Farewell: an ode to all those moving on (short story)

*This is an Iowa State Daily column by Ian Timberlake written for graduates*

Just past seven in the evening, the sun is making its departure and its warm rays blanket your body as your fingertips tickle the tall grass. Monstrous, white clouds pock the bluebird sky, casting intermittent shadows across rolling fields of flora swelling in the breeze.

You inhale just as a breeze blows by, taking in a thousand flowers and the scent of a spring morning rain. Dense woods in the distance percolate the soft soil you trod so lightly, barefoot, feeling the dirt, pebble, and grass groom your feet.

A lone cherry tree, atop a cresting hill of grass gives way to some vivid pink blossom with every firm breeze. You slowly, joyously, stroll through the grass and up the hill, making your way towards the cherry tree, not quite sure where you are or where you’re going. The hill stretches on upwards, seemingly growing, making you realize you misperceived the majesty and illusion of this hill; With every step, the cherry tree looms larger, broader.

On top and out of breath, you bask in the shade of this cherry tree, completely absorbed in its greatness. The wind now tests your foot and drowns out the song of birds from below. You place your hand up to the tree and look up, admiring its wonder, slowly strolling around its base grazing every aged crack juxtaposed with its smooth bark, stepping over the roots sinking deep into the Earth.

“Where am I?”

Stricken with a smell, your attention is stripped from the cherry tree as if pulled from a dream. A smell so distinct you can taste it under your tongue. It tastes rocky and bitter, like a dry sweat after an afternoon of yard-work.

“What is that?”

You dismiss it and lean your back up against the cherry tree, sliding gracefully down to a seated position to, only momentarily thereafter, have a cherry blossom fall to your lap.

You stare at it awhile, as if it was looking at you… looking at you with the same wonder you look at it. No judgement. No prejudice. No ridicule. And no expectations. Just inquisition. Just curiosity.

Eventually you pick up the cherry blossom, feeling its silky smooth pedals, its flutes with globules of pollen at the end, its delicacy more than a vase. Bringing the blossom up to your nose, you smell it, but it doesn’t matter because you’re already sitting under the greatest cherry tree of your life. What were you thinking you’d smell?

You remember hearing once that cherry blossoms were edible. Looking at the beautiful flower resting in the palm of your hand, you grimace. But…

“What the hell”, and you eat it. A light, and comfortable taste washes across your palate. Nothing too strong or specific, too crunchy or too soft. Smiling, a happy taste, if that means anything. You laugh.

A gust of wind blows through, you can feel your hair disarranging, but you don’t care… you get a quick shiver down your spine. You taste the bitter in the air again, almost thwarting the happiness of your recent cherry blossom. More inquisitive now, you look over your shoulder and around the tree trunk.

Now, with more attention paid and curiosity gathered you notice a slightly larger hill a good stroll away. This hill was just tall enough to block your view of what lay beyond, it was connected to the hill you sat on by a smooth, grassy loft.

“Hmm.”

Standing up, you look around, doing your best to admire where you are, and somehow, take-in your surroundings, and begin your stroll across the loft. slightly down and slightly up to the top of this bigger hill, still barefoot, still taking in deep breaths of flowers, still closing your eyes and admiring the sounds of the rushing wind over the faint bird chirps. The bitterness gets stronger, the wind grows to be confused with a rushing ocean.

You crest up and over this broad, grassy hill with the cherry blossom far to your back.

Awe struck, you say under your breath, “My… That’s a big ocean”.

You look down the now sandy hill at the long, white beach, and see a washed up rowboat, made of wood. It was of chipped white paint and faded red trimmings. In no time, you sink your feet into the warm sandy dune, towards the rowboat, saying nothing less than a smile.

Farewell.

 

22 Things Happy People Do Differently

Reblogged from Bucket List Publications:

This article is from Chiara Fucarino. Enjoy!

There are two types of people in the world: those who choose to be happy, and those who choose to be unhappy. Contrary to popular belief, happiness doesn’t come from fame, fortune, other people, or material possessions. Rather, it comes from within. The richest person in the world could be miserable while a homeless person could be right outside, smiling and content with their life.

Read more… 1,148 more words

Marginalized Massacres: The story the media won’t sensationalize.

*Iowa State Daily column by Ian Timberlake*

Sandy Hook, 20 children and seven adults murdered, plus injured. Virginia Tech, 32 students and faculty murdered and 23 injured. Aurora theater, 12 movie patrons murdered and 58 injured. Town Center Mall, two shoppers murdered, plus injured. Binghamton School, 14 murdered, plus injured. Fort Hood, 13 murdered and 30 injured. Boston bombing, four murdered and 298 injured. Between all of the aforementioned violent crimes, over 105 others were killed and over 64 injured due to other random killing sprees.

Jeff Bauman, who lost both his legs in the Boston bombing, being helped by both officials and bystanders.

Undoubtedly, violent crime is on the rise given this death spree toll is only five years running. And with everyone today holding a third eye in their pocket, streaming video, picture, and text at the speed of light, everyone in the world can be a witness and sit shoulder to shoulder with every news anchor in the world.

Au contraire, you might find it interesting that we are at an all time low in violent crime in over 40 years and a massive drop since the mid-1990s according to the FBI’s data collection.

In 1992, the United States incurred over 750 violent crimes per one hundred thousand people with a murder rate of 9.3 per one hundred thousand people. At the end of 2012, our nation had a violent crime rate of 377 per one hundred thousand people. In the last two decades, the rate has only increased between two consecutive years, 2005 and 2006. The murder rate of 2012 is down to 4.6, half that of two decades ago.

Wall Street Journal crime drop chart projected from 2009-2011, just two years.

Included with the decline of violent crime and murder, we have seen a decline in nearly every other category: rape, robbery, aggravated assault, property crime, burglary, larceny, and motor theft. These drops weren’t marginal either. The drop ranges from 30 percent in the case of burglary, to nearly 65 percent in the case of motor theft in the last two decades.

Impossible for me to marginalize crime statistics as significant as these, it may appear like I am attempting to marginalize the massacres we have experienced recently. In a certain light, I am.

While it would probably be a bad idea to leave me alone in a room with the Boston bombers or the Newtown shooter (if all were still alive), objectively, we need to realize that while things appear to be getting worse, they are actually getting better.

Even if you draw the timeline back a few centuries, on average, crime rates have always been on the decline and societies have continually improved.

Renowned Harvard psychologist, Steven Pinker, said in a Ted Talk you can find online, “In fact, our ancestors were far more violent than we are. Violence has been in decline for long stretches of time, and that today, we are probably living in the most peaceful time in our species history.”

With the advent of modern communication, dramatized reporting, and easy access to traumatizing and gory digital media from around the world, it’s easy to see how the nasty gets emblazoned into the brains of the common and are therefore none the wiser to the increase number of people dying of old age and happiness.

Dramatization of media has even worked its way into the political realm, not so shockingly. It has facilitated the cry of the people to be loud enough that, now, of all times, our government needs to introduce laws of weapon control.

This isn’t an argument about whether weapon laws will be good, bad, or moot; This is an argument about how easy it is for the advent of easy access, instant communication and media drama can suade the people (and thus the government) regardless of the actual statistics and state of society as a whole… but you already knew that didn’t you?

Of course so long as there is murder, violent crime, and the like, we should make every effort as a society to prevent it… even if it’s at an all time low. That’s different than allowing the media and the public lead you to believe your safety is in jeopardy. Only a few minutes after the Boston bombings, the Sandy Hook shooting, and every other massacre, news networks scrolled fear mongering lines such as, “How safe are your children?” and, “Are terrorists taking over America?”.

The answer to these questions are, “As safe as they have ever been”, and, “I’m more afraid of spiders”.

 

Related articles

• Violent Crime Rates In The US Continue To Plummet Far Below The Gun-Free UK (stevengoddard.wordpress.com)
• Violent crimes drop in South Carolina (thestate.com)
• Hundreds Share Grief At Statewide Memorials For Those Lost To Violent Crime (baltimore.cbslocal.com)
• Violent, property crimes down across city (cjonline.com)
• ‘Substantial’ fall in violent crime (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)

Your tax dollars in military and education… where are they going? (Petition)

*Iowa State Daily column by Ian Timberlake*

In 1947 our national defense budget was below $100 billion. In 1952 it was nearly $500 billion, and ever since 1955, it has been on the incline from $225 billion. Excluding the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan, since 2001 our defense budget has gone up from $287 billion to $530 billion. These numbers have indeed been adjusted for inflation.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2012 the United States spent $711 billion in military. This accounts for 41 percent of the world’s military spending and is equivalent to five China defense budgets — the world’s second in military spending.

The only thing I will say about tax and budget cuts is that, regardless of administration, most of them are likened to cutting a lawn of grass at a slower rate than it grows back. Or maybe the more satisfying, trimming the foam off the beer.

Without contempt, I will be the first to opinionate that whomever the world superpower is, has a responsibility to act (at some regard) as a global justifier. A global hierarchy needs to exist in order to bay any international injustices. This does not mean, however, we need to micromanage all of Earth.

Since 1977, the defense budget has accounted for 41-65 percent of the total national budget, while the education budget has accounted for 3-6 percent — with the exception of the 2009 stimulus that briefly placed the number at 10 percent.

Obviously, the costs are not comparable. An Air Force B2 stealth bomber costs about one billion dollars, we own 21. That alone accounts for a third of the entire Department of Education budget in 2012. I can’t simply say we need to take money out of defense and put it in education, here’s why.

Data shows that the amount of money in a nation’s education budget does not correlate with the quality of education received. The United States is tied with Switzerland for having the highest annual spending per student, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Among the 31 industrialized nations, we place 15th in literacy, 23rd in math, and 17th in science. Where Switzerland is 17th, 7th, and 18th, respectively. The top nations in each category have a relatively low education expenditure. Finland, Japan, and Korea are on top of the respective literacy, math, and science charts.

These three nations are not far from the top in the other two categories, with Finland considered to be the global example in education, where teachers are high-status and require masters degrees. University is also free in Finland.

What needs to happen is a large percentage of our money needs to be put towards education reform. It’s shown that once the proper education plan is in place, top dollar is no longer required to operate at an effective rate.

A small percentage of the defense budget put towards education reform would not be difficult, our government just needs a plan and have the guts to do it. Here’s my proposition:

Grades K-12 need to be more difficult to pass by not “teaching to the test”. Private, religious, and boarding schools must maintain the minimum requirements of the public schools. Teachers need to be paid more and on performance — as well as easily fireable. Tenure needs to be more difficult to achieve, or flat-out removed. Curriculum needs to be more flexible and/or reevaluated. Education should be free until the age of 18. School years should be longer. More money should be awarded to schools with lower graduation rates. Classes need to be smaller and we should never have a more-supervisors-to-teachers ratio that currently exists.

Why revamp education?

Outside of maintaining the status quo of the success of humanity, improved education could fix many other areas of problem in our nation’s society — as speculated:

Crime rates would drop, prison costs would go down. Health would improve, cost of care would go down. Unplanned pregnancy would go down, children would be raised in more privileged homes. Economy would improve through better business and innovation.

We need to start placing money where it matters: Less in military; Less in prisons (where it costs more to bed an inmate than it does to send a student off to university); Less in foreign aid that includes nations, religious organizations, and major corporations. And into: Education reform, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation — all of which contribute towards the advancement of education among other, smaller, organizations.

To do anything less would be subverting the human species one profound thought at a time. Here is a petition I wrote that calls the White House to make education reform a top-3 priority, please sign and share this as much as you care: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-education-reform-top-3-priority/j2g0NSG2 

Related articles

• China defense budget soars by 10.7% amid West’s concern (panarmenian.net)
• Burma Parliament Approves Controversial Defense Budget (irrawaddy.org)
• Experts Gather in New Orleans to Discuss Special Education Reform at Loyola University (prweb.com)

 

Is the world ready to cure cancer given our population and resource consumption?

*Iowa State Daily column by Ian Timberlake*

In 2008, there was a calculated estimate of 12.7 million new cancer cases along with 7.6 million cancer related deaths. The previous year, cancer accounted for about 13 percent of all global deaths with nearly 64 percent of all these deaths occurring in developed nations. With upwards of 70 conventionally named organs in the human body, there are over 200 different types of known cancer – all of which are only treatable, not curable.

The United Nations and US Census reports the global population in 2050 could be between 7.5-10.5 billion people and that our resource consumption could triple. The Worldwatch Institute said, “This surge in human numbers threatens to offset any savings in resource use from improved efficiency, as well as any gains in reducing per-capita consumption. Even if the average American eats 20 percent less meat in 2050 than in 2000, total U.S. meat consumption will be 5 million tons greater in 2050 due to population growth.”

United States projected population growth. (courtesy of United Nations)

To add, “Every day in 2003, some 11,000 more cars merged onto Chinese roads – 4 million new private cars during the year. Auto sales increased by 60 percent in 2002 and by more than 80 percent in the first half of 2003. If growth continues apace, 150 million cars could jam China’s streets by 2015 – 18 million more than were driven on U.S. streets and highways in 1999.”

Just touching the surface of our population growth and resource consumption, can we really afford to cure cancer with the current state of our global consumption?

United States projected female life expectancy (without a cancer cure).

Within the last year alone, researchers have made considerable steps towards finding a cure for cancer. As I see it, we are on the cusp of a legitimate cure for the second largest cause of death, just behind heart disease.

Abbreviated, these “considerable steps” include:

German Cancer Research Center and Heidelberg University Hospital find a weak point in cancerous cells that effectively kills the cells when the HDAC11 enzyme molecule is turned off.

Researchers at McMaster University have discovered a drug, thioridazine, that kills cancer stem cells without major side-effects.

Australian researchers have discovered the mechanism in which breast cancer cells avoid the immune system and develop within the body.

South Korean scientists in-lab tests were able to cause cancer cells to “self destruct” after being induced to specific magnetic fields.

Published in Nature Journal, researchers have engineered a safe virus that, when injected intravenously, will target only cancerous cells.

UCLA has shown cancerous cells can be fought by stimulating the immune system with a protein that targets tumors.

The list continues.

I don’t mean to suggest that we shouldn’t attempt to find a cure (personally, I’ve had family members affected by cancerous conditions, among other things). In fact, I suggest the opposite. But when the United States accounts for less than five percent of the global population and consume over one quarter of the world’s fuels, what sort of impact would the world see should nearly 13 percent of all global deaths become abated?

A one-stop cancer cure wouldn’t fix all cancerous-related problems overnight, but it would spread faster around the world than cancer spreads through the human body, which is immeasurably faster than the rate of global economic, social, and resource consumption changes.

Solving any of the world’s leading causes of death would induce a massive influx of global change. Cures for heart disease, HIV, respiratory, alzheimers, diabetes, nephrosis, or cancer are all contenders to change the world not just in a positive way, but in a very damaging way should we not be prepared for the change.

Our global society, specifically, the developed nations, should take resource consumption seriously even just on this basis let alone other reasons such as standard population growth, environmental impact, and cost.

In the documentary, Surviving Progress, one of the most inquisitive lines I have ever heard stated was, “If humans go extinct on this planet our epitaph on our gravestone is going to be ‘why.’”

I think Harvard social psychologist, Dan Gilbert, sums it up pretty well in his Ted Talk, “Our brains were evolved for a very different world than the one in which we are living. They were evolved for a world in which people lived in very small groups, rarely met anybody that was terribly different from themselves, had rather short lives, of which there were very few choices and the highest priority was to eat and mate today. We are the only species on this planet that has ever held its own fate in its hands. We have no significant predators, we are masters of our physical environment, things that normally cause other species to become extinct are no longer any threat to us. The only thing that can destroy us and doom us, are our own decisions. If we’re not here in 10,000 years, it’s going to be because we underestimated the odds of our future pains and overestimated the value of our present pleasures.”

Online dating expands potential pool, proves viable [OkCupid]

*Iowa State Daily column by Ian Timberlake*

For the past three months, I have been experimenting with online dating. Piqued by curiosity and listening to friends’ first-hand accounts of various websites, I decided to make an OkCupid account. Recently purchased by Match.com, OkCupid is essentially the free version of many online dating sites and is arguably the largest. Even the Boston Globe called it “the Google of online dating”; take that as you will.

The site has over 3.5 million members, recording an average of two logins per month for every member. The method of matching seems to be quite complex. Including your age, location, sexual preference and miles willing to travel, there are literally thousands of questions you can answer. You can answer as many or as little as you like, and all are neither correct nor incorrect. On a level of importance, you rank each question asked.

All being calculated, this leads to a “match percent,” “friend percent,” and “enemy percent” in the users that fall under the age, location, sexual preference and distance willing to travel stated above.

The goal, obviously, is to narrow down the selection to people whom have a high “match” and “friend” percent and a low “enemy” percent. And it seems they do a good job of that, in my experience.

I went into this curious experiment with a fairly negative view of online dating, but I have to say that my view has severely changed. I was quite impressed with how the selection process worked and how close matches were politically, religiously, educationally, and sexually among many other things.

There were still a few hiccups, however. I warn you that I may speak discriminatorily and highly judgmentally in the next few paragraphs; and that has to do with either how I presented myself on OkCupid or how most women who use OkCupid behave. In other words, my experience has only to do with women who were narrowed down based off my supposed personality.

A trend seemed to be severe flakiness. Regardless, if a woman’s profile says she is willing to chat with anyone and was not shy, she still was flaky — so much so it made me take every profile with a serious grain of salt.

An attribute of myself may have caused that; I am very blunt, as my profile exclaims, but whether I am the one writing the initial message, or the one receiving the initial message, few of the women I chatted with held a conversation long enough to even get to any real “deal breakers” that weren’t already taken care of in the OkCupid questions.

As you might judge, there were (in my eyes) plenty of women on OkCupid that seemingly fit the bill as someone who might find difficulty in finding long-term relationships offline: bisexuals, atheists, overweight people, single mothers, etc. Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t the majority, but I will agree that online dating is a great place for people to meet who have a taboo attached to them, including myself.

I did go on a date with a smart, beautiful and charming woman from Des Moines. We were like-minded but our future plans simply didn’t pan out after that honestly delightful experience.

However, on two occasions, I was asked out by women who ended up backing out; and aside from my above example, a handful of other women I asked out accepted and then backed out at a later time. It was really quite disappointing.

Every woman seemingly wants her own white knight story. A moment of captured bliss bringing two people together, a sense of meaning, or even destiny. I don’t blame her. Every man wants a beautifully charming girl to traipse along around the corner and smite him, though, he will never admit to that.

Online dating does not do that, but I do know that online dating is successful. I personally know a few people who are likely to marry the person they met online, including one couple which met with over 1000 miles between them and now live together. For this reason I will keep participating. It only increases your dating pool, and is actually quite fun to take part in.

For any ladies out there who have seen or will see me on OkCupid (using my full name) and now think none of it was serious, think again. I am currently single and looking to date, and will continue looking to date both offline and online until we find each other. Overall, I approve of online dating, and I’ll say it again, ladies: I’m single.

Related articles

• OkCupid or Match.com: What’s Better for Online Dating? (smoothreentry.wordpress.com)
• Life As An OkCupid Moderator (huffingtonpost.com)
• Love, Sex and C++: The Technology Behind OkCupid (news.dice.com)

Legalize Euthanasia

*Iowa State Daily column by Ian Timberlake*

According to the Death with Dignity Act passed in Oregon in 1994, physicians are allowed to assist in the death of their patient provided circumstances fall within the bounds of a six \month terminal illness and strict codes of compliance. The vote margin was narrow, 51/49, ushering in the first of three states to legalize euthanasia: Oregon, Washington and Montana.

Argued against by the George W. Bush Administration and upheld by the Supreme Court as recent as 2006, Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act remains.

The moral debate is not new. The ancient Greeks, such as Socrates, philosophized the question and even practiced the act of “hastening death” more than 2,000 years ago. Other philosophers, such as Hippocrates, opposed euthanasia, and strong opposition came from that of Jewish and Christian dignitaries, such as Thomas Aquinas and Augustine. This is where we get the Hippocratic oath, which is still the oath most physicians take to practice medicine ethically.

In modern times, this debate becomes messy. In nearly all of the United States, family members and nearest kin are allowed to make a decision to “pull the plug” on the life-support of a person in an unrecoverable vegetative state; they are not biologically dead. I don’t need to explain Terri Schiavo.

Yet when a person is on a timeline of irreversible imminent death, knows this, and is in a state of severe physical pain, often bound to a hospital bed, they are not legally allowed to choose the time with which to pass.

In Oregon, the proceedings for physician-assisted suicide are as follows:

First, a terminally diagnosed patient given six months to live may give a written request to their physician to end their own life. Second, the inquisition is required by law to be under voluntary patient request. Third, any physician given the request by the patient may decline the request for any reason. Fourth, a two-witness confirmation is required by unrelated and nonentitled persons. Fifth, the physician must determine the patient to lack mental disorder. Sixth, an outside physician is required to review the case file and give approval.

At least 15 days later, this process is repeated. Finally, under protection by law, the physician is capable of prescribing life-ending “medication.”

Ending your own life is not always unreasonable. A soldier is commended for throwing himself on a grenade to save the lives of his fellow comrades. Prisoners of war knowingly get tortured and shot upon refusal to divulge information and become heroes. The U.S. government has prescribed L-pills or cyanide tablets in the event an operative is captured. Pushing a loved one out of the way of an oncoming train while knowing you will, in turn, get hit is the ultimate self-sacrifice.

Known as “altruistic suicide,” this is suicide that’s for the greater good of the community. Realistically, the final result for the individual is the same as all other suicides, self-induced death. The moment someone wishes upon euthanasia in order to terminate a guaranteed long, painful death, the government and society deem it selfish and nearly amoral.

It seems like another needless form of government control on its citizens, arguably unconstitutional as early as the Preamble. This is a freedom I wish to have, and should the conditions arise (knock on wood), I will be one of the many seniors who illegally commits suicide because their state won’t entitle them to a dignified death. Euthanasia will never become obligatory, and it is absolutely not a method to “snuff out” the country’s disabled and elderly as Iowa’s Right to Life organization claims.
In late 2010, over 10,000 physicians were surveyed by Medscape in regards to “end-of-life dilemmas,” including three questions about euthanasia:

“Would you ever recommend or give life-sustaining therapy when you judged that it was futile?” 23.6 percent said “yes;” 39 percent said “no,” and 39.4 percent said, “It depends.”

“Would you ever consider halting life-sustaining therapy because the family demands it even if you believed that it was premature?” 16.3 percent said “yes;” 54.5 percent said “no,” and 29.2 percent said, “It depends.” An assessment of moral character, question two, shows a high Hippocratic morality that most physicians are either “no” or “It depends.”

The final question was, “Should physician-assisted suicide be allowed in some cases?” 45.8 percent said “yes;” 40.7 percent said “no,” and 13.5 percent said, “It depends.”

According to this survey, it appears that most physicians are in favor of some form of life-ending action, given certain circumstances- hence the high number of “no” and “It depends” answers in the first question and the majority saying “yes” to the last.
Euthanasia is a right that should be granted to every citizen. Everyone has the right to life, and given the right circumstances, everyone should have the right to die peacefully.

Are you an intellectual?

*Iowa State Daily column by Ian Timberlake*

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.”

That is one of my favorite quotes of all time. Truer words than these by Aldous Huxley are rarely uttered. In his book “Brave New World Revisited,” Huxley also wrote, “Unlike the masses, intellectuals have a taste for rationality and an interest in facts.” The accuracy of this statement about a lack of intellectualism in the masses makes the first quote remain true.

Isaac Asimov

What I do not understand is why the word “intellectual” even exists. Using that concept creates two distinct groups: intellectuals and the people who oppose to them. Normally, the opposition is characterized by standing upright and proud in their ignorance, not by valuing rationality and facts.

Using the word “intellectual” to describe people lumps them into identities rather than considering them in terms of how they act and argue. It could stem from everyone’s desire to follow the crowd, to enact “populism.” To those within the populace, a fish that swims upstream can come off as elitist and/or arrogant.

To call someone an “intellectual” is ultimately to reduce yourself — to belittle your own capacity to rationalize and learn. Intellectualism is valuing rational thinking and reason in everyday life, provided you don’t already believe yourself to be an intellectual. It does not mean to actually be intelligent, though, most whom are, are in fact what you might call “intellectual.”

Chided by a friend on Facebook in a comment about some of the articles I write, I was told I needed to, “…spend less time trying to be a high intellectual…” if I wanted to be taken seriously. This led me to thinking about how peculiar such a statement was. Isaac Asimov once said, “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”

Intellectualism has colloquially lost its value, and it seems this isn’t a recent occurrence — or maybe, rather, was never valued to begin with. Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth were founded, in part, to combat anti-intellectualism by people such as Puritan John Cotton who wrote a book in 1642 denouncing the “intellectual.”

Every human being on Earth should strive to be an intellectual. All it takes is the value of thinking for yourself, critically, and having a desire to learn. It also requires the ability to converse within the taboo. Breaking the taboo is a must. Ignorance might be bliss, but knowledge is power, and it should be valued — especially here at a prominent university (or any university for that matter).

Albert Einstein wrote, “Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.” “Equanimity” is synonymous with “mental calmness,” and with that, Einstein was voicing his opinion on the taboo as well as likening the majority to sheep.

To be an intellectual, you must be willing to doubt, doubt anything and everything. Run a respectable experiment yourself or accept only that which has gone under considerable objective scrutiny by other so-called “intellectuals.”

Einstein said, “No amount of experimentation could ever prove [my theory of general relativity] right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” Feynman, the acclaimed successor to Einstein, said, “We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress, we must recognize the ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.”

You also must be willing to go against the crowd and in many cases fight the taboo. The quickest way to solve societal problems and overcome difficulties is to detach yourself from what you believe to be true and instead focus on logical education.

At a university, we already have a high ratio of intellectuals in comparison to society. Being redundant, this is not to say that intellectuals must go through university, but that university seems to be the hub for intellectual thought. The act of being an intellectual is no more than maintaining the status quo of the success of humanity. To do anything less would be subverting the human species one profound thought at a time.

The idea of “intellectualism” needs to go away. It creates an unnecessary dichotomy within society: the “thinkers” and the “non-thinkers.” Or stereotypically, the “snobs” and the “normal.” It disenfranchises people’s ability to advance society and makes room for actual elitism.

People, regardless of level of education attained, should not only think of themselves as an intellectual but should actually be intellectuals. And the funny thing is that everyone has that capacity upon birth. They only lose it through many years of intellectual devaluing.

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/InsanityIsJustAStateOfMind 

Seek danger and adventure in life

*Iowa State Daily column by Ian Timberlake*

I was born to die, and so were you. Death is the inexorable disease inseminated upon conception. Fear of death is more compelling than compassion, love, hate, envy and hope.

Value: Where do you think it comes from? Is it from family? Friends? How about religion? Maybe all three. While these may be very important to a lot of people, I could feasibly generate a valuable life even after expelling all three (or in my case just two).

Camp Muir on Mt. Rainier. 10,000 ft of the 14,410 ft mountain.

Universally, life value comes from time. Time is the currency of life — thus, it is because we die that makes life unimaginably worth living.

The adventurers of the world have become more aware of their time spent on Earth. Be it the Alaskan kayaker, the Amazon jungle trekker, the Everest summiteer or the planetary circumnavigator — they all know about imminent death.

Three years ago I committed to attempting the “7-summits” — the tallest mountain on each continent: Aconcagua, Carstensz, Denali, Elbrus, Everest, Kilimanjaro and Vinson Massif. This was a goal of mine in my desire to chase the dangerous.

This summer I successfully summited Mt. Rainier in the state of Washington. Standing in at 14,410 feet, it is the most prominent mountain in the contiguous states and a rite of passage for mountaineers in the world. In late May, I attempted the mountain and was snowed in for five days and never was able to summit. Rescues were made and a ranger even lost his life during those (at the time) winter conditions. Early August I returned, blessed with near perfect weather and summited in two days time.

I have relatively high control over what happens to me on a mountain such as Rainier, aside from avalanches and falls (which has a level of risk analysis). I, however, have little control over natural disasters, violence, vehicular accidents and disease, among other things. It’s rather disconcerting that the act of fearing death simultaneously brings bore to the commons. Tell me this: Would you just as soon prefer a death by death-bed heaving up your own lungs and drowning in body fluid, as death by blowing off a mountain? I believe a serious judgment of character can be made by your answer. Only a boring person would prefer the former; and I claim that statement.

On May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first team to successfully make a confirmed summit of Mt. Everest. Nearly 30 years earlier and many deaths accumulated, mountaineer George Mallory was asked by a reporter: “Why climb Everest?” Mallory replied: “Because it’s there.”

Mallory also said: “What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for.” Mallory soon perished somewhere near the summit of the 29,029 foot mountain.

Mt. Rainier is just a training wheel in my quest for the “seven summits,” including Everest. Why you too should seek the vulnerable is because it’s only when you lay eyes on fatal departure that you truly feel alive. Experiences and knowledge reveal themselves where they wouldn’t otherwise. Views are made that humans aren’t supposed to make, and as Henry David Thoreau puts it in “Walden”: “I want[ed] to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.”

Every person has stakes in the game of life. Until you understand that your life value only exists because you will eventually die, then you might as well not have a purpose. Given the option to live forever, I would politely decline. It would suck the value out of the actual living part of existing by removing what might be considered difficult to do within the span of a lifetime.

With unlimited time, there’s the possibility for unlimited achievement and therefore all respect would be expunged. The old adage remains true: “With great risk comes great reward.”

Death is more connected to life than anything else, so live it up, and make yourself worth something — use the time such that when you take your last breath, you’ll be able to look back and say: “Yes, that was worth it.”

Original: http://www.iowastatedaily.com/opinion/article_01f9857e-ebc3-11e1-b9cb-001a4bcf887a.html

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Iceland’s New Open-Source Constitution

*Iowa State Daily column by Ian Timberlake*

Iceland leaves no leaf unturned. Iceland rewrites and updates its constitution, open-source, through social media platforms. As your jaw retreats back to its skull, read that again.

This time last year, 25 representative citizens turned in the first draft of a “crowd-sourced” constitution constructed via the internet that would become the new governing document of the nation. This was as a result of the 2008 economic collapse the nation saw that sent them from towering in as one of the richest nations in the world to less than empty pocketed. It was the greatest collapse any nation has suffered (relative to its size) in economic history.

Iceland’s Parliament

In 2010, Iceland decided to start “ný,” or fresh, as we might call it. Upon liberation from Denmark in 1944, Iceland adopted its constitution, a near carbon copy. The only practical alteration was the term “king” that was changed to “president.” Being progressive, Iceland decided to push the boundary of what the rest of the world might consider acceptable politics. Thus, heralding in a new age of government deliberation.

Opening up to the citizens of Iceland online government forums, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media platforms, a new constitution was assembled through suggestion and inquisition. Many thousands of people from the small nation contributed, giving their take on exactly what the new constitution would entail. The 25 citizen representatives were to analyze the information and create drafts of the constitution, presenting the drafts live, online. A literal evolution of the document took place, perpetuated by the people.

The result? A perfectly compromised constitution in that it guaranteed freedom and protection of the people, maintained government balance and order and was as close to systemically pleasing as possible.

I am surprised it took me two years to hear about this. I feel like news of this sort is acute to the 21st century and a glimpse to future global government and politics. I recently heard about it because the citizens are making a referendum this October for a number of things: abolishing the state church in favor of separation of church and state, declaring public ownership of natural resources, state provided internet access, among other things.

What we are seeing is a shift in government policy making, at least with Iceland. With the election looming, American citizens and Iowa State’s students alike would benefit from understanding the fundamental ideology Iceland has created. I am too cynical of our citizens to think open-sourcing our constitution would be remotely helpful, we already have a work of art as a constitution. However, I do suggest that we take the idea of open-sourcing and apply it to political discourse and voting. Americans should vote not on the basis of party and/or ideology, but on policy that is best suited for the whole of the nation.

For example, there is a slight yet stark difference between being Republican because you align yourself with the ideologies, and being Republican because it closest fits your own personal ideology. The open-sourced constitution of the Icelandic people removes partisanship association and takes the differing ideologies of each citizen and evolves them into one perfectly compromised set of national law.

You might argue that partisan politics is necessary. What if I told you that we no longer live in an age where either party is ideal? If the winner of the presidential race always was the most well suited for the nation, then each presidential inauguration would come with a seamless continuation or evolution of the previous president, and we don’t see that. Gridlock in decision making has made it nearly impossible to progress in policy making.

Iceland’s open-sourced constitution brings forth the possibility to have politics (as opposed to just constitutional law) always move the nation in the direction most desirable. There would no longer be a constitution tug-of-war across the aisle and instead self-perpetuating compromise between all citizens of the nation.

Voting for a party comes with a catalog of presuppositions, some of which I might be in favor of and others I might not be in favor of, leaving me with a vote toward the lesser of the two evils.

I say we become an open-source society. Leave the constitution be, but allow the citizens of America to debate and “write” future laws into official government practice. Not simply voting, but actual law writing, without the need to lobby and/or strongarm. Oxford psychologist, Dr. Susan Blackmore, has said we are no longer gene machines, but in-fact “meme-machines.” Just as in genetics, the most adaptive society is the most successful society; we need to become as transparent as possible, citizen-sourced.