Soooooo... we finished the project finally, and I think pretty soon we'll be moving on to our next unit for quarter three. If I forgot to explain the project in previous blogs I'll reexplain it now. Basically for our gifted and talented class we have been exploring the human spirit and hope and characteristics that separate us from other species. After we discussed that for a while our teachers wanted us to be able to all come up with individual topics that interested us and branched off of hope and human spirit as a universal theme. When I first learned about this all I wanted to know was what exactly humanity was and I assumed my classmates would all choose the same general idea of what exactly is humanity.I was severely mistaken and I underestimated just how many different takes we all had on humanity hope and the human spirit. I learned so much from this unit not just from my own research but from watching my classmates presentations.
One group that presented asked the question what does it meant to be human and do you have hope for the human race? They then went all over our school and asked these questions to both teachers and students alike and got many responses. What really interested me about their project was the second question about if we have hope for the human race or not? I was honestly expecting everyone to say NO because of how the world looks right. I don't really have hope in the human race and I figure why bother humans are set in their ways and unless something monumental and worldwide happens we aren't going to change. We are constantly at war with other nations and we are destroying ourselves the way people involved in mob hysteria do. We fight and spill oil in the ocean and treat the planet like a gigantic garbage can and constantly divide ourselves and ostracize and form hate groups, so quite frankly I think its going to be an endless cycle until we all kill ourselves or the apocalypse or a nuclear war. Despite my oh so positive outlook on life, many teachers said they did in fact have hope for the human race ( I have no idea how since Justin Beiber has more followers on Twitter than the President of the United States!!!!!). They say they lose hope when tragedies such as the Congresswoman in Arizona being shot(click here for more details) but they gain it back eventually like when we all come together for things, such as the disaster in Haiti.
On a more personal note, I eventually decided that what I wanted to learn from this unit was, why are there so many lonely people in the world if we are social beings and meant to be and empathic race? Honestly just take a minute to think about it... When you think of lonely people you don't really think of it as a big deal, but there are so many lonely people in the world. This is unnatural because since the beginning of human existence, whether you believe in the Big Bang theory or Adam and Eve or the Norse religion of the cosmic cow, we have been meant to function as a social race.Throughout time we have banded together to form tribes, nations, and ultimately whole countries. So then why you ask are there so many lonely people in the world. The answer is right in front of you. No literally your looking at it...computers. Well at least that's my theory. Leading neuroscientist John Cacioppo says that loneliness is contagious and we can catch it from one another, it isn't something that can be helped. If our friends begin to feel lonely so do we because of neurons in our brain and other psychological and scientific stuff. However I wanted to know why people get lonely in the first place and Roger Ebert thinks its technology. Now that we have computers and facebook and twitter, why bother going outside or talking to people face to face when you can type it. Technology can fulfill our need for companionship, but it can also destroy relationships. We( I'm speaking America in general) have gotten so bad with our gadgets that a family all together in the same room will have individual little screens to keep them occupied, and that is what drives wedges into our relationships. That I believe is what starts the domino effect of loneliness in this world. And now self( because I know I'm the only one who reads my essay long blogs) I bid you adieu.
