I skimmed over the Wikipedia article about Seneca the Roman Philosopher, dramatist and Statesmen. He was born in the very late years of the last century BC and he tutored and later advised that most tyrannical and extravagant Cesar Nero.
He was later executed for the apparently plotting Nero's death (and who wouldn't plot the death of such a dangerous mad man?).
While I was reading I noticed some funny acronyms that usually take the place of BC and AD they where BCE and CE. Now I know BC stands for Before Christ as in before his birth. Poor student of the world that I am however I believed that AD was also English and I therefore assumed it meant After Death, it doesn't. If it did mean after death what would happen to the years Christ was alive? AD actually stands for the Latin Anno Domini or the Year of (Our) Lord, Anno meaning Year(seen in words like annual) and Domini meaning Lord(seen in words like Dominion).
The two total unknown acronyms of BCE and CE are rather clever devices and are both English. They both use exactly the same numbering system as BC and AD however they stand for the far more secular "Before Current/Christian Era" and "Current/Christian Era". I have to say I quite like them.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
For the love of Sophia first post.
I don't mean to sound conceited but I think I came into the world with more in my head than most people; I was always miles ahead in both primary and high school. Not needing to work very hard to achieve straight A's I developed a very blasé attitude towards my studies. Unfortunately this propensity to be slack when it came to school and work means that these days I feel myself falling behind my harder working, less gifted peers in the subjects I favor and this distresses me.
I develop this blog now as a way of sort of making up to myself the lax attitude of before and hope to fill it with all the things I learn now as I challenge myself to stretch to my full height, to reach my full capacity and hopefully to be able to give something great back to the world.
I've always felt the need to create since I was a small child, when I dream I dream lucidly with stories and ideas of great complexity filling my brain. When I was very young I wanted to be an artist; My father bought me expensive art supplies and I was often taken out of classes that I was ahead of to do my own art class, making pottery, painting pictures.
Later, at the beginning of high school I was introduced to the great science fiction and fantasy novels. I was in love! I knew then I wanted to be a writer and at once set about writing a work of great fiction with all the enthusiasm of a twelve year old and unfortunately the same level of skill.
My love of both areas has stayed with me though truly since those early passions I have only really dabbled with either school and feel I have miles to go before I could be passably good in either. Always I feel myself torn in two between the word and the thing that paints a thousand words and I being the constant malcontent feel the most drawn to writing when I am deeply entrenched in drawing and vice versa.
Finally in my late teens I decided I had the perfect answer to the conundrum of what I should chose to do: Game Design. There I felt I could utilize both skills and no longer feel this gnawing ache to one or the other, alas it was not to be; a huge road block is stopping me - Programming. While I have never been bad at mathematics and certainly quite good at science I have never been fantastic. Understanding Abstract ideas for me isn't hard, It's remembering the ones that aren't firmly nailed down. My intellect has always been based on making connections to the world around me and where I stand in it. I find numbers are often sterile and slippery and I find the concepts behind programming to be the same. Instead of making headway towards both art and literature I now find myself pulled in three directions instead of two.
I want to do all of these things. Part of me wont accept that I can't. I need to and I cant let go of any of them now. So what to do?
Work Hard.
And write a blog of my struggles.
"From a certain point there is no turning back. That is the point that must be reached." - Seneca
I develop this blog now as a way of sort of making up to myself the lax attitude of before and hope to fill it with all the things I learn now as I challenge myself to stretch to my full height, to reach my full capacity and hopefully to be able to give something great back to the world.
I've always felt the need to create since I was a small child, when I dream I dream lucidly with stories and ideas of great complexity filling my brain. When I was very young I wanted to be an artist; My father bought me expensive art supplies and I was often taken out of classes that I was ahead of to do my own art class, making pottery, painting pictures.
Later, at the beginning of high school I was introduced to the great science fiction and fantasy novels. I was in love! I knew then I wanted to be a writer and at once set about writing a work of great fiction with all the enthusiasm of a twelve year old and unfortunately the same level of skill.
My love of both areas has stayed with me though truly since those early passions I have only really dabbled with either school and feel I have miles to go before I could be passably good in either. Always I feel myself torn in two between the word and the thing that paints a thousand words and I being the constant malcontent feel the most drawn to writing when I am deeply entrenched in drawing and vice versa.
Finally in my late teens I decided I had the perfect answer to the conundrum of what I should chose to do: Game Design. There I felt I could utilize both skills and no longer feel this gnawing ache to one or the other, alas it was not to be; a huge road block is stopping me - Programming. While I have never been bad at mathematics and certainly quite good at science I have never been fantastic. Understanding Abstract ideas for me isn't hard, It's remembering the ones that aren't firmly nailed down. My intellect has always been based on making connections to the world around me and where I stand in it. I find numbers are often sterile and slippery and I find the concepts behind programming to be the same. Instead of making headway towards both art and literature I now find myself pulled in three directions instead of two.
I want to do all of these things. Part of me wont accept that I can't. I need to and I cant let go of any of them now. So what to do?
Work Hard.
And write a blog of my struggles.
"From a certain point there is no turning back. That is the point that must be reached." - Seneca
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