A rose by any other name is a waste of money, right?

Well this morning my sociological mind got ticking early, courtesy of Mr. Mazzuca. He mentioned the societal norm for a gentleman to give flowers to a lady in his attempts to suit her(or take her to a dance in high school)and how strange that seems to him. Thinking through it, it's not that strange to me. Sure a plastic bag of severed, botanical sex organs isn't attractive under those terms, but the flower has it's merits, in the industrial world of today especially.
Not many of us can trapze around like Wordsworth and write poems about fields of daffodils. Most of us are lucky to even see one naturally growing daffodil let alone a field of them, and for this I think the flower is a way for us to integrate nature back into our lives. Why we do this is probably dependent on society in part, as a new trend is telling us to return to natural beauty and slow down our lives, but I think part of it is the individual aspiration for beauty as well. There are few flowers considered "ugly" and people value that and hope that by surrounding themselves with beautiful things, they too might adapt some of those characteristics from something so shallow as the pleasant smell of a flower, to the determination to live of the orchid or the intensity of the hydrangea. These characteristics are ideal to people and the flowers help them find those characteristics in themselves.
Another possibility is that the flower is just wired in our genetic makeup as a symbol for affection. Ancient man was known to use flowers at his primal burials and today flowers still adorn funerals as well as weddings and myriad religious ceremonies. Perhaps, then, the beauty of the flower transcends mankind and that silly bag of dead plant parts is something far beyond our comprehension? Or it's dead plants in a bag. All about perspective here too I suppose. I welcome any and all thoughts!

Death

With regards to "Tuesdays with Morrie", I've decided to blog about death. In America, death really seems a taboo and as Sal mentioned, that might have alot to do with the materialism. A grave is a grave, one can't exactly take what they've amassed in life with them into or past it, and that's a frightening idea for people who work hard to get things because they don't want to think they're working in vain. I think the culture of individuality is another factor because death shows how silly it is. In death, from my view, we are alone. That seems to fit with being an individual, but we don't have a choice in it and we also just fit a mold. People die, there's nothing unique there and the individual can't identify with that. It also can't identify with not having a say in it's own fate. I know death is also a bit taboo in other countries though where throughout Asia they follow strict rituals to respect the passed-over. I'm also familiar with the idea that some countries(Or maybe just China?)over there don't EVER put their chopsticks straight up in their meal because it looks like the incense they use to honor the dead in temples. My take is that this is all rather ridiculous and I agree with Morrie: "If you know how to live, you know how to die". I've also read his holiness the Dalai Lama's book on how to die and found his take pretty interesting. I find death intriguing that way because it's so mysterious and no one can leave us something about it. So what are your thoughts on death? I'd love to hear em.

Doing Nothing

Unfortunately, this assignment was lacking in a difficulty or a shock factor for me because I occasionally "do nothing" anyway. What was nice though, was that this familiarity meant I could focus more on what was going on and less on keeping myself in that state of detachment. I chose to do nothing for this assignment in a church and picked a portion of the liturgy with very little movement. I rarely attend church, but I noticed nothing particularly strange, only some sociological things that work to create the general atmosphere. For example the leadership role of the clergy was notable to me, but it wasn't the kind of authority where if he asked someone to eltrocute a stranger, they would. It was more of a personal leadership role which may be a microsociological factor, but was still noticeable. The other thing was that half the people seemed unenthused while the other half was happy to be there, but neither side seemed upset. Both halves felt at ease and I suppose the cultural status of a church as a place of safety and forgiveness helped each person feel safe and comfortable with themselves. With all the hub-bub, I wasn't able to do nothing for long though, but I feel these observations are proof that I actually am learning something in class that I can apply to the outside world which was refreshing. So yeah, that was that.