I added a DailyPost badge on the blog index to show that I’m participating in the Post a Day 2011 Challenge. You should check it out if you haven’t seen it yet (both the badge and the challenge).

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Topic #18: What gives you hope? And what, if anything, makes you question hope? And what makes you question your questions of hope? And…

I usually don’t have any issues finding hope in life. The only thing I generally ever have to do to find hope is to think about what positive things could possibly happen in the future if I were to do the things that I was considering doing. Also, whenever I do something and I see the positive results right away, that also helps me a lot to gain hope in continuing the task at hand.

On the contrary, and obviously, if I were to fail at a particular task that I was depending on to either help or benefit me, that would lower my hope for continuing that task, or make me wonder if it really is worth it. However, when this happens, I start questioning my questions of hope by encouraging myself to get hope again, similar to how I initially get hope. This process of repeated questioning and hoping creates a negative feedback loop, which ultimately stabilizes my level of hope and keeps me at a stable motivation level to keep doing what I need to do.

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Topic #19: Describe a time when you witnessed bravery in your profession, with your own eyes, or in someone you admire.

There are numerous examples of bravery that I witness in my everyday life. I don’t exactly have a profession, but a majority of the jobs or things that I do relate to the Internet industry, so I’ll focus in on that as my profession – seeing as the internet has become such a powerful presence, a lot of people have taken advantage of it to spread the news about various problems across the world. For example, I can name two YouTube users off the top of my head that have used their connections with their viewers to spread the news about struggling nations – Kristina Horner to Guatemala and Shawna Howson to Zambia. To me, anyone who goes out of their country and to a different, foreign area to make sure others are aware of struggling nations around the world is exhibiting large amounts of bravery, as there are high possibilities of life-endangering situations in less modernized civilizations.

I also see acts of bravery with my own eyes on a daily basis. I see or hear police cars and fire engines with flashing lights and sirens go by almost everyday, and the people inside these vehicles are risking their lives to make sure that others are safe. Depending on the circumstance, these law enforcement officers could be easily killed while they work, but they still choose to risk their lives. There are very few things more brave than putting your life on the line to make sure the entire community is a safer place.

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 8 (+2 today)

Number of times I did my own laundry: 0

I’m slightly behind on Daily Post topics, so I’m going to do two today, and will probably do two tomorrow as well.

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Topic #16: Describe the wackiest but most useful advice you’ve ever received.

I can’t really think of any advice that falls under the category of both wacky and useful. I frequently get advice that is wacky, such as suggestions to do ridiculous and illogical things. This wacky advice is never useful, because it’s obvious that following said advice will bring negative results. I also frequently get advice that is useful, but usually it is very clear that this advice will be useful. For example, a useful piece of advice I receive frequently is to try my best in everything I do. It’s obvious that this is useful advice, but it’s definitely not wacky.

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Topic #17: Do you believe everything happens for a reason? Why or why not?

I assume that most people that answer this blog post prompt are going to do it based off their faiths and religions. Some people think that a single all-powerful god controls everything and that everything that happens is a result of his doing. I’m going to apply a similar approach to my response, but I’m going to use my theory of the Fourth Dimension as religion. If you are unfamiliar with my view of the Fourth Dimension as religion, this may or may not have any significance to you.

The concept of something happening for a reason can be taken two different ways. The first I’m going to analyze is if it is done for a reason that represents a purpose for the action. In this case, it’s possible that the Creator made a particular item designed to do a particular task and placed it into existence, but the Creator may or may not have had any particular plans for this object. For example, the Creator could have created an object to spin around in circles, but it doesn’t accomplish anything productive by doing so. In this sense, no, not everything happens for a reason.

The other way a particular item happening for a reason can be interpreted is if it happens outside the Creator’s control. My answer here is also the same, that no, not everything happens because of the Creator’s command. Using the Mario Bros. analogy that I use whenever I talk about the Fourth Dimension, it’s possible that the programmer of the Mario game implemented something into the game, but as a side effect, something else happened. That particular event didn’t happen with consent of the programmer, so it didn’t happen as a result of a reason intended by the Creator. The same applies to real life, as the Creator could have intended to do one thing in the third dimension but did multiple things at once without realizing it.

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 6 (+2 today)

Number of times I did my own laundry: 0

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Bonus Topic: If you only had an hour to live, what what you do with those 60 minutes?

I’ve been asked this question a handful of times before, and most people that ask me it are usually unsatisfied with my answer because of how realistic it is. Most impulsive people may say “go skydiving” or “go swimming with sharks,” while most violent people say “go on a suicide mission” or something of the like. I, on the other hand, would not do anything interesting, but make sure that my departure from my current life is as smooth as possible.

I would start off by writing a blog post about my situation and how I’m about to die in an hour, and that my website will now be dormant and no longer have any further updates. My current web host is owned by a friend of mine and I don’t plan on having my website go down anytime soon, so I would link to that blog post from all my social networking sites to spread the news as much as possible.

As for my possessions, I don’t know exactly how the transfer of property works from a legal standpoint, but I would write a note asking for everything under my ownership to go to my parents and relatives. As for my online accounts, I would give the credentials to two of my friends who I know will not be overwhelmed with maintaining my accounts if anything were to go wrong.

Auto-Correct Fail of the Day

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 4

Number of times I did my own laundry: 0

The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Topic #15: If you had a time machine that only let you spend one hour in a different time, what date would you go to?

This is an intriguing question – generally, when I’m asked a time machine question, it usually involves going to a specific point in my life and living the rest of my life (again) from that point on. As a result, when I’m asked this question, I usually answer it by saying that I would go back to immediately before I entered high school and put a lot more effort into my academics.

But the stipulation on today’s topic is interesting, as I can only spend one more hour in the time period that I choose to go to. Going back in time and changing an hour will probably not do too much, as attempting to put more effort into my high school academics will take far longer than just a single hour to accomplish. Thus, instead of going into the past, I would probably go into the future.

However, this creates another problem. If I go into the future and see something that I don’t like, there literally is nothing that I can do about it, and I will have to spend the rest of my life up to that point in misery. People may say that I could work harder to not have that appear in my future, but there’s a slight problem with that thought process. Regardless of what I do now, that will ultimately happen to me, as it already appeared in my future. If I work harder now to avoid this negative thing from happening in the future and I succeed, it would not have happened in the future anyway, so I would have never seen it in my future in the first place.

If you don’t have a solid basic understanding of variable time, then that may be difficult to comprehend, but to put it simply, if I was given a time machine that only let me spend one hour in a different time, I would not use it and live my life normally.

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 4

Number of times I did my own laundry: 0

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Topic #14: What made you decide to start a blog? If you’ve blogged about this before, go back and read it. Is that still the reason? What’s changed?

I actually did blog about why I started a blog – it was the first real blog post I ever wrote in my classic blog, Five Minutes in My Head. My justification there for starting a blog was that everyone else was doing it, and I wanted to increase the popularity of my website. It seemed like at that point, I was actually very motivated to start something that people would like, and it seemed like I put a decent amount of effort to at least attempt to make people laugh; I have a handful of random links added for comedic effect.

I’m glad that I did start a blog. Not only did it increase the popularity of my website by attracting people that continued to come back, it also helped me keep track of the things I’ve done in my life. It’s interesting to go back to my older blog posts and click on a random date to find out what I did on that date, or what I felt was important enough to share with the world. As of right now, I have archives of blog posts from April 05, 2009 and onward.

Finally, the second part of the prompt doesn’t exactly make sense. There is a specific reason that a person would start blogging, and it wouldn’t change just because time has passed. The reason for continuing to blog may have changed, but the reason for starting should still remain the same.

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 4 (+2 today)

Number of times I did my own laundry: 0