Ego and Iago… er… Aladdin

And now for something completely different… a man with a tape recorder up his nose. Wait, wrong sketch.

The ego, as some of you may know, it (according to freudian theory) the part of the psyche which is the conscious, the part that is aware and the part that controls the self through everyday life. It is the part of the self that presents itself to others. It also tries to protect the rest of the self by building a facade around it, putting a front to the real person by showing what the ego believes others want. The ego is also an attention hog, demanding that all focus should be on it, or on things that it believes that it needs to keep up it's charade. Because of it's nature, the ego hides the true self behind walls of defenses, and if it is left unchecked, it can lead to an insatiable quest for more and more power and attention.

As I was thinking of this, some weeks ago, it occurred to me that Aladdin is a perfect example of the different states of Ego. (I am of course speaking of the Disney cartoon Aladdin, which I admit is not a true telling of the story, but is none the less, a more widely known version)

In the beginning of the movie, Aladdin has, in essence, no ego, as he is living on the street and therefore has no need to hide his true self from friends (as he has no friends save his monkey Abu). This unattachment from society lets his true nature shine, one which is mindful of helping the defenseless, even if it means harm to him. Meanwhile, Jasmine is sick and tired of being forced to live a strict life and having her ego forced upon her. She wishes to get out and see the world, to cut all ties to the stresses of social life and let her true self reign free. The two meet, are attracted to each other (probably due to the fact that they recognized that the other was showing their true self and not hiding behind a mask life everyone else).

Back in the palace, Jafar, who is obsessed by a quest for power by his domineering ego, strives to find a way to make his dreams come true. Long story short, he tries to get Aladdin to get him the lamp, Aladdin gets the lamp, but then keeps it for himself. In the process, Aladdin finds out Jasmine's identity. This knowledge makes his ego grow, making his believe that he must somehow impress Jasmine in order for her to even consider marrying him. To meet his goal, he has Genie (Jinn, Djinni, however you want to spell it) "make him a prince." As he strives to reach his goal, his ego grows bigger and bigger, and all the while he becomes less like himself. He pretends to be who he isn't and begins to tell lies in order to try to woo the princess into liking "him" (his ego self), simply because he does not think that she would like his true self. Along the way, he begins to believe the lies he made and starts to believe that he got where he is now on his own accord, abandoning the lamp and allowing he to be stolen by Jafar, who instantly uses it to try to satiate his ego's drive for power. After realizing that the same beast that is in Jafar is the one who nearly caused his own downfall, Aladdin uses Jafar's ego against him by tricking him to become trapped as a slave to his power by becoming a genie himself. Aladdin abandons his ego, finally realizing that his true self is the road to happiness. The end.

Yeah, that did not work quite how I wanted, but I think I got the point across (by reinterpreting the movie scene by scene.) Once again, I am sorry if the post is overly long, I just wrote what came to mind. I'm sure that if I tried, I might have been able to say what needed to be said in a more concise method. I am planning on having other posts which analyze various topics (for instance, a look into the Lion King and how it relates to christianity.) However, I must now get to bed. Come back later for more insights into

LIFE

THE UNIVERSE

AND EVERYTHING

The Fall of the Wall

I believe that we are on the verge of an economic depression, caused by the same thing that caused the Great Depression in the 30's. The Great Depression was caused in part because of great numbers of people buying things on credit, especially stock. After some time, the people noticed that there really was no money in the stock exchange, as most of it was borrowed money from the bank.
Fast forward 80 years. Our economy is on a tipping point. The banks are hard pressed to support people, and the housing market is bust. People are beginning to realize that the economy itself has no actual money in it. The money in the economy is borrowed from the bank in the form of a loan. The loan must then be paid back with interest. However, to pay the interest, you must have more money. To get more money, you must get a loan from the bank. It may not be you that gets another loan to pay off the first loan, but any money that you use to pay back interest comes from a loan, which in turn has interest. This has caused an endless spiral which is devastating the nation's economy. It is only a matter of time before it is revealed to all that the great facade that is the economic market is held up by nothing but itself, the proverbial pulling oneself up by their bootstraps. What capital that has value (that which comes from actual products of worth) is quickly being spent across the seas on cheap, poorly made crap.
Far too much of the economy is caught up in services, and far too little is actually producing goods of any value. How many lawyers, doctors, sales associates, and businessmen are there in the United States? How many farmers, miners, factory workers? The work force has been moving away from the country and into the city, and thus moving from producing to supporting. However, if there is nothing produced, what is supported? All that is supported is a sham, a front that hides the fact that our country makes nothing and expects to garner support from other nations by doing nothing except waving it's military arm about. The people complain about poor salary and high costs of living, but the salary is far too high as it is for the work that is being done, and the living cost far to low to support the huge amounts of unnecessary merchandise shipped from far off lands. The United States has transformed from a shining example of what a country should be into an ugly, parasitic leach upon the world. Not only that, but it has started to spread it's mentality into other countries. Many more countries worldwide have begun to lose jobs in production just to bolster those jobs that, in all actuality, do nothing for the world economy.

I'm sorry if this looks like a rant, but I just had to get it off my chest. Hopefully I will be back soon for more insights into
LIFE
THE UNIVERSE
AND EVERYTHING

Hi there, it's me again.

Been a long time since I've posted. Thought I might stop by to say hello. Hello. OK, that felt… um… yeah. Well, I graduated, got my Eagle Scout award, and have helped start a webcomic. You should check it out. Not that anyone is out there reading this. It's called Life in Oblivion. You can find it at http://oblivion.comicgenesis.com

Time, in all of its intricate intricacies

Sorry for not writing in a while, all one of you who read this at all. I have been caught up in stuff, ranging from school, reading, Eagle Scout Project™, (potential) comic, and girlfriend. That about covers all of the current stuff. on to some other stuff.

I just read a article talking about a new theory stating that time is slowing down instead of the expansion of the universe speeding up. I would like to say one thing about this. They say that it is slowing down for no apparent reason. I think that there is a perfectly reasonable reason. Time and space are interconnected. There was no time before space. But when the "Big Bang™" occurred, stuff happened extremely fast, at least in our perception. But, if time and space are interconnected, then time was going infinitely faster because the the space was infinitely smaller, aka the more compact the space, the faster time goes. To the outside observer, stuff happens extremely fast, but in reality it is going at a rather reasonable speed for its "time-frame." Therefore, space may be expanding at a constant speed or even slowing, but either way it is still expanding and by expanding time flows at a slower rate then in a more compact space. We won't experience any changes because everything is effected, just as we wont necessarily notice if space expands 100 fold because if everything expands evenly, then the distance between atoms would also greatly expand, meaning that we would be 100 times bigger, as the atoms would also be 100 times bigger etc so that we would still be on the same scale.

Hopefully that made some sense. I just went on ranting and didn't pay attention to what I was writhing half the time. Maybe next time I will make more sense. See you next time for even more of…

LIFE
THE UNIVERSE
AND EVERYTHING