Prior to jumping into my explanations, I feel I must first amend my list slightly. Nothing is changing severly, moreso I'm just going to specify more where I need it and possibly add a detail or two as I see fit. So without further delay, my list (version 1.2)
1. Music
2. Water and Time (I'll explain when I get there)
3. Man over Nature
4. Architecture/Engineering
5. Family Life
6. The Simpsons
7. Words/Language/Mythology
8. Mathematics
9. Weather
10. Animals/Evolution
11. Roller Coasters
12. Bowling
Honorable Mentions: Lists, Philosophy and Google
Alright, now that we have that squared away, let's discuss, shall we? I think music is my obvious number one simply because it consumes most of my life. I insist on listening to music as much as possible, I've never been to a concert that didn't lighten my spirit and simply put, I've built my life around my music. It is the only art I know of that encompasses my entire being in its experience. I know I had a lot to say about my number one album and movie, but I don't think I can add anything to this as it would be like defining the word "the" without using the word "the" - I can't do it because music is a part of my being.
Now for what will likely be the longest explanation of everything, more than likely this will actually be longer than most of my others combined. Now in my original list I just had water, defined as "including, but not limited to; rivers, rapids, erosion, waterfalls, fountains, lighthouses and catamarans." Now I have decided that this shall be Water and Time. Wow, Nathan, that's a pretty big jump - those are two completely unrelated concepts, how can they be lumped into the same category when you seperated Google and lists from words/language? Simple - it's all in how my mind works. You see, I've been thinking about why I love water and the things I love about water, and I think the most fascinating thing about water is...it's a destructive force. Nothing can stand up to water in the long run and this is where my mind made the connection - time is just as destructive and often they work together to bring something down. This is how water and time are related. Now I shall discuss just solely water, and then how time relates into all of that.
When I first think of water I think of a river, this river in mind has many rapids and at the same time, many calm areas where a leaf falling disrupts the reflection of the crystal clear sky. There is probably a waterfall or two, lots of forks and bend, tributaries joining it and dams slowing it down. I have a river in my mind, hopefully someday I will be able to construct it on my massive bit of land (which, if I can afford to build a river, I no doubt will own). I like all of these things for one reason, they are beautiful. At the same time, they are all very different - the same river, the water flowing downstream and we have all these different features, all these different facets to this same body of water. It's the river's personality and you can't judge it by just one bend because who knows what it's like downstream or upstream, or even during the rainy season? It's this constant change, this constant curiosity that makes up the water's personality and why I find it so fascinating, because it's deep, and not necessarily in the traditional sense. This same thought process leads me to erosion, the aforementioned destructive nature of the beast. Even a slow moving, calm creek will eventually dig out the grand canyon under the right circumstances and this is ever more entrancing than the faces of a river. How can something so pleasant, so peaceful, so relaxing be so destructive? Water gives life, and yet at the same time it can move mountains and create valleys! It can destroy cities (RIP New Orleans) and it can hide the past (RIP Atlantis), it is the ultimate force on this planet. Bonus it expands when frozen, how cool is that? The final things I mentioned when I first listed water were "fountains, lighthouses and catamarans." Fountains, I think, interest me because they are harnessing the power of water for nothing practical, simply it's beauty. Yes, it may seem shallow, but with all the mythology surrounding fountains, can you blame me? This is the ultimate force on this planet, like I said, and here we are carelessly hurling it into the air only to watch it fall magically back down into a constant pool. It seems frivolous and perhaps it is, but fountains are one of my measures of man, it is one of the powers that make us great (this could be my engineer coming out, but we'll get to that later). Next we have lighthouses, and this is again having to do with our attempts to control the vicious mistress as she is. These devices are by no means a fail safe but rather a guide to understanding this mystery of water. Unlike fountains they are practical in every way in that they have one task and even today, are extremely useful. They also work as reminders of the dangers of water, they give us one more reason to respect it and honestly, they are a sort of tribute to the power of the sea. My final item was the catamaran, which in reality I suppose I could have just listed boat and called it good because quite frankly, it's the vessel that interests me, not necessarily the design. I did however mention catamaran specifically because it is the most intriguing vessel on the open water. Perhaps it's the ability to stand fearlessly over the water, perhaps it's just another way we can prove our worth to our most vicious foe. Maybe it just looks cool. I'm going with that.
Now where, oh where am I going with this now? How am I going to connect all that big talk about water with time? I'm must be crazy! Alright, so stay with me now, let's start with the river again. Now, picture your life as, well - a river. Now you start at a spring up in some mountain or something, come to think of it - the similarities between a fountain and a spring are astounding. Anyways, moving on - so we have established the 'fountain' in time being represented by birth and we have our river as our lives flowing towards the great sea of death. Wow - that was kind of dark. Now obviously at times our lives flow by faster than we would like and other times it lulls to a near stop. I suppose we could find a similar event to a waterfall, I know I can find an equivalent of tributaries, obviously it's people moving in and out of our lives...sometimes we are huge bodies of water streaming down towards a common goal and other times we are but a tiny little creek, more than likely completely ignored by anything and everyone - these are when we are most surrounded by those whom love us and when we are completely alone, respectively. You see where I'm getting my connection? Waterfalls, I suppose, would be the hardest feature that I could find a metaphor of, perhaps 'taking the plunge' as it were, so marriage? Major life changing decisions? Those completely alter the course of our travels through life, so I suppose that makes sense, right? And now that only leaves two more artifacts to bring up - lighthouses and catamarans. When trying to control time, I can't help but think of something that's always been with me - my watch. A watch, like a lighthouse is simply a guide, a shining light through the storm leading us to wherever we need to be. It doesn't stop time, it doesn't control time, but it helps steer us through it safely, keeping us afloat whenever we need it to. Finally the catamaran, or any vessel for this moment as obviously no time travel machine as yet exists (to my knowledge, although I'm sure I can find some shady eBay auctions that beg to differ) and the vessel remains just as fascinating to me, if not moreso in that it requires my mind to leave my known limits of reality. The final similarity between the two, and the first connection that I made, is the power of destruction. Time has destroyed so much and yet, just like water, created so much in the same way. Time and water truly are the two most destructive and creative forces known to man and I beg anyone to show me a more dangerous foe than these.
Bonus point - three words: Fountain of Youth. These two, as concepts, are as intertwined as Forrest and Jenny.
Moving on - Man Over Nature, harnessing that wild power I just talking about. Now in my original post I mention windmills, watermills, dams used for hydroelectric power and solar power. Now it would be easy to kind of cop out and save me some time and just say that using these things to help reduce our emission of greenhouse gases into the environment, but quite frankly - that's not why I love these things. What I love about these are right there in my title, it's us conquering nature. In the end, nature will always be able to defeat us, but for the time being, occasionally, we are in control and it's when we are using these. We can't stop a river from flowing (okay - we can, dams) but we can't completely stop the flow of water, but we can harness it for our own needs. We can't stop the wind (I don't know why we would want to, but you get the idea) but we can use it for whatever we need. The sun is always going to pound down on Earth and you know what, we can use that! Why simply let it heat our planet, let's get the most for what we're given and take advantage of everything given us...that's plain and simple resourcefulness, a necessity for survival in any ecosystem. Solar power in particular really interests me because it is reaching the point where it is so cheap that it can effectively replace shingles for roofing and if every house in America had them, we could close every power plant without fear of roaming blackouts or, honestly, even minor power outages as the whole system would be completely decentralized it would be nearly impossible for the system to go down entirely. That's power.
Next I have architecture and engineering. Originally I had included landscaping, although only because of a view aesthetic things I find visually attractive, although none of them are in any way practical (most everything I love is in some way) and if they didn't exist, I wouldn't miss them but they do so I have a liking towards them. What I do love about architecture and engineering is the modern era - skyscrapers and super highways in particular. I suppose I have always been interested in building from my childhood surrounded by Lego's (still have them all too) to my photograph collection of roller coasters and other engineering marvels where it is clear the simplicity in defying gravity and simultaneously show a smooth and graceful facade to the world. Skyscrapers particularly achieve this with great presence and they bring to my mind, at least, the greatest of human achievements. Think about it - the world wonders; the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, Stonehenge - all of these things, the things that we consider the greatest human accomplishments? These are engineering feats for their time and we have no choice but to just be blown away by their presence that men...mere men, were able to construct these - the same goes for skyscrapers in the modern era, we are merely men but look what we can create. Bonus - I had these thoughts well before reading The Fountainhead but the book really backed up what I already thought.
So I was walking the dog, now we occasionally go on long almost marathon walks - a good four/five hours round trip and I love it. It's the perfect time for me to gather my thoughts since being married I don't normally get as much time to myself as I'm used to nor what I feel I truly need to keep my sanity. These walks are always so calming, so peaceful, so relaxing that going for an hour daily seems like nothing since it's such a stress relieving experience that I don't know how I got by without it prior. Then again, there are a lot of new things in my life that I don't know how I got by without. Honestly, when I think of my life before Tori, I get bored - I didn't do anything, I didn't want to do anything, and while sometimes I yearn for those late nights of freedom and irresponsibility, those days of sleeping and the false lack of ambition to keep me satisfied in what was otherwise a thankless position, but who wants that life when now I know there is so much better? Now we have decided to wait until she is 25 (2010) to begin a family proper with children and what have you, and I really want to wait knowing that currently we are not financially secure enough as of right now, I'm probably not as mature as I should be come time to care for another living being, and also we have a few more plans (like finishing school, visiting Vegas) that we would like to be able to do prior to committing our lives to the next generation. With all these things we are waiting on, frankly, I want to start today - I want to have a family and I can't even truly explain why. Perhaps its that desire for domestication to the extreme, maybe it's just in my head, but I don't think anything will come close to that moment when you realize, not only you successfully raised a child, but raised them so that they could raise their own kids right. I know it's a long time until that payoff, but if I realize I have one successful grandchild, I will die happy.
Sixth on my list is the Simpsons and if I truly have to explain how much this family means to me, how much they part of me growing up and how much they effect everything else in my life than, well - we'll be here even longer because their effect on me as a person is more than likely similar to the chicken or egg debate - am I the way I am because of love the Simpsons or do I love the Simpsons because of who I am? In the end, it doesn't matter, that four-fingered five-some and all of their zany characters in Springfield make up a universe that reflects my own view of our society much more than any animated series should be able to.
INTERMISSION - half way through my favorite things, tired yet?
Yeah - we have opposable thumbs, yeah we created fire, but you know what really separates us from the animals? Our complex method of communication. There are a lot of species that are able to communicate, if only with grunts and clicks or simply by body language, whereas humans have created not only one, but literally an infinite amount of languages and dialects to communicate with each other, and each one of these languages contain an infinite amount of words. A little over the top, but completely necessary for us to live the lives we live today. What I find most interesting is, well, words - the evolution of words, how we went from Latin and even pre-Latin to everything we have now, how words have origins here and there and now we are here with what they are. Words evolved much like animals have - survival of the fittest, or survival of the most efficient, the most effective way of communicating a certain emotion, or event or want - those are the words we use today and even now we are changing and getting ready of words we no longer use. It's just amazing how we can visualize that in just the recent past. Continuing on this thought process we have the invention of mythology - those stories meant to make us laugh, scare us into behaving, or just giving us a thrill, nothing on this planet could quite achieve that so we felt the need to throw in crazy superstitions like vampires, werewolves, wicked sea creatures - things we didn't understand at the time were labeled as monsters, dragons and dangers, and we told stories upon stories about them - the superstitions and the difference between luck and fate. Storytelling is another element of human life I just adore, probably moreso than the words themselves, but it's all interrelated as far as I can tell. I'm going to get back to all of this in section 6 so I shall not ramble on about it now.
Next, we have my inevitable math, my strongest area if you will. I love and not only because I'm good at it but because it is a set structure of concepts built upon simple, tried and true principles. There is always one right answer, and it always follows rules that have been proven to work every time - math is really like a skyscraper, on the ground floor we have all those simple little principles we learned in grades one through three and as we move on we continue adding on until our math tower is the only thing we can see on the skyline of our minds, a commanding tower of truth protruding over everything else we know. Math is awesome - learn as much of it as possible, I should have majored in it, and I can't wait to help my kids with it (although I have hunch that they will be just as good though).
Weather is an event (notice my lack of transitions? How lazy can I be?) that just impresses me continuously...how can it be 80 again today when it was 70 with thunderstorms yesterday? And does anything beat that feeling in the air right before a storm? Or the view of the clouds overhead with a gorgeous sunset on the horizon? Weather is just one of those things that is so complex, so hard to understand I doubt we have even scratched the surface, really, of what's happening in the environment. It's not an exact science - yet - because nobody honestly what is going on - now that is cool!
Animals and evolution, I think, stands on it own as fascinating because - it makes so much sense, and simultaneously, so easy to see how it was ignored (and occasionally called blasphemy) because how are we going to prove that dinosaurs are now birds? It took millions and millions of years to make that transition - it's a mystery, really.
Roller coasters - we are just banging them out now, aren't we - I love roller coasters for reasons I don't quite understand it, really, I suppose it's the adrenaline rush? The freedom? Controlled danger? I don't know - all I know is every year I go to Cedar Point, every year I try to plan a vacation around a new park I've never been to. Every year, I ride and I love it. I pity the non-riders.
Finally we have bowling, a true gentleman's sport and one that I'm good at. It's not boring like golf, it doesn't require two people like tennis, it has a definitive 'perfect score', my whole family bowls and honestly I'm not that bad. I used to bowl four days a week and now I'm lucky to fit in three games a month due to time and money constraints, I cannot express enough my love of heading to the bowling alley, putting on my shoes, and throwing a perfect strike - this is my stress relief if life ever gets to me - in case you were wondering how I stay so cool and collected - that's how.
Now my runner-ups...I list 'lists' because I organize most of my life by them, but they don't really serve any practical purpose other than easily remembering what I like and dislike (harder than it seems), it makes it easy for me to tell people things if they are in a bullet-list, it's just the way my mind works, I suppose - in lists. This discussion will more than likely be all about building lists over and over again (if you haven't noticed that trend already).
Philosophy, I think, doesn't make the list because it isn't an exact science and never will be - unlike math, there is never one right answer...hell, there is rarely an answer to begin with, unlike weather, it is unlikely we will ever truly understand it. All of this and I think philosophy is a bit too, all encompassing? I like religion and I like learning about the universe and I like learning about human relations and human reactions and all of these things - but they are all individual thoughts, not one giant concept to be collected into our beings, how we are supposed to live - that shouldn't be found in a book, or told to us, we just do and if it feels right, we carry on as such. Just my opinion.
Finally we have Google, however before I include Google, let me explain why I exclude what most people would probably have me expected to include - computers, or computer games, or the Internet. All of these things are all well and good and (sadly) a large part of my life, but I think I would be fine without them if I had to, where as Google and it's mission is, well, notable if nothing else. Google and it's plan to supply information - today's currency, is something of a admirable undertaking and anyone who thinks it is too in depth or too invading then they are seeing the bigger picture - Google and their world view is the future, it's inevitable. We will thank them someday.
So there you have it - my list of favorite things and why, I bet that took a lot out of you, huh?
Section 4: Life Lists
This should be short and sweet as I'm sure you feel I've written quite enough already. To my understanding, a life list is simply a list of things you would like to accomplish prior to your death. It doesn't matter how many you list or whatever, as long as you feel it's complete (I guess most are over 100), but no rush on this one - I've got bigger ideas, just something to think about and work on. Sections 5 and 6 eventually, this one took me awhile (obviously) and it might be awhile. Ta.
Now where, oh where am I going with this now? How am I going to connect all that big talk about water with time? I'm must be crazy! Alright, so stay with me now, let's start with the river again. Now, picture your life as, well - a river. Now you start at a spring up in some mountain or something, come to think of it - the similarities between a fountain and a spring are astounding. Anyways, moving on - so we have established the 'fountain' in time being represented by birth and we have our river as our lives flowing towards the great sea of death. Wow - that was kind of dark. Now obviously at times our lives flow by faster than we would like and other times it lulls to a near stop. I suppose we could find a similar event to a waterfall, I know I can find an equivalent of tributaries, obviously it's people moving in and out of our lives...sometimes we are huge bodies of water streaming down towards a common goal and other times we are but a tiny little creek, more than likely completely ignored by anything and everyone - these are when we are most surrounded by those whom love us and when we are completely alone, respectively. You see where I'm getting my connection? Waterfalls, I suppose, would be the hardest feature that I could find a metaphor of, perhaps 'taking the plunge' as it were, so marriage? Major life changing decisions? Those completely alter the course of our travels through life, so I suppose that makes sense, right? And now that only leaves two more artifacts to bring up - lighthouses and catamarans. When trying to control time, I can't help but think of something that's always been with me - my watch. A watch, like a lighthouse is simply a guide, a shining light through the storm leading us to wherever we need to be. It doesn't stop time, it doesn't control time, but it helps steer us through it safely, keeping us afloat whenever we need it to. Finally the catamaran, or any vessel for this moment as obviously no time travel machine as yet exists (to my knowledge, although I'm sure I can find some shady eBay auctions that beg to differ) and the vessel remains just as fascinating to me, if not moreso in that it requires my mind to leave my known limits of reality. The final similarity between the two, and the first connection that I made, is the power of destruction. Time has destroyed so much and yet, just like water, created so much in the same way. Time and water truly are the two most destructive and creative forces known to man and I beg anyone to show me a more dangerous foe than these.
Bonus point - three words: Fountain of Youth. These two, as concepts, are as intertwined as Forrest and Jenny.
Moving on - Man Over Nature, harnessing that wild power I just talking about. Now in my original post I mention windmills, watermills, dams used for hydroelectric power and solar power. Now it would be easy to kind of cop out and save me some time and just say that using these things to help reduce our emission of greenhouse gases into the environment, but quite frankly - that's not why I love these things. What I love about these are right there in my title, it's us conquering nature. In the end, nature will always be able to defeat us, but for the time being, occasionally, we are in control and it's when we are using these. We can't stop a river from flowing (okay - we can, dams) but we can't completely stop the flow of water, but we can harness it for our own needs. We can't stop the wind (I don't know why we would want to, but you get the idea) but we can use it for whatever we need. The sun is always going to pound down on Earth and you know what, we can use that! Why simply let it heat our planet, let's get the most for what we're given and take advantage of everything given us...that's plain and simple resourcefulness, a necessity for survival in any ecosystem. Solar power in particular really interests me because it is reaching the point where it is so cheap that it can effectively replace shingles for roofing and if every house in America had them, we could close every power plant without fear of roaming blackouts or, honestly, even minor power outages as the whole system would be completely decentralized it would be nearly impossible for the system to go down entirely. That's power.
Next I have architecture and engineering. Originally I had included landscaping, although only because of a view aesthetic things I find visually attractive, although none of them are in any way practical (most everything I love is in some way) and if they didn't exist, I wouldn't miss them but they do so I have a liking towards them. What I do love about architecture and engineering is the modern era - skyscrapers and super highways in particular. I suppose I have always been interested in building from my childhood surrounded by Lego's (still have them all too) to my photograph collection of roller coasters and other engineering marvels where it is clear the simplicity in defying gravity and simultaneously show a smooth and graceful facade to the world. Skyscrapers particularly achieve this with great presence and they bring to my mind, at least, the greatest of human achievements. Think about it - the world wonders; the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, Stonehenge - all of these things, the things that we consider the greatest human accomplishments? These are engineering feats for their time and we have no choice but to just be blown away by their presence that men...mere men, were able to construct these - the same goes for skyscrapers in the modern era, we are merely men but look what we can create. Bonus - I had these thoughts well before reading The Fountainhead but the book really backed up what I already thought.
So I was walking the dog, now we occasionally go on long almost marathon walks - a good four/five hours round trip and I love it. It's the perfect time for me to gather my thoughts since being married I don't normally get as much time to myself as I'm used to nor what I feel I truly need to keep my sanity. These walks are always so calming, so peaceful, so relaxing that going for an hour daily seems like nothing since it's such a stress relieving experience that I don't know how I got by without it prior. Then again, there are a lot of new things in my life that I don't know how I got by without. Honestly, when I think of my life before Tori, I get bored - I didn't do anything, I didn't want to do anything, and while sometimes I yearn for those late nights of freedom and irresponsibility, those days of sleeping and the false lack of ambition to keep me satisfied in what was otherwise a thankless position, but who wants that life when now I know there is so much better? Now we have decided to wait until she is 25 (2010) to begin a family proper with children and what have you, and I really want to wait knowing that currently we are not financially secure enough as of right now, I'm probably not as mature as I should be come time to care for another living being, and also we have a few more plans (like finishing school, visiting Vegas) that we would like to be able to do prior to committing our lives to the next generation. With all these things we are waiting on, frankly, I want to start today - I want to have a family and I can't even truly explain why. Perhaps its that desire for domestication to the extreme, maybe it's just in my head, but I don't think anything will come close to that moment when you realize, not only you successfully raised a child, but raised them so that they could raise their own kids right. I know it's a long time until that payoff, but if I realize I have one successful grandchild, I will die happy.
Sixth on my list is the Simpsons and if I truly have to explain how much this family means to me, how much they part of me growing up and how much they effect everything else in my life than, well - we'll be here even longer because their effect on me as a person is more than likely similar to the chicken or egg debate - am I the way I am because of love the Simpsons or do I love the Simpsons because of who I am? In the end, it doesn't matter, that four-fingered five-some and all of their zany characters in Springfield make up a universe that reflects my own view of our society much more than any animated series should be able to.
INTERMISSION - half way through my favorite things, tired yet?
Yeah - we have opposable thumbs, yeah we created fire, but you know what really separates us from the animals? Our complex method of communication. There are a lot of species that are able to communicate, if only with grunts and clicks or simply by body language, whereas humans have created not only one, but literally an infinite amount of languages and dialects to communicate with each other, and each one of these languages contain an infinite amount of words. A little over the top, but completely necessary for us to live the lives we live today. What I find most interesting is, well, words - the evolution of words, how we went from Latin and even pre-Latin to everything we have now, how words have origins here and there and now we are here with what they are. Words evolved much like animals have - survival of the fittest, or survival of the most efficient, the most effective way of communicating a certain emotion, or event or want - those are the words we use today and even now we are changing and getting ready of words we no longer use. It's just amazing how we can visualize that in just the recent past. Continuing on this thought process we have the invention of mythology - those stories meant to make us laugh, scare us into behaving, or just giving us a thrill, nothing on this planet could quite achieve that so we felt the need to throw in crazy superstitions like vampires, werewolves, wicked sea creatures - things we didn't understand at the time were labeled as monsters, dragons and dangers, and we told stories upon stories about them - the superstitions and the difference between luck and fate. Storytelling is another element of human life I just adore, probably moreso than the words themselves, but it's all interrelated as far as I can tell. I'm going to get back to all of this in section 6 so I shall not ramble on about it now.
Next, we have my inevitable math, my strongest area if you will. I love and not only because I'm good at it but because it is a set structure of concepts built upon simple, tried and true principles. There is always one right answer, and it always follows rules that have been proven to work every time - math is really like a skyscraper, on the ground floor we have all those simple little principles we learned in grades one through three and as we move on we continue adding on until our math tower is the only thing we can see on the skyline of our minds, a commanding tower of truth protruding over everything else we know. Math is awesome - learn as much of it as possible, I should have majored in it, and I can't wait to help my kids with it (although I have hunch that they will be just as good though).
Weather is an event (notice my lack of transitions? How lazy can I be?) that just impresses me continuously...how can it be 80 again today when it was 70 with thunderstorms yesterday? And does anything beat that feeling in the air right before a storm? Or the view of the clouds overhead with a gorgeous sunset on the horizon? Weather is just one of those things that is so complex, so hard to understand I doubt we have even scratched the surface, really, of what's happening in the environment. It's not an exact science - yet - because nobody honestly what is going on - now that is cool!
Animals and evolution, I think, stands on it own as fascinating because - it makes so much sense, and simultaneously, so easy to see how it was ignored (and occasionally called blasphemy) because how are we going to prove that dinosaurs are now birds? It took millions and millions of years to make that transition - it's a mystery, really.
Roller coasters - we are just banging them out now, aren't we - I love roller coasters for reasons I don't quite understand it, really, I suppose it's the adrenaline rush? The freedom? Controlled danger? I don't know - all I know is every year I go to Cedar Point, every year I try to plan a vacation around a new park I've never been to. Every year, I ride and I love it. I pity the non-riders.
Finally we have bowling, a true gentleman's sport and one that I'm good at. It's not boring like golf, it doesn't require two people like tennis, it has a definitive 'perfect score', my whole family bowls and honestly I'm not that bad. I used to bowl four days a week and now I'm lucky to fit in three games a month due to time and money constraints, I cannot express enough my love of heading to the bowling alley, putting on my shoes, and throwing a perfect strike - this is my stress relief if life ever gets to me - in case you were wondering how I stay so cool and collected - that's how.
Now my runner-ups...I list 'lists' because I organize most of my life by them, but they don't really serve any practical purpose other than easily remembering what I like and dislike (harder than it seems), it makes it easy for me to tell people things if they are in a bullet-list, it's just the way my mind works, I suppose - in lists. This discussion will more than likely be all about building lists over and over again (if you haven't noticed that trend already).
Philosophy, I think, doesn't make the list because it isn't an exact science and never will be - unlike math, there is never one right answer...hell, there is rarely an answer to begin with, unlike weather, it is unlikely we will ever truly understand it. All of this and I think philosophy is a bit too, all encompassing? I like religion and I like learning about the universe and I like learning about human relations and human reactions and all of these things - but they are all individual thoughts, not one giant concept to be collected into our beings, how we are supposed to live - that shouldn't be found in a book, or told to us, we just do and if it feels right, we carry on as such. Just my opinion.
Finally we have Google, however before I include Google, let me explain why I exclude what most people would probably have me expected to include - computers, or computer games, or the Internet. All of these things are all well and good and (sadly) a large part of my life, but I think I would be fine without them if I had to, where as Google and it's mission is, well, notable if nothing else. Google and it's plan to supply information - today's currency, is something of a admirable undertaking and anyone who thinks it is too in depth or too invading then they are seeing the bigger picture - Google and their world view is the future, it's inevitable. We will thank them someday.
So there you have it - my list of favorite things and why, I bet that took a lot out of you, huh?
Section 4: Life Lists
This should be short and sweet as I'm sure you feel I've written quite enough already. To my understanding, a life list is simply a list of things you would like to accomplish prior to your death. It doesn't matter how many you list or whatever, as long as you feel it's complete (I guess most are over 100), but no rush on this one - I've got bigger ideas, just something to think about and work on. Sections 5 and 6 eventually, this one took me awhile (obviously) and it might be awhile. Ta.
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