Year in Review

This year I learned a lot and had plenty of fun doing so. Sometimes some materials were hard to get into, but I pushed forward and ended up liking them a lot more. This year I did coursework on TJEd High, an online program for deep learning and leadership education for youth. In it I read assigned books, and posted thoughts about them on the discussion forums, and discussed interesting things about the books and our ideas on the forums. The course also had videos where instructors discussed books and principles, and gave inspiring "mid-week mentoring". The course put a heavy emphasis on reading classics, thinking deeply about them, and discussing them with others. It attempts to help us better our thinking, enabling us to have the deep, creative, analytical, and innovative thinking that can help us solve problems in the real world.  It was really fun thinking, and discussing the books. You can learn more through these links: learning.tjed.org, tjed.org . The books chosen included math classics, government classics, and other classics.  Some of the books I read include:
Mr. Bowditch, the Giver, Turn the Page, TJEd for Teens, Sword in the Stone, Alas Babylon, We Hold These Truths, Animal Farm, The Final Summit, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Travelers Gift and The Tools of Money; we also read short works like: If, A Mathematicians lament, Invitation to the pain of learning, A world Split Apart, the Inner Ring and the Road not Taken. Some books I read but did not finish include: the Prince, Anne of Green Gables, 1913, The coming aristocracy, Bendigo Shafter, Great Speeches by Native Americans and some essays by Emerson. You can read my posts and discussion here ( you may need to change your browser for it to load). You can see some of the discussion's I have had in my last blog post.

TJEd high helps me learn how to think, and write, and also has helped me learn more about math.
The books measuerment and Arithmetic by Lockhart are interesting ways to learn math. I have read a bit of them , and have thought up fun problems like they encourage. Here is one of them which I have solved:

Take a circle. Put an equilateral triangle in the center of it, with all three points on the circumference. Then put a square inside the triangle, connecting it to one of the sides of it. What fraction of the circle's area does the square take up? What is Square Area/Circle Area ?

You need to use the 30-60-90 triangle law to solve it. 

I have also taken two AP exams, AP Computer Science A and AP English Language, and earned a 5 and 4 on them respectively. They gave me 6 hrs of college credit and Eng fulfilled first-year writing GE requirement for BYU. 

I have been running in the morning usually between 1-3 miles, and drawing with my grandpa. I learned Bulgarian with him earlier in the year. I entered the Youthful Expressions art competition and the NAA Young and Budding Artists show, won a prize in the Youthful Expressions, and a honorable mention in NAA. I have also been playing the piano a bunch, and refereeing at ECYSA. 

Deep Discussion in TJEd High

Here are some things I have discussed on TJEd High. 

Discussion on self-defense 

Me• I know we have the right to use force in self defense, but is it our duty under natural law? Would it be illegal under this law, to just submit to any cruel harassment of ourselves by others, or destruction of our health,life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Would it be legal in some cases, and illegal in others?

I think the answer to this corresponds with what they said in We Hold These Truths about setting a precedent. When you refuse to defend yourself or others, you set a precedent for how you or other will be treated in the future. I've learned this the hard way, especially as a babysitter-- if you don't make it clear to the kid that punching you is not okay, they will continue to punch you because they don't know any better.

In that light, I don't think it's ever illegal under natural law to defend yourself, or legal to let others injure/hurt you. Using force may not be necessary, but you should never submit to something that decreases your freedom, because it will lower the freedoms of everyone else no matter what-- and like I said above, it sets a precedent for other people.

Thoughts?

Me•I think it is important to forgive others, but that you can also use force in self-defense ( not revenge ) when someone is harming you. Do you think that you can forgive others for wrongs they have/are committed/committing against you, while at the same time using force within the bounds of natural law to defend yourself from their harm?

I think that it is possible, but also that it's much easier once you're not being harmed. There is a difference between forced used unforgivingly( I think I would call that 'revenge') and force used in self-defense.

A basic example is when you've been physically attacked. Part of forgiving your attacker is to use force only as long as it's necessary to defend yourself. This may get drawn out if they are stubborn about it, but if they choose to retreat, part of forgiveness is not going after them unless you're sure they're going to intrude on others' freedoms. Call the police, subdue the attacker-- but don't then sit on his chest raining blows on his face just because he attacked you. Once you're no longer in danger, it becomes a matter of resisting the urge to give 'an eye for an eye'.

What do you think?

Me•Since using force in self-defense is not against natural law, it cannot possibly break the law of forgiveness on it's own. I agree that as long as we only use force in self-defense, truly forgiving our attacker in our hearts is possible. This forgiveness then leads to no act of revenge, but just a desire to help others.

I'll push this a little deeper. What if the attacker keeps attacking you? You subdue him/her and turn over to the police, then he/she does it again and you subdue again. Then the attacker promises to keep attacking as long as he/she can, as many times as possible. At some point, does it become self defense to go after the attacker and stop the continued attacks? (I ask mainly because this is at times a reality in international geopolitics.)

Me•This is a very hard and interesting question, and I don't know if I have the right answer. In my mind self-defense has always been acting after or as an offense is being made, never assuming a person is going to attack, but always defending when they do. But in this case there is the perfect knowledge that the offense will be made, so I think that you are justified in trying to stop the continued attacks. Although this may seem like an offense, it really is a defense against further attacks. It is a much more efficient way of self-defense, and I think that when self-defense is done it should be done efficiently/ the law of economy.

Although what exactly are you constituting as stopping the continued attacks? I think that if this goes further than the cumulative efforts of offense by the attacker, then it would be more of a revenge and not self-defense. Only do the minimum necessary to protect oneself. So you can only harm the attacker as much as the attacker has harmed or would harm you*. Although this might be wrong, as it sounds more like an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth approach. This does not sound very forgiving, and I think that to forgive someone, like I said, you would need to truly forgive them in your heart, and then act in the way your forgiveness leads you too. Giving an eye for an eye, as Sam Carrel said above, is a revengeful act, not a forgiving one.

But in the heat of battle do you not need to at least use as much force as your attacker is to defend yourself? So when you are going after someone to stop them from attacking you again, is it not like a hit in, say, a boxing match, where your opponent's guard is down, but you know he is going to try to hit you later on? Does not attacking him in this moment, not just blocking his blow, constitute self-defense? Or is self-defense only the blockage of attacks, never the offensive to win the fight and stop the attacks? To have subdued an attacker, I assume you would need to use offensive blows of defense? So why are they not allowed in a larger scale of time?

*But if you think that attacker would fatally harm you, I do not think that fatally harming them is right, for you might not actually know what would happen. Also it would be better to let them live, truly caring about them, loving them as yourself, and at most physically disable them, but again this would depend.

I like the reasoning here. I agree that going beyond the level of force used moves it into retaliation rather than defense. Good point.

This is a hard question, but you stated it correctly that sometimes a preemptive action can be defensive, because past attacks show that future attacks will continue. Still, this will always be a fine line. Leaders who take such action will always be criticized by some. And leaders who don't take such action will be roundly criticized if another attack does come. One reason leadership is lonely.

Deep discussion.

Me• Imagination is a key part in fulfilling our missions, in truly thinking and creating, inventing and growing. I also have been thinking about the power of remembrance, which I think is part of imagination. Remember the end of the Giver, where the memories of sun and warmth helped give Jonas and Gabriel the strength to carry on? I think that is so applicable in our lives. In TJEd for Teens it says "there are times when the sacrifices seem great and the rewards are either a memory from the past or a hope for the future. But selfless service to the right person ... or cause brings about a sense of purpose and intrinsic reward that transcends the...immediate gratification" ( pg 60 ). Imagination through remembrance of the past, and envisioning a hope for the future can help get us through hard times by helping us focus on what really matters, to continue pressing on in our journey to fulfill our mission, and not give up or give in.

There are many wretched things that ruthlessly attempt to drown our imagination, creativity, and love for learning. There was a discussion on that last week, with Sam Carrel and others. They include things like the "conveyor belt" school system, public opinion, misguided parenting, addictive and/or leisurely things like social media, wasting time on smart phones, TV, pornography, alcohol, drugs etc. The school system, parents, public opinion come in and tell kids this is the way it should be, with forced, boring, school, that art will never get you a good job, that there is not much hope for entrepreneurial, innovative endeavors and discoveries, so stop using your imagination and get on your homework! This turns the students off to learning, and drives away their inherit curiosity, and pretty effectively blocks them from their potential to love learning, and discovering, thinking and creating. Instead they painfully endure the gruel of school and then turn to their devices, and to mindless addictive patterns, attempting, yet failing miserably to fill a void in their lives. This is super sad! So my question is how can we imagine more, be more creative and truly learn? I think that first of all we need to have our allegiance to God and His perfect goodness, and His perfect love firmly and truly planted in our hearts. Only through this can we overcome our challenges and fulfill our missions. I also think that just pondering, wondering, and thinking with sincere, deep curiosity about things can really get us going on the path of true education.

I think electronics like computers, tablets, and smartphones can take from us more than almost anything else if we let them. We spend so much time on them texting people, browsing the internet, viewing social media, or "learning" about stuff that we actually know less about because we don't have experience trying things for ourselves or talking to people face to face. Lets imagine someone who spends almost all their time on their devices. They might see hundreds of photos, videos, and stories about amazing experiences, but those all pale when compared to actually going to a waterfall, camping on a verdant mountain, going down a zip-line over a river, cliff jumping into a lake, snorkeling in a coral reef, or so many more thrilling, vibrant activities. They might have seen a bunch of cooking videos, but what good does that do them if they never cook? They would lose their communication skills, ability to read body language and the pleasure of talking face to face and doing things together with people, instead substituting bland texts to communicate. They might see beautiful pieces of art and hear great songs online, but they might never learn to play an instrument or try to write a song. They might read inspiring articles or about amazing technologies and scientific discoveries, but they have never published an inspiring article, tried to invent a machine, or investigated something new. What have they learned or done after all? I know this is an extreme example, but I think it gets the point across. If you don't build off what you learn, you lose it or it just becomes like a piece of meaningless trivia, useless facts. You lose the essence of an activity in losing the experience. It really worries me because our devices are becoming such a huge part of our every day life. This situation I've described might not seem so extreme pretty soon. I think that we as a society are in danger of losing our imagination, creativity, innovativeness and our intellects because we don't produce our own things or experience things for ourselves often enough. I think electronics can be a powerful and beneficial tool, but if we substitute our devices as our window to learn and see the world instead of experiencing and producing things for ourselves, we won't be learning that much after all.

Me•In the Giver Jonas is playing catch with Asher( pg.30) and "it was effortless and even boring" for Jonas. But then he notices the shocking phenomenon of the apple changing in mid-air, and stares at it in disbelief. He goes on to bring it home and study it, trying to figure it out, to discover what had happened and why? But then a brutal law, and culture stopped him from continuing in his search for knowledge, his journey of discovery.

Regarding Jonas's attitude towards playing catch I was wondering are all effortless things boring at first lazy glance? Or can there be some excitement in good things that are seemingly effortless for us? I say good things because there are some effortless addictive things that cannot exactly be termed boring, and I am not talking about those here.

I think that these seemingly effortless and boring things can take on a new wonder and burning curiosity in our minds and hearts if we keenly observe them. If we look deeply at these things we can discover mysteries and wonders, for which we passionately hunger to understand. Engaging in and completing this path to knowledge requires great effort, and what seemed to be effortless and boring becomes interesting, engaging, hard ,demanding and fulfilling. We just need to get a glimpse of the enigmatic wonder and then let our passion and curiosity drive us to truly learn and discover.

But how do we gain this momentous revelation? Do we, as Jonas did, just happen upon it by chance, as without foresight or seeking we just happen to be paying attention to a seemingly ordinary phenomenon? Or do we earnestly, steadfastly seek these wonders in seemingly boring things everyday of our lives, never taking things for granted, filled with optimism and the desire to learn and discover? I think that the latter method is much more effective, fulfilling and enabling. When we earnestly seek and work day after day for learning and discovery, we are all the more fulfilled and joyful when we do discover things, all the more interested to learn more. as TJEd for teens tells us, we can come to love learning by spending time on it. When Jonas just stumbles upon the "change" of the apple, he has trouble believing the Phenomenon. Do you think that if we discover wonders while actively seeking them, we will have an easier time believing and not ask others if they observed them, with a shaky confusion of the truth and attempt to ignore it?

Another way I think to better discover wonders is to focus on serving others. Someone once said "love is time". Jonas was spending time with Asher doing something that as boring to him, but which Asher enjoyed. As we strive to discover and learn because we want to serve and uplift, we will better be able to learn, and have more incentive for it. Also as we engage in service,even if it means doing "boring" things with someone which they like, we can discover and experience not only mysterious phenomena, but also the wondrous joy of service and friendship. This experience of charity can lead us to serve more, thus continuing the glorious round of kindness.

To continue in the journey of passionate, charitable, earnest learning and discovery, we need to be able to continue seeking knowledge, and applying what we learn, to better serve others. But what if there is a terrible law or custom, even culture, that blocks are path? The announcement in the Giver to eleven's who were "hoarding [snacks]", and the cultural and societal system stopped Jonas from continuing his journey in seeking to understand. Are there things in our society that do this, for example the "Fashion of thinking" described in Solzhenitsyn in "A world split apart"? Are there societal blockers of learning and discovery present today? Later on in the book Jonas is able to continue to learn about the "changing" phenomenon, and so in a sense he is following a voyage of discovery. But the society forces him to use this passion, interest, and talent for an evil, dictatorial, and degrading cause. Are there things in our society that also do this? Jonas seeks to use his discoveries for good, and overcome the societal blockers. What are some ways we can overcome ourselves, and help others overcome, our societal blockers?

Whew! I got a lot out of this! I ended up with 3+ pages of notes, so I'll focus on your ending questions. You make a great point!

(The lists included are not according to priority or strength-- I just felt that numbers would make it easier to read.)

'Are There Societal Blocks To Learning Today?'

Yes.

1) Popular Opinion

2) Fear

3) Shame

4) Mediocrity

5) Negative, Demeaning, and Stress-inducing expectations

6) The Belief that there are 'good' and 'bad' jobs (without taking into account the job's effect on someone's life mission)

7) Misguided Parental Pressure

8) Lack of Leadership Education

9) People following the wrong allegiance.

'Are there things in our society that force us to use our passion, interest, or talent for evil, dictatorial, or degrading causes?'

No. There are certainly those who try, but no one can force you to use your talent for evil.

'What are some ways we can overcome (and help others overcome) our societal blocks?'

1) Get a Leadership Education

2) Become a Mentor

3) Fulfill your Mission

4) Be an open advocate for Truth, Greatness, and Love (as well as other virtues)

5) Treat Everyone with Love and Respect, even if you don't understand them.

What things would you add to this list? I'd love to hear them!

Thank you for making this post, it really got my mind working!

Me•Awesome! True thinking is wonderfully exhilarating! I totally agree with all of those blocks. I think that along with lack of leadership education, there is a terrible mess of "conveyor belt" education. This, along with "Misguided Parental Pressure",really turn students off to true learning and discovery, and points them towards the mediocrity , fear and other negative emotions and thoughts you pointed out. This leads them to follow the wrong allegiance, and become suffocated in the sinister mass of addiction and leisure which I think is another block. They become slaves to social media, TV, browsing the Internet, pornography, and possibly, although less socially acceptable, alcohol, drugs, tobacco etc.. They really need the leadership education and right allegiance to rise above mediocrity and misery, and truly be happy and fulfill their mission.

With regards to the question about forced evil channeling of talents: You totally caught me off guard there! I guess I should have used better "precision of language" ha ha!

Do you think that Jonas was actually completely forced to use his talents/passion for evil? What is complete force? I think that in real life there is never complete force, like you said we can still choose. So then what is government, if like in the Law and We Hold These Truths it is force? Does government only give consequences for choice and make choice in some ways really hard, but not actually make it impossible?

Say in Nazi Germany there were Nuclear research Scientists who were threatened with death to themselves and their families if they would not work for the government. But if all the scientists refused to work, the Nazis could kill them all they wanted to ( although this would be excruciatingly terrible), they still would never HAVE to work for them.

Is this force? Is force the execution of consequences of choice (making a choice one way very negative-in some ways, usually physical-and another opposite choice very positive-again in some ways usually physical/temporal-) , and the austere complicating of the ability to make certain choices?

If so is there anything in our society that uses this "force" to use people's passion, interest, or talent for evil, dictatorial, or degrading causes?

Is all real-life force physical, or can there be emotional and mental force like in the Giver?

Take the average college education major student, who has a passion and talent for teaching. Say that they have never head of, or never thought much of any other system of education than the modern "conveyor belt" school system. Are they being "forced" ,in the above defined sense, to use their talents and passion for uneducated schooling, for a very block to true learning and thinking? Or are they rather being taught wrongly, misguided by ( those blockages you identified ) their parents and public opinion? I think that the school system and higher ed are using,training, even mentally misdirecting, these them to use their passion and talent to keep society in this terrible system of schooling that blocks true learning. But is this force? Or just ignorance? Are they getting forced by societal blockers to do the wrong thing, or are they choosing to follow them? Can they be forced to be ignorant of the better way, leadership education? Or is there always a choice? Is ignorance force? I think that ignorance forces you to not be able to do what you are ignorant of, until you learn it. If say they have a chance to accept leadership education, but don't because of the influence of blockages, are they actually choosing to not do it, or are the blockages influencing them in such a way in which they are being "forced" ( in a way in which they are mentally influenced so to think that there are negative consequences in leadership education, and positive ones in "conveyor belt" schooling, and/or think that wither way it would be to hard to actually do leadership education) to not do it.

This is kinda off a tangent, but it goes along with emotional and mental force:

Is the choice to get addicted like the choice to go to Sameness in the Giver? If they ( whoever that is ) chose to go to Sameness, is it actually forcing them, or only their descendants? Is addiction forcing you to continue in it, or is there still choice?

One possible example of being forced to do something in our modern day is tax. I'm not saying taxes are bad, in fact, I think that they are essential. They are just being misused. Right now the government uses taxes to fund public schools, welfare programs, and other institutions that do not fall within the proper role of government. Some would say that because of taxes, I'm being forced to support a public school math program that I do not agree with. However, right now I could just leave the country and not have to worry about the tax. I could also marshal all my time and resources to abolish the improper uses of taxes I perceive through voting and legislation changes, which might not work. Using your definition of force I am not being forced to pay taxes, but just like the technical definition of a line in math, you can't always use the technical definition of force and still be practical. Absolute force is a thing only attained by Gods.

What you added actually reflects a few of the thoughts I had last night when I was trying to argue it out in my notebook (I was tired enough that I didn't want to try to put the argument up for fear it wasn't really thought through). Generally it does seem that you can force someone to do one thing by making them completely ignorant of any other options(especially 'better' ones). And while you make the first choice to participate in something addictive, the changes that happen in your brain because of an addiction do seem to force you to perpetuate that behavior. I just don't agree with the idea that you can accuse anyone of forcing you to do something. So at this point, whatever gut disagreement I have with this is probably just stubbornness, but it still bugs me. I've always liked the idea of having the ability to choose my actions and reactions and hearing the possibility that I can be forced into something gives me a feeling not unlike catching a whiff of my dog's puke. Like I said, it could be that I'm just being stubborn.

I do think there is emotional and mental as well as physical force. I would add 'spiritual' to that list as well, because some things just move you beyond an emotional, physical, or mental place. Let me try to list examples (this list is NOT exhaustive...):

PHYSICAL:

pushing

shoving

using a weapon to threaten (gun, knife, club, spear, etc.)

grabbing

pulling

violence or threat of violence

EMOTIONAL:

Guilt

Shame

Anger

MENTAL:

Guilt-tripping

Extreme choices

Propaganda

Convoluted and Over-complicated Arguments

Mockery

Demeaning of Opposing Ideas or Arguments

Dismissiveness

Ignorance vs. Knowledge

SPIRITUAL:

Church Mandates

The Spirit, God, Supernatural Beings (if you believe in them)

Gut Sensations

Perceived Superiority or Authority to Command

Visions

It's hard to sort them into categories, because if you can come up with something that seems to have a root cause in one force, you're bound to see reactions coming out of the other forces as well. I picked these because(in my mind) they tend to lead to an action.

Again, I'm being very vague here. Part of it is that I'm out of my comfort zone. Most of it is that I haven't done much research into other arguments about it, so I'm building and guessing on a pretty weak foundation. I don't want to act as if anything is definite because I have no idea whether it is or not!

What are your thoughts on this? All I know is that I need to think about it more!