Happiness (Sumblog 5)

Happiness can come in many different forms. Although Martineau didn't clearly define what human happiness really means, everybody has their own definition of what happiness is. In some people's eyes happiness can be how much money and success you have. To others it can be how you fit in to your society. Others might say that their relationships with God, family, and friends make them happy. Finally, people might think that doing good things for others in their lives make them happy.

To me, happiness is the relationships you have. First with God, then your family, and last but not least your friends. I am a Lutheran from the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. My relationship with God is the most important thing in my life and makes me beyond happy to be so close to him. My family is by far the next most important thing in my life. My relationship with my parents, brother, and all of my other family really makes me happy. The fact that we are all so close and get along well is enough for me. Finally my friends, I enjoy hanging around them and the relationships I have with them.

In my opinion money, and success are just bonuses to happiness from relationships. They may not be necessary but they are definitely a luxury that no one would ever turn down.

This song is about what true happiness really is. I believe that true happiness is knowing that God sent his only son Jesus to die in our place to save us from our sins, defeat the devil and rise again to be with God heaven. Knowing this is an amazing feeling and makes me happy.

Integration and Regulation (Sumblog 3)

In class this past week we talked about the integration and regulation dealing with suicide. They each have two parts. Integration's two parts are egoistic and altruistic. Egoistic is low integration, it is when you feel like you don't fit in. Altruistic is high integration and its like when you believe so strongly in something that you will do whatever your "leader" tells you, such as cults or suicide bombers.

These two levels of integration are very different but end up with the same result. With egoistic there are a lot of teens in this world that feel that they do not fit in, and they feel that their easy way out is by ending their life. With altruistic there are certain groups of people that are willing to die for their cause because they believe in it so strongly and think that there will be riches waiting for them on the other side.

The two levels of regulation, in the same light, are also very different yet again end up in the same result. With anomic there are certain causes such as famine or recession that causes a person to think that the only way out is to end their life. They believe that they would be better of dead then have to deal with these hardships. Fatalistic can happen in many different situations. It can be caused by a dictatorship, military, prisons and slavery.

This video is just to show how tragic suicide can be. I also wanted to put up this video to show that there is ways to prevent it and that there is always a better option than ending your life. It shows how suicide effects the person that is taking their own life, but how it affects your family, friends and loved ones now that you are gone. 

Species Being and Camera Obscura (Blog 2)

When Marx talks about species being he has a really good excerpt that I thought was really interesting. "The animal is immediately one with its life activity. It does not distinguish itself from it. The animal is its life activity. Man makes his life activity itself into an object of his will and of his consciousness. He has a conscious life activity."

In this excerpt I think Marx makes a good analogy. The animal has one goal in life, to survive. It is all that the animal knows, its instincts tell it to hunt, mate and protect itself from predators. That is all that the animal knows to do and it really has no free will like us humans do. We as humans eat, mate and protect ourselves but under our own free will. We can choose to do these things and choose how we do these things. We have the free will to do literally anything we want and I believe that is what Marx is referring to with his talks about species being.

The other aspect that Marx talks about is camera obscura. I really liked the analogy of the movie A Bug's Life that was shown to us in class. The reality is that the ants don't have to listen to the grasshoppers and they can live on their own. The lense and ideologies are the grasshoppers telling the ants that they need to bring them food and that they need to obey the grasshoppers. The mutated reality is the ants think they have to live like that and they end up obeying the grasshoppers and harvesting food for them.  I think this is a really good analogy for our society today and how ideologies can mutate our reality.

I chose this video of a cheetah killing a zebra to go along with Marx's analogy of species being. The cheetah hunts the zebra because he has to and thats all he knows. Whereas us humans can choose to get food in whatever way we want, we have the free will to do anything.