Vlog 4: Casey Anthony

Video

Casey Anthony

• As mentioned in the previous Vlog, this Vlog selects a topic in the news to discuss about in relation to the Human Experience.
• This Vlog is NOT about my personal beliefs on the case
  • The Vlog focuses specifically on the multitude of reactions to the case
  • How our reactions to something so emotionally powerful reflect our basic human nature
  • Positive and Negative reactions that result from our response
• The Casey Anthony case brings up a rise of emotions from a heavily instinctual part of ourselves
  • We are fierce in our belief of protecting children
  • Children bear both the quality of being innocent and representing our future
  • We expect, on a fundamental level, for parenthood to change an individual to someone who entirely motivated over their children
    • Not every parent is affected in the same way
    • Not everyone is ready to be a parent
    • Some people become parents before they should
  • The fact is that our society provides no barrier to becoming a parent, as a free society should, but it also means that terrible parents can come about.
    • Terrible parents are ostracized, often and labeled as monsters
  • The passions evoked in the defense of children are admirable, it reflects a genuine caring over the children of the world. It reflects a true moment in the human race.
    • We must channel this passion towards positives:
      • “I don't want children to have to go through that, so...”
      • I will make sure I don't have children before I'm ready
      • I will passionately teach my children about the responsibilities of parenthood
      • If my children become parents before they're ready, I'll be watching constantly
    • Some of these things might be considered annoying, but they may be necessary.
    • The alternative is negative passion:
      • A woman in OK running another off the road because she thought the woman was Casey Anthony (despite Casey Anthony being in jail)
      • Countless death threats lobbed at Casey Anthony – Death threats won't bring Caylee back, and they do not guarantee justice. People are far too hell bent on murder.
      • Ranting, raving, and otherwise becoming stressed in spite of a lack of information from which one can come to a true conclusion.
• The case brings up a number of interesting examples of human emotion, but it's dangerous as well. As creatures, we live off of instinct and being able to react quickly, but we are also self-aware, that's part of what being human is.
• Our self-awareness MUST necessitate that we consider our passion and direct it to a positive influence our society will falter and we'll never make progress.
  • Passions guiding us without reason or thought has led us to war and bloodshed, racism and prejudice. It does not make the world better unless it is used for art.

Daily 4: "A Dance with Dragons" and Update on Vlog 4!

I'm posting Daily 4 much later than I hoped (as in, I was hoping to continue these dailies on a more normal schedule of each day this week) but it's up now and in it I talk about what has been going on with me this week, as in why I didn't have dailies posted, as well as some updates as to why Vlog 4 could be delayed. Emphasis is on could because it's not a guarantee, it may still happen on time.

In short, I've been reading "A Dance with Dragons", so, aside from work or a few other personal details I needed to cover, I haven't been doing much else. This means I haven't explored how to improve my videos much and I haven't posted any dailies. Sorry! I'm roughly just past half of the way through it I think.

Since I'm working 12-9 today and 11-7 tomorrow (both shifts on my feet, the entire time, ugh) I won't have a lot of time in between to find a good recording time and then also work on making sure the video comes out right. Still, I'm aiming to record tomorrow morning, put the video together and have it exporting while I work. If everything turns out okay, I'll have it all ready when I get back at 7 and it will be uploaded to be released at 11pm as normal. If something happens and I can't, it will be pushed back to be posted some time on Monday.

Thanks for understanding, keep following!

Vlog 3: Self-Actualization

Video

  

Outline

Self-Actualization

• Recap of Self-Actualization leads to Happiness point
  • Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, if you reach “Self Actualization” you satisfy that need and there are no more needs to realize, the only way to lose that happiness is to lose your Self Actualization, which is rather difficult.
• Self-Actualization = Life
• Self-Actualization is not Identity
  • Common misconception.
  • Identity = Teenage – Young Adult, more superficial
    • What do I like? i.e. What do I wear? What do I listen to? What do I find attractive, etc...
    • Our identities shape our external “face” to the world
  • Story of the Math kid
    • Kid reads a math book, thinks he knows everything to know about math. The kid knows a lot about math though, enough to get him through grade school. This is like identity.
    • Kid goes to higher education and is posed a problem by a professor that he cannot solve, ego is shattered. He doesn't know everything.
    • Slowly the kid begins to realize that being knowledgeable at math means knowing that you don't know. Every answer unearths new questions.
  • Self-Actualization = Exploration of what it means to be You
    • Self-Actualization is the realization that your identity is not the sum of who you are
• Self-Actualization is the Human Experience
  • When one self-actualizes they explore what makes us human:
    • Why do I love?
    • Why do I think?
    • Why do I enjoy what I enjoy?
    • Etc...
• Human Experience = Life Purpose
  • Religion is irrelevant in this, if you believe in a higher power, the higher power generally motivates self-improvement and understanding
  • Without religion we are more “free” to choose our purpose, but the only purpose which makes sense for continuing life, which is what our species desires to do, is to continue to improve our world, and we do that by bettering ourselves.
• Tie continued Vlogs into Self-Actualization

Vlog 3 to be posted tomorrow!

Tomorrow's Vlog is recorded and set to export. I just need to review it, convert the file format and then it will be ready. Expect it by 11pm tomorrow, unless I run into any major issues. I work from 11-7 tomorrow, so I won't be able to do any work on it then if there are any specific problems. Hopefully there won't be, I'm really excited about this Vlog.

Thank you to anyone who is following, if you like what I'm doing then be sure to share it with your friends. I'm trying to get the word out there in order to open up and spread this conversation. Keep being you!

Technorati?

Hey all! I'm joining Technorati. Why? Because any method to increase traffic is good. The point of this Vlog/Blog is to share with others, and so I'm willing to do what it takes to share this with them. The hope is that my Vlogs will allow us to explore ourselves and become better people, but, in order for that to have a big effect, I'd like to reach as many people as possible.

I'm an idealistic with a dream. It may be unrealistic, but I can try reaching for the stars nonetheless.

Oh, and: ZXP7ZSHJBWJH

Yeah, apparently that's supposed to identify me. YHJGJHNGFGHCVMHJV to you too. :)

Vlog 2: Happiness (Outline)

The Transcript will be posted in a little bit, but I figured I would also share the outline for my Vlog. These are the things I physically read from while talking.

Happiness

• Intro:
  • Greetings, introduction of topic: Happiness
  • Video will be split into at least two parts.
  • Do Troll thing quickly

• Simple vs Meaningful
  • Simple: Delighted, pleased, or glad as over a particular thing.
    • Things: Love, Family, Job, Money
      • Some things are more “solid” than others, money is ephemeral and can easily be lost, which is why we say “money can't buy happiness”. Things like family are more lasting and less conditional.
  • Meaningful: An abiding satisfaction with life.
    • Type of Happiness: Satisfaction
      • Satisfaction is not glee or or cheerfulness. It's not like the adrenaline rush you get from playing a game or the “cloud 9” feeling after a great date.
      • Thing: Life. Life is the most solid of things, when you no longer have it, you're not going to care whether or not you're happy. If you believe in an afterlife, you're still “living” and death is merely a transition.

% Should be roughly 2 minutes

• Example: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
  • Disclaimer: Philosophical, not Psychological
  • There are levels of needs, with the bottom needs needing to be satisfied before other needs will be looked at.
  • Meeting a need leads to satisfaction
  • Realizing a need leads to dissatisfaction
  • Difficult for Developed/Wealthy vs Undeveloped/Poor
  • Three Tiers of Needs: Physiological, Psychological, and Self-Fulfillment
    • Developed Nations have the bottom 2 needs met almost by default, and are thus focused on meeting the more elusive psychological and self-fulfillment needs.
  • There are three “elusive” needs: Love, Esteem, and Self-Actualization
  • Each need builds a more solid foundation upon the others, so that, if you reach your need for “esteem” for instance, then if you lose someone you love, or a friendship breaks, you're better able to deal with that loss and maintain your esteem.
  • Love is the easiest of the three to meet, it's often given to us unconditionally, and even the most “loner” type of individual can generally find a group of friends to be with.
  • Esteem is a need our society forces us to realize and is one of the largest causes of unhappiness. We generally meet our need for love, but don't feel worthwhile, and thus, dissatisfied.
    • Esteem is a huge issue, and it's not easy to get to that point. If we rely on others for our Esteem it is mostly just an extension of Love needs and if we lose that support then we fall back, it's not “true” Esteem in that sense.
    • Support from others IS important though, we just have to learn how to internalize that support, believe it, and work with it to build our own Esteem so that we can meet that need.
  • Esteem is often the ceiling for happiness for many people, once they feel worthwhile they often don't realize the need for self-actualization and continue on with their lives unaware.
    • This is a good thing and a bad thing, if their esteem is never lost or they never realize the need for self-actualization then they can have a deep, abiding satisfaction with life.
    • However, if they lose their esteem, either because of a significant failure, or if they have a sudden realization of self-actualization (mid-life or quarter-life crises) then they suddenly become dissatisfied again.
    • Such happiness is dependent on esteem, which is less solid than self.
• Conclusion
  • Keep watch for part 2 of the Happiness segment
  • Thank you!

Vlog 2 delays

In accordance with the schedule laid out in the previous blog, I should be posting Vlog 2 tonight. Of course, I could easily have just reasons to push it off until next Sunday, the point of the Vlog is to share, not to pull people around on a string. Unfortunately, my hands may be tied.

I love Premiere Elements, it has, relatively cheaply, offered me a lot of power. That power, however, seems to come with a hidden cost too though. My lack of experience with the program means that when something goes wrong, I don't know how to fix it. Right now that means that I'm having issues fixing the latest problem.

The simple explanation is that at 9 minutes and 39 seconds, the video continues but the audio simply cuts out. Of course, it's a fair bit more complicated than that. For instance, the video plays fine in Premiere, after rendering even, and the error only crops up in the exported file from the project. I'm unsure of what's causing the problem, but I do know that even when I find it, I will have to export it a second time, which is going to take at least 2 and a half hours, if not longer. But I don't want to waste my time, so I have to make sure it doesn't happen again first, and that could take some time, since I don't have a truly active community at my disposal yet. The one I'm using currently primarily relies on one Mod to answer questions, so its actual active userbase is relatively weak.

In the mean time I am working on getting a video up which shows me drawing in Photoshop. It's a not a Vlog, but it fits under the Miscellaneous material I said I would be sharing. Hopefully that gets up without too much of a hitch. Before that though I hope to post up a short video so that subscribers of the Youtube account can know of this blog and the delays of Vlog 2.

Sorry about everything, hopefully it will improve in time and less problems like this will occur.

Vlog Set-up, times, etc...

Alright, so, while Vlog 2 is rendering, I figured I would lay out some details about my plans for theAwkwardGEEK.

Times
theAwkwardGEEK will be a weekly vlog which is posted on Sunday nights, probably about 11pm.


Why a Weekly Vlog?
I'm going to make theAwkwardGEEK a weekly vlog for a number of reasons. First, it's a fair amount of work. As the vlogs progress I will be learning more and more about how to use Premiere Elements 8 and will hopefully be able to improve the production quality of the vlogs a fair amount. However, that sort of effort takes time. Also, since I'm not simply spouting off about life or other things, I really have to organize what I want to say so that it comes out in a precise, interesting, and engaging manner. In order do this I need time to write it all down in an "outline" format and then practice it a few times to get all of my thoughts out and time everything.

Beyond those reasons, I simply have other things I'm doing. While making the vlog is fun and exciting, I still have: Work, family, friends, a blog I do during the week, and games that I want to play. All of these things make the task of doing this sort of thing daily extremely daunting. If this was a full-time job (and I was paid accordingly) I could probably manage it, but, even then, coming up with topics would be difficult.

For now it will be a weekly vlog. However, as I get more comfortable with the software, the creation process (topic generation, outlining) and other things, I could be inclined to up the number and do the vlog more frequently.

Layout
I have this blog and the Youtube channel where the vlogs are posted. When I release a new vlog I will post the transcript and outline up on this blog and I will post the vlog on Youtube. This blog will also be used for updates, such as if I need to delay or cancel a vlog, and will also be used to let you know when I post other videos on the channel.

Other Videos
While I may not do the vlog daily, I may post updates of how life is going for me personally on the channel. These are not "theAwkwardGEEK" vlogs, but I will call them "dailies" and I'm not yet certain whether I will do them or how often they will be done, but they're a consideration. I may also post other videos simply of me doing various activities or talking about random topics that I don't feel are vlog worthy, or just because I want to talk about them.

Other Blogs
I may, from time to time, also just post a straight-up blog here. I'm not sure when or if I will, or what would inspire me to such, but I write fairly well and there's always the chance that I'd want to share my thoughts on something in written form. So, keep an eye out for other blogs as well.

Thanks!
Thank you to anyone who chooses to follow my Vlog, and anything else I might post as theAwkwardGEEK. This is a project I'm excited about, and it's something I hope can touch many people and use the power of the internet to a positive purpose. If you like it, share it with your friends, let people know about theAwkwardGEEK!

Vlog 1: Hello World

Note: This is a Vlog transcript, as such it is conversational and is not corrected to a "written" format of voice.

Hello and welcome to my video log, theAwkwardGEEK. A little bit about that name, I'm actually listed as AwkwardGEEK on Youtube because theAwkwardGeek is actually taken. But, I will refer to myself as theAwkwardGEEK, you'll see that in any graphics that I do for this. That's the name, it's theAwkwardGEEK and it's just something that's sort of descriptive of me. I'm definitely a geek, I'm very passionate about the things I do, especially computers and technology, any games that I play. I'm a very awkward person, I stumble over myself, I'm sort of socially awkward as many geeks are, so I just felt that was a descriptive name. It allowed me to poke fun at myself, to show you that, you know, this is, while there may be serious topics in the blog, I can be funny, I can be silly. I like to be funny and silly, it's part of, sort of my philosophy for life. So, poking fun at myself, theAwkwardGEEK, there you go.

The premise of this vlog is to talk about being human. It's something that, when I took creative writing classes in college, we talked about literary fiction was sort of exploring what it was like to be human. This vlog is sort of similar, but, instead of creative fiction, I'm going to share being human through life experiences, I'm going to share being human by talking about how we can be better people, and I'm going to share being human through talking about news stories and things of that nature, and my reactions to those if I feel like they're pertinent to what it's like being human. And being human is such a broad concept, but in general, it's, you know, what does it feel like to be human, what do we see, what do we hear, what do we do? And how do we react to the world around us, how do we react to other people? And so that's sort of the basic premise of it. I want to be able to have a discussion with the internet about being human. I feel like it's something that isn't talked about a lot. There's so much stuff on the internet, all this pop culture stuff, and it's great, but, I just want to talk about being human, I just want to have that discussion.

And then lastly, a little introduction to me, because you'll be seeing a lot of me if you're following this blog. I'm 22, turning 23 tomorrow actually. Today is the 7^th of July, in 2011 and I'm a young person, but I'm an adult. I've graduated college and have a bachelors in Psychology. And I had hoped after graduating to do something with it, either to go on to graduate school, really that was sort of my goal was to go on to graduate school. But right now, just looking for a job. I'm in a part-time job right now. Minimum wage. It's just enough to allow me to contribute a little bit of money to the house, I'm living at home, it's an unfortunate circumstance but it is what it is. And to just make minimum payments on my tuition bills, you know, the loans that I took out. So, that's the situation as it is, it's not a happy situation, but you're going to find that I'm relatively upbeat about it. I am optimistic, I'm looking for jobs in my field, looking for the possibility of going to grad school. So I'm pretty optimistic, and it's not a big deal. I just think that life is worth living, and even if everything isn't ideal it's not a huge issue. It's not worth being upset over. So, that's a little about me. It's a little bit about this blog.

I don't know how often I'm going to do these blogs, I don't know if it's going to be daily or a few days a week or weekly or what. It really depends on whether or not this blog is successful, whether or not I feel up to it. How busy I am. All things depending, that's sort of what we're looking at there. I don't know how long these are gonna be. This one is gonna hopefully be somewhere between four and five minutes, I'm almost finished. And I really wouldn't want to expect them to be long. I can be sort of wordy, I can be sort of verbose, but I want to keep them a consistent length, so if I have a topic that I want to talk about that takes awhile, I may simply split it up into multiple vlogs, because I feel like people's attention span often doesn't go longer than five minutes. I won't always know what I'm going to talk about next. But to keep you interested, hopefully, the next topic that I'm going to talk about in my next video log, whenever it is, is about being happy, choosing happiness and my discovery of that. I can tell you right now that that IS a long topic, and I don't know whether or not I'm going to just go a full ten minutes and talk about all of it, or if I'm going to split it up, or if it will even just take longer than ten minutes [and] I have to split it up either way. I really don't want to go longer than ten minutes on any of them though, that's for sure.

So, that's all I've got for you right now. I hope you're interested, I hope you're as excited as I am to be doing this. And thank you for watching.