Metacognition: Reorganizing my video collection

     If I could explain the dynamics of my thinking in a word, I would say ambiguity. That which I speak, that which I write, and that which I ponder are composed of two elements: instinctive intellect and achieved complex understanding. The battle between these two, as frustrating and mind-boggling as it can stretch, never ceases. When I’m conscious (psychologically) and trying to process a concept, on one hand I automatically attempt to wrap my head around it, my thoughts darting in numerous sequences, like puzzle pieces, trying to “click” together, and on the other hand, I try to climb the ladder of understanding step by step, starting simple and delving into more complex ideas.

     When either of these paths does not coincide with the direction of the other, whether I got to the top or not becomes unclear and confusing, lost in the haze of my coexisting methods of thought. Even when I’m unconsciously sleeping, that is I’m neither in a lucid dream nor am I aware that I’m dreaming, sometimes faces or concepts will be presented in ways that are visually ambiguous.

     As the place I spend at least 15 hours a day in, most of them consciously awake, my room is very representative of this mental ambiguity. The part of my room with my bed and dresser is usually clean, and in acting as the “focus” of the room because of its central position, creates an impression of a complex and yet neatly decorated and comfortable living space. However, when one would look in the direction of my desk and adjoined shelves, the stack of papers next to it, or the overflowing storage box under it, their initial impression of my room would be diametrically contradicted.

     My room, then, would not draw an entirely positive or negative reaction, rather a somewhat confused one. Even looking specifically at my desk, there are piles of school books, notebooks, papers, and writing utensils. The shelves are lined with novels, language workbooks, trophies, photos, and a mix of birthday and holiday cards. Most of the time, just by eyeing the disordered mess it’s impossible to tell whether the objects or books are from this year or last, the papers from Social Studies or Chemistry, or the trophies from first grade or eighth grade. My desk is essentially an accumulated collection of the past and the present, routinely cleaned but always retaining that ambiguous quality.

     More specifically, as time has progressed after I’ve graduated from middle school, strong visual indications of my past have become fewer and fewer. Where you would see a photo of me and my closest friends posing with our teacher Ms. Keefe after collaborating on a service project, now sits an authentic German cap from a field trip this year. My desk is constantly approaching a state of containing more of the present than the past, but that is outweighed by the fact that as I add more “present” material, the former present material becomes that of the “past”, and so on. As this happens, treasured objects from the deeper past are evidently overrun by current developments. And somewhat willingly, I might add, because with time I have become more apathetic to direct evidence of my past. 
     It haunts me, perhaps taunts me, because I tend to think life was so much happier and more promising back then. Objects from my past are like people from my past; I feel guilty facing them because I always think they had such high hopes for me, and I failed them. It's difficult to go many days without seeing my life from the perspective of my old self, with its disapproving stares and malevolent wishes. Sometimes I don't realize that the "old" good Tina was all that innocent, as there was a lot left for my "newer" personality to figure out. For example, I had a notable teacher from the past who committed hours upon hours trying to teach me how to prioritize and complete my work efficiently without perfectionism or organizational problems. She's probably sitting back now thinking she did a good thing for me, and it breaks my heart that I never really listened. The "old" Tina could not manage it, and because my current personality can't either, and that creates even more ambiguity because my brain is torn between trying to solve my problems realtime and waiting for myself to change, assuming they will change with some shift in maturity of my mind.
     Like my desk, it can be said that my brain is a mess of the past and present, but rather than material objects cluttered in its depths, it is a mix of memories. And not unlike my desk situation, as new impressions, sensations, reflections, and ideas fill it, the old memories are the first to go. The state of my desk and the state of my memories are in fact uniquely intertwined and when compared share a fundamental similarity. Like I said earlier, I’m apathetic towards objects from the past because they make me feel guilty. I’m guilty because of the bleakness about my current situation. And I feel it’s bleak because when compared with my memories the past, its much less happy and promising. So then it can be said that as objects towards which I am apathetic “disappear” from my disarrayed desk, I feel less and less apathetic about the past. As my memories fade and become less in-tact, I start to lose an accurate understanding of what actually happened. And losing an accurate understanding of what actually happened, feeling less apathetic about the past, and having your current unfavorable situation weighing you down are a recipe for what exactly? None other than distortion of my recollection of the past.

     It’s important, though, to distinguish that this isn’t forgetting a bad test grade that “poisoned” my past, or a time I was frustrated. This was a collapse of the ambiguous memory and general impression I have of my years in middle school, and the overhaul of whatever pieces were left behind. And, never to forget, the creation of a newly conceived, ideal image of how the past had been. An outlet from my current mess of life where I could dwell in the happiness of what I “thought” I used to have. The forged comfort at having lived a great life thus far.

     When my memories of my past first became distorted, it felt like I was finally facing my past. Little did I know, this unconscious shift in my thinking would have serious psychological implications. When ambiguously shifting between past and present, there is a larger chance that one will find refuge in what he perceives as the better of the two. Though my past wasn’t as pretty and nice as I’d imagined it, I began to blindly sink into my distorted memories. But I noticed that the deeper I sank, the more problematic my situation became, which was already bad in the first place and now left unattended worsened exponentially. This fueled the birth of a unique feeling in my head. I somehow wanted to experience the past again. I felt like what I had thought it was wasn’t real, and I wanted to reach over and touch it, so the memories would come back. Unearthing accurate memories might actually make me even more satisfied with how I’d lived my life, and I hoped that could help me move on. At this point, I’m still under the spell of my perfectly nice and pretty past.
     I first went to the photos. We have a large bin's worth of 900 individual photos, almost 10 filled albums, and around 400 digital pictures on the computer. There are photos ranging from my dad's parents' wedding in the mid '30s to Thanksgiving weekend of this year. I'm pretty well-acquainted with the content and nature of the photos, but for the purpose of giving an accurate sense of the deep past they don't serve well. And when you talk about people, sure you can get an impression about their personality or demeanor from their physical pose or the look in their eyes, but you can never press play and have them move in front of you or speak to you in their actual grace. After looking through a bulk of photos yet another time, I didn't feel any different than before...I just wished their would have been some videos out there of my childhood...so I could literally see myself and the world 10 years ago. That's when it hit me.
     I figured that the way to satisfy the part of me that wanted to experience the past again was through videos. It was perhaps the best way to relieve my apathy about the past, since just facing it mentally wasn't the most fulfilling thing. So, on I went seeking out the camera I hadn't touched in over a year and a half, and barely found it. The charging cable took me two hours to find, and the dusty container of videos, almost another hour. When I again held them in my hands, I had an overwhelming sensation of having dug up something you never thought you would have, and that made me eccentric. However, some negative feelings from the last time I'd held the objects in my hand started to flow to me, creating more ambiguity. But like a person with a choice between drinking expired plum juice (although it's their favorite) and freshly squeezed orange juice, I pressed the on button on the camera. I could almost feel the citrus flavor dancing on my tongue, and my eyes reflecting its unique sting...
     The first few videos I watched were not as flawless as my memories had portrayed them, or quite as frustrating as my doubts predicted. They were from my vacation to Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia back in 2007. I had four to six of them, and they were all taped in my unique style of constant recording while walking or talking with others, as opposed to a multitude of cuts and short scenes. I had essentially tried to mimic the motion of my eyes the best I could. Even if I'd initially taken a few seconds to point something out, I'd return to it a minute later so as to compare it with another thing I'd seen, or simply because it intrigued me. Observing the dynamics of my video recording after several years, I found that while my the base of my mental structure had strengthened and become more complex overtime, the frame of my mental makeup itself had not drastically changed. Realizing that brought my view of the past more "down to earth", at which point I started to realize my view of the past was at least a little distorted.
     The conversations captured within the film I found to be very fascinating. A minimal exchange of casual words were captured in just a few seconds of film, and yet possess so much importance and meaning three years down the road. This is especially true for the long conversations and commentaries I taped during encounters with relatives or close family friends. What made the recordings special was that the European people were so focused and passionate about what they were describing that it didn't matter to them that a curious 12 year old was holding a camera in front of their face for a few hours a week. They were loose and composed, and what I would have seen as a "distraction" affected their behavior in no visible way. They spoke their mind, they did what they thought was right; every one I met was grounded in their beliefs and confident in their demeanor. Most had defining characters, were naturally decisive, and through living a life of learning and criticizing, learning more and criticizing, were very deep and seemingly "wise" people. But then I remembered about how my parents are like that too on the outside, but then at home when they speak amongst themselves you get to see the doubts, concerns, and fears rarely conveyed in public conversation. And if ever, done in a passionate way, assuming a position of strength over the weakness.
     This made me ponder the dynamics of my mind on an extended level. The people from Europe I'd met were mentally ambiguous, and so was I, but when it really mattered, like conversing with someone or making a decision, the strong part of them always overcame it. Ambiguity isn't something you can swim in...you have to climb out of the water eventually, no matter how cold it is outside. And the European people I met weren't necessarily afraid to step out of their comfort zone to achieve something, make an educated decision, strike a relationship with someone, or the like. There was some unifying base of confidence within them, composed of years of independence, deep thinking, criticizing, and experiences of successes and failures in their early lives. That "base" is precisely what defined them, and the ambiguity seemed to obscure their ability to make immediate clear-cut choices. However, this did not always result in bad choices or misjudged situations, rather it sometimes helped to have that dual voice mind to raise concern or doubt when something could be done slightly better.
     Realizing that it is essentially human nature to be ambiguous, but also that there should be a certain percentage of your thought that is devoted to it, was very significant for me. And oddly enough, the realization that one must not define themselves by ambiguity and rather have it be a factor of their personality, came from a collection of tapes that on the most basic of levels weren't defined by that quality, but had certain elements that certainly contained it. By this I mean that on a fundamental level, the videos only contained the absolute past and no elements of the present, unlike my memories had, and unlike my desk still does. However, I am more at peace with my desk situation now and not so apathetic about the past, because I have seen it in a truer light. It's understood that my past wasn't pretty like summer or as frozen as winter, but rather somewhere in between. Finally accepting that has enabled me to look past the ambiguity in myself, and work on developing a "base" for my personality.

iMedia: Claude Monet's Art

Claude Monet was born in 1840 in Paris, France. Like Leonardo Da Vinci, at the young age of 15, Monet became somewhat well-known for his caricatures. In 1858 he was introduced to outdoor painting by Eugene Boudin, and although he had become increasingly comfortable with indoor scenes, he left home a year later in pursuit of becoming a better landscape painter. He frequently travelled, tried to portray new landscapes, and experimented with different painting styles and color schemes. Due to his problematic financial situation at the time, it is said that he sometimes destroyed his own paintings, so that the creditors wouldn’t take them. Within the years that he was married to a woman named Camille, he produced some of his best paintings. However, at the time many artists did not praise his work—precisely because of the painting style he chose to use. He was an “impressionist”, which is a slightly more abstract-appearing type of painting in which portraying scenes was more based on perceptual understanding as opposed to conceptual understanding. In it, a painter, rather than painting scenes in an ideal manner, according to what they “should” look like, will not hesitate to paint nature as it is.

The belief that drove Claude Monet to be an impressionist was that nature should be artistically portrayed in its natural form. Some of the artists he painted with after leaving home probably influenced him in this respect, as he was a young painter at the time. Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas were the two skilled impressionist painters he became very close to when he was at the peak of his career. However, the public was very critical of the impressionist way of painting. Because most paintings at the time involved long, peaceful brush strokes, and often times realism, Monet’s almost choppy strokes and somewhat unclear paintings drew unpleasant reactions from the public, who claimed Monet’s pictures seemed “incomplete.” This is similar to how to the American public, in response to Elvis Presley's shift from gospel music to "Rock n' Roll", and his increasingly "risky" dance moves, did not want their children to be exposed to it in fear they might follow his behavioral example. However, in modern times, we both appreciate impressionist art, and let children of almost any age listen to Elvis' music. In a sense this "openness" of our postmodern world has allowed us to accept and reflect upon the talent of all artists, regardless of style, which has led us to be able to both analyze artistic pieces and derive meanings from them without an extremely biased perspective.

"Impression: Sunrise" by Claude Monet

Now that we have accepted impressionism as an art form, and have had the tools with which to delve deeper into artistic pieces, several of Monet's works have emerged as being the best examples of his impressionism. One of them is titled "Impression: Sunrise" an oil painting on canvas that he painted in 1872 (shown on left). As is evident, the brush stokes are not necessarily unified in direction--they originate from several different angles. Also, it is interesting to note that the trees look somewhat "scribbled in", and that at points it looks like globs of paint were carelessly distributed around certain areas (mainly the distant background). However, it can also be seen, how much the painting comes into focus with decreased distance. For example, the two people and the boat, and the ripples in the water around them, are in the most focus. This essentially directs our attention to that point in the painting. Also, right next to the boat is the reflection of the sun's rays over the water; a bright orange contrasting with the almost gloomy greens and blues of the water. In my opinion, the effect of the sun is very prominent in this painting. To me, it seems that the abstractness with which Monet painted the distant background is almost symbolic of the tiredness one feels upon waking up, the drowsiness at having the previous days' successes or failures still stamped in ones mind. It's not quite the night, and it's not quite the day, and as such can represent the change in consciousness that occurs when one wakes up, and the mental disorganization that can follow. The sun, however, represents the aspect of a "new day" in that respect; still not having risen, you can feel the potential for change it has.

Connection: King Lear and Thomas Gradgrind (Hard Times)

      In Shakespeare's novel King Lear, King Lear, on whom the story is based, undergoes polar character changes. Towards the beginning of the play, when he disowns Cordelia, he insists that she is ungrateful and worthless, attacking her role as a daughter as well as her untraditional honesty. The same "blindness"--or metaphoric inability to truly see the situation as it is--that leads him to banish Cordelia blocks him from seeing the dishonesty of his two other deceiving daughters. This blindness, more fatal with rage, and inability to self-actualize what is happening, comes at a great cost to the order of his land and its leaders. He never realizes the mistake he made until the stormy night he feels the wrath of Goneril and Regan's hostile betrayal, both in a familial and political sense. The fact that Cornwall and Goneril put his servant in stocks and subsequently refuse to offer the old man and his knights a place to stay, drives him into madness. 
      At that point in the story, Lear's rage overtakes him and his words and actions contradict those he demonstrated when he disowned Cordelia. His cognitive dissonance, that is to say the divide within him due to the opposing nature of his behavior, is what challenges his mind to the near point of insanity. This inner conflict is heightened when he realizes that even though he possesses a massive amount of anger at his two daughters, the limit of his power prevents him from challenging them on a high level, and earning anything from his frustration. His anger is "empty" and this changes the focus of his rage from an external level to an internal level, which plants within him the drive to come to terms with himself, although that is not relatively near. He eventually arrives at a deeper understanding of his mistakes, and acknowledgment of his "blindness", from his tragic experience. A higher level of respect is gained for Cordelia at this point in the story, as Lear realizes the value of Cordelia's humbleness, something she was naturally born with, enriched by...as opposed to what Lear could find only through the worst of betraying and tragic events.
      I find this almost polar character change within Lear to be very representative of that which occurs within Thomas Gradgrind, one of the main characters in Dickens' Hard Times. He is the founder of the education system in his small industrial town, and insists that the students solely use fact and reason to achieve understanding. His children, Louisa and Tom, are raised strictly through fact and reason and are prohibited from "fancy." This takes a toll on the children, as they grow up with social and in some cases mental problems; it is difficult for them to easily assimilate into society. Gradgrind, however, does not notice the negative effects of his fact-based teaching until his daughter comes to him in tears, because she had to marry a man she didn't love because of her father, and because she found it so difficult to communicate with others and be "normal" because of her upbringing. At this point in the story, Gradgrind actually questions his teaching philosophy--the same which he created the school system with, regulated it by, and lived life through. 
      In both King Lear and Hard Times, the main characters were in some way "blind" and ignorant to the flaws in their thoughts and actions. Part of the reason was that until something happened "close to home", they were never forced nor cared to criticize their ways. It also took a severing of emotional connection with one of their family members, and Lear and Gradgrind realizing that they were emotionally devastated, for them to change. In a sense, they were both very powerful, influential people--a king and the founder of an education system in an industrial town--but when they are faced with their very own weaknesses, it is at first difficult for them to accept the truth. It can be said that both had "cognitive dissonance", between their old ways and in some way when those old ways were successful, and between the new philosophies they had to adopt, and the absence of experience with those philosophies. In spite of that, when they did demolish the wall of ignorance blocking their view of reality, both became happier, stronger, and significantly wiser people.

360 Degrees: The Music of Today's Pop Culture

Mindfully or mindlessly turning on a popular radio station on any given day, it is inevitable that any bystanders of teenage or adolescent age will somehow emotionally, logically, or physically react to the music. There are teens who would immediately fiddle with the tuner until the soft cry of bow on string engulfed their buzzing brains with a wave of peace and calamity, and those who would seize the deep bass beats and fluctuating high notes of hip-hop and feel empowered. In our society there exist young people that are active, engaged listeners of the music of pop culture, indifferent, passive listeners, and still yet a branch of very unwilling, opposed listeners. At this point in our history, it seems that the majority of teenagers/adolescents are somewhere between active and passive listeners. Many of us hear the popular song’s lyrics, mentally process the message and meaning of the song, and sometimes act upon the final thoughts we arrive at, while a lot of us also hear the words and feel the song, but does not necessarily let the song tap into our rationale or thought processes.

To begin with, we have to ask ourselves what constitutes the music of our current pop culture. Hip hop and variations of disco beats, a mix of alternative and pop music, as well as a taste of rock here and there comprise the majority of popular songs among American adolescents.  With that in mind, to understand the origin and nature of the music of pop culture and its effect on our society, it’s necessary to understand the different purposes adolescents have for listening to the music. The active, “engaged” listener of the music of pop culture will mainly listen to hip-hop and occasionally a variation of disco/pop. They voluntarily do so, many times to release their positive or negative emotions, or to relieve stress. Often times they will listen to the music for hours on end to help cope with relationships, but the songs are often written with a tone that encourages “invincible youth” and having fun. This will appeal to some adolescents, and applies to many songs of the pop culture that don’t imply consequences of actions, and that demonstrate oversimplified thinking. The “passive” listener, in contrast, will note the melody and musical structure of the song, and might be emotionally affected by the lyrics, but will not end up taking away any idea or message from the song. And then at the bottom of the list sits the unwilling, opposed listener, who would never listen to the music of pop culture voluntarily and always has alternative views on popular music.

Why is it that there are people who will willingly listen to the Billboard Top 10 on any given day in their adolescent lives, and those who could care less for what artists like Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars are singing? Or even, why are there people who can take a well-developed message from a very unsophisticated song and apply it to their lives? Part of the reason has to do with standards and beliefs/upbringing, as well as social status in some cases. People who are social outcasts because of some sort of risky behavior they choose to partake in, or that are frequently in trouble at school, sometimes will resort to hip-hop and other popular music for emotional support. Certain songs seem to “scream at the world”, and dismiss the importance of authority, and this somehow appeals to them.

In addition, beliefs and standards will often dictate whether a person will solely accept popular music or fluctuate between popular music and their preferred type of music. In many popular social groups, there can be found “blind followers” who accept and take pleasure in what their group is doing, but that do not have the ability to digress from the social norm and do something unique or different that the group might not accept. These types of adolescents also tend to stay within the boundaries of the music that the group establishes and/or develops.

Still, many questions remain. Does intelligence, in any way, dictate musical choice? Sure, we might think there are not many perfect 5.0 students at the high school rhythmically shaking their heads to the latest hip-hop hit. It is thought that those who are intelligent and/or diligent workers are sophisticated, and thus have a sophisticated choice in music, choosing to listen to classical music or perhaps pop from the 20^th century. However, to whatever degree it may be true that sophisticated people  have the ability to digress from pop culture and encounter other musical pieces that are to their liking, can a low level of sophistication or a blind adherence to cultural norms then be considered unfavorable, or as having negative effects?

In one sense, a “low level of sophistication” implies immaturity, while in another, a voluntary choice to follow the trends of cultural. Immaturity, generally and musically, is not always a bad thing, as when an adolescent does mentally mature and begin to expand their range of music, activities, and ideas, they immediately realize what they had been missing, if anything.  A “blind adherence” to pop culture, either because of social norms and pressures or general indifference to the topic, can sometimes have negative effects. The fact that you are “blind” implies that you aren’t thinking for yourself and are not actively aware of where pop culture may be taking you. Maybe some may see it differently, but it is of my belief that many of the extreme ideas, stretched limits, tolerance, and outright “unruly behavior” of adolescents today is due in part to the influence of music. I’d like to think that there’s somebody out there among the high ranks that realizes where this music is taking us, and hopefully has a plan to stop the train of pop culture from derailing before it happens.

What I see in pop culture today almost grinds that hope into my mind. Teenagers that I have heard about within our school, upset with life and themselves, turn to music as an outlet, as an explanation for why their troubles are so deep. They are not wrong to do so; when any human is subject to pain or suffering, it is their natural instinct to somehow release their emotions. The problem starts, however, when in those same songs, hip-hop artists especially will sing about dismissing authority, doing whatever you want to do, forgetting about other people and their thoughts. These thoughts are not logical in any sense and purely fueled by anger.  This has brought me to ponder whether musical artists have a greater purpose (than selling millions of albums) for their songs in mind? If so, why are they not aware of how they are negatively impacting society? Maybe it is true that we need songs like theirs in the loop for people who feel similarly to the emotions expressed in songs, but then doesn’t the music business (specifically for popular hip hop music) turn into a place where artists can simply release their emotions, mix the beats and notes in a way that stresses the mood they want to establish, so a listener can come along and relate to those emotions?

I may have gotten a bit ahead of myself, but this to me seems like a return to primitive communication. How is it not fundamentally different than recording someone crying, selling it to millions of people, who can empathize with someone else who is also suffering? It makes me wonder why words were invented in the first place, and whether the oversimplification of ideas in songs, the shortening/abbreviation of words, and such are in fact an aspect of postmodernism. In fact, that seems to be rather plausible. As is evident, songs are becoming more and more simplified, the emotions conveyed more easily, and yet the different genres of music, purposes of artists, etc. are expanding, making the music business a more complex and diverse place.