9/13/10
A good and proper reply by Assistant Director Skinner
Mulder: It was you, you were the one who left Cancer Man's location for me... You put your life in danger
Skinner: Agent Mulder, every life, every day, is in danger. That's just life.
Skinner: Agent Mulder, every life, every day, is in danger. That's just life.
9/2/10
Reflections on self-torture...
So I've been thinking... I used to run for the purpose of being healthy (not a very obvious benefit, perhaps a long-term "goal" to be seen, which may not even happen since being healthy depends on other things than just physical exercise), then also for the purpose of losing weight and looking better naked (a definitely more obvious benefit), and then at some point recently I thought maybe I shouldn't bother running. For a week I let it go with intention. I forgot exactly what my reasoning was behind this choice but at some point I decided to go for one jog and found this other purpose... which appears to be stronger than the previous ones mentioned. I think running is sort of self-torture. It hurts, it feels painful breathing when I'm tired, all I start thinking about is how much I would love to collapse and drink water cuz my throat is getting dry as hell. Muscles ache, I stink a lot, have so much sweat pouring down on me, and all that fun stuff... but then I went to the park and let myself collapse in the grass after the jog... and it was a really awesome feeling. There were little thoughts in my head, my body appreciated basically everything about the environment at the moment... didn't even mind the bugs that were definitely under and around me. I've done this before, but I only thought about how delicious the moment was then and there. So I've been thinking about further self-torture, or torture in general... well I hate goriness so those movies when someone's getting mutilated while alive is not what I'm talking about here, I can barely watch that shit. But like, when you got exams coming up, and papers (I talked to A.Lin about this) and you got all this pressure on you and it feels like there's not even time to properly breathe, or shower even, well, when all that is done... I think the feeling is kinda the same. It's this awesome feeling that I'm free from that previous torture and the environment feels just right. Life feels so freeing. I would think that a prisoner who is let out of jail must feel this feeling in exponential amounts. Also, people who come back from the death, many of them seem to just have a change of life and be able to appreciate it so much more. What has changed really? I mean, the environment isn't really that much different. It's just that after all that torture, we are able to appreciate life without it. Without the torture itself, it just kinda goes by, same as with torture, but more like, unnoticed. The wind doesn't strike me as so important day to day as after a jog. The ground doesn't seem so comfortable. The shade of a tree. All that stuff I barely even notice throughout my days, but that's ALL I notice after the self-torture moments of jogging. Life just tastes good. Even meditation, it's torture to have to just pay attention to my breath and not do anything else for a while. But it helps me appreciate the time when I'm not meditating more. Well it could be a little different with meditation... though I did kinda get this idea from the buddhist book "The Joy of Living", where the author talks about how what we seek to gain from meditation is the feeling of bliss one would get from finishing a difficult job...
But yea, basically I think self-torture is good. I think now I need it a lot more, in terms of jogging at least... knowing that that feeling can be brought about by me... now that's enough of a motivation to get me to do horrible things haha. That feeling of weightlessness and appreciation seems to be pretty close to happiness.
But yea, basically I think self-torture is good. I think now I need it a lot more, in terms of jogging at least... knowing that that feeling can be brought about by me... now that's enough of a motivation to get me to do horrible things haha. That feeling of weightlessness and appreciation seems to be pretty close to happiness.
9/1/10
The X Files... Season 1 Finished, Season 2 Started... focus on the M&S love
So I just started season 2. The first episode is called 'little green men'... in it there's a lot more of the subtle mulder/scully love, and it's that love that I wanna talk about now. Throughout season 1, we see the hints of sexual attraction come up here and there. There's jealousy that comes up often from both parties. However, this jealousy is manifested as a tiny flicker, as if trying to turn on a lighter. It comes and as soon as is there it leaves. What's interesting is that past that jealousy what remains is friendship. The bond between Mulder and Scully thus, is definitely held by friendship. When Mulder ran off with that british chick who had broken his heart years before and he explicitly told Scully he was gonna go with that "case" alone, Scully got a little annoyed, but like I said, it was just a flicker of annoyance. Soon after, she started digging in the case and went over to where Mulder was to help him out. I guess if it were me, I would just think... well I guess he just likes that chick so I'm just gonna go do my own thing instead, and I'd be all pissed and thinking about what they might be doing by themselves and trying to block that out of my head or trying to "accept the truth." But Scully is too awesome for simply sulking, so she decided to go out there with her findings, and even when she found them 2 dancing quite romantically (and also didn't like what she saw), she stayed and saved a few people's lives by doing that. It really was quite awesome to watch. That episode was really awesome actually, it was called 'Fire,' from the first season. Anyway in the beginning of this first ep of season 2, Mulder is acting depressive cuz the X Files had been shut down, even ignored Scully and shit. She remained strong and still looked for him, even went after him when he left to San Juan looking for extraterrestrial signs. He had said at some point that he didn't even trust himself anymore. She urged him to go back to his search for truth, which is really interesting because most of the time what she does is try to bring him back to reality and snap him out of his loony ideas. I guess she did that cuz she knew that was such an important thing to him, and because it was important to him, it also was important to her. I'm recalling the many times when after trying to convince Mulder to get a life, she ended up going after him and joining him in all the adventures. But anyway, at the end of the episode, Mulder tells Scully how even without having the X Files assigned to him anymore, he still had his work, he still had her, and he still had himself. I thought it was really cool how he said he still had her, and even cooler that he said he still had himself. He'd lost himself and Scully helped him bring himself back. That to me is true love, I guess. It's very bound on a strong friendship. Thus, their attraction doesn't stand alone in the game, it doesn't override the friendship, and because of that, neither of them quits based on the simple appearance of rejection.
Which brings me to my next point... why is their friendship so strong to begin with? Well, in my strong opinion, it is so strong because to begin with indeed, they started their relationship based on their own selves. Each never left his and her own self out of the situation. This creates the conflicts we see in each episode, and somehow their differences do not make them hate each other but rather appreciate the qualities that each brings. So, I think that when we decide to be our most honest selves, when we don't say things just to be nice, or just to have the other person like us, we undoubtedly create higher possibilities for disagreement. That I guess is the test in and of itself, if we can stand the person, or even like the person when he or she is defending the truest part of themselves, then we know whether we really like them for who they are. Because Mulder and Scully weren't trying to like each other, but because they were trying to defend their true ideas, beliefs, selves, they were able to forge a friendship that endures the volatile attraction that men and women are likely to feel for each other. So what I'm saying is this, the attraction by itself, without true friendship, cannot survive reality. Attraction is a fleeting thing. For some, it may last longer than others, but like all feelings, in my strong opinion, it comes and goes. So I guess, what I would call love as of now, is the ability for both people to stand for themselves and each other as a friend, when the attraction they feel for each other is threatened or compromised. Which definitely doesnt seem like an easy feat. And I dunno if I've seen it happen anywhere other than in the X Files really... well, I guess I have had that type of friendship with some friends, but I don't have a sexual attraction for them...
Which brings me to my next point... why is their friendship so strong to begin with? Well, in my strong opinion, it is so strong because to begin with indeed, they started their relationship based on their own selves. Each never left his and her own self out of the situation. This creates the conflicts we see in each episode, and somehow their differences do not make them hate each other but rather appreciate the qualities that each brings. So, I think that when we decide to be our most honest selves, when we don't say things just to be nice, or just to have the other person like us, we undoubtedly create higher possibilities for disagreement. That I guess is the test in and of itself, if we can stand the person, or even like the person when he or she is defending the truest part of themselves, then we know whether we really like them for who they are. Because Mulder and Scully weren't trying to like each other, but because they were trying to defend their true ideas, beliefs, selves, they were able to forge a friendship that endures the volatile attraction that men and women are likely to feel for each other. So what I'm saying is this, the attraction by itself, without true friendship, cannot survive reality. Attraction is a fleeting thing. For some, it may last longer than others, but like all feelings, in my strong opinion, it comes and goes. So I guess, what I would call love as of now, is the ability for both people to stand for themselves and each other as a friend, when the attraction they feel for each other is threatened or compromised. Which definitely doesnt seem like an easy feat. And I dunno if I've seen it happen anywhere other than in the X Files really... well, I guess I have had that type of friendship with some friends, but I don't have a sexual attraction for them...
8/30/10
God as Truth
Lately I've been musing that there might be a god after all, and if there is one, I would guess at the moment that it is "The Truth." The truth manifests itself through all things, alive and not alive. The truth is itself all things. However, because most things do not have a conscience, like humans do, we are able to not only be living truth but we are also able to study it, think about it, decode it, examine it, use it, etc. It's like, all things are manifestations of truth, and instruments of it. We can be "sharper" instruments because we can sense things that most other beings cannot. Nevertheless, there are beings who can sense things we cannot sense such as bats and dolphins, which use a "radar" type of hearing/seeing. They have developed such adaptations as a species overtime because that way they are more efficient at survival. Nevertheless, what I want to tie into the whole survival aspect of life is that there is more truth to be noted from the outside world the more our senses can perceive. And the more our mind can do with truth. I know A.Lin would disagree with me on this, and I probably wouldn't be able to put up a good argument because I'm only just playing with the idea. But basically, what I think is that with more evolution, we are more and more able to perceive truth, understand it, and do more with it. It expands our capabilities as beings in existence.
Anyway, I find truth within me a lot. I find that I have denied truth within me a lot too. Usually when I notice that that's what I'm doing though, I feel a bit disappointed about myself but then I get over it and realize that I cannot go against truth. For example, after getting into a fight with someone I care about, I stand strongly for my POV. Shortly after, I realize that my POV is not so complete, and what the other person is saying is also true, and that because I wanted to stand for my POV so much, I exaggerated it and denied the possibility of truth coming from the other person. This process of realizing more truth within me is what I mean by there being truth within us all. However, I can also, as I've done many times before, try to hold on to my anger, and push away all thoughts that come into my mind that stand up for the other person's POV and thus make my own POV even stronger and more "cement-like" to the point where I have to keep it in my mind constantly in case the issue ever comes up again and I feel "strong enough" to defend it. In this case, I would be blocking thoughts that come into mind which also stand for truth. At some point over the past few years, after accepting truth within me, I've come to realize that usually (at least) both POVs have a certain amount of truth to them. Discarding either is like breaking the truth and wanting to keep only part of it. It's like that old Salomon tale of wanting to keep half of the baby. You kill it that way. The truth is to be had as whole as possible. It is within us already, I think the only thing that stands in its flow is our ego, which is my other musing of lately.
But yea, let's see how the truth fits into the old Christian prayer "Our Father":
Truth, which is everywhere and in everything,
Wise is Your Name;
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
everywhere.
Help us survive this day,
and tell us how to forgive ourselves,
and help us forgive those who sin against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from our egos. Amen.
Anyway, I find truth within me a lot. I find that I have denied truth within me a lot too. Usually when I notice that that's what I'm doing though, I feel a bit disappointed about myself but then I get over it and realize that I cannot go against truth. For example, after getting into a fight with someone I care about, I stand strongly for my POV. Shortly after, I realize that my POV is not so complete, and what the other person is saying is also true, and that because I wanted to stand for my POV so much, I exaggerated it and denied the possibility of truth coming from the other person. This process of realizing more truth within me is what I mean by there being truth within us all. However, I can also, as I've done many times before, try to hold on to my anger, and push away all thoughts that come into my mind that stand up for the other person's POV and thus make my own POV even stronger and more "cement-like" to the point where I have to keep it in my mind constantly in case the issue ever comes up again and I feel "strong enough" to defend it. In this case, I would be blocking thoughts that come into mind which also stand for truth. At some point over the past few years, after accepting truth within me, I've come to realize that usually (at least) both POVs have a certain amount of truth to them. Discarding either is like breaking the truth and wanting to keep only part of it. It's like that old Salomon tale of wanting to keep half of the baby. You kill it that way. The truth is to be had as whole as possible. It is within us already, I think the only thing that stands in its flow is our ego, which is my other musing of lately.
But yea, let's see how the truth fits into the old Christian prayer "Our Father":
Truth, which is everywhere and in everything,
Wise is Your Name;
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
everywhere.
Help us survive this day,
and tell us how to forgive ourselves,
and help us forgive those who sin against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from our egos. Amen.
8/24/10
THE X FILES REVISITED, part 3
I was afraid of this... it has happened. I dont even know how it began that I decided to watch that first episode of the X Files again... maybe because I saw Khooshboo at work watching it. The flame rekindled inside me... little by little though. It began as the blur vague memory of that year I spent watching the whole X Files series. I can probably guess what year it was. I was working at the daycare center and had graduated high school. I remember calling out maybe twice because I just couldn't keep my head from being fed more and more episodes of the season I had recently received from China. During those days downloading wasn't really the thing to do, not with movies anyway, that was back when people downloaded songs and not albums. I had my old eMachines then too. My guess is that the year was 2004 then... I really need to be keeping track of these things. I know the year is kind of arbitrary in and of itself but I really am interested in making connections. So I kinda wanna have an idea of the things that were going on around that time as well. I wanna see if I can figure out why I am rewatching the X Files now. What is it that my soul gathers from it? This is basically the best show I've seen in my life. I am aware of that now. Not when I first watched it. The very first time I watched it was probably when I was 10 years old. I remember this one particular instance, when I watched it with my father. Memories can get mixed up though, and thus, are not to be fully trusted. But according to this memory, we were in my parents room and we watched the episode of when Mulder and Scully get stuck in the woods, and there are these fluorescent bugs in the trees that are fatal in some way shape or form, and I just know that is one of my most favorite X Files episodes and I cannot remember much more from it, even though I have at least seen it twice already, if not more times. But yea, me and my dad, and usually my brother, the three of us used to watch scary or creepy things all the time, and I loved it. It gave me nightmares since I was a kid but I just loved the whole process of watching scary movies with them. I can't remember my brother being around that time we watched that particular X Files episode though. I remember the AC being on, which was a relief. I think it was evening time too. I remember thinking, this is a really cool thing to watch. I remember asking my dad about it. I don't think he knew much but I remember he liked it a lot too. I also remember wanting to watch more and more of it. So I was able to catch it on tv a few times and I loved every single instance of it. I mean I know I did but I can't remember any of those other instances the way I remember the time I saw it with my dad. I must have seen about 10 or so episodes that I was able to catch on tv. Later on when I came to the US, I believe that I caught a few on cable, and then I tried to catch it regularly on cable. I stole a few newspapers from different neighbors' front lawns on Sundays to get the tv programming for the next week and see when I could watch the x files again, along with other movies that could be interesting. Then, at the point when I could finally make online transactions and after a while of having discovered eBay and becoming somewhat addicted to it as well, I found the cheap Chinese copies of the X Files seasons on eBay. They went for about 30 bucks each, including shipping, which at the time was really really cheap. And then was the "part 2" of the X Files for me, which is kinda more like part 1 cuz I had never seen the full series before, but anyway. I call it that because I was much older then. Now that I think about it, it was probably 8 years since I had first encountered the show, and since then it's been about 8 years till now that I sort of decided to rewatch it. Have I mentioned 8 is my favorite number? haha... what's one of the X Files mantras... "I want to believe"... gotta love that. The other 2 being of course, "The truth is out there" (which is so amazing), and finally "Trust no one"... I remember setting up a password for something as that, it was 'trustno1' actually but yea, probably an easy one to uncover... And so I went through that throughout that year. It's about 200 hours worth of episodes, and it could've taken me a lot less to watch it but I didn't have that much money and so I bought season after season and had to go through the process of waiting from bidding till actually receiving it between each season. Throughout that year also the way I mostly enjoyed or felt compelled to join in conversations was to begin with "That reminds me of this one episode of The X Files..." and it pretty much could've just ended there cuz most people were simply not interested. I found 2 people... TWO PEOPLE who basically shared the passion I had, in the same level of intensity. (Well, I remember you and I Jaime had some talks about it, but mostly I remember you telling me that I reminded you of Carlo, ur friend in EC who apparently loved the X Files as much as me; a fact which I had to confirm when I got there, mostly cuz it seems so hard to believe it based on the infrequency of such occurrence, and yes, he did indeed love The X Files as much as me except at the time that I asked we were in that really awesome club and I was half drunk and also couldn't remember much of the X Files because my memory is a case in and of itself and requires its own blog post...) But yes, the 2 people were 2 older men, 1 who was the father of a boy I babysat, and another one who was an instructor for an art class I took. I had crushes on both of these men and that could be something else to explore either in this post or later... but I do definitely wonder now if it all began with The X Files... I hear the music goin now in my head... and what I mostly want to say about these encounters is that when I talked to them about the series, their eyes lit up and the excitement took over them. I could definitely understand them at that moment.
So then, I encountered Dr Who later on... read a lot of books... and then now, just a few days ago, decided to give in to the temptation of being sucked back into the X Files world. However now, I don't just want to be a passive observer, not that I ever really was, but I want to be as active in it as possible. I want to know why it does what it does to me, and to the few people that it also seems to affect. If I'm gonna get into this again, to give up the next 185 hours of my life to this (I already spent about 15), I want to discover as much as I can. I want to find a bridge between my reality and The X Files inasmuch as possible. And if I sound crazy, well I may be. But I'm not alone. There are others like me out there. There's even a book that was written by X Files producers and authors, and it's an intelligent book, not one of them celebrity gossip things. It's called 'The Philosophy of The X Files" and it explores pragmatism, feminism, existentialism, love and friendship. All things I often think about, well maybe not feminism so much.
I may not believe in aliens, the paranormal, god, government conspiracies, love, and all those awesome things that The X Files make us wonder about. I may not believe in any of them. But if there is something I want to believe in, it's the truth, and our relationship to it. The truth is out there. I want to believe. And I trust no one to be given it. It must be sought for oneself and by oneself.
So then, I encountered Dr Who later on... read a lot of books... and then now, just a few days ago, decided to give in to the temptation of being sucked back into the X Files world. However now, I don't just want to be a passive observer, not that I ever really was, but I want to be as active in it as possible. I want to know why it does what it does to me, and to the few people that it also seems to affect. If I'm gonna get into this again, to give up the next 185 hours of my life to this (I already spent about 15), I want to discover as much as I can. I want to find a bridge between my reality and The X Files inasmuch as possible. And if I sound crazy, well I may be. But I'm not alone. There are others like me out there. There's even a book that was written by X Files producers and authors, and it's an intelligent book, not one of them celebrity gossip things. It's called 'The Philosophy of The X Files" and it explores pragmatism, feminism, existentialism, love and friendship. All things I often think about, well maybe not feminism so much.
I may not believe in aliens, the paranormal, god, government conspiracies, love, and all those awesome things that The X Files make us wonder about. I may not believe in any of them. But if there is something I want to believe in, it's the truth, and our relationship to it. The truth is out there. I want to believe. And I trust no one to be given it. It must be sought for oneself and by oneself.
8/18/10
Feelings are weight
This phrase has been popping up in my head. Fear/love/hate/guilt/anger/hornyness/jealousy/happiness/sadness etc. they push us one way or another. They are weight. We carry them with us whenever we have them. Because of their weight they have us do things. We are like their puppets whenever we act upon them. It sounds terribly negative at the moment. Guess I'm feeling sort of negative and cynical. In light of recent events. Feelings trick me. They make me act in certain ways. They make me do things. They make me convince myself that this or that is right or wrong. When I like one of them things, I want it to stay. When I don't like one of them, I want it to leave. Some people seem to be good at pushing some feelings away, and keep some. Somehow they can keep happiness and push away sadness. Well I forget them all. Each and everyone of them. Even if I do act upon them. None of them are sacred for me. They are all things that come and go, and I'm not just being zen about it. Maybe I am. I dunno. I'm just kinda ranting mindlessly maybe. Possibly, maybe, probably, somewhat... those are safe words because I know that my feelings transform me constantly and if I were to take each one fully and act on each one I'd be "a million different people from one day to the next" but maybe I am anyway because I do feel them, even if I don't act upon them. And maybe "I can't change my mold."
8/7/10
Angry Young Man, by Billy Joel
I think this song has really awesome lyrics... I hadnt heard it in a while and yesterday I heard it again, at the Fort Lee carnival, which Lin and me decided to check out since we were in the area... but yea, great lyrics... and I relate currently to the highlighted paragraph, while I used to related to the other stuff more when I was younger...
And there's always a place for the angry young man,
With his fist in the air and his head in the sand.
And he's never been able to learn from mistakes,
So he can't understand why his heart always breaks.
And his honor is pure and his courage as well,
And he's fair and he's true and he's boring as hell-
And he'll go to the grave as an angry old man.
There's always a place for the angry young man
With his working class ties and his radical plans
He refuses to bend, he refuses to crawl,
And He's always at home with his back to the wall.
And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost,
And he struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross-
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.
There's a place in the world for the angry young man
With his working class ties and his radical plans
He refuses to bend, he refuses to crawl,
And He's always at home with his back to the wall.
And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost,
And he struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross-
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.
Give a moment or two to the angry young man,
With his foot in his mouth and his heart in his hand.
He's been stabbed in the back, he's been misunderstood,
It's a comfort to know his intentions are good.
And he sits in a room with a lock on the door,
With his maps and his medals laid out on the floor-
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.
I believe I've passed the age
Of consciousness and righteous rage
I found that just surviving was a noble fight.
I once believed in causes too,
I had my pointless point of view,
And life went on no matter who was wrong or right.
With his working class ties and his radical plans
He refuses to bend, he refuses to crawl,
And He's always at home with his back to the wall.
And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost,
And he struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross-
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.
Give a moment or two to the angry young man,
With his foot in his mouth and his heart in his hand.
He's been stabbed in the back, he's been misunderstood,
It's a comfort to know his intentions are good.
And he sits in a room with a lock on the door,
With his maps and his medals laid out on the floor-
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.
I believe I've passed the age
Of consciousness and righteous rage
I found that just surviving was a noble fight.
I once believed in causes too,
I had my pointless point of view,
And life went on no matter who was wrong or right.
And there's always a place for the angry young man,
With his fist in the air and his head in the sand.
And he's never been able to learn from mistakes,
So he can't understand why his heart always breaks.
And his honor is pure and his courage as well,
And he's fair and he's true and he's boring as hell-
And he'll go to the grave as an angry old man.
There's always a place for the angry young man
With his working class ties and his radical plans
He refuses to bend, he refuses to crawl,
And He's always at home with his back to the wall.
And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost,
And he struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross-
And he likes to be known as the angry young man.
8/3/10
About being good or bad at something (and the thought processes that go along with that)
Ive been pondering on the difference in my state of mind when it comes to things I think I'm good at and things I think I'm terrible at. Whether this may or may not affect the results hasn't really been the terrain covered by my pondering. It's more like just watching my thoughts about both things, that I've been going over.
The most obvious comparison that comes to mind is computers vs. people. I'm no super computer wiz but I def enjoy working with them compared to with people. Meaning, I enjoy dealing with computer problems a thousand times more than with people issues. I think I'm good at solving PC problems, but I'm not good at solving people problems. A lot of people, who they themselves get really frustrated with computer issues, seem to think I know every solution to every computer problem there is to have. (See: http://xkcd.com/627/) My boss sometimes calls me after she's tried a bunch of times to fix something, and she'll call me once she's given up and I easily find the solution. In fact, this one time, for something I've never seen before, I said, let's try this, maybe if we click it it will do it. And it did. She was amazed, she was like 'how did you know to go exactly there, when I've been going all over the place for like half an hour??" and I guess that in part got me thinking of how in fact I did know. What is the nature of my comfort with computer issues really. Meanwhile, people around me get surprised that I find simple people things so uncomfortable and often, whether they know it or not, I find them unbearable.
I don't know the solution to most computer issues, just like I don't know the solution to most people issues. I guess the main thing though is that I find that messing up is a good thing with computers. I have tremendous curiosity and whenever I don't get something right, let's say I've been trying to get rid of a virus for hours, I try this one thing, didn't work, this other one, didn't work, etc. etc. I really don't feel that my image is at all compromised by it. I have watched other people when they get frustrated with computer issues. At some point they go "I'm just not good with these things" or something along those lines. While I'm just like, the step you took wasn't good, just try something else. When something hasn't worked it usually leads me to knowing something else. To make it clearer, looking around for how to fix IP configurations in a network printer let me know I can probably use similar settings for computers in the same network, and I was able to set up both the network printer and the individual PCs without any prior networking knowledge whatsoever. I never told this to people in the office, cuz I probably could've messed stuff up and they look at me like I know so much, if they knew that my level of knowledge isn't all that far from theirs, they'd probably freak out because they're trusting me with machines that they depend on daily. Haha. That's kinda fun. But I guess my point here is that I don't feel dumb if I can't get something to work right away. It only gets more and more exciting. (same goes for programming and stuff like that...)
That is NOT the case with people things in general for me. I often tell myself, if this happens, I should say this or that, and act this way or that way. And this is information I've gathered from multiple sources, such as my own past, books, tv, and just watching people behave in their natural habitats. And I tell myself, remember this! and this! and that! etc... and if the situation ever occurs where my knowledge is to be put to the test, what happens is... I FAIL. And so this is probably where I'm able to notice the major difference in my thought processes between situation A and situation B. When this happens I feel really stupid, embarrassed, worried, etc. All very negative emotions that I normally seek to avoid. They usually pass eventually but their weight can be really burdening at times. Maybe that's why I feel so drained out after socializing or similar things like that. I basically expect myself to do what I want me to do right, right from the start. I want me to not make any mistakes at all. Somehow I want to just know everything and how each thing is supposed to be, and be in at most control of myself as humanly possible. These expectations are extremely unrealistic, and basically unnecessary, once I can look at them from this more objective POV. Especially considering I'm just not naturally comfortable in these situations.
I guess the thing is, when computers mess up, and u work on them, they don't actually care. They can get worse sure, but so you just try more and then they can get better. With people, it seems to me, you can hit a wall, where I find you just can't get through anymore. People put up defenses if they conceive that one is trying to harm them, mock them, or just get too close to them in some way. They get offended, they hold on to their judgments, they want to be right. Hitting this wall is something I really wish to avoid because then the situation just seems hopeless to me. Once people start to just hang on to their judgments without wanting to see the situation from other angles, there's nothing really that I can do. And all the effort that it takes to not get to hit that wall, or to try to get past it, that in itself is all so very draining. And why do we care if people hold misconceptions of us? I guess because in the past, when humans lived in tribes, they really depended on each other for survival, and if one member wasn't liked, he or she probably got the worst of everything. I think to this day this is kinda true, if a person pleases others in whatever way, like by being eye candy, or nice, or whatever, they are more likely to get a better treatment and more opportunities from other people. So I guess this is where the basic fear of not wanting to mess with people comes from.
But anyway, I guess I'm trying to cover a lot in this post, and I'm not sure I'm doing such a good job at connecting the dots. I had it in my mind much clearer before but it's not coming out with as much ease as my usual writing.
I wanted to say that the things we're not so good at, are bad habits, a lot of the times anyway. If we keep avoiding them we won't get good at them ever. Sometimes we have to mess up a thousand times. Maybe it's the attitude we take when we mess up that makes the difference. Also, when I wrote this I noticed that I don't really do that much work to get good at computers, and I do a lot more work to get good at people, yet the effects are opposite. I guess maybe I could just try being honest, saying I don't know, and the next time I mess up, and I say to myself that was ghey, I can just accept that it is a bad habit of mine, and accept that I'll probably have to mess up for months, years, or however long it takes. And hopefully there will just be learning. That's the most important thing I can gather from experiences anyway, methinks.
I tried doing this today basically: http://www.raptitude.com/2010/03/how-to-make-mindfulness-a-habit-with-only-a-tiny-commitment/ which had me thinking a lot about habits and how they can be "hard to break." The main gist of that post is to just be mindful (or put simply, pay attention to the outside world and not only to the mental chatter of our minds) when we do 2 things: 1-open any door, and 2-sit on any chair. I thought that would be easy. EXCEPT I kept forgetting to do it. I probably only did it about a fifth of the times, and most of the times I only noticed that I hadn't done it, afterwards. So I felt a little stupid after I would miss the moment I wanted to commit to paying attention to. But then I thought about it more, why should I feel stupid? I haven't done this in the past. I actually expected myself to get it right, again, right from the start. The unconscious brain though, where all the habits live (which wanna live happily ever after) doesn't just respond to our wishes, though yes, how I would love that it just did. It requires a work out. It's basically like losing weight. You gotta exercise over and over and over, to just burn a few calories. So here, it seems we gotta make the mistake and notice and correct it, over and over and over, just to get a little better at what we would like to be doing on a constant basis. Maybe the reason I'm so hard on myself about not wanting to make mistakes is brewed into my brain from when I was a kid. What happened if we messed up as kids? Well for me, I'd get a bunch of scary stuff thrown at me, I'd get yelled at, which I remember I hated more than being struck, or I'd get struck. So it's like, messing up is a really bad thing, and one gets punished for it. I don't think it is really, and I find out more and more through practice, that I should try to accept how messing up is rather necessary. Punishing is probably the worst we can do for ourselves. Yes, old habits die hard, but expecting them to die right away is what's wrong with it. Feeling stupid or sorry for ourselves for not being able to meet such egotistical goals is worse. And much worse yet is punishing ourselves for not keeping it up. So yea, all this stuff is related but still I don't think it came across as sound as it was in my head. oh wells.
I tried doing this today basically: http://www.raptitude.com/2010/03/how-to-make-mindfulness-a-habit-with-only-a-tiny-commitment/ which had me thinking a lot about habits and how they can be "hard to break." The main gist of that post is to just be mindful (or put simply, pay attention to the outside world and not only to the mental chatter of our minds) when we do 2 things: 1-open any door, and 2-sit on any chair. I thought that would be easy. EXCEPT I kept forgetting to do it. I probably only did it about a fifth of the times, and most of the times I only noticed that I hadn't done it, afterwards. So I felt a little stupid after I would miss the moment I wanted to commit to paying attention to. But then I thought about it more, why should I feel stupid? I haven't done this in the past. I actually expected myself to get it right, again, right from the start. The unconscious brain though, where all the habits live (which wanna live happily ever after) doesn't just respond to our wishes, though yes, how I would love that it just did. It requires a work out. It's basically like losing weight. You gotta exercise over and over and over, to just burn a few calories. So here, it seems we gotta make the mistake and notice and correct it, over and over and over, just to get a little better at what we would like to be doing on a constant basis. Maybe the reason I'm so hard on myself about not wanting to make mistakes is brewed into my brain from when I was a kid. What happened if we messed up as kids? Well for me, I'd get a bunch of scary stuff thrown at me, I'd get yelled at, which I remember I hated more than being struck, or I'd get struck. So it's like, messing up is a really bad thing, and one gets punished for it. I don't think it is really, and I find out more and more through practice, that I should try to accept how messing up is rather necessary. Punishing is probably the worst we can do for ourselves. Yes, old habits die hard, but expecting them to die right away is what's wrong with it. Feeling stupid or sorry for ourselves for not being able to meet such egotistical goals is worse. And much worse yet is punishing ourselves for not keeping it up. So yea, all this stuff is related but still I don't think it came across as sound as it was in my head. oh wells.
7/31/10
88 Important Truths (click for original link)
Thanks Nat, for sending these to me, and sorry it's taken me so long to go thru them, but I've just been busy as hell. I almost agree with all of them, but I decided to jot down my comments on them anyways..
1. You can’t change other people, and it’s rude to try.
Yep...
2. It is a hundred times more difficult to burn calories than to refrain from consuming them in the first place.
Yes...goddamn it
3. If you’re talking to someone you don’t know well, you may be talking to someone who knows way more about whatever you’re talking about than you do.
I usually don't make assumptions about what people know or don't, it doesn't make sense to do so, and what they know or don't know doesn't really mean anything special...
4. The cheapest and most expensive models are usually both bad deals.
Yes, the best value for my money is what I usually go for, really cheap things tend to be really crappy, but not necessarily so; and really expensive things, surely are just overpriced, and people flaunting their capability to spend money, to me, are just flaunting their stupidity... unless they keed, then it's all good
5. Everyone likes somebody who gets to the point quickly.
I will copy Nat on this one... "Naturally"
6. Bad moods will come and go your whole life, and trying to force them away makes them run deeper and last longer.
Yes, I learned this some time ago. The deeper one pushes something down, the harder it turns to deal with it, if one ever tries. Of course, we can go through life avoiding dealing with sad/horrible/angry past moments, but I believe that's living on shallowness, choosing to not fully experience our lives. And anyways, the times when I just decided to deal with it on the spot, though it hurts A LOT, eventually (EVENTUALLY) it just goes away, and then I can talk about it without feeling sad/guilty/ashamed about it. There's nothing that we should be really ashamed of anyways, we feel what we feel because of the collection of things that make us who we are. We are rather innocent at the core and at mercy, and the result, of chance.
7. Children are remarkably honest creatures until we teach them not to be.
Exactly. Children can piss me off the same way grownups do. But they move on. And I don't have to worry about being myself around them, they don't have a guidebook in their heads that tell them how I am supposed to act, as we adults do.
8. If everyone in the TV show you’re watching is good-looking, it’s not worth watching.
Well I don't know about that. The TV show is about the story and characters to me. Whether the faces of the people there please my eye or not is just secondary.
9. Yelling always makes things worse.
Sometimes it feels good to do so and get it out of one's way. The person who receives the yelling can interpret it however way he or she chooses to. But in general, I do agree with this.
10. Whenever you’re worried about what others will think of you, you’re really just worried about what you’ll think of you.
YES!!! ...although... there's the exception of when you NEED them to think positively of you, such as in job interviews, meetings, court, or anything where your credibility is at stake. All such situations, I simply hate.
11. Every problem you have is your responsibility, regardless of who caused it.
Yes, definitely. It's my life, what I experience from each of my senses is what makes up my world. I am the only one who can control my body. Hence, I am the person who can actually take care of my own problems. Others might be able to help, but that's just a courtesy, and at times it makes the situation worse, cuz they don't know what is truly going on inside each person. I know they mean well, but taking care of myself is at the core of my beliefs.
12. You never have to deal with more than one moment at a time.
That's interesting. I haven't thought of this much... only of my own inadequacy at dealing with more than one moment at a time. I will read the linked article.
13. If you never doubt your beliefs, then you’re wrong a lot.
All I ever do is doubt my beliefs. But just in case, I don't think that implies that I would then necessarily be right a lot. Cuz I'm not. Maybe I just discover constantly that I'm wrong.
14. Managing one’s wants is the most powerful skill a person can learn.
How do I manage my wants??? I do make to-do lists... and other things to try to organize my needs and wants, is that what the person who wrote this meant? I could ask in their blog, but I don't feel like it.
15. Nobody has it all figured out.
Yep...
16. Cynicism is far too easy to be useful.
Haha cool.
17. Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours.
That seems quite true.
18. Whenever you hate something, it hates you back: people, situations and inanimate objects alike.
I agree, whenever I hit things, they hit me back.
19. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s works alone can teach you everything you need to know about living with grace and happiness.
Emerson is awesome, only read a little of his work thou. NEED MORE.
20. People embellish everything, as a rule.
I guess so...
21. Anger reveals weakness of character, violence even more so.
But anger is still better than passively accepting a situation. I agree that passive resistance can indeed make the world a better place. But if a person needs to feel anger in order to stand against an injustice, let that be, even if it means that some blood will be shed. Though I must stress that I do believe that passive resistance or the practice of understanding and empathizing with those that cause us harm is to me much more sensible. Yes, I am talking about Gandhi. But what he did or other people like him do is not like doing simple math, those people are enlightened, and it takes them years to get to that. But yea, thinking that way instead of the easier way to fight, which is using anger, is a much more positive outlook on humanity. That I do believe. Also, I wanna quote A.Lin on this: "an eye for an eye and soon the whole world will be blind"
22. Humans cannot destroy the planet, but we can destroy its capacity to keep us alive. And we are.
Humans can't destroy the planet? Someone told me once that enough atomic bombs going off at once would be able to destroy it... that seems possible. And I suppose we are indeed destroying its capacity to keep us alive...
23. When people are uncomfortable with the present moment, they fidget with their hands or their minds. Watch and see.
Interesting... not sure if I agree or not... will watch and see, watch myself first I guess.
24. Those who complain the most, accomplish the least.
Maybe. Complaining can be healthy though, same reasoning as anger/violence on this one for me.
25. Putting something off makes it instantly harder and scarier.
YES
26. Credit card debt devours souls.
lol
27. Nobody knows more than a minuscule fraction of what’s going on in the world. It’s just way too big for any one person to know it well.
Well, that's relative no? We definitely know more now than we did in the past. So that fraction was more minuscule before. I mean in terms of how the world works, science basically. So naturally it seems that the fraction would continue to grow... but ultimately, the notion that there's so much I don't know about makes me really happy
28. Most of what we see is only what we think about what we see.
CoOoOoOoL...
29. A person who is unafraid to present a candid version of herself to the world is as rare as diamonds.
Yes...how many times have I told myself to act this way or that way in a certain situation? Always to try and control the outcome of it...that's very formulaic by the way. And to leave it all to chance...that's very bold. I probably only do that when I'm drunk.
30. The most common addiction in the world is the draw of comfort. It wrecks dreams and breaks people.
Not sure what this one means. If it means that grasping comfort is the basis of every addiction, I agree. But I don't know if it wrecks dreams or breaks people. I mean that's just kinda vague, not sure what the writer meant.
31. If what you’re doing feels perfectly safe, there is probably a better course of action.
Hmm... there are times when I don't venture out, but I don't think there's anything wrong with safety in and of itself. Also, isn't there always something better out there? And worse?
32. The greatest innovation in the history of humankind is language.
Not sure, but language is quite awesome
33. Blame is the favorite pastime of those who dislike responsibility.
Interesting... yes, I do agree with this. Blame is kind of a waste of time to me anyways.
34. Everyone you meet is better than you at something.
Yep, and worse haha
35. Proof is nothing but a collection of opinions that match your own.
Is it? I think of it more like a conclusion that cannot be debated because everything leads to that one answer. I guess that would be a collection of opinions, but I see it more as everyone who tries to not-match it, fails, and that's why it's proven as true.
36. Knowledge is belief, nothing more.
Yea, I agree.
37. Indulging your desires is not self-love.
No it's not, because it causes a state of pleasure and pain. Pleasure when we 'satisfy' the desire, pain when we do not. It causes us to seek these temporary states and want to make them permanent, which can never happen. Thus, it causes suffering. If we cause suffering to ourselves, we are not loving ourselves. Self-love is I think a pleasure-less effort that comes from each of us and is often dry and boring but that through constant repetition make us understand ourselves and others with more ease.
38. What makes human beings different from animals is that animals can be themselves with ease.
I guess, but do they really have a choice? I don't know...
39. Self-examination is the only path out of misery.
Yes, I agree.
40. Whoever you are, you will die. To know and understand that means you are alive.
Cooool
41. Revenge is for the petty and irresponsible.
I don't know
42. Getting truly organized can vastly improve anyone’s life.
Yes!
43. Almost every cliché contains a truth so profound that people have been compelled to repeat it until it makes you roll your eyes. But the wisdom is still in there.
I don't know about that, I don't believe in things just cuz it's been said and done.
44. People cause suffering when they are suffering themselves. Alleviating their suffering will help them not hurt others.
I definitely agree.
45. High quality is worth any quantity, in possessions, friends and experiences.
Yes, quality is definitely worth it.
46. The world would be a better place if everyone read National Geographic.
Haha, yea maybe. I used to be a subscriber but then I didn't always read them, they did have some really awesome articles at times though.
47. If you aren’t happy single, you won’t be happy in a relationship.
In fact I think you'd be more unhappy.
48. Even if it costs no money, nothing is free if it takes time.
And time is the one thing we can't get back. So it matters to me much more than money.
49. Emotions exist to make us strongly biased towards or against something. This hinders as often as it helps.
Interesting...
50. Addiction is a much greater problem in society than it’s made out to be. It’s present in every person in various forms, but usually we call it something else.
Yes I agree
51. “Gut feeling” is not just a euphemism. Tension in the abdomen speaks volumes about how you truly feel about something, beyond all arguments and rationales.
That's true. I remember once I asked a friend, 'when you get angry, do you ever feel that your gut (or whatever that part is in between the ribs like 6 inches above the navel) feels really really warm??' He answered, 'I never get that angry.'
There wasn't really a point in that story in relation to the above quote, lol
52. Posture and dress change profoundly how you feel about yourself and how others feel about you, like it or not.
Posture yes, when I stand up straight, I feel much more assertive. Dress change I don't know... I often forget what I'm wearing till I look in the mirror. And others? I never know what the hell anyone's thinking, which is probably a good thing.
53. Everyone thinks they’re an above average driver.
I think I'm just average, and lately below average, I just got stopped by a cop today :\
54. The urge to punish others has much more to do with venting frustration than correcting behavior.
Ahhh... muy interesante... punishing sucks. Period.
55. By default, people think far too much.
I definitely do...
56. If anything is worth splurging on, it’s a high-quality mattress. You’ll spend a third of your life using it.
Haha cool... temperpedic is called? Wouldn't mind one of those...
57. There is nothing worse than having no friends.
Sometimes being alone is better than hanging out with people who drag one down. But I guess they're not real friends anyway. But yea, being alone is rather underrated I think.
58. To write a person off as worthless is an act of great violence.
Yea, that's a really horrible thing to do. Though it doesn't make sense anyway. Who is who to say who is worth what when??? Yea, that's right.
59. Try as we might to be otherwise, we are all hypocrites.
That's not a word I really use. It doesn't have much meaning to me. I say things that I don't do, and do things that I say I don't do. That's just a normal thing. We can't possibly expect ourselves to be so perfect. The intention is what really matters I think. And I don't think that people really are out there with the intention of doing the very opposite thing that they say they're doing. If they do that is for other reasons than just that, otherwise it just doesn't make sense to me. So that word is a given, as much as it is not, it might as well not exist in my dictionary.
60. Justice is a human invention which is in reality rarely achievable, but many will not hesitate to destroy lives demanding it.
Yea I think many injustices are committed for the sake of justice. I think when we get it mixed up with just wanting to be right is when we get confused...
61. Kids will usually understand exactly what you mean if you keep it to one or two short sentences.
True, when they say they don't, they think they're about to fool the stupid adult haha
62. Stuff that’s on sale usually has an annoying downside.
Does it? I don't know... I hate shopping
63. Casual swearing makes people sound dumb.
I disagree.
64. Words are immensely powerful. One cruel remark can wound someone for life.
Yea I guess, but they should try to help themselves and not just believe in what other people are capable of saying.
65. It’s easy to make someone’s day just by being uncommonly pleasant to them.
Yea it feels good. But it doesn't when I just don't feel that I need the attention. I'm not trying to reject the person themselves, I just may not need the attention at certain times, that's all.
66. Most of what children learn from their parents isn’t taught on purpose.
I guess...
67. The secret ingredient is usually butter, in obscene amounts.
Haha... yum!!
68. It is worth re-trying foods that you didn’t like at first.
I think it's worth re-trying most things not liked at first. Just refresh your browser, I mean, brain.
69. Problems, when they arise, are rarely as painful as the experience of fearing them.
I DEFINITELY AGREE WITH THIS
70. Nothing — ever — happens exactly like you pictured it.
I DEFINITELY AGREE WITH THIS
71. North Americans are generally terrible at accepting compliments and offers of help.
Are they? I don't really know about this...
72. There are not enough women in positions of power. The world has suffered from this deficit for a long time.
Maybe they don't value those positions so much. There is a reason why the ones that are in power are there. I'm sure being that most men are in power they keep women from obtaining such positions but that's not really a valid excuse if others are able to do it. And I say that because I don't think being in a position of power is in and of itself a "good" thing, and that not being in one is a "bad" thing. A woman who lives her life taking care of her family and does so because she wants to, and nothing else, is fine with me. As is one who ends up being the President. That's fine too. I say people will do what they want, what we see is the result of that. And also, if people start to do things they don't actually want to do, they won't perform so well at them, so that 'deficit' might not really end up being one that is worth advocating for.
73. When you break promises to yourself, you feel terrible. When you make a habit of it, you begin to hate yourself.
Yea, that is definitely a depressing thing.
74. A good nine out of ten bad things I’ve worried about never happened. A good nine out of ten bad things that did happen never occurred to me to worry about.
The first part, nay, I think when I start to worry about things there usually is substantial evidence to back up my worries, so they end up occurring, though the rate is not really that high, I'd say maybe 6 out of 10. Also, because I worry about them in advance, I can think of possibilities to prevent such situations from happening, that probably accounts for 2 of the 10, and I'll leave the last 20% to chance. Though chance is probably much higher, and those stats are probably just way off, but whatever, I don't wanna go over that again. The second sentence, however, is on the dot. WHICH SUCKS.
75. You can’t hide a bad mood from people who know you well, but you can always be polite.
Very true. I don't try to be polite, I try to just be neutral. Being polite requires a lot of effort. However, I definitely try not to throw my mood onto them because it's just not their problems/fault/responsibility. And I really hate when people take out their bad moods on me, when I'm just an innocent passerby.
76. Sometimes you have to remove certain people from your life, even if they’re family.
Yea, I could see that. Sucks a lot.
77. Anyone can be calmed in an instant by looking at the ocean or the stars.
OMG YES!!! i loooove doing that...
78. There is no point finishing a book you aren’t enjoying. Life is too short for that. Swallow your pride and put it down for good, unfinished.
Haha cool. I like your attitude sir/ma'm.
79. There is no correlation between the price of a brand of batteries and how long they last.
There isnt?? Well, have you ever tried those 'ever ready' ones? they suck!
80. Breaking new ground only takes a small amount more effort than you’re used to giving.
What's breaking new ground? Like going to unknown places or situations? Sometimes it takes A LOT of effort, if that's the case...
81. Life is a solo trip, but you’ll have lots of visitors. Some of them are long-term, most aren’t.
Cool, I like the idea of thinking about it in that way... that's pretty cool... it makes it less detrimental to think of the people that come and go... makes it lighter, and it rings pretty much as true.
82. One of the best things you can do for your kids is take them on road trips. I’m not a parent, but I was a kid once.
Aww cute... that's really sweet, if I ever have such things, I'll try that... I love any sort of trip for myself anyways
83. The fewer possessions you have, the more they do for you.
Ha, simple and true
84. Einstein was wiser than he was intelligent, and he was a genius.
YES! He left quite a few writings behind and they're pretty awesome.
85. When you’re sick of your own life, that’s a good time to pick up a book.
I do this all the time, so that means I get sick of my own life, it happens.
86. Wishing things were different is a great way to torture yourself.
Um... unless u can immediately start to work toward making them different. But if you can't then yes, it is torture for sure.
87. The ability to be happy is nothing other than the ability to come to terms with how things change.
Acceptance, yes, of each moment. Not an easy thing to do, but it gets less difficult with practice, to me anyways.
88. Killing time is an atrocity. It’s priceless, and it never grows back.
YES!!! Though time is really just an idea. There is only one thing ever occurring. Once when I woke up in the middle of the night and looked at the alarm clock, I saw that I still had 2 hours left to sleep, and I felt relief from that. Then I closed my eyes. Then I opened them again and it was time to get up. I was still the same person. Time is just an illusion.
1. You can’t change other people, and it’s rude to try.
Yep...
2. It is a hundred times more difficult to burn calories than to refrain from consuming them in the first place.
Yes...goddamn it
3. If you’re talking to someone you don’t know well, you may be talking to someone who knows way more about whatever you’re talking about than you do.
I usually don't make assumptions about what people know or don't, it doesn't make sense to do so, and what they know or don't know doesn't really mean anything special...
4. The cheapest and most expensive models are usually both bad deals.
Yes, the best value for my money is what I usually go for, really cheap things tend to be really crappy, but not necessarily so; and really expensive things, surely are just overpriced, and people flaunting their capability to spend money, to me, are just flaunting their stupidity... unless they keed, then it's all good
5. Everyone likes somebody who gets to the point quickly.
I will copy Nat on this one... "Naturally"
6. Bad moods will come and go your whole life, and trying to force them away makes them run deeper and last longer.
Yes, I learned this some time ago. The deeper one pushes something down, the harder it turns to deal with it, if one ever tries. Of course, we can go through life avoiding dealing with sad/horrible/angry past moments, but I believe that's living on shallowness, choosing to not fully experience our lives. And anyways, the times when I just decided to deal with it on the spot, though it hurts A LOT, eventually (EVENTUALLY) it just goes away, and then I can talk about it without feeling sad/guilty/ashamed about it. There's nothing that we should be really ashamed of anyways, we feel what we feel because of the collection of things that make us who we are. We are rather innocent at the core and at mercy, and the result, of chance.
7. Children are remarkably honest creatures until we teach them not to be.
Exactly. Children can piss me off the same way grownups do. But they move on. And I don't have to worry about being myself around them, they don't have a guidebook in their heads that tell them how I am supposed to act, as we adults do.
8. If everyone in the TV show you’re watching is good-looking, it’s not worth watching.
Well I don't know about that. The TV show is about the story and characters to me. Whether the faces of the people there please my eye or not is just secondary.
9. Yelling always makes things worse.
Sometimes it feels good to do so and get it out of one's way. The person who receives the yelling can interpret it however way he or she chooses to. But in general, I do agree with this.
10. Whenever you’re worried about what others will think of you, you’re really just worried about what you’ll think of you.
YES!!! ...although... there's the exception of when you NEED them to think positively of you, such as in job interviews, meetings, court, or anything where your credibility is at stake. All such situations, I simply hate.
11. Every problem you have is your responsibility, regardless of who caused it.
Yes, definitely. It's my life, what I experience from each of my senses is what makes up my world. I am the only one who can control my body. Hence, I am the person who can actually take care of my own problems. Others might be able to help, but that's just a courtesy, and at times it makes the situation worse, cuz they don't know what is truly going on inside each person. I know they mean well, but taking care of myself is at the core of my beliefs.
12. You never have to deal with more than one moment at a time.
That's interesting. I haven't thought of this much... only of my own inadequacy at dealing with more than one moment at a time. I will read the linked article.
13. If you never doubt your beliefs, then you’re wrong a lot.
All I ever do is doubt my beliefs. But just in case, I don't think that implies that I would then necessarily be right a lot. Cuz I'm not. Maybe I just discover constantly that I'm wrong.
14. Managing one’s wants is the most powerful skill a person can learn.
How do I manage my wants??? I do make to-do lists... and other things to try to organize my needs and wants, is that what the person who wrote this meant? I could ask in their blog, but I don't feel like it.
15. Nobody has it all figured out.
Yep...
16. Cynicism is far too easy to be useful.
Haha cool.
17. Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours.
That seems quite true.
18. Whenever you hate something, it hates you back: people, situations and inanimate objects alike.
I agree, whenever I hit things, they hit me back.
19. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s works alone can teach you everything you need to know about living with grace and happiness.
Emerson is awesome, only read a little of his work thou. NEED MORE.
20. People embellish everything, as a rule.
I guess so...
21. Anger reveals weakness of character, violence even more so.
But anger is still better than passively accepting a situation. I agree that passive resistance can indeed make the world a better place. But if a person needs to feel anger in order to stand against an injustice, let that be, even if it means that some blood will be shed. Though I must stress that I do believe that passive resistance or the practice of understanding and empathizing with those that cause us harm is to me much more sensible. Yes, I am talking about Gandhi. But what he did or other people like him do is not like doing simple math, those people are enlightened, and it takes them years to get to that. But yea, thinking that way instead of the easier way to fight, which is using anger, is a much more positive outlook on humanity. That I do believe. Also, I wanna quote A.Lin on this: "an eye for an eye and soon the whole world will be blind"
22. Humans cannot destroy the planet, but we can destroy its capacity to keep us alive. And we are.
Humans can't destroy the planet? Someone told me once that enough atomic bombs going off at once would be able to destroy it... that seems possible. And I suppose we are indeed destroying its capacity to keep us alive...
23. When people are uncomfortable with the present moment, they fidget with their hands or their minds. Watch and see.
Interesting... not sure if I agree or not... will watch and see, watch myself first I guess.
24. Those who complain the most, accomplish the least.
Maybe. Complaining can be healthy though, same reasoning as anger/violence on this one for me.
25. Putting something off makes it instantly harder and scarier.
YES
26. Credit card debt devours souls.
lol
27. Nobody knows more than a minuscule fraction of what’s going on in the world. It’s just way too big for any one person to know it well.
Well, that's relative no? We definitely know more now than we did in the past. So that fraction was more minuscule before. I mean in terms of how the world works, science basically. So naturally it seems that the fraction would continue to grow... but ultimately, the notion that there's so much I don't know about makes me really happy
28. Most of what we see is only what we think about what we see.
CoOoOoOoL...
29. A person who is unafraid to present a candid version of herself to the world is as rare as diamonds.
Yes...how many times have I told myself to act this way or that way in a certain situation? Always to try and control the outcome of it...that's very formulaic by the way. And to leave it all to chance...that's very bold. I probably only do that when I'm drunk.
30. The most common addiction in the world is the draw of comfort. It wrecks dreams and breaks people.
Not sure what this one means. If it means that grasping comfort is the basis of every addiction, I agree. But I don't know if it wrecks dreams or breaks people. I mean that's just kinda vague, not sure what the writer meant.
31. If what you’re doing feels perfectly safe, there is probably a better course of action.
Hmm... there are times when I don't venture out, but I don't think there's anything wrong with safety in and of itself. Also, isn't there always something better out there? And worse?
32. The greatest innovation in the history of humankind is language.
Not sure, but language is quite awesome
33. Blame is the favorite pastime of those who dislike responsibility.
Interesting... yes, I do agree with this. Blame is kind of a waste of time to me anyways.
34. Everyone you meet is better than you at something.
Yep, and worse haha
35. Proof is nothing but a collection of opinions that match your own.
Is it? I think of it more like a conclusion that cannot be debated because everything leads to that one answer. I guess that would be a collection of opinions, but I see it more as everyone who tries to not-match it, fails, and that's why it's proven as true.
36. Knowledge is belief, nothing more.
Yea, I agree.
37. Indulging your desires is not self-love.
No it's not, because it causes a state of pleasure and pain. Pleasure when we 'satisfy' the desire, pain when we do not. It causes us to seek these temporary states and want to make them permanent, which can never happen. Thus, it causes suffering. If we cause suffering to ourselves, we are not loving ourselves. Self-love is I think a pleasure-less effort that comes from each of us and is often dry and boring but that through constant repetition make us understand ourselves and others with more ease.
38. What makes human beings different from animals is that animals can be themselves with ease.
I guess, but do they really have a choice? I don't know...
39. Self-examination is the only path out of misery.
Yes, I agree.
40. Whoever you are, you will die. To know and understand that means you are alive.
Cooool
41. Revenge is for the petty and irresponsible.
I don't know
42. Getting truly organized can vastly improve anyone’s life.
Yes!
43. Almost every cliché contains a truth so profound that people have been compelled to repeat it until it makes you roll your eyes. But the wisdom is still in there.
I don't know about that, I don't believe in things just cuz it's been said and done.
44. People cause suffering when they are suffering themselves. Alleviating their suffering will help them not hurt others.
I definitely agree.
45. High quality is worth any quantity, in possessions, friends and experiences.
Yes, quality is definitely worth it.
46. The world would be a better place if everyone read National Geographic.
Haha, yea maybe. I used to be a subscriber but then I didn't always read them, they did have some really awesome articles at times though.
47. If you aren’t happy single, you won’t be happy in a relationship.
In fact I think you'd be more unhappy.
48. Even if it costs no money, nothing is free if it takes time.
And time is the one thing we can't get back. So it matters to me much more than money.
49. Emotions exist to make us strongly biased towards or against something. This hinders as often as it helps.
Interesting...
50. Addiction is a much greater problem in society than it’s made out to be. It’s present in every person in various forms, but usually we call it something else.
Yes I agree
51. “Gut feeling” is not just a euphemism. Tension in the abdomen speaks volumes about how you truly feel about something, beyond all arguments and rationales.
That's true. I remember once I asked a friend, 'when you get angry, do you ever feel that your gut (or whatever that part is in between the ribs like 6 inches above the navel) feels really really warm??' He answered, 'I never get that angry.'
There wasn't really a point in that story in relation to the above quote, lol
52. Posture and dress change profoundly how you feel about yourself and how others feel about you, like it or not.
Posture yes, when I stand up straight, I feel much more assertive. Dress change I don't know... I often forget what I'm wearing till I look in the mirror. And others? I never know what the hell anyone's thinking, which is probably a good thing.
53. Everyone thinks they’re an above average driver.
I think I'm just average, and lately below average, I just got stopped by a cop today :\
54. The urge to punish others has much more to do with venting frustration than correcting behavior.
Ahhh... muy interesante... punishing sucks. Period.
55. By default, people think far too much.
I definitely do...
56. If anything is worth splurging on, it’s a high-quality mattress. You’ll spend a third of your life using it.
Haha cool... temperpedic is called? Wouldn't mind one of those...
57. There is nothing worse than having no friends.
Sometimes being alone is better than hanging out with people who drag one down. But I guess they're not real friends anyway. But yea, being alone is rather underrated I think.
58. To write a person off as worthless is an act of great violence.
Yea, that's a really horrible thing to do. Though it doesn't make sense anyway. Who is who to say who is worth what when??? Yea, that's right.
59. Try as we might to be otherwise, we are all hypocrites.
That's not a word I really use. It doesn't have much meaning to me. I say things that I don't do, and do things that I say I don't do. That's just a normal thing. We can't possibly expect ourselves to be so perfect. The intention is what really matters I think. And I don't think that people really are out there with the intention of doing the very opposite thing that they say they're doing. If they do that is for other reasons than just that, otherwise it just doesn't make sense to me. So that word is a given, as much as it is not, it might as well not exist in my dictionary.
60. Justice is a human invention which is in reality rarely achievable, but many will not hesitate to destroy lives demanding it.
Yea I think many injustices are committed for the sake of justice. I think when we get it mixed up with just wanting to be right is when we get confused...
61. Kids will usually understand exactly what you mean if you keep it to one or two short sentences.
True, when they say they don't, they think they're about to fool the stupid adult haha
62. Stuff that’s on sale usually has an annoying downside.
Does it? I don't know... I hate shopping
63. Casual swearing makes people sound dumb.
I disagree.
64. Words are immensely powerful. One cruel remark can wound someone for life.
Yea I guess, but they should try to help themselves and not just believe in what other people are capable of saying.
65. It’s easy to make someone’s day just by being uncommonly pleasant to them.
Yea it feels good. But it doesn't when I just don't feel that I need the attention. I'm not trying to reject the person themselves, I just may not need the attention at certain times, that's all.
66. Most of what children learn from their parents isn’t taught on purpose.
I guess...
67. The secret ingredient is usually butter, in obscene amounts.
Haha... yum!!
68. It is worth re-trying foods that you didn’t like at first.
I think it's worth re-trying most things not liked at first. Just refresh your browser, I mean, brain.
69. Problems, when they arise, are rarely as painful as the experience of fearing them.
I DEFINITELY AGREE WITH THIS
70. Nothing — ever — happens exactly like you pictured it.
I DEFINITELY AGREE WITH THIS
71. North Americans are generally terrible at accepting compliments and offers of help.
Are they? I don't really know about this...
72. There are not enough women in positions of power. The world has suffered from this deficit for a long time.
Maybe they don't value those positions so much. There is a reason why the ones that are in power are there. I'm sure being that most men are in power they keep women from obtaining such positions but that's not really a valid excuse if others are able to do it. And I say that because I don't think being in a position of power is in and of itself a "good" thing, and that not being in one is a "bad" thing. A woman who lives her life taking care of her family and does so because she wants to, and nothing else, is fine with me. As is one who ends up being the President. That's fine too. I say people will do what they want, what we see is the result of that. And also, if people start to do things they don't actually want to do, they won't perform so well at them, so that 'deficit' might not really end up being one that is worth advocating for.
73. When you break promises to yourself, you feel terrible. When you make a habit of it, you begin to hate yourself.
Yea, that is definitely a depressing thing.
74. A good nine out of ten bad things I’ve worried about never happened. A good nine out of ten bad things that did happen never occurred to me to worry about.
The first part, nay, I think when I start to worry about things there usually is substantial evidence to back up my worries, so they end up occurring, though the rate is not really that high, I'd say maybe 6 out of 10. Also, because I worry about them in advance, I can think of possibilities to prevent such situations from happening, that probably accounts for 2 of the 10, and I'll leave the last 20% to chance. Though chance is probably much higher, and those stats are probably just way off, but whatever, I don't wanna go over that again. The second sentence, however, is on the dot. WHICH SUCKS.
75. You can’t hide a bad mood from people who know you well, but you can always be polite.
Very true. I don't try to be polite, I try to just be neutral. Being polite requires a lot of effort. However, I definitely try not to throw my mood onto them because it's just not their problems/fault/responsibility. And I really hate when people take out their bad moods on me, when I'm just an innocent passerby.
76. Sometimes you have to remove certain people from your life, even if they’re family.
Yea, I could see that. Sucks a lot.
77. Anyone can be calmed in an instant by looking at the ocean or the stars.
OMG YES!!! i loooove doing that...
78. There is no point finishing a book you aren’t enjoying. Life is too short for that. Swallow your pride and put it down for good, unfinished.
Haha cool. I like your attitude sir/ma'm.
79. There is no correlation between the price of a brand of batteries and how long they last.
There isnt?? Well, have you ever tried those 'ever ready' ones? they suck!
80. Breaking new ground only takes a small amount more effort than you’re used to giving.
What's breaking new ground? Like going to unknown places or situations? Sometimes it takes A LOT of effort, if that's the case...
81. Life is a solo trip, but you’ll have lots of visitors. Some of them are long-term, most aren’t.
Cool, I like the idea of thinking about it in that way... that's pretty cool... it makes it less detrimental to think of the people that come and go... makes it lighter, and it rings pretty much as true.
82. One of the best things you can do for your kids is take them on road trips. I’m not a parent, but I was a kid once.
Aww cute... that's really sweet, if I ever have such things, I'll try that... I love any sort of trip for myself anyways
83. The fewer possessions you have, the more they do for you.
Ha, simple and true
84. Einstein was wiser than he was intelligent, and he was a genius.
YES! He left quite a few writings behind and they're pretty awesome.
85. When you’re sick of your own life, that’s a good time to pick up a book.
I do this all the time, so that means I get sick of my own life, it happens.
86. Wishing things were different is a great way to torture yourself.
Um... unless u can immediately start to work toward making them different. But if you can't then yes, it is torture for sure.
87. The ability to be happy is nothing other than the ability to come to terms with how things change.
Acceptance, yes, of each moment. Not an easy thing to do, but it gets less difficult with practice, to me anyways.
88. Killing time is an atrocity. It’s priceless, and it never grows back.
YES!!! Though time is really just an idea. There is only one thing ever occurring. Once when I woke up in the middle of the night and looked at the alarm clock, I saw that I still had 2 hours left to sleep, and I felt relief from that. Then I closed my eyes. Then I opened them again and it was time to get up. I was still the same person. Time is just an illusion.
7/9/10
Dune (dir. by David Lynch)
It did have some really awesome quotes though. That alone made the film worth the watch. I especially like this one:
"I'm dead to everyone unless I try to become what I may be." -Paul
I thought that quote was awesome, not sure if I can explain why... maybe just because to me, self-development has become such an important value, I am moved by any event where I see that people look to develop their own potential. I definitely seek that within myself. Also, the way he states it, it is both sure and unsure. He's dead to everyone, that's definitely a sure statement, unless "I try" to become "what I may be." Just very interesting, I really had to pause the movie and replay that part a few times to get the exact wording right because it seems very important. He's not sure what he will become yet he is sure that if he doesn't pursue it he is as good as dead. Just thinking it's really fucking lovely. And I don't know if I have any more words regarding the statement, other than the impact it has on me. It's like when I read a book and I also just have to pause after reading a good quote and my eyes just stare off into space in apparent stupidity because my brain is blank. I remain in that state for a while, not even thinking of the quote just sort of having been struck by it haha, it's a great experience actually, and it happened to me a BUNCH of times when reading 1984. I guess some might call that a 'mindfuck'... but anyway, with time I may be more able to understand this quote, and I guess I just hope not to forget it.
7/6/10
The bad girl from a novela
So yea I'm watching this novela called "Soy tu Duena." Mostly cuz I like some of the characters. It still lacks a lot of sense like basically any novela would, but I think it makes just a bit more sense so that it is still palatable for my taste. And yea one of the cool characters is the evil girl in it. She looks and is quite awesome. The good girl is awesome too, but I couldn't find any good pictures of her. Anyways here's the awesome evil femme fatale.....
6/26/10
How I fell asleep under a tree...
Current Mood: half-awake only...
So I'm at the lab since I'm working Saturdays here all day... and I finished one of the tasks on my to-do list and thought, well before continuing on to the following ones, I'll just take a break and read a little. I was about to go to this spot where there are trees and stone benches but it was really sunny. So then I remembered my favorite spot in school. It's this sort of hallway with trees and more stone benches on the side. There there's my favorite tree and bench under it. So I just lied there, first checking to make sure there were no tiny red bugs which like to hang around in stone benches, and I do not know why, they're made of stone bugs! But yea, so I just lied there and had my book in my hand (currently, 'The Joy of Living' by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, which is essentially a Buddhist book, but it's really cool cuz it talks about how Buddhism and Science intersect) and well I've read about 50 pages in and wanna keep reading it constantly, but I'm regularly so tired, and that apparently wasn't different just now, esp cuz of the nice cool shade under the tree, me lying on top of the nice cool stone, and with the nice cool wind on an otherwise hot day, well I just closed my eyes thinking I'd enjoy the moment, when soon enough I had entered the sleeping realm... well not sure if I dreamt but it was certainly enjoyable. It's a really nice day outside, glad I got to taste at least a little of it, and I do hope I'll get some more of it when I'm done with work.
I got Mariam's party tonight, which honestly I'm not feeling really in the mood of going. Socializing takes A LOT of energy from me, and as it is apparent I do not have much of that lately. I'll prob just be quiet around watching people be on their merry ways and I guess they'll make me laugh. Hopefully no one minds my quiet ways... even if I end up reading a book, or more likely, falling asleep -__- ...
So I'm at the lab since I'm working Saturdays here all day... and I finished one of the tasks on my to-do list and thought, well before continuing on to the following ones, I'll just take a break and read a little. I was about to go to this spot where there are trees and stone benches but it was really sunny. So then I remembered my favorite spot in school. It's this sort of hallway with trees and more stone benches on the side. There there's my favorite tree and bench under it. So I just lied there, first checking to make sure there were no tiny red bugs which like to hang around in stone benches, and I do not know why, they're made of stone bugs! But yea, so I just lied there and had my book in my hand (currently, 'The Joy of Living' by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, which is essentially a Buddhist book, but it's really cool cuz it talks about how Buddhism and Science intersect) and well I've read about 50 pages in and wanna keep reading it constantly, but I'm regularly so tired, and that apparently wasn't different just now, esp cuz of the nice cool shade under the tree, me lying on top of the nice cool stone, and with the nice cool wind on an otherwise hot day, well I just closed my eyes thinking I'd enjoy the moment, when soon enough I had entered the sleeping realm... well not sure if I dreamt but it was certainly enjoyable. It's a really nice day outside, glad I got to taste at least a little of it, and I do hope I'll get some more of it when I'm done with work.
I got Mariam's party tonight, which honestly I'm not feeling really in the mood of going. Socializing takes A LOT of energy from me, and as it is apparent I do not have much of that lately. I'll prob just be quiet around watching people be on their merry ways and I guess they'll make me laugh. Hopefully no one minds my quiet ways... even if I end up reading a book, or more likely, falling asleep -__- ...
6/23/10
back to writing...maybe
Current Mood: tired... cuz I just got out of work. I will sound like my dad if I start to say what my work is like. The funny thing is when I tried explaining it to him that I feel the way he does lately about work, he responded immediately with how his job is, which he has told me before countless of times, I guess I was hoping he could see that I relate to him at the moment, but it didn't happen, maybe I didn't try hard enough... oh well.
I wanted to write on my blog like this again, I haven't done it in a really long time I know. I guess I should try to explain why. There was a point where I felt like I just didn't agree with half of the things I wrote a little bit after I wrote them. And the idea that these things might linger on any readers' minds forming the image of who I am bothered me. I guess I felt quite guilty at how much I change my mind cuz sometimes I say things with a lot of conviction. Then it's kinda like, well now I dont believe any of it. So I felt bad about that. From what I can recall that was mostly why. Then I felt really confused. If I keep changing my mind so often, who am I ever? So I started to just post collections that I gathered from the outside world that felt true to me. I felt like they could express what I feel better than I could myself. I guess I also might have gotten lazy to try and voice my interpretation of the things I posted. Also I felt it would be kinda cool to keep the reader (if any) guessing as to what I actually meant, and that they might ask me. I dont think that really ever happened thou lol. Please dont feel bad (jaime, haha, basically my one reader, and the one or two people who pass by from time to time to take a peek, I appreciate all you guys, really).
But yea, I'm thinking I might start writing again because lately, probably from being so tired, the only thing I feel capable of doing on my free time is reading and writing. I might take it all down later, who knows.
I wanted to write on my blog like this again, I haven't done it in a really long time I know. I guess I should try to explain why. There was a point where I felt like I just didn't agree with half of the things I wrote a little bit after I wrote them. And the idea that these things might linger on any readers' minds forming the image of who I am bothered me. I guess I felt quite guilty at how much I change my mind cuz sometimes I say things with a lot of conviction. Then it's kinda like, well now I dont believe any of it. So I felt bad about that. From what I can recall that was mostly why. Then I felt really confused. If I keep changing my mind so often, who am I ever? So I started to just post collections that I gathered from the outside world that felt true to me. I felt like they could express what I feel better than I could myself. I guess I also might have gotten lazy to try and voice my interpretation of the things I posted. Also I felt it would be kinda cool to keep the reader (if any) guessing as to what I actually meant, and that they might ask me. I dont think that really ever happened thou lol. Please dont feel bad (jaime, haha, basically my one reader, and the one or two people who pass by from time to time to take a peek, I appreciate all you guys, really).
But yea, I'm thinking I might start writing again because lately, probably from being so tired, the only thing I feel capable of doing on my free time is reading and writing. I might take it all down later, who knows.
6/13/10
Which D&D character are you?
You Are A:
Chaotic Neutral Elf Sorcerer (4th Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 13
Dexterity- 12
Constitution- 13
Intelligence- 16
Wisdom- 15
Charisma- 13
Alignment:
Chaotic Neutral- A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn't strive to protect others' freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer). A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it. Chaotic neutral is the best alignment you can be because it represents true freedom from both society's restrictions and a do-gooder's zeal. However, chaotic neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it seeks to eliminate all authority, harmony, and order in society.
Race:
Elves are known for their poetry, song, and magical arts, but when danger threatens they show great skill with weapons and strategy. Elves can live to be over 700 years old and, by human standards, are slow to make friends and enemies, and even slower to forget them. Elves are slim and stand 4.5 to 5.5 feet tall. They have no facial or body hair, prefer comfortable clothes, and possess unearthly grace. Many others races find them hauntingly beautiful.
Class:
Sorcerers- Sorcerers are arcane spellcasters who manipulate magic energy with imagination and talent rather than studious discipline. They have no books, no mentors, no theories just raw power that they direct at will. Sorcerers know fewer spells than wizards do and acquire them more slowly, but they can cast individual spells more often and have no need to prepare their incantations ahead of time. Also unlike wizards, sorcerers cannot specialize in a school of magic. Since sorcerers gain their powers without undergoing the years of rigorous study that wizards go through, they have more time to learn fighting skills and are proficient with simple weapons. Charisma is very important for sorcerers; the higher their value in this ability, the higher the spell level they can cast.
You Are A:
Chaotic Neutral Elf Sorcerer (4th Level)
Ability Scores:Strength- 13
Dexterity- 12
Constitution- 13
Intelligence- 16
Wisdom- 15
Charisma- 13
Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (15)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (17)
Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (18)
True Neutral ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (19)
Chaotic Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (21)
Lawful Evil ----- XXXXXXX (7)
Neutral Evil ---- XXXXXXXX (8)
Chaotic Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Law & Chaos:
Law ----- XXXXX (5)
Neutral - XXXXXX (6)
Chaos --- XXXXXXXX (8)
Good & Evil:
Good ---- XXXXXXXXX (9)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Evil ---- XX (2)
Race:
Human ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Dwarf ---- XXXXXXXX (8)
Elf ------ XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Gnome ---- XXXXXXXX (8)
Halfling - XXXXXXXX (8)
Half-Elf - XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Half-Orc - XXXXXX (6)
Class:
Barbarian - (-2)
Bard ------ (0)
Cleric ---- (-6)
Druid ----- XXXX (4)
Fighter --- (-2)
Monk ------ (-19)
Paladin --- (-21)
Ranger ---- (0)
Rogue ----- (0)
Sorcerer -- XXXXXX (6)
Wizard ---- (-2)
5/19/10
SKILLS TO BE A WEB DEVELOPER
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I KNOW NOTHING
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3/18/10
3/7/10
Dorian Gray Quotes
But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. 3
Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! 3
Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly." 4
If one puts forward an idea to a true Englishman--always a rash thing to do--he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong. The only thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes it oneself. 10
The harmony of soul and body-- how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void. 11
I will not bare my soul to their shallow prying eyes." "My heart shall never be put under their microscope. (Basil) 12
Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day." 13
"Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. 13
the worst of having a romance of any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic." 14As long as I live, the personality of Dorian Gray will dominate me. You can't feel what I feel. You change too often." 14
Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies." 14
Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty silver case and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and satisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase. 14
how delightful other people's emotions were!-- much more delightful than their ideas 14
...to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each of us is here for.
People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion--these are the two things that govern us. 20
"And yet,"
continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of him, and that he had even in his
"I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream -- I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal-- to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal,it may be."
"But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, orthe luxury of a regret.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain."
It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have fined you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame --" 21
"stop! you bewilder me. I don't know what to say. There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it. Don't speak. Let me think. Or, rather, let me try not to think." 21
"that is one of the great secrets of life-- to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul. You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know." 23
"And beauty is a form of genius-- is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. 25
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible." 25
Don't squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age."
"Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. 25
"We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!" 26
"Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last for ever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer." 27
Talking to him was like playing upon an exquisite violin.
He answered to every touch and thrill of the bow. . . There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like it. To project one's soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of passion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another as though it were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in that -- perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common in its aims. . . 40
The new manner in art, the fresh mode of looking at life, suggested so strangely by the merely visible presence of one who was unconscious of it all; the silent spirit that dwelt in dim woodland, and walked unseen in open field, suddenly showing herself, Dryadlike and not afraid, because in his soul who sought for her there had been wakened that wonderful vision to which alone are wonderful things revealed; the mere shapes and patterns of things becoming, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value, as though they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfect form whose shadow they made real: how strange it all was! He remembered something like it in history. Was it not Plato, that artist in thought, who had first analyzed it?
Was it not Buonarotti who had carved it in the coloured marbles of a sonnet-sequence? But in our own century it was strange. . . . Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray what, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned the wonderful portrait. He would seek to dominate him--had already, indeed, half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own. There was something fascinating in this son of love and death. 41
There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores, the better." 45
Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin 45
A blush is very becoming. 46
To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies. 46
...that is one of the great secrets of life. Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes." 46
He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him, and the consciousness that amongst his audience there was one whose temperament he wished to fascinate seemed to give his wit keenness and to lend colour to his imagination. He was brilliant, fantastic, irresponsible. 47
I am too fond of reading books to care to write them. 48
But there is no literary public in
Ah! I have talked quite enough for to-day,"
said Lord Henry, smiling.
"All I want now is to look at life. You may come and look at it with me, if you care to." 49
Punctuality is the thief of time. 50
I used to look at every one who passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity, what sort of lives they led. (DG) 54
Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect--simply a confession of failures. 55
Out of its secret hiding-place had crept his soul, and desire had come to meet it on the way. 62
My Notes: Why does the Soul like to hide?
"People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity." 63
The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.
A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize." 63And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by vivisecting others. Human life--that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value.
It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams. There were poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken of them.
There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through them if one sought to understand their nature. And, yet, what a great reward one received! How wonderful the whole world became to one! To note the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life of the intellect--to observe where they met, and where they separated, at what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at discord--there was a delight in that!
What matter what the cost was? One could never pay too high a price for any sensation. 64
Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. 65
It was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end. 65
He began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others. Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. 66
It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us. 66
Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense. 67
Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders. 72
"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality selects is absolutely delightful to me." 84
...unselfish people are colourless. They lack individuality." 84They become more highly organized, and to be highly organized is, I should fancy, the object of man's existence. Besides, every experience is of value, and whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an experience. 84
"The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror. We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbour with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a benefit to us. 84
"I have the greatest contempt for optimism. As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested. If you want to mar a nature, you have merely to reform it. 84
He would never bring misery upon any one. His nature is too fine for that." 87
"I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any question-- simple curiosity. I have a theory that it is always the women who propose to us, and not we who propose to the women. 87
I cannot understand how any one can wish to shame the thing he loves. (DG) 87
...individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest immorality." 88
A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want? Yes, Dorian, you will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit." 90
I love acting. It is so much more real than life. 90
There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love. 99
...that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins... 102
Would it teach him to loathe his own soul? 103
There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. 108
"I am perfectly happy now. I know what conscience is, to begin with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest thing in us. (DG) 109
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing." 112
"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak. That is all that can be said for them. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account." 113
but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar." 114
I forget what killed it. I think it was her proposing to sacrifice the whole world for me."
"That is always a dreadful moment. It fills one with the terror of eternity. 115
The one charm of the past is that it is the past. 115
Conscience makes egotists of us all. 115
The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame: that was all. 119
As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul. 120
He would be safe. That was everything. 120
"You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. 129
You would not have understood it. I hardly understood it myself. I only knew that I had seen perfection face to face, and that the world had become wonderful to my eyes-- too wonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, the peril of losing them, no less than the peril of keeping them...." 129
"Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really shown in the work one creates. Art is always more abstract than we fancy. Form and colour tell us of form and colour--that is all. It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him." 130
Some love might come across his life, and purify him, and shield him from those sins that seemed to be already stirring in spirit and in flesh-- 138
"I didn't say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference."
"Ah, you have discovered that?" 142
In every pleasure, cruelty has its place. 143
His mere presence seemed to recall to them the memory of the innocence that they had tarnished. 144
There had been mad wilful rejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose origin was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance, they had sought to escape;Nature, in her wonderful irony, driving out the anchorite to feed with the wild animals of the desert and giving to the hermit the beasts of the field as his companions. 147
Its aim, indeed, was to be experience itself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might be. 147
it was to teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is itself but a moment. 147
...a wild longing, it may be, that our eyelids might open some morning upon a world that had been refashioned anew in the darkness for our pleasure,
a world in which things would have fresh shapes and colours, and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in which the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate, in no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance even of joy having its bitterness and the memories of pleasure their pain. 148
... in his search for sensations that would be at once new and delightful, and possess that element of strangeness that is so essential to romance,
he would often adopt certain modes of thought that he knew to be really alien to his nature, abandon himself to their subtle influences, and then, having, as it were, caught their colour and satisfied his intellectual curiosity, leave them with that curious indifference that is not incompatible with a real ardour of temperament, and that, indeed, according to certain modern psychologists, is often a condition of it. 149
...no theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance compared with life itself.
He felt keenly conscious of how barren all intellectual speculation is when separated from action and experiment. He knew that the senses, no less than the soul, have their spiritual mysteries to reveal. 150
...he always had an extraordinary faculty of becoming absolutely absorbed for the moment in whatever he took up. 155
For these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely house, were to be to him means of forgetfulness, modes by which he could escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times to be almost too great to be borne. 158
Is insincerity such a terrible thing?
I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities. (DG's opinion). 160
To him, man was a being with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex multiform creature that bore within itself strange legacies of thought and passion, and whose very flesh was tainted with the monstrous maladies of the dead. 161
There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful. 165
One has a right to judge of a man by the effect he has over his friends. (Basil). 171
He felt a terrible joy at the thought that some one else was to share his secret, and that the man who had painted the portrait that was the origin of all his shame was to be burdened for the rest of his life with the hideous memory of what he had done. 173
My Note: Joy at giving others burdens
"Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil," (DG). 178
He felt that the secret of the whole thing was not to realize the situation. (DG's thoughts) 181
Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. 213
One's days were too brief to take the burden of another's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life and paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed. In her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts. 215
"How can you say that? Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible." (LH to Gladys) 223
"I have never searched for happiness. Who wants happiness? I have searched for pleasure."
"And found it, Mr. Gray?"
"Often. Too often."
The duchess sighed.
"I am searching for peace," 224
In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all. (DG's thoughts). 227And yet if it had been merely an illusion, how terrible it was to think that conscience could raise such fearful phantoms, and give them visible form, and make them move before one! What sort of life would his be if, day and night, shadows of his crime were to peer at him from silent corners, to mock him from secret places, to whisper in his ear as he sat at the feast, to wake him with icy fingers as he lay asleep!
... Oh! in what a wild hour of madness he had killed his friend! How ghastly the mere memory of the scene! He saw it all again. Each hideous detail came back to him with added horror. 228
My Note: repenting...
"The only horrible thing in the world is ennui, Dorian. That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness." 231
"It is an annoying subject," broke in Lord Henry.
"It has no psychological value at all. Now if Geoffrey had done the thing on purpose, how interesting he would be! I should like to know some one who had committed a real murder." 233
Basil was not the sort of man to have gone to them. He had no curiosity. It was his chief defect. 242
My Note: how can you be an artist with no curiosity?
I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations." 242
The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There is a soul in each one of us. I know it."
"Do you feel quite sure of that, Dorian?"
"Quite sure."
"Ah! then it must be an illusion. The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith, and the lesson of romance. How grave you are! Don't be so serious. What have you or I to do with the superstitions of our age? No: we have given up our belief in the soul." 245
To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable. 245
"The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.
I am amazed sometimes at my own sincerity. Ah, Dorian, how happy you are! What an exquisite life you have had! You have drunk deeply of everything." 246
Besides, Dorian, don't deceive yourself. Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams." 246
I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. 247"You and I are what we are, and will be what we will be. 248
Had it been merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed? 252
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