Too much caffeine always makes me thoughtful

Have you ever thought of all your blessings? Even the simplest ones, like being able to breathe?

I think I've been able to appreciate some of the things that others may take for granted because I've had (in a very minor, non-life-threatening way) some of those simple things taken away from me.

I have very slight astigmatism to the point where every eye doctor I've been to has told me that I don't need to have it corrected. There are days when the astigmatism is worse and there are days when suddenly, each and every individual leaf on a tree is visible. In being able to see the world in such a crystal clear way makes me so thankful for vision. We are an incredibly visual culture so I find that being able to participate in it is really a blessing.

I have allergies. This affects how I breathe. Being able to take a normal breath of air reminds me that the simple act of breathing is also something that is so important and something that is to be appreciated.

I love food. Taste buds to distinguish the deliciousness of food makes life better.

It's the little things in life that enhance the big things. And in finding pleasure and thankfulness in these little things, one is able to transfer such joy and appreciation to the bigger things and suddenly life becomes more manageable.

Taking compliments

What is it about compliments that make them so hard to accept? And sometimes hard to give?

The dynamics of the relationship with the other person, the desire not to seem false, the embarrassment of saying something that may make the other person uncomfortable...

All these reasons that stop people from doing what will ultimate make the other person aware that they are a great person just seem so silly.

I mean there are counterarguments to this (surprisingly so) because apparently if you make a person aware of certain qualities that you perceive them to have, they may either externally or internally actually start to argue either with you ("No, I'm not really like that...") or with themselves ("How can they think that I'm like that...? I don't have those qualities") and in some ways that self-argumentation will lead the person who is complimented to think less of themselves. I suppose my point here is that sometimes, you could be highlighting something to the person that may be sensitive to them for various reasons (and I feel like I read something about it but I went into the rabbit hole of the interwebs and couldn't find anything so perhaps I'm misguided here).

I suppose a somewhat odd example is that people tell me I have a nice butt. I know I do but honestly, there are a lot of sociological/gender politics at play with that because it's my body and I may like it, but why do other people have to tell me (i.e. point out to me) that it's nice? Why are people looking to begin with? Especially with the butt being a sexualized object of a woman's body, what kinds of implications are there in someone pointing that out to me?

Compliments can backfire on people in that sense because some people don't want to be identified with what seems to be their strong suit (and here, I'm talking less about physical qualities) and I wonder if there's something wrong with that.

Perhaps what I'm getting at is this sense of acceptance of the qualities that people have of themselves. If I'm smart, if I'm boring, if I'm whatever, isn't that simply who I am? If I am the person I am and I accept the qualities I have, what people say, whether they be compliments or insults, shouldn't be hard to accept. That's why I've come to realize when people say "You have a nice butt," I don't think too much of what it says about me (aside from whatever gender politics there are behind it), but I acknowledge that it is a quality that I have and I know I have and I am thankful that the person has noticed it too.

"Thank you."

Now, I think this kind of gets into this idea of self-perception. The reality of the self is this: one has good qualities and bad qualities. Those qualities also run the spectrum of being the epitome of that quality and perhaps being the average of such quality. What I mean is that when you say someone is caring, they can be the pure embodiment of everything that you think a caring person should be, or they can simply be someone who occasionally displays caring-ness. The unfortunate truth with this is that if you've used other people's judgments to define yourself and you meet someone who is more caring than you, there is a minor identity crisis and then there is animosity towards person who caused this crisis. However, one cannot expect to the be epitome of every quality they have. In the end, we are who we are. Other people may have some influence to shape the self, but if one should be active in choosing how one is shaped (or another way of looking at it, is one should choose how one perceives oneself) so that one can strive to bring out the best in oneself.

There often seems to be a disparity between the ideal self and reality, which is why women sometimes buy clothes that are too small for them. Their ideal self is not the person they see in the mirror. People say it all the time too as an excuse for not being their ideal. "If only I..., then I would be...." Perhaps in accepting the reality of who we are (the habits we have, the personality quirks that exist within us, etc.), can we start to also accept or reject other people's assessment of us (which come in the form of a compliment/insult).

Frivolous spending and space

I have been on a campaign since I've been in grad school. My campaign is simply to throw away all the unnecessary crap I've accumulated in my life and actually use the things that I bought because I thought they'd be useful.

Like this:

Looks like a pretty cool purchase, right? (In case you don't know what it is, it's used to help drain water when you're washing rice.) If I don't use it, it's useless and a waste of space. So that's been my test. If I don't use it or forget I have it, I don't need it and I donate it. It's actually somewhat of a process but I am also on a budget so that helps frame my mindset when thinking about whether or not to throw something out (because I'd rather not have to purchase something I already have). And after watching a documentary on plastic waste, I've been trying to minimize frivolous throwing out too (which is why many things either go to recycling or donation piles).

So I guess all of this throwing out and recycling kind of got me thinking, of all the things we buy, how much of it is something we need? For example, I realized that I may not have everything that I want in terms of having a full wardrobe (I'm talking basics - I'm still missing some stuff, imo) but I have a ton of clothes. I don't wear half of them. So I'm getting rid of things that I don't really wear, things that don't really look good on me, things that have a high probably of wardrobe malfunctions, things that are high maintenance, etc. And because I'm in throw-everything-out-I-don't-need-anything mode, I've also come to realize that one can really make do with what one has.

For example, my blender:

It's ancient! The one pictured above is a 5-speed because I couldn't find my 3-speed one. I'm guessing it's too old for even the Internet to have pictures of. Hahahaha

But it works, I love that's it's old, and I don't need anything else. It's also super easy to clean (which is kind of a big deal for me). All those stupid fancy shmancy mixer machine crap takes like 50 years to clean and I'd rather be reading or playing Tetris than dealing with the maintenance of those things.

I mean, in the end, humans really don't need all that much to survive. Yes, there are things that make life easier (like washing machines), and there are things that make life more complicated in incredibly unnecessary ways (like espresso machines that require daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning/maintenance). I suppose I'm going through this phase where I'm trying to simplify a lot of things and I've come to realize that things are one of the ways I unnecessarily complicate my life. Ugh. I seriously have so much crap.

So that brings me to my other point. I think because my pea-sized apartment is overflowing with things I need to sort, it also has made me face again the sheer amount of waste I've collected. Some of it may be important, but a lot of it probably isn't. So much space is wasted on things that a person doesn't use. More money is spent on the storage of these these things... For what purpose? If there is none, doesn't it makes sense to get rid of it all?

Sifting through all my stuff is a pain, but it helps remind me that I really don't need all that much to be happy (a space to call my own, Internet, my books, and a kitchen). And I'm really hoping that the spending habits that I'm slowly acquiring carry over when I actually start making money because shopping for things and having too many things is a pain in the butt. Simplicity is good, imo.

Living for oneself

I went to a workshop about how women could better negotiate their salaries - the whole $0.77 that women make per dollar that men do seems to be more complex than just some kind of overt discrimination against women. Women apparently are less likely to negotiate unless they're doing it on behalf of someone (or thinking about the whole group). It's an interesting phenomenon.

Essentially women will perform/negotiate better when they are thinking beyond themselves. I wonder if the whole maternal instinct thing has anything to do with it.

It's interesting to me that people often seem to like being take care of. I mean for obvious reason, I understand why that's the case but I can't help but to feel like something is wrong with me when I want to be the one taking care of myself.

Perhaps this is a poor example, but often times, people have talked about how they like it when someone cooks for them or how they won't really cook well for themselves unless they are cooking for someone else. I love cooking for myself and for others. But perhaps it's because I love cooking that I can say that when others find the task burdensome.

I wonder if it has something to do with me having a method to what seems to be my madness and I don't like it when people mess with my processes. Perhaps this is why I find people who enter my space without permission to be invasive.

Humans are meant to be social creatures, but I think that to a certain extent, one must be able to live independently to contribute to that social aspect. The idea that a team that is made up of only strong players comes to mind (kind of like the teams in Naruto! :D).

Eh. I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess with women, it almost seems like there is an impossibility to this aspect of independence. Does that mean that women should be more selfish when it comes to negotiation? And what does that say about women or the perception of women or the societal influence on women when they "inherently" seem to do better when it's not for them? Is there some kind of underlying thinking in society that women must be selfless, giving, and sacrificial?

Actually, I suppose there is. The very epitome of motherhood are those amazing but somewhat self-defeating images, news stories, and what have you that show how great women are when they fight for their children. How come we never see that with men? Or do we and I've just missed them? Hm.

Time is a luxury

After World War II, people started to have more free time because of technological advances. With more leisure time, leisure activities became a salable commodity and (after poorly condensing 60ish years of history) here we are today.

Games, blogs, social media websites, etc. that are designed to "help" us actually make us waste more time looking at them. In trying to go running, I spend 30 minutes downloading and "researching" apps that will help me track my run or give me a training menu to optimize my run (why don't I just go running and do the research later?). We fill the little gaps in our day with information that may not even be useful and suddenly, we're busy without even realizing it (where does all the time go, I always wonder).

I've come to realize that leisure activities are exactly that: when one has leisure. However, we've flipped this phenomenon and leisure activities have started to fill up the day when work needs to be done. There's quite obviously a balance required for this (one cannot always work and one cannot always be passing time with leisure activities unless one has the financial means to do so) but there's a problem when one tries to pepper the day with leisure activities when one does not have the availability to do so.

The prevalence of these "time-wasters" is indicative of a displacement of what is important in life, whether it is work, chores, homework, etc. We've forgotten that things need to be done first before we can relax. Or at least I have.

Time can be seen as a commodity. In line with the idea that time is money, how are you spending your time? What is your day filled with? I feel like this shows what is important to you and more importantly, what creates you. If you are not what you do, then what are you?

There are flaws to this way of thinking but I wonder, if I spend all my time playing Tetris Battle, all I am is a master at Tetris Battle. What have I gained from it? Spatial reasoning? How does that help me or society? The way society views people is by their utility and for someone like me, I am useless to society and undeserving of any compensation for time that I spent poorly (because I have not contributed to society in any significant way).

So then, the question becomes, how do I (you, we) spend our time more wisely? I think that I need to realize that I need to get the things that are important done first. I keep forgetting that for some reason. Focus on what's important to me, whether that's the really annoying daily tasks of doing the dishes, putting down that game of Tetris to talk to a friend, or writing the paper that I'm stuck on (or the story that I have swimming in my head).

Replace the trash with what is needed and simplify life to only the necessities. Leisure time is a luxury because time can only be spent (and never gained back).

What I think about when I read my writing

I say this time and time again, but I have a weird fascination with my writing and my thoughts. Perhaps others feel the same way so it may not be so weird, but I find my own writing, which is a ordered manifestation of my thoughts, to be pretty interesting.

I just read a doodle* that I wrote two years ago makes no sense whatsoever. Well, I think it does, but the way it progresses and what I'm trying to get at is so vague that I feel like it could be read a hundred different ways by a hundred different people, and everyone would have a valid point. And I wonder, where in the world did I come up with that?

It's a weird feeling when the writing or thoughts that you've extracted don't feel to be completely your own. I think too, what's interesting, is this idea of audience. Who am I writing to? A future me? My "readership," however paltry?

In the end, it is to a future me, but at least with this blog, it's tempered by the fact that it's public (so I try to polish a tad more than I do with my doodles...).

*Doodles are my private thought journals. Some I end up sharing, others are just plain incoherent, and yet others really are for no one to see except a future me.

Suffering

"I can't believe in God because I can't explain the suffering in the world."

"I'm more of a believer in science."

Same person said this and yes, I was eavesdropping on a conversation I shouldn't have been, but I couldn't help but to be slightly frustrated at these statements.

When did God ever say that there wouldn't be suffering? Where in the Bible does it say that?

The idea that suffering should not exist in this world and that there is a god who is out there that will take it away is a purely Western cultural construct. In America, in times of hardship, the prayer often goes, "Lord, please take this suffering away." In other countries (or perhaps it was just this one country - I forget which one though), the prayer goes, "Lord, please help me get through this suffering."

There is an expectation in Western culture (or was it just in America?) that there should be no suffering and when it comes down to it, life should be easy. Yet there's something inherently wrong with this kind of thinking, especially in light of cliche phrases like "no pain, no gain," "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger," etc. Suffering is sometimes necessary in order for a person to grow. Training for a marathon can be painful but also rewarding. Exercising and dieting (i.e. creating a healthy lifestyle) can be painful for people who have certain types of addictions or extenuating circumstances that make it really difficult for them to cultivate that which is good for them. However, to say that one should remove the cause of suffering (especially in the cases mentioned) seems ridiculous and even wrong.

To extend the argument then, how can one say that the suffering, hardship, or problem that a person is going through is something that should be taken away when no one can say how it'll change, develop, or refine the person? Isn't that a little presumptuous? To bring God into the picture, isn't it also to question God's methods?

I suppose the counterargument could mention something about how it doesn't have to be in that manner, but from my experience, people can be so stubborn that only something as jarring as some kind of suffering will change the person. And sometimes, even that does not change the person for the better. So no, I don't think that taking suffering away will actually address the issue.

This goes into the idea of free will because humans have autonomy, which is precisely why things get so messy, imo.

Anyway, my point is that the perception that suffering is somehow bad or wrong is flawed. Now, this is not to diminish suffering and say that suffering is an easy thing to go through. It sucks. I'm just saying that it shouldn't be viewed with a take-it-away-because-no-one-should-go-through-anything-bad kind of attitude.

To address the second statement, the very thinking that science and religion are diametrically opposed is incredibly archaic thinking that has roots in the Enlightenment period (what is that, like the 1600s?). Go to the upper echelons of science, and they will tell you otherwise. Go to the most learned doctors in medicine and they will tell you that they still cannot determine why sometimes certain illnesses and cancers are cured without treatment (because medicine is not an exact science). Obviously, there are opposing arguments, but I feel like the statement that a person "believes" in science and not religion has (again) inherent flaws. In saying this, I also feel like the person is saying that science and philosophy are separate and irreconcilable because what else is religion but philosophies on how to live one's life? If this is truly the case, then what does science say about morality or of how to treat others? The basic idea (ideologies, perhaps?) of science then is that it is good and right for humans to act purely out of self-interest and that greed is simply a by-product of survival. And here we have the problem because such people also say that we shouldn't suffer, yet by believing only in science, humans will be the very cause of such suffering.

I think I've oversimplified the argument in many ways and there are many holes that need to be filled but I'm le tired so we shall stop here.

I'm probably guilty of similar faults as this person who so glibly spouted such ideological inconsistencies but I think that it bothers me, because I've gone through the trouble of reconciling such things (though I'm not quite all there yet and there will probably be more to be reconciled in the future).

Follow-through and perfectionism

When one makes a goal, one should do their best to achieve said goal.

There's this idea of follow-through with this. A goal is a projection and in some ways, a hope.

"I will run a marathon."
"I will lose weight."
"I will stop playing Tetris Battle once the energy bar runs out."

To follow through with what one sets out to do (or hopes to accomplish) is probably the most important part of goal setting (the most obvious, yet the least acknowledged, perhaps?).

This is where I fall apart. I'm so good at setting goals and setting up plans to achieve said goals, and then I don't follow through.

I'm bad at following up with people too.

"Did you remember to...?"
"Are you going to...?"
"I'll call you back when I get home." (and then I don't)

I usually attribute it to distractions and forgetfulness and I wonder if there's something else to it. Perhaps I can fall back on the ol' excuse of my self-diagnosed mild ADHD.

Perhaps it has something to do with being a perfectionist.

The steps I set out to do have not perfectly manifested in the way that was planned and thus, I cannot move on to the final step of the process and follow through with/achieve the goal I set out to do.

I wonder if being a discouraged perfectionist (term taken from Kevin Lemans' The Birth Order Book, which I found to be an interesting read) has anything to do with it.

그냥 대충하고 넘어가 (Just half-ass it and get it done and over it) becomes a mantra for me when I don't have time but it grates against my standards for the quality of work I hold myself to.

There's never enough time in the world to do all the things we want.

그냥 대충하고 넘어갈까?
(Should I just half-ass it and get it done and over with?)