#latenightphilosophy

[yellowtrashmachine]

All die Atome in uns und um uns herum waren schon immer irgendwie da und sie kreisen noch immer und reagieren und wissen was sie tun/ wohin es sie zieht, oder vielleicht auch nicht, aber so oder so ist ihr Weg bestimmt. Und auch wenn wir zerfallen, verblühen und vergehen, die Atome werden sich immer weiter drehen und uns nie vergessen und die ganze Welt und das All tragen und neue Dinge bilden und schön sein oder auch dunkel. Sie werden neues Leben formen, auch wenn wir gar nicht wissen, was das eigentlich ist, und sie werden zusammenstoßen und zerstören, aber in sich bleiben sie ganz. Und egal was uns passieren wird, wir werden Teil ihres Weges gewesen sein und am Ende drehen sie sich noch immer weiter und nehmen neue Formen an, und irgendwie werden wir dabei sein. Wir drehen uns genau wie sie im Kreis und ziehen uns an, treffen aufeinander und fliegen weg und schließlich werden wir wieder in uns zusammenfallen, zurück in diese kleinsten Teile, die vielleicht doch Teil von etwas Größerem sind. Wer wir sind ist durch sie bestimmt und vielleicht gibt es den Zufall überhaupt nicht und egal wie sehr ich dich vermiss', unsere Atome können sich wieder begegnen, am Ende der Zeit.

[i-had-sex-with-a-shark]

Late Night Philosophy

So to preface this: I am a Yik Yak addict and am not trying to offend anyone. (I don’t think I will but I thought I would start off with that.)

So my friend was browsing Yik Yak and came across a yak he thought I posted. I laughed and read it and said “No. But I have told the joke before!” and that was that. Later I was browsing Yik Yak myself during a study break as I often do (being one of the top yakkers at my college) and I came across the yak again. I thought it was funny but noticed that it had a few comments. 

More than 7 comments on a Yak generally mean one of two things:

There is a fight going on 

Some people who know each other found each other and are taking over    the thread.

Being me, I wanted to take a gander to see what was up and if I should do anything. The comments got me thinking about some things because one person had been offended by the joke that was stated. I wondered for a minute or two if they actually had the right to be offended by the joke. I didn’t think that the yakker who posted it thought people were going to be offended by it but apparently one person from the community mentioned was. 

I feel like at this point I should write what the yak said. It was: “Wearing Crocs is like being blown by a guy. It feels great until you look down and realize that you’re gay.” 

I also think I should explain what I meant when I said “had the right to be offended”. Obviously, if someone was offended by something, they were just offended by it and that’s fine. People are going to be offended by stuff sometimes no matter what. (You know, what with everyone’s life experiences being different and all.) But what I’m trying to think about is if the joke in and of itself is offensive. 

I never thought it was offensive. During my Junior year of high school that I first heard this joke from my gay friend and we laughed about it together. We both thought it was funny. I thought that it was okay to say stuff like that because it was my gay friend that was telling me this and if anyone thought it was offensive it would have been him. (That being said, I didn’t say stuff like “That’s gay” because that is inherently mean and wrong.)

But anyway, I was thinking about the joke in and of itself. I don’t think it’s inherently offensive. I might be wrong. I’m trying to figure it out at this point.

I guess it might be if you absolutely hate Crocs; then it would be a negative thing for you. But I don’t hate Crocs. I don’t really like the classical ones, but I like their sandals and stuff because they’re really sturdy, not too expensive, and comfortable. (Also hella cute.) I guess that I also don’t think that being blown by a guy is inherently wrong because:

I don’t have a problem with homosexuality. You do whomever you want. 

I’m not a man so I guess I don’t really have much of an opinion on getting blown by one. 

So logically, shouldn’t thinking that neither being blown by a man or wearing Crocs are inherently bad things make the joke not innately wrong? 

I know about micro aggressions and how people shouldn’t behave in such a way that puts down a community at large, but I don’t know if saying things like this (where neither of the things being equated are innately wrong or bad) is offensive to the communities to which they refer. 

The reason, I think, that I’m thinking so much about it is because I’m in a ethics class right now and that’s making me think a lot more about what is ethical. (10/10 would recommend.) It makes me think about if the things I’m doing are wrong or right or in that weird grey area that seems to pop-up everywhere. I’m trying to find my ethical footing in the world and I’d like to place my feet firmly in the ground where I’m not hurting the majority of the people around me. I don’t want to put people down or make micro aggressions or hurt people if I can avoid it. 

So I guess what I’m trying to figure out is where the line is drawn for things that are offensive is. There are so many perspectives on life that I just can’t have as a heterosexual, white female. I want to know about those perspectives though, and understand them to the best of my ability so that I can behave in a way that doesn’t hurt them or make them feel inferior. 

What I’m trying to do is figure out if my logic is correct in thinking this, or if I’m just trying to defend my original position. I’m not trying to say that people are being overly sensitive by being offended by things like this; I’m just trying to figure out if this type of thing is in the grey area that seems to exist in everything. 

It seems to be in the grey area and it is my opinion at this point in time that two things being equated that are not wrong is not a bad thing to do. (That being said, my opinion might change if people can give compelling enough arguments.) Saying this kind of thing also might fall in the area where it depends on whom you’re talking to. That is; some people who are homosexual might not be offended by it and some people might. It’s interesting to me that some people in the same community can be offended by different things, but I think that’ll be a topic for a different post.

Anyway, it’s 2:30 in the morning and I’m just feeling rather philosophical. I doubt too many people will read this because of the length. That’s fine. I like thinking through my problems/feelings like this. So it’s beneficial to me even if no one else reads it. Plus it’s nice to just kind of spill out your thoughts into writing; make it more linear instead of just keeping it spinning in the pool in your head.

If you did read all of this; I thank you. You’re a pretty cool person. Hope I didn’t offend you. 

CONCLUSION (in the light of day at 11:52AM):

Because of the phrasing of the joke, it can be taken offensively. 

Thinking about it, it is kind of micro-aggression-y? I guess I was trying to change the way that someone would take the joke by moving where people’s lines of thoughts would go, but my original feeling (after thinking about it the first time) was that it was generally offensive to most people because of the line of thought that most people have when they read it. (I guess since it was 2 in the morning when I wrote this, I didn’t put down my initial gut feeling.) Like most things, there are different ways to take it.

I kind of got off on a tangent there towards the end and was trying to connect my experience to the world at large. 

I think that someone could possibly make the argument that this type of joke specifically is something that you can only really tell to people you know well and know will actually think it’s funny. Like my friend who’s gay; he thought it was funny. But other people who are gay obviously don’t think that it’s funny. So it could be like jokes that have to do with stereotypes; only tell them to people who you know won’t take it wrong. So don’t post about them on Yik Yak because you don’t know who your audience will be.  

[fuckthisshitimgorgeous]

Do bees know they can only sting once?

I mean, are they aware of what would actually happen to them if they sting??

[monkeyslut14-blog]

You can tell a lot about a person by the way they roll their fajitas

[liveloveat]

Why do you keep wasting your time by listening to the same thing everyday?

(school) I think about this a lot, I go to school to learn things that's right, but does this really mean I'm going to use them in REAL LIFE?? Sure, I need to be able to read, count, analyse... but is it necessary to do these things like 30hours a week? I mean I get tired of seeing the same people everyday, I could be traveling the world and meet loads of people, discovering new things instead of going to a place where all I think about is getting the hell out of there. and one more thing, school doesn't define how you should live your life and how far you can go.

[danagrace-ng]

Know who you are.

You cut off your roots too easily...

[psychedelicwhile]

Musings on Language.

Language is a mighty powerful thing. As much power as it has it also has many flaws. One such flaw being that words are only symbols for ideas, not ideas unto themselves. An individual may have a particular idea in mind that they want to express but that entire idea very well might be lost in the interpretation of their words by someone who receives them. We can only ever imagine so much what others might think when they hear our words. We often attempt to tailor communication to others based on what we can imagine of them [Think about the way that you talk to children. Especially when you attempt to explain a concept to them, that's a good one to reflect on]. As such things can get fucked up, many miscommunications are possible, and happen often. There was a point to this, but Meh. Here's some late night Philosophy of Language for you that will get lost in the infinity of the world.

[frozenmist-blog]

Flux

Life is in a constant flux. No words could be truer. We struggle to maintain control over our selves. And it's no wonder when the desires and wants of your soul, body, and mind are constantly pulling on the fabric of your being. Yet there is little to control this. The Buddhists say one must wake up from it all. Realize the situation for what it us and let it guide you to higher state of awareness, Nirvana. In this moment you escape the duality of the consciousness. No longer is your self and the outside world at a constant struggle but it now is at peace. 

Wether or not you choose to believe such things one can not argue we are always trying to achieve some sort of Nirvana. The Buddhists also have a word for life without Nirvana. Dukha. Dukha is an interesting concept. The word is difficult to translate, but roughly it means burden which yield sadness. It's the opposite of Nirvana. It's something that takes control of your being and holds it down. The longer you stay down the harder it is to get up. 

There still exists this duality in Buddhism. Life isn't that simple. There's more than just 2 paths and if we are in flux the change should have a more profound effect than yielding a single ending. Or is it?