Living a life of thankfulness

Thankful for what I have.

Thankful for what I don't have.

It's oddly at times like this that I feel the most thankful for everything that exists in my life. I'm oppressed by thoughts in my head and crushed by a sense of defeat, and yet there's always that ray of hope.

There's plenty of bad to dwell on, but there's more good that is often forgotten or overlooked. It's taken for granted because we get used to the good. We get complacent. We get used to avoiding things that cause suffering.

The creative process is never easy. What I mean by creative is not in the sense of "thinking outside the box" as many think of creativity, but what I mean to get to is the root of what creative and creativity means, which has the idea of creating or making something (the implication is that creativity comes from either nothing or things that are seemingly unconnected/unrelated things).

So when talking about creativity, it is this idea of forging paths that didn't exist before, connecting ideas that often are overlooked - like a shortcut path that is overgrown with weeds (or creating a new path to a destination). If that is the case, clearing the path and making the connection known and its function understood will take time and it won't always be easy.

When I think of life sometimes, I find it oppressive. What's the point of the things we do? Why is it important? Does it need to be important or have significance? Why does anything matter?

And yet we live on. Perhaps I can ponder such things because I don't have basic worries - everything I need, I have.

The point is, despite the thoughts in my head, there is always something to be thankful for. It perhaps is in these moments, that one truly lives (though the question then becomes "what is living?").

Bah. Things aren't connecting.

I like marinating

Though ironically, not in cooking (it takes too much planning ahead).

Ideas sit around in my head just stewing and morphing into what becomes something coherent and then *poof!*

A paper
Blog post
Story
Realization about life

And so on.

Or something simple, like what to make for dinner.

I suppose what I've been marinating on lately is the idea of synthesis.

There is so much information out there and it's not about knowing, it's about using what is known.

Even if the information on how to make a car is all out there, with all the YouTube videos and what not, it is still up to the user/viewer/browser (or whatever you want to call the person sitting on this end of the computer) to take the information and make something of it.

I can watch 100 videos on how to make a car but I have to take that information and actually do something with it - synthesize the information into meaning.

I suppose the car example isn't the best one, but if one is looking for something on the Internet, one must sift through all the irrelevant information, find the relevant information, and then examine it to see how it fits into what one is looking for. Once all the pertinent information is found, one must synthesize the meaning of all that information into an answer.

It's very much like graduate school research, which is why I was thinking of the idea of synthesis to begin with.

I think that the humanities and its relevance is going to be making a comeback because with all the information out there, the people with the critical thinking skills will be needed to synthesize meaning out of all the information.

Just sayin'.

"Bliss of solitude"

It's part of a line from William Wordsworth's poem, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud."

I think I've forgotten what that was.

I'm relearning how to be alone, working, researching, and reveling in that which is grad school life.

But sometimes, I just want to hide away. Disappear from the world, not in death but in solitude or isolation.

And yet, I spent a wonderful weekend with family, surrounded by those I love.

Let us come back to the bliss that is solitude and be imbued with words, word play, and knowledge.

Being healthy and staying fit

Been trying to be healthy (basically trying to be more mindful about it - I mean I'm not perfect; I enjoy my cupcakes and pizza every once in a while) and I realized that it did pay off. :D I mean not just with the eating but I've been exercising fairly regularly (I guess?) and I'm not as out of shape as I thought I was!

And I can still do a back walkover.

That's right. :D

Bahaha.

I am a donkey

I suppose, rather, that I want to be able to motivate myself very much using this method.

Or rather than wanting to, I have decided to, I guess is the right way of saying it.

"I will finish X before doing Y."

I think the problem that I have is that I turn X into this unmanageable amount of work that I can't possibly do, and then I give up.

"I will finish reading 600 pages in 2 hours before eating dinner."

Of course I get hungry, give up, and then lose all motivation to continue. It seems foolish, but for some reason I've kept doing this.

If I must, I will become a donkey to move forward!

Onward and upward, as they say!

(Or perhaps downward in this case....)

Bigger isn't better nor is more worth it

People don't like obesity. There's definitely an interesting campaign to reclaim beauty for larger people but honestly, I can't always sympathize with fat people. I've gone on a rant before here,

I guess to look at the issue from a different angle is the idea that more is always better. I mean yes, there is a certain amount of money that can be saved in buying in bulk, but what it is and whether or not it's really worth it really needs to be examined.

For someone whose apartment is the size of a pea (like me), I can't afford to have a lot of things that take up a lot of space. Non-perishables, like soap, toilet paper, facial tissue, and the like are some of the things that I buy in bulk, but I wonder, with all the clutter in my room, what am I sacrificing?

I have to find a place to store it and remember that I have it at that place. I think with the stuff that you use on a daily basis, it's fine, but with things that aren't used very frequently that I think I run across issues. Light bulbs for example. Lately, they last forever. Do I really need 5 of them because it's cheaper per bulb? Does that mean I'll be lugging it around with me everywhere I move because I saved $0.15 per bulb?

If the thing is something that I really don't use, the fact that the thing takes up space and then I have to remember where I put the dang thing becomes a problem. I bought a desk lamp when I went to college. That's more than 12 years ago. IKEA was selling the replacement bulbs so I bought one in case it went out.

It's only just starting to go out now (mind you, I didn't use the thing for about 5 years in between while I was traveling) and I have no idea where the dang replacement bulb is. Now how useful is that really?

I mean, I suppose I could do better with an organizational schema for all the things I have, but I think the point is, it's not just the physical space it takes up, but the mental space required to keep track of such things. Eventually, one accumulates a lot of crap that one really doesn't need. It's taxing on the brain to remember one has all those things and where all of it is.

Eh. I think I just need to organize my room and my thoughts (for the upcoming papers that are due).

Dreams

I found an old, old dream diary I kept incredibly sporadically from 2005-2013 (not bad, actually). I just added 2 new entries, so I guess now, it's 10 years old.

I had some interesting dreams. One of the shorter ones goes like this:

"11/9/09

I think I had two dreams (well multiple dreams) but I only remember that one was quite mundane and the other was about pteradactyls."

I clearly don't know how to spell pterodactyl (had to google that).

Others are more detailed (and one is frustratingly unfinished). I think I'm going to pick this up again.