Week Four: Extra Post Sheilaism

This is a video on Sheilaism. This video start off by talking about how this religion is a religion based on choice. I think, just like Sheila, this is how I view religion. I don’t know the last time I decided to go to church, but that does not mean I don’t believe in God. I do believe in God, but I don’t think I need to express that in all aspects of my life. I have my own individual system of religion that works best for me. Every person is different, so I think everyone should interpret religion differently, the way that works best for them.

Twitter: Community or a Lifestyle Enclave

I believe that Twitter is both a community and a lifestyle enclave. Yes, this might sound a little weird, how can something be both, but depending on different things, such as your hashtags or your security settings, I believe it can be both. 

If you security setting is on public, it is a community. In this setting, anyone is allowed to follow you, leaving it open for you to be in whatever community your followers want you to be in. You chose to be on Twitter, and because of this setting, you are allowing people to choose to be in your community because you cannot tell them they can not be in your community in this setting.

On the other hand, if you place your twitter account on private, this would be a lifestyle enclave. This is because you choose and decide who will be in your community. In a lifestyle enclave, you choose the people you want to be associate with based on your self image. In the private setting, you are allowed to do this. People who would like to follow you have to get your permission to follow you, allowing you to say no to people you do not want to be affiliated with, making in a lifestyle enclave.

Also trending hashtags on Twitter create lifestyle enclaves. At the current moment #BellLetsTalk is trending. This is an enclave, because if you hashtag this, in which case Bell Canada will donate five cents for every tweet to mental health initiatives and programs in Canada, you are deciding to associate with this group. You are choosing to associate with this hashtag based on the self image you are trying to portray.

In conclusion, Twitter, like most groups online, is what you make it. It can me a community if you decided to open up and let it be. It can be a lifestyle enclave if decided to make it more private or if you hashtag. But regardless, it gives you the choice to decided which you would like to be apart of, so maybe it is just an enclave that tries to portray itself as a community.

Extra Blog Week Three

In class, the discussion about first and second language confused me. How can something be individualistic but collectivist at the same time. This is a very confusing topic for me, being a psych major knowing the two are very different, to understand, but I think I finally understood it. What we share is that we are individuals. We may all be Lawrentians, but each of us is different, but Lawrence is our first language. Our differences is our second language. Like where we are from, who we root for, and so on. Being an individual is a collected thing.

What I thought was interesting was how at one time, our second languages was once a first language to someone. If someone's first language was Islam, once they got to America and had children, it would not be that anymore, moving it's way don the ladder of languages.

Blog Post on Success; Happiness

Last night, two of my roommates decided to watch a movie. We finally came to an agreement and decided to watch Happy. This was a movie about what makes people happy, which I believe can cause people to be and feel successful. In the movie, there was a woman who was one of the 50 most beautiful women in the country. She was happily married, had children and many people admired her. One day, she got into an argument with her sister outside and her sister sped off. This beautiful woman’s hand was stuck in the door and she got dragged along beside truck, until she eventually got free but landed under the truck and her head got ran over. 

Amazingly she survived, but the beautiful face that everyone love was destroyed. She had countless surgeries, but her face will never look the same. About a year after this accident, her husband divorced her, and her popularity dropped, no one wanted to look like her anymore.

This was a turning point in her life, this is when people started to look at her for who she was on the inside, not for what she looked like on the outside. When this started to happen, she finally started to be genuinely happy. She expressed how she has never been this happy before.

I believe this relates to our class and Bellah because this woman used to focus on only the second language, which is what I believe is her looks. This made her different from most people, and separated her from the average person. Once her looks changed, she finally started to focus on her first language, what she had in common with everyone else, what unified her unite with everyone. To her, this was success in happiness. Everyone around her was happy, and when she genuinely became happy, she finally fit into this expression of American culture. To some people success is money and looks, but to her, success was finally being who she was and being happy with that.

Reflection week two

For my additional blog this week, I want to talk a little more about the book. When I first came to this class, I kept hearing how much of a jerk Jobs was and how he would not be where he is today if it wasn’t because of other people, like Woz. 

First, I disagree with Jobs being a jerk. I think he is not a jerk, I think he is determined. He is determined to change the world and he does not allow people to stand in the way of his dream. Yes, he may be a little harsh to these people standing in his way and not living up to his expectations, but growing up, the world has been harsh to him and this is all he knows. He knows that this will get him perfection and that is what he is looking for. He knows how to get to where he wants to be, so he is going to do it like that.

Finally, for the people who think he couldn’t have changed the world without Woz, which was me only a mer week ago, I would have to say that is not true. Yes, Woz was the brains behind starting Apple, and Jobs was the face of Apple, but I believe even without Apple, Jobs would have found his way to change the world. Pixar changed the world in the movie industry, and Woz had nothing to do with that. Jobs had a great opportunity before him, which he realized, and he capitalized on that. Anything Jobs touched turned to gold. Yes, he might have piggybacked on some of these ideas, but with his perfectionist personality, he is able to make a good idea magnificent, and with these magnificent ideas, he is able to change the world.

The Whole Earth Catalog

Looking through this catalog, that I have never heard of before this class, I was amazed by the plethora of different things they had. They have everything from Trout Fishing in America to Space Structures. When trying to find something in this catalog that is illustrative of religion, the ideas of self or where Jobs is going to go with the future of Personal Computers, I decided to pick the Subject Guide to Books in Print. 

Out of everything in the catalog I picked this one because I think it relates to religion in the sense of community. The first line of the advertisement says, “We use it, maybe you can” which is the vendors way of saying we do this, so you should too. To me, it makes it seem like they want everyone to use this, a common thing that everyone could have in common, which is what a community is.

I also believe it relates to where Jobs is going with the Personal Computer. In the advertisement is says, “Outside of a library, there’s no better way to find out whats available in a particular area,” which reminds me of the internet because the internet can be used to find things. This relates to Jobs because the ‘i’ in iMac stands for internet. These advertisements could have been where he got his first glimpse of what the internet would become, and the importance of it. 

Jobs Commencement Speech

Jobs' speech relates to religion and values in a few ways. Relating it to religion, Jobs tells a story about how he dropped out of college. He says he did not know at the time if it was going to work out, but he had faith that all the dots would connect and he would make something for himself. He had no idea that dropping into a calligraphy class would help him in the future, and in the moment he had no idea how it would, but he believed in himself and had faith it would work out. This relates to religion because you cannot see religion, there is nothing in the current moment that reminds you of religion, or a higher power is there, at least this is true for me. Even though there is no proof, you have to believe that is there. You have faith in it, like Jobs had in himself, even when he had no idea where his life was going to take him.

Relating his speech to values, he values life. He explained how everyday he woke up and asked himself if he happened to die today, would he be happy with how he spent his day, and if he answered no too many days in a row, he would do something to change that. This shows that he valued his life and understood the importance of it. Jobs also valued good work. He explained during his speech that you do good work by doing what you love. If you do not love what you do, you will not be good at it. This shows that he understands accomplishing something wonderful involves passion. Being passionate about something means you must enjoy it. And if you enjoy something, you must be living a good life, and that is what he wanted these students to get from his speech. That life is too short to do something you are not passionate about. He wants these adults to find what the enjoy doing and do it, do it as best as they can. Because if they can do that, they will wake up everyday valuing their lives and the happiness they have around them.

I have never heard this speech before class today, and I think it is extremely powerful. It moved me, as I am sure it moved all the adults there. He explains how their life is in their own hands, and with faith and hard work, they can do anything, but they need to focus on the important things. He mentions how they are not given an infinite amount of time on earth, and I believe that is used to get them motivated to start their futures now, and make the most of it. I know it made me want to.