My Secret

My secret is that I am questioning my belief in the God I grew up with. In my life, I have never believed things that didn't make sense, except for religion stuff. But it just isn't making sense anymore and I'm afraid I just believed it because it's what I grew up with.

I don't want to be the ignorant person that just believes without questioning and it seems like the churches I have heard of really don't like to be questioned as much as I would like to. They also do a lot of double talking. The double talking really drives me nuts.

At this point, I don't believe the things I used to, but I still don't understand where we came from. Or rather, what the first "thing" came from. It doesn't make sense but I don't want to blindly believe it just because I don't understand it.

The FEAR assignment

For this assignment we were to come up with a fear that we had that we wanted express to the class. I have many fears. I wanted to get to the root of my fears and I also wanted to better understand my fears. So I started thinking about what the root might be and I came up with the root cause being the unknown. Whenever we are afraid, I think we are only afraid of what we don't know.

So my experiment was to listen to every member of the class's fear and how I interpreted them and then trying to see how they could be broken down to the fear of the unknown. The findings follow:

Person 1 - public embarrassment and not having control of a class (don't know the reaction of the public and what is going to happen in the class)

Person 2 - avoiding fear (doesn't know what will happen if she addresses her fears)

Person 3 - velcro - when he hears velcro he remembers a tragic accident that almost left him paralyzed. (what if the memories of breaking my neck come back to me), not succeeding in my dreams (what will happen if I don't)

Person 4 - to be stereotyped as a fat person (how am I going to feel/what will I lose if someone stereo types me)

Person 5 - fears facing a scary creature and the night (scared of what is out there and what it might do to him)

Person 6 - fear of losing her children (unknown what will happen to them or if they'll be safe)

Person 7 - fear of people not liking her blog (unknown if people will like or not like her blog)

Person 8 - fear of failure (what will happen if I fail?)

Person 9 - failure (unknown what will happen if she fails at things)

Person 10 - fear of being raped (what will the lasting effects be)

Person 11 - fear of the unknown or not being in control

Person 12 - fear of having a child and not being able to support it, having a child when he isn't ready (what will happen if he can't support it, what will happen if he isn't ready for a child)

Person 13 - fear that she can't make it. (doesn't know what will happen if she wastes her time) (what if she loses her creative energy, what will happen, what will she become)

Person 14 - fear of being irrational (fear of not knowing what's going to happen, or not knowing what something is)

Person 15 - hate and manipulation (unknown how it is going to affect him)

Person 16 - spiders (what can they do to me?)

Person 17 - the fear of being left out because of not being able to hear (what will she miss out on?)

Person 18 - fear of the dark (fear of not knowing what is there during darkness)

Person 19 - failure, letting people down, what people think of me, i'm not doing enough with my life yet, fear of being a jack of all trades instead of being exceptional at one thing, fear the death of family and friends, fear of becoming addicted, fear of pushing people away that try to get close, fear of breaking girls hearts, fear of being alone in the end (it's unknown the repercussions of all of these things - they're unknown)

Person 20 - fear of driving (unknown what will happen when she's driving)

Person 21 - fear of self exposure (unknown if she will be judged or what people are thinking about her)

Person 22 - fear of lots of things (unknown how all these things will affect her)

Person 23 - fear of having friends (unknown what they will do to him, how they will treat him)

Person 24 - fear of the exorcist person picture (how will it make him feel when he sees it)

Person 25 - fear that he internalizes too much, doesn't share with people (unknown how it will affect his life or if he will be alone and no one will know him)

Person 26 - fear of being wrong [tattoo] (it's unknown what people will think of her when she is wrong)

Now, answering the questions from the assignment...

1. What was it and who did it?

What impacted me the most was the exorcist picture person. I didn't really understand the fear so it was hard to dissect.

2. Why did you respond to it so strongly?

Because I didn't understand it.
3. How does it impact how you see your own project?

It made me think there may be an irrational fear that can't be figured out. Maybe not knowing why you're afraid of something makes you unable to fix it. Though I'm sure with deep therapy or something you could probably discover why you are really scared of something.

Fear - First Post

I have a theory. My theory is that we are only afraid of the unknown. I have said this to people in hopes that they would be able to prove me wrong. But mostly their arguments have only strengthened my confidence in my theory.

When you think about fear, or when you're asked what you fear, people may say things like spiders, public speaking, storms, death, or any number of things. But this isn't actually what you are afraid of. You're afraid of what a spider may do to you, or what a storm may do to your house, or what, if anything, comes after death.

I think my classmates will meet my experiment with disbelief, but as we progress through the experiment, then they will begin to see that I may be correct. But then they will disbelieve again on the basis of the thought's simplicity and feel that it may have to be more complicated than it is.

This is all for now. Next up: conducting the experiment.

Reflection for class 3/19

I thought today's class, although pulled from nowhere, was one of the most interesting discussions. The two videos we watched really made me think and I thought about many things. The fact that the artist "Ryan" seemed to have some sense of entitlement peeved me off after I realized it. I understand his principles, I just think they're wrong. And obviously he has a substance abuse problem.

Although I haven't had an issue with substance abuse, I can understand that you really don't know the journey someone is on until you have been on that journey yourself. So I do have to cut him some slack for that.

Very interesting class today!

A reflection on class thus far...

What are 3 things you remember from this class thus far?

3 Things I remember from this class so far:

1. The Projects.

Creating these projects and sharing with the class is challenging but it sparks discussion very well. I have enjoyed creating things when I can do it easily, but I get frustrated when I don't have a great idea of what I want to do.

2. The Freedom.

In this class, we have a lot of freedom. The freedom can be freeing, or it can lead to chaos in my mind. Overall I enjoy it because it causes me to think freely and think a lot more.

3. The Discussion.

I love to discuss things I am passionate about, and so far I have found a way to be passionate about everything we have talked about. I really enjoyed the last video we watched with the clay artist.

How has your experience in this class been different from your experiences in other classes? If it has not been different, explain what is similar to your other classes.

My experience has been very different in this class than other classes because this class makes it so free to think. It seems that the "rules" in other classes, while easily defined what was to be turned in, didn't really give me a chance to really turn the gears and think about something I wanted to do, emphasis on I.

What would you like to get from the rest of this class?

I would like to continue to think openly and I am very excited to see what becomes of the fear assignment. I have a theory that the only thing that is feared is the unknown and I'm excited to see how it fleshes out.

Class reflection from 3/5

I thought the video we watched was incredibly relaxing and insightful. I always enjoy when a guru of their profession is kind and gentle and knows that people make mistakes and to learn from mistakes they can't be thought of as such. The pottery was beautiful and the fact that Soldman knew that his ways don't best teach students to be on their own, he knows that allowing them to watch him make his own mistakes teaches them a great deal.

I am excited to see what comes out of the fear assignment.

Our Apple Bunch

I started with my token that was the Apple icon decal. It was a representation of my zen hour of watching the original iPhone Apple keynote. This made me want to spend time with Apple products, which in turn led me to think about the bunch of apple stuff that we have.

So I started thinking about how I could represent this Apple Bunch in a way you really wouldn't think of. The Brady Bunch came to mind because it was a group of different "things" working together in harmony and helping each other. So I created the Brady Bunch poster, but with Apple products that we own.

It follows...

I got the images from Apple's PR site. I downloaded the Brady Bunch font from dafont.

Here are the links:

Brady Bunch font

Apple PR pics