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Topic #47: What part of life confuses you the most? What part of life confuses you the least?

The part of life that confuses me the ultimate goal that humans must accomplish, or as most other people would put it, why we’re alive.

Many people have come up with theories and religions that explain how we came to be, but they either don’t address our ultimate goal or they don’t address it in a believable manner. Most scientific theories of the big bang and evolution fail to mention why we exist at all. Most religions say that we exist to serve the god(s), but that doesn’t exactly make sense, seeing as they also describe the god(s) as beings with ultimate power. It’s obvious that underlings like us cannot do anything significant enough to serve the god(s), because if the god(s) need(s) something, it/they would do it itself/themselves much more quickly, efficiently, and better than humans could ever attempt.

If you’ve been keeping up with me for the past few years, you probably remember that I wrote a paper for a class I took in high school on the fourth dimension and how it gives a scientific justification for the Christian religion. In my paper, I implicitly suggest that the reason we are here are to entertain our four-dimensional creators. However, I have no definite proof of that, and I obviously have no definite proof of my theory of the fourth dimension even being remotely valid. I wouldn’t exactly say this is what confuses me the most, because I have a relatively clear understanding of what the problem and possibilities are, but it’s the thing about life that I’m most uninformed and curious about.

The part about life that confuses me the least is that I am definitely a thinking being. Many theorists have come up with ideas that we don’t actually exist, and that the entire world is being conjured up by our minds. However, in order for us to conjure anything up, our mind has to exist and it has to be able to think. Regardless of what our ultimate purpose is in life, we still use our minds to think and make decisions, even if the reason we’re making these decisions is unknown.

Stating that the least-confusing thing to me is essentially the statement “I can think” probably says a lot about how inquisitive I am about things that most people accept as insignificant or unimportant.

Boy do I love raking exams.

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 18

Number of times I did my own laundry: 1

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Topic #46: Share one thing you wish you learned recently (ninja skills, teleportation, etc.).

One thing that I wish I had learned recently is that the computer science course that I’m taking right now is not actually as interesting as I thought or as I was hoping it would be.

For a majority of my life, I’ve been interested in computers in general, and I’ve always wanted to learn more about how they work and how I can use them to my benefit. For mainly this reason, I initially decided to major in computer science at my university. However, during my first semester, I began to notice that my first ever computer science course at my university was not at all the type of computer science that I was interested in doing. The course covered useless material that had no real-world application. We spent an entire semester leaning about things that most people adept with computer programming could have learned in less than a week by searching on Google. The homework and programming assignments we received were poorly constructed and unrealistic.

If I had known that all computer science classes at my university were like this, I would’ve immediately switched majors to something more applicable and realistic, but I decided to take another computer science course, hoping that it would be better than the previous one.

I was wrong.

I just took my first exam for my second computer science course at my university, and even the exams are poorly designed. It’s essentially impossible for the test taker to demonstrate the extent of his or her knowledge in the course material because the questions don’t cover enough breadth of material and are so cryptically written.

If you ever come to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to major in computer science and actually learn something that will capture your attention and interest, then don’t.

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 18

Number of times I did my own laundry: 1

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Topic #45: If you could go back in time and have a 5 minute conversation with yourself ten years ago, what would you say?

If I was able to go back ten years in time and have a five-minute conversation with myself, I would be talking with a nine-year-old in third grade. Thinking back to when I was in third grade, I don’t think there is anything that I needed to know back then that I later found out in my future.

My earlier elementary school years weren’t very pivotal in my life, and I’m pretty sure that nothing that I did during elementary school carried on to where I am now. Of course, there are things that I know now that I first learned in elementary school, but I don’t think telling myself to try harder on those topics would have any impact on what I’m like ten years later.

Keeping that in mind, I would probably choose not to have a conversation with myself at all, because changing something in the past could have a positive impact, but it could also have a negative impact. I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve accomplished so far and where I am in life right now, and I believe that the chances of doing good by talking to my nine-year-old self does not significantly outweigh the chances of me doing harm.

Auto-Correct Fail of the Day

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 18 (+3 from Feb 16, I forgot to add those in)

Number of times I did my own laundry: 1

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that today’s Daily Post prompt is actually the one before the last one that I did. Which means, yes, they are out of order. But don’t tell anyone.

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Topic #43: Would you rather be super intelligent or extremely good looking? What if you could be both, but not at the same time?

If I was able to pick between being super intelligent or extremely good looking, I would probably go with being super intelligent. I think that achieving success through a good physical appearance is considered an easy way out because people are instantly attracted to an individual because of their looks. In many circumstances, these people aren’t actually good with what they do, and end up not meeting up with expectations when put to the test.

On the other hand, the intelligent people that aren’t as good-looking won’t be able to achieve ultimate success immediately because it will take a longer time for their skills and talents to be known. Obviously, the instant attraction one feels to a good-looking person is much faster than realizing that a person has true talent.

However, in the long run, people that are just good-looking and not talented are more susceptible to losing their fans after they do something stupid, while the people that have true skills will only gain followers. In my opinion, being better in the long run is more important than immediately appealing to others, so I would rather be super intelligent.

I guess it would be better to be both super intelligent and extremely good looking, but not at the same time, because then I can use my super intelligence when I’m coming up with what I want to create, then switch to my extreme good-lookingness when I want to present it to others, so I would be something that is both talented and good-looking. However, I doubt how this could be realistically possible, because to be good-looking at one time and normal at another time, your face would have to change, which essentially changes the identity of the person.

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 15

Number of times I did my own laundry: 1