Aidan's Blog

Project: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pKoQ5sqDqieyZU8_z9NiWb__6w9Its7rsYmuAGY77rU/edit?usp=sharing 

 

Two most influential ideas?

 

I enjoyed the Times Union quote ¨Grow up and think like a kid again¨ a lot. It clicked with me and I felt throughout researching this project that there a lot of traits adults could adopt or relearn from kids

 

Additionally, I think this project further emphasizes the need for kids to grow up in a stable environment. Of course this is not something most people are unaware of but I think this project reminded me of its importance

 

What do you hope people will learn from your project?

 

The validity of children’s opinions and how much they can add to a situation with their unique perspective and questions

 

Community & NNHS?

 

To care about strangers

 

What advice would you give future NNHS Seniors?

 

Don’t procrastinate

I did not know what to write this blog about so I asked my dad. He suggested writing about binge watching (while binge watching) and it’s negative effects. The suggestion was a welcome one and it immediately made me think of an anecdote I heard relating to more effectively binge watching. I’ll try and tie it all together.

 

Starting with binge watching. I don’t really watch shows myself but I see the appeal. I find it hard to commit to long seasons and envy those that do it with ease, I tend to stick to shorter forms of entertainment that in all probably make up a similar length of time. When my dad brought up binge watching he said he was interested in it because he wanted to know what progress someone could make if they halved their time binge watching and instead spent it in the gym or doing some other form of self improvement. I think the answer to this question isn’t incredibly nuanced, if you watch TV for two hours a day – a mark that isn’t uncommon nowadays – working out for an hour along with healthy eating habits would make you a very healthy person. I remember watching a video about Herschel Walker, a man mentioned next to Bo Jackson as arguably the greatest athlete in North American sports history. Going into his freshman year of high school Herschel Walker was a chubby, unathletic kid. As the legend goes, all he changed over the course of one summer were his TV watching habits. During commercial breaks he would do as many push ups and crunches as possible. As this number grew he increased the difficulty of the push ups and crunches but also the quantity – according to him he was doing around 10,000 push ups (I forget the number of crunches) just watching television. Granted his TV habits were absurd so he had a huge margin of time to focus on working out, though it begs the question how difficult these workouts were. After all, it was mixed with leisure time so it was something he clearly found easy to stay in schedule with. This non traditional sort of work ethic-hack lead him to immediately become one of the most athletic human beings on the planet,  binge watching on paper is one of the easiest adds to a schedule out of anything. You do nothing but get back the experience of one of your favorite shows. With the rise of audiobooks and things like the peloton there’s clearly a demand for the fusion of leisure and self improvement, however, I think no money needs to be spent on obtaining this combination. Read into your schedule, how hard would it be to incorporate a workout into a time typically meant for leisure and leisure alone. This is not to suggest that down time is not important, it is, but things like body weight exercises and walking or running are entirely scalable – something is better than nothing and even a minimal amount of work for the amount of time the average one of us spends on solely leisure would do a lot.

 

Work ethic is typically viewed in a very black and white way. Either you’re the type of person who dives head first at whatever you are asked to do or you do not and are labeled as lazy. Work ethic is valuable but perhaps equally as valuable is efficiency. I could work exceptionally hard at doing one task but no matter how hard I work, the person who puts in even mediocre effort while finding ways to innovate and make the most comfortable usage of their time will typically come out on top. I would hope that everyone at some point can find the benefit of fitness and good health, especially the clear headedness that comes with it. Brutish hard work is not always the only way to get into shape, rather an intelligently crafted schedule.

I think Baseball is the stupidest mainstream sport. If Earth was threatened by aliens and we presented baseball as a large part of our culture, I think they would kill us all of right then. The general premise could be created by a caveman: use a stick to hit a ball, however, the millions of rules and game design oddity make it very confusing.

I can’t say I am an avid fan of baseball myself, though I do respect its ability to create odd situations and statistical hilarity/insanity. I mean in what other sport can someone achieve an elite single game accomplishment (no hitter) while under the effects of LSD. Only baseball. What other sport can you be considered an “athlete” and look like Bartolo Colon? Probably only baseball and bowling. I am not the type of person to root for a baseball team or watch a full game and even most of the highlights are just okay, yet the accomplishments that have come out of baseball are fascinating. Barry Bonds home run record is an amazing athletic achievement and Bob Gibson’s 1968 ERA is unbelievable – Baseball is like one huge social experiment.

When you make a game as simple as baseball there is generally little room to innovate, although, this limited mobility is where I feel creativity is the most encouraged. Its the little weird things that have changed that are so interesting to me: the bunt, the intentional walk and pitching over the years. Unlike other sports a lot of baseball records are kind of set in stone due to many of these small changes. It seems like every decade before the 2000s there was always some guy who came in and did things differently than every player before him and then when he was out of the league, nobody could replicate his specific niche talents. There was a time period when Rickey Henderson was getting more steals than entire teams, in one hundred years of the sport nobody has ever even been close to him. Guys used steroids to blast 55+ home runs a year and all of their records are still standing as an unachievable relic. You used to be able to spit on the baseball and rub it in mud before you pitched it and literally nobody ever scored I don’t know why this sport was so in demand for so many years.

The history of the sport is ugly and weird and full of so many entertaining stories. I don’t think its a product I will ever consume on a regular basis but something I will continue to enjoy the ongoing history of. It was really cool to fake being a Cubs fan when they broke their title drought a few years back. Hopefully this opportunities continue to arise.

NFL Defensive Coordinators are bad at their jobs. There’s no way the bulk of the position can be complimented for much of anything, offensive efficiency and production has skyrocketed in just the last seven years due to new schemes, plays, play styles and most importantly, lack of innovation on the defensive end. Why is it in the NFL for the last 36 years >99% of teams have run the same base movements of a 4-3 or 3-4. Logic tells you that both of those defenses and their base alignments mostly fall in the middle of the aggressive vs. non aggressive alignments as well as around equal potential to stop the run and the pass. Though it begs the question, why should defenses stay so moderate in such an offensively radical league?

 

Offensive playbooks opened up in the early 2010s mostly due to the inclusion of much of the college game. In college, coaches often deal with worse teams and programs and are much more inclined to rely on wacky play calling to create chances. Moreover, recruiting is much easier when you have a specific scheme to build around, i.e Oregon’s dominant spread option offense under Chip Kelly. When quarterbacks emerging from these systems got to the league, plenty of coaches tried keeping them comfortable by introducing a lot of familiarity into their playbooks, take for example the evolution of Washington’s offense under RGIII. It’s crazy to think that even when Griffin got into the league the idea of a starting QB that mobile was seen as taboo. As he would go on to prove this idea was outdated and in a lot of cases purely racially based, why wouldn’t you want your quarterback to be a great athlete.

 

Defense has never had this revolution. Buddy Ryan’s 1983-85’ 46 Defense is the most radical defensive play-calling the NFL has seen besides other late 70s blitzing experiments and most recently his son’s extremely successful 46 defense stint with the Jets. Everyone is aware of the 46 but mostly due to legend, not a single defensive coordinator uses the 46 as more than a sub package. Time has certainly shown the 46 as viable and interchangeable enough to fit modern day pass happy offenses, yet coordinators still buy into traditionalists that failed them offensively. Yes, the 46 is hyper aggressive and the alignment is run-orientated, though there’s an entire other end of the spectrum also unexplored by base defensive playbooks.

 

College Football has recently seen the rise of Coordinators primarily using the 4-2-5 and 3-3-5 Nickel orientations to combat pass leaning spread offenses. Traditional coaching points to the Nickel as a good 3rd down sub package due to its ineffectiveness against the run and therefore a poor base defense but how true is this in practice? Any great defensive alignments looks for players who fill in the weak spots. In the Nickel, linebackers with the mobility to stop the run and corners/safeties who can tackle obliterate the notion that the Nickel as a base defense is incompatible with stopping the run downs 1-3. The Seahawks defense is perhaps the best defense of the 2010s and did so thanks to great secondary tackling. I think the defense could have been even better if they played today and lined up in more nickel forms instead of Tampa 2.

 

Athletes get better every year. Offenses have evolved to scheme these unique players into ideal situations yet defense has changed little in forty seasons. It’s high time for coordinators to run schemes that further emphasize their great players and dictate the game to the opponent.

My difficulties with Mildred Plew Merryman´s poem began with its titling. The way it is presented (especially in a book surrounded by poetry that is not exclusively Mildred´s) made it seem as though it was genuinely observed at an Indian Grave. The first warning signs to otherwise actually came before I did any research. The usage of ¨Indian¨ along with ¨Seminole¨ seemed counter intuitive; why use two separate identifications – each broad – in such close context. If self Identified, I imagine the people the poem aims to imitate would more accurately label themselves. After all, the term ¨Indian¨ has been applied to wildly different groups as has ¨Seminole¨, more specifically in the case of the grouping of Native American tribes found in the American Southeast. Knowing the poem was written by a white woman with no native background certainly changes the reading of it. In a poem based around a concept such as afterlife, we can no longer interpret this as cultural belief, rather cultural fantasy from the mind of Mildred Merryman.

The poem goes on to contrast ¨My Spring¨ and ¨Your Spring¨ in an easy enough to understand way. The dead Seminole observes the afterlife as a sort of shared reality with the events of the living, as symbolized by the ¨one¨ dusk. It is certainly an interesting interpretation but it begs the question, what basis does this have in reality? In the present day the groups labeled as Seminole are quite religious, however, little still hold faith in the old buried/forgotten native rituals and tend to stick to Christianity in high percentage. Given Merryman´s background, she does not possess much insight into the religious practices of what can only be assumed to be pre colonization Seminole tribes and along with this fact, she herself is an avid Christian. This lends the entirety of her poem to be quite perplexing to me. Not only is she using a culture foreign to her to express philosophical thought, these thoughts are not entirely her own. Surely they came from her pen, though her biblical faith contradicts the afterlife expressed in the poem. As established she is not accurately representing any native tradition let alone any Seminole tradition so it begs the question, is this poem written entirely in fiction or is it the religious ponderings of a skeptical Christian? Personally I tend to lean on the idea it is purely a fictional piece but nonetheless a puzzling one, it remains misleading yet easy to understand. I grasp the ideas, yet cannot help but question its meaning given its odd background to inception.  

When looking at the opposite views of oneself, it is easy to fall victim to dehumanizing those who express contradicting opinions. I believe that to effectively debate and persuade, opposition research and empathy are required traits. This post is not at all intended to preach centrism or working across the aisle, but rather point out that cancel culture is a mostly ineffective means of converting others to what I would consider a more just world view.

Ignorance is a word used far too little in political discourse. In its place we levy futile insults towards easily condemnable people: racists, bigots, xenophobes and self identified fascists. One of the easiest things to do in this world is point the finger at these people, it takes virtually no effort to critique them to a wide range of virtual applause and approval. The harder question in most scenarios is asking why. Views that stray greatly left of American Neo liberalism (the status quo) are not procured without questioning the defects of our current system – things like rampant poverty, homelessness and wage exploitation. Many of the people who ¨cancel¨ those who differ from themselves share similar views with me, though I see the act of cancelling from these same people as somewhat illogical. I am not arguing that being staunchly against the enemies of progress is a critical flaw, however, in order to better weaken our opposition we cannot stand to lose sight of why they think the way they do.

 

Why do we not apply the same questions we applied to capitalism as a whole to people who sing its praise? And when we do, why do we describe these people with such holistic ultimatums? Yes, racist people should certainly be called out, though I think the opportunity for growth and reform can coexist with this action. When we identify what truly compels white people to deny the existence of systemic racism, men to deny sexism and cisgender people to not acknowledge their innate privileges, we stand a much better chance to help people. Educating others not only invigorates the causes that fight for equity but it also establishes much better lives on the personal level. Many of these people are consumed by hate, yet we out them as deplorable and move on. My critiques of cancelling also extend for the people whose viewpoints are not founded on such hatred but have the same outcomes –  It is high time we use the term ignorance more frequently to accurately define people who simply are not informed or misinformed on a topic causing them to have opinions that do not fully align with rational morality. After all, Lack of understanding breeds contempt. Understanding this, we should constantly seek to eliminate this lack of education to usher in equity.

When I see the methods used to fight the ¨enemy¨ on platforms such as twitter, I cannot help but think of the prison industrial complex – something I greatly denounce. Since the 80s emergence of Reaganism, America has moved towards a punishment over rehabilitation prison system. Time and time again we have seen the faults with this idea and the havoc it has reaped upon the African American and Hispanic communities. In countries with laxer sentences and accessible rehab especially for victims of addiction, (victims, as they should be referred to) we see exceptionally lower rates of prison recidivism: I.e Social Democracies such as Norway and Finland. In the United States, 64% of prisoners end up back in Jail. In Norway this number is 20%. Combined with the fact that Norway imprisons only 72 to every 100,000 versus the US´s 1 to 100 and an issue with our system is strikingly obvious.

Through the systems we denounce we concur that true, non-bullshit second chances along with proper rehab are vital. Our failure to understand what drives people to do the criminal has only further destroyed lives and setback entire communities. I believe we should offer a similar presentation to those we alienate. 

I agree wholeheartedly with Angela Davis (and countless others) in the idea that Revolutions are always judged by the quality of their cause rather than the means they take, but in turn I think that whenever plausible we should seek to improve the lives of those we condemn via persuasion, education and exposure.

Competition is atypically mentioned in the same breath as reading. Growing up, like any other child, literature was naturally a large part of my upbringing. I took great interest in various novels across diverse genres, I would poke my head in any of the Percy Jackson epics just as soon as I would a Guinness World Records book. The annual book fair was one of my favorite days of the school year and I can still recall begging my mother to read me Peter Pan. An appreciation and enjoyment of reading is nothing out of the ordinary. However, my insatiable competition with my peers over the speed of my reading was, safe to say, somewhat odd.

I could hear the clicks of different timers echoing around the room. Once or twice a year, the district would send in volunteers to assess our basic reading abilities and comprehension. It was a simple and mundane task in an otherwise regular elementary school day for most of my classmates, but not for me. Naturally, one of the aspects the volunteers would assess was speed. For whatever reason, I saw this as a challenge. When the proctor provided a passage and started the minute timer, I put my entire life force into reading and comprehending the passage just enough to pass whilst also posting scathing speeds. To me, this test was the fourth quarter, the guitar solo and the last lap all rolled into one. It was the 100 meter sprint.

Joy came when the volunteers year after year were floored with my surprising results in the race nobody else was partaking in. It was as if I was driving the Tour De France but celebrating like a biker. For the most part, this elation was personal. I may have let a few friends on to my arbitrary successes though it mattered little. This was a personal conquest. Utter domination that took place once or twice a year in the repurposed cafeteria / testing room. Domination that was singular in setting and time until my powers were called into question outside of their usual arena.

A bad habit had emerged. I had begun to start attempting to apply my speedreading tactics to my regular everyday reading. My synthesis of a text took a backseat to whether or not I could impress myself with the number of pages I could read in a short period of time. Early in my Fourth Grade year, we were instructed to read a book of our choice in any spot around the classroom. I nestled into the back corner of the room and began the dark practice of hastily flipping away through a high level novel. By some stroke of bad luck or divine intervention, my teacher walked by as I was engaged in this ritual. He verbally questioned what I was doing. I was sixty pages into a novel and we had been reading for about twenty minutes.

This should absolutely be the part of the story where he reprimands my wrong-doing and I learn the lesson I needed to learn. Instead, after I regurgitated the summary on the back of the book my teacher went out of his way to bring me up in front of the class, commending me. As I stood up there in front of the class having pulled off a train robbery, I finally realized that it may be more valuable to truly understand the words on the page rather than blow by them. After that day I retired from my short lived speed reading career, it was for the best.

By some form of bad luck, divine intervention, or maybe even curse, I cannot escape the door handle’s grasp, which I mean quite literally. Whenever I am having a bad day, I always find myself caught on a door handle. Be it loose pants, a sweatshirt, or a sleeve, I walk home after a long day of school ready to rest, opening my door and proceeding into my bedroom only to be halted by what appears to be some sort of invisible force field. Only it is nothing invisible, rather the cruel and unusual justice of the door handle.

 

Door handles challenge my mood and force me to explore opposition. The door handle presents a simple jolt and an equally simple emotional reaction. I often try to fight the frustration with ration and reason, as well as see the other perspective. The door handle does not deserve my aggression for a conflict I prompted on my own. I strive to look at these situations unbiased. This thinking is present in my everyday life and everyday conflict. It is vital to my success. I make the attempt to challenge my beliefs as often as possible: my strong opinions cannot exist without opposition research and respect. Even in actions that typically only produce an instinctive response, I seek to ask myself why. 

 

I would not put myself into the typical fight or flight bubble. Instead, I try to attack my own psyche with every valid response I can think of. 

 

People describe me as a calm person in the face of adversity. I do not think they would predict the quantity of thoughts I have in times of conflict. I think as many points of view as I can introduce into a situation the more confident and less anxious I feel about a decision. 

 

I have fallen victim to anxiety, occasionally at the hands of my own thoughts; the way I see it, if I have the brain power to create great feelings of anxiety, there is no reason I do not have the same power to generate calm feelings and reactions in any situation. I try to apply this sentiment to react in a calm way so as to buy myself time to evaluate the situation. When someone else makes a mistake, it is easy to react off emotion and assign all blame and negative energy towards them. Even in the extremely short time of the mistake happening and initial calm response, I am able to catch up mentally and produce the response I feel best fits the situation. I say things I reconsider all the time and things I do not mean, but rarely are these detrimental to any of my relationships. I would have to put in far too much thought into a potentially relationship-altering statement for me to not standby it. It is important to note that even in reaching this comfortable state of backing up my own claims I am still open to change. Losing my intellectual flexibility would be a detriment to who I am and who I am trying to be. 

 

I tend to look at the past four years and see how much I have changed and compare it to the next four years. I have experienced the growth and maturity that high school brings into the mind and I want to amplify this en route to becoming an adult. I want to change more in these next four years than I have in the last eighteen to more closely fit the ideals of who I want to be, ideals that are ever changing as well. The pursuit of idealist qualities in oneself is a never ending struggle but a journey I reap the benefits of and enjoy pursuing. I enjoy my life when I am challenging myself. Plain and simple, I will do what will provide me with this challenge so I can enjoy myself and reap the benefits of forward progress.