Monday, November 1, 2010

individualism is behind the steering wheel

Last week I attended the discussion dealing with the personal and sexual decisions of people, mainly focusing on their decisions within times surrounding Halloween. The discussion left me with a feeling that ever person is different and that independence and free will over moral decisions are what drives humans to the ultimate decisions in which they make and that these decisions promote the sense of individuality and uniqueness in human lives. The discussion started with the question about why do people dress the way they do during Halloween, mainly focusing on the distinct difference in how most guys dress in ridiculous but funny costumes while girls take the more extreme route and push the limits of whether they are actually wearing clothes or not.

Everyone knows of October 31st and the festivities it brings, with all of the parties and nonsense of dressing up in something you would not wear on a normal day. But why, on the spectrum of Halloween costumes as we will call it, do guys fall on the complete opposite of girls, for nearly 99% of the situations. Is it just a natural instinct for guys to dress in funny costumes that push the limits and girls dress in more risqué costumes, which advertise their assets? It seems that Halloween has rendered a natural feeling for its okay that women dress in these provocative costumes, with supposedly the intent that since it is Halloween it is the night they can dress like this while it not directly showing who they truly are. I feel that guys dress in funny costumes that push the limits, such as dressing up as Jesus and such, mainly for a sense of humor or a joke rather than anything else. On the other hand I do not understand why some women think that their “petite” Halloween costumes are acceptable, but in the back of my mind I feel that some women do it to show who they truly are, whether it is because they are comfortable with themselves or for other reasons, but there is no way I can get into a woman’s head to actually find out. Every person has a free will over their choices and should be independent in the choices that they make, but in some situations, such as Halloween, I cannot understand why for the most part men have a complete opposite mindset on what costumes they wear. But in the end the overall society has, I guess you could call them moral acceptances, of what is actually okay and what isn’t. But on Halloween for some reason these codes seem to disappear and I believe the reason is that people have decided to be complete independent of the society and to express their individuality without worry about judgments and reprimands. Thus allowing the individual to come out and provide distinctive differences in human’s lives.

The discussion then led to why guys buy drinks for girls and what the expectations are to come from this generous action, in some minds. In my opinion I believe some women abuse the generosity that some men show when they purchase drinks for them. But then again every man is different and is completely independent on their choices to buy a drink for women. Some may do it just because they are nice guys with no intention of taking the situation any further than a meager friendly conversation, although I believe most women wouldn’t think that’s the guy’s true intentions. But then you have some guys whose intentions of buying a girl drinks are to enable the process of getting down to the business with her later that night. Individuals have individual minds and are independent on their choices, in my mind if a woman allows a guy to buy her drinks she needs to be able to understand the situation she may be putting herself in later in the evening. Thinking about it on the other how would a woman think and/or act if she were to walk up to a guy and buy him a drink?

The discussion then turned to the concept of casual sex and whether it is okay or not. In simple terms, society would say that it is wrong and should not happen. But in my mind every person has control over their self and should be able to independently decide what is right or wrong in their life, while still being able to understand what society approves and disapproves of. I am not saying that casual sex is right or that it is wrong, but that if a person is able to understand the consequences of these types of actions and are able to accept them, that they can find the answers to these questions by and within themselves, for it is you life and you should live it the way that you want.

Changing directions towards the readings for today, the sense that humans need independence and free will over the decisions they make in life, can be related to the poem “Directions for Resisting the SAT,” by Richard Hauge. The speaker tells how to avoid the SAT and to make the personal self-choices that benefit the reader. The last two lines, “Listen to no one, Make your marks on everything” show how the speaker believes that humans should be completely independent while still being able to make and active impact on the society around them. This discussion can also be related to the reading “A Father,” by Bharati Mukheriee in the sense that decisions needed to be made dealing with the moral rights and wrongs in which the family believed. The father was undecided on what should actually happen, coming from and Indian childhood and living a life that is essentially planned before it has begun and living in America where individual decisions are what drive lives. The daughter was also faced with these decisions of what she believed to be right and wrong in her own mind, without consent of what her parents believed.

Moral rights and wrongs are determined by choices that individuals make during their lives. Individual choices are what enable human beings to live life to its fullest, whether they be bad choices or good, you learn from your mistakes and benefit from your successes. These choices allow humans to take the many different paths of life, to which each person is completely different from the next. Without these individual choices, a human life would not be considered such, but rather one continuous highway through time, on which everyone travels.

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