A Word On...

Creative Title to Get Your Audience Interested

2014-02-27T23:10:00.001-06:00

"Those are titles, words you cling to as the darkness falls around you."

-Kreia, Star Wars: KOTOR II

Hey, guys. Mudrono here, and today I'll be talking about titles. No, not the titles of books. No, I'll be talking about the titles that people use to identify themselves. Republican. Democrat. Christian. Athiest. Country boy. City girl. Jedi. Sith.

If you were to ask almost any given person to describe him/herself, they would reply with at least one of these words. For example: "Well, I'm a Republican. I'm also a devout Christian and a member of the Jedi Order." Not stereotypical at all, right? Seriously, though, it's fine if you're a Republican, and great if you're a Christian, but that tells me almost nothing about you. Not all Republicans agree with Mitt Romney, and I know several people who claim to be Christians but won't go to church on Sunday because they're so hungover from Saturday night. And there are several Jedi who got married and had kids (Anakin, Revan and Bastila).

Of course, the issue of titles is not limited to a person's beliefs. I mentioned above the "country boy" and "city girl" (or "small town girl" and "city boy" for you Journey fans out there), which are two extremely common titles, along with some variations. Now, before I go any further, allow me to tell you about a website that I used to frequent called MeetMe (formerly MyYearbook), which if you look at social media like a city, would be the part of town where you lock your doors when you drive by, with Facebook being the beautiful part that has skyscrapers and Myspace being the abandoned house that everyone avoids. I used to visit MeetMe to see if I could find romance, which sounds pathetic, I know. Don't worry, I have a real girlfriend now. But most ~~people~~ ~~guys~~ people use this site hoping to score nudes from a random person that they'll never have to face in real life. Anyway, while I used this site, I was constantly frustrated by the profiles some girls would set up because, aside from putting too much out there (you know what I mean), they never really said anything about them. It was always "im such a country girl," "i love emo/scene guise <3 <3 <3," or something similar. The first example doesn't describe the person in any way; it just shows that she has such a narrow mind that she can't use more than five words to tell us about her, so she needs a category. The second isn't any better. In the second example, the person doesn't tell us what qualities she likes in a guy. The way she puts it, a guy could just claim the "emo/scene" (whatever that's supposed to mean) title and he his her perfect match. There's just no clarity in using such titles.

So, I've decided I'd save one of the best for last. As I was preparing this post today, one of the seniors in my physics class began to talk to our teacher about who is going to be the valedictorian this year. Our teacher proceeded to tell us about how when she was in school, being valedictorian almost always meant that you were going to get a free ride to college, and that now, such a thing is based more on ACT scores, so being valedictorian means almost nothing. This wasn't news to me. In fact, I haven't cared about being valedictorian of my class since my Freshman year; I'm currently a Junior. But because of this, I laugh at the girl who considers everything a competition, grade-wise: the girl to whom it means everything to be valedictorian. I laugh because, what will she do with that after we graduate? What would that be to her in ten years besides a memory that she used to be relevant in high school? "Valedictorian" is now nothing more than a title used by arrogant college Freshmen who believe that people care what they were in high school, no different than the high school football star who sits on the bench every college game, yet wears his high school letterman like he's still cool.

Wow, I did not mean for this to turn into a rant. I'd probably better go to bed. Until next time, this is Mudrono, signing off.

If you're unfamiliar with the "College Freshman" meme, I'd advise you to look it up on www.knowyourmeme.com

Creation, Evolution, and Open Minds

2014-01-25T01:39:00.000-06:00

Hey, guys and gals, Mudrono here. You know, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I was going to talk about in my first post that actually discussed something, and thanks to a little of encouragement from a friend, I decided to make this post. I was honestly going to wait a while, but why not?
Today's topic is one that I wouldn't exactly call "controversial", but there are several different opinions about it, and I feel it's relevant (at least for the place that I'm from). One thing about humans in general is that we all like to wonder about where we came from, and there are several different ideas and theories, but for now, I'll just tackle the big two: creationism and evolution.
Note, this is not a debate about which one is "real", but an explanation about why they go together because it just astonishes me that so few people can make the connection. First, let's go over exactly what is meant by "evolution". Darwin stated that variations of traits within a species (mutations, if you will) are passed on to offspring, and that over time one species can be totally different that it was before.
I paraphrased a little bit, but that's the gist of it. The point is, the concept is more complicated than "Humans came from monkeys." But let's push this to the side for now and go into what the Bible says. I know, the Bible doesn't say anything about evolution, just like it doesn't say anything about dinosaurs or aliens or a big bang, but let's look at what it does say.
In Genesis, it says that God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them in seven days, but up until this point, there was no way to tell the passage of time, as there would have been no Earth, and most likely no Sun, as well. Let's not forget that God is, well, God, meaning that He doesn't necessarily see time the way we do. To Him, one day could be like several million (possibly billion?) years. Now, let me ask you this: Who wrote Genesis? It's generally accepted among Christians that Moses, who live approximately 2300 years after Adam, wrote the first 5 books of the Old Testament, and back in the day (according to my youth pastor) the Hebrews didn't have numbers past 1000, which is why the phrase "thousand thousand" is repeated several times in the Old Testament. So, let's say you're God. How do you explain the concept of creation to a human, much less one who couldn't fathom the idea of billions of years?
So let's say, for instance, that God created the universe (perhaps with a Big Bang?), and after several billion years, Adam and Eve are born, except the Bible never says they were 'born'; they were 'formed' or 'created'. What if, though, when God is explaining creation to Moses, He decided to keep it simple and say that Adam came from dust? And who's to say that this is not related to how life began in the first place. After all, as far as I've heard, that's an area that science still has yet to explain: how life was first formed.
I guess what my main point is is that if you take the time to study it, creationism can include scientific fact, which brings me to my last point. We all just need to open up our minds, but don't blindly accept a new idea. Just practice thinking about what a person is saying and see if their idea actually conflicts with yours.

-Anyway, until next time, this is Mudrono, signing off.

Introductions, Screen Names, and Matching Podcasts

2014-01-13T21:43:00.000-06:00

Hey, readers. So, obviously, this is the first post of this blog, and I thought I'd use it to introduce myself and tell what I plan to do here.

Alright, my name is Josh (thinking of a better screen name, so you can expect me to try a few out) and I'm from a small town in south Arkansas.

The reason I've decided to make a blog is because I have several thoughts/theories/ideas that I'd like to share with the world, and my main goals are to inspire open-mindedness and to get people to think about...well, whatever.

Before I finish this post, I'd like to let you all know that I will upload a podcast that matches (almost) each post I make, so that you can all hear the post in case you'd rather hear it that way.

So, yeah, that'll do it for this post. Please, comment with topics that you'd like me to talk about and I'll see you guys in the next post that I...post.

Stay awesome (working on something better to say when I sign out, too),

Josh/<insert screen name here>