Alex's Blog

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison

This quote is by far one of the best quotes I’ve seen recently. I can really “connect” with it because I’ve never really “failed” on learning something in my opinion because I don’t give up very easily nor do I constantly think that i can’t  learn it. I may have “failed” in the eyes of others, but I haven’t “failed” in my eyes.  Even if a person keeps on doing things wrong, they’ll eventually get it right no matter how long it took if they were truly dedicated to whatever they were doing. Or they might have found a different way to get whatever they needed done, because everyone is different. Therefore they have different ways of thinking to get things done.

Some problems that might be seen as easy to one person might be seen as hard to another person. At the sight of seeing something hard, most people would just give up then and there, and will “fail” but those who don’t are the ones who will not fail unless they just give up.  This quote is basically saying you need to try trial and error to see what you did wrong and learn from your mistake, so that next time you won’t make it again. It’s also implying that you shouldn’t give up unless you plan on being a failure and all you need is dedication and discipline to make yourself not “fail.”

For example, like some school subjects may seem hard but once you learn them, they don’t seem quite as hard. Or like how when you were little and learning your ABCs or your mathematics such as addition and subtraction. You probably thought “how am I ever going to learn all of this and remember it .” But look at yourself now; you know all of that and even more! With just simple practicing of any kind (it shouldn’t really matter), you can learn anything and if you’re committed to it, you can even become good at it and do something with it one day in your future. Or for another example, say you’re learning something really hard like calculus or linear algebra or physics or something like that, it all looks hard at first and you may feel like you’re overwhelmed with it all but if you just took the time to divide up your work/what you have to learn, it may be easier than you thought it was.

But anyways, this quote reminded me of something I read on another site where it said that some things in life, you don’t need skill nor practicing to do it. And it used breathing and even walking as an example. They’re not an acquired skill that you need to practice because you were taught that from when you were little. But for other things, you need to practice and if you get it wrong, just keep on trying until you get it right and that basically deals with the quote up there. Overall though, I think this quote is really good and reflected Thomas Edison really well, because he was an inventor/scientist and it certainly relates to other people as well.

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/30392.html

“We are all capable of infinitely more than we believe. We are stronger and more resourceful than we know, and we can endure much more than we think we can.”

– David Blaine

Have you at one point in time felt useless or felt like you didn’t exist or make a difference to anyone or anything at all?? Don’t lie; everyone has felt that way, at one point in time or another. Many people think they’re all alone in the world but they’re wrong. It’s the mindset that people have that makes them think they’re all alone in the world, when in reality they’re not. There will always be people who are there for them. But those people with that mindset will never realize what they had or who was there for them until they’re gone.

Anyways, about this quote, when people feel that way and think that they’re alone, they start to doubt themselves more and more. Like how one person says something, but they never realize the effect that they might have on someone else. All it takes is ONE person to do or say something to start a revolution of change somewhere. For example, Mao Zedong, he was one person and he unified China together and paved the way for it to become what it is today. It really is true, what one person says can really affect what other people think in a major way later on.

As for the second sentence of this quote, every day people become more and more dependent on others wanting things to be handed to them and well it is somewhat true. But if they dedicate that time to do it themselves, they’ll be more satisfied with what ever their doing. And well for the last sentence of the quote, I really like it. I mean, when you feel like you’re done and can’t do something anymore, you should always push yourself a little harder and stand it out a bit more. This last sentence goes “hand in hand” with determination because you can always push yourself to the limit and surprise yourself. Like in class last week, we saw a TED video on David Blaine, where he stayed in a tank of water not breathing for 16 whole minutes. At the half way mark, he said he felt like giving up because he thought he couldn’t do it, but he didn’t and he stayed underwater not breathing a bit longer and because of that he broke a Guinness world record. This sort of reminds me of the other quote that goes along the lines of “When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.” And it really is inspirational because you can always push yourself  beyond the limits when you think you’re at your limit.

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/david_blaine/

- thanks alan for the title

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? 1967.

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day where everyone in the United States remembers a true American leader. An influential person who changed the entire world (with the help of others) into what it is today.  This quote came from his book “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community.” In a way, this quote mimics today’s world. It has shown that even with all the advances that have happened in 43 years, they really mean nothing at all, since society is still the same and nothing has “changed.” Each year the US spends more and more on the military and wars.  I mean about a month ago President Obama said that he would be sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan during the summer of 2010, to fight in the war and search for the Taliban in an effort to end it, which has been going on for over 8 years now.. Even with a “new” president as opposed to George W. Bush, the United States is still spending more money on the military than ever. But in another sense, Obama is trying to help fix Afghanistan overall by removing the Taliban from its “power” over Afghanistan and helping rebuild its agricultural economy to improve the living conditions for its people.

On a related note to this quote, the United States is helping Haiti through aid from its earthquake that happened on January 12^th.  Where President Obama says that he is sending over 10,000 troops to help Haiti through distributing aid and prevent potential rioting that may happen in the near future. In a way, as the United States spends more and more on the military, it can be just as helpful for doing things like this, in example. By doing this, it sort of disproves the quote as the United States is bringing “social uplift” to Haiti while strengthening military power. Where I’m going with this is that I think its fine that any nation can keep on “powering” itself as long as it’s doing it for the better of the world and itself.

Well what is your take on nations powering themselves through military power as long as they do whats “right”??

http://www.mlkonline.net/quotes.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/15/world/main6100681.shtml

http://washingtonindependent.com/69301/obama-announces-30k-more-troops-for-afghanistan

Hey all of you historical fiction lovers!

“I’m not scared, I’m just real, real ashamed of myself.” – Kenny Watson (page 200)

“Kenny, you ain’t got nothing to be ashamed of” – Byron Watson (page 200)

If you’re looking for a book filled with imagination and naïve kids then this is the right book for you! This book teaches you many lessons and it keeps you interested as you turn each page.  This book focuses on the point of view of Kenny Watson, the main character of The Watsons Go To Birmingham – 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis. Throughout the book, the older brother Byron tells Kenny and their little sister, Joetta “Joey”, made up stories and pranks.  Although the stories were made up, each adventure that went along with them deeply affected Kenny. One of the fictional stories that takes place in the book is how people are becoming frozen in the night. And in the morning the garbage men pick them up to be sent somewhere, so that no one will see the “frozen” bodies.  This made up story actually scared Kenny and Joetta for a bit, even though it was harmless and it shows how gullible and naïve kids can be. This book sort of shows you how innocent kids can be until something happens to them, changing them forever. As you can see from the two quotes up there, a major event happens near the end of the book and it changes the family altogether with their perspectives on people and their beliefs.  It deeply affects Kenny in a very big way with Byron trying to console him in the bathroom. Although the book is fictional; the events in the end of the book, that took place were real and actually occurred during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

So anyways what are you waiting for?!?! Go get this book and check it out for yourself!

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing” – David Beckham

When you read this what do you think? Usually most people don’t even see hindsight as the best sight! But for sure I do. Something that might look good at the time might be bad after doing it or saying it. And the same could be said for the other way around. For example, during WWII, Hitler and the Nazi’s wanted to exterminate the Jewish people of Europe. After it ended, everyone (yes everyone, including the Nazi’s themselves) really saw the destruction it caused. Or like how the Turkish people are still continuing to deny that the Armenian Genocide even happened. The hindsight in these two cases is that it has a negative meaning to it. Even then, there are many positive aspects as opposed to the negative aspects. Another great example of this is teenage pregnancy. It was fun at that time….but 9 months later the two teenagers got a baby (or babies) and became parents. The hindsight in this can be seen as both positive and negative. The positive aspect to teenage pregnancy is that they are bringing new life into the world. While the negative aspect to this is that it will change their lives forever and they might not know what to do. Ultimately though, the hindsight that the person has will forever be with them and in their memories

“It’s only in hindsight that you realize what indeed your childhood was really like.”

– Maya Lin

For this quote, in a way, it really is true and agreeable. Nowadays everyone is growing up, time is flying by, everything is becoming faster and people are forgetting the important and good things in life. Because of that, everyone is being nostalgic of their past and its great things. I remember when I was a little kid, I didn’t have a care in the world and I just wanted to be like my older brother and “grow up” in a way. Now that I have “grown up” I sometimes wish that I could just be a little kid again.. But that’s not going to happen and it has come and gone. Although looking back at it, the 90s had many great stuff compared to the crap that we have in today’s world. For example the cartoons, I mean really, what the hell, the cartoons nowadays are trash and they don’t even teach great lessons… Two great cartoons that I used to watch were “Hey Arnold” and “Recess.” Those two cartoons had more lessons, teachings, and etc than any cartoon that is shown today.*cough Chowder or “The Marvelous Adventures of Flap Jack” Sure society has advanced and many “okay” things became great but at what cost?! Nowadays it seems that everyone wants “Quantity > Quality.” This is a really sad fact   because the little kids now won’t have the great things that we had.

“Everything’s clearer in hindsight.”

A few months ago my friend said this quote to me “Everything’s clearer in hindsight.” At that time I didn’t really look into what he said in our conversation but looking back at it now; it really makes sense and got me thinking. When people see something new, most of the time they will think it’s easy and will try to attempt to do it. But once they start, they find out that it isn’t as easy as it looked. On my part this is certainly true, I had always been fascinated with hip-hop dancing and when I finally tried to start, I learned that lesson. First when I started “c-walking” (clown walking) it looked really easy from the videos on www.youtube.com but attempting it was harder than I thought. Without further adieu here’s one of my “early” videos   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27i-PJNOfwk&feature=channel

As you see, I thought I was pretty horrible but by hindsight and looking back at it now (a year and a half later) it wasn’t that bad. And now here’s a recent video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b3JmWBavFY&feature=channel

Watching these two videos inspire me because of the huge improvement that happened to me in just a year and a half. It can happen to other people too! If they just put enough time and dedication into whatever they’re doing. It wouldn’t matter if they sucked at first, no one was ever born “good”, people had to work hard to get where they are now. But back to the quote, what my friend said is correct and ultimately everything is seen better and “clearer” in hindsight.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/hindsight.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27i-PJNOfwk&feature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b3JmWBavFY&feature=channel

What’s your opinion on hindsight??