A Simple Self Reflection

So, reflection.  Definitely not my strongest point.  While I realize the importance of being reflective, I could care less that I'm not.  If there's anything I'm good at it's arguing and lying, but those aren't IB qualities.  I think that while I'm stronger in some qualities than others, I don't have any strengths or weaknesses for that matter.  I like to think that I'm equally average at all of these traits, but with some of these traits I'm above average from time to time.

Thinking is something that comes naturally for most people.  We can't help but think, leaving no question unanswered.  Like right now, I'm thinking about what I want to say next, and it's frustrating for me because I have no idea where this post is going.  I feel like thinking can go two separate ways; focused and unfocused.  Personally, I'm more of an unfocused thinker, not that that's a bad thing.  I start thinking about one topic, and I just hop from topic to topic eventually tying them together.  There's so much that I don't know, and I can't help but stay up all night pondering over the unknown.  

Okay, I ran out of things to talk about on the subject of thinking, so let's move on.  Risk-taking.  Now, I could go on and on about the importance of taking risks, or I could just paraphrase the paper I just wrote on it, adding a few things in every once in a while.  There's this quote about risk taking by Kurt Vonnegut that I thoroughly enjoy.  "We have to continually be jumping off cliffs, and developing our wings on the way down."  I'll be honest, I'm an adrenaline junkie, but I really hate that term.  I take risks so I can take every possible opportunity, the adrenaline rush is just a bonus.  

Now, for the easy part.  My weaknesses.  I have far too many to list unfortunately.  But if I was to list them, I would get unbelievably bored, lose my train of thought, and talk about Keeping Up With The Kardashians, or something as equally intriguing.  On that note though, I really do love that show.  

Back on topic.  My biggest weakness by far is caring.  I know that's a horrible weakness to have but I don't have time to care.  I respect people and I'm kind to those around me, but I could care less about their problems or feelings.  I'm not going to change the way I do something just to please someone else.  Like if someone I know is crying, I'll ask if they're okay (even though I don't care all that much if they are because crying bothers me) because that's what I'm supposed to do.  I don't think that anyone is actually nice, without a reason behind it.  There's always an ulterior motive.  When you're kind to someone, you do it because you want people to like you, so you can feel better about yourself.  Since I couldn't possibly care any less about people liking me, and I feel perfectly fine about myself, I don't see the point in being a caring individual.

Another major weakness for me is balance.  As a high school student that answer is expected on some level.  I'm constantly trying to balance school, my social life, school activities and clubs, and family.  I'd probably be more balanced if I procrastinated less.  But sometimes I just need a day to watch a season or two on Netflix.  It's good for my mental/emotional health.  I'm really bad at prioritizing.  I don't want to put anything before anything else.  And I'm a perfectionist, so everything needs to be perfect.  Which just adds more stress. Okay well that all I really have to say so.

Subjective Culture Article Review

Subjective Culture

Culture is the human-made part of the environment, which can be split into two categories: material and subjective. I view culture as a tree; the trunk is the idea of culture itself, the branches being the different elements of culture, and the leaves being the things that affect culture. There are many different ways to study culture one of the most being to study culture is through whatever language the people of that particular culture use. In my opinion, another good way to study culture is by the way people of certain cultures dress. Some cultures are more conservative, and one will see people of that culture (mainly women) wearing more clothing. The first thing to pay attention to when looking at culture is if the ideas are shared or not, then whether shared responses correspond a language, a time period, and a geographic location. People sharing other elements is how subcultures are emerged.

There are many elements of culture. The author explains how categories have associations, and categories are also linked to each other through beliefs. Some other ways categories are linked are through attitudes which are ideas charged with emotion, norms which are ideas about behavior expected of members of groups, roles which are a special category of norms, and tasks which are a sequence of behaviors. The other two elements are values, and and value orientation. To me, the three most important elements of culture are beliefs, norms, and values.

Beliefs are based off of opinions people have over something, and for a whole community to share similar opinions and have that turn into a form a culture is amazing to me. I think that norms are an important part of culture because norms show us an overview of the social hierarchy. Values are unbelievably important to culture; so many things change throughout culture as the world evolves, but values tend to stay close to the same, which I think helps culture grow roots. There are 10 set of recurring values in different cultures which are: self direction, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, power, security, conformity, tradition, benevolence, and universalism. A broader version of this would be innate human nature, man-nature, relationships between humans, and time focus. Through these two sets of values, we can see how some cultures overlap, which is unbelievably important when trying to find a solution that affects multiple cultures.

Works Cited

Triandis, H.C. (2002). Subjective culture. In W.J. Lonner, D.L. Dinnel, S.A. Hayes, & D.N. Sattler (Eds.), Online Readings in Psychology and Culture (Unit 15, Chapter 1), Center for Cross- Cultural Research, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington USA.