that was intercepted by Americans. The mainframes (or towers, as we now call them) were about the size of rooms and used up way more electricity than was safe.

The first personal computer was released in 1965. Read more about it here.

Why not C++?

For those of you who don’t know, C++ is just about the most dominant programming language today–without it, we wouldn’t have iPhones or computers or most of the video games that people play today. It influenced Java, which can be used on computers and on old, dumb phones that could hardly run anything else. But you probably haven’t heard of it. And that’s why it’s not #1.

C++ was the creation of one genius named Bjarne Stroustrup who worked at AT&T Bell Labs. It came out in 1979 (which is recent enough to be considered a “modern invention”) and is still being used today. I’ve heard that Stroustrup died shortly after Jobs did, but I’m seeing now that it’s not true. Even if he had passed, nobody would know.

Why not the XBox 360?

Don’t make me hit you.