What I'm interested in...

I'm passionate about lots of things, material and non-material, but one thing that always gets me talking, and one thing that I always have an opinion on is human rights. I am a strong believer in religious tolerance, equal rights, and peaceful coexistance. I sometimes feel like I might be the only one my age who actually thinks about these things on a regular basis (outside of school) but that doesn't necessarily stop me from stubbornly defending my beliefs to others. In my family, we're mostly a bunch of white, christian, republicans...except for me. Ahaha, but I think they've learned to deal with my liberal hippie-esque views on society. Now here's where the ranting begins. I feel that in our world today, people say that they are tolerant of another group of people, but really judge them and feel superior to them. And yes, I will confess that I have done this before. But I've learned that where you're from or what group you're a part of hardly defines you at all. And scientifically, we're all members of the human species. We all go through the same trials and good times and emotions. For example, a white jewish man might have a black muslim co-worker, and both would say that they "respect each other," but that doesn't mean that they would ever see each other on the same level. They're held back by religious barriers which can easily be broken. All that they need is tolerance. Dictionary.com defines tolerance as: a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry. So basically, they need to see each other as people who work at the same place, and have the potential of connecting on the same level. Everyone has the potential to love another person, and you might discover that you truly care about someone that you thought was completely different from you. But you tolerate each others differences; you look past those to see that we're all the same. We all have rights, feelings, and an inherent ability to see only flaws in people. All we have to do...is forget them.

Techologically....

Psshhh. Do I use technology? DO I? Um, let's think. What must Lauren be using to post this lovely blog? OH, yes, technology! In my life, I know that I rely heavily on technology daily...although I don't like to admit it. I use computers, cell phones, tv's, laptops, ipods, video games all the time. And when I try to imagine my life without some of those things, I immediately assume that it would be very difficult. But in truth, this is just because as Americans, we have become so reliant on our technological advances that we start making new things because the old thing was "too hard to use" or "not as advanced." But who says we need any of it at all? It seems so contradictory that we consider ourselves a strong nation, but take away our computers and microchip technology, and we'd be struck dumb. I admit to have fallen victim to this sweep of technological advances, but I will try not to give up completely. NO, I will turn up the volume on my ipod and send all of my facebook friends a text to let them know all about our "advancing" country! Yeah!