Cognitive Dissonance, mental inbalance, conflicting thoughts
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. The books, people, movies, art, music, and photgraphy, all can inspire a change of mind. A change of belief, attitude and way of life. Those are the best. The things that make you think about your life to take a step back and realize that everything that is so important to you now will not matter in a year. That you are still young and that there is still time. Carpe Diem! Grab the sweaty toothed madman and run into a field of daises, a field of individuals that view them selvs as unimportant. Take him and your blanket and run. Move on from the death of your wife, maybe it just takes time sitting in a chiar, an hour a week before you realize, "It isn't your fault"
These things are what bring us together, bring the starnagers in the halls, the aquaintences to strong friendship. All of you, those that I know but dont know, call me find me and allow me to invite you to my house where we may talk and understand the world. Those I do know, you are invited to come as well, it'll be a date.
(pop quiz, what movies did I make references to in the first paragraph)
Oh but I wish to be Purple
Equality is Both Impossible and Impractical...
Well, Impractical first:
If everyone were equal, if everyone looked, acted, smelled, tasted, worked, lived, loved, cried, ate, jumped, ran, swamwell; was good at all subjects in school, succesful in all aspects of life; and was identical in all aspects LIFE WOULD SUCK.
Nobody would exel at anything. Nobody would ever win or lose. All sports would end in ties and all classes would be equally boring or amazing.
With everything would be equally amazing! mediocre, or sucky.
Either everybody finds the cure for cancer! we are all equally almost there, or we all die from it.
and impossible because we would all be the same age, or body shape, or all equally good at hunting or something. There wouldn't be any caribou left. In anycase, we would all be so equal at what we did, when eventually there wasn't enough the universe would collapse and we would ll be pulled apart like a big pig roast.
Well then it was fitting for you to take care how you should be like the rest of men, just as the thread has no design to be anything superior to the other threads. But I wish to be purple, that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. Why then do you tell me to make myself like the many? and if I do, how shall I still be purple?
-Discourses by Epictetus
The Future's Got me Worried such Awful Thoughts
Noboy knows what the future holds (except H.G. Wells mind you)., but it is something that occupies our minds much of the time. Full of what ifs and full of hope. Full of questions and possibilities and potentialities. We always do it, and everything that we think, every possibility that we create in our minds is false, except that one little one that acctually happens. It is pointless, but so is alot of the things we do.
None the less it happens and I'm not gonna stop it. infact, im going to do it. . . sort of. Becuase soon, I will be going where my life is made. The forgery in which the basis of my life is crafted. everything I have gone through has beought me where I am. And I have many personalities, as evryone does, but can obviously only use one at a time. this is my worry. That my senior silence will follow me next year.
Senior silence is my little quieting disorder. I feel like I talk less. I feel like I analyze more and talk less. I give only a very few attampts at conversation and let others do the rest. I feel like I alienate myself. Everyone else is out there thwoing their moeny away when I have to go to college and eat at the same time. I feel like I have compared myself too much.
Well.. now I really justf feel tired. Because I get all sad when I am tired, I dont like getting tired it isn't fun. I neeed to sleep.
Night
"Nothin gets Crossed Out"
Bright Eyes
The future has got me worried, such awful thoughts.
My head is a carousel of pictures.
The spinning never stops.
I just want someone to walk in front
and I'll follow the leader.
Like when I fell under the weight of a schoolboy crush.
Started carrying her books and doing lots of drugs. I almost forgot who I was,
but came to my senses.
Now I'm tryin' to be assertive.
I'm making plans.
Wanna rise to the occasion, yeah
meet all of their demands.
But all I do is just lay in bed
and hide under the covers.
I know I should be brave
but I'm just too afraid of all this change.
And it's too hard to focus through all this doubt.
I keep making these "To Do" lists but nothing gets crossed out.
Working on the record seems pointless now.
When the world ends, who's gonna hear it?
But Im tryin' and take some comfort in written words,
yeah Tim I heard your album and it's better than good.
When you get off tour I think we should hang and black out together.
Because I've been feeling sentimental for days gone by...
all those summers singing, drinking, laughing, wasting out time.
Remember all those songs and the way we smiled
in those basements made of music.
But now I've got to crawl, to get anywhere at all. I'm not as strong as I thought.
So when I'm lost in a crowd,
I hope that you'll pick me out.
Oh, how I long to be found.
The grass grew high. I laid down.
Now I wait for a hand to lift me up, help me stand.
I have been laying so low
Don't want to lay here no more.
Don't want to lay here no more.
Don't want to lay here no more.
Don't want to lay here no more.
But if everything that happens is supposed to be
and it is predetermined, can't change your destiny.
Then I guess I'll just keep moving, someday, maybe, I'll get to where I'm going.
The've done it!
It's done
They have created an equation to find the worst day of the year.
What psychologist really has such depressing patients that he would want to find that one day that ist just shit?
This guy
The model is: [W + (D-d)] x TQJennifer Carlile
M x NA
The equation is broken down into seven variables: (W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action.
Reporter
MSNBC (click to read the whole story)
The other day when I was walking into blockbuster, someone asked my why she never saw me on the stage. and that got me thinking again as to why we do what we do.
When we are young, infants, we do what we do because we do. We drink milk because we do. We eat what is fed to us because we do. and we grow because we do. It is animal instinct to live and the only thing that can change that is thousands of years of evolution in one direction or another. We do what we do to live.
In early childhood, we learn. We have survived so far, but it looks like we will have to adapt if we are to continue. We learn to do everything. We learn to communicate, we learn to effectively transport our selves, we learn to interact with others, we are sponges that absorb more than even the strongest quicker picker upper. We also learn fun. Fun is what our life becomes obsessed with as we journey farther into life. We love fun in all of its shapes and sizes. We love fun no matter the color or creed. We love fun even without regard to species. life is fun is life.
Later in childhood, what I like to refer to as the 'when I was young' ages, we learn falsehoods. We learn to lie, cheat, scam, and worst of all, we learn emotions. Learn isn't the right words, I just used it for repetition. Seriously, we learn to dilute and complicate our emotions. The barest of feelings we code in cliche words and macaroni hearts and the cute little drawings we hang on the fridge. We code them and give them to others to decipher hoping that they will somehow feel what you felt while you meticulously glue those glitter covered macaroni around your favorite family picture. why? because we want trust. We want the secure knowledge that everyone you know will be here tomorrow, just as they are today, and that you and you and you and I can go play with him and her and him and their dogs. and we play and dream. We dream of our future and of fun we can have when we grow up. Of walking on the moon and of discovering dinosaurs and of saving people from burning buildings. We dream of the world as it should be from our eyes. And never NEVER! do these dreams ever leave us, no matter how hard you try at any stage in your life can you rid yourself of the pure, angelic, untainted hope that gleam in your eyes. we dream of a good life. because life is good. Life is free, lovely, fun.
Then something happens. Whitecoats call it 'maturation'. The body grows and as a result so does our intelligence and wisdom. but that is not what we are worried about. No. we are on stage. We have hit Broadway and we are the stars of the show. ((unless that bitch who thinks she is all that comes over and steals my part that I have worked so hard to make, practicing since I was young risking everything on that audition and just because she knows the 'casting director'. I can't believe she wouldn't let me into that show.)) The show that everybody watches, not at home on their televisors but in life. The show, the drama, the production that life has become. No longer is fun what I care about because fun doesn't make me fit in. Fun doesn't make me skinny or smart or popular...because that's what everyone else wants. we act to fit in. we live to act. because we want trust. We want the secure knowledge that everyone you know will be here tomorrow, just as they are today, and that you and you and you and I can go play with him and her and him...but not her, she isn't good enough for the part. We want acceptance. We want it need it crave it. Like a drug, we take it when we can get it, spending the money our parents give us, thinking we are going to the movies hahaha, we are really spending it, investing it in friendships. Some last for the rest of our lives, some for less time than it takes to say "you little bitch" to the back of a head that is storming out of the theater. we don't even know why we do it, it isn't doesn't even make sense. we don't trust it because we can't see it, but it is in us. The instinct, our bodies know that the people that surround us are going to surround us for the rest of our lives. They are always going to be the same age, or three years younger, or five years older. Not even orbiting the planet will make you younger because you will never get there. Being an astronaut is the dream of a child. A dream that you can clearly remember, the pure, angelic, naked hope that one day you will make it and be great. and it is that dream, that hope, which now is covered under the makeup from the play, that keeps those of us from slitting our wrists and doing the drugs that only bury that hope further in the dirt. But it is still there. the gleam of something more than this act. because this act isn't our life, it is everybody else guessing what everybody else wants them to be. groupthink I think the white coats call it. and we are almost out. the act is almost over, and we have made it through because of that hope. we live to hope, and the others hope to live because what they did to themselves was too much.
finally, we are out. Still stuck in high school, but we now live to be free. we have made it, with more than our share of scars and stories. and we help who we can, because we know what it was like. But now things are different. now we look back on all that we have accomplished, and lost. we look back to our lives of acceptance and groupthink. We look back to the days of dreams and learning, and we look back to the days of life. the days that we lived to live. nothing to complicate it. nobody telling you their opinion while you furiously scribble notes into the notebook you bought with the money from your job at the movies. because we see it now, we see the life we have. We think we understand, but nobody knows everything. and we read stories about big bears of men who have found bliss. True bliss in the form of play, not even with humans but with bears and with dogs and with monkeys. People who live to live. who live to play, who work so that they can live. and we also see the other person who has built the empire of technology. who stands at the top watching over their floor of directors that looks down to their floors and so on. and they all work. to get money, to invest it in their things, hopefully their kids, and try to make a living. the live to work. and we look at those roads, and all the others in between living to work and working to live, because that is what we have been shown. and it is our decision now, to choose our path, or better yet make a new one. and forge ahead into the world...to be remembered.
and then, our train of thought comes to a screeching halt. because there was a noise. a voice actually, but one you haven't heard before. ...his first word, her first favorite word. The years have just flown by. and they are playing outside, having fun. they are five, full of radiant hope, just as you were. and they both love their first word and say it all the time.
why
"Why?" they ask you. why do we want to be remembered? because we want people to know that we have made a difference in this world. why? because we want to know that someone cared about what we did. why? because it is like when you made that macaroni picture and your mom put it on the fridge, because we want trust. We want the secure knowledge that everyone you know will be here tomorrow, just as they are today, and that him and him and her and her can work to make the world a better place for you and you and her. why? because our life wasn't perfect, and we don't want you to have to go through what we did. why? because we care about you, we want you to know that we will be here tomorrow just as we are today, and that our lives are for you. We live for you. and you live for the future. we live in you and you live because of us. why? because, as the writers at disney managed to phrase very well, it is the circle of life. and I honestly believe that in the end, we live for each other, for one reason or another. Whether it is instinct to pass our genes on, or because we just like having sex, or because we are all one being trying to survive in the world, or because a higher power said it would be a good idea. we live to give to the future, and hope it did some good.
La Lune Trop Pale
It is a lonly feeling not having anywhere to go on New Year's Eve. I mean, we have had a party here for the past few years and I have been able to have some people over. But now it comes to my senior year. and really Iguess it shouldn't matter very much, I mean it is just like any other night isn't it. With a shit load of fireworks and a bunch of drunk people stumbling around making resolutions they won't fill. But somehow it matters. Somehow this night, I want to be with people I care about, people I love, people I am going to live my life with around me. Somehow, I am not able to do that. There are so many people that I want to spend time with this year because I am not going to see them anymore at UofM. I am suprised how few people are going to UofM. I'm sure I'll make friends, but nobody can replace some of the amazing friends I have now.
I guess I will just count last night as my New Year's Eve. I had my people over last night, but it's not the same. Don't get me wrong last night is one of the best times I have had in a while sharing laughs with some great guys, but certain people make or break a night and tonight just won't be made I guess. No amount of fireworks is going to lighten up my mood I suppose. Writing about it probably doesn't help either.
Just the fact that I wasn't invited anywhere, and everyone that I call to try and come and watch a movie or two with me and like one other person is in the most unlikely of places, or having a murder mystery party.
You win some you lose some I suppose. I just didn't think I would lose tonight.
Happy Fucking New Year
caresse l'opale de tes yeux blases
And you called it news
I came upon an article written for CNN titled "Report: TV ads strongly influence kids' diet" on December 6, 2005. Among other things, this article stated the kind of influence that TV and movie characters such as 'Spongebob Squarepants' and 'Shrek' have on te nutrition decisions of children under 12. This report didn't come as a suprise to me, it seems to be all that is on TV these days, ofcourse besides despondant habitat bound matrons. Although this report was intriguing, it had not fufilled my hunger for child fattening TV related associations, if you don't mind my insinuation.
After a little searching, I stumbled upon another article, this time from the Times paper in the UK titled: CHILDREN’S JUNK FOOD ADVERTS FACE TV BAN" .I am going to let this portion of the article speak for itself.
Professor Gerard Hastings, of Strathclyde University’s centre for social marketing, found that children’s television advertising was dominated by promotions for sugary breakfast cereals, soft drinks, sweets, savoury snacks and fast food outlets. Other influences on children’s eating were product sponsorship, free food, gifts or tokens, packaging, and promotions linked to films, television programmes and computer games.I am very glad that this important information is reaching places all over the world and we are trying to get do something about this problem...
He found that many young children, especially those aged under eight, were confused by the powerful advertising messages. Children were unable, for instance, to tell if soft drinks and cereals contained real fruit. There was also evidence that Saturday morning television advertisements had a direct impact on what children wanted to buy when they went shopping with a parent. Professor Hastings acknowleged that so-called pester power was an important factor in the marketing concepts behind the advertisements.
....wait a minute. what was the date of the second one? oh yeah Friday, 26 September 2003!!!! hold on! the article stating that TV was influencing and confusing children in nutritional decisions was written and distributed 3 YEARS before the one on CNN? so that means we haven't really done anything about it except look at it and say, "oh that is a problem!" We are such a productive society, as we sit around and look at it in the TV, or children are eating shit and becoming larger than the 72 inch flat panel plasma TVs they are watching them on. Well, what can I say, if we enter a new ice age and have to resort to cannibalism, we aren't going to run out of lamp oil.
*****
Sorry, that was kinda harsh. Fine that was really harsh, but I guess if people want to kill themselves, its fine with me.
Objection your Honor:
"You can't preface your second point with 'firstly"
I get upset when people talk about how they judge other people. I can't stand it when people say "stop judging me". I can't stand it when people say that they are not judgemental.
Just Stop Talking
Of course you are judgemental. Think of the root of this word Judge. To judge, as is defined by the fourth edition of the American Heritage dictionary, is to form an opinion or evaluation. So yes you are judgemental. Otherwise you have no opinion. and I honestly think that everyone has some mental process of thought.
The other thing that bugs me about ourselves is that when we learn something new, we try and fit it into what we already know. For example, meeting a new person. You first try and fit the person into a category or relate them to other people you know and even to yourself. After time however, you begin to from a new category for this person. I just dislike the process. I think it is a little .... judgemental...not really.
Knowledge is.....
Isn't it amazing how we are the best people who know ourselves. Nobody can know us better. And such is that you can not know someone else better than yourself. So when you think of another person, they give you only a fraction of themselves and you just go ahead and fill in the spaces. It's a real shame that we can't just completely know another person...but that really isn't our fault is it.
So each time you meet someone, you take a first impression of them. I am using X as an example.
I meet X in, say a cafe. I automatically assume that X likes this place and consumes beverages or food at such place. I also make an assumption about their wardrobe based on what they are wearing. Next, I begin to talk a little and learn what X likes and does with its time.
About this time, I notice strange things they do, like never look right at me for a very long time. Hmm that's strange, I think. "Sorry, but I need to get going," I say, "it was nice meeting you. Let's do this again sometime." Of course I don't leave a number or contact information. X knows my name. If they really want they can find me, I know I will find them.
I'm so hopeless.
Believe it or Not
Everyone believes in something. There is never a time in your life that you are without a belief. In fact, people just can't wait to tell other people what it is that they believe. "I believe in telling other people what I believe." You see, humans are talkative, and we need other people to know that we aren't all just bar stools waiting to be sat upon. So we believe. Honestly, I don't see any other reason for us to take a position on any topic except to prove that I am different than you are. You say that I look good in green, I say that I look good in red. You say that our war on terror is going well, I say that I would rather see the soldiers home and in good health.
Look at it this way, if we all agreed on the same things, the universe would cease to exist. Simple as that. See, it all starts by all of us agreeing that we agree on everything. Which is then followed by "hot" topics like homosexuality and abortion laws, which are of course ruled, in favor of everyone, unanimously. Talks then proceed to other countries. The world ends up deciding on the best way to run itself and lives in harmony with amazingly expanded fields in science and philosophy. Then some morning, every philosopher agrees that since they can't prove that they are any different from each other, they are all the same person. We will call herm (him + her = herm), being every human in existence of course, Dana (because it is used on both sexes). So Dana also begins to think about the universe, and how it compares to herm and herms world. Dana realizes that since shhe (she +he = shhe) agrees that the universe is both expanding and contracting, it is standing still. Unfortunately, that calls for a new theory on universe creation. This is easily done considering Dana's mass efficiency in doing...Anything. So it is stated that A long time ago, many small people called 'hyumens' came together and agreed to set aside their differences and work towards common goals. Dana is the result. In the end, Dana agrees on all matters concerning anything from bananas to lipstick, to stars, to high heels. Unfortunately, Dana is unable to prove that shhe is an animate object because there is nether to tell herm so. So, Dana turns into a barstool and there shhe sits....Waiting....for a butt.
Well, I believe many things.
I believe that self-perception is mostly influenced by other people
I believe that women think too much
and I believe that people are naturally blind and close-minded
but then again, I also didn't believe that I would spend 26.5 minutes writing a completely pointless story when I need the sleep....so just think of the possibilities!
Excuse Me
We live in a world of excuses. "the trafific was bad, my mom made me _______, My car wouldn't start." We arrive at a place knowing that no matter what we say or do, we are still running 14 minutes behind. No words are going to make up for the time we have missed. That time is gone. Never to be seen again. The only thing you are doing with an excuse is taking up more time when you are already at a loss of time.
As people, we talk too much anyway. we always know something is happening, but we are always managed to be talked out of it. We hear too much and listen too little. plus we will say anything to get out of something we don't want to do. Im too tired, im too confused, im too dumb. ironically, all of those staements infer that you are overoccupied with one thing to do another. "too" much, "too" little , "too" big, "too" small. we never get it just right. it is never enough.
Just let it go.
Finish the though yourself , i don't want to type anymore......
I am too tired
; )
You Know Sometimes You Just Want to Buy a Tea Towel
Trust. It is something that is earned. Earning trust has been a lifelong mystery for some people and not remotly achievable for others. What has always bugged me is how trust is formed. Because trust isn't really formed. Trust is the confinidence in another person that they will do what you want them to when you want them to. Or well, I guess it is less what you want them to and more of them not doing what you dont want them to do. Either way, trust is nothing of substance. It is comepletely made up in the mind and it is one of the first things that is created in an infant's head. Trust is something both wonderfull when fufilled and terrible when betrayed. It can hurt more than torture and feel better than sex. Tust is a drug.
Trust is forged through adversity. When any form of risk is involved in a situation, it creates a crucible that forges the recations and responses of others to the situation at hand, and turns it into either trust or mistrust.
Choice
We all have the choices. When it comes down to it, we choose everything that is important. The only thing that is important is what we decide for ourselves. No matter what anyone else thinks of us, we are still who we are if we decide to be.
"They can not take away our self respect if we do not give it to them." -Mahatma Ghandi
So it is our choice how to act in a race that needs other people. A race where we need trust in other people. A person alone is very weak. If there was only one human with the power to reproduce without needing another human, she wouldn't survive. Alone the mind is weak and susceptible to manipulation. Or will she? Is it her choice to have a weak mind? Can the lack of people, the lack of self-objectivism make her feel she doesn't exist? The answer to that particular question, I feel we will never know.
Since that situation is a bit radical we all still have choice. Choice of letting people take our pride, dignity, and self-respect. The trick is to learn how to stop that.
How is that done? What does it take to hold enough trust and confidence within yourself to take such responsibility for your actions. To truly be self sufficient?
“Funny You Should Ask”
April 12, 1999
Rick Reilly
Sports Illustrated
So we were lying on our backs on the grass in the park next to our hamburger wrappers, my 14-year-old son and I, watching the clouds loiter overhead, when he asked me, “Dad, why are we here?”
And this is what I said.
“I’ve thought a lot about it, son, and I don’t think it’s all that complicated. I think maybe we’re here just to teach a kid how to bunt, turn two and eat sunflower seeds without using his hands.
“We’re here to pound the steering wheel and scream as we listen to the game on the radio, 20 minutes after we pulled into the garage. We’re here to look all over, give up and then find the ball in the hole.
“We’re here to watch, at least once, as the pocket collapses around John Elway, and it’s fourth-and-never. Or as the count goes to 3 and 1 on Mark McGwire with bases loaded, and the pitcher begins wishing he’d gone on to med school. Or as a little hole you couldn’t get a skateboard through suddenly opens in front of Jeff Gordon with a lap to go.
“We’re here to wear our favorite sweat-soaked Boston Red Sox cap, torn Slippery Rock sweatshirt and the Converses we lettered in, on a Saturday morning with nowhere we have to go and no one special we have to be.
“We’re here to rake on a jack-high nothin’ hand and have nobody know it but us. Or get in at least one really good brawl, get a nice shiner and end up throwing an arm around the guy who gave it to us.
“We’re here to shoot a six-point elk and finally get the f-stop right, or to tie the perfect fly, make the perfect cast, catch absolutely nothing and still call it a perfect morning.
“We’re here to nail a yield sign with an apple core from half a block away. We’re here to make our dog bit on the same lame fake throw for the gazillionth time. We’re here to win the stuffed bear or go broke trying.
“I don’t think the meaning of life is gnashing our bicuspids over what comes after death but tasting all the tiny moments that come before it. We’re here to be the coach when Wendell, the one whose glasses always fog up, finally makes the only perfect backdoor pass all season. We’re here to be there when our kid has three goals and an assist. And especially when he doesn’t.
“We’re here to see the Great One setting up behind the net, tying some poor goaltender’s neck into a Windsor knot. We’re here to watch the Rocket peer in for the sign, two outs, bases loaded, bottom of the career. We’re here to witness Tiger’s lining up a 22-foot double breaker to win and not need his autograph afterward to prove it.
“We’re here to be able to do a one-and-a-half for our grandkids. Or to stand at the top of our favorite double-black on a double-blue morning and overhear those five wonderful words: ‘Highway’s closed. Too much snow.’ We’re here to get the Frisbee to do things that would have caused medieval clergymen to burn us at the stake.
“We’re here to sprint the last 100 yards and soak our shirts and be so tired we have to sit down to pee.
“I don’t think we’re here to make SportsCenter. The really good stuff never does. Like leaving Wrigley at 4:15 on a perfect summer afternoon and walking straight into Murphy’s with half of section 503. Or finding ourselves with a free afternoon, a little red 327 fuel-injected 1962 Corvette convertible and an unopened map of Vermont’s backroads.
“We’re here to get the triple-Dagwood sandwich made, the perfectly frosted malted-beverage mug filled and the football kicked off at the very second your sister begins tying up the phone until Tuesday.
“None of us are going to find ourselves on our deathbeds saying, ‘Dang, I wish I’d spent more time on the Hibbings account’. We’re going to say, ‘That scar? I got that scar stealing a home run from Consolidated Plumbers!’
“See, grown-ups spend so much time doggedly slaving toward the better car, the perfect house, the big day that will finally make them happy when happy just walked by wearing a bicycle helmet two sizes too big for him. We’re not here to find a way to heaven. The way is heaven. Does that answer for question?”
And he said, “Not really, Dad.”
And I said, “No?”
And he said, “No, what I meant is, why are we here when Mom said to pick her up 40 minutes ago?”
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