Writing, it is what i tend to do. As you may have noticed i have been writing, while not a lot, defiantly more than i was during the school year. Also, as i have been telling my friends and family recently, the first thing i tried to write into a novel has reared up in the back of my head and waked me over the head demanding to be finished.
Because of this i have done a tonne of planning for the story and cut it off into 3 separate books so far. (and it isn't finished yet!) But while i was doing this i had also fired off the pages i had written back in grade 11 to the various people i know. I asked them to read it and give me opinions on it so that i could figure out what i needed to do and how to improve it.
Of course i happened to also ask for honesty, the kind of honesty i tend to give regarding Harry Potter and Twilight, the kind of honesty that matches up with this wonderful website i found today. I wanted this honesty given to me about this piece of writing because i want it to be better, i want the characters to have depth and substance. I also want my writing to flow together, like water in a stream, so that it all works together rather than like a stream of stones, where they bounce off each other and block their own path rather than connecting and working together.
And that is what a friend of mine was excellent for. She told me i needed to take a look at this writing because it wasn't near as good as i thought it was. And she was right, it was CRAP and yes that needed to be capitalized. Now for every person out there who read this through the first way it was and thought it was amazing, thank you for your support. That was needed, it helped me to gain confidence in myself.
All the same though it built up a little too much confidence. Part of what stopped me from writing as much as i did when i wrote those first 60 pages was that i was worried i couldn't make anything as good as what people thought of that first piece of work. What i am finding out is that the opposite happened, rather than my writing getting worse than it was so long ago it is getting better and better.
That fear i had of writing and it not being that good, that it wouldn't hold up to my past experiences was groundless. And i guess that is the point behind this entire post, don't avoid living your future because your worried about your past. Live your life, and go where you need to go.
P.S. Check out this blog if you want something else to read, it is great and informative.
2.6.10
Categories and Cal
One of my favorite authors has just recently released a new book, Chimera by Rob Thurman. She truly is one of my favorite authors because her books not only strongly remind me of another good author, Jim Butcher, but also because they are unique to her. Because of her new books i recently just read through one of her serieses and am about to start another before buying her new book. The book i finished tonight, Roadkill, depicts the character development that both Rob Thurman and Jim Butcher create in their series's of books.
They have a great style for those who love character as the core of their stories because the series's cover years which allows for the people in the stories to evolve and change. You don't just have the epic fight at the climax, you also get the aftermath in the next book. you don't get the problems of sudden angst like the jump from Harry Potter 4 to Potter 5. You don't get characters who start their summer vacation happy and are filled with snark and rage 2 months later. You get characters who start with snark and get more snark.
The reason i am writing this post is that i had a thought when i finished Rob Thurman's book and was sitting there going through my early stages of withdrawal. As with all good books i got hooked, when i start re-reading her series i was taking a week or more to finish a book, the last took less than a day.
Anywho, while i was drifting through my post-book-induced-high i was thinking about the characters in her books, about how the main character always has these unchartable depths, but the other characters begin to come through as flat after a few times of reading the books. I wasn't sure why, her writing had never seemed that way to me before, it never seemed like stock characters any time i had read them before.
And that was when i realized why they all had become stereotypes to me. The fact that i had read them so many times had ingrained this idea of who they were into me making them into a stereotype when i read it.
That got me thinking about people i know, and the way they fall into categories when i think about them. They fall into the categories of the people i have met in the past, those with their strong personalities that have left their marks on me become the stereotypes my friends now fall into. The varying amounts of differing personalities are the way i make sense of people. It makes me wonder if there will always be some way that i lump people together, even if they are categories based on personality.
They have a great style for those who love character as the core of their stories because the series's cover years which allows for the people in the stories to evolve and change. You don't just have the epic fight at the climax, you also get the aftermath in the next book. you don't get the problems of sudden angst like the jump from Harry Potter 4 to Potter 5. You don't get characters who start their summer vacation happy and are filled with snark and rage 2 months later. You get characters who start with snark and get more snark.
The reason i am writing this post is that i had a thought when i finished Rob Thurman's book and was sitting there going through my early stages of withdrawal. As with all good books i got hooked, when i start re-reading her series i was taking a week or more to finish a book, the last took less than a day.
Anywho, while i was drifting through my post-book-induced-high i was thinking about the characters in her books, about how the main character always has these unchartable depths, but the other characters begin to come through as flat after a few times of reading the books. I wasn't sure why, her writing had never seemed that way to me before, it never seemed like stock characters any time i had read them before.
And that was when i realized why they all had become stereotypes to me. The fact that i had read them so many times had ingrained this idea of who they were into me making them into a stereotype when i read it.
That got me thinking about people i know, and the way they fall into categories when i think about them. They fall into the categories of the people i have met in the past, those with their strong personalities that have left their marks on me become the stereotypes my friends now fall into. The varying amounts of differing personalities are the way i make sense of people. It makes me wonder if there will always be some way that i lump people together, even if they are categories based on personality.
29.5.10
Home Body
So i'm writing another blog post, and i know it seems like a second one in the same day but i slept in late so to me this seems like another day which is why i am writing another post to all you lovely people. And that is what this post is about. Yep, yet again i am writing about writing because that is what i have a tendancy to do while i am home instead of being in my house. I haddn't really written much this week then i come home tomorrow and BAM i just can't stop reading and writing. It is what i do at all hours of the day every single day.
Then when i go back to my house i don't do near as much work. Instead i seem to sit around and watch a heck of a lot of NCIS. Rather than getting writing done. I mean i have done a number of other things, i go to my classes, do my homework, planted my herb garden, and started to edit a book me and a friend of mine are working on.
But while i am doing all of this i don't tend to write as much, to be as creative, as focused as i am here. And i think that might have something to do with my memories of my house instead of my home. I have always done a lot of work here unlike my new house. There i am still building what kind of place it is for me. I'm creating what it will be, a house, a place to hang out, and office, whatever i shall choose.
What i think i need to do is to transform it into a place that i can focus and work. A place where i can focus. But also a place where i like to have fun. So far i seem to be leaning to one or the other. I need to find a way to the middle path even though that seems to be the most difficult.
Then when i go back to my house i don't do near as much work. Instead i seem to sit around and watch a heck of a lot of NCIS. Rather than getting writing done. I mean i have done a number of other things, i go to my classes, do my homework, planted my herb garden, and started to edit a book me and a friend of mine are working on.
But while i am doing all of this i don't tend to write as much, to be as creative, as focused as i am here. And i think that might have something to do with my memories of my house instead of my home. I have always done a lot of work here unlike my new house. There i am still building what kind of place it is for me. I'm creating what it will be, a house, a place to hang out, and office, whatever i shall choose.
What i think i need to do is to transform it into a place that i can focus and work. A place where i can focus. But also a place where i like to have fun. So far i seem to be leaning to one or the other. I need to find a way to the middle path even though that seems to be the most difficult.
Angels Fall in Love and other myths
There are tonnes of TV shows and movies out that talk about the end of the world. There are countless books on the shelves as well that talk about this same topic. Whether they be from some sort of religious stance or a monstrous creation of men like global warming, a super virus or something even worse that i just haven't read about.
Recently they have been about some kind of religious doom, at least the ones i am watching (but lets face it, that's cause i love anything mystically magically cool!). And while so many of them are very interesting, there is a certain theme i have noticed through them.
Its an issue with the Twilight novels as well along with every other vampire/demonic/werewolf/supernatural boogie-man-creature out there. That is that most of these books/movies/TV shows have some sort of romantic angle which exists to appeal to the (and i mean no disrespect except for my usual amount when i say this) "fangirls".
The more romance that can be shoved into the story the better, the more it will attract and seduce those readers who miss that spark of romance, who love to read about love. Those who want to read about love and snuggles and sex and everything in between. (which is a lot!)
The issue is that those creatures which all these romance/end of the world works of fiction create is that they originally are made in societies to embody evil, pure and simple. But these creatures are never really portayed that simply, they instead are shown as being more "human" with differing depths and amounts of good inside them.
See there is nothing wrong with portraying them as different creatures with different personalities and even have some more corrupt than the others. That idea is all good and fine because it gives stories depth, builds more character. The problem is when they stop being vampires/werewolves/demons/angels. They become humans. They aren't human, they are supposed to be a different creature entirely, and behave as a different creature entirely.
That's the problem and that is one thing that i truly enjoyed about both the show Supernatural and the movie Legion, the main angels and demons are ANGELS AND DEMONS! They don't stop being creatures that they are supposed to be. Yes they are more complex, they add depth to the story, but they do so without sarcificing those traits which make them into those supernatural creatures that i just love to read about or watch.
Recently they have been about some kind of religious doom, at least the ones i am watching (but lets face it, that's cause i love anything mystically magically cool!). And while so many of them are very interesting, there is a certain theme i have noticed through them.
Its an issue with the Twilight novels as well along with every other vampire/demonic/werewolf/supernatural boogie-man-creature out there. That is that most of these books/movies/TV shows have some sort of romantic angle which exists to appeal to the (and i mean no disrespect except for my usual amount when i say this) "fangirls".
The more romance that can be shoved into the story the better, the more it will attract and seduce those readers who miss that spark of romance, who love to read about love. Those who want to read about love and snuggles and sex and everything in between. (which is a lot!)
The issue is that those creatures which all these romance/end of the world works of fiction create is that they originally are made in societies to embody evil, pure and simple. But these creatures are never really portayed that simply, they instead are shown as being more "human" with differing depths and amounts of good inside them.
See there is nothing wrong with portraying them as different creatures with different personalities and even have some more corrupt than the others. That idea is all good and fine because it gives stories depth, builds more character. The problem is when they stop being vampires/werewolves/demons/angels. They become humans. They aren't human, they are supposed to be a different creature entirely, and behave as a different creature entirely.
That's the problem and that is one thing that i truly enjoyed about both the show Supernatural and the movie Legion, the main angels and demons are ANGELS AND DEMONS! They don't stop being creatures that they are supposed to be. Yes they are more complex, they add depth to the story, but they do so without sarcificing those traits which make them into those supernatural creatures that i just love to read about or watch.
25.5.10
So i am sitting here late at night trying to think of another blog post to write. I have written quite a few recently but seemed to have run out of topics to write about. At least until tonight, then i had a thought of something i could write about and make a great post, something that would be wonderful to read about, that friends of mine would understand all the hidden jokes and references i would make about this past weekend.
I now can't even remember what that idea was about. It seems that the idea was lost during my drive home from a house where a few of my friends live. I can't help but think about how wonderful it is that i have a car for a little while and i can drive across the city to hang out. That i can stay later than the buses run.
It is awesome that i can travel like that, but it is going to suck next year when my friends who live there are more than a bus ride away, that they will either have to stay the night here, or take a taxi back if they can't make the bus.
It makes me think back on what it was like in res where we could hang out until about 4 in the morning and then all go back to our respective beds without having to pay for a ride or drive or anything. It makes me think of the good times we had and how awesome it was.
Anywho guys, just saying don't forget the awesome times as we go into this new year. Don't let the distance be an issue.
I now can't even remember what that idea was about. It seems that the idea was lost during my drive home from a house where a few of my friends live. I can't help but think about how wonderful it is that i have a car for a little while and i can drive across the city to hang out. That i can stay later than the buses run.
It is awesome that i can travel like that, but it is going to suck next year when my friends who live there are more than a bus ride away, that they will either have to stay the night here, or take a taxi back if they can't make the bus.
It makes me think back on what it was like in res where we could hang out until about 4 in the morning and then all go back to our respective beds without having to pay for a ride or drive or anything. It makes me think of the good times we had and how awesome it was.
Anywho guys, just saying don't forget the awesome times as we go into this new year. Don't let the distance be an issue.
21.5.10
New City, New Me
So i now live in a new city where i go to school in a new house with a new room mate. Today i was wandering over to the place where i got a job to see about me working and as i was wandering down the street i couldn't help but think about how so comfortable i felt there. I was thinking about how i can wander all around the city and feel comfortable. I know my way back and forth and how to find each place that matters to me. I'm slowly learning of the hidden places that only locals know.
As i was thinking this i kid you not a guy pulls over to the side of the road and asks me for directions to the local hospital. And i knew how to get there! Strange i know but this was a big deal for me. I actually knew enough of the area to give advice to someone. True i am not a local, but i am growing into one in a way.
The more time i spend there the more it becomes a part of me and i become a part of it. It soaks into me. This makes me think about a kind of spiritual theory i came up with months ago that combines spirituality and psychology.
See the brain functions like folding a piece of paper. The more it is folded in a specific way the easier it is to fold it that way again. The way the brain works is that the more a thought is thought the easier it is to think it again. The more actions are repeated the easier they are to do again. The more you practice a karate chop the easier it gets to do.
With walking places or spending time in an area the more it begins to fit into your mental space. The more time you spend somewhere the more comfortable you get with it. (this idea is expressed very well in the book The Name of the Wind)
This is what happens to me in the city i am living in, the more time i spend there the more it ingrains into me and the more i ingrain myself into it. It is like i leave pieces of myself each place i walk, which is part of my system of beliefs. It also joins with a notion i have heard of which is that the soul travels at the pace of a camel.
I've noticed it when i have taken the bus, versus when i walk and bike. When i take the bus it makes a place seem different, closer, less real. When i walk or bike it makes the city seem real, seem like a place where it all is connected, where i notice the little things and take the time to smell the flowers.
The bus or driving a car makes it seem to go by so much faster, it makes the world like a background constantly shifting. Its a different experiance that makes the world seem smaller. That takes away the connection i feel to the world. But the most interesting thing today was then when i got to the area close to my home in my hometown i recognized the trees, remembered every turn of the street, remembered everything.
I'm in the middle right now, I'm passing more of myself into my new city as i leave my hometown behind. I'm attaching myself to new places and people but in noticing this i am refusing to give up my past. One without the other is pointless. Joined by the present it is the two of them that make us all who we are. Leaving one out of yourself leaves you as half a person. Half a soul. Half a life...
As i was thinking this i kid you not a guy pulls over to the side of the road and asks me for directions to the local hospital. And i knew how to get there! Strange i know but this was a big deal for me. I actually knew enough of the area to give advice to someone. True i am not a local, but i am growing into one in a way.
The more time i spend there the more it becomes a part of me and i become a part of it. It soaks into me. This makes me think about a kind of spiritual theory i came up with months ago that combines spirituality and psychology.
See the brain functions like folding a piece of paper. The more it is folded in a specific way the easier it is to fold it that way again. The way the brain works is that the more a thought is thought the easier it is to think it again. The more actions are repeated the easier they are to do again. The more you practice a karate chop the easier it gets to do.
With walking places or spending time in an area the more it begins to fit into your mental space. The more time you spend somewhere the more comfortable you get with it. (this idea is expressed very well in the book The Name of the Wind)
This is what happens to me in the city i am living in, the more time i spend there the more it ingrains into me and the more i ingrain myself into it. It is like i leave pieces of myself each place i walk, which is part of my system of beliefs. It also joins with a notion i have heard of which is that the soul travels at the pace of a camel.
I've noticed it when i have taken the bus, versus when i walk and bike. When i take the bus it makes a place seem different, closer, less real. When i walk or bike it makes the city seem real, seem like a place where it all is connected, where i notice the little things and take the time to smell the flowers.
The bus or driving a car makes it seem to go by so much faster, it makes the world like a background constantly shifting. Its a different experiance that makes the world seem smaller. That takes away the connection i feel to the world. But the most interesting thing today was then when i got to the area close to my home in my hometown i recognized the trees, remembered every turn of the street, remembered everything.
I'm in the middle right now, I'm passing more of myself into my new city as i leave my hometown behind. I'm attaching myself to new places and people but in noticing this i am refusing to give up my past. One without the other is pointless. Joined by the present it is the two of them that make us all who we are. Leaving one out of yourself leaves you as half a person. Half a soul. Half a life...
20.5.10
Bees and Brains
It is spring time, or it is to me at least. I wont really consider it summer until at the very least June if not later. I like the spring time, the weather is cooler, the sun seems brighter, but it leaves no snow on the ground.
The other thing which tends to come to mind with spring time is that there is new growth, and with that new growth comes, well, creatures in heat, flowers, new leaves, new buds on the trees, new plants coming from the ground.
Today while i was waiting for the bus i had some interesting thoughts. See, i wanted to just sit on the edge of the garbage can that is there and read a book.
I got passed a book called The Truth About Forever from a friend of mine because i got a job at a catering company meaning that my name and job now both line up with a character in the book.
The book has nothing to do with the story but i figured i would mention it. Anywho while i was trying to read the book a hornet decided to bug me. It never landed on me, just buzzed around my face over and over again.
It wasn't like i smelled like a flower, i listened to the Old Spice Commercial. It wasn't like i was wearing bright colors, everyone knows i don't. So why was this bee buzzing around me?
I also had spent a few minutes beforehand with a friend who was terrified of both bees and hornets. It got me thinking about why are people so frightened of bees and wasps and other creatures be they snakes, spiders, or the ones that i am scared of, rats.
Why would it be that we (and i mean collectively as a species) are scared of smaller animals and why do we irrationally worry that they will bite, sting, claw, scratch, etc? Why are we so frightened of them?
I think it has something to do with instincts. And with the way that we think we are so rational. Ya, thats right, i hope back to the idea of rationalism being the root of all evil. See, with this idea that we are thinking creatures unlike, what is at least the provailing western thought, the rest of the creatures on the planet.
Because of this we seem to fear the animals that are controlled by instinct, instead of thinking that they could have emotions or other even act for amusement. The bee today, there is no instinctual reason for it to chase me back and fourth but it is so similar to the way i would chase someone around tickling them.
The other thing which tends to come to mind with spring time is that there is new growth, and with that new growth comes, well, creatures in heat, flowers, new leaves, new buds on the trees, new plants coming from the ground.
Today while i was waiting for the bus i had some interesting thoughts. See, i wanted to just sit on the edge of the garbage can that is there and read a book.
I got passed a book called The Truth About Forever from a friend of mine because i got a job at a catering company meaning that my name and job now both line up with a character in the book.
The book has nothing to do with the story but i figured i would mention it. Anywho while i was trying to read the book a hornet decided to bug me. It never landed on me, just buzzed around my face over and over again.
It wasn't like i smelled like a flower, i listened to the Old Spice Commercial. It wasn't like i was wearing bright colors, everyone knows i don't. So why was this bee buzzing around me?
I also had spent a few minutes beforehand with a friend who was terrified of both bees and hornets. It got me thinking about why are people so frightened of bees and wasps and other creatures be they snakes, spiders, or the ones that i am scared of, rats.
Why would it be that we (and i mean collectively as a species) are scared of smaller animals and why do we irrationally worry that they will bite, sting, claw, scratch, etc? Why are we so frightened of them?
I think it has something to do with instincts. And with the way that we think we are so rational. Ya, thats right, i hope back to the idea of rationalism being the root of all evil. See, with this idea that we are thinking creatures unlike, what is at least the provailing western thought, the rest of the creatures on the planet.
Because of this we seem to fear the animals that are controlled by instinct, instead of thinking that they could have emotions or other even act for amusement. The bee today, there is no instinctual reason for it to chase me back and fourth but it is so similar to the way i would chase someone around tickling them.
19.5.10
Music and Words
Hi there, i'm back here writing some more stuff for those who have a lot of spare time to read my pointless gibber gabber written here. This one i feel an urge to write because of a conversation i had with a guy in a bar on the weekend.
See, as i have said before, when it comes down to it i am a writer, it belongs to me and i belong to it. My soul is made of words. My spirit is formed from phrases, the flit and flirt together through my mind at all time, whether i am sleeping or standing or shocked to speechlessness.
Anywho though, the guy i was talking to at the bar, he understood this in a way, but where as i focus on words and speech, he focuses on music. We talked about the idea of what came first, language or music, as well as what was the thing that expresses things better, words or music.
Our discussion became so involved that we stopped playing cool and switched bars so that we could focus on talking instead.
I have to say that tonight on the bus ride home from class i could understand his viewpoint when i was listening to my ipod. I have to say that if i was forced to choose between music or language i would still have to choose language but not by much.
I almost broke into song on the bus because the music i was listening to aligned so closely with what i was feeling at the time. And this just reminds me of something i have listened to on podcasts before. The idea is one concerning food, that people need to take their time and eat slowly. The idea with music is to sit and listen to it as well, and do nothing else but listen to music at the time.
Sit with your favorite artists, be they writers, singers, or even painters, and just focus on the art. Let it soak into you, let it feed your soul. Grow and learn as you do so.
See, as i have said before, when it comes down to it i am a writer, it belongs to me and i belong to it. My soul is made of words. My spirit is formed from phrases, the flit and flirt together through my mind at all time, whether i am sleeping or standing or shocked to speechlessness.
Anywho though, the guy i was talking to at the bar, he understood this in a way, but where as i focus on words and speech, he focuses on music. We talked about the idea of what came first, language or music, as well as what was the thing that expresses things better, words or music.
Our discussion became so involved that we stopped playing cool and switched bars so that we could focus on talking instead.
I have to say that tonight on the bus ride home from class i could understand his viewpoint when i was listening to my ipod. I have to say that if i was forced to choose between music or language i would still have to choose language but not by much.
I almost broke into song on the bus because the music i was listening to aligned so closely with what i was feeling at the time. And this just reminds me of something i have listened to on podcasts before. The idea is one concerning food, that people need to take their time and eat slowly. The idea with music is to sit and listen to it as well, and do nothing else but listen to music at the time.
Sit with your favorite artists, be they writers, singers, or even painters, and just focus on the art. Let it soak into you, let it feed your soul. Grow and learn as you do so.
Class and Buddhism
So i write this blog post at 12:41 in the, well what would you call this, morning or night? Either way it is a Tuesday night and this is when i am writing this post (and yes i know i called this Tuesday night because that's what i will call it because i have yet to sleep) and i happen to be... a little under the influence.
See, it is a Tuesday night, and for me that happens to be a night when i go to visit a friend of mine and we hit up a bar along with a few other people she knows. Anywho this means that i have had two pints tonight before i came home early because i have a project to work on tomorrow. Meanwhile i know that this probably isn't the best time to write a post that will be around for eternity but it is something i want to write about, at least since this morning.
See, at 9:10 am on Tuesday and Thursday mornings i have Indigenous studies 1000 lectures. I missed those two lectures last week because i had a job interview last week and in missing that one missed finding out that i had a second lecture Thursday.
So today was technically the third lecture of the course but for me it was the first one. The course turns out is taught by two people who each covered half of the course today. The first one wandered around many different tangents and made the lecture interesting enough for me to actually stay awake the entire time. The second prof, not so much... I managed to fall asleep every ten minutes like clockwork...
Anywho the first prof brought up the way that some beliefs of native societies match up with some eastern beliefs such as Buddhism. That got me thinking about the fact that i consider myself Buddhist but every time someone knowledgeable on the subject brings it up i become... well a little more informed on the belief system i follow...
Which got me thinking on explaining my beliefs and talking about them. See thinking about beliefs and considering them is what makes them valid, less than something to live your life by and more an unthinking guideline that becomes an inner prejudice. Sort of like people thinking that no matter what abortion isn't an option, or that the death penalty is always right/wrong when it comes to a murder.
When it comes to Buddhism one of the things that always sticks close to my mind is a statement from a book i read about it when i first became curious. It was that Buddhism doesn't say "this is right and this is wrong" but rather it states "this works for me, try it and see if it works for you".
So what i have taken from this is that my beliefs that interplay with life and existence are constantly changing and that to become attached to them is to cause suffering. To try and control anything else other than yourself is pointless and leads to suffering. These are the cores of my belief. These are the things that make me think about myself as a Buddhist. Whether it qualifies me as one to anyone else i don't know. But to me it is enough, and to me that is what matters.
See, it is a Tuesday night, and for me that happens to be a night when i go to visit a friend of mine and we hit up a bar along with a few other people she knows. Anywho this means that i have had two pints tonight before i came home early because i have a project to work on tomorrow. Meanwhile i know that this probably isn't the best time to write a post that will be around for eternity but it is something i want to write about, at least since this morning.
See, at 9:10 am on Tuesday and Thursday mornings i have Indigenous studies 1000 lectures. I missed those two lectures last week because i had a job interview last week and in missing that one missed finding out that i had a second lecture Thursday.
So today was technically the third lecture of the course but for me it was the first one. The course turns out is taught by two people who each covered half of the course today. The first one wandered around many different tangents and made the lecture interesting enough for me to actually stay awake the entire time. The second prof, not so much... I managed to fall asleep every ten minutes like clockwork...
Anywho the first prof brought up the way that some beliefs of native societies match up with some eastern beliefs such as Buddhism. That got me thinking about the fact that i consider myself Buddhist but every time someone knowledgeable on the subject brings it up i become... well a little more informed on the belief system i follow...
Which got me thinking on explaining my beliefs and talking about them. See thinking about beliefs and considering them is what makes them valid, less than something to live your life by and more an unthinking guideline that becomes an inner prejudice. Sort of like people thinking that no matter what abortion isn't an option, or that the death penalty is always right/wrong when it comes to a murder.
When it comes to Buddhism one of the things that always sticks close to my mind is a statement from a book i read about it when i first became curious. It was that Buddhism doesn't say "this is right and this is wrong" but rather it states "this works for me, try it and see if it works for you".
So what i have taken from this is that my beliefs that interplay with life and existence are constantly changing and that to become attached to them is to cause suffering. To try and control anything else other than yourself is pointless and leads to suffering. These are the cores of my belief. These are the things that make me think about myself as a Buddhist. Whether it qualifies me as one to anyone else i don't know. But to me it is enough, and to me that is what matters.
15.5.10
To-Do: Blog
Ok, so for anyone who reads this on the occasion that i happen to actually work up the will to come up with some kind of topic and then sit down and write about it in my narcissistic way and doesn't currently know that i have moved, now you do.
That's right, i have moved to the city where the university i go to is located because, well, i am leasing a house here for next year and so it made sense to live here before the school year started and get a feel for the place. Plus it is letting me take some courses over the summer so that i can get a jump on getting my degree (after all, doing a joint major and a minor is more than a little insane :)).
However as per usual my attention span has recently been shortened to less than a few seconds in length due to all of the new stimuli around me all the time. I am living in a new house in a new city without parents here to try and keep me in line, with fast internet, cable, and a PS2, as well as a number of people in the area who i know. Plenty of things to keep me busy and distracted from the things i really need to be doing.
And so in order to deal with this worsening scatter-brained-ness i am writing every single thing that i realize i need to do down on an ever growing to do list (which also leads me to a book recommendation, The To-Do List by Mike Gayle). I say ever growing because the only time that there is nothing left to do is when there is nothing left (because face it, you know when you die that there will still be stuff to do, i hope when i go it is the vacuuming).
Anywho, this writing and crossing off makes me think of a number of other things that are out there that need doing. The things that every person realizes that they SHOULD do, but claim to never have TIME to do.
Some examples from my list are "do readings for classes" or "clean/organize basement" fall into the category of things that will be crossed off because they can be done. Then there are the things that require a kind of change in life such as "watch less TV shows"(because i don't really watch a lot of TV, but i watch a lot of shows on my computer), "spend more time outside" or "make house a home". Each of those items requires more consistent work and effort to create a change.
My favorite items on the list though are those first few that go on every single list i make. They make me think of a little bit from the show My Name is Earl. For those who haven't watched the show what happens essentially is that a guy who is a prick by everyone's standards wins the lottery, gets hit by a car, his wife leaves him and he loses his winning ticket. While lying in a drug induced haze in his hospital bed he sees a guy on TV talking about karma and so he creates his list of all the bad things he has done and decides to make up for them one at a time. Anywho in one episode he realizes that he has been a bad big brother so he writes on his list "Be a better brother" and in his mental monologue he adds that this is one thing he will never cross off his list because he can never stop being a good brother.
That's what the items that are on the top of my list are, the things that i never want to cross off because i can never do enough. They are "Sit", "Read", "Write", and "Blog". These are things that i think i will never truly finish doing, there is always something else to read write or blog about and there is never enough time spent with yourself just sitting and thinking.
Think about your to-do list, what things is it missing and what does it have too much of? What do you want to always include and which things do you not really need to spend so much time on?
That's right, i have moved to the city where the university i go to is located because, well, i am leasing a house here for next year and so it made sense to live here before the school year started and get a feel for the place. Plus it is letting me take some courses over the summer so that i can get a jump on getting my degree (after all, doing a joint major and a minor is more than a little insane :)).
However as per usual my attention span has recently been shortened to less than a few seconds in length due to all of the new stimuli around me all the time. I am living in a new house in a new city without parents here to try and keep me in line, with fast internet, cable, and a PS2, as well as a number of people in the area who i know. Plenty of things to keep me busy and distracted from the things i really need to be doing.
And so in order to deal with this worsening scatter-brained-ness i am writing every single thing that i realize i need to do down on an ever growing to do list (which also leads me to a book recommendation, The To-Do List by Mike Gayle). I say ever growing because the only time that there is nothing left to do is when there is nothing left (because face it, you know when you die that there will still be stuff to do, i hope when i go it is the vacuuming).
Anywho, this writing and crossing off makes me think of a number of other things that are out there that need doing. The things that every person realizes that they SHOULD do, but claim to never have TIME to do.
Some examples from my list are "do readings for classes" or "clean/organize basement" fall into the category of things that will be crossed off because they can be done. Then there are the things that require a kind of change in life such as "watch less TV shows"(because i don't really watch a lot of TV, but i watch a lot of shows on my computer), "spend more time outside" or "make house a home". Each of those items requires more consistent work and effort to create a change.
My favorite items on the list though are those first few that go on every single list i make. They make me think of a little bit from the show My Name is Earl. For those who haven't watched the show what happens essentially is that a guy who is a prick by everyone's standards wins the lottery, gets hit by a car, his wife leaves him and he loses his winning ticket. While lying in a drug induced haze in his hospital bed he sees a guy on TV talking about karma and so he creates his list of all the bad things he has done and decides to make up for them one at a time. Anywho in one episode he realizes that he has been a bad big brother so he writes on his list "Be a better brother" and in his mental monologue he adds that this is one thing he will never cross off his list because he can never stop being a good brother.
That's what the items that are on the top of my list are, the things that i never want to cross off because i can never do enough. They are "Sit", "Read", "Write", and "Blog". These are things that i think i will never truly finish doing, there is always something else to read write or blog about and there is never enough time spent with yourself just sitting and thinking.
Think about your to-do list, what things is it missing and what does it have too much of? What do you want to always include and which things do you not really need to spend so much time on?
14.5.10
Back for yet another run....
Writing, no matter where i go, what i do, or what i learn i seem to find that writing is what i come back to. I spent the past year at a university in a general arts program trying to find what i want to do with my life. Tricky tricky challenge, as i had fled away from the idea of trying to become a professional writer in any way shape or form.
Instead i had embraced this idea that there was something else out there for me to do, something where i wouldn't have to put so much of myself on the line, hang so much of my dreams on other people. Instead there would be something in one of the various courses that would so appeal to me that i would find my future there, find what i want to be and to do there.
And in case you haven't figured it out this year has taught me one very big thing and reminded me of a lot of little things. The big thing that it has shown me is that i don't need to be hunting for what i want to do, for the goal that i feel is what i am made to do. That is because it has been here all along, that i really want to be a writer. Not for news papers or magazines, not just on the walls of bathroom stalls, but a novel writer, someone who creates stories and characters that say things about life, about what it means to exist, about the world. I want to write novels that teach people about things that i have experienced, share what i have learned.
I also have learned this year that i don't ever want to take an English course or a conventional writing courses ever again. I want to learn how to write from reading and from learning other things. I want to learn from life, read what i like and don't and then write to match it rather than dissect writing until i get caught up in the most trivial details.
It kinda reminds me of the Billy Bob Thornton movie School for Scoundrels where essentially men who lack self confidence enroll in a course to teach them to be more assertive in their lives. What happens at the end of the movie (spoiler alert! turn back if you have yet to see this movie!) is that the main character becomes a more in control of his life and more confident. He is asked to give a guest lecture on what it was like, but his response is that you don't teach if you can actually do something.
The point off of this is that each person knows how to lead there life and knows deep down inside what they really want, past all those dreams of money, world domination, toothless the dragon, an iron man suit and a number of other things. Instead past all of there there are the things people really want to do, the ways they really truly want to lead their lives.
Forget the self help books, the gurus, the get fit in a week or less machines for sale on late night infomercials. Each person deep down inside knows what they want, every last piece of it. Each person just has to get to know themselves to find it and go for it. Thats what i have done this year. That is why i am going to be a writer, because deep down that is what i want to do.
(that and i would also like to be a bartender, if you have a job opening let me know!)
Instead i had embraced this idea that there was something else out there for me to do, something where i wouldn't have to put so much of myself on the line, hang so much of my dreams on other people. Instead there would be something in one of the various courses that would so appeal to me that i would find my future there, find what i want to be and to do there.
And in case you haven't figured it out this year has taught me one very big thing and reminded me of a lot of little things. The big thing that it has shown me is that i don't need to be hunting for what i want to do, for the goal that i feel is what i am made to do. That is because it has been here all along, that i really want to be a writer. Not for news papers or magazines, not just on the walls of bathroom stalls, but a novel writer, someone who creates stories and characters that say things about life, about what it means to exist, about the world. I want to write novels that teach people about things that i have experienced, share what i have learned.
I also have learned this year that i don't ever want to take an English course or a conventional writing courses ever again. I want to learn how to write from reading and from learning other things. I want to learn from life, read what i like and don't and then write to match it rather than dissect writing until i get caught up in the most trivial details.
It kinda reminds me of the Billy Bob Thornton movie School for Scoundrels where essentially men who lack self confidence enroll in a course to teach them to be more assertive in their lives. What happens at the end of the movie (spoiler alert! turn back if you have yet to see this movie!) is that the main character becomes a more in control of his life and more confident. He is asked to give a guest lecture on what it was like, but his response is that you don't teach if you can actually do something.
The point off of this is that each person knows how to lead there life and knows deep down inside what they really want, past all those dreams of money, world domination, toothless the dragon, an iron man suit and a number of other things. Instead past all of there there are the things people really want to do, the ways they really truly want to lead their lives.
Forget the self help books, the gurus, the get fit in a week or less machines for sale on late night infomercials. Each person deep down inside knows what they want, every last piece of it. Each person just has to get to know themselves to find it and go for it. Thats what i have done this year. That is why i am going to be a writer, because deep down that is what i want to do.
(that and i would also like to be a bartender, if you have a job opening let me know!)
8.4.10
My Essay
This is my essay for philosophy class, i like it, what do you think?
The origins of a society are contained in its past, the past is what creates the future. To say that the future is formed from the present and randomly forms however it so chooses independently of past circumstances is to suggest that each moment of reality is chaos. If each moment of reality is chaos then each moment is independent of every other and no thought, decision, or choice ever matters because each also exists separately. Each person has no more identity than their actions in any given moment, each life has no meaning because each moment dies as it is born, ends in its beginning. Instead it must be accepted that the past creates the future. In accepting this idea the mind becomes linked to the past as well because from each past thought a new one springs. This not to say that nothing ever occurs without connection to the past but rather that most things occur in connection to events which have already occurred because it provides the foundation. When it comes to something such as a society this idea becomes especially important because like a good building that will not fall down and crush its occupants a good society is based on a foundation of what came before it leading to a strong sturdy building.
But what happens when a society is built on a flawed foundation, one filled with brilliant thoughts that remain empty in the real world. What would happen if a society was based off of ideas which ignored half of what makes a person a person? What happens when a society is based off of two thinkers who take humans and split them into mind and body? This is the mistake made first by Plato and then again by Descartes which results in the body being suppressed as it is seen as something to be controlled and contained by the mind.
The idea of the mind and the body being two separate entities goes very far back into history. Most major religions include the idea of something called the soul which is something that continues on after the body dies, implying that not only is the body less important than the soul which creates a hierarchy but also boosting that difference by making the soul into some kind of divine creation. This idea is taken further forward by the Greek philosopher Plato who proposed the idea of the forms and shadows in his allegory of the cave (Solomon). In his work The Republic Plato has his character Socrates speak of this idea that all their lives men and women watch shadows on the back of a cave wall, from birth to death, and think this things real (Solomon). He then proposes that once someone is dragged from this cave they would see the real world and all that it is filled with before returning to the cave to try and convince others to come from the darkness and gain the knowledge of how things truly are in the light (Solomon). Plato takes this further however by stating that there are two worlds, and that the world of the forms is where we all would seek to go if our souls could but remember it (Solomon). In this world of forms all things are perfect, it is the origin of all things and it is where our souls return to upon our deaths (Solomon). In Plato’s theory this is where we must attempt to remember using our souls and our minds because the physical world exists as the shadows, while our thoughts can return to the glory of perfection (Solomon).
If this process of thought had ended with Plato than one might say society as a whole is no worse off because this idea occurred to one man over two thousand years ago and since then people have realized that their bodies are just as important as their minds and just as natural. That is not the case, in fact another man much more recently offered a very similar idea which is that if you were to doubt all things as a creation of some delusion or creation of an evil being of nearly infinite powers than the only thing which you could not doubt is the existence of your own mind. That man’s name was Rene Descartes. Descartes started with a very good idea which was to doubt every single thing he knew about the world, which was a lot, and build a foundation upon which all knowledge could then be based (Solomon). He then proceeded to doubt, and was left with one thing, he doubted which meant he had to exist in some shape or form (Solomon). This existence was what he built on (Solomon). He existed but as for anyone or anything else he had no proof, he could doubt even the true existence of his own body but still his mind would persist to exist (Solomon). Now in thought this idea is brilliant. In thought Descartes has created something which no other person can refute from him, but at the same time it leaves a certain amount of rationality behind.
To doubt the entirety of existence can be a brilliant mental exercise and uncover many things which should no longer be believed but at the same time it ignores the fact that even if this reality is the creation of an evil genius or some other being who is playing at creating a false space and putting true creatures in it doesn’t change the fact that this is still where Descartes was at the time existing (Solomon). Even if it was not the true world, it was by this place that he was bound, it was in this place that his body would have to act if he did not wish to die.
This idea that the mind and the body are two separate things which becomes harmful to people. It condemns the body while lifting the mind up. In this type of thought and opinion artwork, languages, and philosophy become more important while function and purpose gradually slide away. We end up with a society where rhetoric and prose become more important than the message. We have philosophers whose work only makes sense if it is written in larger words because once it is condensed it is seen as easy to turn around and see that it makes no sense. In separating the body and the mind it becomes wrong to sell the body because it is profane but selling the mind in books is seen as fine.
As well as placing sex in the negative because it is an act which brings the entire body to bear it also gives a negative cast to food and any other bodily pleasures. It links people to their thoughts and actions rather than to their situations. Life becomes about quantity over quality. People become less important, they get ranked according to their minds and bodies are used in manual labour become almost less than human, less than someone who wears a suit and gets to go around selling invisible pieces of a company that uses those bodies.
If these had been the only thoughts which had occurred to people it might be possible that they are the best possible choices. The problem with that is Aristotle, Plato’s student, refutes this (Solomon). Aristotle focused on the physical, on the world (Solomon). He studied plants and animals, created a number of different sciences, and turned Plato’s ideas on their heads (Solomon). Instead of the abstract world of the forms being the original real thing Aristotle focused on the physical world and said that these were the real things (Solomon).
To separate the body and the mind is like separating the heads and tails from a coin. Lose one and you lose both, a mind without a body or a body without a mind, both are no longer a person. Philosophers from ages past continue to write about how what truly makes a human a person is their mind, their rationality, the fact that they can think. Give a rock or a computer the ability to reason and think does that make it a person? Does that give it a soul? What about a baby or a young child who cannot yet reason? What about the philosopher who contracts Alzheimer’s? Taking away this ability to reason does not make someone less human. It makes them different, but if we all can reason and think differently as is evidenced from the number of arguments and different philosophies which emerge from the same societies shows that people are already unique. When civil rights leaders stand and ask what makes us different they ask if you cut me do I not bleed? We are linked both in mind and body, we all are people. To say otherwise is to say that we are limited in other things, to place some achievements above others and to claim the god-like right that you know which is more valuable, which will give more knowledge and more joy.
Philosophy works in the mind. The body exists in the world. Perhaps it is time for philosophy to exist in the world and the body to exist in the mind.
The origins of a society are contained in its past, the past is what creates the future. To say that the future is formed from the present and randomly forms however it so chooses independently of past circumstances is to suggest that each moment of reality is chaos. If each moment of reality is chaos then each moment is independent of every other and no thought, decision, or choice ever matters because each also exists separately. Each person has no more identity than their actions in any given moment, each life has no meaning because each moment dies as it is born, ends in its beginning. Instead it must be accepted that the past creates the future. In accepting this idea the mind becomes linked to the past as well because from each past thought a new one springs. This not to say that nothing ever occurs without connection to the past but rather that most things occur in connection to events which have already occurred because it provides the foundation. When it comes to something such as a society this idea becomes especially important because like a good building that will not fall down and crush its occupants a good society is based on a foundation of what came before it leading to a strong sturdy building.
But what happens when a society is built on a flawed foundation, one filled with brilliant thoughts that remain empty in the real world. What would happen if a society was based off of ideas which ignored half of what makes a person a person? What happens when a society is based off of two thinkers who take humans and split them into mind and body? This is the mistake made first by Plato and then again by Descartes which results in the body being suppressed as it is seen as something to be controlled and contained by the mind.
The idea of the mind and the body being two separate entities goes very far back into history. Most major religions include the idea of something called the soul which is something that continues on after the body dies, implying that not only is the body less important than the soul which creates a hierarchy but also boosting that difference by making the soul into some kind of divine creation. This idea is taken further forward by the Greek philosopher Plato who proposed the idea of the forms and shadows in his allegory of the cave (Solomon). In his work The Republic Plato has his character Socrates speak of this idea that all their lives men and women watch shadows on the back of a cave wall, from birth to death, and think this things real (Solomon). He then proposes that once someone is dragged from this cave they would see the real world and all that it is filled with before returning to the cave to try and convince others to come from the darkness and gain the knowledge of how things truly are in the light (Solomon). Plato takes this further however by stating that there are two worlds, and that the world of the forms is where we all would seek to go if our souls could but remember it (Solomon). In this world of forms all things are perfect, it is the origin of all things and it is where our souls return to upon our deaths (Solomon). In Plato’s theory this is where we must attempt to remember using our souls and our minds because the physical world exists as the shadows, while our thoughts can return to the glory of perfection (Solomon).
If this process of thought had ended with Plato than one might say society as a whole is no worse off because this idea occurred to one man over two thousand years ago and since then people have realized that their bodies are just as important as their minds and just as natural. That is not the case, in fact another man much more recently offered a very similar idea which is that if you were to doubt all things as a creation of some delusion or creation of an evil being of nearly infinite powers than the only thing which you could not doubt is the existence of your own mind. That man’s name was Rene Descartes. Descartes started with a very good idea which was to doubt every single thing he knew about the world, which was a lot, and build a foundation upon which all knowledge could then be based (Solomon). He then proceeded to doubt, and was left with one thing, he doubted which meant he had to exist in some shape or form (Solomon). This existence was what he built on (Solomon). He existed but as for anyone or anything else he had no proof, he could doubt even the true existence of his own body but still his mind would persist to exist (Solomon). Now in thought this idea is brilliant. In thought Descartes has created something which no other person can refute from him, but at the same time it leaves a certain amount of rationality behind.
To doubt the entirety of existence can be a brilliant mental exercise and uncover many things which should no longer be believed but at the same time it ignores the fact that even if this reality is the creation of an evil genius or some other being who is playing at creating a false space and putting true creatures in it doesn’t change the fact that this is still where Descartes was at the time existing (Solomon). Even if it was not the true world, it was by this place that he was bound, it was in this place that his body would have to act if he did not wish to die.
This idea that the mind and the body are two separate things which becomes harmful to people. It condemns the body while lifting the mind up. In this type of thought and opinion artwork, languages, and philosophy become more important while function and purpose gradually slide away. We end up with a society where rhetoric and prose become more important than the message. We have philosophers whose work only makes sense if it is written in larger words because once it is condensed it is seen as easy to turn around and see that it makes no sense. In separating the body and the mind it becomes wrong to sell the body because it is profane but selling the mind in books is seen as fine.
As well as placing sex in the negative because it is an act which brings the entire body to bear it also gives a negative cast to food and any other bodily pleasures. It links people to their thoughts and actions rather than to their situations. Life becomes about quantity over quality. People become less important, they get ranked according to their minds and bodies are used in manual labour become almost less than human, less than someone who wears a suit and gets to go around selling invisible pieces of a company that uses those bodies.
If these had been the only thoughts which had occurred to people it might be possible that they are the best possible choices. The problem with that is Aristotle, Plato’s student, refutes this (Solomon). Aristotle focused on the physical, on the world (Solomon). He studied plants and animals, created a number of different sciences, and turned Plato’s ideas on their heads (Solomon). Instead of the abstract world of the forms being the original real thing Aristotle focused on the physical world and said that these were the real things (Solomon).
To separate the body and the mind is like separating the heads and tails from a coin. Lose one and you lose both, a mind without a body or a body without a mind, both are no longer a person. Philosophers from ages past continue to write about how what truly makes a human a person is their mind, their rationality, the fact that they can think. Give a rock or a computer the ability to reason and think does that make it a person? Does that give it a soul? What about a baby or a young child who cannot yet reason? What about the philosopher who contracts Alzheimer’s? Taking away this ability to reason does not make someone less human. It makes them different, but if we all can reason and think differently as is evidenced from the number of arguments and different philosophies which emerge from the same societies shows that people are already unique. When civil rights leaders stand and ask what makes us different they ask if you cut me do I not bleed? We are linked both in mind and body, we all are people. To say otherwise is to say that we are limited in other things, to place some achievements above others and to claim the god-like right that you know which is more valuable, which will give more knowledge and more joy.
Philosophy works in the mind. The body exists in the world. Perhaps it is time for philosophy to exist in the world and the body to exist in the mind.
3.4.10
Quick Response
Just tossing out a little response to the comment on my last post, that was by a friend of mine whose blog just keeps tossing out writing that i find so inspiring, if you liked the sound of her writing then check it out at http://charcoalstars.blogspot.com/ give a comment or two, and see what other great writing you can find (and if you find nothing ask me for more recommendations)
28.3.10
Whoooooooooooooooo are you? Who, who? Who, who?
That is the question i want to ask you, who are you? Who have you become in the past year? The past month? The past five minutes? Life is all about change, growth, new things. Every single time something happens to you it changes you, sometimes in the tiniest way possible, but it changes you.
That sandwich you ate for lunch? It changed you. It has become part of you in various ways, its energy became yours, its structures became yours. You become a piece of it. And the world circles on, never noticing because in the end no matter how much you change or grow it doesn't really matter.
And yes i am aware i sound all pissy and depressing. But let me explain, no matter what you do in which way or form it will not stop the universe from working or the world from turning. Instead you can do whatever (or whoever) you want and the world keeps going. It keeps turning on and on, and if you give yourself time your life will too.
And where i am at in life is a place where you are supposed to grow and change and realize more of who you are as you grow into yourself. Which is great, which is what i think needs to be done in every single person's life. You need to learn and grow and be open to change. You need to be ready to shift with things as we learn more.
But i find myself to be solid, kind of unchanging. I have learned a lot over the course of this year, but i haven't really changed. A little more outgoing, a little bit wiser and smarter. A little harder of heart, but who i am? Still the same. Still no change.
And as people around me realize who they are and learn and grow they develop i wonder who i am and when it is my turn. Instead i feel like i have traveled down a road and passed a fork i should have turned at. And now i have to figure out where it is before i travel too far and can't turn back...
That sandwich you ate for lunch? It changed you. It has become part of you in various ways, its energy became yours, its structures became yours. You become a piece of it. And the world circles on, never noticing because in the end no matter how much you change or grow it doesn't really matter.
And yes i am aware i sound all pissy and depressing. But let me explain, no matter what you do in which way or form it will not stop the universe from working or the world from turning. Instead you can do whatever (or whoever) you want and the world keeps going. It keeps turning on and on, and if you give yourself time your life will too.
And where i am at in life is a place where you are supposed to grow and change and realize more of who you are as you grow into yourself. Which is great, which is what i think needs to be done in every single person's life. You need to learn and grow and be open to change. You need to be ready to shift with things as we learn more.
But i find myself to be solid, kind of unchanging. I have learned a lot over the course of this year, but i haven't really changed. A little more outgoing, a little bit wiser and smarter. A little harder of heart, but who i am? Still the same. Still no change.
And as people around me realize who they are and learn and grow they develop i wonder who i am and when it is my turn. Instead i feel like i have traveled down a road and passed a fork i should have turned at. And now i have to figure out where it is before i travel too far and can't turn back...
22.3.10
Oblivion
So here i go to continue my theme of sleep. I have to write this post out to all of you because my mind literally got hijacked at one point today and i stopped thinking about what i was doing, and instead thought out a possible way to write this post. It was very interesting, one second thinking about the homework i have to do, the next my mind becomes consumed with thoughts of oblivion.
Yes, you read that right, i am writing about oblivion. Sleep, unconsciousness, fainting, being knocked out, all make a reference to oblivion, or at least they have when i have read them. It is in a way true that sleep is a form of oblivion, you can't really consciously percive anything that is activly happening in the real world unless you happen to be some kind of prophet or seer (in which case care to send me the lottery numbers for next week?).
Sleep is a time for refreshing and restoring yourself, it is the time where your brain makes connections to learn new things and incorporate new experiences into who you are. Dreams have been shown to help learn new things and ingrain a number of different thoughts into your mind.
But now i want to take sleep and turn it into a metaphor for interpersonal reactions and life. There is a quote that i can't completely remember or where it came from, but it goes something like there are so many people just wandering through their lives in some kind of stupor like they are asleep and need to just wake up.
This is truly a wonderful thought on life, people need to wake up and experience things instead of just dreaming them and treating them if they are not real. I am going to use myself as an example here so be well aware that this means i will most likely sound preachy and self righteous, you have been warned.
Anywho why am i in university? Because i was told to by my mom or else. Yes, that is why i am here, blame her. Anywho though what kind of degree am i getting? A double major in psychology and philosophy with a minor in Anthropology or Indigenous studies to balance it out. I also am planning on taking at least a few biology courses. Why am i doing all this, when i know that it will send me into a giant pit of debt that i doubt i will ever escape? Because i want to experience life and learn about all the things that interest me.
That is what being awake in life for me means, being able to be myself and learn all i can. It means taking the experiences life offers me and running with them for as long as i care to. It means acting when it is time to act and holding back when it is time to hold back.
But then there is a way i am oblivious, and i choose to be. That is with my actions with other people, i choose to be oblivious of things if people don't come and talk to me about them. I truly believe in the idea that if it is important come talk to me about it, and if it isn't then it doesn't really matter.
As well if i think i see something but know that it isn't important for people enough for them to act on it then i wont, instead i choose for other people to move and bring up things. I instead keep things easier by not bring up things with other people that i could and let them instead.
I guess my recommendation from this is that if there is something you want to talk about or think you need to talk about then do it. If you don't think it is important enough then play oblivious.
Yes, you read that right, i am writing about oblivion. Sleep, unconsciousness, fainting, being knocked out, all make a reference to oblivion, or at least they have when i have read them. It is in a way true that sleep is a form of oblivion, you can't really consciously percive anything that is activly happening in the real world unless you happen to be some kind of prophet or seer (in which case care to send me the lottery numbers for next week?).
Sleep is a time for refreshing and restoring yourself, it is the time where your brain makes connections to learn new things and incorporate new experiences into who you are. Dreams have been shown to help learn new things and ingrain a number of different thoughts into your mind.
But now i want to take sleep and turn it into a metaphor for interpersonal reactions and life. There is a quote that i can't completely remember or where it came from, but it goes something like there are so many people just wandering through their lives in some kind of stupor like they are asleep and need to just wake up.
This is truly a wonderful thought on life, people need to wake up and experience things instead of just dreaming them and treating them if they are not real. I am going to use myself as an example here so be well aware that this means i will most likely sound preachy and self righteous, you have been warned.
Anywho why am i in university? Because i was told to by my mom or else. Yes, that is why i am here, blame her. Anywho though what kind of degree am i getting? A double major in psychology and philosophy with a minor in Anthropology or Indigenous studies to balance it out. I also am planning on taking at least a few biology courses. Why am i doing all this, when i know that it will send me into a giant pit of debt that i doubt i will ever escape? Because i want to experience life and learn about all the things that interest me.
That is what being awake in life for me means, being able to be myself and learn all i can. It means taking the experiences life offers me and running with them for as long as i care to. It means acting when it is time to act and holding back when it is time to hold back.
But then there is a way i am oblivious, and i choose to be. That is with my actions with other people, i choose to be oblivious of things if people don't come and talk to me about them. I truly believe in the idea that if it is important come talk to me about it, and if it isn't then it doesn't really matter.
As well if i think i see something but know that it isn't important for people enough for them to act on it then i wont, instead i choose for other people to move and bring up things. I instead keep things easier by not bring up things with other people that i could and let them instead.
I guess my recommendation from this is that if there is something you want to talk about or think you need to talk about then do it. If you don't think it is important enough then play oblivious.
21.3.10
Sleeping and Waking up
Hi there faithful readers (all 4 of you) here i am blogging again because i was home working all weekend and as such my mind is now full of useless chatter, so y'all get to listen to it!
Anyways i was working back at that wonderful place called the stupid-store where i have worked so long that i don't really have to think while i am there anymore. Instead i get to let my mind wander wherever it may go. Though this time they didn't really wander so much as drunkenly stumble. For some reason over the course of this past week i began to suffer from insomnia which just sucks.
The first day i had to work i literally got 3 hours of sleep plus the various naps i had during the day, there was the one i had on the drive home, the one when i got home, the 3 at work, and then for some reason that night i could not pass out and tossed and turned until sometime after 4 am when i fell asleep at last.
And actually i had this whole big thing planned out that i wanted to write about my inter-personal reactions and my view on things but now... well i just hopped over to Jason Mraz's blog and now i have to write a totally different post on something else that just completely inspired me.
This thing he links to in the post about where you would wake if you could made me feel so warm and fuzzy and just awesome that now i feel like sharing this with you. It neat because i am starting a series on sleep and this will be the first one. See my favorite answer given was by the guy in the first one, cause he felt so embarrassed with the only answer that occurred to him.
He spent a while just thinking about it and couldn't come up with anything, instead he just said his girlfriend's bed. Now to me this is amazing, as well as the number of people who thought about it and said back where they were, because they are where they wanted to be. The other thing (steph is awesome) is the people who want to go somewhere that they can't somewhere impossible, like back in time or to correct a mistake.
The thing with this is that getting caught up in moments like this is a bad thing because getting lost in the past and in the moments of the mistakes forget to move forward and grow into your life and into yourself.
Anyways i was working back at that wonderful place called the stupid-store where i have worked so long that i don't really have to think while i am there anymore. Instead i get to let my mind wander wherever it may go. Though this time they didn't really wander so much as drunkenly stumble. For some reason over the course of this past week i began to suffer from insomnia which just sucks.
The first day i had to work i literally got 3 hours of sleep plus the various naps i had during the day, there was the one i had on the drive home, the one when i got home, the 3 at work, and then for some reason that night i could not pass out and tossed and turned until sometime after 4 am when i fell asleep at last.
And actually i had this whole big thing planned out that i wanted to write about my inter-personal reactions and my view on things but now... well i just hopped over to Jason Mraz's blog and now i have to write a totally different post on something else that just completely inspired me.
This thing he links to in the post about where you would wake if you could made me feel so warm and fuzzy and just awesome that now i feel like sharing this with you. It neat because i am starting a series on sleep and this will be the first one. See my favorite answer given was by the guy in the first one, cause he felt so embarrassed with the only answer that occurred to him.
He spent a while just thinking about it and couldn't come up with anything, instead he just said his girlfriend's bed. Now to me this is amazing, as well as the number of people who thought about it and said back where they were, because they are where they wanted to be. The other thing (steph is awesome) is the people who want to go somewhere that they can't somewhere impossible, like back in time or to correct a mistake.
The thing with this is that getting caught up in moments like this is a bad thing because getting lost in the past and in the moments of the mistakes forget to move forward and grow into your life and into yourself.
19.3.10
Hi
Hi there, whats up late night world blog-o-sphere? Ya, it is a few days from when i did last, maybe a week... Or possibly more from when i last posted. I don't really recall when it was. I remember what it was about but i don't remember when. Anywho back to the post. What will i write about? Hmm....
Well there are a few things. Like, for example, what the hell am i doing up at 4:52 am? Honestly i have no clue, i mean sleep is this wonderful thing that erases time until other people are awake and we can hang out. And be alert in classes and stuff...
Plus you get to have these really cool things called dreams where you get to do anything. You can fly, you can shape shift, you can destroy the universe or make your own! It is amazing, plus it is when you learn and when you sleep your brain makes all these cool new pathways to bring in your new info. AKA sleep is very very extremely, incredibly IMPORTANT! And today it seems like i wont be getting any sleep, as it is now 5:08, i have class at 10, and work at 3 till 11.
And instead i can't sleep so i sit up watching TV on my laptop and writing a rambling blog post. And this show gets me thinking about inspiration. I mean watching the show i know it is nothing more than a piece of manufactured pop culture designed to appeal to kids around my little sister's age and yet i watch it and can't help but admit that they did a very good job on it.
So many fracking parts of it end up resonating with me that it makes me think back to this quote i read once, it goes "if opportunity doesn't knock then build a door". This gets me thinking on writing and other art forms. If you watch TV shows obsessively like i do (for the massive amount of character development that they can do which puts every single movie out there to shame) you see a lot of shows that feature artists of some kind, whenever they fall into a slump they end up sitting around in their boxers watching crappy pop TV for hours on end (wow i can currently relate...) when suddenly something hits them and they sit out something that simply completes whatever they were working on.
And yes i know it is easy to solve the problems in a flash like this in media forms where writers are god simply placing the solution directly into the protagonist's hands. But by the same token the reason it is used in so many different situations is because it happens in life so many times.
Anywho what i am saying is that inspiration and insight can come from many different sources, so be open to it from wherever it may come, don't close yourself to it, and if all else fails go out and find it.
Well there are a few things. Like, for example, what the hell am i doing up at 4:52 am? Honestly i have no clue, i mean sleep is this wonderful thing that erases time until other people are awake and we can hang out. And be alert in classes and stuff...
Plus you get to have these really cool things called dreams where you get to do anything. You can fly, you can shape shift, you can destroy the universe or make your own! It is amazing, plus it is when you learn and when you sleep your brain makes all these cool new pathways to bring in your new info. AKA sleep is very very extremely, incredibly IMPORTANT! And today it seems like i wont be getting any sleep, as it is now 5:08, i have class at 10, and work at 3 till 11.
And instead i can't sleep so i sit up watching TV on my laptop and writing a rambling blog post. And this show gets me thinking about inspiration. I mean watching the show i know it is nothing more than a piece of manufactured pop culture designed to appeal to kids around my little sister's age and yet i watch it and can't help but admit that they did a very good job on it.
So many fracking parts of it end up resonating with me that it makes me think back to this quote i read once, it goes "if opportunity doesn't knock then build a door". This gets me thinking on writing and other art forms. If you watch TV shows obsessively like i do (for the massive amount of character development that they can do which puts every single movie out there to shame) you see a lot of shows that feature artists of some kind, whenever they fall into a slump they end up sitting around in their boxers watching crappy pop TV for hours on end (wow i can currently relate...) when suddenly something hits them and they sit out something that simply completes whatever they were working on.
And yes i know it is easy to solve the problems in a flash like this in media forms where writers are god simply placing the solution directly into the protagonist's hands. But by the same token the reason it is used in so many different situations is because it happens in life so many times.
Anywho what i am saying is that inspiration and insight can come from many different sources, so be open to it from wherever it may come, don't close yourself to it, and if all else fails go out and find it.
4.3.10
Sex-Part 3
So i have decided to write this post because... well because sex is on my mind right now due to my being grilled on my thoughts of sex tonight before my psych lecture (loads of fun, i assure you). And also the fact that when i logged onto my account to create a new post this was sitting here, an empty draft that i meant to write ages ago.
See my last two posts before this were on the idea of sex is wrong but selling other parts of yourself somehow is ok. Now my main justification in the other posts was that there was a lacking of logic in the westernized views on sex. What i didn't do however was explain my view.
So while this post might be a little bit shorter than normal, it is purely my thoughts, no one else gets a comment in here. The one link i am going to give you is to a post on another blog if you have an issue with what i write (why defend what i write when she does it so much better?)
So sex, the word that was the He Who Must Not Be Named of my childhood, instead we spelt it out. They were talking about S.... E.... X! There was this idea that there was something wrong with it, something to be avoided but no one really explained why except for the fact that it was something you did with girls and they were gross (i never really understood that either but majority rules apparently).
I lived a very long time of my life in this kind of mindset, that whatever the majority thought was obviously right, i mean i was just me, what value could my opinion have? I knew that i was allowed to have it but it didn't matter if it wasn't the same as everyone else. I have always been an insanely amount curious, but that is just me, however i didn't always fight for my opinions or even try and justify them (ya, that is right, i didn't always argue with everyone...).
But then something changed, and i don't know when or why it happened but blame it for every time i fight and argue with you because i love this thinking for myself and finding reasons for my actions.
Anywho, as i got older sex became more important (something to do with raging hormones and a drive of some sort...). With this interest in sex and the not just assuming that my past ideas are all correct i thought about it. I mean what do you expect a teenage guy to do...?
And what i concluded is that i really can't see anything that would create sex making it bad in its very nature. I am gonna call on your logic now, why would one thing be made bad in every instance except one? Animals aren't, people aren't, substances aren't, but sex is wrong unless it is with one person whom you have married... I am sorry to those who believe otherwise but i just can't see it.
So now you also need to see that i am not someone who was ever really content following any church or dogma. I now am a Zen Buddhist Practitioner (when i have time to meditate...) which means that i get to read and interpret the teachings of the first Buddha, which all fit with my view of the world (but this isn't a post about my theology). This is my pointing out that i had no conflict with there being nothing wrong with sex in my world views.
So now i have shown why i personally think there is nothing really wrong with sex and currently i am dancing around what i think sex actually is because, well, saying that is hard to do.
Ok, so i think sex is a time when you shelve your inhibitions, by choice instead of using something like booze to do it for you. Instead you find someone that you are comfortable enough with to toss it all aside and in a society where we coat ourselves in synthetic substances all day long and welcome them into our body.
I also have always had this issue with the connection between the body and the soul, why do they have to be separate? The body affects the mind and the mind the body, it makes more sense that they are one thing the same way that your hair is part of you even though it is separate from the rest of your skin. They both still exist if you split them up but hair doesn't survive without the body.
Anywho it is this welcoming, this joining of comfort that i think sex really is. Now what about virginity? Yes, that is a part of sex, meaning that i need to talk about it now. There is a line from one of my favorite books about death which is that death is a door you need to walk through on your own. There is no one who can go with you but you don't have to be alone on either side.
Virginity is the same thing, you lose it by yourself even though it takes another person there. You are the one who loses it, who gives it to another person but they don't have to be a virgin to have sex with you meaning they don't have to lose it with you too. It is up to you to choose who you want to be around, and who you want to have with you there, or how many people.
In conclusion i think sex is wonderful and amazing if done with thought and people you care about. I think it should be talked about openly and publicly, and that people should feel free to share their experiences with people they are close to. I have had several friends who know about my sex life and i know about theirs and we are very close. I think that it is something everyone should experience at least once so that they know how it can feel when they are ready and that if it is something a person you never want to experience again then you know.
See my last two posts before this were on the idea of sex is wrong but selling other parts of yourself somehow is ok. Now my main justification in the other posts was that there was a lacking of logic in the westernized views on sex. What i didn't do however was explain my view.
So while this post might be a little bit shorter than normal, it is purely my thoughts, no one else gets a comment in here. The one link i am going to give you is to a post on another blog if you have an issue with what i write (why defend what i write when she does it so much better?)
So sex, the word that was the He Who Must Not Be Named of my childhood, instead we spelt it out. They were talking about S.... E.... X! There was this idea that there was something wrong with it, something to be avoided but no one really explained why except for the fact that it was something you did with girls and they were gross (i never really understood that either but majority rules apparently).
I lived a very long time of my life in this kind of mindset, that whatever the majority thought was obviously right, i mean i was just me, what value could my opinion have? I knew that i was allowed to have it but it didn't matter if it wasn't the same as everyone else. I have always been an insanely amount curious, but that is just me, however i didn't always fight for my opinions or even try and justify them (ya, that is right, i didn't always argue with everyone...).
But then something changed, and i don't know when or why it happened but blame it for every time i fight and argue with you because i love this thinking for myself and finding reasons for my actions.
Anywho, as i got older sex became more important (something to do with raging hormones and a drive of some sort...). With this interest in sex and the not just assuming that my past ideas are all correct i thought about it. I mean what do you expect a teenage guy to do...?
And what i concluded is that i really can't see anything that would create sex making it bad in its very nature. I am gonna call on your logic now, why would one thing be made bad in every instance except one? Animals aren't, people aren't, substances aren't, but sex is wrong unless it is with one person whom you have married... I am sorry to those who believe otherwise but i just can't see it.
So now you also need to see that i am not someone who was ever really content following any church or dogma. I now am a Zen Buddhist Practitioner (when i have time to meditate...) which means that i get to read and interpret the teachings of the first Buddha, which all fit with my view of the world (but this isn't a post about my theology). This is my pointing out that i had no conflict with there being nothing wrong with sex in my world views.
So now i have shown why i personally think there is nothing really wrong with sex and currently i am dancing around what i think sex actually is because, well, saying that is hard to do.
Ok, so i think sex is a time when you shelve your inhibitions, by choice instead of using something like booze to do it for you. Instead you find someone that you are comfortable enough with to toss it all aside and in a society where we coat ourselves in synthetic substances all day long and welcome them into our body.
I also have always had this issue with the connection between the body and the soul, why do they have to be separate? The body affects the mind and the mind the body, it makes more sense that they are one thing the same way that your hair is part of you even though it is separate from the rest of your skin. They both still exist if you split them up but hair doesn't survive without the body.
Anywho it is this welcoming, this joining of comfort that i think sex really is. Now what about virginity? Yes, that is a part of sex, meaning that i need to talk about it now. There is a line from one of my favorite books about death which is that death is a door you need to walk through on your own. There is no one who can go with you but you don't have to be alone on either side.
Virginity is the same thing, you lose it by yourself even though it takes another person there. You are the one who loses it, who gives it to another person but they don't have to be a virgin to have sex with you meaning they don't have to lose it with you too. It is up to you to choose who you want to be around, and who you want to have with you there, or how many people.
In conclusion i think sex is wonderful and amazing if done with thought and people you care about. I think it should be talked about openly and publicly, and that people should feel free to share their experiences with people they are close to. I have had several friends who know about my sex life and i know about theirs and we are very close. I think that it is something everyone should experience at least once so that they know how it can feel when they are ready and that if it is something a person you never want to experience again then you know.
3.3.10
Sex-Part 2
So here is the secondary part of the post i began last night (though technically it was so late that it was just REALLY early today). And now i continue it late at night when i REAAAALY want to go to sleep. It would be so nice to just go upstairs and curl up in bed and float away in my dreams. Instead i am writing this because i said i would.
Yesterday i explained my thoughts as to my prostitution is wrong with the basis of why sex is wrong because of the western mindset of the mind being divine and the body being profane. As such the body is wrong in this view meaning that selling something the body wants or selling the body is wrong.
Now i want to offer another thought, what is selling books? Or articles in newspapers and magazines. These are thoughts which come from your mind meaning they are divine. You are selling the divine to whoever can pay.
Add in the way that thoughts and words have to be in some way consciously planned out and as such mean more. But you don't give them to just any one do you? Well for some reason giving away divine to anyone who could pay, whether they could afford it or not doesn't seem to strike anyone as divine prostitution but rather just the way things naturally should be.
Why? Selling thought to anyone despite if they can appreciate it or even understand it is somehow acceptable. I guess then what you need to decide is does this blog make me a whore or not.
And is it ok for me to be, or are all forms of prostitution wrong?
Yesterday i explained my thoughts as to my prostitution is wrong with the basis of why sex is wrong because of the western mindset of the mind being divine and the body being profane. As such the body is wrong in this view meaning that selling something the body wants or selling the body is wrong.
Now i want to offer another thought, what is selling books? Or articles in newspapers and magazines. These are thoughts which come from your mind meaning they are divine. You are selling the divine to whoever can pay.
Add in the way that thoughts and words have to be in some way consciously planned out and as such mean more. But you don't give them to just any one do you? Well for some reason giving away divine to anyone who could pay, whether they could afford it or not doesn't seem to strike anyone as divine prostitution but rather just the way things naturally should be.
Why? Selling thought to anyone despite if they can appreciate it or even understand it is somehow acceptable. I guess then what you need to decide is does this blog make me a whore or not.
And is it ok for me to be, or are all forms of prostitution wrong?
Sex-Part 1
So tonight it is time for another post. Why you may ask, i mean i just posted one recently and it was awesome, why should you have to read through another so soon? Well because i had a cultural studies class tonight, and in it i used an idea that has been floating around my head recently. This idea is totally different from western thought, as is my usual.
What i am thinking about now is prostitution. What exactly is wrong with it? Yes, i did just ask you what is wrong with it. In theory the problem with prostitution is that it is the problem with sex. See the only way that sex can be wrong for money is if there is something wrong with it in general. Think long and hard about it (long and hard, hee hee), is there anything else that is both illegal for when it is charged for and legal when it is free? Other than sex.
(random quote from the JCR: 'I can lick you if you like')
Now my logic for it is simply the division that western philosophy makes between the body and the mind. In this separation of the two the mind becomes this golden link to the divine while the body becomes the link to the profane. The mind becomes supernatural while the body becomes simply natural.
This distinction turns everything that the body wants and needs into things to be avoided unless absolutely necessary. We eat only when we need to, we save sex until marriage so that people can then procreate. The Catholic Church created their seven deadly sins and then their virtues to match.
Note the line up : Lust and Chastity, Gluttony and Temperance, Greed and Charity, Sloth and Diligence, Wrath and Patience, Envy and Kindness, and finally Pride and Humility.
Note the way that the line up has linked something physical with something that isn't physical. I also want you to note that while i think that there are some that are right (like the overwhelming Greed that drives capitalism into its constant growth resulting in people starving, but that is a post for another day...)
But i also want to note that while this church proscribes black and white doctrine that simply makes one good and another bad both Aristotle and The Buddha instead speak of the middle path between the two points which is directly between the two.
Between Lust and Chastity is enjoying sex, between Gluttony and Temperance is enjoying your food and other things, between Greed and Charity is giving to others when you can but keeping enough for yourself. Between Sloth and Diligence is doing your work when it is time but also taking time to relax. Between Wrath and Patience is standing up for yourself based on the situation. And between Pride and Humility is taking pride in your work but not for more than you have done.
Which sounds better, a life of all sins, a life of all virtues, or a life on the middle path. I do not doubt that the hardest path would be that of the virtues, the easiest that of the sins and the middle path in the middle, which is the other reason why i wonder why people don't use it. But there is the idea that hard things are better (after all the world's hardest substance is a girl's best friend).
But anywho this has developed into a giant post all on its own so tomorrow i will continue with this theme and offer up my points on prostitution. Have fun reading!
What i am thinking about now is prostitution. What exactly is wrong with it? Yes, i did just ask you what is wrong with it. In theory the problem with prostitution is that it is the problem with sex. See the only way that sex can be wrong for money is if there is something wrong with it in general. Think long and hard about it (long and hard, hee hee), is there anything else that is both illegal for when it is charged for and legal when it is free? Other than sex.
(random quote from the JCR: 'I can lick you if you like')
Now my logic for it is simply the division that western philosophy makes between the body and the mind. In this separation of the two the mind becomes this golden link to the divine while the body becomes the link to the profane. The mind becomes supernatural while the body becomes simply natural.
This distinction turns everything that the body wants and needs into things to be avoided unless absolutely necessary. We eat only when we need to, we save sex until marriage so that people can then procreate. The Catholic Church created their seven deadly sins and then their virtues to match.
Note the line up : Lust and Chastity, Gluttony and Temperance, Greed and Charity, Sloth and Diligence, Wrath and Patience, Envy and Kindness, and finally Pride and Humility.
Note the way that the line up has linked something physical with something that isn't physical. I also want you to note that while i think that there are some that are right (like the overwhelming Greed that drives capitalism into its constant growth resulting in people starving, but that is a post for another day...)
But i also want to note that while this church proscribes black and white doctrine that simply makes one good and another bad both Aristotle and The Buddha instead speak of the middle path between the two points which is directly between the two.
Between Lust and Chastity is enjoying sex, between Gluttony and Temperance is enjoying your food and other things, between Greed and Charity is giving to others when you can but keeping enough for yourself. Between Sloth and Diligence is doing your work when it is time but also taking time to relax. Between Wrath and Patience is standing up for yourself based on the situation. And between Pride and Humility is taking pride in your work but not for more than you have done.
Which sounds better, a life of all sins, a life of all virtues, or a life on the middle path. I do not doubt that the hardest path would be that of the virtues, the easiest that of the sins and the middle path in the middle, which is the other reason why i wonder why people don't use it. But there is the idea that hard things are better (after all the world's hardest substance is a girl's best friend).
But anywho this has developed into a giant post all on its own so tomorrow i will continue with this theme and offer up my points on prostitution. Have fun reading!
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