First Post - Sean Wykoski

Sean Wykoski Junior Corner Stone Dr. Simpler 1/30/14 Who Is Writing the Script of My Life This is one topic that I always seem to think about with life because there are so many different theories as to why things happen to us. I'm not entirely set on one reason as to why things happen, but there are a few theories that I have. My first one is that there may be reasons to why things happen, but they are not set by a god or someone watching over us. I'm definitely a believer in karma and that if you do good things then good things will happen to you in return and vis-versa. I think there may be some kind of acting force in the world that connects us all, but it is not a god or a being, but rather we all have some kind of connection within the world. It's hard to explain, but through this connection our actions decide our outcomes. Which leads me to one of my other theory that we have the choice to be who we want to be and do what we want to do. For instance, I want to be a musician and so I'm going to make every decision I can to help further my chances of becoming a famous musician. I'm going to take every road that I believe leads to a successful life of music and happiness. There are choices in life that each of us can make, they may be good and they may be bad, but we all have the opportunity to make choices instead of someone or something setting out a coarse for us to follow or ride along. My last idea is that where you are also depends on who you will become. I'm a firm believe that nature has an influence on nurture and that society has a strong dictate on our personalities. Growing up in a upper-middle class, mostly white neighborhood I learned how to be an upper-middle class white kid. Why? Because I was surrounded by upper-middle class white people. If I had grown up in an area of predominantly black people, then I would have most likely acted like the black culture I'd have grown up in. It sounds stereotypical, but I also believe that stereotypes exist for a reason, and that they generalize a community. While there are always out liars to every stereotype or group, you can always seem to get some sort of generalization from a group of people that hangout together. For instance, I grew up listening to hard rock which progressed into a liking of punk rock music. What do I want to do in life? Play pop-punk style music, or work for a company that is affiliated with pop-punk style music. These are the three theories and ideas I have for what it means when asked who is writing my script. Who's To Say What's Right? This is probably one of my favorite questions to think about. I've gotten into countless arguments with my parents about what is actually right and what is right according to society. I definitely believe that there are set actions that are just wrong no matter what. For instance: Murder & Violence, rape, theft, etc. These are things that us as humans just should not do to one another because there is absolutely no good that comes from them. However, this would be in a perfect world. I always tend to get in a gigantic moral battle with myself when it comes to murder. I always like to think "Murder is wrong and no one should kill anyone ever, period." But then I think to my self "Well what if someone kills a person who had been raping children? They would be putting an end to a crime and a horrible horrible person, but they would still be murdering and taking the life of another." In the U.S. we all know the saying "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" and that every person is entitled to having these. However, I believe that if someone takes away these traits from someone else, then they have given up them as well. So, if man A kills man B, then man A has taken away Life from man B. This would mean, to me, that man A has given up his rights to Life, Liberty and happiness when he murdered man B. This is where a paradox comes in. If society decides kills man A for the murder of man B, then man A's Life is taken from him. Does this mean that whoever killed man A should be killed because they took away the rights of man A? I like to think that man A's death is justified, but I'm not a big fan of kill those who kill, because it takes you to the same level as the original killer. The last point I'd like to make, and hopefully make less confusing, is what society considers right and why laws are sometimes meant to be broken. We have a TON of laws today, some great and some not so great. One example I'd like to bring up is the Edward Snowden scandal with NSA. Snowden released information about how the US government spies on its citizens through their private emails, phone calls and text messages. He was charged with treason for dispelling this "classified" information. However, if you look up the definition of treason it states that it is "the crime of betraying one's country or giving information of ones country to an enemy." So because Snowden released classified US information he was charged with treason because thats how the law states it. But if you look at it. Was it really treason? He gave the public information about the government, which should've already been public domain. And since the US charged him for treason, they saw that he gave information to the enemy. This makes the US public "The enemy". Does that law really make sense now? Maybe if he were a Russian spy from the KGB. But he is a citizen of the United States unveiling the corrupt power of his own government. That is where I believe that there are times when what seems right, may actually be wrong.