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Swing Life Away – Rise Against

• February 7th, 2010 • No Comments • Music

Most of you know I’m a big fan of Rise Against. The lead singer (Tim) comes to my work every so often because I work at a fitness center and he’s the most down-to-Earth guy you could possibly meet. I wanted to analyze some more of his songs. They are so fucking good. Many of their songs have multiple meanings behind them and I will try to analyze two different scenarios from this song. One is about a relationship, the other has a deeper meaning and is more general towards life.

This song is just about owning life. The song is about living and not really worrying about anything but loving life and living it.

“We live on front porches and swing life away, we get by just fine here on minimum wage”

I think we live on front porches reiterates the fact that its summertime and they’re just taking life as it comes. They are teenage couple so they’re making supporting themselves on minimum wage but they’re okay. Even though they’re young, they are in love and he will do anything for her and wont go anywhere in life without her. He later mentions he wants to “settle down where palm trees grow”…who doesn’t think about living and working where the climate is always hot? In Chicago the winters get pretty cold, everyone around here thinks about moving where its warm year round at least once.

Tim is also talking about the countless of people in todays society who live paycheck to paycheck and still get by fine. They are used to there lifestyle and are happy to way they are. Sometimes the less you have, the better you feel. You feel less stressful, sometimes living a very simple life isn’t that bad after all. Sometimes we need to accept what we have and be happy with what we got instead of stressing and worrying about the things we don’t have. Life is all about making the best of what you got.

Lets compare scars, ill tell you whose is worse

This is like “open up with me and i’ll open up to you” sort of scenario. Every relationship goes through this stage. He’s saying lets share each others pasts. They’re both painful but they’ll grow and learn more about each other from it. It’s a way of connecting deeper with another person and being closer to them on a whole new level…

This is what people naturally do. People like to compare experiences/memories/toys/things to others to see where they fit in society and how they separated and connected with others. Sometimes when you think you had it bad, there is always someone who had it worse…

lets unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words

This part of the song refers to the status of their relationship. The “love story” has been written so many times before, they want to make it their own.

I may be wrong, but I feel Tim is trying to say to live your life whatever way you want. Don’t have someone tell you what to do. It reminds me of the bible. That books acts as a “guide” to many people, but if you truly want to live your life the way you want to, then “replace it with your own words”. Each day you live you add more chapters to your “life story.” It’s up to you what goes in it and what gets written…

I’ve got some friends some that I hardly know
we’ve had some times i wouldn’t trade for the world

This is probably the most important meaning of the song. It almost reminds me partying. You meet new people and make friends but you don’t really know them. And relating to the relationship, they have been on adventure where they spent their summer days having long talks which include their future together. Most couples do this too.

Most importantly, Tims says you don´t need money to be happy – friends are much more important. Swing Life Away!

Social networking and Network Neutrality

• February 5th, 2010 • No Comments • Internet

Here is the first part in case you missed it.

Net neutrality is currently a hot topic, and unfortunately not enough people are aware of the importance of it. The idea of net neutrality revolves around theory that the Internet should be free and open. There has been an ongoing debate during recent years on defining net neutrality. There currently is no set definition and it simply means different things for different people and organizations. On Google’s blog they mention that it has been a major public policy priority for Google over the last two years. The problem is that most people do not have a wide array of choices when choosing an internet service provider.

“Most Americans (99.6%, to be exact) receive broadband service from their phone company or their cable company — in antitrust terms, a duopoly”. Since these big corporations, literally have full control over the distribution of the Internet, they can regulate prices, content or even limit certain web sites and/or applications.

This is similar to how the Bell Telephone Company operated over a hundred years ago. They were a monopoly, but the government allowed it from 1877 to 1984. Later, in 1984, the company was broken up into independent companies, by a Federal mandate because it got too powerful. This duopoly needs to be stopped soon, before it’s too late. The government stopped a monopoly in the past and I am almost certain they will support net neutrality to ensure huge corporations can’t control the Internet market and traffic. Obviously, internet service providers, like Comcast, are engaged in an all-out effort to challenge the Internet’s open nature. They feel the government shouldn’t have any say how to run their business. They want a system where giant corporations pay for speedy access while smaller organizations and start-ups and average people are left in the slow lane. It’s unfortunate to see what lengths already filthy rich companies will go to towards to make even more profits. These companies don’t need more money, but that’s true reason for this crazy debate. Money is something some people just can’t get enough of, even when they have more than enough.

Sometimes it’s best to take your time…

• February 3rd, 2010 • 8 Comments • Advice, Life

Remember the last time you rushed something and the outcome didn’t turn out the way you expected? Sometimes we need to give ourselves some extra time to ensure we are satisfied. Do you remember a homework assignment that you wish you would have spent more time on? I sure do, but now I take my time on the things I do. I like to live a cool, calm lifestyle, which is ironic in this fast-paced world we live in. Just try it out. Do things slow. What’s the need to rush things? Chances are you’ll regret it later and wish you would have thought things through or spent more quality time…

Destiny vs Coincidence

• February 1st, 2010 • 5 Comments • Life

Destiny: The predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events

Coincidence: An event that although accidental seems to have been planned or arranged.

This got me thinking, is there such thing as destiny? Or is coincidence and destiny one and the same?

Destiny, I always thought it was just chance, it just so happened that you took one of the many paths at that precise moment in life. It’s about decisions we make, our intuitive feelings that have been genetically engineered by our ancestors. On a side note, in recent years, parents are now able to manipulate their babies DNA to correspond to their desires. It is possible to pick eye and hair color, along with discovering the possibility of certain diseases. By doing so, are humans playing the role of god? Or are we simply, eliminating the possibility of chance of any sort of disease or problems? If god is the alpha and the omega. You know, the begining and the end, that would mean god knows what has passed and what is to come — like it states in the bible. Then why do people pray and think it will make any difference? You can’t change destiny, right? That is to say if destiny exists, you can’t change it. But if it doesn’t exist, then it’s up to you to change your life and take control. I believe the future is in your hands, don’t let someone or something tell you what to do. You control your future.

This also got me thinking about love. Is love destiny or coincidence? Can two people really be “made for each other”? Can someone have the 100% perfect biological match for someone else in world? If so, by meeting that person was it destiny or chance? These are all questions that raise discussion and everyone has their own thoughts.  Destiny, in my opinion, is like a ‘perfect-fit’. I hear so often about these relationships that say “oh they were destined to be with one another”. Pffft.  Then why do so many marriages end up in divorce? I think it’s fair to say that nobody is destined to get a divorce. Is it that love is found by chance, then it’s up to destiny to see if things were meant to be? Or is it that love is found by chance and it takes hard work and dedication to keep the relationship going, putting luck or chance off to the side…

These words: fate, destiny, karma, coincidence do they exist? Or is it up to each individual person to decide the outcome of life?

Stuff I learned in Psychology can help you get what you want!

• January 30th, 2010 • No Comments • Advice

The Foot in the Door Phenomenon

The Concept: If you’re wondering how to convince superiors, employees or customers to do what you ask, try using the foot in the door phenomenon. This refers to the tendency of people to do something huge if they have already agreed to something much smaller. Your friend should be much more open to helping you decorate your entire house for a dinner party if, for example, he already helped you pick out decorations.

How You Can Use It: Let say you’re trying sell something. If you can get a person to talk to you for a couple of minutes and have the person try your product, you’ve got their “foot in the door”. They are much more likely to buy from you than if you had just screamed a sales pitch at them.

The Door in the Face Phenomenon

The Concept: First you ask for something, crazy. Like a huge favor. When they turn you down, you then ask for what you really want, which now looks trivial in light of what you asked for a moment earlier.

How You Can Use It: It’s an easy way to get what you want. Here’s a scenario I used just this past week. I needed to find someone to cover my shift at work for a weekend. I asked someone if they can work for me for next week, I told them I could trade hours and everything. One week!? She kindly declined my request, but when I asked her if she can simply work for the weekend, she said she could!