Many of us can remember the said TV series with the wisecracking and always smart-alecky remaking Homer who has made history. All of the family members have gone through the necessary life’s phases, which were done in a most human representation as possible. For that, we commend the creators and writers who continue to provide us with a rather unorthodox view of life even though the characters are cartoons.

Cartoons have gone a long way when cartoons were mere short stories in newspapers. Today, cartoons can be found on any part of the globe that tackle all issues and subject matter. They are a way of trying to get a message out to people that a sense of humor is still the best human thing that is free and can be shared to all. Indeed, cartoons have become part of human culture so much as they have become parts of our lives. All of us have watched and seen them (whether you like to admit it or not) and they have had an impact on how we view the world. This impact can be seen in the appeal of these programs to our kids and even the not so young who still continue to watch and adore them as a daily routine making life a little less cumbersome.

We humans have a way of finding definition on our terms whatever experts tell us. True to this, lawyers can prove something terribly wrong to be righteously correct, politicians tell us that war is needed to keep the peace while peace does not exist within. People act as if they know what is happening and why it is happening even if they do not understand the reasons. A person acts blindly based on his own interpretation of the events around him. To some America is the culprit and to some the Communist’s are, both should be noted have played key parts in the development of the world as it is today. Capitalism and democracy might not be for everyone but it is surely longed for many. The basic right to freedom and the ability to express it is still void in many states. Many people suffer without voices and many more will suffer without anybody knowing about it.

Turn on the Television, radio and read the newspaper and we see in bold letters all the worst things that are happening around the world. What about the good things that have happened in the past 24 hours like news about the many children who have learned to read and write, what about the child who got his sight for the first time since birth? These are news that are considered not to be significant due to their lack of commercial importance, commercial importance that means people will not get anything for telling these types of headlines. Scholars argue about their beliefs over the internet claiming rights to works they publish on blogs, Author’s publishing works and claiming royalty and crying piracy and a violations of their intellectual rights. Hello people, isn’t that what the so-called .NET was supposed to be for. The .NET framework is a social network which means everybody has the right to say whatever they may choose to and use material they get to aid in their study or in their aims to get a better understanding of the world around them. Want intellectual right’s protection, publish your work in print and not online. Social networks are there to promote the ideals of freedom to do and say whatever you may wish. The stand of many people are contradictory, they move to the net (on the social network) as a way to reach more people but want their work to be exclusive which is at the same time against the basic principle of a social network, which is which.

Make up your mind people for the world is truly opening up and you need to stand up for something or nothing at all.

Since time immemorial, there are people who have fought to maintain their sovereignty from conquering parties may they be people or governments that they have twisted and turned the definitions of their religion into one that is solely directed to killing and many other atrocities. A quick glance at news headlines from around the world would give you an idea of how great the problem is and that there may be no easy solution to such incidents. Many have demands that are considered unacceptable, or simply impossible that they go on a never ending cycle of killing and maiming innocent people. One of the most recognized extremist Adolf Hitler, used the political might of German society as a way of expressing his view of a world ruled and owned by the Aryan Race. This has resulted in the death’s of millions of people not only Jews as they waged their war against other not belonging to their race that it sparked the second world war.

Many such groups and political arms have and are still in the ranks of society that they are considered threats to not only to national security by many countries, but to world wide security as well. Fear of a new Nuclear Holocaust looms in the air as many of the world’s nuclear arsenal go missing as Soviet Russia fell and many of it’s former member cities declaring their sovereignty from the main Socialist republic founded by Joseph Stain. The threat of a so-called contaminating bombs that do not aim to result in a huge nuclear blast but to rather spread nuclear material causing massive deaths due complications of exposure to radiation from the material dispersed by the said device. This has been on the priority of governments around the world that was heightened by the attacks on America of the infamous 9/11 when many died as a result of extremist activities.

Extremism is defined by many as a form of strict adherence to laws or beliefs that takes one a step further from the rest of society. Some are considered to be conservative extremists, or those who use the fundamental bodies of study in their belief as justifications for their actions towards other people, society, government or race. They are also labeled as patriots for their aim is to uphold the basic values to which their society is founded on and uses that foundation as their motivation. There are also those who are called Political Extremists like the Extremist Islamic Network, or those who rage a war between a society based on race, color, or other factors that differentiates them from others in society. Many of these people live outside the normal behavior that most observe and turn to more violent forms of showing their adherence to their laws.

Many of these so-called Extremists have foundation in peaceful society but due to influences from people like for example in the Middle East where religion plays a central part of daily life clerics form the basis for their formation and upbringing. Many have interpreted and infused the holy books of all the religions from around the world to incite violence that many find unacceptable hence they are labeled as radicals or those who do not think normally. Many who commit these crimes to society are indiscriminate, killing not only their intended targets but many innocent civilians in the process just to prove the point that they are capable of doing so. More on this on the next post as we take a closer look at some of the most extreme actions taken by people against others in society.

For those who have been enjoying democracy, they should be thankful to their forefathers for the great job that they have done in establishing and propagating the idea of democracy. For those who are now only getting a taste of what it is and what it can do, well that’s not a very simple matter to contend with. Most of the former communist countries, who have started to embrace Western culture and some form of democracy it is a very scary story indeed. A society that has evolved to be a workforce that does all the leaders of their countries tell them to can be intimidated by the prospect of having to choose whatever and whoever they wish to become. Like the children in China who are now being taught in school of the concept of democracy who were dumbfounded by the ideals and differences that it had to their own society.

For now, the world is evolving as well as human society. The financial crisis of times past and the many natural disasters that have plagued us ever more frequently have opened many doors for people who have usually been left in the dark about the rest of the world. True to this, to ask the question of “Why Democracy?” is not only a very difficult one but quite sensitive for many a wealthy nations are still run under rule of a monarchial government. Some still follow time honored traditions that were reminiscent of the medieval ages when we had kings and queens and that succession was a right rather than a voted upon right.

Democracy might not be for everyone but it may be time that all of us embrace it for it allows us the freedom not only of society but of the global scene and the part that we can play in it if we were all allowed to participate. No society is ever self-sufficient for all those that have tried have miserably failed. We humans have a built-in drive to do what we want, when we want it and where ever we want it to be. Many say that there is no such thing as a democracy but we must always remember that democracy is a form of government that can be defined on paper and is subject to personal interpretation. So for now, democracy has still offered the best tools for the growth of countries around the world. The famous philosopher Kant predicted 200 years ago that democracies don’t go to war with each other but with those who do not embrace it and promote it. In a way this might sound true but a discussion on that must be left to another day. So till then enjoy life and embrace it for all the good and bad. It’s not about the trip, but about the journey that has passed and we currently are on….

The merging of these two fields of study is not as far off as you think. Many of the fathers of philosophy were scientists in their own rights. These ancient people formed the basis for both philosophy and the sciences. Thales, who is considered to be the father of philosophy wondered about the universe from his time and the significance of man in that universe. He was said to have employed a form of research that can be en-likened to a scientific inquiry or study. The next ancient philosopher, Anaximander, focused more on the nature of the universe as a whole. He is credited to have made the first accurate sundial marking accurately the hours of the day on a sundial. He made elementary maps in his quest to find the relationships of the places he knew and their significance to his existence. One of the most famous philosophers was Pythagoras who was a philosopher and mathematician where he formulated some of the most elementary basis of mathematics and their relationships with the universe.
Many more ancient philosophers and scientists shared the same passion for a better understanding of the universe and the way we influence it or are a part of it. True to this, we can say that it may be theoretically possible to meld the two areas of science and philosophy into a new area of study where we seek answers and hopefully better questions to answers to them.

Who else can give us a true definition of philosophy then? Academics, economists, scientists, physicists…….. you can call all forms and shapes of experts from all fields of science and they will each have a definition that they see as the absolute definition of philosophy. But when you ponder on the foundations laid thousands of years ago by the world’s earliest philosophers there is no one true definition. Even after dedicating their whole lives to the study of philosophy you would still have a different view of what it is. This is why it is so difficult to define, ask a fool on what it means and he might say, ” I do not know”, but that statement is in a way an application of the fundamental theories of philosophy. Information is knowledge, knowledge and power and people in power are fools for they think they become something above everything else void of the shortcomings and failures that makes us human. Thinking that having all the knowledge in the world under your belt gives you the knowledge and thus power to say that others are wrong in their perception of philosophy is a true fallacy indeed for all of us who are part of the human race is what philosophy is all about. The science of trying to understand an individual who is different from everybody else around him thus indefinable.

So Philosophy has no one true meaning, and that any definition can be either true or false. Maybe that’s why the father’s of philosophy were treated as fools and ridiculed as such. For asking questions that only fools did and tried to make sense of the world. Maybe that’s the true meaning of philosophy, strip yourself of all the things that makes you, yourself and you might, you might just be able to define it definitely. But after that, nobody would be interested in what you say for you are now a nobody and nobody listens to nobody’s.

Ponder that……

One of the best things we can do to make habit forming time easier and so increase our changes of success is to control what we can in our immediate environment while we still have the motivation to do it. Setting up your environment to help you succeed at your goal is definitely not only sensible but also the path to least resistance. For example, if losing weight is your goal and the habits you need to develop include exercise and a healthy diet the first things you need to do is get rid of all the junk food in the house and shop for healthier alternatives. If you have junk food all around you how can you expect to resist the temptation? As for exercise you can buy yourself a good pair of rubber shoes and dust off your exercise equipment. Make what you need accessible and what you don’t inaccessible.

Another thing that is pretty effective is to get some help. Join a group with the same goals as you or have an accountability partner. Make sure your partner is not an enabler or you’ll just end up making excuses for each other. Instead get someone you trust and respect who can help spur and motivate you when you cannot do it yourself. In the end though, it will still be up to you but setting yourself up to succeed instead of setting yourself up to fail sure will help a lot.

What we do when we don’t feel motivated is determined by our habits. Habits stay because they do not depend on emotion. We can do things without even really thinking about them if it is part of our habit. For example, if you’re just used to washing your face before going to sleep you probably don’t even realize that you’ll go straight to the bathroom to freshen even after a really tiring day before hitting the bed. If washing your face is not part of your routine though you will need to really exert more effort just to wash your face and maybe just decide not do it and prioritize your rest instead.

Now when it comes to achieving success we need to develop habits that will help set us up for success. We need to have our habits so deeply ingrained that when obstacles come we won’t have to split up our energy between overcoming those obstacles and just going about the daily activities that we need to do in order to function properly. Having good habits doesn’t mean having no troubles but it means that most of your reactions will be automatic and you won’t have added stress in your life.

In my next post I will elaborate more on habits that we need to form in order to have a better chance at success.