The things I do

Why do you...?
What's the point of...?
Is it worth...?

I realized that for a lot of the things that I do, the answer is very simple. "Because I like it." "Because I enjoy it."

I mean there are deeper reasons, I suppose and I would be lying if I said that society and the eyes of society weren't a factor.

But when it comes down to it, that's what it is. I enjoy being healthy. I enjoy having a healthy lifestyle. I enjoy pursuing things that I have an interest in.

There's no point in doing something you think is a waste of time. Either embrace it as a hobby or discard it. Who cares what people think? If you enjoy what you enjoy, then pursue it.

I think that I can justify a lot of things that I do. I don't mean in the sense of "Oh, I'm building character" or anything like that. It really just boils down to that: I like it. I find it enjoyable.

I suppose it's a little simplistic. To get into it a little more, if you're shirking responsibility to do something that you consider a waste of time, then there's a problem. However, if during your free time, you're "wasting time" doing something - why do it? There's no point, is there? Either embrace the fact that you're doing something that could be perceived as a waste of time, or stop doing it. That's really what it boils down to especially at my age, I think.

Just the right motivation at just the right time

I realize that I don't listen to anyone. Pretty much no one, if I try to list names. I don't listen to authority because I simply don't care. I mean I'm not a rebel. I don't sit blatantly go against people I don't care about or care about for that matter. I try to be a good person. I listen to what people have to say, I help when I can, and as much as I can, I try not to do it for anyone else but for that person, or for myself. It may sound selfish that I'm helping others for myself (there apparently can be a whole philosophical debate on altruism...), but I think it's better than doing something to look good in front of others. The unfortunate truth is that I do do that. I try not to, but I do. That's why I try so hard not to do things to look good in front of others. I have a tendency to go in that direction (oh, but doesn't everyone?) so I stop myself when I catch myself doing something for the sake of reputation, looks or whatever else you want to call it. I think that's part of the reason why I have so much fear of being recognized as a "local" in a certain area or being known as something. I get branded as something, and then in many ways, I almost feel like I'm forced to act according to my brand. I have to meet those expectations or else people's opinion of me goes down. Those expectations that I know I'm not going to meet is what makes me want to travel. To be unknown, yet do good. That's what I came to realize I want to do. I suppose the counterargument is that other people's opinions don't matter and yes, to a certain extent they don't. What sucks is actually, they kind of do, because if you want to do something with your life or get somewhere, do something, those very people whose opinions you've chosen not to care about could help you get to that point. That's why they say networking is so important and that's why in many ways, sometimes, I just want to be a hermit in a mountain somewhere. I mean then it becomes "well you just need to look good in front of them." No. That's my answer. No. I am me. I think what it is, is that I don't want to change myself or compromise myself in the name of looking good in front of others. Eh. It's a long and hackneyed discussion. Let us move on.

In the end, is my desire not to have a title, not to be associated or branded as a certain type of person just running away from responsibility and taking consequences for one's actions? To do good is one thing, but to constantly do good is another and it's something that I've come to realize I can't do. I can't do constant. Consistency is something I severely lack and I've always severely lacked (I can trace it to the age of 12, when I started to stay up late to finish my homework...). I wonder though, with the new year, if I can really change that. Oh please don't let it just be a new years resolution. That's just stupid. That's why I never liked new years resolutions. Why does a resolution, a re-evaluation of oneself have to come during the new year? One should constantly be re-evaluating oneself. It doesn't happen which is why people do it during the new year, but I suppose I just don't like that it's only done once a year and then the next 11 months of the year become a glaring reminder of what people view as their shortcomings. Eh.

So going back to this idea of listening to people - I suppose their advice or their opinions on things. When it comes to life, if I don't feel that I need to listen to you, or if I feel that your experience and knowledge aren't complete - in the sense that what I know and what I've been through is comparable, I won't blatantly undermine your experience and knowledge, but I will undermine your opinion. It isn't in any disrespectful way - as in I won't disregard or discredit what you have to say - the point is that everyone can be wrong. We only know the lense of what society and history as taught us. However hackneyed life lessons are, we don't fully understand it until we've experienced it ourselves. That's why people can talk about love, suffering, hate, relationships and all sorts of issues but unless they've personally experienced it, they really don't know the depth of those things. People can talk about these things apart from living it and it becomes a logical formula that people just need to follow. However, it isn't as simple as that. I think that's why when it comes to a lot of life decisions, I ask a lot of people. Not because I don't value certain people's opinions, but because I don't think anyone has the right answer. In the end, our decisions are our own - however we choose to make of them. That's why I value the opinion of the Bible. It has life. It understands the human condition. We may think we have it, but we really don't - that's why there are still those stupid sayings, those stupid motivational speakers, those stupid nudgings everywhere that tell us to stop living the life we're living because something about it is inherently wrong. It's interesting because at least after industrialization, it's been that way.

Anyway, I digress yet again. I could rant on and on about life yet reach no conclusion.

I talked to my dad. He's a wonderful man, really. He's so ambitious and it really is inspiring to see him work and to remember where he's come from and what he's accomplished despite such humble beginnings. I realized after talking to him that he's one of the few people I'll listen to. It isn't because he's lived his life perfectly or because he's all-knowing or always right. He just knows the reality of life. It's usually something simple "we do things because we have to" but contains so much truth. I don't know - it was something I'd been telling myself these past couple of weeks I'd been so useless but I suppose hearing it from him made the difference.

Anyway, I love my parents. That was really the point of this entry though it's gone in circles to other directions. ^^

Old Posts

Sometimes I start posts/thoughts that I mean to post (I only have like 3 really) but when I go back to finish them, I realize that I no longer care to finish that thought/post. Basically, if I've thought something out in my head, it's difficult for me to go back and complete on "paper." In other words, if the thought's been completed and I've reached some kind of conclusion, it doesn't need to be jotted down. It almost makes me question whether or not I should be writing them in the first place. What's equally unfortunate is that if I've come to some conclusion, I do like to think that I've absorbed the lesson learned and moved on, but more often than not, I find myself coming across the very same conclusion I had made years ago, simply because I've reached it and forgotten it, like a dusty old box of memories that I found in the attic of my brain. Eh. I suppose the new thing that I'm trying to do is to take these "conclusions" that I've reached and do something about it.

작심삼일. It roughly translates to 3 days of passion (after which one's passion and drive completely dies). It's what is described as the motivation that a person has to do something that lasts a very short period of time. This is what my action based on my conclusion is like. How to change such things?

Oh new years, why do you make one think of such things?

I wish I could liken myself to Coleridge, who was told that he would amount to nothing for lack of concentration and ambition to see a project through. In the end, I'm just latching onto less favorable qualities of famous writers so as to justify those same qualities I see in myself so that I could validate my desire to be a writer in some way or another. It's funny how many times I roll my eyes at myself.

Concentration Level: 0

Seriously, two weeks (or less than that, I think). I cannot concentrate worth anything. I suppose it's been like this for a while, but it's been far worse. I think I'm cut out for teaching. I taught for more than 3 hours straight with no problem at all. I've been trying to work (my real job) and I cannot for the life of me work longer than  30 minute blocks.

Doing the undesirable? Yes, but I like this job. I like my boss. It's not enough. Gah.

I needta stop complaining but seriously, my head's going to explode. T.T

Jazz

Jazz for me is like water. It trickles into the ears, facilitating thought.

In my caffeine-addled brain, it makes me think of humanity and the human condition. Why do we fight reality with such vigor? The facts are there but we interpret them in hundreds of different ways and many times, it's just one or another. There could be subtext, regardless of whether or not it was meant to have any subtext. All these facets exist, yet we choose to take one angle of it.

If you take a cone and slice it vertically, the cross-section will be a triangle. If you slice it horizontally, it'll be a circle. Reality is dynamic and contains more than just two slices, yet we choose to look at it in one, two maybe three ways, but that's it. We shape reality based on these angles and forget or disregard others because it doesn't fit into the equation.

That's why we have eras and then the following era overturns that very thinking. We are in the era of irony and cynicism and what comes from that? Hope and a yearning for the pure, the innocence of the past. We are the generation that clings to the past, thinking that it was somehow better than now, when all it is, is reality hitting us in the face. It's always been there, we've just never seen it.

From a generation that's seen the subversion of authority, of violence and hatred rises a generation that acknowledges the hope and the goodness in people. Random acts of kindness come from that.

I think New York has got it right in many ways. It's viewed as somewhat of a sad existence, but the initial guardedness, yet the helpfulness (that is given as if it's an obvious thing to do) of its denizens is the active acceptance of reality for what it is. There are millions of different people out there, thinking millions of derivations of the same thoughts and we try to only accept what we agree with. New Yorkers (for the most part) see it, condemn what they condemn and accept what they accept. Of course I'm over-generalizing but I feel that this is a kind of truth that I've gleaned from the whopping 11 months I lived there.

Anyway, too much caffeine and too many papers to write make me think of such things.

Sleep Deprivation

After a certain point, my brain stops working.

Any sort of good judgement is absent from my reasoning. "Oh, I have two finals tomorrow?  Let's play Tetris Battle for an hour."

Yet I persist.

Now it's 4am and I have yet to find my quotes for my paper tomorrow.

Maybe I should just give up and go to sleep. Hm.

AH! But this is the last final!

But I feel like I will be okay.

Oh well, I'll continue to work on my paper that was due a week ago. -_-;;

*tsssss* (my brain is fried)

One more day.

To think or to live?

My sister mentioned this and I think there's validity in what she's saying - in that I think too much about things. It's true - there are a lot of implications in our actions and I think that by trying to act deliberately in all that I do, I end up being unable to act at all.

Perhaps that's why I hate tedium so much. It bores the hell out of me too, but perhaps it's because I try to overthink something that is a lot simpler than I make it to be.

As for thinking and living - I feel that it's one or the other. In doing an action, one must not think of the action they are doing (try to think about where your feet are going when you go down steps... you'll feel like you're going to fall - at least more than when you don't think about how your feet are walking down those steps...). Then conversely, when thinking, it becomes more difficult to act because one is busy thinking about the action that is about to take place or an action that took place. Then how do we find a happy medium?

Eh. I dunno, I have issues with this but I hope that I find an answer because it's making me ridiculously unproductive. -_-;;