Anarchy

it’s time to conclude this blog. perhaps i’ll continue using it for my own personal purposes. it’s weird cause i never thought i would be blogging in the first place. well change is the only permanent thing then as THE LESTER puts it.

i thought the appriopriate way to conclude this note would be to talk about my blog address which is against the propagation of mass media and the messages they send. the song fake plastic tree. but instead i’ll touch on –

bob dylan – ballad of a thin man

a scene from i’m not there.

this is like the perpetuation of anarchy in mass media.

bob dylan used to write songs protesting about things he did not like or saw inequality in. especially in that era of social context, where the african americans were being ostriacized heavily.

his lyrics have always been considered poetic. he writes the obvious down in such a way that it’s abstract but obvious at the same time. sounds oxymoronic. 

i won’t touch on his lyrics because i’ll leave it up to you to interpret as opposed to me constantly trying to force some form of idea or opinion on you guys.

as most of you know even bands these days still write protest songs like green day for example with their american idiot album. or red hot chili peppers. but no one comes close to his art form. to be able to understand why he writes in such a way and why he writes protest songs, knowledge of his history is required.

the movie does touch a bit on his background but in general, he was in a perennial state of moratorium. he was constantly struggling between his identities. and that search for it led him to see the imperfections of the world. blessed with the gift to put it down in words so beautifully.

he wasn’t very educated maybe that’s why there weren’t rules to bound him and he was free. he was considered a free artist. a radical.

 

 

i just realized this point just went out of point.

 

to end it. mass media is a weapon in the right hands.

 

and to all of you blogging and comment. that one comment or post you make may influence a person’s life.

 

farhan – you will always be my rockstar man. kudos to you.
lester  – life is a learning experience. let it come to you. embrace it.
karen  – be confident of yourself. because no one can make you confident of yourself but yourself.
jamie  – stop drinking. korsakoff’s syndrome.
kam    – you’re a bitch.
khai    – dunhill and redwine.  
jason  – little mr UB.
zixing – i love your checkered military jacket. inspired me to get mine.
zn         – i’m never going to sign up for starhub if you’re still working there.
bev      – stop doing drugs.
marc   – ai zai. you’re superman. lose your phobia for kryponite.
ros       – i hope to see the day you’re a mother.

to whoever i’ve missed out when i remember you i’ll update this post.

till then.

showstopper.

the black sheep.

i wanted to another post about a bob dylan song with regards to mass media but i think i should go a little lighter. my posts seem to make less and less sense or irrationality. 

at times as always, incomprehensible.

 

 

i only want you guys to think about 1 thing.

how many of you are that sheep.

no one bothers about what he thinks. and even the one sheep that looks at it can’t do anything. 
so often at times,  there will be that deviant and there might be someone who will notice. he or she may or may not agree but the point being that they don’t really have a choice.

context. society. conformities. rules. black and whites. perceptions. 

groupthink simplies applies to a smaller scale but so many a times it is actually prevalent in the bigger picture.

even in class. someone might have a differing opinion that might be extreme or might not be what people approve of. now some of you at this point of time are probably thinking. shawn. are you talking about yourself.

fair enough. i consider myself a dissenter. not for the sake of rebelling.

simply because i think everyone assumes things. we don’t form our judgements based on our judgements because our judgements, perceptions, views are influenced by so many factors. i hate that. it eliminates individuality.

i will agree that to survive in a social context, you require to blend in. many a times at the expense of a great of things. and i can’t disagree with you all that perhaps like me are viewed in a rather negative light.

i only like to think of it in this sense –

the sheep says we don’t have to just be sheep.
he didn’t say we don’t have to be sheep. there’s a key difference.

he is exploring the various possibilities. to enrich himself. some of you might say self-denial. not accepting his true nature. but that only applies to the 2nd statement which is ‘we don’t have to be sheep’.

my point in this post is that. hold on what seperates you from everyone else even though at times you may be inclined to give it up because of peer pressure. your individuality is what makes you special and unique in your own way.

build on it instead of letting everyone else build on it for you.

at the end of the day you’re answering to yourself. not to them.

in the meantime i’ll stick to being that sheep. whether you want to listen to me is up to you. =)

love.

i have to post this for the sake of posting it before end of the week.

typically i love posting stuff more often when i’m inspired or motivated by some form of food for thought.

well as the situation calls for it i shall then.

 

 

Knapp’s model. 

interestingly enough i don’t recall any mention of the word love inside the book or maybe it was my selective reading that left it out. regardless, as most of us might think or suggest that love is abstract and it is not something that can be put into words which might be one of the possible reasons it is not in the textbook.

the thing of interest to me is knapp’s model is simply putting into words and stages of the interpersonal bond or connection between 2 parties. i believe that life with someone else is so much more than 10 stages.

it should be 10.1.

no i’m just being lame here.

i know that most of you who have talked about knapp’s model talk about going through the different stages including the dissolution part. that’s amusing to me. not that i mean any disrespect but rather what purpose does it serve that you know which stage you aare undergoing. are you going to take a notebook or make a mental note on oh ok i’m reaching that stage where i should trying some light physical contact. 

no right.

this is for educational purposes most of you are going to say so shawn why are you talking about it.

i agree. so i shall get into the topic. which is Shawn’s Model.

Stage 1 – Screening

we are on the lookout for who we think is interesting or looks attractive or is intellectual enough. basically someone we might dig.

Stage 2 – Approach

we find some lame ways to initiate a form of communication with them. be it trying to get their msn, facebook, phone number or whatever other lines of contact they might have.

Stage 3 – The Fumble 

(just in case some of you were wondering, this is more directed at guys)
most of us or some of us or i do not know how politically correct i should be, fumbles because of a simple reason. they are unable to stimulate some form of attraction in girl. they are unengaging. funny perhaps, but have a strong tendency to drop into the ‘we are close friends’ loophole.

of course there are the experienced ones who know how to display higher social value.

and girls who are reading this, stop lying to yourselves.

biologically it has been proven that women are attracted to guys who have a higher status. be it for materialistic reasons, genetically provoking reasons (by this i mean a really hot bod) or whatever.  i shall not elaborate because if i do this is going to eat into 4000 words.

Stage 4- GOAL

this is the part where the hedonistic people live for. 

copulation. i apologize to those who feel that i am generalizing that getting attached means you are going to end up sleeping together.

problem being chances are in this modern age, this happens and i’ll be fair there might be a fair bit of you who really do not practise such an act but if you notice, times are changing. 

i once heard someone say “marriage is legalized prostituition”. sweet.

NOT THAT I PARTICULARLY APPROVE OF IT.

 

here comes the fun part. breaking up.

Stage 6 – Polarization

for whatever reasons you people want to tell yourselves about breaking up. logic, for the greater good or what, the simple fact is that you all just didn’t feel for each other enough to see any reason to stay together. 

Stage 7 – Goodbye

this generally is the part where either the guy crys, the girl crys, both of them cry or both of them don’t cry and find other people which i think is highly respectable in the way they adapt and return to their neutral state without harping on the past.

curiously, breakup these days are bloody convenient. seems like an sms or an msn conversation is all it takes to end a relationship.

what happened to the good old days of writing letters, burning photos, trying to stab each other with a knife (reference to Fatal Attraction).

 

 

if anyone of you actually read through all of that dumb stuff and at the end of it come out thinking my god shawn is an idiot, egoisitic, narcissitic, retarded or whatever other devil terms you can conjure to describe me.

i only have this to say.

did i ever mention the word love in the 6 stages of my model even once.

purpose.

this is probably going to be one of the worst, irrelevant, random, illogical and irrational posts i am ever going to do.

 

since most of everyone is regurgitating (as usual) what our lecturer is talking about by going about the various stages, i’ll like to touch upon the purpose of interpersonal communication and the true application of it as an art.

totally nonsensical right?
yea. i know.

interpersonal communication is defined as being between 2 persons. supposed to be spontaneous, personal, immediate and informal.

as most posts go by the blogger’s point of view, i can’t help but agree that my point of view will be bias based on my own personal experiences that have shaped my perception of things.

With such i will start on the simple thought that i think 60 – 70% of the time, interpersonal communication has failed. 

WHY?

many of you are probably disagreeing with me right now. fair enough. i think that many a times during the course of communication we may understand, think we understand, accept or whatever other verb you can find, the other party’s point of view. we may simply be putting ourselves out in such a manner that is socially acceptable in the context itself. can you imagine if you are constantly in disagreement with everyone? haha. i can because i always am.

of course egocentrism comes into play again but what i am talking about here is why we cohere in a certain manner to the other’s party train of thoughts. we can nod, say yes, you are right and all. and ultimately in the end there might still be a part of us that disagrees yet we choose to silence it. of course not necessarily the odd one out is correct one. 

though communication has served it’s purpose. the reason why the word interpersonal is added is used to emphasize that it is an social activity. and in social activities there always norms, rules. 

 

this post is rather disorganized and i see the word count coming up to 330 so i guess i should stop here to prevent more confusion.

i’ll end off by saying this, perception check. how many people can honestly say they do that. even psychologists and psychiatrists who do counselling who needs to understand the patient’s mindset can agree or disagree with them but not understand them. and when that happens can we still say that interpersonal communication is successful?

 

i might have been a little extreme there.

appreciation without understanding

shawshank redemption.

hailed as the greatest movie of all time. even better than the godfather.

there are so many parts of this movie that are so inspirational that i would rather you take the time to watch it but i will pick out what i think is a more relevant scene.
 

 

i would hate to tell you the background and the context as it might affect a certain matter of interpretation and perception of the message. i’ll only discuss on what i can draw from this scene.

paralinguistics. this probably is the most relevant topic i can draw a relation to at this point of time because this is such a meaningful scene. and obviously it’s not mozart, whoever labelled that video must have been deaf.

so often there are so many things that we may not understand or we try to understand. but it may or may not forward the appreciation aspect. just like for those of you who listen to foreign music or foreign films. you may not know what they are singing, but you draw a certain satisfaction and enjoyment. 

why?

is it music? is it the vocals? what is it? 

i don’t think i honestly have the answer to that question but what i do know is this. there are so many things in life that transcends such physical boundaries such as verbal communication. art for example, you may not know what the painter is saying but you may derive a certain pleasure when you set your eyes on it. colours? maybe. tones? possibly. shades? perhaps. you? definitely.

so many things we appreciate that we don’t understand are so abstract. but it is how we feel about it that matters to us. egocentrism to a very minimal extent.

just like the scene. how would a bunch of prisoners people who may have never respected and treasured anything understood and appreciated what the 2 ladies were singing. as morgan freeman put it. they were singing about something so beautiful that it might not even matter and that your understanding of it might even spoil it.

just like i think you don’t need to learn wine appreciation to appreciate wine.
to learn music to appreciate music.
to learn french to appreciate a french film.
to learn communication to appreciate the connection it makes.

 

 

or maybe i just like things authentic and instrinic in nature.

Nonverbal cues.

i understand that my previous post was to a certain uncomprehensible. so i have found something a little lighter to touch on.

for those of you who are curious.

it’s a french movie titled happily ever after.
the song is creep by radiohead.

what i really like about the implementation is that even if you are watching the video for the first time you are able to pick out the gist of what is going on just by the ongoing lyrics from the song and the characters’ body language.

the woman feels a sense of attraction for the guy ( a very cool looking Johnny Depp ), but yet hesitates to approach him in any manner except to look at him. No matter how compelled she feels, she does not do anything in the end and instead fumbles upon the 2nd encounter with him.

Notice the lyrics is about someone with an inferiority complex against the person of interest. It is hence so appriopriate for the setting and the scene. For those of you who do not know (SPOILER ahead), the woman in the clip is a married woman. Her husband is actually cheating on her with another woman. 

Nothing of relevance but notice the sexual promiscuity of the french culture here.

ethos, pathos, logos

Due to the fact that ethos, pathos, logos can be seen in so many aspects I will only choose to focus on a specific area that may encompass all the 3 points. In my case, it will be a monumental speech in history.

Winston Churchill. One of the most famous prime ministers in British history. But not a lot of people knew that he had a fear of public speaking and had no university education at one point of time. More so where he had a slight lisp and a stammer. Hence, he had to draft most of his speeches himself to avoid many of the patterns that he found difficult. He would spend weeks contructing his speeches, refining them and to come up with a style that is unique. Now, his style was not so much of ethos but rather of pathos. Why?

His moment came during World War 2 where he used his powers of oratory to rally and uplift the British nation against the Nazi threat.

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering.”

“You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime.”

He tries to arouse emotion in the people by the usage of powerful adjectives to depict the Nazis in a darker light. And after France fell to the Germans, Britain was next.

“I look forward confidently to the exploits of our fighter pilots – these splendid men, this brilliant youth – who will have the glory of saving their native land, their island home, and all they love, from the most deadly of all attacks.”

“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”

A very prominent feature of powerful speeches and one as we can tell here is using a higher level of contrast the in value of the words themselves to have a stronger effect on the reader or the listener. And most especially in this case whereby it portrays a battle between good and evil for all of mankind. It makes the citizens feel as though there is a higher purpose and for the greater good. 

Though there are signs of ethos, pathos, logos in the speech, pathos in the one that really stands out and is the most evident. As Churchill demonstrated that how you play with words may create history in ways that you may never expect.