Casual Contemplation

The debate about establishing an official language in the States has been going on for a long time. English only? Or Spanish too? Should we have an official language at all? Truly, this topic has two parts. The first part is, should we even have an official language? I think we  should. It makes sense to have a common and unifying language with which everyone can communicate, and which one must know how to speak upon becoming a citizen. Some people think it's racist, like Krauthammer pointed out, but having an official language doesn't mean other languages are any less, or that anyone is restricted to speaking only that language - it just means that to be naturalized into the country, one must know how to speak and understand it. Most immigrants end up learning the language anyway - how else are they going to communicate in this country? - so making it official just gives more incentive to learn it. So we have established that English should be made the official language....

Language is defined as "the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way".  Basically, it's how we communicate. The way we use language shows a lot about who we are.  Steven Pinker talks about how we use language to allude to what we want to say instead of saying things directly. A lot of it is just common politeness, something that I had never though about as being "indirect" before. While he does exaggerate (I don't think anyone would  really say "If you could pass the salt, that would be awesome"), he makes a valid point. Very often we use language in a way that benefits us, my including and omitting certain words or phrases. How many times have you written a short email which should take less than 5 minutes to write, but ends up taking 20 because you keep editing it and rewording things? I do that all the time. I can recall a specific example of what Pinker would c...

I visited the Great Smoky Mountains National park in winter break two years ago, en route to Florida. It was an amazing place, saturated with breathtaking natural beauty. The stream of mountains and trees with leaves of various hues were filled with life, like they were the very veins of the earth, a small area of land untouched by the plague of industrialization. The pinks, yellows and blues of the blossoms; the reds, oranges and browns of the leaves; the green pine trees, all against a background of a white blanket of snow, made the place seem like a painting, a visualization, something that only happens in movies - but it was real , and it was, at some point, what the entire continent looked like before the year of 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Currently, the paradise on earth is protected by the government. Soon, though, it too will be destroyed, used to make 293.4 square miles more of houses, schools, malls, corporate offices, factories....and no one will remember or...

Everybody seems to think that the more wealth one gets, the happier they will be.The ability to buy a fancy car and the latest iPhone equates to ultimate bliss, right? It sounds outrageous - and it is - but deep down, we all believe so. Eighner contradicts this in his essay on his life of "Dumpster diving".  He owns no tangible items other than the clothes on his back and his dog, but he is happy. In fact, he avoids taking anything from the dumpster he doesn't need. Even though he has close to nothing, he "hardly picks up a thing without envisioning the time [he] will cast it away". He has intangible things, though, such as a companion (Lizbeth). He therefore has a "healthy state of mind". Contrast this to what may the exact opposite situation: celebrities. They own big fancy mansions with every tangible thing they could ever want, and the money to buy anythi ng beyond that. They live a life of luxury. But how many celebrities have we heard of w...