Michael the Magnificently Mad. 

My little brother Michael is my favorite person to interact with. He is the most decidedly backwards person there ever was. Michael is about 12 and knows everything there is to know about everything.

 He spews out all of the information he hears in the loudest way so that everyone will hear what he has to say. I guess  there are worse ways to communicate, and his way is quite amusing. 

 There he is making friends with those two nice gentlemen !!

 I'm just like everybody else.

Sometimes people tell Michael that he can act anyway he wants because he's a little challenged. Michael wears hearing aides because he can't always hear what is going on, he has ADHD and Dyslexia. 

Michael is my little brother but he is none of those things and his actions are his own. 

He uses hearing aids to hear better and that's it. His ADHD is nothing more than focus misplaced. Michael preforms magnificently when focused and doesn't let his ADHD or his Dyslexia define him. 

This one time Michael was well Michael in class and came home with a pretty bad note from his teacher and my mom just jogged it off as normal. Michael was tickled pink that he got away with his behavior until I got home from school. I promptly made him write an apology letter to the teacher and the students.But the point isn't that I'm an overbearing sister or that he was being punished.The point I hope to make is that Michael wrote that letter with the understanding that those were indeed his actions that he needed to take ownership of. At first I thought it was cute and I laughed at how my little brother played people but then I realized; Michael irregardless of the people had to be held accountable by someone. 

 Michael is more intelligent than his bad behavior and when I expected him to own up to it he did and he even wrote why it was wrong. It is my very strong personal opinion that people need to be held accountable for their behavior and not holding them to it hurts them the most.I want my brother to grow into the most fully independent and well adjusted member of society he can be. If that means being the big bad than I guess I accept. 

Anyways..

I'm quite glad Michael is my little brother. ! Even though of course as my little brother he drives me up a wall most days. I learn so much from him even though he's quite a few years younger than I am.

This is me and him sometime last year. Right now he's probably living life up unregulated.. I'm pretty stranded at college so the eye of Sauron isn't reaching him there. 

Thoughts on Blogging brought to you via. My College Writing II Class 

What are our responsibilities to each other when we blog ? Do we have responsibilities to others when we communicate? 

I think that we have a responsibility to life, as ambiguous as that sounds.

Whatever we take out of our self and make manifest into something by exstention might be something of a responsibility. My responsibility is to be sincere and honest. 

 Responsibility is definitely far reaching and never ending, it's much easier to joke than to explain to other people though why you feel the way you do. I still haven't figured out how to articulate the bigger ideas in my head so mostly I make them into jokes. My responsibility for now to people and to everything is being as sincere as I am asked to be. 

Really though I don't think responsibility is a joke, unless of course you ask me in person. 

Yeah anyways Blogging is cool I suppose. 

This is actually a result of my earlier fixation with all things syfy. But in my opinion this is the best family portrait ever taken. I'm the smaller person all the way on the left. But I can now say 6 years later that I am taller than my mom; but still shorter than my dad.

The really small person in the first image is my brother Michael and he's well just about the same height as me so for all my bravado with height I'm still seeing square one. 

I'd really like to tell you how extraordinary he is but I'm committed tonight so I'll tell you later.

Retrospectively Introspective. 

An inflection of thought 

Honestly, I'm not to sure what your going to find by reading my blog; I am not to sure there is anything worth finding. But you can have some of my thoughts mostly unfiltered. I'd like to think that I at least do some -review but for the most part here are some thoughts that have passed through my mind, unfiltered. (mostly)

Well the actual "philosophies" of life and approaching it seem as good a place as any.

 I'd like to just begin by saying that I am the most direct person I can be.
I currently am just typing the words as they flow through my head and hoping beyond all else that my mind doesn't wander. The result would probably be a lot of disjunctive thoughts.
 Disjunctive thoughts are not necessarily a bad thing but I'd like to be more organized with my mind. 

So about them Stoics?

So here's something I wrote a bit ago on Roman Stoicism.. Well I had to write it for class so it might have a funny theme but I think it got an A.. and feel free to give me a lower grade like a "D" for Dreadful of a "T" for Troll.  

            The pursuit of life is found in the reasons that people have for the things that they do. Philosophy is an outlook for life that can help center one’s self and give meaning to life. Each person has a different ideology of life, which means they often have a different philosophy and governing of their principles. Stoicism is the philosophy common in Ancient Rome and a kind of moral compass for Romans such as Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Both Marcus Aurelius and Seneca were influenced by the philosophy of stoicism which lead to the way they managed their political and social lives.

            Stoicism as a way of life is in essence the belief that the universe is ordered. The ruling principle according to the Stearns handout, underlay all things. The philosophy of stoicism emphasizes human strength in dealing with lives misfortunes, while offering an avenue to individual happiness. Stoics reasoned that people shared the logic of the cosmos because everyone is a part of the universe. This reasoning lead to the stoics treating people much more fairly because of their beliefs, they believed that humanity was one; natural law governs the cosmos and rules all in this philosophy.

            Marcus Aurelius and Seneca where very influenced by the philosophy of stoicism. Marcus Aurelius in Book two says: Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness—all of them due to the offender’s ignorance of what is good or evil. But for my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the [evildoer] himself, who is my brother (not in the physical sense, but as a fellow-creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine) therefore none of those things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading”. In those words, Marcus Aurelius shows the discourse a stoic would give for the reasons “he” does things. The stoicism influenced Marcus Aurelius with the logic of the cosmos that made the worldly influences bearable. Not only were they bearable for Marcus Aurelius but he thrived in his own place and time. The stoic philosopher fulfilled with reason and natural law.

            Seneca, yet another Roman influenced in his life by the principles of stoicism, has trouble with the idea of slaves. The idea of slaves for a person who is stoic is not an impossible thought but it is one that is at least broached with question. The stoic would see a slave as a logical equal, bound by the constraints of the world to their master; but in their mind free. This probably wouldn’t have created too much of a problem but the question seems likely to always be asked, why? Seneca in Epistle 47 writes to his friend Lucius on the matter of slaves: “It by no means displeases me, Lucius [a friend], to hear from those who confer with you, that you live on friendly terms with your slaves. This attests to your good sense and education. Are they slaves? No, they are men: they are comrades; they are humble friends. Nay, rather fellow-servants, if you reflect on the equal power of Fortune over both you and them.” Seneca not only doesn’t see the slaves as slaves but sees himself as not a master but a fellow servant; possibly to the grandeur of the logical natural world.

            Personally and public people must be congruent. Stoicism influenced Seneca and Marcus Aurelius to look at the world with a self-mastery, something synonymous with the natural world of logic. The philosophy of stoicism had such a profound impact on the culture of the time and the idea of oneness that allowed for the republic that was Rome; and for Marcus Aurelius and Seneca to govern fairly.

Well I think this is enough big ideas for today.