Space and the Olympics

We very recently sent a rather advanced piece of technology all the way to Mars. That's, averaged, about 143 million miles. Through space. Landing the thing involved getting it to slow from 13,200 mph to "landed" with what is basically remote control. On a fourteen minute delay. Without anything much that can be called practice. This Mars rover, Curiosity, cost abut $2.5 billion, and represents another step in space exploration and the advancement of mankind.

Meanwhile the only thing most people seem to care about is the Olympics. Don't get me wrong, I think they're alright in general. But really we're spending around $15 billion to find out who can run faster, jump farther, and do more elaborate spins and flips. While it's all nice and fun, I don't see how it does much of anything for us in the big picture.

See, people are constantly growing, each generation. Reporters are saying that the USA women's beach volleyball "three-peat" will never be done again. That Bolt's double win in the men's 200m and 100m will never be done again. That perhaps no athlete will beat Michael Phelps's 22 Olympic medals. Really, none of that is true. Compare all of these athletes' records and wins with their equivalents from 50 years ago. Now do the same for the second place winners, and the third place winners. Now do the same for all the other athletes in the Olympics.

All of their times, and jumps, and flips, and dives are better. And they will continue to get better. Someone down the road will make Bolt look slow. A duo of women will win beach volleyball not three times, but four. Someone will grab 23+ medals in their Olympic career. But where does that get them? Where does that get us?

The sum of their achievements will be based around that win, or wins. Bolt will be remember because he ran fast. And right now, he's adored for it. People love him because he's the fastest. Eventually someone will beat him. And at that moment, he will be forgotten; the rest of the world will move on to a new Olympian celebrity. And then someone will beat them. This process will continue for as long as the Olympics do.

Voyager. Apollo. Mercury. ISS. Viking. Curiosity. These haven't been and won't be forgotten. We love them not because they are the best at what they do, not because they will always be the best, but because they each represent another step into our collective future. These advancements show our true progress; progress that's been in the making since man first looked at the stars. Progress that we will one day need for our survival, whether we like it or not.

So keep running. Keep swimming. Keep jumping, diving, and flipping. Keep kicking and throwing. Keep your medals, and records, and ceremonies. Just remember your selfish motives: the glory, the record, and the recognition. Those who reach for the mysteries of space and the universe, and even our own planet,  are actively trying to make our lives better, to ensure our future, and to learn as much as they can about ourselves and our universe so that they can give that knowledge to us; so that someday, we might be more than a small particle in the middle of a breathtakingly large, cosmic ocean.

Words

I should warn you now that the following post will involve a lot of profanity and slurs. None of it is intended to show hate. None of it is intended to offend anyone. I'm simply using it because I don't feel like saying "F-Word, B-Word, N-Word" etc etc. Now to get right to it....

Saying that there are many words in the world is an understatement. Saying there are many words in only one language is an understatement. You see, there are thousands of words in the English language; in fact when we take everything into account, we have around three quarters of a million words in English. Of those words, a comparably small number are deemed swear words, or words that have been accepted by society as inappropriate for general use. Some examples of swear words would be: shit, fuck, and bitch. Examples of other "non-usable" words are: nigger, chink (when referring to Asians), and fag (generally used as an insult for gays).

Now what makes these words so bad? As a society, we've been taught they're bad since we first started speaking. But why are we taught this? I have a feeling that if you asked people, a fairly large amount would respond with something like "Because those words are bad." or "Because they're offensive!" the latter being especially true when asking people about words like "nigger". As most everyone reading this knows, all such words have a history behind them, innocent or malicious. Some are more known than others though.

Ass and bitch are probably the two most commonly known; ass of course originally means donkey, and bitch is used for a female dog. Damn can be traced to Latin in the word damnum. Early in the 14th century we see damn enter Old English from French; starting around the 18th century and up until about the 1930's, damn was considered a heavy expletive, and was avoided in print. Fuck has a fairly debated origin, but the first use of it was seen in about 1503, and is likely derived from the Dutch word fokken, which means "to breed" (as in cattle. Also see the Swedish word fókka, or to copulate). The last word I'll go back into is nigger. The word itself has origins in Latin from the word "niger", which means black; however the word nigger is most likely a deliberate mispronunciation of the word negro. We all know how it's a racial slur, probably the biggest one, and used to demean black people.

But words can change.

We've seen that in the word 'gay' going from meaning happy, to homosexual. The word fag from a  cigarette to an insult for gays. When I say the word holocaust, I bet there's one thought in your mind. The...er...Holocaust. What you may not know is that originally holocaust is an ancient Greek word meaning burnt offering, as in to the gods.

You see, words are only what we make of them. We view certain words as being bad because we're taught they're bad. But what if we weren't taught these words were bad? What if people were brought up thinking that these "unspeakable" words were just normal? Well I say logic dictates that these words wouldn't be quite so bad. Sure, they would probably still hold a bit more oomph, but perhaps shit would be closer to crap. Damn closer to dang. Nigger closer to cracker. I'm of the opinion that, eventually, this is the direction these words will end up going anyway. It's a process that, like gay rights, will happen regardless of what some people want.

I think it's safe to say however, that it's easier for words to go from a good to bad meaning than from bad to good, or at least less bad. Look at the word gay. Yes, it went from happy to homosexual. But now the phrase "That's so gay" is being used for everything under the sun, in a negative light. From tough homework assignments, to bad movies, to something going wrong on a car; "That's so gay" can be used to describe it all. This has been met with a big backlash from both the gay and straight communities. Personally, I think this is something that we need to let happen. I don't know a single person who has used that phrase to demean gay people, yet some gay people still find offense in it. It's the same deal with the word fag and faggot. I don't personally know anyone who uses either or those words to actually insult a gay person; in the words of C.K. Louis, "I don't call someone a faggot because they're gay. I call them a faggot because they're being...well, a faggot." I couldn't have said it better myself.

Nigger is especially complicated given the severity of the term and it's dual use in society. If a white person uses the term, everyone takes offense and apologies all around need to be made, as was the case with Michael Richards. Yet Lil Wayne has a song out called "Nigga Nigga Nigga" and, I believe it's him as well, another called "Niggas in Paris", and no one has really seem to be upset by them. See, black people apparently have 100% rights to the word nigger (or nigga), but white people cant say it. Thankfully if this trend continues it will also die out soon; every time the word nigger is said without anyone caring, that brings us one small step closer to just letting it be a normal word.

Something else happening is the term nigga transforming in meaning. If you look in the right places, you can see the word nigga quickly moving from a racial slur to a term of endearment on par with homie, homedog, or (on the whiter side of things), friend and pal. Just like fag(got) descending into an everyday general insult, nigga will ascend to mean friend.

Swearing in general can serve a purpose though. Studies have found that if a person who normally doesn't swear heavily begins to yell strings of expletives, they can tolerate a good deal more pain than they would be able to normally. And of course swearing can add emotion to otherwise lacking sentences, whether it be anger, pain, or even humor. The latter even more so when swearing is used in unique ways like "bitchnuggest" or "shitballs"; swearing adds spice to our words.

No matter good or bad, words are only what we make of them. They do not have any meanings or power aside from that which we give to them. We as a society have the power to change those meanings; we have the power to take away the hate and spite twined into curse words and racial slurs. We only need to realize that we have power over our words, not the other way around.