Ok. So Ive been doing a lot of thinking about some things that have happened. Im beginning to realize that in hind sight, I listened to some ideas that I shouldnt have, and that in the process, quite a few times, I have come dangerously close to compromising my core principles. So to that end, I am remedying the situation in terms of sticking to my guns now, and Im finally setting up how I will do my best to live. Firstly, to those who Ive met and have shown a disdain or contempt for mathematics, I will state that you are firmly within your right to have your view. However, that will not stop me from attempting to show math as a universal language for two reasons: 1. It is the one language that can describe almost anything precisely, if you put in full data, and provided you can give number based signals to describe that data. 2. It is one of the languages that can cross almost all human cultures in some form. Like it or not, even if its just basic arithmetic, or counting, practically all of humanity uses it, which means it is a way to establish communications across all of humanity (magic being another.) Secondly, to those who suggested that I should rewrite my history, and hide who I truly am, from the world, let me quote a section of the book, Les Miserables: Well, what then? he said to himself; what am I afraid of? What is there in all that for me to think about? I am safe; all is over. I had but one partly open door through which my past might invade my life, and behold that door is walled up forever! That Javert, who has been annoying me so long; that terrible instinct which seemed to have divined me, which had divined me—good God! and which followed me everywhere; that frightful hunting-dog, always making a point at me, is thrown off the scent, engaged elsewhere, absolutely turned from the trail: henceforth he is satisfied; he will leave me in peace; he has his Jean Valjean. Who knows? it is even probable that he will wish to leave town! And all this has been brought about without any aid from me, and I count for nothing in it! Ah! but where is the misfortune in this? Upon my honor, people would think, to see me, that some catastrophe had happened to me! After all, if it does bring harm to some one, that is not my fault in the least: it is Providence which has done it all; it is because it wishes it so to be, evidently. Have I the right to disarrange what it has arranged? What do I ask now? Why should I meddle? It does not concern me; what! I am not satisfied: but what more do I want? The goal to which I have aspired for so many years, the dream of my nights, the object of my prayers to Heaven,—security,—I have now attained; it is God who wills it; I can do nothing against the will of God, and why does God will it? In order that I may continue what I have begun, that I may do good, that I may one day be a grand and encouraging example, that it may be said at last, that a little happiness has been attached to the penance which I have undergone, and to that virtue to which I have returned. Really, I do not understand why I was afraid, a little while ago, to enter the house of that good cure, and to ask his advice; this is evidently what he would have said to me: It is settled; let things take their course; let the good God do as he likes! Thus did he address himself in the depths of his own conscience, bending over what may be called his own abyss; he rose from his chair, and began to pace the room: Come, said he, let us think no more about it; my resolve is taken! but he felt no joy. Quite the reverse. One can no more prevent thought from recurring to an idea than one can the sea from returning to the shore: the sailor calls it the tide; the guilty man calls it remorse; God upheaves the soul as he does the ocean. After the expiration of a few moments, do what he would, he resumed the gloomy dialogue in which it was he who spoke and he who listened, saying that which he would have preferred to ignore, and listened to that which he would have preferred not to hear, yielding to that mysterious power which said to him: Think! as it said to another condemned man, two thousand years ago, March on! Before proceeding further, and in order to make ourselves fully understood, let us insist upon one necessary observation. It is certain that people do talk to themselves; there is no living being who has not done it. It may even be said that the word is never a more magnificent mystery than when it goes from thought to conscience within a man, and when it returns from conscience to thought; it is in this sense only that the words so often employed in this chapter, he said, he exclaimed, must be understood; one speaks to ones self, talks to ones self, exclaims to ones self without breaking the external silence; there is a great tumult; everything about us talks except the mouth. The realities of the soul are none the less realities because they are not visible and palpable. So he asked himself where he stood. He interrogated himself upon that settled resolve. He confessed to himself that all that he had just arranged in his mind was monstrous, that to let things take their course, to let the good God do as he liked, was simply horrible; to allow this error of fate and of men to be carried out, not to hinder it, to lend himself to it through his silence, to do nothing, in short, was to do everything! that this was hypocritical baseness in the last degree! that it was a base, cowardly, sneaking, abject, hideous crime! For the first time in eight years, the wretched man had just tasted the bitter savor of an evil thought and of an evil action. He spit it out with disgust. He continued to question himself. He asked himself severely what he had meant by this, My object is attained! He declared to himself that his life really had an object; but what object? To conceal his name? To deceive the police? Was it for so petty a thing that he had done all that he had done? Had he not another and a grand object, which was the true one—to save, not his person, but his soul; to become honest and good once more; to be a just man? Was it not that above all, that alone, which he had always desired, which the Bishop had enjoined upon him—to shut the door on his past? But he was not shutting it! great God! he was re-opening it by committing an infamous action! He was becoming a thief once more, and the most odious of thieves! He was robbing another of his existence, his life, his peace, his place in the sunshine. He was becoming an assassin. He was murdering, morally murdering, a wretched man. He was inflicting on him that frightful living death, that death beneath the open sky, which is called the galleys. On the other hand, to surrender himself to save that man, struck down with so melancholy an error, to resume his own name, to become once more, out of duty, the convict Jean Valjean, that was, in truth, to achieve his resurrection, and to close forever that hell whence he had just emerged; to fall back there in appearance was to escape from it in reality. This must be done! He had done nothing if he did not do all this; his whole life was useless; all his penitence was wasted. There was no longer any need of saying, What is the use? He felt that the Bishop was there, that the Bishop was present all the more because he was dead, that the Bishop was gazing fixedly at him, that henceforth Mayor Madeleine, with all his virtues, would be abominable to him, and that the convict Jean Valjean would be pure and admirable in his sight; that men beheld his mask, but that the Bishop saw his face; that men saw his life, but that the Bishop beheld his conscience. So he must go to Arras, deliver the false Jean Valjean, and denounce the real one. Alas! that was the greatest of sacrifices, the most poignant of victories, the last step to take; but it must be done. Sad fate! he would enter into sanctity only in the eyes of God when he returned to infamy in the eyes of men. Well, said he, let us decide upon this; let us do our duty; let us save this man. He uttered these words aloud, without perceiving that he was speaking aloud. This was what Jean Valjean went through in deciding to reveal himself. If he actually had gone through with rewriting history and hiding his negative past, someone else would have suffered. If you would prefer real life examples, look at the effect that happened when Stalin wrote Trotsky out of Russian history. It only delayed the inevitable that Russia would find out about him again, when Russian communists went abroad and met with those from Mexico, who knew who Trotsky was. Also, on the issue of both credibility and truth, if I remove parts of my own history, more than likely, someone will find out the truth anyway, and when, not if, it comes to light, it would look like I was hiding stuff away, and thus weaken my credibility, achieving the exact opposite effect of why I was attempting it in the first place. Thirdly, and most importantly, to every one who has been saying that social conformity must be higher precedent than pursuit of truth, or that if something is offensive, even if true, it is automatically harmful and should not be said, might I remind everyone that practically everyone who has pushed our society forward, and has helped us achieve the rights we take for granted, has actually been grass roots, and saying stuff that was offensive for the society at the time to hear. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke against segregation and fought for the equal treatment of all under the law, what he was saying was offensive to the White people of the southern states he was fighting. Should he have socially conformed? When my grandmother, Dr. Alison Prentice, went for her Ph.D. in history, she offended the status quo of the time too. One man said to my grandfather, If my wife did that, Id shoot her. But if she hadnt done that, she wouldnt have helped put womens history on the map in Canada as a legitimate academic field, and won the Order of Canada for that hard work last year. She was also a feminist, and at the time of the 60s through the 80s, that was highly offensive to the status quo. When she was a teacher at a high school, prior to getting her Ph.D., the principal of the school once popped his head into the teachers room where she and 4 other women were discussing things at random, and said, You know, it just occurred to me. If I killed you all, right now, I could end the womens movement at this school, and walked away. But she, and so many like her, speaking truth, that was considered offensive at the time, actually managed to get women a lot of the rights and respect that they have today. So no, Ive decided that enough is enough. I will speak truth to power, and I will speak truth, even if it is offensive, because in the long run, it is better for truth to come out. That said, if something I have said is demonstrably wrong, either because my reasoning is flawed, the data I am using is suspect or incomplete, or both scenarios are happening, I will change my position once its pointed out to me. Finally, to those who would impose rules in their social situations that would attempt to peg me in and force me to compromise my principles, like, for example, automatically making certain subjects off limits, even just for the purposes of asking questions, attempting to understand, and being a student of truth, you are free to make rules in your own domains about that, but I dont have to come to them. And if Ive withdrawn from a social engagement from you, or do so in future, based on the feeling I need to maintain my principles, I am allowed to do that. I am also allowed to set the rules for my apartment or my own facebook page too.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 16:49:23 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015