Phun-size Philosophy # 40 – Spoilers

When something gets spoiled it becomes corrupted and is altered from its original condition. The actions that external factors give away hint at or may even completely reveal the unexpected and usually without you requesting it. Spoilers usually deal with endings or surprises and areas from which you are excited to be revealed but only after delving into the story elements. Usually when there is a potential for a spoiler, it means you have been given a back story and in a plot there is usually a suspenseful point. If you have no background in the story there is less attachment and the ending has less significance but it will usually ruin it for you in the future if you ever wish to read or see the story in the future. Good stories always have some huge point where the action and suspense rises significantly attracts the attention of others. Most people enjoy being surprised or inspired by enchanting tales that can engross their attention through certain tropes. If it’s a horror movie, you’ve got the stereotypical blonde cheerleader and if it’s the comedy you’ve got the bearded guy (who happens to be named Allan) who likes people to join his lone wolf pack and sing about tigers. With spoilers it usually relates to predictability. If you know how a story is going to end without it actually being spoiled to you, you know that it is predictable. It doesn’t necessarily ruin the ending and enjoyment level but it does have the potential to ruin it. That is exactly what spoilers will do for a majority if not all of the time. Spoilers will most likely ruin the endings and that great feeling internally you get when presented with an amazing storyline. You get a sense of satisfaction from finding out what happens at the very end of a good movie. This sense of satisfaction only comes if you actually were concerned with how things were going to turn out. If you don’t care that (SPOILER ALERT) Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father than you don’t care that I just told that to you. The philosophical significance of spoilers is that they completely change the perspective from which an individual will look through. The unfortunate thing it that it is most likely for the worst now that you know what will happen but it also lets you prepare yourself for what’s to come. I have to say though that in movies (and books because spoilers can apply to them too) you usually look forward to seeing where a story takes you because you become involved in and emotionally attached to the characters and their roles in life. There are those that regardless of how many times they watch The Notebook, they will still cry at the very end when you find out the old people were the young loving couple… oops probably spoiled that. : P

-Allan Nicholas

Phun-size Philosophy # 39 – Catching Up

Catching back up means you are getting back to a position or spot in life where a majority of others are currently at and involved in. For instance, if you want to catch up in math you need to be learning the material the rest of the class is supposedly learning together. Because everyone has different perspectives, abilities, work ethics, etc it is inevitable that at some point in time some of the individuals involved, say in the math class, will get lost or even possibly get ahead of where the rest of those involved are expected to be. If you are one of these individuals, it means that you yourself have fallen behind. It could also mean a couple of other things like you have chosen to spend your time in other ways than on your main objective and choosing not to complete the task at hand. It could also mean that the task presented to you takes more time for you to accomplish than it does for others. These two examples set the basis for reasons why you fell behind the expected progression. There could be plenty of valid excuses like the time consuming obstacles just require more work and effort from you than they normally to do anyone else. This may be because of a disability which in that case, your environment should accommodate your specific needs like providing you with more time to allot to your specific task. It is important to remember that everyone has their own pacing. Not everyone is good in math or can speed read so you need to consideration that everyone doesn’t work with the same skill level in the same subjects as everyone else. With things like deadlines, they help by trying to keep structure and timing to make sure that everyone is on the same path on the same page. One negative of trying to catch up is that you must do more work in less time. If you need to catch up you will need to make up for lost time. If this is the case then your performance when compared to others may suffer because they’ve had adequate time to complete the requested tasks while you will not. The important thing about getting caught up is that you are being brought up to speed. You get debriefed on what has happened and transpired while you were working to get caught back up with everyone. Being current and up to date is very important (see my Current News post for more). Once you finally get back up to speed it is important to stay there in order to effectively improve your life and not use up as much time to just fall behind again. It reminds me of how when I walk next to a person with really long legs I need to sporadically jog a little just to catch up because I gradually fall behind. I get to the same place they are but by doing more work. Check out more at http://humanpoweredpodcasts.squarespace.com/!

-Allan Nicholas