Sleepy Head-ache

“At first I start to feel a little sad, as I continue to go along with it, it makes me feel like wanting to cry and after reading the ending, I feel like doing something bad to myself.”

That’s what my friend said about my blog and the entries in it. Though he only said it jokingly, it occurred to me that the majority who visits my blog are my friends. So that didn’t leave a very good impression…on me and so I thought.

Having said that, I fully understand that I don’t write the most cheerful/ happy blog, but this is how I like/prefer writing it. Writing about intimate thoughts and private discourses are my ‘cup of tea’. I am very much interested in how people 'think'…the subconscious, its spontaneity, and how real, honest, and maybe even ugly and selfish it gets when ones thoughts are in play.

I have no intention on making anyone feel more depressed or sad than they already are after reading my works. So if possible, try not to be. Hence I will still go on writing like this but I’ll try to make an effort on making it more cheerful, less negative if I am able to do so that is.

For a start, I’ll share something that I find really funny. I read this on ‘overheard’ and saved it. The first time I read this, it was hysterical. Though now when I read it again, it’s not as funny, anyhoo, here goes;

“Chick: So, I'm up by Bryant Park, and there are all these cop cars lined up, and then one of them decides, 'Okay, time to go!' and he puts his siren on and pulls out, and all the rest of them following, all their sirens going whoop-buppa-whoop-whoop! And then I hear something that sounds like some guy going 'whoop-buppa-whoop-whoop' -- like, he's making siren noises -- and I turn around, and there's this cop... I guess the siren on his cop car wasn't working or something, so he's on the loudspeaker mic yelling, 'Whoop-buppa-whoop-whoop!' as they all zoom off down 42nd Street. It was crazy!”

Pity Pretty

Today went away almost like every other day. Where you don’t want to think of anything else and just want to unwind and relax. Many pictures and form of relaxation starts playing in the mind now and I get carried away with it. To the extent that I find myself smiling like a crazy person. But once I reach home and thankful for my safe arrival. Thanking God, for things as bad as they are now -- for not getting any worse. And when I think of unwinding and relaxing, I see myself waking up with a headache, dizzy and still with discontentment and looking for a different solution.

A friend of mine whom I am close with, so close that one might say that we have no secrets between us. That is to show the level of our closeness. Often described as a fun, cheerful person and most noticeable for his ability to not show fret when hit by problems. He often boasts about how he sleeps on them. Have a problem? Don’t think about it too much, just sleep on it!

Both of us are I guess, can be considered as a pessimist in which like Schopenhauer believe that the world itself is the worst of all possible worlds because a more worse world can’t exist, so to speak. We just have different methods on dealing or escaping it.
By the way, I disagree on my friend’s way of dealing with his problems because sleeping to me doesn’t come as easily as it comes to him.

So here I was on my way back home, upon reaching the last traffic light. No matter how big a hole in a person is, the thought of having a home to go back to is always a comfort.

“Psychologists have said that they trace pessimistic attitudes to emotional pain or even biological. Argues that depression is due to unrealistic negative views of the world.. Pessimist are often however often able to provide arguments that their understanding of reality is justified.”

We have a disagreement here, that’s all the quote above proves. Ones understanding of reality is one’s right and however they wish to justify it is due to circumstances and their ability to conjure up with one. In which is prove that people think and look at things differently. It is just a difference in opinion not something to be labeled or judged upon.

Viewing the world in a negative eye is in fact reality, viewing it otherwise is unrealistic.

The level of happiness in ones mind is limited and perhaps sadness too but which one gives you more fear and from the two, which would be felt more? The picture of sadness in a person’s mind is more easily evoked than the picture of happiness.

Jumping to a different subject, fake happiness requires a lot of work and many outside (material) things while real happiness requires one to be in peace with his mind and more prone to act on faith.

Without that, a pessimist would say; hunger, sexuality, the need to care for children and the need for shelter and personal security as the real source of human motivation.

Back to the topic, as I was waiting for the light to turn green, I noticed a girl whom I went to high school with. She was a few years younger than me. Though she appeared an old hag, walking with her umbrella and dressed without any good sense of fashion, she was fat and ugly and walking alone towards her home too, I presumed. Looking at her made me want to feel more…lucky perhaps, but it only made me feel more miserable. The world is indeed unfair, no matter how you try to positify it. She looked as miserable as she did back in the days. I hoped that it was just my eyes, and it probably was my ulterior, shallow stereotyping.

I couldn’t muster up what and why was it that I felt at the moment. Was it hate, love, sympathy or just lack of discontentment? Right then I felt like being at the lowest level of an absurdist, not because I failed to find the meaning of the universe but because I failed to realize what I was feeling. It was a mixture of feelings I thought and so decided the best remedy at that time was to try and sleep on it.

The red light seemed like eternity I began to think of all the adult spoiled brats and snobs that I know, whom I am friends with. Everything that revolves around them if not pleasing to them is evil and their shallowness vast and knows no boundaries. And I thought to myself, if I were to turn into a pessimist then they were one of the reasons. The light finally turned green.

Poking through the Poke-able

This here is a discussion of ‘knowledge/ information’ in general. I am aware of the branches of knowledge and the classifications. This entry also has little to do with epistemology or skepticism. The beginning quotes too may appear to have dissimilarities with the subject discussed.

“The entire universe and everything in it is driven by a primordial will to live thus resulting in all creatures desire to avoid death and procreate.”

However someone else suggested that, “People and animal really want power; living in itself only as a subsidiary aim -- in defense states, people and animal willingly risk their lives in order to promote their power, most notably competitive fighting and warfare.”

Over the past century many events have took place, historic moments have occurred in terms of conflicts, natural disasters, new inventions, productions and the changes that took place in rapidly growing industries and countries. We have seen it grown exponentially everywhere around us. As we move forward in this frenzy trying to not get lost and keep in track of the worlds changes it makes the world appear as if it’s spinning faster and faster each day.

In this time of development and advancement parents have failed to educate their children about the purpose of education or on why they gain knowledge. It won’t be of surprise if their kids join in with the majority just like their parents did. If all we want from education is a comfortable home, a posh car and a decent job, then we fail to realize the purpose of our creation. School, teachers and the education systems have failed.

For instance the media portray bad guys dressed in sleek suits, designer’s clothes living in a mansion with luxurious cars and surrounded by many friends. And in the viewers’ eyes, it gives the impression that they’re truly leading a happy and successful life. Which become a goal and a misconception of the meaning of happiness. The point is, these shows and information by the media program peoples mind into false beliefs and consequently affects the younger, vulnerable minds.

It is also sad realizing that the mind of people can be manipulated so easily. Just make the majority believe so and you’ve won the game. Just like how Edward Bernays used the media to manipulate the public opinion using the psychology of subconscious through advertisements.

In relative to the subject, if a drug lord and a professor attend the same function dressed under the same dress code, are they both equally educated and noble? The mindset of determining people from their outer appearances is inaccurate and shallow. No doubt about it that it gives the wearer confidence and the feeling of being accepted and perhaps even more equal than others.

This proves that the western ideology that we have adapted as our own is only effective in differentiating the poor and the rich and most probably, its initial purpose was to separate the nobles from the poor.

Whether or not you realize or agree to this, we are already re-living the old Greek lifestyle of the ‘master slave morality’. Whereas good is: wealth, strength, health and power and bad is: poor, weak, sick and pathetic. As much as some might want to disagree to that, that’s not how it is today, at the back of everyone’s head that mentality is already engraved in.

People with knowledge discriminate against those who don’t have any or those who possess lesser than them. Knowledge these days represents wealth and elitism. Sure, there’s a need to be elevated in everyone for knowing information that others don’t but that is not the prize but a challenge to the one who hold expertise that other’s don’t.

Having said that, I am guessing it is safe to assume that knowledge too can be good and bad.

Finally, having carefully thought of this idea, I come to realization that not everyone has the opportunity to gain knowledge. Circumstances and aspects such as poverty, war, bad neighborhood, matters that disallow one to gain knowledge are inevitable.

In addition to that, one cannot bring him-self to a different stage of life if he hasn’t yet fulfilled his fundamental needs. This is derived from the theory of the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Though only a theory, judging from experience and the experience of others, I think it speaks for the majority people of the modern world.

In conclusion there will always be divisions of classes within people, and discrimination, there is no escaping it. And that life in itself is mysterious and has a way of its own in doing things. Maybe with enough knowledge one can finally decipher it.

“There is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings”

Arthur Rubinstein.