Choice vs. Opportunity

My Intro to Politics class has been studying basic political theories. Liberalism, both classical and modern, Realism, Marxism, Feminism, Conservatism, and a whole bunch of others. One day we were comparing Classic Liberalism and Modern Liberalism, what big differences they have and why those changes were made. While it was never specifically said, I felt the difference ultimately came down to choice or opportunity.

Classical Liberalism, supported by John Locke, claims that people deserve to be equal. Well, this equality is freedom from being forced one way or another. What equality means according to him is the freedom of choice, without a government or other people forcing us to choose a certain way or belief. People are not born in the same situations, but our decisions move us up or down; they benefit us or bring us down, but we should always have a choice as to what action we will take. Economic inequality is acceptable, because it is based off the consequences of those people's choices. Classical Liberalism is very akin to Libertarians of today, as they believe government should be very limited and should stay away from individuals' lives. We have the right to choose our actions, but not the consequences of our choices.

Modern Liberalism claims that Classical Liberalism allows too many people to be oppressed due to their initial placement in society. The Democratic Party follows Modern Liberalism rather closely. A girl born to a single black mother in Detroit does not have the same possibilities that I have, because of her initial standing. What good does choice do her if she has no opportunity? The government should spend a lot of money making sure she can do the same things a WASP can, even though the white kid would have to pay for her/his choices out of her/his own pocket. Usually this plan means building that girl up. Sometimes Modern Liberals say that the higher class should be brought down so that the lower classes do not feel as oppressed though.

I think both sides are valid. Giving people equal opportunity is innately a good thing. But problems occur when you can't give someone else an equal footing, so you start taking away other people's ground. And we should all have equal choices, but we need to treat everyone with the same consequences which should take away opportunities. Once you take door A you can't go in door B. It wouldn't be fair. There can't be exceptions to that. The biggest problems I see occur when the consequences of my choice affect your opportunities. If I choose to rob a bank and take your money, where does that leave you? If NAU chooses to have a quota for 15% of their incoming freshman class to be of Asian descent, where does that leave Native Americans and everyone else? Most of the time one's choice does not affect another's, but in those cases I'm not sure what to do. Asians deserve to go to college, but is it fair if they receive an automatic advantage? What about health care, tax reform, or military service? If the government spends a bunch of money giving someone health care for life and I suddenly need an emergency heart transplant that the government promised to pay for, but can't, where am I? If I make a huge sum of money and another doesn't, should I pay the dividend to make up for it? If I have to serve because I'm a supposedly straight male, should women, gays, or children? If they all choose to have the same opportunities, should they have the same obligations?

Worse yet, I don't think any actual issue is simple enough to define as an issue of choice or opportunity.

Cuddling Club

Ironically titled CC, but these are the rules, recently made, for Cuddle Buddies in the Cuddle Club.

1. You do not talk about cuddle buddies.
2. YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT CUDDLE BUDDIES! Seriously, once you start telling everyone their name and face you start breaking rule #5 and ruining every good thing you had going for you.
3. If someone says stop, goes limp, or taps out the cuddling is over for the night.
4. No shirts, no shoes.
   
5. Under no circumstances is attachment allowed, as long as you're still cuddle buddies. The relationship may advance or evolve into an emotional connection accompanied with a real relationship. But in that fragile cuddle buddy state, emotional attachment must be avoided.
6. Only two enter at a time. But allies can be requested from time to time, given that both sides agree on their gender.
7. Be forward about rule #5. If one party doesn't know the rules, heinous hate may ensue. Just make sure everyone is on the same page and agrees with the rules.
8. Cuddling will go on as long as it has to.
   
9. Understand that 75% (totally just made that up. It's probably around 80 or 90% actually) of cuddle buddies will break rule #5. It's gonna happen.
10. Enjoy every moment before rule #9 ensues and ruins everything you've worked on. It's meant to be fun.

Judo

So, I competed in a Judo Tournament yesterday. It was a lot of fun and quite the adventure, so we'll start at the beginning. (some of these dates might be a little off, but in general they are right)

*Two weeks before tournament*
I hear about the tournament and decide it would be a lot of fun to get beaten up. I tell Kendall, our Judo Club President and person with paperwork, and she gives me a release form saying if I die it isn't anyone else's fault. I also hear about weight classes and how no one knows what they are, but they matter a lot. I injure my wrist, without known cause or known understanding as to how it hurts. I have to move it a very particular way to hurt it.

*One week before tournament*
I find out I need to register for the tournament, but no one has registration forms... Also, a guy in class, Corey, who does parkour and I might be going out with him on the town some night soon, tells me I need Judo Insurance. He is a bit of a jokester so I ignore him. I actually learn some throws this week so that I could actually compete.

*Week of tournament*
Test for my yellow belt, which I have been told I will never receive until I earn my orange belt. Finalize a ride to and from tournament. Decide to go down Saturday morning and weigh in then, instead of night before like most people. This means I will have to starve myself slightly in order to remain a consistent weight. I also buy boxer briefs. While incredibly uncomfortable (at first, I am getting used to them. It isn't that they aren't soft, they just cling/squeeze in ways I don't feel they should) they add a little protection while getting thrown around.

*Day of tournament*
Wake up at 4 am, in order to get ready and be on the road at 5 am, to get to tournament center at 7 or 8 in order to weigh in a register. I shower, pray (mostly for safety and for the team to do well), get dressed (boxer briefs are so weird feeling!), don't eat..., check my packing list, and meet my ride in the parking lot. Drive down goes fine. We get to the high school it is being held at and look around for entrance to gym. We can't find one, but we see a bunch of cars outside so we call a friend at the tournament and he informs us we are at the wrong school. We drive to another, nearby school that had people at it. It is the wrong school. We get directions and find out we were almost 10 miles away from school tournament was being held at... (We found out later that the driving form had the wrong address on it and mapquest has no hope of getting you to your destination if your destination is wrong) We finally reach our destination about an hour later than we planned on. I go in and start registering. I find out Judo Insurance is real and find myself despising a system that requires you to pay someone else to pay you if you injure yourself willingly... I pay for insurance and the tournament fee. I weigh in at 138.8 (YES! I am still under 140! Seriously, this was a very exciting moment. It meant not eating was worth it. It also means I've still gained almost 10 lbs of muscle since graduation, 20 lbs since junior year, and lost a little bit a weight since Christmas. Also, it meant I was in the lightest division at this tournament). I sit around. I continue sitting around. Tournament for children doesn't start until 10 am. Adults until noon. I wait around some more. I warm up. I wait around. Tournament starts for kids. Some very entertaining matches actually. Two boys ran at each other, one planted, turned, and flung the other boy. A very good and well earned point. They were 8. I was very impressed. Other Flagstaff people show up. Finally, it is my turn to start. I go in against a green belt and hold my own for a while, but he gets a throw in, we go to the mat, and he chokes me. I tap out as the judge calls for us to stop and reset. As he called it. Had I held out a second longer I could have continued the fight and done something. I was not pleased by myself, but figure the guy would have beaten me anyway. It is double elimination. I fight again. Go up against a white belt. He is bigger than me. He gets a really really messy throw on me and I land almost on top of him and immediately have him in a hold. But the judge calls it a full point (why, I am still not sure. I would have won had it only been a half point. Spencer was truly not pleased at this point, but accepts the judges ruling. The judging of much a throw was worth was very inconsistent throughout, but it depended on how much a judge saw and felt it should be worth) and I lost.

Most of the team did okay, but our two highest belts at the competition lost their two matches too. One of our guys took second in the novice light-heavy weight division. Tournament ended around 5 and they asked us competitors to help clean up mats. They are quite heavy and I felt kind of exhausted afterwards.

The ride home went relatively well. It could have been worse. No one died. But I got back about 9pm. It was a 17 hour day and totally worth it. I got to watch the sunset and talk with a fantastic girl, so I was happy.

Why Spencer is a perpetual destruction machine

AHHHHH! I just spent over an hour writing about trees. TREES!!! They are beautiful and provide we with great pleasure; I get to climb them, eat their fruit, bask if their shade; I have a very healthy relationship with Mother Nature's wood. Unfortunately it was a completely different metaphor than I was aiming for. I will still use it, but it wasn't working out the way I wanted.

Also, I started this two weeks ago. Two weeks! Argh, why can't I finish this stuff. I am displeased with myself now, so this will be finished and I will post something else soon.

We are stubborn people. It makes sense. If we were rubbery or translucent we would not be strong enough to hold another up and shelter them. No one would be able to depend on us and we wouldn't be of much worth then. So we must be strong. Just like a tree, we grow stronger over time at the little things of life try us. The tempests of time, the search for water among rocks and hard places, and the endless reach for enlightenment force us to grow and become stronger. This is good, but when do we grow the fastest and strongest.

Well, continuing with tree metaphor, a tree that is watered every day, left to grow recklessly, or protected from the wind will never grow to be as strong as I would need it to be to protect or please me. So the more the trials the tree tries to overcome, the stronger the tree is, meaning that a lot of very intense trials would make the tree nearly indestructible, such that it could even serve my children. If the trials don't destroy the dear tree of course. No woman or man can weather the raging tempests of life alone. Sequoias are a magnificent tree, because they are very brittle trees. They don't bend, they shatter and splinter. So, to protect themselves they grow in such a way that their branches become a very dense canopy. So dense, in fact, that when mountain gusts (which would destroy a solitary sequoia) beat upon the forests of sequoia the wind bounces up and off the trees without harming them. They stand together and reflect the test of time. It's beautiful.

Small tests are great, but they only do so much. Stretching the same muscles and tendons to the same point everyday does very little over time. Biking the same path every morning to class, even with the hills along the way, will only keep us at a set leg strength. We learn at an accelerated rate when our body is forced into an uncomfortable situation. We don't have to improve at this intense rate, but in Fight Club, the protagonist talks about how middle-aged men would show up with weak muscles and sagging bones, fight a couple times, and leave practically feeling and looking like an Adonis. This is impressive. This is true. Fighting is a great way to work out your body, because it forces to use every muscle in such a peculiar way that if your body doesn't become stronger, you won't be able to continue. The fear of a broken nose is enough for many people to work themselves harder. I had a friend today say that she doesn't feel satisfied by a work-out if she can hold her full weight on her arms afterwards. If her body is that weakened, she is going to become stronger much faster. Arnold Schwarzenegger, when he was a young lad, would go to the gym and work out until he had to convince a friend to carry him home, because all of his muscles were too weak. He became Mr. Universe for several years and is one of the strongest men history has known. While disturbing that he would do that to himself, it worked; he got the results he wanted.

Along this same idea, we have to have time to rest. Even a tiny force can weaken us too much over time.

This exhaustion does not just apply to physical strength. Mentally we can work ourselves at a higher degree than schools teach us and we can improve at a steeper rate. Instead of just learning the materials a teacher gives us, we can read other books on the subject (which I find quite fun with philosophy and sociology classes), study the text before a professor teaches it so we can strive over its meaning and implication before given the answer, and discuss classes and lessons with people with more experience or people at your level (then you both get to learn more).

And, again, these same ideas can be applied and proven through emotions. It is hard for children to deal with pain because they have never experienced it. Loss is very hard for a spoiled child to deal with because they have been given so much so freely. Happiness can even be a confusing emotion to understand if a childhood has been particularly absent. As we experience all these emotions more and more we gain knowledge and control over them. Also, particularly pleasant or horrific events give us even more experience in a short time. A first kiss or the death of a family member open us to see life in a new light. Along with this enlightenment we are allowed to understand more about life (philosophies, religions, relationships, etc) and we improve ourselves vastly, if we choose. We could instead just enjoy, or despise, the moment and stay that way until it passes and gain nothing but experience.

Years ago I thought we only grew when we were broken or injured in some way. I have since learned that this is not true. And I am glad it is not. We grow or decay steadily based upon our use of an idea, muscle, or belief. We naturally grow as a child because we have nothing and so every action is a mistake that harms us. We naturally decay as adults because we are no longer empty and simply desire to live peacefully. I don't want to just live though, I want to thrive. Someday I will rest. Someday I will stop. Someday I will live, but until then I must fight in order to become the strength that others may need.