Author: DanielX

A person has gone insane. They start attacking innocents on the street, and soon the news spreads. Police quickly attain, and the maniac is captured. Put in solitary confinement. It’s the worst prison to be in, with the highest security, and each prisoner is separated, locked into tiny cells to keep havoc and atrocities from happening.

For years, these so-called “criminals” are forced to stay inside their cells. As time passes, they get bored. But mere boredom is only the first stage. To humans, social interaction is not only a desire; it’s a necessity, essential, like food we consume, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. Without these, we can’t survive. Socializing gives life a new taste, something to look forward to in life. What happens if you take away that privilege?

Recently, due to the coronavirus pandemic, a shelter in place order has kept us in our houses. Staying at home might be a new experience, but sooner or later, it will turn into a habituation. At first, we might think, “Now I can spend more time with family!” But as this process continues, we gradually change from that attitude to a “meh.” Likewise, solitary confinement is somewhat similar to that. However, it’s a thousand times worse. After a while, people stuck in solitary confinement start losing some eye sight due to constantly staring at a close space. They’ll gradually adapt and get nearsighted. Others try to social with other people by bellowing through the shower drains, and eventually start losing their voices. These conditions may sound bad already, but there’s even worse. With no social for months and months, people start losing their mind. Many start losing the consciousness of actually being a person. Others start banging there heads on the wall just to feel pain in order to remind themselves that they exist.

If people locked up in solitary confinement are even willing to harm themselves, this must mean that this type of custody, this kind of imprisonment must be even worse than physical pain. It is the worst kind of pain: the torture of boredom. No person should deserve this type of punishment. All people are born with a good heart.

Although solitary confinement is a cruel punishment, we should seek for the bright, and everything is balanced. There are many cruel things in the world, many cruel people who do very evil things. But if we understand their perspective, we might see the good in them. To step in someone else’s shoes, stand on the aspect of the other side, is a very good quality to have. If we stand in the point of view of the prisoners in solitary confinement, we will also feel the pain that they have. Then we will realize why solitary confinements shouldn’t be a punishment.

Relating to our own lives, everyone does bad things. You might have a quarrel with a friend, or an argument with your siblings. But if you look to the other side and empathize, all conflicts may be resolved faster. And any consequences afterwards should be just enough for the person to learn their lesson, it shouldn’t exceed the right amount of punishment.

Time is a concept; one that has greatly confused scientists for years. Is the mystery of time already solved? Or in the progress of being solved? Or is it still waiting to be solved? What happens if you mess with time? Is it even possible to time travel? Before these questions can be answered, we must realize what time really is.

Of many people’s philosophies, they say time is the numbers shown on the clock, the minutes and seconds and hours waiting to be counted, and the nonstop, everlasting progress of the past, present, and future. In fact, my good friend Google describes time as, “the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.” But what exactly does that all mean? Albert Einstein depicted time as another dimension, the 4th dimension. Even that doesn’t make sense, and as Einstein himself says, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

So essentially, all these sources of information are seemingly summing up to 1 point: time being the infinite process of the existence of the universe and the recording of events.

A question that many scientists and people think about: What is time travel and is it possible? Many fictional stories depict time machines as machines that allow people to go back or forward in time. For instance, the short story “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury illustrates that a hunting company has a time machine that allows hunters to hunt animals in the past. But there is a risk to time traveling (if it is possible). If a detail in the past is altered, drastic measures of changes may occur. Bradbury’s short story shows that, and many scientists, after years of research, have also come to the same conclusion. In the story, the protagonist Mr. Eckels went along with the Time Safari and hunted, and there was an anti-gravity path designed so the past won’t be changed. However, Eckels stepped off the path and killed an ancient butterfly, and when they returned to the present, the whole future was changed. This story greatly encouraged the name for a paradox, the Butterfly Effect. This effect describes how 1 very minor change in the past can affect the future several times greater, depending on the time elapsed.

Simply put, if there is a scientist in the 22nd century with a time machine who baked an apple pie with his fully grown apple tree, who went to the past for some strange reason, and tripped and fell on his apple tree in the past when it was only a sapling and killed it, apple pie would never have existed.

You would say, how is time travel actually possible? There is a chance that time travel will happen in the future. There is a concept called “spacetime,” folding the 3 dimensions of space (length, width, height) and the 1 dimension of time into 4 total dimensions. If there is something with high gravity, say, a black hole, it would affect spacetime. Imagine a blanket and you drop a bowling ball on it, it would create a hole. That is very similar to what a black hole is, except the black hole is trillions of times greater in gravitational force, so much it would suck the light out. So now we know that gravity would affect time. If the gravity is greater, then the time would appear to move much slower because the gravitational force bends the spacetime. So if we launched a spacecraft with people on it and it managed to get back, the people on the spacecraft would experience time slower, and the people on Earth would look many years older.

For now, we can only hope that time travel won’t exist in the future. However, if it does happen, we must be very careful about our actions during time travel. So is the mystery of time solved yet? Depending on the time period of when you’re reading this text, we will never know the exact answer.

(poetry)

A harmony of sounds

With a melody of a soft croon

Music, of your philosophy

Is a combination of tunes

However, that, my friend

Is not pure music, in my view

True music is certainly different

It is the voice of nature, should you presume

It could be the sweeping of dust

Of a desert or a dune

It could be the howling of wolves

Under a big, bright full moon

Or the whistle of the wind

In the midst of a typhoon

Or the sound of buzzing bees

On a warm, sunny afternoon

It could be the weeping of rain

During a heavy, wet monsoon

Is it a hummingbird singing

On a day or early June

True music of nature

Has no pause or resume

But if you listen closely

You can hear its bliss and gloom

In the Warring States period of ancient China, there were 2 philosophers. Their names were Zhuangzi and Huizi. One day, they were out for a walk, and they reached a bridge. Beneath the bridge was a pond, and beneath the pond there were many fish swimming. Zhuangzi exclaimed, “Look how happy the fish are, swimming around. This must be what it is like to be free.” Huizi retorted, “You’re not a fish, how should you know that they are happy?” Zhuangzi said, “And you’re not me, how do you know that I don’t know the fish happy?” Huizi debated, “If you put it that way, it is clear that I’m not you, so I don’t know what you know. But in the same aspect, you are not the fish, so you don’t know they are happy.” Zhuangzi said, “When you said that, you were already assuming that the fish are happy.”

This is one example of what being defensive and oversensitive can cause. However, there are many other results that are possible. Being defensive causes disorder and conflicts.

There once was a person who had a job at a company, just like other people who had jobs at companies. The person’s job was an admin. One day, the company got merged with a different company, and their admin was older and wiser. So naturally other people would choose the other admin as the merged company’s new admin. The person was forced to work under the new admin. For some reason the new admin didn’t like him. Then, the company’s front desk manager left the company, and since the spot was opened and the new admin didn’t like the person, the person got demoted to work at the front desk. Obviously, this was biased and unfair, but the person was forced. However, the person was reluctant to take that place because that person didn’t want to get demoted. In the end, that person got fired.

Do you think that was a bit harsh?

There was a time where I had to cooperate with a group of 3 other students for a project in class. At one point, one student started to complain about another student’s idea, and they disagreed with each other’s plans. Soon, the two were throwing angry words at each other. The debate got so loud it disrupted the other students from other groups, and other students started to complain about how noisy our group was, about how they couldn’t concentrate. The teacher was forced to stop the production of our project.

In the first story, Zhuangzi was just stating a thought and imagining what it was like to be a fish in water, Huizi just had to dispute, and in the end, he tripped on his own words. In the second story, the person overreacted to his boss’ decision, and although it was unjust, the person had tried to quarrel and refused to accept his fate. This led to his layoff, which proves that defensiveness can cause your own downfall. In the third story, the two students arguing had led to the project’s end, and no one got to work anymore. Even myself, who was not even part of the altercation, was affected. And other students in other groups were delayed or slowed down due to 2 students’ defensiveness to each other.

These three stories share a common moral: Try to be less defensive, and cooperating will go more smoothly and swiftly. When a conflict has happened, don’t keep on arguing. Instead, find a way to resolve the conflict. And in the end, make up to one another. If one follows these methods, they shall become a good leader and cooperator.

Recently, due to this COVID-19 pandemic, many scientists are pivoting towards the subject of eliminating the virus, in order for everyday life to return to normal. Scientists are trying their utmost hardest to help those who are in need due to this atrocity done by the virus, with some of them looking for a way to prevent more sicknesses with vaccines, and another portion of them looking for ways to cure those who already are sick. One group of Irish scientists in particular come up with a new invention: Violet.

What exactly is Violet? Violet is an automated bot that disinfects each and every room using UV-C. What exactly is UV-C? UV-C is an ultraviolet that can stop viruses from reproducing. This is very useful because it can limit the amount of viruses, thus it limits the number of people who get infected.

You may be asking: won’t the UV-C light also harm humans? Well, the engineers designed it so that when humans come, the light stops working, so humans won’t be vulnerable to it. After the person leaves, the light would automatically turn on. This is possibly managed using infrared detection. This means that it is not possible for humans to get harmed. This matters because if the robot weren’t programmed this way, we would be damaging those we are supposed to help. This is a quite convenient function because it gets the job done without any additional side effects.

What can this new invention teach us? There are many people in this world that are very creative. If there were a God, we were created because God wanted us to learn and strive. Maybe this pandemic was created in order to help us learn something. This pandemic led to Violet’s birth, which only happened through hardships and hard work. The solitude way to accomplish is to work hard, and the only way to truly learn and understand something is through pain. Many people are suffering due to coronavirus, but look at the bright side. New medicines and vaccines are being created, and innovation is everywhere. With a problem, there is a solution. And with failure, comes success.

A guy exists in this very universe

Because why not? His name is Elon Musk. But why should you

Care? I’ll tell you many reasons, such as he is a very successful man. He is a very

Distinguished man, who works very hard. He is the CEO of the company Space X. He launched a series of satellites for an

Exceptional project, one hoping to help make an impact on this world with many

Flaws that need to be changed in order for this world to flourish, to

Grow, to change, to thrive.

How many problems are there? So much

I can’t even list. But this specific problem is about achieving good internet service to everyone in the world.

Just think about how internet has enhanced our lives, with other new technology also springing from all over the world. We are always expanding our

Knowledge. Anyways, back to Elon Musk. He and his company have decided to do the project. Many people don’t have decent internet service.

Luckily, Musk is here to help us with this problem. He and his team launched 60

More satellites into space. As the previous amount was 422, the

New amount is 482. This is depicting the total amount of satellites

Orbiting Earth.

People often wonder about success. They interview Musk and

Query, “How can I be successful?” Musk has a list of 10

Rules for success, helping to motivate people and encouraging them.

Someone once said, “Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”

This is the 10 rules Elon Musk described.

Unnecessary it is to throw it the towel, one should never give up. Have interest in what you do. In other words, your work must be something you love

Very much. Also be wary of

Who influences you. Do not let other’s words hurt you. Do something important that attracts people. For example, Elon Musk created the company Space

X, which attracted many people. Take risks, and look for people who are experienced problem solvers. Know

Yourself, and work very hard. When you work, do it with quality. If you follow these steps you will strive to be successful, and it doesn’t matter what personality you have, whether if its a logical one or a

Zany one, just make sure you can make a difference in the world. This is true success.

There once was an activist who went by the name of Martin Luther King Jr. He worked for the rights of black people. He had a speech referred to as “I Have a Dream.” That speech has taught us to learn to stop discrimination.

That is a good dream to have. It is just and fair to every person, and it is helping the community. But not everyone is showing justice. A recent event got a black man killed because of no justice.

This is the opposite of what King wanted. King wanted the white children and black children to learn and play together. He wanted the white and black people to be equal in rights.

However, there are still a lot of people who are being discriminated. Black children are being shunned at schools, even though both are allowed to attend. Black people can speed and get a huge fine when driving when caught by a white police officer, when white people are caught speeding, they most of the time are cut some slack.

Is this truly fairness?

No. It is not. If this discrimination should be stopped, it should be completely stopped. A law of thermodynamics states that entropy is always increasing. So if you are going to fix a problem, then fix it completely. If the problem is fixed only a part, in this case people are not fully stopping the discrimination, we should continue to do what we need to do in order to fix a problem, or it will get worse.

(Poem)

From characters engraved on stone

To alphabetical letters of ink

Writing has history, lots and lots

So much you can’t think

But if you believe that writing

Is just a list of meaningless letters

Your wrong, will you listen

Madam or monsieur

Writing is not simply

Some symbols on a sheet

It is the art of beliefs and opinions

It is the music of words; the beat

It is the mother of fascination

Discovery and creativity

It is the base, the root

Of learning and education abilities

It is the practice of language

Culture and stories

It is the perfection of reading

And the record of history

Writing is not only

Many letters, symbols, and signs

It has much more meaning

Not just ridiculous, nonsensical lines

Social media is untrustworthy. It is, at times, deceiving and misleading. Humans are the cause as well as the victims. People are very gullible. However, it is their job to see through deception.

There once was a group of Asian people who wanted to find jobs in England because the pay was high. However, they did not have the money to afford a plane. Instead, they decided to unlawfully ride the back of a grocery truck that is delivering to England. The trunk was very warm, and the people overheated to death. News broke out in the British news organization: “Chinese People Overheated in Grocery Truck” (I don’t know, something like this). Now the whole world knows that the people in the truck who died were “Chinese.” As it turns out, the police officers later identified the people as Vietnamese. However, the Chinese were seen as being crafty and dishonest.

Why is this? Why do people falsely accuse and just get away with it? How can this story even be believed? How do I even know if it is true?

Hear this other one. There once was a person who was driving, and he saw another person in front of him, pointing a rifle in front of him. The driver quickly backed up. At a safe distance, the driver picked up his phone, dialed 911, and the police came. The gun owner was arrested. Just like the other incident, news reporters came and reported this incident: “Gunner Threatens to Assault Driver.” But that is not the truth. The driver had tried to ram the gun owner before with his car. The gun carrier only pulled out his gun for self-defense.

What is the theme? Do not trust social media. As for the news reporters, they should not directly jump to conclusions before fully knowing and understanding the event. People must see through deception, and separate between truth or falsity. We have no information on if a certain piece of information is true or not. We need someone to check the facts. And as Sinan Aral says, “Who is checking the fact-checkers?” We can never be sure if something is true unless the results are successful. That is only obtained from your own experience. Once you’ve gained experience, you will be able to know the truth.

The spirit of tragedy

Misery, and terror 

Leaves a mark or scrape

A dent in your mind, an error

Is it a fight with a friend? 

Or school’s stress?

Or the loss of a close one?

Or loneliness?

At times like this

You must further endure

Think of happy memories

For your thoughts to become pure

No negativity tolerated

That is not a good style

Be joyous and jovial

Try out a smile

You shall overcome the pain

Instead there shall be cheering and ovation

The wrath of strain and struggle is no longer there

This is true motivation