Journal Entry #5

Questions are always raised about childcare and customary youth behaviour. "Do we overprotect our children," or, "When should we let go?". Many people believe that every aspect of the world is dangerous. This sort of ideal often leads to dangerously protective behaviour, and does not properly prepare children for the real world by the time that they start living on their own. I do not aggree with this type of parenting. Instead, I believe that, based on the average North American youth, children are often overprotected and should be given a larger degree of exposure to the real world as we know it.

At a young age, an infant is like a blank sheet of paper. It can have many amazing things written on it over the course of it's life. It can move through life clean, dirty, or with something branded into it. Unlike paper, however, it becomes stronger with age. Infants must grow an immune system while they are young, and the only way to grow a proper immune system is to be exposed to that which you can become immune. Things like certain flu viruses and common germs are important to ingest while young, because if you end up ingesting these things when older, the impact will be much more severe. That is why it is important to strengthen that piece of paper to it's fullest potential, lest something come by and tear it in half (not to be graphic- it's just paper).

Sheltering a child can have social repercussions as well as health effects. Children that have been sheltered become shy, preventing the child from seeking friendship. This may lead to a lonely lifestyle. Those that do not become shy, often seek other sheltered youth to connect with. This further limits the number of people with whom they may develop friendships. An effect like this does not always last an entire lifetime and often changes around the last few years of highschool, but it degrades the quality of life for a child during the prime of their youth.

The world needs creativity. In a sheltered lifestyle, boundaries become it's enemy. As an actor, I am strongly influenced to believe that children cannot be sufficated by paranoid guardians waiting for the next big epidemic scare. The boundaries placed on radical youth can be important, but their restriction on creativity leads to lack of culture, artistry, and - most importantly - imagination. The death of imagination charges the downfall of humanity, and the prime of youth is it's salvation (not to sound preachy).

This ideal of parental protection has only developed over the last two hundred years. Before this, there was not excessive need to protect a child from the horrible things that occur in the world. This is one reason why child protection is so prominent in our society, as well as why it may be taken to unreasonable levels. Every parent is unique as an individual and every child needs to be treated differently, but the restriction that is often presented by modern parents on the freedom of youth is no less than a crime.

Journal Entry #4

For thousands of years, tools have been a significant part of human culture, development and survival. Every day tools are used for eating, carrying, walking, and even seeing. People have become so dependent on them that they almost forget about their existence. One very necessary, very useful tool - as well as my favourite tool - that sometimes slips our of people's minds is found everywhere, but very rarely presented. That tool is the alarm.

People find beauty in their lives, both conciously and unconciously. All day, they stare at flowers, trees, and even buildings, able to comprehend the wonderous, abstract benefits that it supplies. These asthetic views, however, are useless. When laying in bed, dreaming of fantastic and barely imaginable shapes and concepts, people forget that these things are products of Satan. In order to free them from this manipulative, evil state of mind, the alarm serves it's purpose. Ridding the world of evil creativity and filling it with benevolent, stale order, Earth becomes a better place for everyone - thanks to the morning alarm.

Primaly, the alarm has always existed. It is an instinct that everyone posesses. In order to survive, creatures must be aware of their surroundings. They naturally keep a certain sense of their atmosphere that elevates or decipates depending on their state of mind. Mamals will not rest until they are completely satasfied with the safety of their environment, and therefore have keen senses until that point. Once safe, unfamiliar or warding noises, sights or feelings trigger a certain jolt of awareness. Similar to adrenaline, this jolt is a natural alarm that can be the difference between a safe escape or an entree. This type of alarm has further use than survival in a modern world.

Since ancient times, people have believed in different religions involving spirits and demons. Certain people have believed in demonic posession. In order to extract demons from humans, these people often performed rituals that resulted in pain or even death. This made others worry constantly if they would qualify as one of the "posessed" to their community, and through this state of mind, people became worried of others. They would often find signs that may isolate a person as a target; short tempers, odd appearances, strange habbits, and in some cases sneezing or hiccuping was a sign of demonic posession. This is where the natural alarm serves it's purpose, once again. Scaring someone has become a popular way to relieve someone of hiccups. The act of scaring someone triggers the 'adrenaline rush' body shock, that through some divine miracle, can cure someone of hiccups. Thanks to this natural alarm, these people could rest a little bit easier knowing that the natural alarm is on God's side.

As a student, I am directly affected by the most popular of artificial alarms - the fire alarm. When attending class, it is comforting to know that there is a functioning fire alarm. Should there be a fire, then with the help of a fire escape plan, I know that I will have options of escape. Besides escape, this kind of fire alarm also provides an excellent trap used by serial killers. Activating a fire alarm will almost guarantee that every student will exit the building in an orderly fashion. This provides excellent, unsuspecting, moving targets for any .22 caliber or higher rifle-action weapon. Because of this, the alarm not only serves as an excellent safety feature, but a good way for angry hunters to "get their rocks off".

The alarm certainly is an underground savior in past and modern times. It is sometimes forgotten as one of the most useful and effective tools of the world. From saving lives to ridding evil, the alarm always serves it's purpose - assuming that it is set correctly.

Journal Entry #3

As North Americans, many of us find privelage in several aspects of everyday life. From quality of life to education, we find ourselves surrounded in opportunity. Through this mindset we become used to hand-out education, and when the time comes to reach out for it, we either cannot be bothered, or do not posess the ambition to seek it. This is usually the source of citizens taking education for granted, and overall leads to the decline of our civilization.

It is common for parents, relatives and close friends to look after people at a young age. Each family has it's own limitations and ideals, but the concept stays similar. They are constantly attended to and barricaded from a great deal of the world. These traits pass as they get older, but sometimes do not leave quick or slow enough to have a proper impact. Several parents that let their children have too much freedom too early make them corrupt and most likely exposed to the parts of life that are more difficult to handle alone. On the contrary, parents that keep barriers in their children's lives for to long keep them sheltered and spoiled - unable to fend or think properly for themselves. Most often this type of behaviour is caused from fear.

Claims are constantly made of government conspiracies against the population - targeted news, imbeslement - and with the way others act around us, it is understandable that we would become afraid. The more we fear, the more sheltered we become; leading to selfish squandering of effort towards our own needs. In this circumstance, we condition eachother to live selfishly and sometimes lose track of important values. The values that we lose would be values that helped our prioritization of things like health, significant others and education. We naturally lose track of these things when things seem bleak, but in other places, people condition each other to live well when exposed to these situations.

Living conditions in certain underdeveloped countries, such as Somalia or South Africa, are very poor. Many people starve to death every day and others barely manage to live with the limited resources that are available. With civil war, famine and in some places disease, education becomes a lower priority than survival. Because civilians know this, they will fight for what they need and live off of whatever they can. In turn, however, education proves as an escape from this lifestyle, and becomes an important goal.

Since education is not often available to everyone, people need to fight for their chance to learn. This also raises the expense of schooling which further limits who is able to attend. In some places, entire communities will pool money in order to afford to send one citizen to recieve an education. As unfortunate as it may be, this greatly displays how much more these citizens value their education than we do.