Thursday, October 22, 2009

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. --Richard Dawkins

Jakob Haferland

 Evolutionary beliefs provide no objective basis to justify traits like honesty. In contrast, to lie would be acting inconsistently with the teachings of the Bible, which says to speak the truth (Ephesians 4:25 and many other verses). When Christians act with selfless compassion and altruism, they are likewise acting consistently with their beliefs. Not so the evolutionist.

Andrew Lamb (on www.creation.com Feedback archive, Feedback 2008, “Was Dawkins stumped”)

I’m highly amused by this quote from Richard Dawkins. Not because what he says is right, but rather because just he is saying it. It is the same Richard Dawkins, the advocator of the evolution theory, who wrote many books on evolution and his disbelief in God and who calls his website ‘a clear-thinking oasis’.  

However, his teaching and writing on evolution contradicts his thoughts on generosity and altruism as Andrew Lamb points out: “[…] if evolution is true, and we are just an accumulation of millions of genetic mistakes, then our thoughts are just purposeless movements of chemicals and electrons in the brain, and there is no reason to presume that they are meaningful and rational”. The same thing applies to actions like altruism or generosity and feelings like love or happiness. If the evolution theory is true, there wouldn’t be any purpose in these things and it would be all a kind of lucky coincidence. However, if the Bible is true and these feelings are a creation of God, then it all comes together as the Bible teaches us to act in altruism and selfless compassion to our neighbor in order to serve him and God’s kingdom. Andrew Lamb points this out in the first statement.

So the amusing thing about Prof Dawkins statement is that he is preaching a Christian principal, which contradicts his general teaching about evolution and so on, which just shows once more how dubious and inaccurate the evolution theory is, as also much scientific evidence argues against this explanation for the origin of life.

 

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Song Yang

If you were shown a picture of a baby that you thought was ugly, would the words “Oh, isn’t he/she cute?” come out of your mouth instead? It seems that is what most people do. What I find interesting about this is the child’s picture was altered to look “ugly” and still everyone said the baby was cute. What interests me about this was there are numerous phrases to use.

That doesn’t mean you should tell someone their baby is ugly. If your girlfriend asks whether those jeans make her look big or not. Personally I’d say, “Yes, and you know this…why are you asking me?” but I can sympathize with the boyfriend that says, “No honey…”.

In an effort to spare someone pain, even to strangers, we tell those white lies in an act of kindness. Being generous here, there are times when telling those white lies is “okay” but there are times when a person prefers the truth. Don’t do what is easier for you to tell lies, tell them the truth.

What I’m saying is that there is a time and a place for white lies and there is definitely a time to be mature and tell the truth.

Maybe without lies, relationships between people will not be harmonious and society will be full of chaos. Obviously, lying is an essential part of the human experience and mental health. It’s acceptable to lie in some circumstances.

Accordingly, truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love.

Kota Sato

When we hear news about disaster or poverty far away from us, it’s a bit difficult to go to the place and save people, while some people may try to do this action. At that time we might feel our powerlessness and helplessness not to be able to do big things to save people who are suffering from hardships; we can only watch that news. At least I used to feel so.

Have you ever heard the word “philanthropy”? The definition of this word is “altruistic concern for human welfare and advancement, usually manifested by donations of money, property, or work to needy persons, by endowment to institutions of learning and hospitals, and by generosity to other socially useful purposes.” Moreover someone who gives money to people who need help is called a philanthropist. For example in 2004, the famous rock band U2 released their 11th album called “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb”. The vocalist Bono, who is famous as a philanthropist, explained the meaning of the title of the record. He explained the title means while it’s very difficult to dismantle an atomic bomb in the present day, if you start thinking about how to do it in the future it’s possible to eliminate atomic bombs. He also shows his explanation that while now there are lots of problems in the world, if you can do some small help the process makes the world better and it will become the power to dismantle an atomic bomb.

Summing up, Bono’s idea has two aspects of help. One is big influence from people who have a big power like him. When he became famous, he decided to use the value of fame for saving people in Africa who suffered from poverty and also decided to give people, especially in developed counties chances or hints to think about help which they can do. After that people have been realizing small steps to help, getting hints from people like Bono. Actually I’m one of them. I think what we can do is having concern about small contributions and conducting what we can do. In other words, if there are lots of people who do a little help to realize the importance of them, lots of help results.

I suppose the worst thing is giving up on our small contributions because they are little. As I showed it’s a very important part of help overall and it makes the world better. On the other side, some people who have big influences on society should have some projects that people can join to help people who suffer from hardships and they also should give people the chances to make people think about “help” and what they can do.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal. --Albert Pike.

Ayoub Al Kharusi

What a good feeling when you feel that you did help someone! How many people die when they were trying to rescue someone? Actually they did save someone’s life, but they put themselves at risk and faced death. But who can forget the Japanese police officer who saved a women and from a train and died? Who forget the Omani leader who put himself in danger when he tried to save the prisoner from a great flood and died with them? If you forget those people I won’t, even if I forget someone’s name is I don’t think that I will forget what he did.

It’s a great feeling you have when you help someone in everything good for him, you and your society. Then if you help someone in something and feel like this, how do you think your feeling will be when you rescue someone’s life, even it is an animal! Did you know that if you rescue someone’s life it is like you've rescued the whole world? So, let’s think how great emotion that will be!

Every society in this world must be as a body because if an organ from this body falls down all the other organs will try to get it up and continue its life. That is what we must do, but I think that will not happen because each nation in this world is trying to be the strongest without thinking of others who try to find crumbs of bread to eat and medicine to treat their people, and that is what is happening now. You will say that isn’t true because the strongest countries are sending a lot of food to Africa, but do you think that’s enough for them? I think the real help which we can give them is education including food and other things until those people can depend on themselves.

It’s not necessary to be immortalized because of what we do, because we’ll find everything we have done in this life laid out on the Day of Reckoning, otherwise it’s very good to allow others an accurate impression about us.

If you wish to provide peace, provide peace for another. --The Dalai Lama

Ahmed Al Salmi

We live in this big world with different cultures and different kinds of ideas, so sometimes some people try to enforce their culture on every place in this world. This kind of thinking lets wars start and makes the world in a bad way. What things should we do to keep the world in peace?

To answer that question lets go across the meaning of 'help' in the dictionary. 'Help' is to do something for somebody in order to be useful or to make a person’s work easier, so from that meaning we can understand that if we help anyone we will give him an easy way to do his work and that makes life easy for all people when everyone helps others who need help. From helping people we can provide peace, but if we see our world nowadays we will see that some countries start wars for simple reasons and that thing kills a lot of people, so you can’t see any peace. However if wars are switched with helping other people with the things that they need the world will be better and there will be peace.

Moreover we can see that the peace doesn't come without giving help when needed. For example when any country has a disaster most countries give it  help by giving it  medicine and food. In this situation the world will live in the perfect way that everyone dreams about .From all that lets help people to grow peace in our world.

We can see the tsunami for example when it happened in Samoa, New Zealand gave Samoa's people help and sent some doctors and firemen there to help rescue people.

Finally I hope all people will provide peace by helping each other and move away from the malicious. That would make the world a big fantastic family. 

What we have done for ourselves ... dies with us; what we have done for others ... is immortal. --Albert Pike

Sharifa Al Balushi

No one can deny that helping others has a special taste. When you give some help for anyone, you'll feel that you are doing a great thing. It's enough to hear the word 'Thanks ' from others. Maybe you'll forget what you did but it's impossible to be forgotten from a person's memory if you did him or her help.
Helping others is one of a few things which people will remember forever. If you want to gain others hearts, give some help to them. I think helping others is a main part of human psychology. Some people are ready to lose their lives in order to rescue others, so how can you explain that? You also see children help others although they are too young and don't understand help's meaning. If anyone asks me to help, absolutely I won't hesitate to help. Sometimes you are doing a very small help but it leaves a big impact. So, try usually to offer help because it will remain even after you die.
Everyone needs help. Poor people need money. Old people need care. Teenagers need someone to hear them. So, don't hesitate and offer help to all. You also need help. If you help others, you'll find a lot of people want to help you when you are in need.
We are collecting money and doing a lot of things for ourselves but all of them will die and finish immediately when we die. One thing will remain and that is what we do for others and the world. Give others a chance to remember you.  

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The truth will set you free, but it will make you miserable.

Kota Sato

The truth will set you free, but it will make you miserable. I suppose this sentence is true. Let me elaborate. There are truths around us and we are able to understand them. However how many people want to know and get truths which are given to them? While it depends on the kind of truth which people get, I think so many people don’t want to know truths because getting and knowing truths is sometimes quite miserable and demanding of courage for people. I’ll illustrate the two cases with examples. The first one is a sort of personal example and the second one is a very large-scale example.

First of all, when you meet a person you admire like the president of your company or your favorite actor or musician, your mind is divided into two aspects, one which is exhilaration and the other fear to know the real truth about the person. If your admired person doesn’t have the personality which you expected, it means you know the miserable truth. Your image of the person would be broken immediately. It might be a little bit difficult to get over the damage.

Secondly, in 2003, the United States started the Iraq War. The reason why the USA government decided to begin the war was Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. The government stated there is a possibility for Iraq to possess weapons of mass destruction and also stated Iraq hadn’t accepted open inspections from the United Nations. However after the end of the battle, an investigating commission from the USA conducted a search for the weapons of mass destruction. In October 2004, the USA government introduced a final report which said there were no weapons of mass destruction. If this story is the truth, why did the USA government start the war? Why were innocent people in Iraq dead? What remains except the misery?

Knowing the truth sets us free. In other words, we can understand the naked reason or fact, getting the truth. However, it’s not always good for us. There are miseries following truth, which you receive. But I want to suppose anyway that if you got a truth which involved misery, in some cases, you should accept it and think about it, especially in a case like the Iraq War so not to make something similar happen.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

Naoko Miyoshi

I completely disagree with this sentence. People want to be happy, and If someone has to be unhappy when he or she hears the truth, I think that person doesn’t want to hear the truth. In this world, there are good truths and bad truths, but both are the truth. Actually I can’t say what the good truth is or the bad truth, but I think we have the right to choose to hear the truth or not. For example, If your boyfriend or girlfriend cheat on you, do you want your boyfriend or girlfriend to tell you the truth? If I were someone’s girlfriend, of course I wouldn’t want him to cheat on me, however if he did, I wouldn’t want him to tell me the truth, I would want him to deceive me as long as he could. This is my opinion. But on the other hand, one of my friends said that I wouldn’t want him to hide the truth, If he cheated on me, I would want him to tell me the truth. She thinks the truth is the most important thing to know, even If it makes her sad or it hurts her. I think she is very strong, but unfortunately, I’m not so strong as her.

Sometimes I want to know the truth but I don’t want to know the truth. It’s really difficult to describe my mind. In conclusion, I think there are so many people with different opinions, so we should choose whether we want to know the truth or not.
        

Truth Is Absolute

Masayuki Sato

When you stumble over a stone or a bump while walking down a street, you probably stand up quickly and then start to walk in a hurry to hide the feeling of shame. In the same way, Winston Churchill, who was a British politician and became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, stated “Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.” This statement is very sophisticated so it is tough to get the implication or true meaning.
 
What does this “stumble over the truth” imply? It implies noticing and facing the truth we don’t know, I think. In a relationship between couples, for example, sometimes you may realize the bad character of your partner. This makes you feel bad or sad, but actually it is essential truth. You can’t deny it. In this situation, you notice the truth and face the truth. That can be called “stumbling over the truth.” And what does this “most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened” mean? This means most people try to understand that truth then they try to pretend to know the truth as if it is natural. Sometimes not knowing things leads to feeling shame. Therefore many people try to hide the fact they don’t know when they face this situation. So what is the overall meaning? I feel truth is absolute. We can’t resist the truth nor deny the truth. Even if the truth makes us feel unhappy or uncomfortable, we must accept it. That’s why humankind follows the truth sometimes as if they already know it.
 
Truth makes human beings happy or unhappy in each situation. But wherever the situation is, truth is absolute and also truth is the thing which doesn’t change eternally. Truth is the unique thing we can trust for sure. 

The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.

Jacqueline Mung

People are born with the ability to lie but the courage to admit to truth. A Chinese adage says, 'Fire cannot be wrapped with paper.' Lies will be uncovered eventually either by the teller or other people. 

If you decide to reveal the truth yourself, no doubt it is going to make you miserable. The reasons are as follows.

It must be something bad that you want to hide it. Telling the truth will get you into trouble. For example, you lost your mother’s wedding ring after you had secretly shown it to others. You know your mother will be angry and sad if she finds out. Therefore you rather pretend to be innocent since you do not want to face her.

Then you will suffer from your conscience. Although you are physically fine because you lied that you know nothing about the missing ring, your conscience makes you feel sorry for your mother. It can even distract you from your daily life.

 If you decide to tell the truth, you will have to prepare yourself for the consequences. First, how do you face your mother when she learns about what actually happened? Second, how do you make up for the loss? Last but not least, will she still have trust in you after that?

In short if the truth can set you free, that truth must be a bad thing. Hiding it might help you run away from problems, but your conscience will remind you about the reality. Once you determine to reveal the truth, you will start to worry about the result. That is why you are sure to suffer before you admit your sin.

Monday, October 12, 2009

“The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” --Jim Davis

Ayoub Al Kharusi 

The truth makes our ways in life very clear and it covers and removes all cheating and lying in the world, but do you think that people will be honest in their life? 

We can’t command people to put their cheating and lying away because these are natural things in their life. Have you ever seen a society of people with out lying? Why? I’ll tell you “Why?” Because the people are using the lies in their life, For example, they lie to laugh and smile, they lie to make excuses and they lie to keep themselves out of the way which the truth will put them in.

Many people say “The truth will make you miserable”. The say that because the don’t know the real meaning of the truth. If you tell the truth every day and in every word you say, you will know the exact meaning of the truth. You’ll get a comfort about every word you say. You’ll see the respect of all the people who are around you. The truth will make your life full with peace and pleasure. I agree with Jim Davis when he says “The truth will set you free, but 'first' it will make you miserable”.   Yes in the beginning of telling the truth your life will be miserable but at last you see the result of the truth. Lying is the opposite of the truth and it is absolutely wrong, because if you keep lying, your lies will follow you until the truth will rise and put you in a very bad situation. 

At last you need to be honest with your self and keep telling the truth. Then your life will be yours. In short you can say “the truth is the best policy in this life.” 

Truth Is Beautiful, Without Doubt; But So Are Lies

Ritsuko Araki

Truth is, of course, always beautiful whoever thinks about it. However, lies are also sometimes beautiful for us as Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests.
  
This world does work even though it is being filled with both a lot of truth and many lies and people say truth is good but lies are bad. No one could say truth is bad but is it always really good? Are lies always really bad?
   
I don’t like either telling lies or being told lies. And also I’m not good at telling lies and noticing when somebody tells lies because I don’t have poker-face and it is easy for me to trust others.
  
There is a Japanese proverb about lies. It is that lies are a sometimes necessary ways depending on the situation.
  
The typical person that has to follow this saying may be a magician. When he does magic, he must keep his face impassive, otherwise the audience could realize what his trick is. How well he can cheat the audience is most important for his job.
  
And it is also a doctor. Some doctors choose not to tell a patient the truth when he or she gets a serious disease that will never be cured and kill. But is this really bad for the patient? I don’t think so because it is a kind of essential consideration in order not to hurt him or her mentally any more. Now, there are even people who ask doctors in advance not to tell them the truth in the case when they get a serious disease that will kill them.
  
Truth may be beautiful but could injure people and lies may be great but could hurt people as well. It depends on what situation and who we talk to. The most important thing is that we should distinguish using the truth and lies accordingly, and choose the right way.
 
  

Sunday, October 11, 2009

The future is made up of the same stuff as the present.

Ritsuko Araki
Today, people often say that we must do this, we must do that, for the
future generation. Some rules have been decided and some promises have been made. Now, we are here, where people have to try to keep them.

Some years ago, some nations stated that they would started to reduce the proportion of CO2 emitted over the next years in order not to make global warming any worse. But at an international conference in Kyoto, the main countries which had produced a lot of CO2 didn't accept this decision. Japan accepted it but actually, we don't follow the decision, as proof, the rate of CO2 in Japan is absolutely going up compared to when the conference was held.

Now, where we are living has been made up from a result of what people of many years ago did, that is to say, what we are doing now will lead to the future. If this situation as above continues, the world environment will be getting worse and worse without fail. If what we are doing now is not so good, it is surely not so good for the future as well because it is sure that what we have done and will do, comes back in the future. It is the next, the next next or the next next next generation who is going to suffer from the present generation.

It is quite hard to imagine that people of the present generation will be
still living after 100 years but there must be a lot of the next generation's
people in this world. We have to live considering the future but who can
really think about it seriously? It is difficult because nobody can see the
future, and after all, people consider themselves as the most important
people.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. --Thoreau

Ahmed Al Salmi

No one in this world can live without love but in love you can make big mistake. Because of that we cannot trust being in love and we can hear a lot of stories on that. Also we can see them on TV.

Everyone wants to have money and with that money he will have a lot of things to do. Also everyone wants to be a famous person, so that he will be known by everyone, but if we have a look to the truth we will see it the most important thing of the characteristics discussed. If every one says the truth that will result in many things, for example: everyone will be able to trust each other and no one will be afraid of being cheated.

So why is the truth so necessary?

I will list some reasons to answer this question.

1-The truth is something that makes you relaxed when you say it.

2-The truth will steer you away from problems.

3-With the truth you can be the one who people love and trust.

4-The truth makes people well behaved.

5-If you want others to believe you, just say the truth.

6-If you want the solution for your problems, just say the truth.

7-When you say the truth you will have a clean spirit.

So the truth makes relationships good and strong. Also people will respect each other and will have a good conversations between them. So do not say anything apart from the truth and “Do as you would be done by.”

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. -- Thoreau

Sharifa Al Balushi

Truth is a small word with just five letters but it has a great meaning. Truth is a gate for love, pleasure and happiness. The world will be dark and the people's behavior will be bad without truth.
If any one asks you a question about anything, absolutely he's waiting you the truth. Maybe sometimes the truth makes you unhappy but it's enough to feel comfortable. If you lie, you will feel that you are making some big mistake. We're humans and it's normal to make mistakes but the big mistake is to continue to lie and make more mistakes.
Some people usually think that others need money or fame but they never think that they need the truth. There are many things spread in our society like money and fame but we're losing the truth. It doesn't mean that there aren't any honest but the number of them is lower. People who want to get money lie in order to get it, people who want to get fame lie too and people who search for love lie too. Now the lie has become relevant and the shortest way to reach to our purposes. 
We made society like that and, absolutely, we can change it. We have to clean our society of dishonesty. The shortest way to do that is to learn how to tell the truth in any situation. How can we expect our children to be honest if we aren't?. We have to start to teach ourselves and then move to advise others. If everyone starts with himself, our society will change immediately,
Last but not the least, truth is a great gift nobody can get except those who absorb its meaning. I want to say rather than love, than money, than fame give me truth. 

To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle. --George Orwell

Jakob Haferland

Everyone wants to know the truth, at least for some areas of one's life, whether it is in religion, chances, missed opportunities, one's own potential or love.    

Sometimes truth is hard to find, we're looking for it, but we can't find it. Sometimes it is hidden under all that trash that is floating through our life, and we can't see it until someone points it out to us. Sometimes the truth is right in front of our nose but we can hardly see it. That's the way I understand George Orwell's statement. We are so influenced by the things around us, which distract us from seeing the truth. Maybe it's like wearing the wrong pair of glasses, so that our vision is blurrede, or maybe like wearing colored glasses that make us see everything colored the same way. Maybe we are all kind of colorblind to the truth.

But what puts the glasses on our nose, what makes us colorblind? Is it the media, the propaganda, that crams us up with more and more stuff every day, half true and unnecessary, badly researched and prereleased? Or is it the people that try to sell us anything, twisting and expanding the truth until you can hardly see it, and without any scruple, in order to make more and more profit?

If those are the reasons that blur our sight, it is no wonder that it is hard to fight for the truth. These powers just seem to be to mighty to overcome: "It must be true, they just said it on TV". What do you want to say against that unless you have proven the opposite, the news has been already around the world and the damage is done. Yet the true answer is obvious however we prefer to believe someone else instead of using our own brains. This is because it is so much easier just to adopt the norm and to think what everyone thinks, even if it is wrong. You will find resistance if you get off the beaten track. That's what the daily struggle is all about, to resist the (unconscious) lies of the masses. 

The future is made of the same stuff as the present. --Simone Weil

Jakob Haferland

Simone Weil, who lived from February 1909 until August 1943, makes a very interesting statement, which has proved to be true so far.

In her opinion there won’t be much change in the future, as it is made of the stuff the present is. There are certainly differences, but they won’t be very huge.  And I think last century proved her right. Sure, there are differences. One of the biggest might be the omnipresence of electronic and computer devices, which people 60 years ago probably, had never dreamed of. And also a lot of other things have changed in our life. For example planes play a much bigger role. TV, the Internet - all things the make our world what it is today.

But has the world really changed that radically? I mean we’re still living in houses. We still walk, drive or take the bus to work. We still eat food, sometimes even the same stuff people ate 60 years ago. We still live in families, have wives or husbands, we still have kids. Our cars still have 4 wheels and planes still have two wings, ships look still the same and we still fire them with Petrol, Diesel or Kerosene.

So I think she is right, the future won’t bring that many new things. It will still be made of the same stuff. I don’t think we’re going to travel to Mars in the blink of a eye or even live there. All these things are more fantasy than forecast I believe.

Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future?

Naoko Miyoshi

Almost all people are hoping for a future which is more convenient, comfortable, and peaceful than the present. These are human wishes.
When I was a child, I thought that robots which could do everything (for example, housework, conversation, and so on) would be invented soon, and I would live with them. Moreover, I thought that new types of transportation such as cars that could fly or something like that would be developed.
Unfortunately, that kind of robots hasn't been invented yet and cars aren't flying either.
I think people tend to think only about good points of the future but I think we have to think about bad points or some points which we have to solve. Now there are a lot of problems we have which are environmental, for example, global warming.
The temperature of the earth is getting warmer and warmer nowadays, about 2 or 3 degrees per year.
If we can't stop global-warming in the future, we are just following the way to death.
So, in my opinion, our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future, that is true, but we have to look at our serious problems before we hope or imagine something.       

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Action in the Present

Masayuki Sato
 
Humankind looks forward to the future and always imagines what will happen in the future. They predict many things in the future; robots, flying cars, a high technological society etc. Culture and technology has been developed and progressed through dreaming these kinds of things in the past. But sometimes we only anticipate it, and then do nothing for it. I’ve heard one saying which throws light on the future effectively: “If you want to understand what result will be manifested in the future, look at the causes that exist in the present.” This is a really old saying which was made about 900 years ago in Japan. When I read this, I felt this was definitely true.
 
This saying means what we do now decides what will happen or how we will be in the future. About exams, for instance, if you study hard now, you may be able to get a good result in the future. If not, it is very likely you won’t get a bad result. Thinking simply, when you want something to eat now, if you don’t move and buy anything, you can’t eat and fulfill your desire. It is necessary to look at the future but according to this statement, action in the present is more important for us.
 
Of course, it is the decision of individuals what you do now. It is good to do nothing for some persons, also it is good to act for the future for some persons. For me, I hope my future will be beautiful and bright. That’s why I would like to think a great deal of the present time and act now.
  

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Fashion can be bought. Style one must possess. -- Edna Woolman Chase.

Abdullah Kelantan
 
Some people mix up fashion and style. They are very similar to each other. However, I think fashion is the clothes itself or the material that we wear in our every day life; for instance, shoes, pants and shirts. Whereas style is how we wear those things to be distinct from others. The fashion industry provides us all the material we need in different shapes and colors with different prices -- some products are cheap and some products are expensive. We go to the shop and we see various kinds of clothes. Sometimes we spend lots of time just to decide which sort of clothes we should choose or which color suits us more in order to be characteristic, and that is style.

If you haven't got my idea, here is an example, the car industry. Car companies produce a wide range of cars that suit everyone's taste. You see sport cars and luxury cars and you also see sedans, coupes or hatchbacks. So, one can decide which car suits his style and makes him or her distinct. For another example, two persons bought the same car but they tuned it up and edited it differently according to their own taste or what I call style.

Finally, as Chase said, we all can buy fashion because the fashion industry provides us lots of choices; however, style is something that we, not the fashion industry, create and it reflects our taste and our imagination. It's like giving a chef an egg, and he can scramble it or make an omelette. 

Tomorrow is the Most Important Thing in Life

Wei Jing Yan (Sally)

I chose this topic because I believe that the future is wonderful and hopeful. It’s just like you don’t know what will happen the next day, but you can have a good expectation of the future.

In China, people always say ‘tomorrow is a new start.’ When the new year’s coming, parents usually teach their children to make a new year's resolution. When I was a child, my parent always taught me how to make new year's resolutions, writing down my new goal and my dream and then planning how to achieve this. I like to make a plan for myself. It can help me confirm my goal.

I believe the world will be more beautiful in the future, because we are all trying our best to protect it. I believe the most of the things that we are imagine now will come true in the future. The quotation is right in saying 'tomorrow is perfect, when it arrives and puts itself in our hands.’ Tomorrow is made by us. If we put our heart in it, take care of it, it will be a wonderful world.

Although we cannot predict what will happen in the future, that is why it looks fantastic.

When tomorrow is coming, we also can learn a lot of things from yesterday. Because maybe we did something inappropriate in public, maybe we said something that will make our friends feel not good, maybe … So, when tomorrow is coming, we should think about ourselves, and  make a review. Don't make those mistakes again.

Tomorrow is just like some white paper, clean and light. You can draw your own picture, and try to make it the best.  
       

Every generation laughs at the old fashions but religiously follows the new.

Kota Sato

It is quite natural for people to tend to seek something new in every generation.  Seeking it, a new culture is made. When people see the new culture, they are enticed and tend to pretend to be the same with the person who made the style for the first time. In other words they follow something new easily and what they do next is to disdain something old which they use to be adapted to

Cultural trends like music are changeable every year and people try to follow them.  Fashion is one of them. People try to find latest trends of fashion and once they have gone, they tend to ignore and disdain those trends. In my opinion, I can’t agree with this idea and have reasons why I feel like that.

While every generation might laugh at the old fashions, they are important parts of history and also describe some details of specific times. For example, lets consider the hippies and their fashion. While nowadays there are many people who feel the fashion of hippies is untidier and more old-fashioned, absolutely it reflects the movement in the 1960s. At the time, the young generation refused an existing system and its sense of values and customs and tried to escape from society. At the same time, the style of the hippies was born: having long hair and wearing flamboyant and psychedelic clothes, and it seems to be a bit dirty. As a result, the fashion has an important role of being reminiscent of that era for people at the present time. In other words, people should have interests in old fashions.

Secondly, if people pursue the latest fashion styles and disrespect old fashions, it means they deny the fashions of the past and even of the future. In other words, they can’t find unchanging and everlasting beauty of fashion styles. I think fashion is one of the most typical cultures in the world and there are some great fashion styles in a generation. Moreover almost all of the people who lead the fashion industry must be familiar with old fashions and apply them to the present generation. In contrast to this, if people ignore old fashions, they can’t wear the latest clothes skillfully and also can’t discover even their original fashion style which is very important to wear clothes with the right effect. Moreover I suggest, of course, it’s interesting and attractive for people to keep up with the latest style of fashion but they shouldn’t be impressionable to them. Rather they should have their own originality and creativity.

Summing up, people tend to dislike old fashion. However old fashions describe not only their styles but also an important part of the history in the world. Moreover I think if people try to disrespect old fashion, I think they can’t learn anything about fashions and in the end people can’t get their original fashion style which is the most important part of fashion because they are only influenced by latest fashions and when they’re gone they laugh at old fashions.