Self Definition

Prominence (2)

2012-01-25T16:58:00.000-08:00

In addition to general prominence, wherein the extroverted/popular people are on top, there's also prominence within different social categories. Of course, similar to gender and race, prominence is a huge divider.

Recently, I've learned something new about prominence. I was chatting with Jessie when I said, I hate boundaries. She said, no you don't, you need boundaries because you don't want insignificant people to know you well. And when you try to get to know prominent people, their boundaries will be up anyway.

So it's like a circle of prominence, everyone belonging in their own rank. Social categories are weaved in with it, as there is prominence of different groups. Like a dartboard, the people on the outer rings are worth less, and the most prominent people are what everyone is aiming for: the bull's eye. When I say aiming for I mean either are crushing on and want to be in a relationship with, or want to be close friends with, know them better, etc.

Here is an illustration.

How Prominence works

As you can see, there are obviously more people who aren't prominent, and the insiders are only a select few. The blue arrows coming from each person indicates who they are 'aiming for'.
The rings within the rings were highlighted originally, but it didn't turn up in scan. They indicate who each rank of people is capable of 'hitting', which is everyone in and lower than one's own rank. Of course, it's really hard to hit the bull's eye, or even the rings around it. Especially if there's distance between the person's prominence rank from the rank they are aiming for.

Of course as well, there are exceptions. Some prominent people are nice enough to be close friends with less prominent people. Some are obliged to, because they used to be in the same social category, or used to be a close friend. The tragedy is when someone achieves the prominence they have always yearned for and just...drop them. Their less prominent friends and the people they used to be kinda friendly to. It's a horrible thing, the termination of associations.

Because of course, prominent people are the ones people want to be around, to hang out with, to talk to. It's the rule of supply and demand. Few prominent people, lots of people want them. Prominent ones have plenty of options of who to choose. The less prominent people have little choice but to be the dependable, the 'nice' ones. Although most people anyways, if they had a choice, would be around, hang out with, and talk to the prominent people.

And when you're prominent (better known as 'popular' in this case), you no longer pay much attention to the prominent people. I imagine it as a world of prominence, where in belief, they would rise above the others.

The circle of prominence could also be seen as a mountain. Or maybe a layer cake. When you become prominent, it may seem like you're on top of the world, all-seeing instead of perpetually guessing what's happening at the greater heights. When you're on the top of the world, you can't really see what's happening at the bottom, or even close-ish to the bottom. Distance blurs your view. Not like you would care anyway. You're on the top of the world and you want to maintain that status!

Prominence creates such boundaries. Bad for you if you're not prominent. Good if you are.
But that could apply to any matter about prominence. Bad if you're not. Good if you are.

Nice

2012-01-19T15:59:00.001-08:00

I know what that means and I hate that word. I’m not eventalking about being “friend-zoned”, because I haven’t experienced it.

“Nice” is such a filler word, a generic description. It’sused so commonly that all the substance dried up.

It means nothing. Labeling people as nice reduces them lowerthan a person, just someone to be polite and socially-reticent to. It totally ignores the fact that people arepeople, complicated people with personalities, beliefs, and opinions totallyunique to themselves. Instead, people are seen as one dimensional, someone toask for the homework, the time, the date.

Nice is also a double agent working in social categories.Namely, the nice girls or boys category. Of course, these people aren’t usuallyprominent outside of their own groups. Prominence and prominent niceness rarelycoexist, unless it’s the kiss-uppy sort of nice.

After all, ‘nice guysfinish last’. They are the ‘dads’, the ones who stay with their woman inthe long term because they don’t have a chance to be a ‘cad’, to stay with abunch of women short-term. Coincidentally, the not as aesthetically-appealingguys tend to be nice. What other chance do they have at girls?

I used to think some people kiss-upped to others who weren’tprominent were being nice. Now I’m kind of convinced it’s practice forkissing-up to the prominent people. What other reason is there?

I used to be happy when I was referred to as nice. “You guysare nice.” Thinking back, I know what that means. And I hate it.

Short thought

2012-01-15T17:44:00.000-08:00

“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.”- Albert Einstein

If everything is a miracle, then nothing is a miracle. Two ways to live life in theory, one way to actually live life.

Crushable

2012-01-04T11:00:00.000-08:00

It's weird how objectively, there are more girls in the class who are crushable than the crushable guys. This is probably true in other classes too.

Maybe it's attractiveness, having to do with guys' on average worse lookingness. Appearances definitely play a part. There's also the fact that girls hit puberty earlier while guys are hitting it now, some still being too inadequately developed to be crush material.
But gender prominence also has a role in determining whether one is crushable or not. Puberty has an effect further than empirical appearances. Girl have more to flaunt at this age, and that contributes to gender prominence, while also activating guys' sexual drives, associating those girls with common stereotypes, and then sex. Love is nature's way of fooling us to reproduce, that's a definition on urbandictionary. There is also the effect that has on girls, who will learn to use looks to their advantage and adopt a personality to suit their outers.

Another product of gender prominence is displaying sexuality. This is not that uncommon for girls, they could twirl their hair with a finger, look up at a guy through their hair, flutter their eyelashes, place their hands on their hips, have their lips slightly open and sexual looking to resemble a vagina. There are more, most of which revolve around hair. Long hair is strategic for girls; and they employ those techniques of body language to say without moving their lips that they're sexually active, or something synonymous.
For guys, there's not much they could pull off, considering how they tend to be either shuffling and awkward or loud and brash. Either way, most lack confidence, the confidence girls get from their beauty, both the kind where they just know they look great in their clothes, and the kind where they 'cam-whore' and receive compliments-a lot of compliments. Some of which are on the edge of SEX, like I'd tap that, or you look sexy, and while those slightly extreme compliments become the norm, the next generation of compliments will try to outdo the last. The girl will get reassurance, and her behavior may at times edge on sex and guys will notice and take this into account.

Guys are not as sexually comfortable, standing with their feet far apart, or lying back while on a chair while moving your legs back and forth, far apart and close together. It sounds weird written. They also could tuck their thumbs in belt loops on their pants, or put their hands in their pockets in a similar area to where belt loops would be. Anyway, basically drawing attention to the penis. Most guys at this age don't use those techniques -only one guy in our class does, so they compensate for that by being wrong all the time. But some can also be funny. Many girls like guys who are funny and extroverted, because of stereotypes, tradition and chinese culture telling them they are the waiters and the guys, the initiators. You'd notice how the chinese girls who aren't "white-washed" are rather introverted and not gender prominent. Some of them are quite pretty, but 'being pretty and introverted basically means nothing' (~Jessie).
And you know what that means (the relationship between the race you act like and your crushability and race you act like and gender prominence.) !!

There is more to consider. A girl's reproductive value depends on beauty, and again, girls are more beautiful. Men's on wealth, power, and status. Of course I don't think the men thing applies to us directly.
But wealth power and status lead you to think of someone, well, powerful, confident, maybe even a bit egotistic. But a girl would also want the guy to be good in bed, so he must be sexually comfortable, which brings us back to the last last paragraph.

Using evolutionary psychology and uncommon sense, a crush (as in NOT legit love) can be dissected to the point where it makes sense. In theory, at least.

The Introvert Disadvantage

2012-01-03T15:56:00.000-08:00

I've seen books like the introvert advantage, ones like "the happy introvert" (the quotes are not because that's the book title because it isn't), ones about how to be successful in business, love, networking, and life.

I've also read this article in Psychology today, 'the revenge of the introvert' but really the article doesn't state how the introvert is 'taking revenge' as the title led me to believe. It just gave proven facts from studies and information about introverts and extroverts which translated in my biased mind and probably the biased minds of others similarly, the advantage of extroverts. That title sounds a lot like the title 'revenge of the right brain', and while that online article may be true, it'll take several years until it's really true.

Anyhow, if the question is is it better to be an introvert, and the objective is being successful and happy in life, then the answer is no.

I don't think those books can be right and I don't think the authors genuinely believe in it. Although it is clever actually, as introverts would be the ones to seek help to do what comes naturally to their counterparts, and they would the ones too, who would sit down and read a book about it.

It's quite obvious how extroverts have the advantage in many dimensions, even the one about intro or extroversion. Because while introverts may feel the pull of wanting to be extroverted, extroverts don't seem to want to be introverted. And introverts, if they try to act extroverted, they lose brainpower when extroverts deprived of social-ness get bored, but the point is that there are more situations in life where being extroverted would come in handy.

The tangible data has led me to wonder if extroverts or 'those people', really are oblivious.
Right now, I don't think so. I used to, but then I realized people can be smarter than you take them for. Extroverts may know but just choose to ignore, or maybe being ignorant is easy when you interact with people so often. Successful (and positive) distraction.

Mark Twain said “The man who is a pessimist before forty-eight knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little." It doesn't take a genius to see the link to knowing (awareness, smartness) and negative thinking. Take into account that introverts are more likely to be depressed and that they process more information in any given situation. The connection is clear.

What's also an introvert disadvantage is the meaning paradox. Introvert brains are "less dependant on external stimuli and rewards to feel good", so they "are not driven to seek big hits of positive emotional arousal—they'd rather find meaning than bliss—making them relatively immune to the search for happiness" (words inside quotes are from that article, revenge of the introvert).
And there's no meaning to life, but it's possible to be happy. Extroverts seem so happy.

Personally, I've given up searching for meaning or happiness and think life would be so much easier in so many ways if I were extroverted like I used to be. It seems sometimes like introverts are missing out on so much.

There is more to the introvert/extrovert discussion at Revenge of the the introverts.

Deep conversations about life

2012-01-02T06:48:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, this is how conversations with my friends go.
Me: Life's pissing me off right now. (or something synonymous)
Friend: Yeah.
*Silence*
Friend: So why is that?
Me: *Starts lamenting vaguely and profoundly on how life sucks*
Friend: Yeah.
*Silence*
Friend: Awww I have so much homework! I keep wasting time!! FUUU-

Or the roles could be switched and I'd be the friend. That was a bit exaggerated but sometimes that's how deep conversations about life turn out.
Yup. We're accepting the crappiness of life.

New year resolutions

2012-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

How to keep your new years resolutions is a topic way overdone.
Though reading a few of those articles, whether online, on a newspaper, or a magazine, you'd be surprised at the mundanity. Or maybe it would be predictable, depending on yourself.
When I read it, I thought, is this the norm? People setting resolutions like losing weight, spending less and saving more; it's appearance and money. Obligations too, like spending time with family. Yes I did think it was rather stupid. First of all because 22% fail their resolutions within a week, obviously because they failed to define their goals and make micro-movements. But what's striking, again, is the MUNDANITY. Could these people's lives be so narrow? Free of psychology, philosophy, or even soul-baringly meaningful conversation?

I mean, how many new years resolutions does one make in a life? Like 70-ish, if you're lucky. So people should make their new years resolutions over things that aren't ephemeral, even if the ephemeral is basically the tangible. Goals like being more aware of other people's feelings, making cards with hand-written messages to send to loved ones, deepening one's spiritual relationship with others, or try to be more self-sufficient, fulfilled, creative, would be superior.

Oh and happy new years eve!

More Thoughts

2011-12-26T12:21:00.000-08:00

"It is better to waste one's youth than to do with it nothing at all"
That's weird, I thought they were the same thing.

I think to not have facebook when all your friends and classmates do is like committing suicide. There isn't anything wrong with it and it's one's own choice, but it's selfish to loved ones.

I used to think that because people were classmates, or have known each other earlier, they'd be obligated towards them. Apparently not, since people change; they move on and we and the people around them are just a phase, to be shed to make room for their growth.

If there was a virus that infected and killed all men and the women were forced to procreate with each other, would the new generation on Earth be better looking?

People use words like day and life sometimes to account for its opposites- night and death. Like how it's just another day, though it will be just another night you sleep through, or the phrase 'how's life'. Because you can't ask a dead person how's death. And people ask what is the meaning of life. Maybe we should start acknowledging what is not experienced or what doesn't apply to us.

I don't think it actually registers in guys' minds that the non-gender-prominent girls are sexually active and/or can carry a baby. It's like out of sight, out of mind. If girls don't behave or dress in a manner which draws attention to it, it won't authentically be known to the guy, evolutionary psychology-wise. It's as if the non-gender-prominent girls are wearing shirts captioned 'if you're reading this, your eyes are in the wrong place', or the gender-prominent ones to point to their chest and say 'I'm a girl.'

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

2011-12-25T11:36:00.000-08:00

Christmas has been taking up so much room in the newspapers. Why do adults have to fuss so much over it so much. Christmas is a simple and pure concept of a baby being born in a manger. People commented online on the chance that there won't be a white Christmas, saying snow sucks, they want the road to be clear, and that they would take the cold and rain over snow any day. The evidence (this is not good for this lightning guy)!

Christmas, not to mention life, isn't about clear roads, not shovelling snow, or even not having car accidents!
Once again tedium has struck and made its Christmas curmudgeons, hating on the most innocent and happy of holidays. Christmas from many views is supposedly a commercial gimmick, a last-minute shopping rampage, the most stressful holiday, and a time where you need to buy new clothes to fit your post-holiday-binging self.
The moms lined up at check-out lanes I see don`t seem all merry, they look impatient, irritable, and sleep-deprived, like they`ve worked through their winter break.

With the new technology, people are supposedly not taking the time to send out and hand-write their Christmas cards. Quote from the comic Sherman`s lagoon, `you`re not saying season`s greetings, you`re saying you`re on my database.` Actually many comics are taking the slant of `Christmas ain`t what it used to be`.

Sometimes I wonder what Christmas used to be. Maybe it was the time when Enya played on radio stations; in other words, unimaginable. Sometimes I think of running in the snowy, unshovelled side-walks and shouting MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone I pass, and in that fantasy, they would smile a little and hopefully reminiscence to Christmases part. I`m a bit too old for that, but I think even if a little, really cute kid did that, it wouldn`t touch adults` hearts and make their day as it did in your mind`s eye. Yesterday at the library a little chinese kid was singing Feliz Navida and it was really cute, but then disillusioning when I saw him later playing games on the library`s computer. And then he checked facebook.

Personally I never felt the joy of Christmas as it is in cartoons and captured as a beautiful moment on film. Now I`d be thinking about how some people in my neighbourhood are so lazy to not put up decorations on their houses. Christmas now seems like an ordinary day, misspent like all the others. And it doesn`t seem special, i don`t know if it ever did, at least not to me.

But oh wait. It`s Christmas. it`s the most wonderful time of the year. Why are you and me wasting it?

Meanness = Prominence?

2011-12-24T16:19:00.000-08:00

Undoubtedly, being mean has a correlation to prominence.
Being mean by gossiping, talking behind people's backs in a malicious and unreasonable manner can make you formidable, respected out of fear.

Being mean gives you that high, a rush of adrenaline, comparable to the slightly insane and blood-thirsty look on a stereotypical murder's wretched face. We all know being mean and degrading others others make oneself feel better, but other factors tie into it. People are mean sometimes for the laughs. The laughter originated from hyperbole, the clear-cut incisions into the victim, the black and white labels attached to them, and a generous amount of presumptuousness. People shouldn't assume things if they don't know the whole truth. And no one for god's sakes, knows the whole truth!

Meanness just feeds one's own ego. It's selfish and insolent. And of course, people who are self-important rise to the top in the prominence scale. People who make others laugh rise, and so do the ones that have fun, by poking fun at others. Being mean bestows control.

I know many of my own friends and others who are mean and are prominent. Respectively, I know many people who aren't mean and aren't prominent. Or at least not mean in a malicious way, without any consideration to the other person.

The problem with being mean is the division. Especially in girls when she don't like somebody but treats her as any other person, later gossiping about that girl audibly and being seemingly unaware of how the victim is within earshot. Then the girl say don't tell nobody else and if someone do, they need to tell them not to tell nobody, and sooner or later, someone gone slip up. Creates so many scandals. The way girls be mean remind me of them white ladies, like Ms. Hilly, whose name alone elicits applause, being bitches to that outcast Ms. Skeeter in 'The Help', only toned down. But who know what they be when they grown. And them black maids, they helpless, overhearing their mistress talking with her friends, heard it through the grapevine, tell they black friends. And when a negro slip up and a white lady find out, she be telling a white man, and someone gone get shot.

Thoughts

2011-12-21T16:19:00.000-08:00

"Don't sweat the small stuff"

The problem is that it's all small stuff.

Sometimes people will say 'the world is not fair', or something along the lines of it, like 'the world doesn't care about you', or 'it's you and me against the world'
This isn't true. We are the world. We are the children. It's a choice we're making...to be part of something you already were. The world isn't everyone else. You're a part of this world. You have friends and family who care about you who are also the world. The world and society shouldn't be slandered as cold and apathetic.

"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it."
It can be confusing how the word 'life' is ambiguous. You can mean life scientifically, or in the context of all those quotes which go like "to live is the rarest thing', and "everyone dies but not everyone lives'. Strangely enough no one cared to define this thing called living. Maybe they were too preoccupied with being deep. Anyway, to live technically is to fulfil your basic needs. Most of us (and by us I mean the lucky people who can afford it) are capable of doing that, so why do we want to reach a 'higher level' of living? Leave it to humans to want what they can't have.

Also, that is not necessarily a tragedy. Maybe the tragedy is actually being evolved enough to have that desire to 'live'; to be aware of it. Of course, we'd be much happier if we didn't know. Maybe the tragedy is being aware that we're aware.

The Question

2011-12-19T16:31:00.000-08:00

The question basically sums up philosophical questions about yourself, such as how should you live and what life or ideal should you live or die for? What is the meaning purpose of your life? What is the question?

It could be 'what would you do had you a week to live', 'can you live as if it were your last week', or 'can you make the world a better place, or 'can you justify your existence'. Most of the time the answer is no.

Anyway, I think one should always have a question. Questions create meaning; they make the stasis that is your life an on-going journey, a valiant pursuit, and if you're lucky, an epic quest.

Hopefully things don't make sense for you. When things make sense there aren't much questions and when there aren't questions all you're doing is being. Someone said ' to strive, to seek, to find, and never to yield'.

An unexamined life is not worth living - Socrates

In my opinion, you shouldn't look for the answers. Don't solve your questions. Unanswered they are open treasure chests of possibilities, and to solve it is to establish it; lock the chest. Sometimes I think life is wonderful because there is no meaning. It's a bit like unrequited feelings. If something never started, never was, then it can't end. 'It has endless potential'. <- that's rephrased from Sarah Dessen's novel.

When there is a question, you have the chance to be infinite, eternal. And death shall not be the end of you.

So..what's your question?

Hating and Trolling

2011-12-12T08:23:00.000-08:00

Hating

There is no way to justify hate. If you "hate" someone, then you can't give a valid reason. They are the way they are and that is not their fault. Even if you hate someone because they murdered your friend, you cannot totally blame it on them. Of course, they might be mentally retarded or had a crappy childhood, but technically speaking, they could have just been acting under the laws of universal attraction. In that theory, humans have no free will.
Anyway, I hate it when people say they hate each other. IT'S BULLYING, which if you have a intra-personal reason is understandable. But they are not messed up in a more than average way and their excuses are petty. Stop trying to be extreme and finding everything to be black and white. Do you even realize how egocentric and obnoxious that is? Thoughtless, virulent ass-face. I don't mean the people I mean the action of hating.

Trolling

The act of trolling is stupid I say. Why are you deliberately pissing people off? What do you think you will accomplish by doing that? Who are you trying to impress? Most girls think trolling is idiotic and annoying. Are you really that desperate for a face; a way to be known? Such a superficial mask. Such a superficial yet abundant psychological defence. Whatever little boy, get lost in your own little world of trolling so you don't have to worry about not being someone or something, so you don't have to worry about establishing yourself or the weapons everyone around you bear; just lift up your troll-face shield and let it take the damage, not you.

If you let trolling be a large part of who you are, then you get what you want, nothing more.

P.S It's not working. So stop trying.

People around you

2011-12-11T16:20:00.001-08:00

Someone said you should surround yourself with people who push you higher.

Whether they push the sky up or the earth down, if they motivate you to be a better person and rise your standards or if they make you feel like a better person and lower your standards. It seems like a war between the truth and ignoring the truth. Surrounding yourself with people you consider to be of less than you won't be the truth, but you wish it was, because they'll always be people better than you.
When I got into gifted I didn't feel like I lost relative self-worth like some people say they did. I suppose it's when you reach that state of no-longer-happy-and-ignorant your mind launches into depressive thinking and you realize how good everyone else is.

If you surround yourself with people who push you higher wouldn't life be better?

Left Brains and Right Brains

2011-12-09T14:20:00.001-08:00

There's a book dedicated to explaining why right-brainers will rule the world. Yeah, not going to happen any time soon, unless our geography and science textbooks are outdated.
Society just likes order too much. Who dictates the superiority I don't know. But a systematic, well-organised, and efficient grand scheme is more systematic, well-organised, and efficient.
It's evolution, probably, a direct line from advanced to left-brained. Or advanced means left-brained and left-brained arguably means dull.
The consequence of left-brained-ness is modern technology, which includes a bunch of selfish stuff, electronics like ipads, automation like assembly lines, medication like Viagra, research like cancer, medication like pills to inject endorphins preventing depression.
Cause we want convenience of our stuff; before computers ate our souls (if we had souls but I doubt it), now we can have our souls eaten on-the-go. Who needs human labour workers when you can automate stuff, down-sizing companies and laying off workers? Had too much sex and suffering from erectile dysfunction? Viagra is your free pass to have more sex. Diagnosed with cancer? You can live longer off your money and also tax-payers. Depression and insomnia suck, so you can imbalance chemicals and mess with the body's natural functions. You can inspire sleep with a pill.
Again a bit too thoroughly, many left-brained consequences are selfish. Well cancer research is more honourable, but that's beside the point.
Now what about the endearments of right brains? Art! Painting, dancing, music, acting, spirituality, transcendence, emotion! The sort of things that could in theory, prevent wars and instill harmony in daily life. Art is universal, it's encompassing, everlasting, uniting. Spirituality is self-fulfilling, happiness creating.
But then left-braining resulted in the concept of money, something to fuss over, and contributes greatly to the 'box world' (remember Pete's story in Kearney?) It also made SATs, which we have yet to experience.
Right Braining focuses on wholes. It sees the forest of humankind, and the universe. Left braining sees the trees, creating a bunch of trees that block your view of the forest. The trees are ephemeral but the forest is not.
Society favours left-brainers for being analytical, rational, logical, objective, and sequential. To handle the amazing amount of data in the age which relies heavily on numbers. Parents put value on jobs like doctors.
What sucks, is that this age defines you by numbers, your marks and your age and SATs, or so I've heard. If society was more right-brained, we wouldn't need that much tangible definition. Daily lifestyles would be random, intuitive, and fantasy (creative) oriented.
It's currently the information age, and the 'conceptual age' is yet to come. I'm waiting for the devout left brainers (sorry for the stereotype), doctors, lawyers and accountants to outburst, "what conspiracy is this?!". Of course, it's not going to be that dramatic, or clear-cut. What if it does become the conceptual age? Wouldn't most people, since the 'new millennium kids' cohort was brought up to value information, and the cohorts that came before like the baby boomers valued hard work in the age that burdened their backs, find it hard to adapt? Then again, it's not going to be a revolution.
Nevertheless, it's about time we're going to (if we are going to) shine the spotlight on the right brain and start favouring the non-material aspects of life.

Take the quiz to test if you're left-brained or right-brained: http://www.wherecreativitygoestoschool.com/vancouver/left_right/rb_test.htm

Giving in, homework, and life

2011-12-08T18:28:00.001-08:00

I severely dislike irrelevant homework. It's a preparation for a preparation for a preparation; homework for more homework for more homework, doing things that won't help in life to do more things that won't help you in life; giving in for more giving in.
But of course, you do give in, cause it's not thaaaat bad; just tedium and lack of meaning. In high school you'll get more homework. it's not hard; you've gave in before, like to what your parents, friends or teachers or society want. You will also collapse to what they think you are; they define you, you surrender to facebook or whatever addiction, you succumb to cold hard realities, and relinquish control of the throne.
Oh well.
Because later, you'll have no time to think over empty questions, you'll be busy doing homework, taxes, making yourself pretty, grocery shopping and work despite the fact that soon enough, we'll all be dead. I mean, that's the point of complaining? You'll just end up doing it anyway. Keep your mouth shut; don't think, just do; and lose yourself.
But it's okay. Everyone else does it, and the ones who don't are damned. Actually you'd be damned either way, so it's okay. You're not a revolutionist. But that's okay.

Questions and Answers

2011-12-04T08:57:00.001-08:00

Conscious 1: Why am I so darn unsatisfied right now?
Conscious 2: Idiot you know why.
Conscious 1: Why am I not unsatisfied enough to be depressed?
Conscious 2: Because you're a boring person.
Conscious 1: Why don't they like me as much as they like her!? D:
Conscious 2: You know why. Also you are not a very likable person if you know what I mean.
Conscious 1: That was mean and depressing. Why am I even thinking this?
Conscious 2: Don't fight the truth as you perceive it. You're thinking this because it's part of your personality.
Conscious 1: I don't like my personality. Why did I have to get stuck with it?
Conscious 2: You know why.
Conscious 1: Why can't I be an interesting or prominent person??
Conscious 2: I never said you were unprominent or uninteresting. But hey, now that you're thinking it you are. And...you know the answer. No wonder you're not very likable.
Conscious 1: Yeah. I know. I don't think I'm anyone's first choice. Why do I am so high when it comes to other people? Why can't I settle for less?
Conscious 2: You can't. The logical thing to conclude now is that they won't settle for less. i.e you.
Conscious 1: And I let it reduce me. No wonder I'm not prominent or interesting or likable. You know what, I hate you. Why do I even need a second conscious?
Conscious 2: I'm your reasonable side. Without me you'd be stupid and ignorant. :)
Conscious 1: And happy. If I am so darn unsatisfied now, what about later in life?
Conscious 2: You know. You'd be even more darn unsatisfied, considering this is the peak of your life.
Conscious 1: No, that was a month ago, thanks to you. Yet I am you. I am making myself even more darn unsatisfied by asking questions and knowing the answers. *sigh* Why do I do this to me?
Conscious 2: You know the answer.
Conscious 1: Why am I so darn unsatisfied right now?
Conscious 2: Idiot you know why.

And conscious 1 just keeps on asking questions it knows the answers to. Thoughts begin to loop, like on a broken record player. That's just all. You understand. You get it. Fine.
There is no ongoing journey. There is no pursuit, just stasis, with no beginning or end. You're just existing in your stasis of questions you know the answer to. Redundant, repetitive, they are the same thing, you bore yourself. I hate it when that happens. Sometimes you get a new depressing thought. Worse still is when the days begin to match, one after another in cycles. Rinse. Repeat.

Using Evolutionary Psychology to compliment

2011-12-03T10:44:00.001-08:00

Here are nice things to say to people and avoid being blunt using evolutionary psychology!

The source: Why beautiful people have more daughters, from dating, shopping, and praying to going to war and becoming a billionaire- two evolutionary psychologists explain why we do what we do. By Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa.

To tell someone they're good looking

'You have such high-quality genes!"

Beauty is health, genetically and evolutionaryly. Beautiful people have better genes, hence why they are so desired.

"You're more likely to have daughters!"

Beautiful people are also more likely to have daughters. This is because a man's reproductive chances rely on his power, status, and wealth. Women's reproductive chances rely on youth and physical attractiveness. While beautiful people do better in general, the sexes do it in different ways. In the long term, a man's power, status and wealth become of greater importance. Good-looking-ness contributes more to women's success sex-wise. This is way beautiful people are 36% more likely to have daughters, their hgih-quality genes will be put to good use in a girl. This also explains why women are universally more attractive than men.

To tell a guy he's ugly

"You'd make a good dad!"

There are two stratergies for men to carry on their genes. One, the 'dad' way and the other the 'cad' way. 'Dads are males willing to invest in one woman and her children long term, 'cads' are those who seek cheap thrills for the night and probably will desert the girl after sex. This create a large number of short term mates without investing in any resulting offspring. Both of them, of course, want to have sex.
But women are the ones who call the shots; they are more likely to excessively try to find handsome men to mate with short term for their superior genes. Therefore, handsome men have tons of opportunities to sleep with tons of women. They are able to pursue the 'cad' stratergy. Ugly men have no choice. Their only way of achieving reproductive success is being a good 'dad', and a committed partner.

To tell a girl she's developed puberty-wise

"You're ahead of the evolutionary race!"

Girls who go through puberty earlier than average are at the same time, more likely to get divorced and be more promiscious. They pass on their genes to their daughters who in turn experience puberty earlier with the side effects as well. This is especially true for girls whose parents are divorced. From their father's absense, these girls learn they cannot rely on men, so they adopt a short-term, no investment strategy for reproduction. The biological reaction prepares the body.

To tell a girl she's undeveloped puberty-wise

"You're less likely to get divorced!"

Girls whose parents are not divorced learn the opposite lesson, so they tend to be restrained and have long-term committment in their relationships,thus less likely to get divorced. So the body slows down the puberty process.

An Allegory

2011-12-01T14:52:00.000-08:00

Which I made up. Well I think it's an allegory.

Humans and Humanas

Once upon a time, there was a girl. Her name was Humana. All of her life so far, people have told her that she's average; nothing special. Not a revolutionist like her revolutionist mom wanted, not a nihilist like her nihilist dad wanted, not a straight A+ student like her straight A+ student grandmother wanted, not a blond bombshell like her blond bombshell grandfather wanted, and certainly not a drug-addict/prostitute/emo her drug-addict/prostitute/emo brother was. But her brother only wanted her to be a drug-addict/prostitute/emo, to fall to his level, to get sweet revenge by ensnaring another in his own traps. He wasn't sure how that would really help him stop being a drug-addict/prostitute/emo, but nevertheless it would make him feel better.

Humana has got it drilled into her head, just as 'how to be a revolutionist for dummies who aren't revolutionists' books from her revolutionist mom, 'how to be a nihilist for dummies who aren't nihilists' books from her dad, 'how to get straight A+s for dummies who aren't straight A+ students' books from her grandmother, and 'how to be a blond bombshell for dummies who aren't blond bombshells' from her grandfather. From her grandfather she also got drilled into her head countless beauty secrets, permanent blond hair-dye, countless cosmetics and plastic surgeries, and secrets to threaten to expose to blackmail cosmetic and plastic surgeons. From her brother, she got drilled into her head offensive, nasty, hurtful words, uncensored curse words, and uncensored details of life as a prostitute.

Humana only wanted the best for her family. The best for them was the best for her, so she tried in every way, to be not average. Instead of conforming, she was rebelling, and did all she could. Humana tried to be a revolutionist like her revolutionist mom, but no one recognized her efforts, nor called her 'Revolutionist Humana'. Such was custom in her school. There were just too many students named Human or Humana. Actually everyone was named Human or Humana, so the teachers, principals, and students themselves resorted to using a characteristic, or a part of the person to represent the whole.

Humana was just...Humana. Humana's mom was 'Revolutionist Humana', her dad was 'Nihilist Human', her grandmother was 'Straight A+ Humana', her grandfather was 'Blond-bombshell Human', and her brother was 'Drug-addict/prostitute/emo Human'.

Humana tried her best to be all of what her mother, father, grandmother and grandfather was, but in the end, having failed, she was almost sad enough to become 'Drug-addict/prostitute/emo Humana her brother was. Almost.
It just seemed like Humana was too much of one thing and not enough of all the others. Disillusioned, Humana realized that in trying to go against herself; trying to rebel, she was actually conforming.

Humana saw how everyone else, the students in her school, were trying to be something that they weren't, trying to get a definition instead of just being Human or Humana.
It seemed like a paradox. Or was a paradox. To not be anything but average, and then trying to be not average and therefore being average.

Humana tried her best, but her best wasn't good enough.
At home, Humana's mom was impeached from her group of fellow revolutionists. Revolutionist Humana was devastated. Actually she wasn't revolutionist Humana anymore.

Humana's dad finally found a moral belief he agreed with, and hesitantly, dropped the 'nihilist' in his name and turned to nothing, he thought.
Humana's grandmother who was retaking university was overwhelmed with the amount of homework. In her days, before paper was invented, everything was spoken. And now with the new technology, she got a facebook account and procrastinated just a teensy bit. To her flabbergastion, she got...an A-, breaking her straight record of A+s
Humana's grandfather, it seemed, was at last experiencing the aging process. Hair began to appear where hair should not appear and from some places hair was disappearing. He was also getting all wrinkly. No-longer-blond-bombshell Human was numb with shock.
Humana saw these things happening to her family, how they were stripped of identity, how arbitrary, how moot it was. Her drug-addict/prostitute/emo brother isn't even what he is anymore. Dead Humans couldn't be nothing but dead.

Her brother told her to wield his words like a double-edged sword. Or better, a gun. The same gun that killed her brother, or rather, that he used to kill himself. Humana wondered how the barrel of the gun tasted in his mouth, the taste of toxic metal reminding him of drugs, the shape of it-long and circular, the bitter taste in his mouth reminding him of prostitution, the shape of it-long and circular, a circle, forever-a long time, the time he'll be dead, the taste of it, toxic metal like blood he drew from his body. She thought of how easy it would be for him to pull the trigger, how he would take the easy way out of being a drug-addict/prostitute/emo.
Humana wished-and she hated it-she could be that extreme. To end her suffering. But it's not suffering, surely. Humana didn't know what she was feeling so she could not define it.

One day- the day she remembers- Humana got out of that rut of thinking.
With the magical secret she used to wield like a silver shield from darkness. With the secret she became undefined, infinite, all-encompassing. It was universal. Everything was universal. Humana just was. She did whatever she wanted. She thought, but really she chose, therefore she was.

From then on, Humana was known as 'Just Humana.'

'Just Humana'

Moderation and Exaggeration

2011-11-23T15:32:00.001-08:00

I believe Ben Frank once said, "Everything in moderation." So far I am not sure I agree with this. Moderation just seems so..mundane. Moderation is conformity.
Maybe this is why we exaggerate so much., for whatever reason, to be funny, to impress people, to make a point, to try and make your life sound interesting using stronger words. Because ultimately, we fit into a small range and as all is relative, we make our own extremes. Exaggeration ties in with prominence, more than what would be expected.
Of course you're not depressed depressed, just depressed on a very small scale. You don't hate, just dislike, but hate so much more..out there. The terms 'always' and 'forever' actually means from four days to four years. Eh, maybe more. The term 'never' means 'not most of the time', but what you'll really saying is 'that sounds so mundane and takes so much breath to say so I'll just use the word never'.
The strongest example I can think of is when one is in love. The more in love you are (or the more you think in love you are (maybe they're the same)), the more you supposedly blow things out of proportion. Like, 'I'll always love you', 'our love will last forever', 'I'll never break your heart'. The irony is that all marriages begin like that and half end in divorce. People hear songs on the radio, read romantic proclamations in books and hear them in movies, so it's no wonder why to our ears, it sounds right; though in actuality it's just ad nauseam. Maybe the divorce rate wouldn't be so high if you didn't go from saying, 'I'll always love only you', to 'I swear I'll never get into an argument with you again!' and instead said 'I love you' and then 'I'll try to think before I start a fight.' Exaggeration makes it hard to be specific, and seemingly heart-felt promises often fall short.
Enough about love.
Exaggeration makes life interesting. Like when you don't like someone or something and start ranting or gossiping about it, exaggerating everything because it's all so boring. I just exaggerated.
I think another reason people exaggerate is the same reason why they wear masks to define themselves. To stand out because you feel this craving to be something. And nothing cannot be defined.
When we were children, the whole world was new. We wanted to be princesses and pirates (actually I didn't go through this phase and I kinda doubt we did. Maybe it has something to do with the state of aisan and how your parents constantly disillusion you. Maybe it's everyone else who does this. I wouldn't know.) and now we want to be doctors...and stuff. Boring stuff. Now we're all being dulled by age, becoming consistently more boring, when rebels of all kinds must conform and become responsible students and socially acceptable people, adults.
Maybe the dull being magnified by communication is a way of compensating.

Beauty and all that Junk

2011-11-21T16:22:00.001-08:00

People blame bad stuff like anorexia, low self-esteem, bulimia, and depression on the media, wherein teenage girls just happen be the victims. The victims drowned in a sea of retouched images and impossible standards of beauty. It's way too stereotyped now. The people in charge of education are injecting it sporadically in our curriculum, somehow thinking this can insulate the holes in us.
I find this situation similar to when Pantene made this ad with a beautiful woman on it with the caption: Don't hate me because I am beautiful. Well it didn't occur to the viewers that they should hate on her, but now that it has been brought to their attention, they do.
Contrary to popular belief, the media is not the one at fault. Think about it. Is the media the cause or the effect of girls wanting to be skinny, have a low waist to hip ratio and the like? The cause is actually us. We want those impossible standards, the media gives it to us. While very convenient for blaming it all on, all the media is innocent.
If they stopped portraying beauty, we would not stop wanting to be beautiful. It's the same as saying if there weren't any references to food in the media, we'd stop being hungry. Yeah well if our long long long ago ancestors somehow weren't hungry, they died. Just as if our long long long ago ancestors didn't have any concept of beauty, they died. Humans are the result of a painstakingly long time of natural selection.
Oh and they died because - why did you think we even had the idea of beauty - perceptions of beauty evolved around the sexual. For example, how men are supposed to prefer long hair because hair is a good indicater of health and health is important in choosing the ideal mating partner. Of course they had to carefully evaluate because they want the best genes for their children. <-Another reason how we got so far. And how men like big breasts because they are an indicater of age, as there the concept of time was yet to be invented. And how they like pale skin because it's easier to see if the woman had been ill, and how both genders have a preference for blue eyes. This is because when people see something of interest, their pupils unconsciously get bigger, so it's easier to see whether someone is interested in you; which is why people with brown eyes are stereotyped to be mysterious.
Anyhow, ideas of beauty are deep-rooted and of course the women want guys, so the effect is they wanna be pretty. I don't think, however, this is such a bad thing. Again, it got us very far. Often, people who are physically inadequate, find ways to compensate. It might even fuel them to find a way to define themselves, if not by beauty. Beautiful people have challenges too, like how they are stereotyped and tagged. Also, increasingly, beauty is not the only factor considered when choosing a suitor. Anyone can be beautiful with plastic surgery and modern cosmetics. There are many more ways than before to attract a mate. Like money. Now that's a rather dumb concept.
In addition, I think when people talk about beautiful people, the vast majority of the time they talk as if they are on the outside. Some 'beautiful people' don't realize they're beautiful, or don't acknowledge it. One of my very beautiful friends says she has a very noticeable flaw which I didn't notice.
Most people refer to it as two extremes, a thick dividing line, when we-as in the gr8 gifted- are mostly aisan, fall under the general aisan faces, and fall in various places on the beauty-meter.
And since beauty is stereotyped, one may actually avoid really beautiful people when seeking a sexual partner instead of gravitating to them, since we assume they're players or that you will dim in comparison to them or that they're arrogant and patronizing.

Footnote: my source for all the facts is a book called, Why beautiful people have more daughters: two evolutionary psychologists explain why we do what we do.
Great book. Evolutionary psychology explains so much, even why guys are so sex-obsessed

Thoughts

2011-11-17T13:51:00.001-08:00

Some thoughts.

The more and more we progress into grade 8, and the more and more I pay attention to the extroverted people, the more and more corrupted my mind becomes. Many people are wrong and think wrong, that's natural in this kind of environment, but some people apply the wrongness into daily life and make sexual implications towards other people. It's mind-incinerating and so misleading. Every time I hear someone say something about someone else's sex life, I get this mental image. I think since we (as the grade 8 gifted classes) are behind in romantic and sexual development - in so many real life example I read in books, they're advanced in that area, like getting their first kiss by this age - we make up for it by increasing our bark, talking about it, but not doing anything close to it. Mixed signals
People whose gender is prominent in their identity are more likely to be the target of a crush. I find this fact very partial, like saying if you're not prominently a girl or a guy, your chances of love are much slimmer because people don't see you as your gender (and of course, you are not your gender, it's like saying 'I am not my disorder' for schizophrenics except without the negative implications) and not a person, which can be easily overlooked. Girls who are prominently girls might dress a bit revealingly, draw attention to their sexuality, and exchange banter with guys and participate in teasing about love and relationships. Guys might have suggestive body language, give signals to every girl, and imply love/sexual stuff. Actually gender prominence can be a good thing and a bad thing. Just, the problem with prominence in gender is that often it leads to gender stereotypes. In place of a person, wherein one would need to know them to have an idea of what they're like, one would simply fill in their opinion on you based on their opinion on your gender and make assumptions. Which can happen with anything prominent in your identity, really. It's too bad the focus on relationships now is more romantic and less friend-like, more sexual. Well, of course. Puberty. But there are barriers between the genders and they increase as you care more about what they think, as you like them because you see that they are masculine or feminine and can make you feel more masculine or feminine. What happened to friends first, then love in that way?
I don't think just because we're young, there can't be real love. Love in that way, that is. Or that we should stop loving because there is no point at this age and in the future, it won't matter. That's the same as saying you shouldn't live because there is no point in life and in the future, it won't matter. Is there some kind of invisible boundary of age you have to pass before your feelings become legit? No. And who's to dictate that there can't be real love at this age? You can't know if you've never tried.

Dayze

2011-11-11T15:37:00.001-08:00

I've thought before and someone has told me how pointless it all is. In six words: I am living. I will die.
Expressing all the worthlessness you feel within your life, and then humankind and ultimately, well, everything. How nothing will matter in the end, nothing you do will affect the great scheme of things and in the vast universe composed of 72% percent dark energy, 23% dark energy, and 4% normal matter, you are one vastly tiny dot, insignificant beyond contemplation. Or how you can answer any question with 'It doesn't matter'.
I think this is largely the product of meta-cognitting (the act of metacognition (thinking about thinking or pensing (the act of being pensive))), depressing but true and very inconvenient for the ego. It's sad how the easiest and most commonly used way to escape these thoughts is distraction, which only delays the confrontation.
There is no solution; life is managed not cured. <- that's a life law in this book called life strategies.
Anyhow, if you do get into this rut of thinking, life can seem like an endless chain of days, binding. Or maybe life is an endless chain of days. It's hard to tell since everything is so indefinite. It's a daze of days, where daily life looks the same, peeling off flimsily, blurrily similar.
Or maybe you're in a dayze because your self-esteem is suffering or whatever, you can't feel that you yourself is not even what the characteristic by which you judge people is, whether it is prominence, popularity, extroverted-ness, or attractiveness.
This is one of the times where you have to choose whether you want to push the sky up or the earth down, to reach higher or set your standard lower. Obviously it's easier to push the earth down; that's what most people do, using gratitude as the fuel.
You're in a dayze, but after all, 'it doesn't matter'. The future or the past, or the meaning (or the lack of it), it all doesn't matter. Shouldn't you just be happy for the moment? Sure, we know, you're very alone, but then so is everyone else. You're insignificant and tiny, but you're insignificant and tiny together.
Maybe the thought that you're not a part of the grand scheme of stuff isn't constricting, it's liberating; a burden off your shoulders. When you die, you will not leave an imprint on society; life will go on until life itself dies. You're just a speck, drifting through time, which makes it all the more meaningfull to have relationships, in those epiphanies where you're so acutely aware that somewhere in a corner of the cosmos, someone proposes to his girlfriend. She says yes.
My point is, if you accept that nothing matters, if you think the universal answer is 'who cares', then clearly you should not (care), becuase it does not matter.

Update

2011-11-08T15:22:00.000-08:00

It's been 6 months since I first created this blog, and some of my views and opinions now contradict the old ones.
So I have ~~crossed out~~ the outdated stuff, like in posts 'Those people', 'Why dating is stupid in middle school', 'Specimen: Dreamer' and others except for the very first post, 'An opinion on teenage love'.
The text in pink are comments as of now, corrections.

An unrelated, interesting thing

I read this in the February 2011 issue of Psychology today. Paraphrased:

When teenage girls enter in relationships, their GPAs drop by 2 grade letters while girls who stay single throughout have improvements in their grades, according to research from the University of Texas at Austin.
Romantic entanglements can affect school engagement in boys as well, but not enough to dock their marks. This leads us to thinking boys may just consider high school sweethearts less important.
Interesting.

Also: The person who wrote this filler article made an estimated-by-me $100 dollars. Which proves how much money one could make as a freelance writer. Just so you know.

Things concerning Sex

2011-11-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

By sex, I mean gender (and sex sex but only minimally).

There's this unnamed thing that mostly guys do to girls, to make the girl have a higher opinion of him. This act is very common and can be easily observed in class. Reduced to the pith, it would be something like, [girl's name here], [kissing up question or statement], followed with a smile. Or shorter variations of it, like 'really, [girl's name here], really?' It's a circle.
Some girls want attention and they can pay out their preferences to whoever gives it to them. Guys do what works. They give attention to the girls so they feel acknowledged, which will trigger more the same process repeated. Sometimes they will do something, for example an animated imitation of them, or a teasing remark to get a reaction from the girls who actually react. Most just lower their heads and smile/laugh.
Another thing: the exchange between the genders of witty-ish banter, which includes but is not limited to, light-hearted arguments over trivial matters (eg. yes you did, no I didn't), over something one of the parties have done or said, disagreements (see, that was not a friendly pat; yes it was), one party good-naturely ridiculing the other party, et cetera.
The foreplay for this exchange may be saying someone's name over and over and then getting someone to poke her for you, saying that person's name of course (so you get to kiss-up to two people in the same exchange), until she very expressively turns her head over (I swear, they don't answer the first couple times on purpose).
This act could be traced back to men and women engaged in an eons-old co-evolutionary race, wherein one sex makes a move and the other one matches it, that the women communicates she's ready to mate and the man obliges. Over the generations it went through many filters; humans got more sophisticated and sought love before they would primitively procreate, it's middle school and no one really takes things seriously, we're mostly Asian and progress in the entire love/sex thing later than average (is there a correlation?).
Thus, the exchange of witty-ish banter has become toned down from the extreme to be very casual and very acceptable.
Although this area of common social practice (like most) is undefined and not recognized; more something you just do without much questioning than something you're acutely aware of, maybe we should stop doing it so often. The first kissing-up act will just reinforce the stereotype that guys must take the first step and be the initiators, the ones who must impress the girl or make her like him. And the girls mostly smile, because they are the wait-ers, the adapters.
As for the exchange of witty-ish banter, it's restricting. Mostly the extroverted group of people (which is what I am calling them now to avoid using the term 'those people') do it, and those kinds of exchanges between sexes become the norm. The result is, it would be weird to talk to a guy unless you are doing that, or have a plausible excuse, like under the pretext of homework. If you tease someone a lot you're supposed to like them, but if you actually have meaningful discussions with them, well no one really does that so you must like them. The barriers it forms. Which is wasting a lot of opportunities, the friends you could've made, insights you could've shared with the opposite gender. If people only communicate to them like that, then it will turn the other sex into someone you need to impress and accentuates their sex so you treat them more like a girl or a boy and less like a person. You'll feel like things need to be rehearsed, that there are unspoken consensuses to be followed. And we're drifting apart.

Bullying, my opinion

2011-11-02T15:26:00.000-07:00

Bullying is inevitable, and some form or some degree of bullying is omnipresent, but that isn't justification for bullying. Talking behind people's backs is fine as long as they are not aware of it, but if they do, then it hurts.
I don't believe we should categorize people into black and white so often with bullying: victims, bystanders, and bullies. It's more like everything is gray, somewhere between the two extremes. Those labels are not who you are, they are simply roles you play, masks you put on to hide. Hide from your own weaknesses by picking on others, avenging your own experiences by taking it out, physically, verbally, emotionally, cyberly; hiding from the pain.
Pain is like a hitchhiker, a parasite that travels from one person to another, infectious and metastasized. There must be some origin of the pain in your life, neglect, discrimination, hate. And pain is your master. And you are reduced to the medium of which pain finds another victim, like rats carrying the black death. Aren't we all?
So really, bullying should not be blamed on the bullier. They are just victims, metamorphosis who carve their inner suffering into a double edged blade, with a pointy tip. Which, again, we all do.
The sad thing (one of them) is that people who are considered bullies, often they can't go back. Same thing with psychopaths, who do not feel emotions. There is a certain point of no return where if they cross the line, are damned. ^ Unfortunately, that is black and white.
Another sad thing is how bullies are labeled as bad or dumb people. This isn't necessary. I feel angry when schools give students a talk on bullying, when kids-help-phone posters declare, Whoever said stand up for yourself never had to face a bully. Really. They turn bullies into these monstrous abominations and direct you as the innocents. It'll just make you feel like you're on the inside and the bullies are out, it'll give you fake reassurance and when you actually are bullying, will render you ignorant. It'll just make the full-time bullies even more hateful, feeling shunned. How do you think it would feel to be ostracized, to be a disgrace to schools, 'all schools have bullies'? What would YOU do?
It's all propaganda, as if when you're a bully, you're not a person anymore, you're a thing. Even I while writing this referred to bullies as a type of person.
There's the other type of bully, the one whose actions in my opinion are less justifiable, the people who bully to fit in or be cool or to 'tease' and 'play around'. Like the guy who passes through the locker area, shoving random kids into lockers. I don't think there are any serious bullies in the school, but there are some of the other type.
These people advocate themselves with their own opinions, often not realizing it's not their opinion which matters. They tend to think they're right, so they thoughtlessly do what they do. Although they're fundamentally good, occasionally fundamentally stuck-up.
Finally, this entire bullying thing is blown out of proportion, a misunderstanding of teachers and principals and a mistranslation to students. Don't let people label you as a bully, victim, or bystander. Don't let it become weaved seamlessly into your Self, your identity. Don't be yourself, because the Self is ever-changing throughout life. Before you can be yourself, you must define yourself, which comes with time. Looking at your Self intensely through a microscope will invariably lead to a sobering realization of something bad, which will lead to withdrawn-ness and pensive-ness and reduced self-esteem, and in extreme cases, pain enough to bully. So just go with the flow right now and do what you love. Do what you want. (This is not a loophole to bully)

Prominence

2011-10-27T17:13:00.000-07:00

It seems to me you can categorize people, the prominent and the non-prominent, the prominent ones being the people who stand out, who in a novel would be the protagonist (or the antagonist), and would be the ones you'd invite to something if you only had to pick one person. I've been trying to distinguish the characteristics of 'prominent' people, generally iconic-ness, extroverted-ness, interesting-ness, rarity (although kissing up to everyone could replace interesting-ness or rarity), and the possession of something unique, like if one or two people are really confident but no one else is, that would isolate them.
Usually people seem to achieve prominence through personality, or maybe physical extremities like being very tall, very short, very attractive, and some can even do it through their achievements, like winning a bunch of awards.
Prominence and all those other traits are relative though, and I suppose exists in the eye of the beholder. Yet there are still general agreements.
One could even go as far as saying there are the prominent people, and then there are the filler. Because of course, there has to be filler, to make the prominent people stand out and to do all the mundane things while the few selected ones ascend to the stars in life by stepping on other people's heads. Ouch. Doesn't that just kill your self-esteem?
So what do the un-prominent people do? Throw other people's opinions of them, attempt to become prominent (which, if from personality change won't work, but if from holding less back, might), change prominence into a completely relative term, accept this as a fact, try to make yourself believe you are, try to make others believe you are, fishing for compliments to feed your ego, or deny that prominence has anything to do with it, which would render this entire thing rather pointless.
Yet prominence does have to do with 'it', whatever it is, to a certain varying degree. I have got to stop judging people with delusive and biased factors such as prominence and then comparing them to myself. Again, self-esteem ninja.
I think I may have come up with a plausible solution. Prominence can exist only in groups, so stop seeing groups and start seeing individuals. Labeling and categorizing with tags like 'those people', dreamer, parasite, giftie, frenchie, reggie, girl, boy, et cetera may be a lazy way of getting out of knowing someone, a way to make yourself feel good, or simply an innocent attempt of making sense of the social universe. A combination of the three.
Labels, as I knew and someone said to me to make me acknowledge, are restricting. You limit your perception of that person by putting on these glasses to see them a certain way. you are reducing them and reducing yourself by doing that. So stop categorizing prominence or whatever tag, and save your self-esteem.

Sporadic Ramblings

2011-10-24T17:33:00.000-07:00

Some thoughts/ideas/fanatical babble

When you like someone and you're around them, it's strange and holds all sorts of contradictions. Real yet unreal. Does time pass slower or faster? Is it strange or familiar? Well it is real, then unreal, strange, then familiar, then strange, then familiar again over time until all such distinctions seem inconsistent, superficial, uncertain. Then, you're just living in the moment, enjoying the moment, because it's more real, more natural, more profound than questioning it. Are you happy or sad? Nervous or comfortable? None. You just are.
In some moments of epiphany, I realize how interconnected we are. Really, we complete each other. We're like a piece of fabric, all the threads interweaving. Notice the repeated prefix use of 'inter'. Inter as in interpersonal. It's kind of mundane sounding but so diverse, so encompassing. And as we grow, mature, these connections only grow in quantity, all the strings grow stronger, though some parts may unravel at the seams and some strings will be cut. Just like neurons, where the whole is greater than all the combined parts. Very deserving of gratitude.
Rebecca's mom said 'what's the point of asking hypothetical questions?` People sometimes ask questions like that even though they will probably not be in that actual situation. I think it`s because we enjoy asking what ifs. Since unspoken consensuses and rules tend to govern us, we`d like to have a feeling of what others would do in the what if sense. We`d ask other people what would you do if, or would you rather to gain information and in the process of all that, form a conclusion of how we compare. Of how `normal`or `un-normal` we are. Some one could use this information to define themselves, observe and ask questions and non-conform themselves accordingly. Or vice-versa. Another reason for asking hypothetical questions is the pursuit and the knowledge of what you cannot have. Because that is what we want.
Can people change? I don`t think so, personality is steady throughout life. Then where is the origin of personality? A lot of it is deprived from genetics and up-bringing, but there are some unexplained things I`ve found in my personality that I can assume are a common occurrence.
Speaking of which, what is the origin of natural talents and the like?

A thought

2011-10-19T16:54:00.000-07:00

Today, the guys were being (not a typo) and one of them called another one of them 'son of a bitch', which Linda said to be more offensive to their mom then the person.
I have come up with the reason why when you eavesdrop on their conversations sooner or later someone will drag a mom into it, par exemple, What did you do last night? Your mom; Asiatic cheetah. That's what your mom called me last night; Yo mamma so fat...
Why must the women who endured pregnancy and child-birth and who sacrificed so much be the butt of many moronic and demeaning jokes?
The Oedipus complex! Oedipus was this guy in Greek mythology who killed his father and married his mother. Freud, the guy who was convinced everything had to do with sex, came up with the theory that every young man (quote) desired to penetrate both his parents, one with a sword and one with his penis (although Freud would most definitely see a sword as an oblong object, and therefore a penis)
It makes sense in a psychological, Freudian way. Guys make jokes about other guys' moms as an unconscious slip about their moms. Maybe unconsciously, the person who they came from and grew inside turns them on. It certainly is true in the years before they find another female object to channel their blossoming sexual feelings into.
It's funny when guys make little mom-based quips. They don't seem to realize how wrong it is.

About guys

2011-10-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

Just some questions and thoughts about the opposite gender.

What do they talk about with each other? It seems to me like a mixture of impressing everyone with their witty quips and wrong jokes and things that are happening, movies, books, and things to make fun of, Teasing each other over who they like. Do they discuss girls like we discuss them? Do they play fire in the barn? Philosophize? Share their insights and talk about life?
Does it turn them on that most, if not all, of the girls in their class are able to have a baby? Do they masturbate? Do their parents tell them not to have sex and restrict their dating rights? Do they plan to not have sex until a certain time?
A lot of guys act all cocky and give subliminal signals to girls and have this outer bravado and are very wrong, which is compensation on some inner level. But why do they choose to do that? What do they think they can accomplish by doing that?
Do guys act all 'manly', like laconic and cool and inappropriate to not seem gay? What do they think the consequences of being gay are?
Do they do all they do to impress the girls more or guys more? More attractive girls more over girls with better personalities? White girls over Asian girls? Frenchie, Regular, or Giftie? Or do they just do it to impress themselves?
What occupies their mind all this time? Do they really think dirty thoughts more than girls? Hey does that mean they approach the person they like or someone they think is attractive with dirty-mindedly?
Do they rate girls on their looks, or personality, or rarity consciously? Do they discuss it with other guys?
Does it creep them out that sperm is alive, that they're actually carrying things that are alive in their balls? That one day, their baby will be born from something that was in them? It would creep me out.
How much of the real them are they choosing to show to everyone? How much is hidden? Is there a relationship between girls and guys on that aspect?
Do they take romantic relationships seriously? More or less seriously then girls? How strong are their feelings if they have any? How often do their feelings come and go? Where do these feelings come from? The heart, the head, the groin?

Death

2011-10-10T08:52:00.000-07:00

Why do we as a society obsess over death? Why are funerals all black? Why is it something to be mourned and wept over instead of laughter and celebration like in births?

Is it the nature of death to be sad? I don't think so. Death is simply another transition. Kinda like puberty, except into the afterlife and without the endearments of adolescence. We're just scared of death because it's not certain what's after it. It's a perceived departure from Earth, when really it's the arrival in disguise. Really, it's both. Like many other concepts, death is ambiguous. Also, we're living in fear of being forgotten, and the unknown and numerous others, which basically derives living of life. It's not as much living as it is existing.

I mean, if it was an accidental death of someone too young, then that's pretty tragic, the years they could have seen pass. But if it's someone old, shouldn't you be rejoicing how long they've lived instead of having that perpetual the 'grass on the other side is greener' attitude? We just want what we can't have.

Death is another adventure too. If death were personified, I imagine it not to be the Grim Reaper, but an archangel, beautiful and elegant. Let's make her clad in white. She's eternal and unwavering, impartial and wise. Somewhat similar to her friend Time. Life personified is an archangel too, clad in white. She is childish, spoiled, unfair and favoring in nature, sporadic yet radiant. She grants existence only to a selected few, but Death comes to everybody sometime. Death is constant, a certainty.

I'm even going as far to say Death gave birth to life. It makes sense. If the ultimate something came from nothing, then life should come from death.

Death herself shouldn't be scary. The fear is just of fear. Death just happens. It's a part of life and shouldn't be dramatized. Of course you will be sad when someone close to you dies. No it is not the end of your world or their world. More like a beginning of their world and a new awakening of yours. No you should not be morbid. Again, Death will come for you in time. That is not yours to dictate by committing suicide. Apathy of your own death would just be selfish.

When someone dies, celebrate in the name of them. Compared to ancient or outlandish culture like in Greece when they put coins in your mouth for the ferryman or in Egypt where they mummify you, our society has some mistaken beliefs about death.

Unspoken Consenus

2011-10-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder where unspoken consensuses come from? We all seem to know the social ones concerning implied 'rules' unconsciously, which is learned in childhood as we observe people's reactions to our actions. It's a human grown-up thing.

I don't even think we are aware of unspoken consensuses if we try to find them. It's more they are already established so they don't register in the mind. Like how you don't go right next to the bathroom stall of a stranger, you go to the 2nd or 3rd away. Or how you don't fidget and move around really awkwardly in public when you're bored. Or you don't impulsively touch someone's hair because it seemed like the right thing to do at the moment and you really, really wanted to.
Don't you just feet like that sometimes? Humans have evolved so they have consciences that they consult whether or not to do a specific action. And you process the possibility through the layers of filtering, moral rules, the law, the outcome of that action, unspoken social consensuses, and numerous others. You can imagine all the junk that didn't get through, all the what ifs. And amazingly, we do this all subconsciously.
We also learn to filter by minimizing, hiding, or deceiving our facial expressions and body language. Again, it's a part of growing up.
And we conform ourselves to these unspoken rules. The raw blob called you gets cookie-cutter-ed, sifted, beaten, and generally refined to an outer you that everyone sees and believes is you. No. You is all the dough. Not only the baked.
It's gone to the extent that you ask for the time to fill the silence and ask what class do we have next just to say something even though you already know. It's ridiculous and kind of scary. I can imagine all the possibilities if we were raw and un-held-back, primitive. More extremes of all sorts. Yes, more crime. But less tedium! Less vaguely contented stasis! More action!
Imagine if we, the general grade 8 gifted classes were free of unspoken rules and consensuses.
****

I know. Unfortunately, these consensuses rule us and they are inevitable. Another side-effect of life complicatedness. One of the contributing factors to all the mundane details no one really cares and won't matter in the end but still take into account nevertheless.
What we could do, though, is recognize when we are about to be governed by unspoken consensuses and do what we originally were going to in spite of it. You could regret a lot less. Or you could regret a lot more.
After all, consciences make us sophisticated and can come in very handy ethically. Yet all the trivial things it prevents you from doing could have been done. Instead of being 10% you, you could be 40% genuine you by letting these things escape the unspoken consensuses. Many times, the reason is because deep down we want to impress everyone and be thought highly of, whether it be the general public, or someone you like, or yourself. It's outrageous that we still want to impress people we don't know and people we don't like, hence why we disagree to dares having to do or say something embarrassing to a stranger. We think, 'They'll think I'm stupid!' It has something to do with pride. If you can give up that person's limited opinion of you, you can give up those limitations.
Make mental list unspoken rules, like Thou shalt keep one's facial expression not stupid at all times and Thou shall speak with the proper inflections. So that you realize and can take control.
It's restraining not being the raw you and it's much more fun and liberating to do whatever in an reckless-ish manner.

Because believe me, you can care way less what they think.

Knowledge

2011-10-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

I and some other people are thinkers, not doers. We know the stuff 'cause we're smart like that.
"I think everyone should try their hardest every day and make it count, as grade 8 is the last year. Yeah that many hours of sleep is optimal. Learned it a long time ago. I know that procrastination is an extremely bad habit. Duh. I'm smart."
Maybe that's only me. I say I know things a lot -because it's true- and my dad will always say "It's not that you know, it's that you do." Which had led me to turn it over in my head.

What is the value of knowledge if you don't have action? Feelings will only produce no fruit if they aren't watered. Potential cannot reach the fullest if not baked to golden brown.
The conclusion is that there isn't a value. Action-will trumps knowledge.
We use that excuse a lot, I realize. I know, I know. Now there's a possible improvement in any aspect.
One won't be successful in life by knowing everything, one gets successful by doing everything.

Love, from a new perspective

2011-10-07T17:35:00.000-07:00

This is probably gonna contradict the opinion on teenage love post, but there is no reality, only perception. It all changes depending on where you're standing.

Having feelings at this age, I realize, is not pointless. What else can prepare you for the heart-shattering blows of the real world more than a huge romantic disappointment earlier on? Love at this age opens up doors and windows, more than it closes. I used to think having a crush was restricting, always afraid of embarrassing yourself, and wanting to be yourself, 'but in a totally likeable and unembarrassing way' says Jessie.

If you look at it differently, loving someone is the state of which the self becomes not static but fluid. That is an exciting thing, to change the definition of one another through love, because you'll only know that you'll be you when you're one with him or her. Everything is new.
And loving someone has the ability to make you feel that the world is good. Love heightens your sense of possibilities. Every day is permeated with them. Suddenly you become so aware of all the should'ves, would'ves, could've beens. You might even act on them and carpe diem.
It acts like a magnifier of vision, perception with awesome clarity. It will make you believe in the cliches.
I used to look at people my age who speculate about love and think, romantic fools. I still think that. Yet now I think love is another medium of aspiration, which is vital in life.
Love at this age may be just a phase and will most likely end up as nothing, but you have the memories and the experience and the knowledge. It's just a phase. No, it's not just a phase. It's a phase. Why not entertain the hope?
Loving someone will make you really appreciate them. Either love, or babies do that-like my brother, who is the most fundamentally human human I know. Sometimes we forget we're human. We remember that people are scrubs, douches and noobs, is good at this, is very attractive, is very nice, and we label them so. They also have two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth, which is pretty amazing. It's what love does, makes you amazed by that. Or is it only fanatical people?
Even if you don't appreciate them that way, you will appreciate them as physically and psychically unique and marvel at the basic structure of their bodies, the layers of their minds. How a specific arrangement of features will capture that person and the question how do you capture the abstract them.

Love can create from its very existence miracles. <-A miraculous thing.

One thing you can't do is ignore it. Life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. - Ralph Waldo Emerson. Love is a dive into uncharted territory. The adventure wil be fun. What the hell, you might as well go for it. You're going to die whether you love or not.

Life complicatedness

2011-09-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

It was Albert Einstein who said something along the lines of , "Life should be as simple as possible, but no simpler."

~~Life is very very complicated~~. We made life very very complicated. It's actually simple. I can't emphasize it enough. Life does not begin as a little sprout that needs to be fostered to grow. It's more like an ever-growing cypress that needs to be cut down and trimmed to the fundamentals.

You get caught up in all the mundane little details. You can examine every tree but you won't see the entire forest. This is mostly true for adults, having to juggle so many things. Let me quote from Robert Cohen, his book Amateur Barbarians, "...unexceptional people living as fully and as honorably as their circumstances allowed, cooking, making plans, attending meetings, paying taxes and continuing to love each other despite the fact that soon enough they'll all be dead."

What would you do if you had one week to live? Enjoy the blue of the sky. Be uninhibited; act as if you have no filters between thinking and doing (although this does not justify criminal behaviour). Be free from burdens. Be whatever, because soon you'll be under the ground.

I don't believe anyone can really do that though. We're trapped. So many things are traps. The complicatedness. I suppose you could escape the traps by committing suicide, but you'll just end up falling into the biggest one of all.
That sounds very negative. The only optimistic thing about this I can think of is that traps are for Christians. That when you die, you go to heaven and become free. For the rest of us non-believers, we have to squeeze out the good in so much bad.

There has not yet been a way I know of to prevent mid-life crisis. There has not yet been a way to live without any regrets. It's only now and always now because we are not in other time any time but now. But we forget that, or we're living in fear, or the ego wants to feel good. It's a mixture of all that.

There has not yet been a way to transcend the irrelevant. We are still looking for one.

Be Fanatical

2011-09-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

Fanatical: To be motivated or characterized by an extreme, uncritical enthusiasm or zeal.

I don't mean fanatical about religion or politics or music, as some people are. Like obsessions, being fanatical about one or a few topics takes away from your individuality. Being that kind of fanatical also takes up parts in your life reserved for relationships.

No, I mean be fanatical about life. It's a fast paced modern world, as they say. There's so much going on and it's the age of information. It's easier and easier to believe what technology can achieve these days. Our minds are so full of these extremes that a lot of the time we fail to notice the routine.

Do I sound like I'm preaching? I hope not. Anyway, we need to consciously acknowledge the everyday miracles. Not only the miracles, but also the everyday tragedies. In people too, as Mark Twain suggests.

"There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior, there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy."

Isn't that interesting? Humans are complex beings. Every one has stories in them. Every one has a past behind them and a future in front of them. People (particularly me) must remember not to reduce them to a label, or a statistic, or just one more (although in my -and other people I know- defence(s), they choose to be just one more. Which is a bad choice, but that's a different topic).

This is magnificent, don't you see. Awe-ful how humanity has evolved, awe-ful how stupid we are, awe-ful how smart we are, awe-ful of the presence of something, awe-ful at all the dramas, comedies, and tragedies in existence. Awe-ful how we realize.

It, in fact is so monumentally awe-worthy that we should celebrate. Do a ceremonial dance. Rejoice at the diversity of well, everything. Here's the perfect theme song for it.

It's not being fanatical and overly-fascinated by everything. It is you, reader person, who is being underly-fascinated by it.

"There are only two ways to live. One, as though nothing is a miracle. The others, as though everything is a miracle" - Albert Einstein

Be fanatical.

Parents

2011-09-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

All the parents I know and observed seem unsatisfactory to me. Often I find my self thinking, I could do better than that. While it is most definitely true that they can do worse, there is always room for improvement.

It baffles me how most parents don't take the initiative to do all in their power to positively raise their kids and make the awkward teen years less awkward for their mutual benefit. They should be reading how to raise a kid for dummies - IQ-wise, EQ-wise, and creatively.

Some parents just wing it. How could they do that?! This is an actual human being! Raising another human being is a responsibility and a privilege and a gift that should be granted to the most worthy and the most prepared for the weight of the journey. Far too many take for granted how big of a deal this is. It's big deal. There are couples out there who can't conceive. A quote from one of those couples.

When someone is paralyzed, people think, Oh, my gosh, I could never imagine what that would be like. Nobody ever thinks what would my life be like if I didn't have my fertility.

If you have a kid, you're lucky (exceptions are teenage mom, unmarried, and rape).
So why is it that some parents never seem to be satisfied? To them, children are trophies that need to be polished, bragging rights to brag about and be used to determine who's better than who.

Asian parents generally want their kids to be perfect academically and go to good universities and often, become doctors. Thus, they drive us to fulfill their expectations. They make us learn piano and encourage us to get A+s.

We're the dough and they cut us into cookies using the sharp edge of a cookie-cutter. By doing that, they're wasting all that other dough, all those other parts of us that had potential and all the right ingredients, but were never baked, never cultivated.

Parents shouldn't use cookie-cutters. Kids should be free to be their own person, imperfectly shaped however they wish. If you force your ideals onto the kid, if you make them fit that mold of the cookie-cutter, it'll backfire on you and the kid eventually.

When I said to my mom, You have no hobbies and no life, she said, I used to have hobbies and you guys destroyed my life (referring to my brother and me). Having a life is a conscious choice, mom.
Anyway, parents also seem to think negatively when it comes to their kids. It's what they can do better, not how they're already doing pretty good. It's Why don't you clean your room! over Thanks for cleaning your room!

Those are ways parents can improve. Most of them aren't that bad, but some are pretty obsessive. And one must remember that it's a 2-way relationship between the kid and the parent, so both have responisibilities.

Smartness, IQ, EQ, Personality

2011-08-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

Dictionary Definitions

Cognitive Intelligence: Capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity

Emotional Intelligence: The ability to recognise and understand emotions in yourself and others , and the ability to use this awareness to manage your behaviour and relationships

Personality: The entire group of qualities and traits, as of character or behaviour, that is peculiar to each person

For a long time, humans have treated cognitive intelligence (IQ) as the only factor that mattered when making decisions such as who to hire. Only recently has emotional intelligence been taken into account.
EQ explains why some people are successful and some are not.

IQ is fixed from birth. You don't get more intelligent by learning. IQ is the ability to learn, and remains the same regardless of age.
EQ however, is flexible and can be learned and developed throughout life.
Personality traits appear early in life and don't change. It is also stable over a lifetime.

The whole person consists of IQ, EQ, and personality, according to Emotional Intelligence 2.0. They determine how we think and act.

I imagine smartness being an umbrella over all of these. True, having good emotional intelligence may bring you success, but being smart may bring you happiness about your accomplishments.

Before

After

Smart is a process as well as a state of being.

The three stages are:

Dreamer

Disillusion

and Discovery.

Dreamers are those who expect love but do nothing to earn it, those who

do not act.

Disillusioned is when you're forced out of the dream. It's when reality hits you in the face. You may be laying in bed thinking of the world and how it's bad, or thinking about the cartoons you watched when suddenly it occurred to you: Why isn't life like a cartoon? Why isn't it all kid-friendly and G-rated? Why doesn't good always triumph over evil, the way it's supposed to be?

Maybe you have a crush on someone and seeing them with someone else was how you 'realized'.

What did you realize? That the world isn't how it was when you saw it through the dreamer glasses which distorted reality to fit the image of what you wanted. Well disillusionment broke the illusion, and your glasses.

After that, there's a three-pronged fork in the path. You can continue on your way to discovery, or delay the discovery by crawling into a hole and dying on the inside, or ignore the hurt from disillusionment and do your best to fix the glasses (in which case, you're 'aware', but you choose not to be aware that you're aware and go on being a drunk dreamer).

Anyway, so you're on the yellow brick road to discovery. You realize you've walked this road before many times, but now it all registers in your mind. You discover again all that you've passed over unknowingly in the past. Good job. You are now smart.

That's the process. Smart, the state of being, has three closely connected parts: Aware, Alive, and Action-will.

You're aware once you've hit the disillusioned phase, but then it might be more negative than the balanced discovery awareness. Disillusion awareness is just that; knowing. Discovery awareness is the acceptance of yourself, others, the universe, society, the circle of life, and just the way things are. It's being grateful for what you have instead of wanting what you don't.

If you're a very emotionally intelligent person, but you aren't grateful, then you won't be happy because you'll keep comparing yourself to people who have more. There's always the need to go to the next level, never satisfied.

Alive is living and being aware of living and a promise to yourself to live, not to die. If you have cancer, you may be a ticking clock to death, rotting way inside, but if you're doing the things you love and being in the smart, you're still living.

Alive is knowing you're lucky to be, and not forgetting.

Alive is knowing each moment cannot be brought back from yesterday and using the time you have. It's what would you do if you had a week, a month, a year to live (just like the movie One Week). Aliveness isn't covered in EQ, or IQ.

Action will is doing what you'd do if confronted with mortality. It's living in the now, not leaving for tomorrow what can be done today. It's the will to action, not non-action. Basically, it's the will to something and not nothing.

That's smart, the state-of-being. To be smart, you also need to know you're smart. That's another minor part: pride to say you're smart and spread the smartness.

The presence of something ties into smartness. It's being aware of the miracle of the presence of something, being alive to be grateful, and having action-will to take advantage and do something.

Smart is an umbrella of the whole person; it positively affects every circle.

To IQ, it's action-will to put your cognitive skills into use to benefit yourself and others. What use is being

really good at math if you don't win any competitions because of it?

To EQ, it's being aware to enjoy what you've done, all who benefit from your good EQ. It's being aware you have it, to exercise your skills further and find how it applies to other aspects of your life.

To personality, it's being alive and aware, and action-will to effectively improve on your flaws, and accentuate your graces. Being smart changes your personality and your outlook. Being smart makes you happy, and the projection of your happiness affects others.

The powers of the circles and the umbrella combined can drastically improve the quality of your life.

Art

2011-08-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

Art: The Meaning
A question many philosophers have tried to answer: But is it art?
We think we know what art is, the common response being 'art is beautiful; pleasing to the senses.' Yet some works of art are not beautiful, nor intended to be. You could say it is beautiful in its own way, but then in that weak sense, everything is beautiful, including my socks, which are clearly not art.

We have yet to make a precise formula for defining art. Something all art has in common, canceling out Ludwig Wittenstein's theory of family resemblance, which suggests an overlapping series of similarities.

Art, as they say, is subjective. Perhaps it is like love; existing in the eye of the beholder, differing in all eyes.

Or maybe art can be distinguished by the same way I distinguish 'smart' people:
Ask the person, 'Are you smart?'. If the answer is yes, then they are smart. Ask the artist, 'Is that art? If the answer is yes, then it is art.
Of course, they might just be conceited, not actually smart, which also applies to the art question. Or they might have misunderstood the question. Or what they consider to be art differs to what you consider to be art. To ask such a question, they must agree on what art is, bringing us back to where we started.

What do you think art is? How would you go around defining it?

Art: The Rant
I may not know exactly what art is, but I have a pretty good idea of what I think art isn't. Yes, I know, art is subjective. Well, this is my personal opinion, which I personally think is extremely well-founded.

Art is not an apparatus used solely to gain flattery to inflate your ego about yourself or your skills by putting it on facebook. This is similar to posting pictures of yourself on facebook for the compliments, and equally superficial. Done a lot by dreamer girls.

Art is not some sort of criteria to determine who is better than who. Similar to people using their boyfriends/girlfriends in the same petty way. As far as I know, we don't do this now, but we do have our chosen methods of comparison, such as various possessions.

Art is not all pretty and good, the way dreamer girls often do, featuring a skinny girl with long flow-y hair(seriously, what's wrong with short hair), huge manga eyes, very narrow shoulders and waist, long skinny legs, and tiny feet. Clad in beautiful dresses or perfect modern outfits, like a pretty doll, sometimes even complete with their own little man accessory.
This is just a representation of the dreamer's desires, to be that girl, like in movies and books, with guys loving them and never letting them go (ah, so romantic). A fairy tale. Smothered by the roses.

Conflict. Now that's where we find art. Something that tells a tale, a drama, tragedy, or comedy.

I'm going to describe one of my artistic experiences.
It was my first time at an oil painting class, painting a house and some trees. An hour into the three hours, and I was getting impatient. Also, we had to sit in these fold-up chairs with the surface area of my face, which didn't help. And I wasn't the best in the class! That pissed me off; I usually was. And the girl who was was a total 'those people', the infuriating 'perfect' loved-by-all kind. That pissed me off even more. The scenery we were painting wasn't impressive; people would pass by without notice. What we painted, though, was so bright, photoshopped, captured on a perfect day in the perfect light.

It was just so ‘good’ so ‘pure’ (note the quotes), like that girl, so intoxicating. That girl, she’s one of those people who project perfection, one of those people, I imagine, who have a deep dark secret inside. She cuts at herself, she binges and purges, she ties the noose around her neck, trying to escape the overcoming, choking good of it all.

That’s why I seriously dislike goody art, art which refuses to acknowledge the shadow side. Could you imagine what that does to someone, having all those expectations upon them to be such a person? Art, to me, is like the same.

A great artist...must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discomfort, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension, is the source of artistic energy -Johann Wolfgang von Geothe

Source for Art Meaning: The Philosopy Gym, by Stephen Law

Procrastination

2011-08-22T16:10:00.001-07:00

Sometimes (most times) it seems like we just don't make an effort.
We're content with days passing by, days passing by us. Tomorrow, we decide.
Except, tomorrow is an illusion. It never comes. No one wakes up thinking it's tomorrow today. That's contradictory. Today is today. Tomorrow is the day after.
Everyday we save it for the day after. A swear-worthy reverie, procrastination. It's even worse if you're a perfectionist procrastinator. Clever, don't get anything started, don't get anything done.

So here's my guide to stop procrastinating, summarizing all the self-help/time-management books I've read, in three deceptively easy steps:

1. Motivation

Remind yourself why. Maybe getting good grades in school is not on your free will, but maybe your parents and teachers will be happy and will reward you. If you fail to find enough motivation, ask yourself why you're [not] doing this in the first place.
Action: Make a mind map -the brain works visually, not in lists- of the motivation for your cause. Also put the effect, rewards, and benefits, assuming the most positive outcome of defeating procrastination.
Make the mind map look visually appealing. Use colorful pens and markers to doodle, decorate, and illustrate the sheet.
Put this somewhere you'll see it often, or somewhere relating to your goal.

2. Micromovements

As author and artist SARK calls it. Set tiny goals , achievable in 5 seconds to 5 minutes. Get into the habit. Break it down into bite-sized pieces. The weight of an essay lessens when broke down into do-able steps. It's also much easier to think about, increasing the likelihood you'll act on it. Micromovents work!
Action: Make a micromovement wheel. In each space, write a different micromovent. Label them. Remember to use colorful pens and decoration! Again, put it somewhere you'll see it often.

3. Actual Action

It's all very nice talking about procrastination, but you needn't be lectured about it or read this is you have the action-will.
It's more than solemnly swearing "I will not procrastinate". The opposite of procrastination is not not procrastinating. It's ACTION.
Don't swear that, swear to action and action-will.
Go on. Don't procrastinate.
I mean, you can ignore this. It's really up to you to do something or not.
So right now your butt is likely in a chair, so do what you've always wanted to do but put off. To prompt you, here's a list:

Make your creative dreams a reality
Confess your love to the lucky recipient
Whatever your parents nag you to do
Write a novel *hint hint nudge nudge*
Start making an effort - starting now

How to find Inspiration

2011-08-15T08:24:00.000-07:00

I bet we all love to write memoirs; to reminisce over those pivotal moments in life and all the stuff in between. As well as having people read them, people being interested in your existence.
No wait, there's a problem. As Jessie said, "My life isn't juicy enough to write about".
It is somewhat of a boring life here. We all eventually have to deal with the fact that we're just one more, and not a very notable one on a grand scale, at that. One could say there aren't many exciting things going on right now: no depression, no world wars, no hellish plagues.
Of course, there are the current political issues, natural disasters, and acts of violence. I admit I don't really keep up with all that. To me (and I imagine for many others also) that's a very distant reality. Not even remotely graspable.
We read about these happenings, and fail to find the relevance. It always seems to be happening to someone else. How does organized crime and oil spills relate to me? In the subtlest of ways.
Yes, it is very tragic, all those people suffering in Japan and Haiti. We feel sorry for them. But what do we know about suffering?
We spent our childhood in the sheltered universe our parents had cast, more or less. Then we were in the full throes of adolescence. A product of iphones, facebook, instant messaging, twitter, blackberry, and all that other stuff, we are.
People tend to read the memoirs of 'interesting' people, like Anne Frank. Unfortunately for us, the world is easy. Actually, that's very fortunate, but sometimes it gets boring that way. Where's the injustice, the battle, the valiant triumph? Not even a tragic defeat. No holocaust.
So think smaller. Many mothers write memoirs and the such. There's even a type of blogging dedicated to it: mommy blogging. But we're not even mothers. If only we could conveniently catch an irreversible illness, so we could document the days, confronted with our untimely realization of mortality. Yet that's likely not going to happen.
Most of us aren't lucky enough to be one of those interesting people whose memoirs others actually read because their lives are juicy. So, we're waiting for something to happen. Dreaming for inspiration to fly through the window and into your head. Well that's a really dreamer way of thinking.
That could be your perspective. A boring life in a sea of people. How to see the blue between the clouds, make significance of the meaningless, and place relevence on the irrelevant. Emphasize everything.
Don't wait for inspiration. So what if your life isn't interesting? Whose fault do you think that is?
My point is, you have to make your own inspiration. It's up to you to decide whether your life is interesting or not. Don't let me tell you. It's your life. See where it takes you.

Something about Looks

2011-07-31T12:59:00.000-07:00

A lot of teenagers care too much about appearances. That's a known and accepted fact.

We think by changing the way we look, it'll make up for our other weaknesses.

I'm not saying that appearances don't matter, because they do, contrary to when people say 'it's what's on the inside that matters'. Few, if not none can love someone who is outwardly hideous.

But think about it. The body that you're obsessing over will one day break down, despite all you did for it, all the time and money you've invested in it during your youth. One day it will die on you when you're reduced to a pile of wrinkles. And that's only if you're lucky.

If you're pretty by accepted standards, wearing popular brand-name clothes (like Hollister) and make-up may accentuate it.

If you're ugly by accepted standards, doing that ~~won't~~ might make you ~~much~~ prettier. It will only label you as trying to be pretty. <- not necessarily, but for many people

Regardless of prettiness (of the lack of), wearing excessive brand name clothes and make-up will categorize you in that sea of people, ~~often~~ sometimes not for the better depending on perspective (and ~~definitely~~ not for the better if you ask me).

That doesn't mean don't do those things. Some people do it to increase their self-esteem and make themselves feel pretty.

Do not: do that when you're old. For starters, old people really shouldn't wear brand name clothes or make-up. Actually, neither should women with children. People will look at them and think 'teenage mom?' <-I suppose that's none of my business

Both of them will appear as if wanting to impress people, which is not really appropriate.

I've seen menopausal women wear make-up.

It's just not pretty.

One last thing. After you're dead, your body will be an open buffet to flies, maggots and bacteria. So what's the point of trying too hard to preserve your beauty?

Unless you choose to be cremated. In which case, you will be dirt, ashes, and dust.

Abortion

2011-07-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

When it comes to abortion, I am 100% pro-choice. While I'm not very educated on it, it seems pretty ludicrous to take abortion rights away from woman.

Essentially (kind of like parasites), fetuses are simply an extension of the mother. It is not an independent life; it has no feelings or memories until it is born into the world. Therefore it is not wrong to kill a fetus.

Everyone believes it's wrong to kill a baby - for obvious reasons that a life is a life, is a life. But it's illogical to think that each life has value regardless of the circumstance. Think of all the contradictions.

Insects are lives. Imagine of all the spiders, ants, and flies you undoubtedly killed, even by accident.
Cows, pigs, and fish are lives. Even vegans eat something that was alive once - seafood.

All the creatures on Earth are in a food chain. They and we eat for survival; it's the order of life. We even kill other animals for less honorable reasons. We kill them various animals for their fur, elephants for their tusks, sharks for their fins and waste the rest of it.
We even kill each other. How ridiculous is that.

A life where no one kills anyone or anything would be unimaginable.

Birth control. Imagine all the sperm cells and embroyos killed by birth control. Imagine all the lives that could have been born.
And yet, where would we be without birth control? A way more populated Earth, way more teenage moms, and of course, couples will have to have sex at the cost of having an unwanted baby. Oh the horror!

In any way you look at it, we are all murderers.
So really, what difference does an unborn fetus make?

Specimen: Molding Clay

2011-07-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

Specimen: Molding Clay

A molding clay is a flexible dough without definite shape that can fit into many different types of molds as camouflage, in a sense, for the true form of it.

Molding clay people are extremely adaptive and can act as something or someone they’re not with deceptive ease. The talent of molding clays can be used in either a way which benefits the individual, or others.

In the first case, an example would be a social butterfly. Indecisive, they fit in within all groups and play all the roles from emo to cheerleader. These people tend to be elusive and lead others on, then suddenly they’re gone, already someone else someplace else.

This is somewhat similar to masking. Molding is the process of making oneself fit into all these different casts to achieve acceptance, approval or personal gain of some sort. The goals are the same as masked people’s. In the situation of molding, you get a definition and an association as a stereotype or an icon in the place of genuine substance to be known for.

I know one molding clay. Febreeze (not her real name) uses her ability for good. It’s amazing how well she can act out and play roles (her secret is to practice her emotions everyday in front of a mirror). I say that the inanimate object Febreeze is most like is an air freshener (hence the name) as wherever she goes, she makes the atmosphere brighter and nicer-smelling. This has a beautiful effect on the people around her and who interact with her.

When others crack lame jokes, she laughs when no one else does, if just to make them feel good. This is only one of the ways the molding clay benefits both itself and others. My point being Febreeze is never back-sassed, looked down upon, or insulted. You just can’t hate on her. She’s everyone’s friend, incredibly sociable, and an I.Q smart Albert Einstein.

Don’t think Febreeze has a perfect life, though. There are disadvantages. Febreeze says to me that it’s not the real her, that the real her is completely different. It must be lonely, believing no one understands you.

Like masks, molding clays may feel like no one knows the true them, only the shallow cast they’re in; a high price to pay for those benefits.

Specimen: Masked

2011-07-11T18:22:00.000-07:00

Specimen: Masked

Psychological terminology: Persona

Rarity: 1 in 1

Everyone has faces of which they hide behind, but masked people conceal their true selves more often, and sometimes so frequently they are not truly known by people other than close relatives.

Examples of masks of which kids this age use:

Pervertedness – being perverted. Must I clarify?

Randomness – Apple. Teacup. Toe jam.

Weirdness – Did you know that lipstick contains fish scales?

Annoyingness – Trololololololololololololololololololol

Like how most explicit dreamers are girls, most explicit masked people are boys. This may be due to the fact that boys lack the freedom girls have to be whatever. It’s perfectly acceptable now for a girl to dress like a guy, but not for a guy to cross-dress. No, that’s just wrong. Boys instead must be trimmed and shaped to typicality, without the liberty of being accepted for who they are.

Of course, this happens to girls too. They often put masks on to gain approval or acceptance of a certain person or group.

There are other reasons to being masked. One may hide behind an eccentric mask as a means of definition.

Stan is a perfect case in point. He has very distinctive masks- food and money. For food, you can literally pay him 25 cents to eat something off the floor, a dead bug, anything with a DO NOT EAT sign. He also has unconventional beliefs about money: it is the key to happiness. "I’d sell my wife and children for money."

Stan is perceived, in result, as an icon of his masks. When someone doesn’t want their food, they give it to him. When someone finds a penny on the ground, they give it to him. When someone says money doesn’t matter, eyes turn to glare at him. You associate him with that exactly.

But why would one wish to be thought of with items like that, rather than, say a nice person?

Simple. Stan uses his masks to identify himself from the horde of middle schoolers who at a skin level, are just like him. What a way to stand out. Another reason is that he might not think people would accept him for who he really is, thus the purpose of the mask.

As for being nice. So generic! A lot of people are ‘nice’. So especially at this age, where middle schoolers struggle to set themselves free from everyone else, they wear masks. The best way to be known is as yourself, but that takes time. Masks can buy you an quick and easy identification, but they’re one dimensional. There are more disadvantages, too.

Stan enters high school. Masks, masks, masks. Pretty soon he’s known as the ‘guy who eats stuff’ (probably something witty, which is due to my lack, thereof). People pass him by the lockers, saying ‘Hi guy who eats stuff!’ It’s his birthday. Someone gives him a half-eaten apple.

Stan died. Friends and family come, saying they’re terribly sorry, and that Stan will never be forgotten. What they don’t say is that they will remember him as a mask, not as a person who feels. They will never forget the extremities of his diet. They will think, ‘Oh, it’s ol’ “guy who eats stuff.” Too bad he’s not alive; I have some food that’s gone bad I think he would like.’

Stan lives on. Yet, do you think this is what he wants to be remembered as? No, of course not. People want to be remembered as kind, caring, and warm. Human traits, not masks. That’s why it’s not good to be masked, although the example may be a bit extreme.

Specimen: Parasite

2011-07-03T17:26:00.001-07:00

Specimen: Parasitic, found in girls and boys of various ages in school.

Severity: Third degree (mild) : Socially dependent

Second degree (moderate) : Burr

First degree (severe) : Parasite

Rarity: Socially dependents: 9 in 10, presumably in a regular grade 7 class

Burrs: 2 in 5, presumably in a regular grade 7 class

Parasite: 1 in 15, presumably in a regular grade 7 class

Bluntly, parasites are people whose lives are so unremarkable that they tag along others. In a high school level, parasites are often gossips.

True to their name, parasites have the kind of nature when they look at you, with that hungry expression. It's as if they are feeding off you because they have no substance to call their own. In this way, they are only extensions of the people they feed off of.

What these 'blood sucking creatures' do is take, take, take, and never give. They thrive off the existence of others, whether it is being irritatingly clingy, or spreading people's secrets (often only rumors) around.

Because parasites have nothing that stands out about them that makes them individualized, these people resort to other tactics, such as:

Lying about oneself - My hair is naturally red, I just dye it black!

Defining oneself with others - I'm Justin Bieber's best friend!

Defining oneself with obsessions - OMG. I ♥ roses for no apparent reason whatsoever!

Defining oneself with idiosyncrasies - I always rub my chin as if I had a beard to distinguish myself!

Here's a story about a parasite I know. She had this unsightly external disease that usually repelled people from her. So when they ignored her when she tentatively said, "hi guys..", she resorted to, "oh. I forgot to tell you guys. I have this skin disease, people bully me because of it" to get sympathy and friends. She would follow people around, agree or nod when someone said something, and laugh at jokes she didn't understand.

I know some other parasites, but won't go into further detail as to offend them if they read this. If you wish to know about some parasites, email me. Although, here is a quote from Jessie, referring to a parasite:
"I swear, you show that girl just one act of kindness, and she thinks she's a good friend!"

Frankly, it's shocking how far some people will go in order to receive acceptance (even a fake self-proclaimed acceptance). Some are that desperate to be popular and fit in with the 'those people' crowd that they become parasitic.

Like true viruses, they infect people, and once that person severs it by cutting it off, parasites move on to the next one, being the stubborn pests they are.
It is not a good choice to make friends with a parasite or allow them to feed off you, because they are only using you.

Specimen: Dreamer

2011-06-29T17:37:00.000-07:00

Specimen: Dreamer, commonly girls and boys 8-14 ~~who are in my opinion, dumb~~.

Rarity: Very common in adolescence, 3 out of every 5 people, I'd say

~~Dreamers are indefinite people.~~

Girls usually fantasize about happy endings and 'prince charming on a white horse coming to save them from a cruel, cruel world in which they are tragically misunderstood [is it just me or do all adolescents today think that their life sucks and that nobody understands?]'. Although that is an exaggeration for some, it is true for others.

Boys and girls alike have in common the fact that they kind of expect love and acceptance ~~without doing anything to earn it. This is a set up for disappointment, essentially.~~

Also, both genders believe and see ~~only~~ what they want to. ~~They are often unaware of the perils of the world, or will not acknowledge it. Dreamers are highly idealistic as a result.~~

These girls have faith in forever, unconditional love, vows of love, eternal love, ~~and what others would perceive as unproportionate and sometimes simply ludicrous sacrifices for the sake of love.~~ <- A bit of an overstatement

This leads to a fondness of rose roses, thinking them as extremely romantic ~~[precisely why I would be offended if given red roses]~~, among other symbols of love, life, and peace.

Dreamer girls may also like love quotes or steal a 'deep quote about life' from the internet and make it their facebook status (rarely giving credit to whoever made the quote), followed with a lot of ♥s.

I remember when I was a dreamer, that I would check my mailbox every day, although I didn't subscribe to anything, or order something in the mail. I don't even know what I was hoping for. The extremely unlikely chance that someone would send me a card and flowers, profusely thanking me for some extravagant deed? I think not.

The point is, this is what dreamers live for. A mere possibility, no matter how slim. It's the nature of such an existence, which relies on something as dynamic and insecure as chance, that is really only half a life. A half life waiting, dreaming, and yearning, with actually acting. Just living in fantasies.
^I realize a lot of people do this. Sorry about that.

Why Dating is Stupid in Middle School

2011-06-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

~~Why~~ Dating is ~~stupid~~ in Middle School:

~~It is a waste of time~~
~~There is no actual affection between the people~~
It's not really 'dating', just the title, 'going out'
Extra stress dealing with that person
Association with that person (taking away from your own individuality)
Teasing
Negative energy when you break up (which is almost inevitable)
Something else to worry about on top of puberty, peer pressure, parents, and homework

~~Other than experience~~ (which I believe should be gained from authentic sentiment), ~~dating is pointless.~~

~~Summarizing it all:~~

~~"Love can't co-exist with this finding your identity crap" ~A line from my opinion~~

True Selves

2011-06-14T17:28:00.000-07:00

A classmate, when our class was discussing personas and how people often hide their true selves, muttered this under his breath: "Then there is no 'true' self."

How right he was, I thought. There is no true self.

Shakespeare said humans are only actors playing a role. Their life is a movie.

We put on all these different masks to hide ourselves for whatever reason, but what is 'us'? What is 'you'? We, as people, aren't born with a 'true self'. Who we are is determined by genes, environment, our influences, and how we were raised. Very little is because of ourselves.

So how could you go around defining a 'true self'?

Is it you when you are around those you are most comfortable with?

Is it you before you were old enough to make your own decisions about your actions?

Is it what you know yourself as?

This is the dictionary definition of 'true': being in accordance with the actual state or condition. The question is, how do we know what is actual? What is genuine, authentic, and real?

Certainly not what the person thinks. If one believes oneself as true, it's not like others will. You are known of what you are by others, not yourself. The definitions vary. How can the others all know what it that person's 'true' self?

Her parents will think that the persona she shows them will be 'true'.

Her friends will think that the persona she shows them will be 'true'.

And the same goes for others.

With the subjective interpretations of the phrase 'true self', the differing opinions, no possibility 'true self' can be defined by the person herself, and other variables, it is logical to conclude that there really is no 'true self'.

How Guys are Douchey ~Jessie

2011-06-10T11:28:00.000-07:00

This is my friend Jessie typing and ranting her opinions, not me (but I do contribute to the ideas).

You know what I hate about guys? When they try to act excruciatingly cool and composed and are too concerned about their looks and how people think of them. When they say "hey" just because it's terse, laconic cause it seems manly. I don't like it when guys wear skinny jeans or huge Justin Bieber sneakers or skateboard t-shirts. It's more understandable when girls dress fashionably, but when guys dress that way, they appear uncool to me. They have no originality and they, in my opinion, have no need to be so concerned about how they dress. I especially hate it when they come to school and talk about how they went shopping for clothes over the weekend because it just sounds too girly. Men also shouldn't spend a lot of money on clothes, because it's a waste of money. I think the same for girls.

Douchey guys also try too hard to impress people and always sound matter of-fact. They have an air around them that reflects their belief that they are always right and the world will go out of their way because they're right. This in turn makes them totally wrong.

Douchebags also think they're so amazing. They have limited thinking and are unconnected to reality. They have a stride that makes people look at them, but once people do, their first impression is "wow, that guy is so douchey". All the meanwhile, they're stuck in their facade and dream that everyone loves them.

It's even worse when there's a group of douchebags. They can never separate, or else they're nothing.

I'm bored now. Bye.

By the way, Jessie has her own blog that you should see:
www.all-i-am-is-i.blogspot.com

Think about this:

2011-06-08T17:43:00.000-07:00

Some things to muse about:

Why would someone love you (other than relatives) ?
How do you know the sun is going to rise tomorrow?
What is a miracle?
How much of you has come to be because of genetics and your up-bringing?
How much of you is of your own accord?
Is there any way to justify hate?
How different really are you from everyone else?
What would you do if you only had a day, a week, a month to live?
What is life all about?
What is perfection?
What is the priority in life?
In what age does one begin to live?
Every year, every day, this moment, are you dying or living? Why?
In an alternate universe, what would the world and all the people be like? What would you be like?
What could you be doing right now?
Why aren't you doing it?

'Those People'

2011-06-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

One of my friends calls those people 'those people', with an evidently accusatory tone ~~(I actually would do the same)~~. You would only have to hear that phrase to realize her disdain towards them.

So who exactly is 'those people'? It's hard to say. One can assume everyone has their own 'those people', people who do not have the good opinion of the individual; do not have the right to be categorized with the person. 'Those' refers to outsiders.

Outsiders to my close friends, and myself, are the people who try hard for the wrong things (like popularity), who are superficial, who don't 'know'. All the dreamers and parasites out there who are so desperate. People who don't escape the teachings of society, the thick dregs of it choking them of individuality so needed in this world. No, those people wear these expectations like a cloak to shield themselves, or rather, a fate born into, a birthmark etched into their skin.

~~My thoughts on how to recognize a 'those people' (my opinion of a 'those people'):~~

~~They have limited awareness of how abstract concepts really are~~

~~They don't 'get it'~~

~~They want things which are elusive and will not last (like outer beauty and puppy love)~~

~~They don't recognize real worth~~

~~They are typical and can be categorized easily~~

~~They are rarely stable and always inconsistent~~

~~They hesitate or don't reply when asked deeper questions about themselves~~

To sum it up, you can tell the difference between a 'those people' and someone who knows, who has substance, of how many layers you can peel away from the person before there is nothing left. People who are aware know who they are and therefore are abundant in individuality and have more inner layers.

An Opinion on Teenage Love

2011-06-07T16:32:00.000-07:00

Like at first sight, heartbreak, betrayal, revenge, all so neatly tied up together in this thing we call 'love'.
Personally, when I hear teenagers discuss love, and when reading many articles, this is what is going on in my head:
"These people are so freaking stupid."
Sorry if I inevitably offended many of you, but it’s simply unrealistic to yearn for love at this age. It’s a natural emotion, but those who are heartbroken because their other cheated or something wouldn’t have to bear the pain in the first place if they controlled their feelings.
This is what you are likely thinking now: Love can’t be controlled, love is genuine regardless of age!
Yes, that is true, teenage love exists, but I believe it is rare.
Adolescence is the transitional phase between childhood and maturity. At this time, we are all switching our old pastimes to bigger, brighter phenomenon.
All these new things that come attached to the puberty deal and we tackle that nagging old question: Who am I?
Be sober from dreams and hopes; while we explore and create, while in the process of discovering out where we fit in the world, how the heck can we be ruled by infatuation? Seriously.
To be frank, I don’t believe love can coexist with this finding your identity crap.
Love is only a distraction from you. Focus on you. Then worry about love and whether or not you’ll find it.
Life is tough enough at this age.