&mdash; ]un-titled[

i am a stubborn person. i know i am, it’s not something i deny. i have my beliefs and principals and i stick to them. but at the same time i am always trying to learn, from others and from myself. some people believe only what they can see with their own two eyes. that basically means that everything they learn to believe is something that in their mind is proven to be right. but what about reasonable doubt, or belief in its purest form. i mean if i write something and i am convinced its great, then a world renowned writer tells me its not so good, even if he doesn’t prove why its not good; i take his opinion into consideration. or if a family member or someone i know loves me gives me a piece of advice; i consider it even if i don’t agree with the approach 100%. knowledge is power, and educated beliefs are better than blind faith.

whatever happened to conversations that were an exchange of ideas. when an opinion different to your own was considered an opportunity to learn or adapt; or maybe reaffirm your original opinion. this is the information age, but what people forget is that the best source of learning is other people. when we become so set in our ways that we forget that there might be something else out there; it’s a problem. then there are the people that say: “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”. but what about updates to make it better. what about the tools you learn in the process. tools are important, and even though there are people who would rather go at it by ear, at the end of the day you need both. you need to have passion and live idealistically, but you have to couple it with some pragmatism in order to achieve what it is you set your sights on. i can want to buy my own house from here to sunday, but if i don’t work hard and have a practical plan on how to do it, it’s never gonna happen.

people who know me, in most cases know only one side of me. but the truth is i am a paradox, and i think most of us are the same way. i do have idealistic dreams and theories on life, but i use practicality and pragmatism to try and achieve them. you can dream to build a house, but if you don’t know the physics behind it, you will fail; or better yet not even try. and it’s a cop out in a sense, because wanting something or even wanting a certain life, but not being open enough to admit that wanting it isn’t enough, is a cop out. you can be a dreamer the rest of your life, or you can use the tools of pragmatism to get your dreams. there is a middle ground, a ground where we all should be. we shouldn’t be so practical that we forget to enjoy the little things in life, but we shouldn’t be so idealistic and care free, that we spend our entire lives only dreaming. and if we can’t find ourselves in that middle ground, we can only hope that there is a person out there who loves us enough to try to give us the tools we lack.

never stop learning

July 24, 2012

we all reach a point in our lives, after school and university, and employment or unemployment, where we stop trying to learn new things. for those of us who need to keep learning what's new in our own field of work, and for those of us who don't, its important to widen our reach and try to learn things that are completely new. the world is filled with so much information and knowledge and that is a privilege that we take for granted. there was a time when knowledge was a currency of the rich and upper crust ranks of society. today we live in the information age, whether its books or newspapers or the biggest source of all the web, information is always in our reach. so instead of limiting ourselves to what we are used to, we should all be able to be a little more curious from time to time to learn new things. reading books, even novels or stories, is a great way to expand your ability to retain and process information. and in so doing you become more open to new data. have you ever wondered how something works, or why something exists. there is no need to wonder, find out. a long time ago, that time when knowledge was a scare commodity, people would go far and wide to study, explore, and observe; in the hopes of gaining knowledge. if they had then what we have now, would it be lost on them to? we're never too old or busy to learn new things, that is something we shouldn't forget.

sun

July 23, 2012

i woke up this morning after having had the most bizarre dream. funnily enough i dreamt that i was Harry Potter trying to distroy the last hawkrux in order to kill Voldemort. i will preface this by saying that the last time i watched that movie was a couple a weeks ago, but it was still quite strange. the entire dream i was wearing the hawkrux (the locket one for those of you familiar with the Harry Potter movies) and i kept trying to drown myself while wearing it thinking that if the person wearing it were to die then it would die too. that's not how it goes in the movie, but it seems my head was mixing things from all over the place. the thing i found to be most bizarre was that i kept going to people i knew and asking them to help me drown, and sure enough they did; even though i never actually succeeded. i don't know what my unconscious mind was trying to work through, but when i woke up i did feel a little like someone who has been trying and failing at something for a long time. maybe its because i've been in hiding for a while now, and just yesterday i decided to get up and start trying again. trying to be better, trying to do more, trying to be more open to myself within my own thoughts. and with trying comes failing, but in the end all it takes is one, one success to put you back on the right track. and you'll never get that unless you keep on trying.

together

we are always too busy thinking about what we're not rather than what we are. we spend most of our energy obsessing over all the things we don't have and can't do, we forget to be grateful for what's right in front of us. we should always be nice to people, because everyone is fighting a battle; very similar to ours. we are all different in many ways but at the end of the day we are all the same. we deal with the same issues and struggle with the same feelings. so next time your feeling alone remember, that even if we're all alone... at least we're all together in being alone.

smile

day to day we deal with a lot. for some of us it's work, for others it's family or love. how we deal with it all is what makes up the daily reality of our lives. but we always have to remember even when we're completely alone, actually especially when we're alone; there is always something in between the subtle and not so subtle notes of our days, there can always be something to make us smile. it can be a random moment, or a glimpse of something beautiful. it can also be a memory. whether its good or bad, life is something worth a smile now and then, cause if you take a step back, it's kind of funny how we make it through.

masochists

we are all masochists. some of us deny it, but the truth is we all go through our lives making choices that cause us pain. some of us are perfectionists who are perpetually disappointed. the tortured artists are not artists because they are tortured; they are tortured because they are artists. of course there are always exceptions to the rule, but it seems to me most of us feel that if we're not in pain there is no depth or meaning in our lives. we want things we cannot have. and in most cases its not that we cannot have what we want, but the act of wanting it insures that we will never have it. sometimes i think maybe we're just too lazy to work for what we want, and in some cases that is true. but lets say you get what you want, then what? you need something new to want, and for some of us that thought is worse. there is this notion that the darkness and sadness are beautiful and poetic, but the truth is the darkness does't have any answers. i personally don't think that finding answers is the right goal to have in your life, because life lies in the questions you choose to ask. those questions define what your life is going to be and the path that you will take. whether or not you find the answer is irrelevant. and so the darkness may or may not have answers, but that is besides the point. the point is that in the dark you forget the question, and there is nothing beautiful and poetic about that. George Bernard Shaw once said: “there are two tragedies in life. one is to lose your heart's desire. the other is to gain it.” you can agree or disagree with his theory, but you cannot deny that we all go through our lives wanting. sometimes we get what we want and sometimes we don't. the real tragedy is that once we get something we want, we tend to forget just how much we wanted it. maybe that is why Shaw finds it a tragedy to get your heart's desire, because what defines desire is the yearning and the want and once thats gone, its not really a desire any more is it? an unfulfilled desire holds within it so much energy that it drives us towards it. and once it is fulfilled the energy dissipates. there's a weird pleasure in loving someone who doesn't love you. love is supposed to be selfless, and i suppose loving someone who does't love you, is selfless because its a love that asks nothing in return, not even to be loved back. in that love is a desire that is constantly unfulfilled and its energy is ever burning. but at the end of the day no matter how you look at it, it seems that we are obsessed with feeling pain, as if that pain makes our lives more meaningful. masochists.

the question