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A turtle (and also the meaning of life)

Today my dad found a rather large turtle on the sidewalk. He went inside to get his camera while I got mine, and when we went outside, we saw that it was crawling on the street. When we approached it, it went into its shell. After taking some photographs (of a turtle hiding in its shell on the street), my dad thought it would be good to move it into the lake (actually a canal) across the street. So he picked it up and set it onto the shore of the canal (which is sort of what makes it like a lake). After lying in the grass for a few moments, the turtle suddenly sped away into the disputably-named body of water. After that I became momentarily preoccupied with a duck that was passing by.

It reminded me of this one time that my sister and I were home alone for whatever reason. It was probably a summer or a holiday or something. We saw a turtle swimming in the pool in the backyard. After taking pictures (history repeats itself), we transported it to the very same lake/canal to set it free… I think. Anyway, later that day the neighbors knocked on the door and asked if we had seen their missing turtle. True story. (I think they found it eventually.) But this one I saw today was a big sucker, probably nobody’s pet.

Apparently the craze of manipulating pictures of me has yet to die down. Here’s a submission from my friend Luke.

Ask Jordon Time… (with a baseball bat?)

elle: what do you think of the two blondes in your AP Euro class?

I think they’re nice, outgoing, friendly, and you.

Luke: What is the meaning of life… from your perspective!?

Tough question, Luke. I’ve been thinking about it. It would seem at first glance that life is a struggle for survival at best and absolutely meaningless at worst. I once came to the conclusion that the meaning of life is to be happy. Suffering is bad; happiness (or at least a lack of suffering) leads to prosperity (survival) and is therefore good. However, taking these ideas together at face value to represent an unrestricted, every-man-for-himself struggle for happiness, if you will, would have disastrous consequences on society, which is why societies have rules against killing, stealing, and so on.

Though human beings are really not much different from other animals, we are unique because we can easily articulate our advanced thoughts and put them into action. Because we are such intelligent beings, there is no excuse for us to ignore the interests of other humans. Indeed, a basic system of rules in the interest of everyone is necessary to keep civilization as we know it intact; otherwise, it would descend into chaos with people murdering each other and all that, and the human species would not survive to the extent it already has. I submit, then, that the meaning of life is to achieve happiness while assuring the same all other members of the human race — a nobler idea of survival. Only then can we feel that life is truly meaningful.

Here’s something I didn’t know: The comic strip “Dennis the Menace” debuted in the US on March 12, 1951, and another comic called “Dennis the Menace” first appeared in the UK on March 15, 1951.

This is a clever idea if you ever find yourself on TV, and it’s also a good way to confuse people in your everyday life. Wear pre-pixelated clothes with supposed brand names or other imagery already obscured.

Two years ago: “It’s a good book, if you really want to know. I was actually reading it today while I was waiting for about five hours for my sister to get off the lousy computer. I was that much into the darn book. I mean it.”