Evelyn: Don't worry about 'why' when 'what' is right in front of you. (The Shape of Things)

Monday, November 20, 2006

Happiness: just another proof of inertia?


I have a lot of things to talk about now. I'm not sure how and why now, and how come I have so many ideas, scrambled, again. It's strange, but, then again, I don't pretend to be/write as a normal person.
I feel that what I'm mostly gonna talk about has to do with happiness. And love. And self...

Hey, I can do whatever I want. I am in control of my own life. I can do it. I am FREE. I am able. And I can, I have the will, the strength, the power. I will not be afraid. I will not surrender to others. I will be self-reliant. I will show myself that I can do it. I will only hesitate where my heart has doubts; but when it doesn't, I will pursue. And succeed. I will not let myself be persuaded by other people using reason solely. Reason is not a means to happiness. I will stand up and represent myself, for if not I, then who? Yes, I can change the world. Yes, I can change myself. I will listen to the sounds the leaves make while falling on the earth. I will listen. I will be there when you need me, and nowhere else. I can speak for myself. I can think, and my thinking has value. I am a human being, not a puppet - and as little as that might mean, it's the best I can be: a human being...

---
Each day we follow our own steps towards happiness... or so we might think. Just like me, there are others that think people do NOT, in fact, head for happiness. They might think they do... There's an article on CNN about this. Although not an exact view from my perspective, I found the article spoke about some important issues concerning happiness.

See, what we do is compromise ourselves in the quest for happiness. We don't even adventure much, so the word quest is not satisfied. Society shows us the wrong things! Happiness... where did we get the bright idea that to find happiness we should immitate the people around us? Are THEY happy? Truth is, we're not sure, for the most part, what happiness is. Just like society pushes us into the idea that a man with more than one woman is a "stud" or "macho", yet a woman with more men is a "slut" or "whore", so is the distorted image of happiness. Perhaps I exaggerate, perhaps not.

As the article says, you can only tell how happy you are at the exact moment you are asked - and even that with some trouble. Interested of happiness at a wider scale? Check out this article to find out which is the happiest country!

The meaning of all this is just to get you thinking. I'm not trying to persuade you, the reader, into anything. I'm ... pointing out. I'm just a piece of writing, as the blog-header says. What my point is: we compromise ourselves in order to come closer to happiness - don't we? We believe certain things, and we are not happy, so then leave those beliefs because they weren't "making us happy". Or, we see people that are happy and immitate them. Or even not know what happiness is. Or we are sad (we have every right to be) and then pick up on just anything to be happy.
I'm not saying "be careful", I'm saying... check your pulse, go to your heart - ask yourself, not others: are you happy? Figure it out. Talk about it, or hide it - your best way... but if you really look, I'm sure that some of the things you think about happiness are not really based on any truth, least of all a truth that you have experienced. Most people say: You will know happiness when it hits you. And I think that's true. So, in my opinion, if you don't know when it hit you - you've probably never been happy.

Jump to love. Here's a piece that I quickly wrote a couple of days ago:
---
I will love her all my life, no matter what happens. And, maybe, in a sense, for a first time, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS is as close to its true meaning as ever - EVERYTHING can happen, and I would still love her. And love will never hurt, not this love. Perhaps the longing, or the feeling of closeness and contempt - but LOVE, never! What hurts me - us - is not love. Love is not to blame for our have-nots.
I LOVE.
---

The rest is... yet to come. But this will be a story someday, a story I hope to tell. For some reason, I feel I'm on a narrow path - sometimes on the edge, sometimes in the middle, safe - but narrow, working my way farther and farther away, praying, loving, hoping, living... Love.Hope.Faith. That's the trio!
Strangely enough, I feel like wishing good luck to all of you, all who are out there searching for that end of road, or for a spark that's missing... Probably has to do with happiness. It really is amazing, no, how we have evolved so much, yet happiness is not better known. At best it's not decreasing...

I have a story to tell. I hope, I pray, someday... I will be listend to. Until then, may all be well :)

Sink into it! (expand)

Sunday, November 19, 2006

The Valkyries


I was reading a book: The Valkyries, by Paulo Coelho. For those of you who are familiarized with his writing, it won't be a lot new in style, but the situations are different. And the fact that it's a true story is a strong point also.
I've gathered a couple of quotes from it... and the way they are told in great words, in my opinion, and, even more appreciable, with a simple yet efficient vocabulary.

This book is about love, about a couple married. He (Paulo) goes to the desert in search of his angel - beautiful. There's plenty of surprises, but one of them is that his partner and wife Chris also develops an interest in this magic...

Here are some quotes:
Quote
"Everything in life is a ritual," Paulo said. "For witches as much as for those who have never heard of witchcraft. Both are always trying to perform their rituals to perfection."
Chris knew that those on the magical path had their retuals. And she understood, as well, that there were rituals in everyday life - marriage, baptisms, graduations.
"No, no. I'm not talking about those obvious rituals," he went on impatiently. He wanted to sleep, but she pretended not to have sensed his irritation. "I'm saying that everything is a ritual. Just as a mass is a great ritual, composed of various parts, the everyday experience of any person is, also."
"A carefully elaborate ritual that the person tries to perform precisely, because he or she is afraid that - if any part is left out - everything will go wrong. The name of that ritual is Routine."
[...]
"When we are young, we don't take anything too seriously. But slowly, this set of daily rituals becomes solidified, and takes us over. Once things have begun to go along pretty much as we imagined they would, we don't dare risk altering the ritual. We like to complain, but we are reassured by the fact that each day is more or less like every other. At last there is no unexpected danger."
"... When the ritual becomes consolidated, the person becomes a slave."
(p 162 - Harper Collins Publishers)
***
In six more days, they would have to leave the desert. They stopped in a small city called Ajo, where most of the inhabitants were elderly. It was a plce that had known its moments of glory - when the mine there had brought jobs, prosperity, and hope to the inhabitants. But, for some reason - uknown to any of them - the company had sold its houses to the employees and closed the mine.
Paule and Chris sat in a restaurant, drinking coffee and waiting for the cool evening to arrive. An old woman asked if she could sit with them.
"All of our children have gone away", she told them. "No one is left except the old-timers. Some day, the entire city will disappear, and all our work, everything we built, will no longer mean a thing."
It had been a long time since anyone had even passed through the place. The old woman was happy to have someone to talk to.
"People are coming here, build, and hope that what they are doing is important,", she continued. "But overnight, they find that they are demanding more of the Earth than it has to give. So, they abandon everything and move on, without thinking about the fact that they have involved others in their dream - others who, weaker than they, have to stay behind. Like with the ghost towns out there in the desert."
Maybe that's what's happening to me, Paulo thought. I brought myself here, and I've abandoned myself.
He recalled that once an animal trainer had told him how he was able to keep his elephants under control. The animals, as infants, were bound by chains to a log. They would try to escape, but could not. They tried throughout their entire infancy, but the log was stronger than they were.
So they became accustomed to captivity. And when they were huge and strong, all the trainer had to do was place the chain around one of their legs and anchor it anywhere - even to a twig - and they would not attempt to escape. They were prisoners of their past.
(p 198)
***

He found love on a cliff where two women had tried to stare each other down, with the full moon as a backdrop. And love meant dividing the world with someone. He knew one of the women well, and had shared his universe with her. They had seen the same mountains, and the same trees, although each had seen them differently. She knew his weaknesses, his moments of hatred, of despair. Yet she was there at his side.
They shared the same universe. And although often he had had the feeling that their universe contained no more secrets, he had discovered - that night in Death Valley - that the feeling was wrong.
(p 224)
***
We, at this moment in history, must develop our own powers. We must believe that the universe doesn’t end at the walls of our room. We must accept the signs, and follow our heart and our dreams.

We are responsible for everything that happens in this world. We are the warriors of light. With the strength of our love and of our will, we can change our destiny, as well as the destiny of many others.

The day will come when the problem of hunger can be solved through the miracle of the multiplication of the bread. The day will come when love will be accepted by every heart, and the most terrible of human experiences - solitude, which is worse than hunger - will be banned from the face of the Earth. The day will come when those who knock at the gates will see them open; those who ask will receive; those who weep will be consoled.

For the planet Earth, that day is still a long way off. But for each of us, that day can be tomorrow. One has only to accept a simple fact: Love - of God and of others - shows us the way. Our defects, our dangerous depths, our suppressed hatreds, our moments of weakness and desperation - all are unimportant. If what we want to do is to heal ourselves first, so that then we can go in search of our dreams, we will never reach paradise. If, on the other hand, we accept all that is wrong about us - and despite it, believe that we are deserving of a happy life - then we will have thrown open an immense window that will allow Love to enter. Little by little, our defects will disappear, because one who is happy can look at the world only with Love - the force that regenerates everything that exists in the Universe.
(p 241 - quoted from here)
***
In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky tells us the story of the Grand Inquisitor, which is paraphrased here:
During the religious persecutions in Sevilla, when all who did not agree with the Church were thrown into prison, or burned at the stake, Christ returns to earth and mixes in with the multitudes. But the Grand Inquisitor notes his presence, and orders him jailed.
That night, he goes to visit Jesus in his cell. And he asks why Jesus has decided to return at that particular moment. "You are making things difficult for us," the Grand Inquisitor says. "After all, your ideals were lovely, but it is we who are capable of putting them into practice." He argues that, although the Inquisition might be judged in the future to have been severe, it is necessary, and that he is simply doing his job. There is no use talking of peace when man's heart is always at war; nor speaking of a better world when there is so much hatred in man's heart. There was no use in Jesus' having sacrificed himself in the name of the human race, when human beings still feel guilty. "You said that all people are equal, that each has a divine light within, but you forgot that people are insecure, and they need someone to guide them. Don't make our work more difficult than it is. Go away," says the Grand Inquisitor, having laid out all of his brilliant arguments.
When he is finished, there is silence in the cell. Then Jesus comes to the Grand Inquisitor, and kisses him on the cheek.
"You may be right," Jesus says. "But my love is stronger."
---
We are not alone. The world is changing, and we are a part of the transformation. The angels guide us and protect us. Despite all the injustice in the world, and despite the things that happen to us that we feel we don't deserve, and despite the fact that we sometimes feel incapable of changing what is wrong with people and with the world, and despite all of the Grand Inquisitor's arguments--love is even stronger, and it will help us to grow. Only then will we be able to understand the stars and miracles.
(p 242 - quoted from here)
EndQuote
I found someone's short opinion here. Interesting.

As for me... what do I think? Honestly, I absorbed this book from beginning to the end - reading it in two days, which is actually slow. As I'm a great believer in the "love conquers all", so to speak love rules :), I most especially enjoyed the last couple of pages.
One important thing I find to have in common with Coelho's characters (and himself I guess) is the self-surprisingness: somehow, I am surprised by what happens to me, in so many situations that I just can't count anymore. I often find myself out of my own league - meaning I say or think something which I didn't know I knew/thought/felt before. It's usually not big in feelings, but it's big in meaning. We easily find things about urselves, sometimes very much late in life - things that we didn't know were there. I just found out I'd like to have a Furby today, for example. Last night I stood up to watch Ally McBeal and woke up open-minded about anything unusual, I guess. Yet I felt so happy. I've written about how strange we are before (see here), but this is a bit different. In Coelho's work, most of the time love sweeps people off their feet and takes them through a journey that lasts the whole book. Now, Coelho doesn't tell you every itsy bitsy detail, that's the beauty of it - he gives you the scheme, the General Plan of the Universe, and you can fill in the rest.
I have to admit that the whole magus-magic thing is kinda strange, but the ideas are well blended. And, to some extent, the awkwardness of it all accumulates towards a better glimpse into the meaning of... love. The warrior of light...
There's a nice little quote that repeats itself over and over: "The only reasons for action... For Love. For Victory. For the glory of God."
I believe we, human beings, matter most in this Universe. This is sort of a way I found out I was totally against capital punishment. Perhaps by giving so much importance to ourselves I seem a bit arrogant, but, come to think of it - it shouldn't seem so. I love human beings most in this world. And I don't think that's wrong. It's one of the things that helped me believe in love profoundly, for so much of the time.
Surely we all say stuff like "love matters", and this and that, but, truth is, 99% of the time it means nothing - it's overused. It's actually acting those beliefs out that is rare in this world.
Coelho's book is not perfect, of course (Who is?), but it serves a purpose. And, if you can see that purpose right, you will not be sorry you read the book.
I, for one, have stumbled upon the book exactly at the right time in my life (again, I think), so that with all else I have accomplished lately, it has a very special meaning. Thus, "my soul has grown" (to quote Chris' saying), and I believe in the love I have even more than I did before.

Maybe a good way to read this book is with patience. Take your time, read it slow, think about it...

Alright, I'll stop here.
One more thing: I edited this post many times, so for those who got it by mail each time, sorry about that!

Sink into it! (expand)

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Life. Death. Big deal!


Meet my friend Anti-Paul. He will take you through a short journey today, as he has begged me to let him speak for himself. He's... different:

Speak to me. Say something. Don't act deaf, I know you can hear...
I think we're sick and tired of the same things. We're sick and tired of being told "Be good", "act like this", "it's wrong to do that", blah blah. Now, we act stupidly, crazily... we think we want freedom, or represent it. Or, if not that, then some form of non-conformity - refusal to follow the fashion. The path. Ha. Haha.

Whether you have dropped by this post for fun, looking for something to catch your eye, or are just "passing by" because you're bored, I am not going to meet your expectations. I am not gonna do anything good for you - and you know why? Because you're not expecting that. And who am I to exceed your expectations?
If you say you're not to be impressed, I am not gonna do that. What do you want from me? Why do you read these lines anyway? Don't you have a life to go to? Plea
se, do that. Don't listen to what I have to say. You're probably not listening to what politics has to say, or, if you're an adolescent, to what your parents have to say. Why me?
I don't have anything to say. Not to you! "If I have something to say I'll keep it to myself. I know I can say it. I don't need you to show me that."

---

We use technology everyday. Have you a mobile phone? Perhaps. A computer? I'm guessing that's how you can read this. Internet? Wow. Probably this page gets to you through sattelite if you're not in the US. Wow. Do you even know how that works? What if the guy who invented the internet kept the idea to himself? Should he have decided not to share. He could've said "I know I can do it. I don't need you to show me that" or, perhaps, "I'll do it when I feel like it".

---

What if the devil wants to share his loneliness with you? Are you gonna offer to keep him company? He's gonna say "help me". Will you?
Would helping the devil kill him or make him stronger? Guess who came up with that?
"What does not kill me, makes me stronger." - Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1888
Did you even know that he said that? I didn't, before.

Have you seen the movie Hellboy?
You should if you haven't.
---

What do you want? Do you want to feel shocked?
If you're a boy/man I might think you'd like to read some erotic shocking description that a girl has. Girls are curious too, you know, when they grow up. If you wanna read some nice and honest confessions, read Anne Frank's "Diary of a Young Girl"(Wikipedia reference). It's short and ... it's sweet.
Quote
Each time I have a period - and that has only been three times - I have the feeling that in spite of all the pain, unpleasantness, and nastiness, I have a sweet secret, and that is why, although it is nothing but a nuisance to me in a way, I always long for the time that I shall feel that secret within me again.
Sis Heyster also writes that girls of this age don't feel quite certain of themselves, and discover that they themselves are individuals with ideas, thoughts and habits. After I came here, when I was just fourteen, I began to think about myself soonar than most girls, and to know that I am a "person". Sometimes, when I lie in bed at night, I have a terrible desire to feel my breasts and to listen to the quiet rhythmic beat of my heart.
EndQuote
For a short excerpt go here, it's the best I could find.
Don't you get the feeling that you're an intruder? That you're not wanted between these honest private lines of writing? Told you that you should go, leave this page, but you wouldn't listen. When do you ever listen?

---

Yesterday I had a strange desire to look for where OK comes from. See this link!

---

I need a hug.

---

Are we really so alone in this world? Do you feel that the person closest to you HAS you in his/her life? I mean, by that, do you feel inside of that person? Or do you feel as just a pleasant nice guy with whom he/she likes hanging out? Is it or is it not about you?
...
...
...
We are much more alone than we think.

---

But there are also many more people with whom you wouldn't be alone. However, you have or will mijudge them - if you ever meet them even.
Isn't this world cruel?

---

We are not supposed to be happy all the time. Why, even according to Christianity! How come?
Should we be?
Does the idea of happily-ever-after tempt you? It doesn't work for me. Wouldn't eternal happiness be boring? Haha. Sad, but true. Happy is sad, how's that a paradox for you?

Read the previous post on Eternal Recurrence for a bit more about this (here).

---

If a stranger of opposite sex (presumably) approached you and said "I love you" would you believe it? How would you react?

(Possible reader thought (PRT): Why ask something useless like this?)

Can you reach the loudest yell? Can't you always yell louder?

(PRT: Or like this! Even more useless!)

Imagine a longtime-desired-kiss-of-your-dreams! (PRT: Yey!) Now, if that doesn't lift up your spirit, if that doesn't make you happy, it should make you very sad. You are lonely, or suffering, perhaps?
If neither happens, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Haha. See, I like that, I'm telling you what to feel. Hate me. (PRT: Okay)

---

Is all a human being wishe for that sense of ... connection, understanding... chemistry, with another entity?
What do you think?

Speak to me. Say something. Don't act deaf, I know you can hear...
I think we're sick and tired of the same things. We're sick and tired of being told "Be good", "act like this", "it's wrong to do that", blah blah. (PRT: I think I've read this before. H(u)mmm :-?)

Sink into it! (expand)

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Thought to question everything?

My first post after upgrading to blogger beta!
Hello ... world!
I've lived this past few weeks... without writing one single bit. And now I'm here, wishing ... for what? Inspiration, I guess. Time is so slow... yet so fast...
No matter, I've good subjects to write on now: Nietzsche (hard to spell right), and, of course, me...
Nietzsche said that humans have killed God... but how?

The following is from here, an excerpt of Nietzsche's "The Gay Science". If you want to read more, follow the link, or go here for a summary of Nietzsche's morality.
Quote:
The Madman. Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted a lantern and ran to the market-place calling out unceasingly: "I seek God! I seek God!" As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why? is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea voyage? Has he emigrated? - the people cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. "Where is God gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you! We have killed him, you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction? - for even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife - who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event - and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!" Here the madman was silent and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and looked at him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, so that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. "I come too early," e then said. "I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its way, and is traveling - it has not yet reached men's ears. Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time, even after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from them than the furthest star - and yet they have done it themselves!" It is further stated that the madman made his way into different churches on the same day, and there intoned his Requiem aeternam deo. When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply: "What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?"
EndQuote
Nietzsche was a strange man, and ... you can see that if you read through the links. I'm too digressive and unfocused right now to pursue further inward Nietzsche's philosophy, but what I get from the tiny bits of material that I've read ... is a strong cohesion between ideas. There's a pessimism, and a strange state of trance. it's amazing how clear everything he says is... he is the kind of practical-direct philosopher, perhaps...
I wrote my reaction paper on him, below, on another piece of his philosophy:
Quote:

Reaction paper 5
Nietzsche

One of the most influential and misunderstood philosophers of the modern era, Nietzsche criticized, among other things, Christianity. An interesting quote that I found on him was the following: “Never yield to remorse, but at once tell yourself: remorse would simply mean adding to the first act of stupidity a second.”(The Wanderer and his Shadow,s. 323, R.J. Hollingdale translation). This quote connects so well with Nietzsche’s sayings about the Eternal Recurrence!

Nietzsche resurrects the problem of recurrence (of life): What if everything was to repeat itself indefinitely? What if a demon came to us and said: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more”, he proposes. As Heidegger pointed out, Nietzsche never speaks about the reality of "eternal recurrence" itself, but about the "thought of eternal recurrence." (Wikipedia) As a matter of fact, anyone who has seen the movie “Groundhog Day” pretty much knows a bit or two about Eternal Recurrence. I’m sure most of us think about it one way or the other. Most of the times, probably, in the form of “Is/was there anyone exactly like me out there?” But, imagined upon ourselves, the idea of living the same life over and over again, even though not knowing it (or not being believed by anyone like in the movie above) seems absurd, intolerable, and terrifying; or, as Nietzsche says – “weigh[ing] upon your [our] actions as the greatest stress”. I find it very strange that we hope for similarity, yet when it comes to repetitiveness we are so afraid. The idea of Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence, though, is that it is mainly impossible to be that “well disposed” to be able to accept such a recurrence. So the very thought of reliving the life requires an optimistic view of life… Also, the Eternal Recurrence demands that we make every moment of our lives as interesting and as full as possible.
EndQuote

Let me move on... as I plan to recurr back to Nietzsche someday later on...

I have the strange feeling I'm getting closer to some dangerous truth about US. I'm not discriminating and I'm not criticizing. I'm observing... And I feel the people here are so... unhappy. Perhaps fullfilled, as much as you can say that about one who is not happy in the real meaning. They might be excited or enthusiastic about something, but I've not seem them happy... not as I know happiness is. And, since, like all of us, I would rather not question my judgement until proven guilty, I feel I am right: you are not happy, are you, Americans?
It's like... 99 percent of the people I see everyday don't really honestly communicate; I don't sense that feeling of community, of... symbiosis between two or more people. Where is it? What happened to it? Not even between lovers I don't see it. Maybe it's hidden, maybe it's how it's here...
However I am not an utopist so I will admit that I've seen some people who are contempt and seem to know or have known happiness. Very few, but alive and breathing...

I'm in love. Yes, she's an alien! But she's my fuzzy alien!

I'm sad. Yes, she's away. Yes, I am still looking for my home, again.

I feel peaceful. Could it be the picture?

I feel loved. I feel missed. I feel alone and never alone. I am in the middle of... nothing. Somewhere, everywhere, something somehow will somewhat happen. I feel... too much, too little? Some things cannot be too much. Or too little. This would be a good start for a theory of nothigness
I can't... can I? I can't make you think. I can't make you move. I can't make you curious... I am weak... and you are inert. You are dead... but did I kill you? If we are all so liveless, how can God be alive? What do you feel everyday?... Question that, now not later...

Keep yourself alive.

Sink into it! (expand)