Everybody is being pulled in different directions. It’s weird to run into an old friend that you haven’t seen in years and see how dramatically different your once similar lives have turned out. No one seems to be where they want to be just yet but it seems that everybody is on an endless chase to try and find complete happiness.
Everybody has a different idea of what it means to be successful. To some its money; spending almost every waking second of their lives at a meaningless job they dislike, just for the pay cheque. They strive for the material gains and live day to day chasing the idea of wealth, becoming a slave to everything they own.
To others, the idea of success is in their social image, which guides them to seek education. Being able to say that you have a degree or masters, or PHD even gives people a feeling of accomplishment, while giving them a sense of security as well. Although this piece of paper may or may not benefit the individual, chances that that person will end up working a decent job or career they enjoy is increased exponentially.
Some people don’t even look at these social constructs of success, but instead live their lives day to day striving to find themselves beyond a social level. Life, love, relationships, and struggles all seem to be the majority of most people’s battles. No one I have talked to has yet seemed to have found themselves. It seems to me that everyone will continue to struggle, on an endless search, until they find themselves in their senior years of life.
Some of us need to give up the search, while still trying to live the best life we can, and enjoy every second of it. Or maybe this is just advice I need to convince to myself?
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Emancipate Yourself from Mental Slavery
Listen to the thoughts race through your head. The ones that tell you what is right, what is wrong, how to dress, how to act, are any of those thoughts your own? Are any of them thoughts of freedom?
Bob Marley once said, “no one but ourselves can free our minds.”
In any lyrics to any song, this one has touched me the furthest. After realising what was being said I pondered the idea for a long time. The thing about this quote is that it is true beyond expression.
We all live our lives day to day dreading where our minds will take us. We are put into terrifying social situations that cause our mind to dread the anxiety involved with everyday life. These thoughts, torments, and common practices don’t have to be something normal if we can gain control over it.
We are who we tell ourselves we are. Even if we aren’t, it doesn’t matter because life is what you believe. My life is dramatically different from your life in more than just our physical bodies. Our interpretation of life, where to go, why things are the way they are, and our self identity in general will never even come close in comparison.
To leave you with that, ponder the quote from Bob Marley and try to find the truth behind it. Learn to let go of the worries, fears, and chains that your mind has tied to you because you are the only one who can free your own mind.
Bob Marley once said, “no one but ourselves can free our minds.”
In any lyrics to any song, this one has touched me the furthest. After realising what was being said I pondered the idea for a long time. The thing about this quote is that it is true beyond expression.
We all live our lives day to day dreading where our minds will take us. We are put into terrifying social situations that cause our mind to dread the anxiety involved with everyday life. These thoughts, torments, and common practices don’t have to be something normal if we can gain control over it.
We are who we tell ourselves we are. Even if we aren’t, it doesn’t matter because life is what you believe. My life is dramatically different from your life in more than just our physical bodies. Our interpretation of life, where to go, why things are the way they are, and our self identity in general will never even come close in comparison.
To leave you with that, ponder the quote from Bob Marley and try to find the truth behind it. Learn to let go of the worries, fears, and chains that your mind has tied to you because you are the only one who can free your own mind.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
A Tool for Destruction
The world is a tightly wound chain, running because of the unequal distribution of wealth. We are all part of a class system, trying to reach the peak of success that our life enables us to achieve, and struggling to make it within the system. The system is only an idea but yet it causes suicide, depression, anxiety, murder, and most of the world’s problems.
What can you get a completely innocent person to do for cash? The answer is anything. Everything has its price and you can persuade the most moral of people to do the darkest most sinister of things with the promise of wealth. I like to believe that I am not one of the people that can be provoked by the temptations of wealth because I have the mentality of what it is; I understand the ideology.
Money is not something someone can own. It is property of the government, distributed in order to stimulate the economy. Once we have money, it is up to the government how much of that we are allowed to keep. We are unwillingly forced to pay taxes, buy food, pay rent, etc. Once money is put into our hands, it is only there until it is given to someone else and passed throughout the economy, just as the developers of the system had planned.
We are human beings. We are animals. All we need to live is food, shelter, water, and love, all of which are not a product of wealth. These are all natural products that exist in the environment. Obtaining these items is not most people’s worry. It’s easy enough to obtain enough resources for life, but then the societal view of comfort replaces people’s desires. There is only so much money and an unequal distribution at that. It is up to us, the individual, playing a role in the game of society to try to uncover the secrets, the trends, the following movements, in order to make the most out of the system. If we can find out the trends of society, we can use it to our advantage and make the wealth unequally distributed to us.
Although this idea may or may not work, we cannot base our lives on an ideology. If we have wealth then great, but if not, we can’t let the idea of poverty run us down. Too many people are going into debt for reasons such as trying to live up to the standards of their neighbours. An average person doesn’t need much to survive but the greed that causes people to put themselves into debt is disgusting. They are making themselves slaves to material objects, they are becoming slaves for things that they don’t need. This ideology can ruin you, but you have to stand strong and rise above it. Live to what you can afford and don’t worry about a thing because as long as you’re breathing, you’re okay, with money or not.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
What Does the Galaxy Form?
The world seems so small and insignificant when compared with the rest of the universe. I think the problem of thinking about the universe is that our knowledge cannot comprehend what it is, or what actually may exist out there. It goes forever as we believe; but the question I want to know is what is it and what are we?
As far as the outside world is concerned, the main source of knowledge is theories of “what if”. So looking into this idea that anyone can come up with a theory of what we are or something to explain what it means to exist, here is mine.
A cell is made up of many different parts that all form the inside of the nucleus. Like a cell, the planets that orbit their solar systems also make up the matter that exists inside of a cell type structure, but at a greater level. Each galaxy is a section of this matter that makes up the universe and each universe is an energy source that forms its own cell like structure.
If earth, being part of what we know to be an infinite amount of planets, stars, and solar systems makes up a mere cell like structure, then we as inhabitants of the earth are barely existent in the reality of existence.
What these cell-like structures form is unknown. It doesn’t matter how much research is done, the world outside of our galaxy will remain unknown because the comprehension of what may exist does not exist within the limits of the human imagination. If our galaxy makes up a single cell then try to imagine the possibilities of what that cell may be part of.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Ideological Boundaries
It is surely an odd feeling to realise that all of your beliefs are no more than an ideology. We all hold different beliefs that keep us held together and we all have a different insight that developes our moral obligations. Depending on culture, these ideas may change dramatically. These ideas are even substantially different within people of our own cultures.
I have lived by a guided set of rules that I believed to be a norm, but thanks to a class I am taking in sociology, I realise that I am not even close when related to others in the world. The daily activities that I go about, acting to remain within the social acceptability of my peers is no more than a constructed ideology that applies only within my country.
The clothes that I wear, the way that I speak, the actions that help me define my-self as a properly acting social being is just a product of my social environment. What scares me about this knowledge the most is that there is no possible way to judge if our thoughts or ideas are accurate to how we conceive them to be. We wander life blindly, just trying to conform to the social standard, but everywhere we go, the expectations that people have of us change.
I have lived by a guided set of rules that I believed to be a norm, but thanks to a class I am taking in sociology, I realise that I am not even close when related to others in the world. The daily activities that I go about, acting to remain within the social acceptability of my peers is no more than a constructed ideology that applies only within my country.
The clothes that I wear, the way that I speak, the actions that help me define my-self as a properly acting social being is just a product of my social environment. What scares me about this knowledge the most is that there is no possible way to judge if our thoughts or ideas are accurate to how we conceive them to be. We wander life blindly, just trying to conform to the social standard, but everywhere we go, the expectations that people have of us change.
Fiction; as Raw as it Gets
"I started this piece last night with no concrete ideas in mind. I just started writing and let whatever came to mind come out. It may be something or may not, but here is the first part that I will attempt to add to."
-Part 1-
“You know, George, you are pretty narcissistic.”
“What do you mean, narcissistic? Explain yourself.”
“You have a critical theory about everyone. You know everything about everyone, down to when they last bought their groceries to when they last had sex. What kind of god do you think you are being able to make such predictions about people?”
“Come on James, look around you. Everyone is performing within these social boundaries that govern all of our lives. Why do you work, clean yourself, mow your lawn, or do anything that you do? You are a victim like everyone else, trapped in this unfair system, just trying to survive.”
I watched James eyes stare up towards the sky in thought. He has never been the brightest guy, but always a good listener. He used to be a star athlete, but as life has been taking over, he has aged quickly, and you could tell something was tearing him up inside. He has slowed down physically as well, lacking in energy. He looked towards me with his fist clenched, ready to attempt an argument.
“You can’t say that. If you were so engrained in the system, you couldn’t possibly have that much insight into it. You do everything within boundaries also, everyone struggles.”
I interrupted, “Not everyone struggles as we do. The system was developed to benefit certain social statuses, certain images, class structures, and being a young poor adult, this makes us the scum of the system. There must be some kind of way that we can find the loop hole to make this system benefit us...”
“How do we do that?”
“I don’t know the answer to that yet, James. I need you to help me think of something. Let’s start by looking around at the social ties and connections with other people and try to find a connection that we can use to benefit us.”
“Okay... How about Martha, from across the street, how is she effected by the social system by your interpretation?”
I looked across the street at the tall mediocre green house across the street where Martha lived. She was an older woman that nearly everyone in the neighbourhood noticed, but no one talked about. She was a bitter old woman, and extremely obese. She was mean, fat, and severely unfortunate on her looks.
I looked over everything that I could see about her, analyzing her past actions, trying to think of an explanation for what she was. The only few times I’ve seen her are when she is outside her house in her driveway. Her husband, some guy who weighs like 90 pounds, is part of some huge company and loves to make sure that he puts himself into his social rank. He’s probably 200 pounds lighter than his wife and he is one of the angriest people that I have ever met.
“Forget about Martha, what about that douche bag Bill.” I blurted out, thinking about the past encounter that I had with him. It was when I was younger, maybe grade seven. A couple of friends of mine and I were lighting firecrackers in the park at night after we snuck out of the house and this guy came rolling up out of nowhere. It was dark, I was a little kid, and I was scared. This guy just comes in screaming, I thought he was going to kill us. He was in our faces yelling at us about how incompetent all of our parents are and calling them out. It was the most disrespectful thing I’ve ever witnessed. I was pissed off, being bullied by this guy. That was pretty much my only encounter I have ever had with the guy, but I have avoided him ever since.
James must have noticed the look of anger building up in my thoughts.
“Don’t start some rant about him. I know how much you hate him, you’ve told me one hundred times already. I want to hear your story on Martha.”
“What? I don’t have that much hate built up man. You are talking like I’m Charles Manson or something.
-Part 1-
“You know, George, you are pretty narcissistic.”
“What do you mean, narcissistic? Explain yourself.”
“You have a critical theory about everyone. You know everything about everyone, down to when they last bought their groceries to when they last had sex. What kind of god do you think you are being able to make such predictions about people?”
“Come on James, look around you. Everyone is performing within these social boundaries that govern all of our lives. Why do you work, clean yourself, mow your lawn, or do anything that you do? You are a victim like everyone else, trapped in this unfair system, just trying to survive.”
I watched James eyes stare up towards the sky in thought. He has never been the brightest guy, but always a good listener. He used to be a star athlete, but as life has been taking over, he has aged quickly, and you could tell something was tearing him up inside. He has slowed down physically as well, lacking in energy. He looked towards me with his fist clenched, ready to attempt an argument.
“You can’t say that. If you were so engrained in the system, you couldn’t possibly have that much insight into it. You do everything within boundaries also, everyone struggles.”
I interrupted, “Not everyone struggles as we do. The system was developed to benefit certain social statuses, certain images, class structures, and being a young poor adult, this makes us the scum of the system. There must be some kind of way that we can find the loop hole to make this system benefit us...”
“How do we do that?”
“I don’t know the answer to that yet, James. I need you to help me think of something. Let’s start by looking around at the social ties and connections with other people and try to find a connection that we can use to benefit us.”
“Okay... How about Martha, from across the street, how is she effected by the social system by your interpretation?”
I looked across the street at the tall mediocre green house across the street where Martha lived. She was an older woman that nearly everyone in the neighbourhood noticed, but no one talked about. She was a bitter old woman, and extremely obese. She was mean, fat, and severely unfortunate on her looks.
I looked over everything that I could see about her, analyzing her past actions, trying to think of an explanation for what she was. The only few times I’ve seen her are when she is outside her house in her driveway. Her husband, some guy who weighs like 90 pounds, is part of some huge company and loves to make sure that he puts himself into his social rank. He’s probably 200 pounds lighter than his wife and he is one of the angriest people that I have ever met.
“Forget about Martha, what about that douche bag Bill.” I blurted out, thinking about the past encounter that I had with him. It was when I was younger, maybe grade seven. A couple of friends of mine and I were lighting firecrackers in the park at night after we snuck out of the house and this guy came rolling up out of nowhere. It was dark, I was a little kid, and I was scared. This guy just comes in screaming, I thought he was going to kill us. He was in our faces yelling at us about how incompetent all of our parents are and calling them out. It was the most disrespectful thing I’ve ever witnessed. I was pissed off, being bullied by this guy. That was pretty much my only encounter I have ever had with the guy, but I have avoided him ever since.
James must have noticed the look of anger building up in my thoughts.
“Don’t start some rant about him. I know how much you hate him, you’ve told me one hundred times already. I want to hear your story on Martha.”
“What? I don’t have that much hate built up man. You are talking like I’m Charles Manson or something.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Life Life Life
A new day with new things, new classes, new people and new professors; it is overwhelming. We have entered into the orientation week of trying to get back into the groove. I am pumped to try for an A+ year and I’ve been working on strategies to maintain a high GPA, but it is taunting to look over the year’s worth of work and try to prepare.
My day overall was pretty unsocial besides one occurrence of possibly making a new friend. It was extremely disappointing to be wandering the halls searching for all my new classes alone, not really knowing anyone, when I strive on socializing.
The schedule system made my Thursdays really long and painful, so today was a day that I just wanted to get through and now it is all over. Well, almost, besides the huge pile of books that I am procrastinating going through.
Not many people around seem to be like me, but then again, it is only the second day. The majority of people here are probably feeling the same anxiety that I am about being thrown into a new environment. I guess there’s still time for things to start looking up, but then again, my new home, three blocks away was nice, especially when I had a two hour break in between classes to waste. I should be studying right now, reading books, writing assignments, but I am writing on my blog. I guess this has become my new journal.
My day overall was pretty unsocial besides one occurrence of possibly making a new friend. It was extremely disappointing to be wandering the halls searching for all my new classes alone, not really knowing anyone, when I strive on socializing.
The schedule system made my Thursdays really long and painful, so today was a day that I just wanted to get through and now it is all over. Well, almost, besides the huge pile of books that I am procrastinating going through.
Not many people around seem to be like me, but then again, it is only the second day. The majority of people here are probably feeling the same anxiety that I am about being thrown into a new environment. I guess there’s still time for things to start looking up, but then again, my new home, three blocks away was nice, especially when I had a two hour break in between classes to waste. I should be studying right now, reading books, writing assignments, but I am writing on my blog. I guess this has become my new journal.
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