Thanks to Youtube

Hello, everyone~~

Nice to see you again.

I am going to change my topic for this semester's blog writing.

I had philosophy as my topic in last semester.

It was a challenged try at first, and grew to a mission impossible for me to hand in the homework on time.

After reviewing the reasons of my failure, I think my postponement is because reading philosophy require patience and time for thinking of the logic of the theory, which I had constantly lost while school life got busy.

Therefore, I decide to choose something less serious that enable some entertainment when doing homework.

And I choose music video as my new subject.

That's the reason for the title of this article:

We now can easily find almost any MV we want and watch them without waiting for downloading, that is the dedication of Youtube.

Before Youtube become so heat on the internet, we usually listened to the radio or CD when we felt like listening music.

Or we sticked to the TV and watched V power or MTV channel, waiting for the turn of our favorite songs.

Although I kind of miss the time we were still doing these old habits, I enjoy the new convenience a lot.

I love using Youtube to find the music videos of popular old bands, the songs i heard at random, and some funny short films from different spots of the world.

Now that's enough praise to Youtube, let's see the MV I'd like share with you today.

My plan is to share some of my favorite MVs, explaining how do they interest me, and also talk a little bit about the band or the singer's background.

The song for this week is " Going Under " by Evanescence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZjf9C6atT4

Evanescence is a an american rock band, and the style of their music is mostly termed to be gothic or metal.

"Going Under" is from the band's first album" Fallen", released in 2003.

I've listened to this album several times and can sing along with every single.

Then I became a fan of the band because of the lead singer Amy Lee owns a genius talent for sining.

She sings the deep feeling into the song and make the gloomy lyrics filled with the moaning of agony gentle and powerful.

This scene of the MV is likely set in hell. Except the band's member, all other actors appear in the MV are human like creature that have distorted faces of devil look.

The lead singer Amy Lee is like going to a concert to sing for her hellish fans.

One point I consider interesting is that she looks terrified and unwilling to be pushed onto the stage, but as soon as she holds the mikes she fits into the corrupt ecstasy of the crowd.

In addition, I like the idea that they connect the scene of jumping to the crowd with the scene of sinking into the water.

This design of plot responds to the lyrics:

" I am going under, drowning in you. I am falling forever, I've got to break through..."

Also the scene Amy Lee acts in the water creates a certain dramatic effect that completes the song's tone.

When she's extending her body and waving her limbs in the water, her long dark hair flows like spread black ink used to be painting for wild expression.

The MV is great for its unique plot, which is different from the commonly seen ones that are full of young pretty girls, and its well designed make up and clothing; the hellish fans remind me of the zombies of Resident Evil, and Amy's outfit is so cool and it's said that she made her performance outfits herself.

Hope you like it ~~~ :D

the true pleasure

Talking about Epicureanism, many misunderstand the Epicurean followers advocate to pursue the earthly or carnal pleasure, such as : delicacies, alcohol or jewlry. Being distinct from the gluttons and playboys who driven by their sensory desire, the Epicurean believe that pleasure should be drawn from a simple life and calm mind.

Epicurus, also a Greek philosopher,taught a life principle of the hermit's way.

Epicurus advocates living in the way of the hermits. The epicurean followers are careless to the material enjoyment, but take importance on pursueing sipiritual calmness. Their theory is unique. According to the Epicurean definition of good and bad, the good things comes from pleasure and the bad things from the pain. Also, the pleasure for them is the absance of pain.

This theory appear weird because we commonly beieved that pleasure does not equal lack of pain; furthermore; establishing on greater enjoyment or value.

However, the Epicurus do not risk to achieve the worldly affair that for them possibly ruin the true pleasure, the stable and quiet life foor meditaing.

Eternal return

I 've found the definition of eternal return in wikipedia very precise.

resourses from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return

Eternal return (also known as "eternal recurrence") is a concept which posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur in a self-similar form an infinite number of times. The concept initially inherent in Indian philosophy was later found in ancient Egypt, and was subsequently taken up by the Pythagoreans and Stoics. With the decline of antiquity and the spread of Christianity, the concept fell into disuse, though Friedrich Nietzsche resurrected it on the grounds that it provides a reason for affirming life after the decline of theism.

I learned about this concept from one of my favorite books
"The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

Before the story strats, the author, Milan Kundera, explains one important subject in this book, the heaviness and lightness.
He takes Jesus Christ's cruxification ,
the most sorrowful moment of theistic history, as the example, experiement its happening in the form of Eternal Return.
Through the simulating endless suffering of Christ, he demonstrate the extreme of the unbearable agony, the heaviness of life.
Oppositely, in human life everything happens only once and can never be corrected.
The lightness of life thus comparatively comes into view.

The existence of eternal return seems to me a reminder emphasizes on taking every step carefully, since everything done will forever runs in the cycle.
Once you hurt sb’s feeling, he might get recover after a period of time.
However, the heartbroken “him” will be eternally inhabit ting in the happening time and space and be dropping tears.
The idea of eternal return is a chain that never releases any being.

Panta rei

The title "Panta rei" is an greek pilosophy phrase, which is important and influential.

The origin of this idea is from Herakeleitos, an ancient Greek philosopher, who is of the
figure of " weeping philosopher" because of his dissapointment to his city after striving for improving it.

"Panta rei" means everything flows, more literally, everything is constantly changing.
his famous quotation

"On those stepping into rivers the same, other and other waters flow." explains his philosophy while unintendedly echo the very same idea of Confuius

論語子罕篇記載：「子在川上曰，逝者如斯夫。不捨晝夜。」

However, Herakeleitos did not sign for the change of things like Confucius, oppositely, he was exhilarated when discovrering this principle by observing things. He describe the invention as the light that break out from the chaos, the steadfast truth found among the complex surface of constantly changing world.

"The only unchanged thing is that everything changes." the sentence is commonly heard now, only that we do not know it is derived from Herakeleitos' idea.

Also The cultural diffrences can be seen from the distinct response of Herakeleitos and Confucious to Panta rei. Confusius signed for the change of things because he had once tried to bring back the good old time of the dynasty Chou, which was fated to be vain. whereas, Herakeleitos, the philosopher who love the most widsom, treasure every truth as the most significant things in life.

I am sorry that I haven't posted anything for near;ly a month, and even missed the deadline.
I am busy in dealing with other affair and I know that's not a proper reason even a good excuse.
Promise will psot wthe lack as soon as possible.

The Father of Philosophy

What's the origion of philosophy? Even the science that includes the study of the beginning theory as an important subject has to confront with this kind of how-it-start question.
philosophy was born when man 's thinking at the very first time jump from the economic production to meditate what's the hidden rule behind the common earth viewed from sight.
If the mile stone has been recorded, this pioneer of philosophical thinking was Thales(translated as 泰勒士 in chinese, pronounced as /θei liz/ ), a Greek philosopher lived before Socrate.

Thales of Melius,(the later-half indicates the city he lived), as a Greek nobleman, mastered in various academic areas, such as: mathematic, astronomy, and especially, politics. Besides being as talented as a Renaisance man, he's also a sailor and merchant, gaining foreign language and natural observation by taking voyages. he dedicated to philosophy at his elderly age when the widsom's grown mature. Notable for attribution in all his expertises, he's considrered the head among the seven sages of Greece while alive, and by Aristotle regarded as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition. To relate to the crucial influences of Greek philosophy to the Western culture, Thales is never flattered to be regarded as the father of Western philosophy.

It is a wonder to wonder how the big issue as the Genesis (the creation of the world ) comes to man's mind, the respectable philosophy researchers do provide us their guess. The idea of Genesis was based on the mythology formed when man tried to explain the powerful natural phenomenon ( thundering, earthquake...) that to them was so frightening and threatening. Then the explaination transfered to a common belief or religion, developing till its maturity and invoking some bright-minded people to search another way out. Thus the philosophy established its primitive shape, dealed with the man's ration and logic, made from the secular relisgion to the individual thought of philosophy.

Back to Thales, who loved to meditate, did not have any writing survived in present. However, his thoughts could be found in the allusion or recorddone by other ancient philosophers, who yet counted as his successors. According to Aristotle, the three famous sentences which composed an coherent philosophical theory of Thales are:

The world started from water.
The earth floats on the water.
Divinity exsists in everything.

Water acts an essencial role in both Thales' philosophy and Greek tradition since Greece is a country of rocky land surrouded by sea, and the geographic fact gives the clue of the first and second sentences. Moreover, to emphasize on the key word of the last sentence: Divinity, the result of philosophical deduction seems to suggest the water Thales talked about gets beyond the real water in daqily life. when "water" is full of divinity(before it transforms to concrete things) , it become supernatural and living. Through the divine power it grows to everything. Thales' theory is closed to the ordinary prmitive belief that everything on the earth owns lives and chains to each other like a round cycle, effecting each to each, gaining and ceasing.

I think it is a remarkable step when human being moved his sight from the narrow surrounding to pay attention to the extensive enviroment of universe. Also the ancestor philosopher, in my opinion, paralleling with the modern heroes as fire fighters or policeman, can be called the great people who contribuited so much to saving our barren mind of spiritual life.

Eventually, here we conclude the exshausting fight in our brain, thanks you for your time and patience.

Why Philosophy???

: ))))))))))))

Hello,dear classmates and passers-by,

thanks for stepping into this blog,

You're sincerely welcome,

and I hope my plain tongue won't bore you to death.

Writng in a blog in English is not really so fresh for me,

I do it randomly when keeping journal,

but when it comes to become homework to grade,

I do spend time on worrying what to talk about.

Usually the blogrunners focus on the particular areas they're interested or master in;

however; as a art and literature lover of conspicious tendency ,

I think I'd better stop repeating the do again and again theme.

Moving to Taichung and starting a new life in a new college is a fantastic thing,

besides meeting new people, I also find myself spending more time with myself (being alone I mean),

then by myself my brain just dosen't rest and runs on things I ommit before stop talking.

So on and on, sometimes the world and my life seems dim and glommy,

and before becoming a pious follower of religions local and foreign I look for salvation in the books.

I find Philosophy interesting and helpful to alter your life from mere chit-chat and making a living.

reading along with the the philosophers' thinking course enable people to
learn their way of questioning common things, which seems to be fixed in a popular value, but may actually be wrong and unreasonable,thus Philosophy can independent your judgement standard.

Not bound by the secular rules and not blind to the real surrounding, the world appaers boarder than it was before philosophy.

I intend to share some of my reflection on reading the various philosophy related subjects or life story of philosophers with you in the following weeks.

One thing I would like it to be aware is that I am of no kind of philosophy experts, students of or philosophy department, or even old hands of reading philosophy;

therefore; these articles posted here are only my humble opinion echoing the concentration and passion seen in the philosopher's pieces, and also the invitation for you to join the journey ahead to the spirit of philosophy.