2/2/17 Online Quizzes Made by 12 Year Olds: Answering Deep Questions of Our Existance? Perhaps

Below I am posting a link to an online quiz I just took after looking up "online quiz" on google. The goal of said quiz was to determine what you were in a past life. Interestingly enough, none of the possibilities given by the quiz creator were actual creatures/animals that exist in our world that we know today. They included dragons, unicorns, and, my personal result, mermaid/man. Of the thousands of others who took the same quiz for some reason, most of them got the result of "Dragon." What attracted me to this quiz as opposed to all of the other slightly ridiculous quizzes on this site was due to a personal experience of mine.
Over the summer, both of my grandparents on my mother's side passed away sadly. She had a few falling outs with them over the years and what not, but she still loved them as any son or daughter does their own. When they passed, it happened pretty suddenly and surprisingly within the same month. Getting to the point, after this happened I could tell it affected her pretty heavily. She started acting differently. It seemed like every other day she would convince herself of a new theory, such as "two deer ran across the yard today, it was Lola and Lolo reincarnated." (what we would call them for heritage reasons). Two flies in the bathroom... "its them!" She would exclaim. At first I was worried. Is she crazy? I would ask myself. But soon I came to an important realization. What she is saying is no more or less "crazy" than any other theory on existence and what happens after we die. I was wrong to even ask myself that question. Maybe it was some sort of innocent brainwashing by the few years of Catholic school education and once-or-twice-a-year church outings for Christmas/Easter. I never really thought about reincarnation too much. Never really thought about anything like that other than "yeah that Jesus guy probably did all those things that he did and stuff... I guess?" Point in case, there are other things on an adolescent's mind other than religion. Moreover, our thoughts with a young brain are less philosophical and metaphysical. They are more-so concrete in nature.
Anyways, the point is that there are certain lessons that we learn as we get older. After this experience I realized that no, my mother is not crazy. Your own beliefs and the religion that you follow are simply there to give hope. There are too many theories to keep track of and the truth is, no one knows the truth. Maybe we go to Heaven or Hell. Maybe we reincarnate into deer and flies. Maybe nothing at all. But people don't want to hear "nothing at all." Its too depressing to think about. When you die its just over. That's an awful thought. This is why religion is such an important sector in today's society. And it doesn't matter what you believe in. Nothing is too nonsensical or absurd, as long as you truly believe in it. Without hope of life after death, what do we really have? We have something that lasts 60 or 70 or 80 years. The goal of religious ideals is to make us infinite and give us hope.

Survey: https://www.quotev.com/quiz/9026452/What-were-you-in-a-past-life

1/26/17 Are "Selfies" Dangerous?

Ah yes, the selfie. A truly fascinating social phenomenon that has skyrocketed in popularity by today's millennials, made possible with a simple feature built into our smartphones which allows for a camera that faces the user... so that we can take pictures of ourselves and see what we look like while doing it. So popular in fact that it was even the Oxford Dictionary's "word of the year" in 2013. But what exactly is a "selfie" and, more importantly, why do they exist in society at a deeper, conscious level?

As I was walking back to my dorm earlier, I couldn't help but notice the girl walking in front of me utilizing her front-facing camera. Not to take a picture of herself, but to check herself out, fix her hair and make sure she looked up to her own standards. There are many inherent characteristics of humans that most of us don't even realize. We are constantly caught up in our own imperfections, worrying if our hair looks good or bad, for example. Sadly, the reality is that 99% of the time, no one will notice your imperfection because we are all too busy worrying about our own. And even in the off 1% chance that someone does, another question arises. So what?

Going back to the concept of the "selfie", I believe they exist almost as an escape from this innate self-consciousness. We are not perfect and nobody truly is, but we now have the ability to change that, at least in one snapshot. And that is the result of technology. It's the reason people will take tons of selfies before getting the one they like. We hate looking at ourselves in a picture unless we look "perfect." We have to change the lighting, the angle of the camera, and make facial expressions that we wouldn't normally make all to be perfect in our own eyes. Finally, we can edit the selfie to alter our appearance even more. Selfies are kind of dangerous in a way. Yes, at an elementary level, a  selfie is simply a picture of yourself. But when the face in the picture is reworked and refined so heavily, is it even you?

The answer is yes and no. It is less of who you really are, and more of who you want to be. This goes back to human nature's intrinsic self-consciousness. We're not happy with what we look like, so we can change it in a selfie and post it to Instagram or some other social media site in a sub-conscious effort to temporarily convince ourselves and the world around us that we look better than we actually do. The problem is that all of this is in our own heads. No one is going to notice that weird pimple on your forehead and even if they do, they won't care. Why? Because deep down we, as individuals, are only worried about ourselves.