During the Week 7 Symposium we talked about both the conscious and unconscious of our minds. Things that we consciously do and things that we subconsciously do. I mean, they talked about how easy is it to trick our bodies. You can trick your body into doing plenty of things these days, some people even attempt to trick themselves into losing weight!
The questions posed:
- Which is more important in making a great book, form or content?
- Without a conventional narrative structure, how much control does an author lose?
Which to be honest, I think we strayed pretty far from…
We ended up on the idea of semiotics, and how the way we are taught as we grow can affect the way we view certain things. Words are not necessarily linked with an object, but with the way we perceive that object on a personal level. Example, when I was growing up I was really bad at sitting still when we were driving around in our car, so a way to get me to stop bouncing off the walls was to tell me that Taxi cars were in fact Police Cars. I literally spent all my childhood being afraid of taxi cars… My parents thought it was hilarious of course, but I guess it had to end sometime. By sometime I mean one of the many 10000 embarrassing moments that were my life, basically, I was hanging with a couple of neighbours and they were running around on an EMPTY (I emphasis the empty) road, and I see this taxi car parked across from us. So obviously the first thing that I did was start screaming at them to get off the street before we get in trouble to the other kids confusion, and that my friends was how I learnt that taxi are not police cars.
So in this case, the object (Taxi) for me up to a certain point was a symbol of police, although thats not what they really are and probably don’t give two shits of all us kids running around, but it was what I was told and so I associated the two.
ANYWAYS, the point that was summed up with the idea: words are only defined by what is difference, a word can only mean something only by what it is not rather than what it is.
The Magic Bullet theory was also brought up, not the theory about the assassination of the US President, but the Hypodermic Needle Theory (different name, same theory) suggests that us humans all will wholly receive information in the same way and react in the same way. It’s not difficult to believe that this theory isn’t very popular these days.
And finally the question was asked: Are we egocentric? Narcissistic?
I honestly can’t talk for everyone else but my answer? FUCK YEAH. I am someone who can be shameless and be selfish during certain times in my life. Which also shines through when I’m blogging and so what? Didn’t people realise that it’s all about the online persona that gains the attention of readers? If you’ve read XiaXue’s blog then you’d know that despite her pretentious and vain personality, people love her!
Remember kids, even if you’re a egotistical bitch and I, along with the rest of the world hate you, I’d still love to hate you 😛
“I am better than you and my blog will forever be better than yours”
– XiaXue via this video