I chose to do the same thing as Journal 15, I spoke to a few of my friends and one of them mentioned the statement, “Genuinely something I’ve been thinking about is how I became the person I am today, So I guess like what made you who you are today.” I became really excited to start writing away at this, I will speak on a philosophy that I learned from reading the work of a philosopher known as John Locke (1632-1704), and my own interpretation of how I view it.

A single grain of dust sculpted from a mountain, I will leave the earth with a speck of what I was when I came. A single grain of art, created by the chisiling of life without restrctions, without opinion on who or what wished to enact on it. That is the way I wish to sculpt my stone.

Jude Camacho

Tabula Rasa

Tabula Rasa or otherwise known as ‘blank slate’. A thought process proposed by John Locke.

This thought process is that individuals are born without any content within their brain, simply a blank Tablet (blank paper). All knowledge comes from experience and perception.
Now we do know that genetically this is not true. But in the same way, I feel for a more generalized sense, it’s very true.

I mean that like, the people we are, we really are. not the instinctual Homosapien version of us but the person speaking our mind’s inner monologue.

That person is in my opinion, built upon a Tabula Rasa. Who we are today is fundamentally built upon our past and present. Who we’ve been surrounded by throughout our lives, the things we’ve seen, heard, and experienced. It’s all taken into account, all written upon our Tabula Rasa, think of it as a single page at birth morphing into a beautiful book at the end.

I feel that holding this outlook can do a lot of beneficial things throughout your life, and throughout your present moments.

• It will make you more sincere for those around you and your present moment because of two reasons
  • You will begin to want to be a good character, leaving off and entering on a good note within their story
    • If you want to be a really good character in other people’s books, would you not want to act the ‘good’ way all around you?
  • You will want your story to be written in the richest way possible constantly
    • You get to choose how this book is written, it writes along with the present moment, it doesn’t write how reality is, it writes how you make a reality, if you wish each moment to be joyful and amazing, never letting anyone else ruin your book you’re trying to write, guess what kind of life you’ll live?

Personal Statements

For this personal statement, I just kinda wanna do it differently and take the chance to sit down and free-write whatever comes to mind, I would hope that my mind will speak on whatever I have written about above but Ill let it kinda freely write away as I am right now.
I’ve always pondered on this thought process of a blank slate but I think it kinda morphed into its own mental image in my own way. I think in geometrical ways a lot I’m not sure why that happens but I see 3d images, not like a movie reel within my head, I can kinda step into the reality’s I daydream.

So when I think about this example I almost imagine it in the view of a sculptor, and we are each, all sculptors, all with our own chisel and tools to chip away.
When we are born we all have this massive, absolutely monstrous Stone Cube

The Stone and Chisel

• In our youth, we just see a giant stone cube within our mind that’s fun to hit away at, with no real intention of what is going to come of it, we let any other Sculptor that wishes to chisel away at it, take their shot freely, leaving their mark within our piece of art that represents life.
  • As a kid, we don’t care who offers their help, thoughts, or actions because we have yet to experience anyone, after we see the result we can judge our future decisions on that sculptor and people who work in a way that’s similar
• As we grow up we begin to start imagining what we could do with this stone block, there’s still very much of it left and our imagination runs wild thinking of all the possibilities, we maintain our creativity as we don’t have any ideas, set in stone
• The thing is, many lose this child-like outlook for this piece of stone, and become very defensive about their art, whether it’s from comparing it to what others plan to build, how much stone they’ve already chiseled away, or admiring those that have finished building their pieces of art already, people become set in what they feel is beautiful, ugly, good or bad, when its all relative, all opinion, all based on the experiences you’ve had that have chiseled away at your stone.
• I feel that it’s important to remember, no one ever told us what to do with our stone, no one ever informed us our art has to be a certain way, or has to be this good, but we listen to those around us, and the society we live in, forcing ourself to think that we have to decide what kind of art were going to make out of it, choose a handful of sculptors that will help you with that, and don’t let anyone else touch it in fear of messing up your art.
• I personally want to always be sure that whatever sculptor wishes to leave their mark on my art, they can hit away, if I ever feel that they are not the artist, or they lose the outlook I have for mine, they walk away, and same to them for me, I wish for my piece of stone to not be art, but just a grain of dust that was sculpted by any artist I could find, hitting away until there is nothing left.
• I don’t feel that it matters if there is anything there, as this piece of stone leaves existence the moment you do. The art is left for everyone to see if they wish to, but there will be no more art from this sculptor no more.
  • If the art doesn’t stay any longer why do we wish to hit at it?
    • Why would there be a Chisel (life) if there was no stone (experience/who we are) to hit?
    • Why was everyone given a Chisel, no different than anyone else, yet we try to say who is born the better sculptor? or complain about the chisel being handed? They all do the same job. They all have the opportunity to create beautiful, meaningful, brilliant art.
• In the same way with life, No chisel is more or less fortunate, no art anymore or less beautiful, everyone and everything, is how you wish to see it.

Closing statements

I hope you have a great day, get 1% better today and be the best version of yourself.