When i started watching this video i proclaimed "Nice!". My roommate asked me what i was watching and i explained that in this village women have multiple husbands as opposed to the Mormons that have multiple wives. He responded "How is that nice?". I didn't really have an answer for him, but i am all about equality so i said "Well its good for her i guess". Its funny how things orient themselves when the necessity is the priority. Like in this village, a population increase could be fatal to their entire structure. Not the first thing i thought of when i heard multiple husbands, i just thought she was a really cool lady, so a bunch of guys married her. It turns out most of the marriages like this are siblings too. That just blew my mind, Jerry Springer taught us that when your lady bangs your bro you gotta punch the shit out of him and leave that ho. But realistically you have to imagine the trust, love, patience, and honest understanding that these people have of each other and themselves. I'm sure there are still fights here and there, no relationship runs smooth 24/7 but the fact that the entire village has adopted this way of life is truly amazing. How jealousy doesn't destroy these relationships just gives me a humble reality check. I get jealous very easily, most of the time with girls i don't even know or have ever talked to, and this helps me see how selfish(stupid) i am being. The only question i have is who gets to impregnate the woman. I'm guessing the oldest brother first, but then does the other brother get dibs on the next egg fertilization?, or just the most potent man gets all the babies? I'm sure with the patience they must exhibit being in this arrangement already they have probably talked these things out near the beginning of their relationship. That also brings up the question of why the population is unbalanced to the point that there are less women than men, or if it even is unbalanced. I mean i know the stories of china abandoning their daughters so they could carry on their name but i didn't think it affected the population all that much in the long run. Also this is in India and Tibet where I'm sure they weren't as affected by such ideals in the first place. This does bring up a many curiosities and ideals that I'm sure we in the US find hard to relate to.

The question presented is easy for me to answer because i do already feel this way about the world so there really is nothing i would change about how i live but i feel like although empathy is personally one of my strongest traits, i feel it is one of my biggest weaknesses. If i am feeling depressed some days i may look inwardly so much that i don't realize that people all around me are having very similar thoughts and emotions. Other times i see pain in someone's eyes, disgust, awkwardness, Joy , laughter, it all sparks a similar emotion in myself whether i want to feel it or not. Even if someone is playing a prank on another, that spit second before they realize it is a prank is almost agony for me. This video really helps me think of my empathy as something to embrace, although it is still tough for me because i don't think i have the best social skills to express my emotions. One thing that i have always wanted to do and this video really gives me motivation to do is find some connections with an organization that i can volunteer my time to so i can meet like minded empathetic people. I feel my own self confidence is holding me back from making those connections because i feel people judge me on my looks and the fact that i have 2 felonies on my record makes me feel like i will be turned away, but i know internally that is bullshit. I'm just to lazy to go out and change the way i have been doing things for years now and i am sure i would be accepted into an organization if i actually tried. Another thing is that i have been fired from jobs before and i have also quit jobs before and i really feel like i let my co-workers down. Its a feeling that "i will eventually fuck this up" and i think that has stopped me from working for about 2 years now. When i am part of a group though, i strive and i feel much more confident and i bring happiness to everyone around me. I was asked to come back by my old boss many times just because of how fun i made the work environment he told me. Once you have something, its hard to imagine what its like when you didn't have it.

"Don't know what you got, till its gone" - Cinderella said it best.

PS: did you ever notice the word empathetic has the word pathetic in it? Someone really needs to change that.

The best part about this video is the look on the 3rd guys face, he just looks so flustered and eager to conform.

Although I'm sure i would do the same thing in his situation, you have to take into account the year that came out and the environment. People were more formal those days in their dress and business behavior. Nowadays i feel if it was just a my dorm elevator and i walked into that situation i would just be like "what the hell are you guys doing?". But if it was at a campus building and professors where all facing that direction i would feel the urge to conform more just because of their status compared to mine and the environment i am in.

Conformity is a strong force. Of all of the invisible strings we have talked about i feel this is the strongest because of how social we are and now how connected we are with each other. In the same sense, I'm sure some strings are so invisible that have been tied to us at birth that it is harder to place how they have lead you to where you are in life right now.

I still would like to think i would not conform to something like this and that i have the power to choose what i do in society but i know i am being held down because i don't walk around naked everywhere, jerking off onto attractive women i see on the street. I know the consequences of these actions because i have been to jail before (not for jerking off, but for being naked), which is what we use as a corrector in our society. Although being different in an elevator isn't a crime, the fear of being chastised is a strong motivator.

Its hard to give one reason for this very high birthrate, its even harder to state whether or not these girls are "free". How free are any of us? How do we even measure that? I think one of the biggest factors to this baby boom is just location, it seems like its almost the norm there. Obviously not all of the pregnancies are accidental with such a large number of babies/births. Weather or not they are actually making these choices as individuals or partners is where the question of freedom is brought into it. Maybe they have friends who were pregnant or they may see a trend where once a girl gets pregnant at this school she happens to be more popular afterward where in other school the opposite would more than likely happen. Possibly they get pregnant as a statement of fertility to males, although that's more of an instinctual thing. One thing is definitely clear, those babies are going to take a huge chunk of freedom away from 90 girls so in that sense they aren't very free anymore. I guess the real question was if they were ever free then if they didn't want to have a baby, or didn't have the money for an abortion. How free are they if they thought they were making the decision for themselves or it was just the location and trend where they went to high school.
I also hate when you see the nurse of the school say that its the media that is filling their minds with sex, (i looked up another video about the same story), although I'm sure there are some invisible strings due to the media but there are different factors at control here, because this isn't a widespread thing, its a focused area where the baby boom is happening.

I can never claim to know how a soldier feels after a 4 year deployment but thinking as a sociologist, the marines/army/navy/air force is a very distinct classification of people with many more pressures from society than anyone else in any other profession will ever face. Lets break it down. Separation from family and friends, similar to what children that move around a lot have to face never having a support group like friends and family around them. Usually the new recruits are young, still teens most of the time, so they are still growing mentally and physically wile being thrown into this awkward environment. Being predominantly male that doesn't help either. Finally joining the military is already a risk seeking choice to make, which is a trait shared with alcoholics and drug users. With all that said, you could say just being in the military would raise your chances of suicide and has a more than average rate of alcoholic drinking behaviors. Maybe not drug users because of the intense drug testing, most of them will be kicked out before they are deployed if they fail a drug test. On top of that, daily life is a struggle in the desert once they get deployed, bringing up stress levels and i assume the use of stress relievers. If they happen to see combat, or are a part of combat, that brings up a whole new set of stress they have to go though, like losing a friend or having to kill someone. Something that serious most people will never have to deal with but it can really change a person going through something like that.