1. Spirituality Definition
   In My view, Spirituality is a belief in something, someone or in one’s own self. Belief in someone or something is usually seen by worshiping of a God or of an object that have been given godly attributes. However, Belief in one’s owns self is the belief in the inner good of a person or in other words belief in one inner self. Spirituality in western terms is also defined as Enlightenment, which is defined as the belief in individualism rather than traditional practices or religion practices. Thus, in this definition spirituality have both religious implication and also implication of being just spiritual.
2. Spirituality Difference from Religion
   Though in many Religions spirituality plays a vital role it thus stands neutral in its association. As in spirituality can be practiced without religion. This is because spirituality stands more abstract then religion. Moreover, spirituality in any instance does not follow a code of ethics like religion but stands as a belief of all moral practice that tends to do moral good for humans or its society. Example of spiritual practices can be seen in the practices of Buddhist monks, as they do not belief is not a religion but rather a life style, which sold purpose the practice of doing good for others and living a simple life.
3. Creativity Definition
   In my view, anything that is beautiful in the human eye is the product of creativity. Thus, creativity is the act of making something beautiful or the product of a beautifying process. Creativity is mostly considered as an art in the human eyes and the maker of such a creative object is always considered as an artist. However, nature is also beautiful and thus considered creative but in this case the artistic value of such creativity are always credited to God or to the science of nature rather then a human artist.
4. The Source of Creativity
   In my view, the source of creativity can either be spiritual or evolutionary. As if its evolutionary, it is our “survival instant” to makes things beautiful and thus in the process of making thing beautiful creativity in the human species comes by our evolution. However, if its spiritual, creativity is fueled by both our reasons as humans and meditation of our internal self of what is creative and relating it to our beliefs in nature, science or religion.

I have always believes that meditation is an important aspect of art. As Shahzia Sikander points out that it is important to keep “respective for tradition and respect for tradition” in the field of creativity, she thus implies the meditation needed for such work. Furthermore, Sikander art is mostly based on traditional values of both Muslim and Hindu Community. This was mostly shown in her paintings of the Indian goddess with the veil used to cover her face. The abstract knowledge of Sikander art is basically based on her personal belief and memorize. Thus, in this respect she uses the spirituality of both religion (Hindu and Muslim) and personal values in her artwork. Examples of these can be seen in the painting in which she uses the letters of the Quran to make meaningful art.

James Turrell showed another aspect of spirituality as he shows the aspect of spirituality that is associated with light and how this tells us our place in the universe. As he uses the crater as a place to observe the light from the moon, sun and stars he points out how with such view we can see that out notions about the universe is wrong that the sun does not rise from the east and sents in the west as it is us who is actually moving but due to the really slow speed of the earths movement we do not actually notice us moving. Thus, Turrell connects the idea of inner peace and spirituality with light as in order to gain inner peace or to mediate one must sit under the bright light of nature or the light of cosmos in order to attain spiritual peace. The Roden Crater project by James Turrell was in order to bring the cosmos closer to better attain the spiritual peace from Cosmos light.

Article 1. (The Phycology Behind Why We Love Scary Movies)

In this article the author Kaitlin Vogel defines three different reasons that identify why do we love horror even with the “disgust” we identify them for. The first reason that is identified by Vogel is as she calls it “The Excitation Transfer Process” in this process as Vogel identifies that “a person heart rate, blood pressure and respiration increases after viewing a frightening film” (Vogel). In this process she further identifies “People tend to subconsciously associate their intense physical reaction as a rush of excitement, which keeps them coming back for more” thus, causing a love for horror films (Vogel). Secondly, she identifies “The Tribal of Passage” as another reason for people interest in horror movies. She describes this passage as a way for “Conquering fears by watching a horror movie makes many men feel more masculine and brave” (Vogel). In her explanation of masculine traits that is shown by men at the completing of the film she relates this behavior to that of our ancestral, in which, it was cultural for men to show strength or masculinity by completing chores that shows a clam behavior towards horror. Lastly, she identifies the final reason of our affection towards horror as she explain the theory of “Morbid Fascination”. In this theory, she identifies our lover for horror in terms of curiosity or to understand something that is outside of our understanding. To better explain this theory she quotes “Paul J. Patterson PhD, assistant professor of English and co-director of Medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation Studies at Saint Joseph’s University, humans have an innate need to understand the world around them, which includes our common fears” (Vogel).

In the Article Why Horror? Noel Carroll identifies the major reason for out love for horror as he states “We are attracted to, and many of us seek out, horror fictions of this sort despite the fact that they provoke disgust, because that disgust is required for the pleasure involved in engaging our curiosity in the unknown and drawing it into the process of revelation, ratiocination, etc” (Carroll, 284). In this article, Carroll describes this as the only and primary reason of why we are attracted to horror movies despite the “disgust” we see in them. This reason is thus similar to the reason provided by Vogel in her article The Phycology Behind Why We Love Scary Movies. As according to her in her final reason she identified the attraction of horror towards Morbid curiosity, which is pretty much what Carroll, is pointing out in his article. However, a notifying fact is Vogel points out three different reasons for affection towards horror while Carroll is centered on the notion of curiosity in his entire article. Though he identifies different versus of the paradox of horror but they were still centered on the notion of curiosity.

Article 2. Horror Movies: Why People Love Them

In this article Leslie Fink also tries to explain why we are attracted to horror movies and thus also identifies three reasons for this affection. The first reason as Fink identifies is “Desired Effect” in this effect she identifies multiple reasons of why one is attracted towards horror. In most of this reason the common sense present is the reason for one to experience horror by their will, as she explains thought their reason differs, as for some is the adrenaline rush and for other is access threat level or masculinity. The second reason identified by Fink is the desire for “Just Plain Suspense” in which, she identifies the reason of affection to be primarily imposed by the suspense provided by the film as she explains the build of suspense for Paranormal Activity. The final reason identified by Fink is merely the biological reason of why we enjoy such horror. As she identifies it “In Your Brain” fink quotes “neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux has mapped out neuron by neuron how the brain’s fear system works. He says the complex human brain with its enormous capacity for thinking, reasoning, and just plain musing, allows us to worry in ways other animals can’t” (Fink).

In comparison to Neal Carroll article Why Horror? Fink does identifies many similar ideas as Neal Carroll as in his article he identifies “ Pleasure derived from the horror fiction and the source of our interest in it resides, first and foremost, in the process of discovery, proof, and confirmation that horror fictions often employ” (Carroll, 282). In this Quote, he identify the pleasure from the build of suspense as the characters in such movies or fiction try to discover, proof and confirm, which, is similar to Fink explanation about her reason for “Just Plain Suspense” as she states “With hardly a drop of blood, suspense builds as the demon (not ghost) makes its malevolence known through increasingly threatening acts the couple witness directly and on video replays. Eventually, things get personal between Micah and the demon despite pleas from Katie and Do Not Disturb warnings from a psychic” (Fink). In this quote, she explains the plot of Paranormal Activity, in which she comprehends how suspense builds up in the movie and leads to curiosity as identified by Carroll.

Sources:

Carroll, N. (2002). Why Horror?. In Neill, A. & Riley, A. (eds.) Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (2nd ed., Chap. 17). New York, NY: Routledge.

Fink, Leslie. “Horror Movies: Why People Love Them.” LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 06 Nov. 2009. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. http://www.livescience.com/7949-horror-movies-people-love.html

Vogel, Kaitlin. “The Psychology Behind Why We Love Scary Movies.” Rewire Me. The Psychology Behind Why We Love Scary Movies Comments. Rewire Me, 29 Oct. 2014. Web. 16 Feb. 2015. <http://www.rewireme.com/explorations/psychology-behind-love-scary-movies/>.

Thinking about my personal dressing makes me realize one think my dressing is far from what’s my cultural dressing is actually suppose to be. As I dress in a more western way or in a most 21^st century way. Basically Jeans, T-shirts, sneakers are my most common everyday wear. But, climate also contributes greatly in my daily dressing as rainy day means I cannot wear my suede sneakers or for sunny days I wont wear a jacket. In this view, I dress as any collage kid would dress around the world. This does not signify any cultural belief upheld by me as Indian, rather I think this type of dressing does signify the culture of our time. I think that every time or era have its own culture as for example; in the 70s bell bottoms jeans were deeply in style however this is not so true for the present decade in which, most of the younger generation prefer wearing jeans that are as skinny as possible. Though time plays a great role in determining the type of dress code I think another factor that as equally responsible in choices of style is age. As different age groups always have different preference in terms of style and dress code. Many people in there 30s or 40s do not were converse or vans or ridiculous shirts that points out they drink or say stuff like “babe magnet”. There is a difference in terms of choice in different age group and mine basically signify that of a collage kid which, Is mostly the cause why I presently dress the way that I do. However, this was not always the case as few years ago when I was still in mother care my dressing sense was very different then now. Mostly, my mother choose my cloths and her choices, now that I think about it would not be something that I would consider wearing.

My family is originally from an Indian background but I was born and raised outside of India. Though not being raised in India, my family has passed down to me many traditional Indian traits including but not limited to the language, cultural belief and religion. However, in thins I have always been thought that Indian woman are to wear “saris” and “salwar kurta” are traditional attire. Piercing of nose and ears are additional adornments that are part of the Indian culture of woman also. However, unlike girls boys on the other hand not have much cultural specification for how him or her should dress. Basically its Indian cultural attire for man are traditional “kurta” but being born and brought up in a foreign country it was never actually necessary for me to practice such traditional dressing. However, on the other hand even in most of India such body adornment practices are mostly only practiced in events and not as a everyday casual wear. As for me my family was never specific in terms of how should I customize my body in terms of dressing. We basically practices western dressing and match with the crowd of were we lived. Other form of body adornment like piercing and tattoos are not part of Indian cultural belief and therefore weren’t practiced by my parents. Though they are not forbidden my family always had an indifferent nature towards it. My family is more western and belief in rationality more over culture and religion. They belief of body adornment is shown by wearing an expensive designer suit, shoes and an expensive watch. This type of adornment does not reflect on me at this point in life but are types of adornment that interest me the most.

My peer community, which is the American community and culture, is driven by an extensive nature of consumerism. In such light, there are many ways of body adornment including but not limited to tattoos, piercing, and fancy dressing. Though they’re many others in my belief these are the most widely practiced among all. Tattoos I think are the most common as in American as according to a NBC poll in 2014 about 40% of Americans have some form of tattoo and the number is actually growing. This can even be seen in our university campus as many students have some form of tattoo. The second form that I think is equally common as tattoo is fancy dressing. In a consumerist society is no surprise that fancy dressing is one major form of customization as the entire economy runs on the fact that people want something better and cheaper. Thus the successful accomplishment in the clothing industry can show how important and successful is dressing adornment in America.

The first person that caught my attention while walking past the bench I am sitting on in Starbucks, is an African- American guessing from his accent and skin color. He is basically in kind of a sports ware north face jacket, sweat pants and some beats headphone around his head. He was walking with another one his friend and they were talking after picking up their Starbucks drinks on their way out. Looking at his dressing, behavior, and location I think he is really interested in sports probably even a sportsman and a collage student due to him being at a collage Starbucks and around the university with a backpack. He looks really fit, definitely work’s out judging by the muscles. Probably between the age if 20-23 and judging from the evening Starbucks is probably about to go to the library to study. I think he was Christian though I don’t have any proof or explanation to my thought here. Well most these assumption are merely based on his physical appearance and location with the exception of the religion belief. I think I feel he is Christian because I’ve lived in a Christian country in West Africa and due to the fact that most of my friends were African and Christian he too would have the same belief.

Secondly, Another Asian male who is presently waiting for his coffee caught my attention. I think in this case he caught my attention among the other four people that are waiting at the counter is because of his unique hair style as he have something like a pony tail in the middle of his head with really low cut on the sides. He is basically wearing a shirt and some jeans and really expensive looking Nike sneakers. Judging with the no backpack and jacket and Asian background, I think that he has a car and left his backpack and jacket in the car and is just grabbing a Starbucks on his way home. He is alone waiting, on his iPhone the entire wait time, seems like he was texting someone. He was definitely a male, barely over 20 in age, could be a Chinese, was a little skinny but healthy and doesn’t look like he works out. I cant seem to think about his religion as I don’t know much about Chinese belief but I think he could be a Buddhist. This basically suggest my thought for Asian especially on the university campus is that they are all or mostly basically rich.

The third person that I have noticed or have been noticing is this really cute girl sitting on the very opposite side of I’m sitting and we are basically facing each other. Well, she have been sitting there with something that looks like a iced latte drink even before I entered Starbucks and seems to be doing some sort of homework probably writing an essay. She is wearing glasses, and has short hair. Her cloths is hard to describe as it looks like a t-shirt but judging by the feathery look I don’t think it’s a t-shirt however, she is definitely wearing a jeans and some boots. Well she is definitely female, about 18 or 19 years of age, she’s white probably an American, and seems a little stress probably due to schoolwork. One think this says about my values is that I am definitely attracted towards girls, and I can relate with her in terms of schoolwork.