My Own Take on a Modern Classic

[Authors note: This is a response to Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I'm not sure it really has anything to do with the book, but this is what came to mind while I was reading. This is also the reason you can't ask me hypothetical questions like this. This is based of a conversation I had with my dad when I was younger.]



"If a tree falls in a forest, but there's no one to hear it, does it make a sound?"

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand the question. If no one's there, then how could it happen?

I'm sorry, what?

I mean, we know about it right? We know that the tree fell. It be impossible for you to be telling me that it fell if you yourself didn't know that it had happened, and I'm guessing you weren't the one to find that tree all toppled over in the woods. You don't like like the hiking type.

Miss, it's a hypothetical question.

But still, how do we know it fell if there was no one there? We can't. So that mean someone had to have been there to find that tree, and that someone had to have heard some kind of noise.

I don't quite understand what you're getting at...

I mean, even if they didn't hear the tree itself fall, they'd hear something. When they found the tree, maybe they said, "Hey, look at this tree. I wonder what happened to it." Maybe they didn't say anything, maybe they'd just crunch leaves under their feet, or they'd kick the tree. That's noise.

But did the tree itself make a noise when it fell?

I'm sure it did. The guy might not have heard it, but I'm sure it did.

Miss, I'm not sure you understand the question.

Isn't that what I'd already said? *laughs*

What the question means is that the science behind sound-

Yes, I know all about the science behind sound. Sound waves and receivers and perception and all that. What I don't get is why there's no one around. Because, I can say from experience, that that's impossible. As long as there are people on earth, there will ALWAYS be someone around to hear. Always.


*sighs* Well, then let's just assume that there are no human beings around on earth. The-

What happened?

What?

What happened to all the people? Why are they all gone?

I'm sure I don't know. But if all the humans on earth were gone, would the tree make a noise then?

What tree?

The tree in the question.

Why is there still a tree?

What do you mean?

I mean, what could have possibly happened that would wiped out all the humans, but leave all the trees?

I don't know.

And if everyone's dead, why are we wasting out time worrying about falling trees?!

Okay, let's not assume everyone died. Let's assume that every just isn't. No one exists. No one every has or ever will.

Then how do we know about the tree?

We just do, alright?! We're omnicient, we know everything.

Wouldn't that mean we'd hear it?

Okay, then we don't exist. We don't exist. We know a tree fell. We never heard it because we never existed.

Okay. But why?

Why what?

Why do we know a tree fell? It wouldn't affect us in any way whatsoever, so why do we care?

We just do.

...a'ight.

So does the tree make a sound?

Sure.

Why?

I'm sure I deer has ears. And a wolf. And a bear.

FINE. Fine. There is nothing. There's nothing but the forest, which is void of any and all fauna.

But how'd the tree get there, then?

That's not important! There's just...there's no animals around. Just trees.

Trees are living. Can they hear?

No trees can't hear!

Are you sure?

Yes!

How?

*silence* okay...okay. There is just ONE tree. Standing alone. In...a desert. A single tree in a desert. There's no animals around. There are no other plants around. The tree dies. It falls. Does it make a sound.

No.

Okay. Good. Why?

Because it never happened.

*silence* How...wha...it's a metaphorical question! Just pretend it happened!

I am. I never said I wasn't. Sure, the tree fell. Sure, it made little waves that may or may not be interpreted as sound. But it also made little waves that may or may not be interpreted as the form of a tree and little waves in time that may or may not be interpreted as a falling motion. But no one was around to register any of those little waves, were they? No was around to confirm the tree ever really fell. And no one was there to confirm the tree had been upright in the first place, or that it had every really been there. And no one ever will be around to confirm if it's still there in the future. Or that the moment had ever really happened, or that the world ever really existed, or that ANYTHING ever really existed. So no. If a tree falls and no one or nothing is there to witness it, it doesn't make a sound, because it never really happened.

But.......but....it DID happen....

How do you KNOW?

*stares in silence*

*gets up and leaves*

Alien

[Author's note: Okay, I'm not sure if this is what was exactly what was meant to come through during this scene, and I'm not really all that fond of what I've got, but this is one of my responses to The Truman Show, finally. It's about what the Trumania scene and what I got from it. That's all I can really say on the matter.]

I wake up in the morning, same as always, to my life. The alarm blares at the bedside at the same time as yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, for as long as I can remember. It's all the same as before, but different. I hit the off button on the alarm on the same clock that woke me up so many times before. Only now this is different clock. This clock is a lie. The clock itself is real, but it wakes me up to a fake morning with a fake amount of time to get ready for a fake job in a fake life. This clock is a liar. How many other liars are in my home?

I make my way to the bathroom. I brush my teeth, wash my face, the stuff I usually do in the morning. I know I'm being watched, so what else can I do but play along? I look up at my mirror. A liar like the clock, this one probably complete with a video camera. I stare at it, willing it to break the illusion. Nothing. Fine, I think. If you're going to watch me, I might as well put on a show. I pick up the soap, like a child artist with his sidewalk chalk. I draw a circle on the mirror, right around my reflection's head. A fishbowl? A helmet perhaps? A space suit. I complete the image and draw a little flag.

"I hereby proclaim this planet Trumania, of the Burbank galaxy."

 I look at my refection for a moment. Appropriate. My reflection and I had something in common; we were both stuck in an alien world.

"That one's for free," I say, wiping the soap off the mirror before I turn my back on the camera and leave.

Individual Abnormal

[Author's Note: What's this?! I finally managed to think of a response for Curious incident about a week or so after it was due?? Better late than never I guess. I had something else in progress before this actually, and that was going to be my project, but it was getting nowhere, so I finally decided to start over from scratch. I had to use a lot of near rhymes because I couldn't think of a proper rhyme that made sense in some places, and the near rhyme just sounded better in others. But yeah. This is a poem about how ironic it is that Christopher isn't well accepted in society because he's so 'weird' when the reality is, everyone is weird when you think about it. I mean, come on, if it's 'normal' to carry around a rabbit's foot or some other 'lucky' memento for superstitious reasons, but it's not okay for someone to have a superstition about the number of a color of cars that they pass on the way to school? And whatever happened to 'dare to be different'? Christopher may be the one person in the whole world who is completely honest, a trait that is seen as IDEAL, but people think this 'ideal trait' makes him a freak. He's got the math and science skills to become a great scientist or something, but he might not become one just because he can't read people expressions or tell a lie. People can't see past his 'condition' enough to see that at the end of the day, Christopher is a lot more like a normal person than anyone would admit. He just does stuff his own way. And that's what this poem is about.]

It is a bitter irony
That this, our society
That promotes individuality
Will not accept the different me.

“Dare to be different!” they all say
But when I do things my own way
The difference is like night and day
“Be like us, or you will pay.”

The price is real, and the cost high
And I can’t understand why
Most opportunities pass by
The life of one who can not lie.

Why would you ask me how I feel
If you want an answer that’s not real?
I cannot grasp a lie’s appeal,
So why is lying so ideal?

It’s fine to wear peculiar clothes
And wear jewelery through your nose.
It’s fine to put on silly shows
When a better time could have been chose.

But I can’t have a favorite color
Without being jeered at by another.
Everyone else can dream fame and flutter
But when I dream I’m called a nutter.

Liking math makes me a geek,
But it will help me find the life I seek
My superstition makes me a freak
Yet it’s fine to carry rabbits’ feet.

Of skills to offer, I have many.
Of lies I’ve told, I haven’t any.
But when they look, all people see,
Is my condition hanging over me.

We’re so alike, but they only see
What makes them more normal than me.

The Wonderful Thing about English (Gender optional)

While surfing deviantART, I came across the journal of a wonderful artist from Denmark who was trying to help out an English friend. Apparently, the English girl was writing a story about a race of aliens who existed without gender. There are no boys or girls on this planet, thus, the native tongue--which is strikingly similar to English--has no 'he's or 'she's. This is where the friend met her dilemma. In the English language, it's nearly impossible to refer to others in the third person without using gender, so how were her extra terrestrials supposed to communicate? She came to the conclusion that the only solution would be to use gender neutral words from other languages, which is why her popular danish friend was asking her international audience if they knew of any such words. But while other people were asking "What about other languages?" I was asking, "What about this language?" Why would one want to learn a whole new language for the sake of being gender neutral when they can be gender neutral in their own language? I thought hard about what I know about, not only gender, but pronouns, words that can replace pronouns, and the flexibility of the structure of a sentence in the English language, and here's what I came up with:

There are, in fact, at least several gender neutral pronouns in the English language. "You" is gender neutral, as well as 'they', 'them', 'their', 'they're' and 'that person/those people.' I'll admit that there aren't too many I can think of, but those that I can have a multitude of uses. Trust me, you can get really far with a simple 'they'. I've found myself in many situations where I'm talking to or about a person who's gender is unknown to me for one reason or other and I've had to refer to that person as 'they' or 'them' instead of 'he' or 'she'. That trick has even been used on me on a number of occasions as well, since the screen names I use online (FoolsEnigma, SkyeLunus, SecretsForgotten, etc.) tend to lean to the gender-neutral side, and I've been mistaken for a boy on several occasions.

Using a person's actual name instead of 'he', 'she', 'they', or 'them' is also pretty effective, and even necessary in a situation where you are referring to more than one person at a time. For example, this is a normal conversation where gender is apparent:

Person 1: "Did you hear about Jordan and Kendell?"
Person 2: "No, what happened?"
Person 1: "Well, Jordan said that she wanted to [insert something here], but he didn't want to do that, he wanted to [insert something else here]. She got totally upset and yelled at him, and somehow 'accidentally' dumped her nachos in his hair!"

This is a conversation where the gender apparent words (he and she) are replaced with 'they', 'their' and other variations of those words.

Person 1: "Did you hear about Jordan and Kendell?"
Person 2: "No, what happened?"
Person 1: "Well, Jordan said that they wanted to [insert something here], but they didn't want to do that, they wanted to [insert something else here]. They got totally upset and yelled at them, and somehow 'accidentally' dumped their nachos in their hair!"

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this conversation sounds pretty jacked up. It's impossible to tell who is being referred to now, to the point where it sounds like someone attacked them self with melted cheese. It would be impossible to follow a conversation this way.
Now here's the version with the names used in place of some of the pronouns.

Person 1: "Did you hear about Jordan and Kendell?"
Person 2: "No, what happened?"
Person 1: "Well, Jordan said that they wanted to [insert something here], but Kendell didn't want to do that, Kendell wanted to [insert something else here]. Jordan got totally upset and yelled at them, and somehow Jordan 'accidentally' dumped their nachos in Kendell's hair!"

A lot less wacked up than before, and still gender neutral. In fact, I used gender neutral names, so if I'd never specified genders in the first version of the conversation, it would be a lot harder to tell who's which gender, or even whether 'Jordan' and 'Kendell' are different genders in the first place.
Of course, it's not perfect, but that's why humans were given the power to revise.

Person 1: "Did you hear about Jordan and Kendell?"
Person 2: "No, what happened?"
Person 1: "Well, Jordan wanted to [insert something here], but Kendell wanted to [insert something else here]. Jordan got totally upset and yelled at Kendell, and somehow Jordan's nachos 'accidentally' ended up in Kendell's hair!"
Person 2: "Omg!"


It's not impossible to be completely gender neutral in the English language. In fact, it's kind of easy, and even necessary in some situations. I would even say one could write an entire novel about a gender neutral race that speaks in a language startlingly similar to English, with the exception of it's fewer amount of pronouns, without using 'he' or 'she' once, provided the author has enough patience.

And  that is all I know about writing without gender in the English language.

An aversion. I has one.

The two things I chose to work on when we were all choosing our new writing goals were motivation and risk taking. Already, I have been lacking in trying to work on making myself better at these things since I haven't written anything since Saturday, and what I wrote on Saturday wasn't for my blog. But the thing is, I haven' so much not been motivated to write as much as I haven't been able to thing of anything to write about that would help me with my risk taking as well. (And then there's the fact that most of my motivation for story writing has ended up being more comic oriented than literature oriented.) Then yesterday, I got the idea to make a list of things I tend to avoid when reading, writing, or even having a conversation. I started the list yesterday, and I noticed a pattern.

This is my list:
1. Love
2. Relationships in general
3. In depth emotion
4. My future
5. Myself in general

I think this means I have either an emotion aversion, or a personalization aversion. Either way, I think I just found out why I like zombies so much.
I think this puts me in a really tough spot though, because it looks like the topic of my next project is going to have to be something relating to love, and I know the one thing I am not EVER going to do is write a romance story. Ever.
I would very much like some help with coming up with some other way I could work on risk taking please.

Super Short Post is Super Short

[Author's Note: Just a super short little blurb about computer that I thought up just now. I went through several versions of this, starting with a mirror and ending with a spy. This was the version I liked best. If you guys want to hear the other versions, though, tell me and I'll post them.]


A computer is a double agent.
Though it gives you the means to break the rules,
It's also the one to inform your superiors.

Vendetta of the Night

[Author's Note: Sorry Mr. Johnson, but it's another creeper thingy. I was planning on posting this anyways, though, so I guess I'm a creeper either way. This is a creepy song I wrote for a part in a creepy story that I ended up scraping because it was stupid. I liked the song though, and I liked the character who sings it even though he's an insane killer (I said it was a creepy story didn't I?), so I might incorporate them into another story. See if you can figure out what the symbolism is and what the song means. If you want to know more about the story, I'll tell you, but I probably won't post it here because, like I said, I scrapped it, and I don't think it's something I could post to a school blog.]


What do you do when the shadows come a-creeping?
The banshees come a-weeping?
The skeletons a-leaping?
What do you do when the Grim Reaper comes peeking?
Peeking in your bedroom window?

What do you do when the axmen come a-lopping?
The riflemen a-shotting?
The executioner a-chopping?
What do you do when the Grim Reaper comes knocking?
Knocking on your bedroom door?

What do puppet masters do when puppets disobey?
What do highwaymen do what dead victims demand pay?
What do traitors do, finding they’ve been stabbed in the back?
And kidnappers who’ve been stuffed in their sack?

What do you do when the old sphinx comes a-hinting?
The evil eye a-squinting?
The deathlist’s started printing.
What do you do when you see the knife blade glinting?
And realize you be sleeping (insert distant screams here) fore-ver-more?