The more we know, the more we learn that we know nothing

I was in the mood to clean today. One of those rare occasions when I actually do, and I randomly came across my old yearbooks. Of course I immediately grabbed the one that I designed, as the standing senior editor-in-chief at the time. I must admit, looking back on all of the pictures of me, I was a much more confident person. I knew who I was, and I was proud to be her. I was outrageous, loud, obnoxious at times, smart, a little punk-rock-grunge stylish. But my senior year, I couldn't have been a happier person. I was alone with no attachments, and I fell into who I was, who I was meant to be. I know this is a bit broad, however, if you've ever hit one of those peaks, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Three years later, here I sit. More confused, less confident, unsure of who I am going to be and where I'm going. But I can tell you one thing I've learned. Every time that people get into a relationship, something happens to them. Minus all the drama and feelings that people go through, a part of themselves change when they are with someone. They sort of morph to be more like the other, both parties do this of course. And when you break up, a piece of you goes with them. You lose that part of yourself, and its incredibly painstaking to try to rebuild it, since you cannot even remember, or necessarily put your finger on whats missing.
Looking at this one picture in the yearbook, I had on a pair of bleached-out-ripped-at-the-knees jeans, a green "motion city soundtrack" tshirt, black converses, a green cuff, and green eyeshadow. My hair was pulled back.
Ironically, I still have and know where all of these items are. They are a little worn, and don't fit as well as they did three years ago, but the point is that I still have these items. I still wear them, but the person under them is different. In the picture I am on the back of my old friend, Micah, and I am fake-punching him in the head. It's a fun picture I must admit. And the feeling of utter connectedness came back to me, as I looked at this girl in the picture. I miss her. And then I realized what part of me was taken by my ex. I can't exacly name it, but the closest I can come is the "swagger" or "confidence" I had. I may act like I am confident now, and I can even picture myself before I dated said ex-boyfriend and I had that swagger that girls who know who they are have. So that's what he took. My confidence. And I'm sorry, but that shit is really hard to get back.
With my friends, I know that I have a certain amount of confidence, but in the back of my mind I'm constantly asking myself what the others are thinking about me. This is sad I know. But being in a relationship for a year where you constantly had to question if you were enough to make a boy settle down for you, and in the end you're lied to and cheated on, you start to question yourself and your worth. I've written several blogs on this very subject. But tonight I realized as much as I may speak or write about it, I still am missing that high-school confidence I had.
However, the bright side to this, I am alone now, and I can spend the next few months tryting to rebuild this. I can focus completely on myself, and that's always a good thing. I know where to start, because before aforementioned photograph, I was in a similar relationship perdicament. Realizing this kind of made me happy today, for lack of better terms. And to quote Atlas Shrugged, "Don't let them take it," this is what I'm trying to get across, even to myself.
This quote also ties into a lot of new topics I have found on the theory of "Going Galt" against the Obama administration. I remember reading Atlas Shrugged and feeling a sense of empowerment as I followed Dagny on her long, strenuous campaign for holding up her (and Ayn Rand's) belief in capitalist America. With Obama, many bloggers and reporters are announcing their fear for socialism with Obama's plans. First with government madated health care (look how well Canada turned out with that), to the Big Three bailouts (yay for me losing my job!), we must ask ourselves, how far is he going to take this. I admit, I voted for Obama in hopes that he could lead this country with the new vision of a younger generation. He had confidence. However, with the way things are and now that GM is "Government Motors" (haha I saw that in an email) I think that it is the most prestine time that people like Dagny, Hank, and John need to rise up as did Ford, Rockefeller, and Morgan in the late 19th century. I mean, they bailed out the government, not the goverenment bailing out its people when they are in debt themselves. Something is not right with this system today, and the sooner people realize that it's not the government's responsibility to bail out companies, but instead should let them fall, for the theories of economics proves that the economy will right itself on its own, but it has to hit bottom first. If the government steps in to our free market (more that it already has) then this theory will not work and we may face a stagnant economy where everything stays as it is now, and I for one do not want this to be the world that I bring my children into. So, thus the theory, some wealthy, intelligent, fearless individuals need to step up, and soon. Otherwise, this ominous feeling that the country has will become a reality as we move slowly toward socialism.
I have just realized that I began this blog talking about my lack of confidence while looking at my old yearbook and have ended it with a heated rant on the importance of capitalism. Weird.

all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all.

I am still not particularly inspired to write anything earth-shattering, however, some ideas have come to mind. Shortly after my last blog entry, the one where I was so exuberantly happy with life and the choices that I had made, the universe decided to rear its ugly head, because everyone knows that you can maybe have 3 months of goodness before the universe decides to screw you over. For instance, I lost my job. And although at the time it seemed catastrophic because, lets face it, I am not one to embrace change, it seems now more as a blessing. I needed to move and I could no do that with loyalty to my friends/family/coworkers. And although I only moved a few feet away and am now a security guard, I feel as though I have a normal "student-job" and can move around as I see fit. I get to be capricious now, and that's a good type of change.
I've just recently noticed something about myself. People change drastically when I am emotionally attached. Yes, I know this sounds trite. On the contrary, I've never really looked into the depths of this distinction between perspectives. For instance, there was this person who I began to feel threatened by. I kept going over in my head how they were everything I'm not. I even attempted to act and personify what I thought would be this genre of person while in the public sphere. It did feel good to change it up a bit, I admit, and since when is it a crime to be envious of someone else because they have something that you lack? Anyway, the constant comparisons in my mind to this person were making me doubt my own individual qualities so much so that the debate occurred in my head as to which of us was better. Woah. Stop right there you say? Yes, and I did. Because if you know me, you know that I innately put myself on a pretty high pedestal, because really, if you don't put yourself on one, then who will? So this debate was very tiresome and shook the very foundation of the person I've been trying to become. So today, I will be explicit and not give away details to this particular person of whom I'm describing, but let's just say I saw them in a new light. While going over the facts and actions again I found something different. I was no longer attached to the emotional threat that this person initially posed and that in itself made me care a whole lot less about this competition. I became almost apathetic when thinking or looking at these people, and all of a sudden, the luster was gone. This person seriously has nothing that I lack, and although I feel a little ashamed for wasting all this time in scruples because of this person and questioning my own qualities, it's just made me realize even more that with time and a little more distance, you can actually train your emotional attachments. Almost like learning to raise an eyebrow, or an ear, or some other body part that seems to have a mind of its own and is completely separate from your mind's control. My impressions of quite a few people have changed drastically as well in the last few weeks. Once you become less dependent on the company of others, you are able to step outside the normal drama existence, and as you step outside your own ego, you are able to see people as they really are. No longer do you see people how you want to, or how you should because of a loyalty to a friend, or see them tainted with the past injuries they may have caused you.
This leads into another idea that I have been playing around with. I was watching a show on HBO called "In Treatment" and although I don't have the actual quote the story goes like this. One psychologist was analyzing another, and as the male was revealing memories of his father not being present in his life, he was astonished to find that a childhood friend recalls his memories differently, where the father was there at pivotal moments. His therapist said that his mind actually blocked out the memories of his father. Here is the belief. When you store away memories in your unconscious or the Id (according to Freud), the memories are altered by the Id as a form of self-preservation and self-gratification. Therefore, the theory goes that, as these memories are just brewing around in the back of your mind, when you attempt to retrieve one of them, other sections of your unconscious (I.e. The ego and the super-ego) alter these memories further to fit with your current outlook, perspective, or different situation in life as opposed to how you were when these memories occurred. So, in short, say you have a boyfriend, and it's really great for awhile. You do all sorts of fun things together, and then one day, he does something that is so awful. You break up, and because your memories cannot conflict with each other, your happy memories seem to fade away or you think about them and you say to yourself, “well, I guess I really wasn't that happy after all.” That sort of thing. Like the disappearing dad because his father did awful things later that made the child lose sight (literally) of who his dad really was.

Anyway, the revelation here is that although we may think we have people “down” or you meet those obnoxious people who say, “I can read people well, I can know from the minute I meet them whether they are a good person or not,” well they are all full of crap. Because the truth is, our minds are a very tricky yet delicate thing. But also, these perspectives can be controlled based on your willingness to step back, set emotions aside, and really take a good look at not only the words that these people spout, but how their actions reflect them.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty

I had this feeling today. Quite contrary to the well known, "I feel like I might die today" feeling. It's simply one of those days where it's cool, but not too chilly, where the wind is just right, and the sun warms that nape of my neck. The kind of day where I choose to walk on the grass and get strange looks because I'm not traveling on the well paved concrete. Where I talk to a random friend about how much I want to eat at R.P's and my mom calls me 2 hours later and asks me to go, but not before we stop to buy me a new desk. The kind where all your problems are figuratively and actually quite literally half a world away. These days, I can stand outside on the grass, feel the sun and wind, and as I feel fully awake I can look up and thank God that I'm alive. This is the kind of day where I feel like me, where I feel right in my own skin, and my always present anxiety blows away in the wind, if only for a minute.
I was watching One Tree Hill tonight, and I wasn't much looking forward to it, since the last show was pretty awful. However, a key phrase quoted from the Dawson character said, "Sometimes, the beauty is in the attempt." After I reveled in the mere depths of this simple statement, I entered again into this serene state of calmness. For I could finally put an answer as to why people do such awful things. The answer, well for me, is quite simple; it doesn’t matter, the answer is never relevant. We need to stop asking ourselves why this happened, why this ultimate bad ending shook my life so profoundly. This is a clear and universal statement, people do bad things. End of story. However, we cannot fixate ourselves on them. Because the frank truth is, I tried. This statement, something our parents taught us since we could breathe, is that we only need to try and they will be proud of us even if we fail. However, as adults we sometimes lose sight of that simple truth. We always want to succeed and as adults, especially Americans, if we fail, we bottle it up and let our self-conscience tell us that we're not good enough. In actuality, all we need to say to ourselves is that we did our best, and sometimes the universe just doesn't work out in our favor, and that’s okay. The greatness is, that we put forth effort, gave it our all, and just came up a little short. The beauty here, is not in the end result, as those are often fleeting and trivial, and really only add up to us wanting more, but the true beauty, is in the virtue and greatness and humility and absolute human spirit we get in touch with as we drive forward towards something we desire. We change ourselves to become better in hopes of deserving something great. But that something great is hardly ever tangible, rather it is the qualities, characteristics, morals, and virtues we as humans develop on our way to perfecting ourselves for something. That is the true beauty.
And as I sit here admiring all of the beauty around me, both outdoors and in, I am humbly reminded of the strength and blind courage that I have acquired through this fight. I was vulnerable, finally allowing myself to be so, allowing my emotions to be controlled by another. I was courageous as I attempted to find something that everyone longs for, and giving it my whole heart, full well knowing that I could never obtain anothers. And I acquired, yet again, another form of arms. I learned how to look tragedy straight in the face and take the high road because I knew that fixing myself was much more important than sticking around to try to fix other people. Because at the end of the day, I can look in the mirror, or stand silently starring up, and not feel guilty. I can feel comfortable in my own skin because I know that I have done nothing wrong, and I like who I am because of it. I am moving forward to somewhere, as I have this beautiful unscathed future in front of me and there sure as hell is no reason to look back.
This is what everyone has taught me, from my mom, grandma, dad, sister, teachers, friends, aristotle, hesse, plath, sartre, shakespeare, emerson, thoreau, and every other great influential person in my life. And as for now, I’m happily typing at my desk in my little corner of the world, knowing full well that I have the strength and elegance to stand on my own two feet and face adversity

Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path

So... I haven't written in awhile, mostly because the realm of my consciousness has not been very active outside of one particular incident thats incredibly perplexing. I have done nothing wrong, which suffices to say that I don't understand how this happened. You have a life, you go to bed and you wake up and that life doesn't exist anymore. Everyone has moved on except for you, and this is not an easy thing. You replay these images in your head a thousand times, and as every thing seemed in the right place, it never was. The key word here is seemed.
As we were reading in the Faerie Queene by Spencer in my Renaissance class, my favorite professor told us to keep an eye out for when Spencer would use the word "seemed." This usually was a enormous red flag to indicate that what the knight sensed was right was in fact, never what actually was. Poor Red Cross, he was stranded in the middle of a forest facing a forked path, had lost his companion, and he had to choose for himself which way was the right way. One path "seemed" well beaten down and worn in, and the other was what "seemed" to be a dangerous terrain. Of course he chose the easy way, and wound up in the "House of Pride" which was a house full of the physical embodiments of the seven deadly sins.
Red Cross didn't use his senses very well, and I must admit, nothing much has changed in the last 400 years. We all still choose the easier path, and on the one occasion when you actually do choose the precarious path you're stuck in a dense forest without a guide. This is life.
However, one might ask the question, Why do our senses deceive us so? Or, how? There are many theories I could dissect, however I'll just list them. (1) the truth hurts, plain and simple. We don't ever want to face the truth because we know that it's not what we want to hear, so we lie to ourselves. We make ourselves believe we sense serenity in order to delude the reality. (2) We are taught since birth to be an idealist. Our parents hammer into our brains the belief that we can do anything, we can be anything; thus, we can think anything. (3) We want to think positively because we believe that by the "power of thinking" we can control our lives, thus we can control how we see people. We want to believe in the "best possible" version of a person. (4) We have an innate need to bring out the best in someone, thus we only concentrate on the goodness of a given situation, and try to suppress the bad feelings. These delusions, no matter what the case ultimately leaves us alone, with only a mangled image of what we thought was reality. This is the point where you wake up the next day and realize that the life you were living doesn't exist anymore, because you are so tired of telling yourself a lie.
Today my friend compared his relationship to a certain somebody as though she were standing behind a plate of glass. He was suggesting that he could see the potential, but he could never really touch it. As much as this analogy made sense, I began to extend this train of thought. Everybody is surrounded by these plates of glass. We can see each other, but we never really know whats going on with them. Subtle facial expressions give us hints as to what they are thinking or feeling but there has never been the possibility for us to reach beyond the glass and touch it.
Anyway, as my friend and i sat opposite each other for a good majority of the day, we talked about everything. Yesterday, I spoke with one of my favorite oldest friends for an hour as he lifted my spirits and self-confidence up, a way only he can do. And last night, I again embraced the warmth of a below freezing garage, next to a fire surrounded by those who will stay up until 2 am just talking about the most random things. These images of common contentness among people, simply doing nothing at all but being in each others company, gave me the insight that i needed at a time like this: The upside to falling? It gives your friends a chance to catch you.

The duty of youth is to challenge corruption

The greatest challenge that youth faces today is the ability and courageous disposition we must acquire to question authority. It is a common belief that when severely analyzed and broken down, one who is perceived as an elder who employs their authority over the youth does so in a suppressive fashion. We feel helpless and defeated in the midst of our trials, for they seem to want us to believe that age and authority, i.e. reign over us, somehow represents that they have more knowledge. They have weathered the storm already and have acquired the common and intellectual knowledge the youth is trying so hard to obtain. However, age does not necessarily mean knowledge, nor does experience. Yes, experience does pose issues within a lifetime that must be conquered, however, how does one know that they've actually learned something? History repeats itself right? So one problem or moral dilemma could, in theory, facilitate multiple decisions throughout a lifetime, or an adult could assume one stance for every similar problem when a more rash, morally right decision could have been foreseen and made by a younger, less jaded individual.
This is to say, that the only way to change the corruption of our predecessors is to find the courage within ourselves to stand up and demand to be heard. Not to simply suppress ourselves to the belief that age ultimately means authority. Because the youth is here for a reason, we learn from each other and possess ideas vastly different from those before us. I am responsible to say, however, that as our ideas differ, they may be wrong or right. We are no better than other generations, as they are not to us. The difference is, we take everyone seriously.


In a way agreeing with this present blog-thought of mine, I had previously written another entry which I never got around to posting. However, I do believe that within the context of the following paragraphs, the theory in mind has revelance to the previous thought. Therefore, here is that one:

I originally entitled it; "I thought we had a mess of time."

Everyone is instinctively in a rush. Everywhere. Everyone. All the time. I was sitting at my desk today becoming irritated with a perma-stoned truck driver who seems to take forever every time he steps into the hallway, with his papers all askew, and then spends 10 years walking to my desk. Everyday, more than once actually, I get aggravated because people do not move at the "hit the ground running" speed i assume everyday. Yes, I do admit that I am a bit lazy, but when I have things to do, I have to be efficient and punctual. I hate wasting time waiting for things to take flight.
I have no idea why everyone is in such a rush all the time, including myself. We are virtually going nowhere, fast. I guess we all feel the impending doom laying over our lives as we try to hurry up and do everything we want to accomplish before we ultimately perish. I think that ever since the population embraced the "modern" sentiments and ideals (and in the last few years really adhered to the post-modern) we all inherently believed that doing things "faster" ultimately meant more "efficient." The modern era cuts corners and wants to mass-produce without the quality our fore-fathers witnessed. Time is money, and both of those concepts ultimately corrupt the population. Everything is machine-manufactured, and its gotten to the point where reality is a term even Descartes wouldn't understand. I think as a generation, we've begun to forget the consequences of what this fast-paced life has in store for us. Virtual relationships where no contact is actually needed? No hand-written letters of apology or thanks, but its all in the form of text messaging, where no actual words are needed? Let's face it, romance has been long gone, as courting has seen its last days. Slow dancing is now replaced with trashy hip-hop clubs, and decent artists are replaced with nerds who can work a PC. Family owned stores hoping to make a living for their families, as was the American Dream are replaced by Wallmarts, who in contrary house products manufactured from our neighboring countries, and in actuality families are replaced by brief passings in the morning. Homemade dinners are consistently replaced with Taco Bell, and family television night has been replaced with reality tv shows all watched in separate rooms.
Okay, I admit, I am a victim to all of these. But I just need to stop for a second, take a break from this exhausting life, and realize that we're all in a hurry to grow up, just to be troubled by even bigger problems. At least that's how I feel. Ever since I can remember, I've wanted to be older. For different reasons of course. Like when I was in middle school, I wanted to be the girl old enough to have boyfriends, notice the plural there. When I was old enough to have them, all I wanted was a serious one once in high school. Once I experienced that, now all I want is to be old enough to just be serious. To be taken seriously. To be seen as an adult, worthy of an intelligent conversation and to be seen as a sensible woman who knows the difference between right and wrong. All I want is to start "life." Or what a girl my age imagines "life" to be. A steady job, a home, a husband, children. Believe me, as much as I am mentally awaiting these things, I am only working towards them, just like before.
Everyone is in a extreme hurry to grow up. But as I was watching my all-time favorite television show tonight, I've realized two things (1) as we're in a race with time to grow up, we forget who we are, who we've always been and (2) these over-dramatized adolescence problems we were so quick to get over and move on, well they only get worse.
In comparison to the modern times, people are accelerating at this extreme rate. Within the context of the accessibility and faster, more efficient behavior that the modern times are trying to assume, the people, as they equip themselves to grow up at an accelerated rate, also are leaving things behind. Morals, quality, and independence on ones self, are all attributes deadened by the need to get things done faster, i.e. grow up faster. We decide that living at this fast paced life ultimately brings about more prosperity and more enlightened activity, but all of us, as people and as a country and world as a whole, seem to have no problem throwing away or simply forgetting what we are giving up. Our souls become weaker, and loss of will is dominant within our culture. Sell-outs are walking around the country with their pockets stuffed, and everyone perceives them as a God because they have made a secure living for themselves. However, as a mass, we ultimately delude that secure living, does not necessarily mean good living. These people living amongst us, who have their mansions and fancy cars have deadened spirits. Their souls were compromised for their flat-screen tvs or the CEO position at Wallmart, because these people realized that the key to success is to step on anyone that is in your way. This dog-eat-dog mentality caused the great depression, and is causing the financial crisis we face today. No analysis takes this into consideration as we are a pro-capitalist society, and to them, that means that the "end justifies the means." In so far as, one is to do anything, such as compromising their souls, to meet the expectations of the rich. If this is what success means, then give me poverty. Drastic, I know.

With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves let me forget about today until tomorrow

People are interesting. Focus on the adjective there, interesting. People are good or evil, plain or extravagant, fun or boring, influential or demoralizing. But every single person is interesting when given the chance. I'm known on occasion, well quite frequently actually, to express my inner-most loathsome feelings for the people of today, the people I am forced to surround myself with (with the exception of those I love) but today, something’s changed.

Earlier I was thinking about a particular class of females who simply do unintelligible things, and then blame themselves afterward, claiming “it was all my fault.” I simply cannot comprehend this. Let’s face it, we all know these people, the self-destructing women of today who are banking on a man to see them as a woman in distress or something, and ultimately feel responsible for acts the stupid woman committed, those men who will do unimaginable things to “save” them. Anyway, I was thinking to myself how much I despised them. Because what man would fall for some brainless, lying, dependent, quite pathetic women, when they have the rest of us independent, ambitious types to choose from. I was enraged at the populous, stomach turning, cheeks burning and all. And then I realized that I really should not let people like this affect my life. Blaming people for their actions never did anyone any good, bitterness just leads to Botox, in a quite literal and metaphoric way. Just because people act or behave in ways that I particularly don't agree with, does not necessarily make them bad people (although in some cases it really does). People, including myself, behave very differently under individual circumstances and we must accept the fact that we are not omniscient, and cannot empathize with every person’s decisions. However, I've never been one to side with Homer's Carpe Diem philosophical disposition, seizing the day or moment without prior conscious planning never did anyone any good. So I am not saying that one should just act on their impulses all the time, the key is moderation (and a small glance into the future). Although, I do admit that I am one to sit around and deliberate how things could have went better with more clever words, or how things could be better if I could just for one minute stop reliving the past.

Anyway, I’m straying. People are fascinating really, at least to me. And I am aware that this is a very trite, very un-intellectual revelation to have. However, my original point was to lead to this thought I had the other day, among many I assure you, this one stood out. I was thinking over a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a few of my close friends. The car-full of people were singing along to some pop-country song. I’ve mentioned before my hatred for country music. My friend looked in the rear-view mirror at me, and noticing I wasn’t singing, he asked “Don’t you like country.” I was a little taken aback, because no one, and I mean no one, has ever heard me utter praise for the genre or could find it in my music collection. Anyway, I was polite and as my friends were enjoying their music to its entirety, I just shook my head. He then posed to try to find a station that I would like, only after waiting for the song to end to switch the channel, trying to not be so obvious I assume. 89x was where it landed on some goo goo dolls song I can’t remember. I do admit, I liked the song. The rest of the car agreed and we began discussing our own music tastes, once my channel-changing friend asked me what I listened to. Now, it’s never been easy for me to describe my particular taste in music, so I usually just go with “old stuff and indie and folk.” No one ever understands what this means. They just simply nod, accuse me of listening to “emo,” or reply, “well I like everything.” This is the particular answer that triggered my theory-hashing brain. I physically and mentally cannot understand what this means. No one in the world likes all kinds of music. No one. If I were to rock out to Mozart in my car, my friends would look at me as if I’ve lost my mind. (Nothing against classical, because I’ll listen to it on occasion.) No one likes jazz (well at least not the people I know who claim they like everything), nor would they ever listen to Billy Joel on normal occasions. People who say they like everything (and here's where this is going) simply cannot define themselves. Either they are afraid, or not able to establish a respective taste to one particular thing is beyond me. But people seem afraid to define themselves. Most of the people I know, I could describe in one sentence; “She’s ambitious but a little too moody” “He’s ambivalent and drinks a lot.” But these are definitions that I prescribe to them, and really have no idea how these people see themselves because they are too afraid to do it. Whether this definition limits them, or they are simply afraid of causing waves in relationships is beyond me. But all I have to say is this is your life. It’s yours to cause as many ripple effects as you can conjure and influence as many people with your tastes as you can. Define yourself, “find out who you are and do it on purpose.” I’m just so tired of everyone following in every one else’s foot steps because they’re afraid of what others may think, or how they will be judged. There is only one judgment people have to worry about anyway. But who am I to say anything about the “I like everything” kind of people. Just because I happen to think that being picky is cool and ultimately makes me unique, maybe people find that bothersome to have to oblige to my every preference. (as a side note, something I find intrinsically amazing, if you go to dictionary.com to look up a word, a sullen man-voice will say it to you if you click on “hear”.)

I really have no deep, mind-altering conclusion for these stream-of-consciousness run-on paragraphs, accept maybe a lesson to myself, not to judge people based on their actions, but solely on their definition for their favorite music. Which if you really think about it is a terrible conclusion, because you can never really tell who a person is by the music they listen to. I know this one kid who loves underground rap, which I at first judged him heavily based on this assertion… because lets face it, its rap, only to find out later he has a love for the Beatles. So, moral of the story, don’t judge, just live amongst the crazy, interesting, fascinating people we are stuck on this earth with, except maybe if they say, “well I like everything” or “it’s all my fault.”

So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.

Has anyone else realized that with all of the information let available by the ever-growing search engine trend which allows access to unlimited information, the human population is becoming severely uncreative and anti-intellectual?

Seriously, Albert Einstein would have given his right arm to have access to this available mainstream knowledge, and all we use it for is messaging people on facebook which i could conduct the same conversation in person.

sorry for my rant. i am guilty of this too, i had this unnerving desire to jump on google to search whether or not rob pattinson was getting fired from twilight, which apparently he may because of his drinking and love triangle with cast members, while kristen smokes pot. yes, i learned this from my trivial google search.

And yes, i am completely aware of the irony i am creating by posting this rant in text-form on these alleged myspace and facebook websites, however, i do have to assert that these types of developments allow for communication among the mass-media. we are simply using it in a negative way. theoretically, think about how you would tell a friend about a party tonight if you did not have a cell phone or the internet. see? you would physically have to walk yourself over to their house, everyones you wanted to invite. or send them an invitation letter through the mail, which could take up to 3 days, thus you would have to plan in advance if you simply wanted to hang out with your friends that night. planning in advance is dying just as the communication skills anyone under 40 is lacking. no one talks face to face anymore, and if you notice, even if they do no one makes eye contact. what becomes ironic is that while holding a conversation people tend to be looking at their phones pretending, or actually talking to someone else, either that or playing a game. i have no idea what it is, like if you are not seen looking at your phone while you're in public, one may envision you as anti-social or disconnected to the world. very extreme i know, but pay attention to the next time you feel awkward or as an example, you and someone else are sitting together at dinner, your partner gets up to use the restroom. you look around at everyone else talking to one another and all at once you feel as if everyone is staring at you. you feel that you need to be making conversation, because heavens forbid you are alone now. so what does everyone instinctively do now? yes, they make the reach for their cell phones. and what i find even more amusing, most of them are not even doing anything but looking through old text messages or playing bubble pop. even more laughable, is when your partner comes back, the left-alone person feels almost mad at the one who caused so much anxiety that they will sit there still pretending to text or do something equally unimportant on the cellular telephones. i admit, yes I've done this, but i equally "forget" my cell phone at homes sometimes just to see how i react in a world without them. and yes, i usually just borrow someone elses if i need to get a hold of someone. this phenomenon has been plaguing me for years.

i digress, as i was looking through what i have just written, i became irate when the word "google" was underlined in the squiggly red line, which means its spelled wrong. but when i right-clicked on it to see what my computer brain thought google should be spelled like, the choices were Google, goggle, googly, and go ogle. everything is wrong with those choices. one, why is "Google" as a proper noun now in the computer dictionary, did i miss that? when did Google become a literative word, while most other brand names are still unrecognized? second, googly? why is that even a word? and go ogle, what is ogle? i guess i shouldn't have to deliberate the adding of Google into the online speller, while googly is also there.

anyway, I'll go back to my previous convictions of the human race. i am not excluded by this by any means, however i am consciously thinking about this, so that has to give me something. why has everyone stopped trying to learn, and those who do somehow perceived as "uncool." i use that term loosely, because i happen to find intellectual people extremely "cool," but for the vast majority of people I've come across, ones who do well at school are never praised (except by those of equal academic success) and are almost shunned as "not able to have a conversation with." But ironically, this label only means "will not be a fun partier." Being mature has somehow become a concept only a select few adhere to, and must face the choice of being mature, or falling into Bentham's belief that pleasure is measurable and pigs are fully content constantly. so, should i spend my nights reading and obtaining knowledge which will ultimately make me into a more open-minded, creative, cocktail party ready individual? or should i spend them consuming great amounts of alcohol with some of my best friends? oh if only there was a way to have a mixture, like having a debate about whether or not you taste water in the basement with 5 of my friends. something like that. because if you ever notices, at parties, no one says anything. i mean theres talking, a lot of talking, but all of this consist of melodrama and where they plan to go next. even more interesting, and yes i am convicted of this as well, the pseudo-intellectual types of people will actually pick up a book when pop culture admits them to. like, reading twilight, became cool. so every non-reader in the world ran and bought the book after the movie came out. i do admit, i was sucked into the obsession as well as every 16-twenty something year old girl. but you will never, ever see a whole group of people arguing over who should play the lonely poet in Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, the newest blockbuster hit in theaters November 20th! because lets face it, great pieces of literature will never be turned into movies, and if they do, they will never be media-crazed. i say this because Orwell's 1984 was turned into a movie which was never released in the US, and just recently atlas shrugged was announced to be in production with brad pitt as Hank and angelina jolie as Dagny. However, i guarantee that most people will go see the movie, and either emphasize the great performance by angelina or hate the movie entirely because there were no car chases. Because great literature keeps the messages bound up in their spines, as the unbearable lightness of being did, although the movie was an obnoxious 171 minutes long, the screen-writers obviously knew the importance of the movie, however, hollywood knew no one would go see it unless mega-stars like Daniel Day Lewis played Thomas, and Juliette Binoche played Tereza. the movie industry will however go untouched today because i admit, they are doing a far better job at creating movies that i like. anyway, don't get me wrong, i love people, i do. but when people listen to pop country songs that thank the soldiers who died so that they could sit on a friday night with a cold beer, i become a little perturbed that this is what people consider to be art. and as the postmodern era continues on the basis that "art is formed under the conscious awareness that it is, in fact, art" people are taking this concept a little too extreme. we should have learned that when warhols printing press pictures of soup cans became "art" we went too far.

so, i must cut this ranting manifesto off as i have just made plans to go drink coffee at dennys and discuss nothing in particular with some friends. yes... i know.

Philosophical food for thought: The beginnings

I randomly came across a quote from The Unbearable Lightness of Being which I found on my friend Luke's facebook. A trite way to start a new theory, however, it works.

I am not sure if any of you are familiar with Plato's myth from Symposium which deliberates the power of Love (depicted as a God here). Plato states that at the beginning of humankind there were three sexes, male, female and the hermaphrodites. These hermaphrodites were in a wholly circular form and had double the appendages as a regular human; four arms, four legs, two faces with one head, etc. They were contently together and could walk backwards or forwards, and could run at extreme speeds like doing cartwheels. They were the prestine race of the humans and were God-like in their happiness and beauty. It was believed that the men came from the sun, and were in a sense homosexual, only commuting with other men. The females were derived from the earth and as the males were, they were homosexual as well. The original men became the gays of today, the females became the lesbians, and the hermaphrodites, well they became the heterosexuals. God, who is Zeus here, wanted to make the hermaphrodites weaker and less God-like so he derived a plan which could continue the human race, he decided that he would disect the whole of the hermaphrodite right down the center, leaving only the belly button as a result of their togetherness and their fall. After they were torn apart, the two pieces of the whole were given external sexual organs so they could procreate like the already male and females. The pieces were not satsified ever by this and spent their lives searching for their missing part. Once they were found the two pieces never left each others side and asked God to conjoin them once again for all eternity. This is what Plato's myth believes love is, Love is the desire to be connected with someone spiritually and wholly for eternity.

So thus, in the contemporary age, it is believed that the notion of a soulmate is linked to the writings of Plato. The two halves that spend their lives looking for their lost piece have a torn soul which is inhabited in another body. Once the two are reconnected as partners in life, their soul and intellect work together to create Love and ascend above this world to the absolute. The way in which to do this is to focus on the beauty and the goodness of the world, to understand it first, and later form appreciation. In many of my writings I have stressed this point of locating the beauty, all types, and exploring your senses through the external world. Here, Plato agrees:

"The process of attaining to the highest goal is this: start observing beauty from the sensible world and use these examples as steps to ascend continually with that absolute beauty as one's aim–from physical beauty to moral beauty to beauty of knowledge to supreme knowledge of absolute beauty. "

I was having this thought the other day while driving down 75 on my way home from school. We as women feel that we can change men, that we have this supernatural cosmic power that we can shift their psyche into what we want them to be. This is a very trite statement, however, we all still believe it, even if we admit the fact and say, "well I accept them for who they are." The truth is we don't, and we never will. Just as men will try to mold us into the perfect supermodel, although they are more concerned with our physical apperance than our morals and ambitions as we are with them. Anyway, my point came to the conclusion that we feel that we are simply God's gift to man, and from this we derive the idea that we can change them. For those who do believe in Christianity, Genesis constructs man's fall when eatting the fruit from the tree of knowledge, however, what we were unsure of which Milton generously points out is that the fruit itself was not knowledge, but rather the human race learned from eating the fruit, disobedience. I'm straying again. Anyway, described in the story is how women were quite literaly God's gift to man. Eve was made from Adam as a gift so he would have a partner. I think from there we have this innate opinion that we really are their gift, and like Eve we try to change them, to be come independent and flee from oppression and submission. The fact of the matter is though, we cannot and we all fail miserably in our attempt. We hurt ourselves with the delusion that we will inevitably get what we want, but all we're really doing is setting ourself up for the fall, quite biblically here too. However, in keeping with this biblical referrence and Milton's position, Adam, or men make their own choices, they are not persuaded by evil, they are even more rational then women. (ha! so is the belief but I beg to differ, although women do tend to be more emotional) Regardless, the point is, women cannot change men into their ideals, and yet we can never accept them either, fully I guess, there are those parasite-like women who could care less of men's moral ambiguities and ambitions and just take what they can get, but I simply pity these women. Although I may never be completely content with the man I will later choose, I will simply not settle for less than I am. And that is a very real, very true, and very hard thing to say. Whilst, on the other hand, we have men, who make bad choices and later repent. Well heres a thought, think before you do, and build up your morale a bit before you go off into the world judging other people, I've done it, and its really not that hard. I just hope that I can rejoin my otherhalf, my missing piece, the reason we all don't feel whole.

future reading if you're interested:

http://dunelm.wordpress.com/2006/10/23/platos-the-symposium/

http://www.geocities.com/bjlandry_00/Otherwriters/platosymposium.html

Hello darkness, my old friend.

And as I close yet again another chapter of my transitory existence, I cannot help but to relate back to my last blog where I spoke of timing, and how everything in life has their moment, and we are all virtually incapable of changing a thing. We have to be ready for it, love, hate, appreciation, respect, relationships, etc. In our personhood, we have to be complete enough to appreciate that moment, in order to understand it and its meaning of place in the wide spectrum we call our lives. However, what I wasn't sure of at the time, that these moments and experiences, like ourselves, are transitory, fleeting if you will. We have a good run, and then it's over.
Through this process, we find ourselves asking "why?" "why me?" "why did this have to end with me?" "was I not good enough, or was I simply just not enough? People, specifically women are haunted by these questions every single day of their lives. It's the promise of an end that follows us and creates this irrevocable sense of doom. We fight it, and most of us are pretty good by now of talking ourselves out of it. But I'll tell you want, once you get that feeling, that feeling that something is not right, something is wrong, something will change very suddenly, we're usually right. Whether us women are more in tune with the fourth-dimension of existence that links us to the future, past, and present, I have no idea. Women's intuition I assume. But I felt it, and I was right. The universe shifted and encased me in the feeling, I was so certain, and as the universe would have it, I found exactly what I was looking for. A reason for this feeling, and the reason for yet another end.

But back to the why questions. While reading a book my history teacher suggested, slaughterhouse-five, I came across the answer that I've never heard before, a bit like my favorite "the river is everywhere" praised quotation, but yet something entirely different,

"Why me?"
"That is a very Earthling question to ask Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"
"Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it.
"Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why."

And also, "That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones."

Both of these I found very profound. To find something like that in a book about aliens instead of a book say on existentialism is one of those rare but amazing surprises in life.

However, back to my rant. So we spend all of our time waiting for these good moments, and then we ask ourselves why did it have to end, like that? well its very simple; experience. It's all part of this spinning at the speed of light existence that we all share and are all stuck in these amber filled moments. So right now, I'm stuck. Stuck in this bleak feeling and outlook once again of the respectability and goodness of the human race. A bit over-dramatic I know, but we all question the masses once in a while. But with this you fall back on the ones who have always loved you, for you. And who always will. You become sanctioned in the welcoming back of friends you had temporarily left behind in your series of moments elsewhere. And their welcoming is always so pleasant, like a warm blanket placed over your frozen body.
And so I drive down the black roads again, but with a different feeling. There is no destination which leaves the road pleasing to my senses, it is dark, and as the days shorten, the darkness grows. I find myself inside again, in the quite internal sense of the word. It's quite nice actually, to see the word through my own eyes again, just mine this time. And as I count down the days of the next six months, a promise of a better tomorrow shines it's light again. However, for now my gut aches with the realization of how I am too feeble to change the things I wish too, and the immense impact other peoples choices have on my being. The smartest person I've ever met once told me, "Alicia, never let someone affect your life more than you affect theirs." And this reigns true, however, with a certain amount of emotion that I divulge onto my subjects, it becomes harder and harder to do this. I've seen where a broken person leads, I've seen the numb and jaded and apathic souls that roam this world with no hope or sense of right and wrong and I refuse to become one of them. I let people affect me, because I try to affect them. To me, there is nothing greater in this world than to be loved and to love. The first one is just a little harder to come by, and I've honestly only met one person who understands the true meaning of an unguarded soul and heart, of which they've shared with me. So to those people who are distrusting to the world and all it has to offer, I hope you read this and realize that yes, even the optimistic have their days of self-loathing and jadedness just like you, but the difference is, it was worth it. It still is, because there is simply nothing else. And at the end of the day, once you realize that, "everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."

You have to be ready for it

A lot of things have inspired me to write this blog, and if you’re not in the mood to read something with an open mind, then just click that little x up there. But before I start my epiphany-speak I’ve been waiting for a place to display this quote, so here it is:
Yeah, losing your heart’s desire is tragic. But gaining your heart’s desire... It’s all you can hope for. This year, I wished for love. To immerse myself in someone else and to wake a heart long afraid to feel. My wish was granted. And if having that is tragic… then give me tragedy. Because, I wouldn’t give it back for the world

Okay, I swear it has relevance to where I’m going, but give me a bit to get there.

So while reading a post from this myspace book club I'm in, someone mentioned the book "The Fuck-Up" and i remember reading it last summer. I originally picked up the book about three years ago and started it. I believe I reached about 1/8 of the book before I got bored and stored it away for awhile. 2 years later i picked it up and flew through the pages, reading it in about 3 days. I instantly fell in love with it. This has happened to me on numerous occasions, such as with the book "Persuasion, The Bell Jar, and 1983." I despised all four of the books as I began to read them. But later, fell in love with them. While reading the play "Sure Thing" the 2 characters address this dilemma as, "You might not have been ready for him. You have to hit these things at the right moment or it’s no good." And I took this seriously to heart.

I think we all need to think about this every now and then. With relationships especially. Say for instance, you know a person for a few months and you just don’t really click. And then somewhere down the line, the universe shifts and you find something you’ve been looking for in that person. It’s the universe’s way of saying, "hey, you were just not ready for it yet." It’s a great feeling. And then on the flip side, you have someone you’ve been in love with since before you can remember, and then all of a sudden they’re taken from you. And what do we do, we freak out and curse the universe (or God) for not thinking your plan was good enough, but in actuality, maybe you just weren’t ready to have what you had, maybe it just needed to be taken away, for you to wait for something better. It’s the universe’s way of timing. And as people we’re not supposed to understand it. But once we realize it has reasonings for what its doing, the better off we’ll be.

I was talking to my friend Matt in my philosophy class on Tuesday, and I absent-mindly asked him, you know, something along the lines of, "how’s your life going." and he replied, "well, not so good really, pretty stagnate." And I replied with my epiphany, "well matt, it’s all in timing. Maybe you’re just not ready, as a person, for something the universe is waiting to give you. You just have to be patient and know, in due time, things will perk up." and he replied, "Thanks Alicia, I never really thought of things that way. It’s actually quite a comforting statement. I appreciate that."

Needless to say, I've improved someone’s mood with my rambling, and my aim at this blog is to help whomever wonders across this page. So, like many of my friends have said to me in the last few weeks, if you’re feeling a bit drab lately, like you feel that something good is about to come, but are getting anxious and discouraged that it will ever come, just remember, it’s all in timing, and it will find its way to you, whatever it may be, when you’re ready, when you’ve grown up enough to handle it, or when you’re life has a place for it. Just be patient.