My New Philosophy

WALL-E is Pixar's warning about the effects of consumerism and our throwaway culture. In the very beginning of the movie, the audience is shown a dystopian world covered in trash. In fact, there was so much waste that the WALL-E's stopped disposing of it and started to organize it into tall skyscrapers. The whole beginning sequence has a hopeless feeling. In fact, the trash problem became so overwhelming that the entire human race left Earth perhaps thinking if they left it alone long enough it would fix itself. Although it is not explicitly stated it is pretty obvious that the corporation Buy and Large is the main culprit of the trash epidemic. They are greedy and want to continue their sales, so they purposefully make their products break easily so it will be thrown away and the consumer will buy more. On the Axion, the ship that holds the human race holds a dark implication. There is not nearly enough room on the ship to hold the entire human race. This shows that the rich w...

Last Sunday I watched the Incredibles with a close group of friends. While watching the movie I noticed that many of the themes dealt heavily with individualism. In the movie, the villain, Syndrome, tells the Par family that "If everyone's super, then no one will be". Which brings into question a modern tradition of celebrating mediocrity. When Dash moves from the 4th to the 5th grade, Mr. Incredible is upset at the thought of going to the "graduation" because he does not view it as an accomplishment worth meriting. Mr. Incredible is fixated on the idea that he should not be punished for rising above the mediocre. However, his society has become afraid of what is different from the masses. Thus, forcing him to downplay his abilities so that he can conform in society. At the end of the movie, Dash is racing in a track meet, and the family comically tells him to hold himself back and come in second place, so that he will fit in with the other kids.  Mr. Incredi...

Ryan Hamilton could be the next Brian Regan. He has the same witty, clean humor that is very hard to come across in stand-up comedy. His audience would be very different than those that would see one of Carrot top's or Kevin Hart's shows. His audience would mostly be targeting people who enjoy a clean sense of humor. Most of those would be of the Christian community. In this comedy segment Ryan discusses the pros and cons of single life. He states that being single is great, that you are able to live very freely. However, he is sick of being single. He then makes a very persuasive argument on why not being single is a better lifestyle. He shows the merits of a relationship by showing how sad his life is currently. Ryan states that he isn't watching Netflix and eating a Lean Cuisine alone because he likes it. His persuasive appeals are mostly rooted in pathos. He talks about the benefits of being in a relationship. He also uses his accidentally happy looking face to per...

My favorite talk in the last General Conference was "Value Beyond Measure" by Joy D. Jones. The most poignant part of the talk for me was when she talked about the difference of worth and worthiness. Worth is an integral part of who we are. An analogy commonly used is that a  dollar bill is beat up and crinkled. It doesn't look very pretty, but the worth of the dollar bill is still the same. This is a perfect example of how Heavenly Father looks at us. That our worth is never lessened in his eyes. Life may leave us a little worse for the wear, but our internal worth is integral to who we are. It can not be taken away or changed. Worthiness on the other hand, is achieved through obedience.  Sister Jones uses pathos by telling the story of three women at the beginning of the talk. The first woman was brought into the church through learning more about the law of chastity and the Prophet Joseph Smith. Sister Jones talks about how interesting it was that this woman was brou...

This semester I intend to increase the number of issues that I write about. I am horrible at writing for the thrill of it and really want to increase the speed and quality of my writing.  My first goal for the semester will be to write daily in my journal. I will write from between half a page to a full page each night. I will write just before I get ready for bed. This will help me get in the habit of writing. Since I will be writing about what has been happening in the day it will give me a good basis of what to write about so I won't hit writer's block.  My second goal will be to read one fun book once a month. I will explore different genres by picking a different style of book to read each month. For the month of October, I decided to explore the horror genre. I picked the novel "Misery" by Stephen King. I was intrigued by this book as I heard that it was an analogy of his struggles with overcoming his cocaine addiction. For the month of November, I chose to...

Elder Bednar talks about the prevalence of social media in our daily lives. We have become over saturated with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit. Although these social media platforms have the potential of distracting us, and keeping us from truly seeking God, we can use them to our benefit. Elder Bednar talks about how we can use social media to figuratively flood the earth with good messages. With the internet it is easier than ever before to spread the gospel and invite happiness into other people's lives.  Elder Bednar's talk is very inspiring. He uses pathos to rally us up to do good in the internet era. He talks about how using a distracting media can be beneficial to the people around us. He uses logos by using the Prophet Brigham Young's quote that, "Every discovery in science and art, that is really true and useful to mankind has been given by direct revelation from God, though but few acknowledge it. It has been given with a view to prepare the way ...

I was originally going to write my paper on women in leadership positions in christian churches. However, after going through it, I became uncomfortable with a lot of anti-christian memorabilia that was circulating. I decided to venture further into my major, by researching more about Alzheimer's disease. I have always been interested by diseases and disorders of the mind, like Alzheimer's and Aphasia and Apraxia. I decided it would  be more beneficial to learn about Alzheimer's disease because as a Speech Language Pathologist I will be dealing heavily with Alzheimer's patients. One of my dreams in life is to create a way to enhance communication between those with disorders. While writing my paper on modern ways to diagnose Alzheimer's disease and the ethical issues that arise from treating it, I really became fascinated with Alzheimer's disease. Currently, there are no specific ways to diagnose or treat it. Many patients are shepherded around to different nu...