Something to Ponder

    I was rummaging through my shed today, looking for a pair of portable speakers, and came upon an artifact of technology, a floppy disk. This was surprising to me because you can nary find a computer today that accepts this type of ancient equipment. After standing still in shock for a few seconds I flipped the thing over and acquired another little jolt. Written there in black sharpie is the word KEN, underlined a few times. What most fond memories of my childhood are behind this useless piece of plastic: sitting in my dad’s office with one or two of my older siblings, plinking away at the keyboard of some Aztec aged monstrosity, playing my first computer game. -For those of you who don’t know KEN is one of the first FPS shooter games made, that has pixels the size of my thumb- I now write this looking at that black square of pointless plastic and think of everything that has happened since, all pointless if my life did not have some meaning outside of myself. Why do you live such a short life and not fight to realize that you are not just some random, pointless, piece of dust floating through space? Why do you continue to live if you truly believe that it is all worthless? Because you don’t, you think you can gain meaning by living a fuller life or by building your body and mind. But I ask, if your body and essence is just dust then how can that emptiness give it self any significance?  I am proposing that the yearning you feel is actually a want to believe in something outside of self, something greater than self, someone more pure that self. I am telling you that maybe there is a God, and that maybe if you believe and trust, and follow him, then you don’t have to fight for meaning anymore. 

The Grimke Sisters

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

                    

  An old essay of mine that I dug up. 

            Late in the seventeen hundreds Judge John Faucheraud Grimke‎ became a strong supporter of slavery and of the subservience of women. He owned a huge plantation in the South Carolina colony as well as a large number of slaves. John and Mary Grimke gave birth to Sarah in 1792 and Angelina in 1805. Both the sisters grew up surrounded by wealth and luxury as well as servants and slaves. After a few short years both sisters grew to despise slavery and at the early age of five, after seeing a slave being whipped, Sarah hated everything about slavery to the point of trying to board a steam boat and leave her father’s plantation. After growing up under repression as women and after living around slavery their whole youth, Sarah and Angelina Grimke rebelled against subjugation and their hatred of slavery grew into passions that would define the rest of their lives.

            Although they were daughters of a plantation owner, Sarah and Angelina Grimke grew to loath slavery with all its degradations and filth. Their intimacy with slavery in their youth gave the sisters a strong platform of experience on which to base their future books, columns, and speeches. This gave them a weapon of sorts to realistically portray the atrocity of slavery and convince people of its brutality.

            Sarah accompanied her dying father to Philadelphia. She stayed in Philadelphia for a few months longer after her father’s death and meet Israel Morris, a Quaker. He introduced her to Quakerism and after a few weeks Sarah returned home. After a short stay on her family’s plantation Sarah decided to become a Quaker minister and went back to Philadelphia, leaving her Episcopalian upbringing behind. Being a woman and disrespected when it came to public speaking, her endeavors were unsuccessful as a minister. With her younger sister in mind, Sarah returned home to “save” Angelina from an otherwise likely life of repression and to bring Sarah with her. After converting Angelina to Quakerism, the sisters continued to fight for women’s rights and the abolishment of slavery. 

            Viewing women’s rights to be equal in importance to abolitionism, both sisters continued to fight for their causes.  In 1836 Sarah wrote and had published Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States and Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women in separate newspapers which gained her large amounts of criticism from the general public as well as fellow Quakers and abolitionists. The sisters grew famous for breaking the social norms of the time, like speaking to mixed audiences and debating with men. In 1838 Angelina got married to a prominent abolitionist named Theodore Weld.  After a few years of speaking around the country the sisters retired and became less conspicuous while taking the back stage.

           From an early age the Grimke sisters led a life of selflessness. Against the law and her parents’ wishes, Sarah taught her personal slave how to read and write until her parents found out and threatened to whip the slave. Once away from home, their lives revolved around ways of fighting against slavery and for women’s rights. The sisters were notable for their unprecedented forwardness and passion and as women they gained huge amounts of publicity, positive as well as negative. Sarah and Angelina Grimke are remembered as prominent members in the early abolitionist movement that led to the eventual prohibition of slavery; and as strong advocates of women’s rights that started a movement that would change how women were treated and respected worldwide.

A try at today's popular genre: comedy and ads.

Writing Sample

It is hard to find anything more exhilarating than being on the top of a mountain with nothing below you but clear slopes and endless forests to navigate. You have a type of freedom that, when embraced, is almost euphoric. Panoramic views of giant snow-caped mountains, the crisp glare of sun-on-snow reflection, and the fresh bite-scent and quiet murmur of falling snow, all overpowering your senses. With a rush you start downhill, and everything changes.

You’re flying, through clouds of snow and forests of evergreen. The muffled swish of pure power and the grinding of ice, taking their turns in the dance of extravagant mountain maneuvering: heel-toe-heel-toe, twist, catch an edge, twist and flatten out, slight hop, heel-toe-heel-toe. Its you, your board,  and the snow, simple things yet somehow they give you the ability to attain unimaginable speeds and incredible joy.

There is a jump coming up and you decide to try it. You take a small crouch on the approach, a nice line up, and then you wait, up, at the last moment burst with your legs. You are flying again, but this time through the air, keep level, wave your arms a bit for balance,  then bend on impact. With a giddy laugh for a successful jump you continue the dance. This is the life.

Intro:

Hello, My name is Christopher Hunt. I have lived in Asheville North Carolina all my life and have always loved the mountains. Being a senior in high school and duel-enrolled at AB-Tech I do not get many chances to engage in the activities that I have always enjoyed such as Ultimate Frisbee, beach volleyball, biking and excessive casual reading. Although I should be making my decisions for the immediate future, I have absolutely no idea what I want to do or where I want to go.

Most Blogs these days are written and designed to appeal to a younger crowd. Bold flashy titles that grab the readers interest and mammoth pictures which scream for attention are used like meat hooks to pin down and real in every browsing populous, no mater his or her interests. Articles are chalk full of little verbal innuendos, slang, and sarcasm to appeal to today's Internet crowed and words are ghettoized by intentionally cutting off or shortening them. Bloggers are first rate salesmen, and there product is words.

The gaming Blog, Joystiq, and the technology Blog, Gizmodo, both
  use this method like kings. Its nearly impossible to not be influenced by there guises and therefore I willingly submit that both Joystiq, for its gaming atmosphere, and Gizmodo for its sassy approach to modern views on technology, both interest me.