Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
- Benjamin Franklin
List of what to never say. I'm trying to learn. And why does it always have to be the hard way?
For that, I have no answer. Still, here's a list.
For all of these and more that I can't remember (shamefully), I'm sorry. I'm sorry...
(You live, you learn, right? - Alanis Morissette song)
(last 2: or, as I wrote a while back: always remember never to say never)
TBC
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
neversayers
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Driving... home
I drive to school. Everyday, almost. And I listen to music and sing along. I speed, usually. And... think... but today I had a flashback.
I remembered when I was really little, and our family would be back home from whatever we went to see (countryside, sea, mountains)... and I remembered that road home, the curves and sights and I liked to look out the window of the car and see... what? What was there to see?
Not much. But that was everything. They all looked so familiar "We're almost home!" I and my brother said, we were... close enough. It was that strange sense of warmth and... and... places... full of memories, thoughts, little things that only kids notice. Things like some strange plants hanging outside a balcony, or the way a street curves left and then right like a snake, or the library with red lights on one corner... or some traffic light that always had a weird green color. Aw, man!
We had a really old car. But it had a name :)... Bianca. Yeah, that was it. And whenever dad put gas in, it'd smell really bad inside, and my brother and I hated that smell. We always wanted to stop on a long journey and breathe some fresh air. All that stupid gas made us dizzy. Yeah.
The way home... who would've thought that my short 15 minute ride home today would bring back those memories. Different country, place, no highway mostly... Oh, gosh. Does it mean I feel at home here, now? Does it just mean that I miss home?
Anyhow, I'm now definitely nostalgic about it...
Ah, childhood memories...
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
maybe I thought you weren't like everybody else
He and She. He takes her home. They talk and get ready to part for the evening.
He says, then she, etc:
- i had a really good time tonight
- yeah, i did too!
- here.
- what's that?
- my share of the dinner.
- no, no, no. look, i'm the one who asked you out, and it wouldn't be an official date if i wouldn't pay.
- well how about i flip you for it?
- no, i'm sorry.
- come on, you're afraid you'll lose!
- no, you are unbelievable...
- (joking around) you're terrified, you're shaking.
- oh, alright. heads...
- (flips coin, falls heads) you lose.
- let me see that.
- no.
- let me see that...
- no!
- let me see that!
(grabs coin)
- that's two tails, you cheated!
- no, i didn't. i gave you the option, you chose heads.
- 84% of the time everyone's gonna say heads when asked.
- well maybe i thought you weren't like everybody else.
- maybe you're right. i'll see you.
- i'll raise you.
- what?
- it's just something i used to say to my dad.
- good night.
- good night. sweet dreams.
(movie "All in", 2006)
I won't say anything. I'll just add another quote. But if you'll comment, I'll reply.
"It will have been noticed that, in this philosophy, there reigns an alternative: the encounter may not take place, just as it may take place. Nothing determines, no principle of decision determines this alternative in advance; it is of the order of a game of dice. 'A throw of the dice will never abolish chance.' Indeed! A successful encounter, one that is not brief, but lasts, never guarantees that it will continue to last tomorrow rather than come undone. Just as it might not have taken place, it may no longer take place: 'fortune comes and changes', affirms Borgia, who succeeded at everything until the famous day he was stricken with fever. In other words, nothing guarantees that the reality of the accomplished fact is the guarantee of its durability. Quite the opposite is true: every accomplished fact, even an election, like all the necessity and reason we can derive from it, is only a provisional encounter, and since every encounter is provisional even when it lasts, there is no eternity in the 'laws' of any world or any state. History her is nothing but the permanent revocation of the accomplished fact by another undecipherable fact to be accomplished, without our knowing in advance whether, or when, or how the event that revokes it will come about. Simply, one day new hands will have to be dealt out, and the dice thrown again on the empty table."
- Louis Althusser, "Philosophy of the Encounter"
Question: What if love was this way, what if everything that happens is just... chance?
Sunday, September 16, 2007
yep, it's official, I'm weird! (un)fortunately so's the world
So...
I've just seen a documentary on aspartame. You wouldn't believe how poisonous human beings can be to their own selves (or, you would, if you were like me). And then comes the phrase "yeah, but it's all business, really", which is why I put this quote up on my blog:This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasnt the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
- Douglas Adams
I'm sad. Sad... Sometimes I wish I could erase this world with a hand towel or something, and "write" it back.
So, umm, what else... the last few weeks of my life deal with philosophy, CS, dancing, and math circles. Reading, lots and lots of reading, logic, jumping and moving on classical music (:X) and probably soon-to-come midterms. It's good, at least I like what I'm doing very much. And then I keep busy all the time. To be honest, the only part of my life I wish were better is social. But I don't feel so hurried anymore... or, rather, I'm determined to take things as they come, feel as I feel and... just deal with it.
I realized that I really like to cook! :) Which is so cool, because I also like to eat :D
For now I'm just sticking to salads, with all sorts of ingredients, but I'm planning to learn some actual stove stuff soon! I hope.
It's 7:35PM and the sky looks... amazing. It makes me dream, of what's going to be, what's going to happen to the world, to my family, to my friends...
Speaking of family, I think I'm gonna be closer to them for the next couple of years. Being so far, for so long, was just something I had accepted (or thought I did) and then I did not even realize that I'm not actually coming back.
It feels like time just passes by. And I do so much that I want, but I'm missing out on the whole of who I am. I'm always missing out. Gotta go to concerts, rock concerts, or punk, or gothic... and then learn piano, and do math, teach or tutor, do web programming, explore nature and go to Great America, find someone I could get close to again... or have someone close back here...
Shhh. Snap out of it. Back to life. Somehow, along the way of growing up, it's been established (or perceived) that being an adult takes the adventure out of life (maybe that's because I'm not exactly surrounded by adventurous people - not in the all-fun-and-no-work-kinda-way anyhow). And I refuse to accept that! Growing up doesn't mean you lose it all, you can still be crazy and impulsive and have all sorta wishes and dreams and hopes, and you can still wanna meet someone great in the bus or subway, or on the street, or read a book standing upside down in a tree, or, heck, I dunno, just do something unusual cause you damn well feel like it. As disney's "The spectrum song" says: "What ever happened to the plain old dilly-dilly-dilly-dilly... dilly..."
Sometimes when I meet someone and he/she's so different from me (yep, pretty often), and I hear things from that person, that he/she likes, or does, I always, somehow, understand, or feel, have felt, lived, believed, thought that too,... and, as long as it's still part of me, I can always say "I know what you mean", or "so do I". And, like someone very dear to me once said she's been told, "you seem over 40". I'm not exactly the same way, but, at least at this point, I feel that way. Like no matter how different from me that person is - no, actually, better: the more that person differs from me, the closer I feel to the him/her.
And to think that all this' been inspired from a friend's phrase: "dude, all your friends are WEIRD!"
YEP! Say hello to the weird me! (new version is long-haired and headbanded, batteries not included ;) )
So, anyway, as I said, I've been upto no good lately - much reading, actually, of Ancient Greek philosophy, and here are a few phrases I've very much enjoyed:
Xenophanes:
- “mortals suppose that the gods are born and have clothes and voices and shapes like heir own”
- “there is one god, among gods and men the greatest, not at all like mortals in body or mind”
- “he sees as a whole, thinks as a whole, and hears as a whole”
- “he moves everything by the thought of his mind”
- “he always remains in the same place, not moving at all”
- “everything comes from earth and returns to earth in the end”
- “no man knows or ever will know the truth about gods and about everything I speak of”
So, the first couple of ones, about the entity of god as a whole fits right in with how I (and probably many of you) feel (or have felt) about this world: it's all one. big. giant. whole. and ALL is GOD, and GOD is ALL, because everything IS, everything is created and therefore creation, and the creator it(or him, if you prefer:P)-self is everywhere, omnipresent and omnipotent.
The "everything comes from earth and returns to earth in the end" part reminds me of this funny little quote:If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a juniper tree or the wings of a vulture - that is immortality enough for me. And as much as anyone deserves.
- Edward Abbey
Anyone out there who happens to read any of this crap here and think it's not that bad, just comment, would ya? Even if it's offtopic. I really feel like talking :)
Alright, hope you had a great weekend!
Here's some other links that I've recently read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood-brain_barrier
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53138/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclamate
http://www.stevia.net/
http://www.aspartamesafety.com/FAQ.htm
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/549acesulfame.html
^_^
|_|
(uhm, nvm)
Friday, February 16, 2007
One of those moods
Wednesday
I'm at school. I'm just in one of those moods after the philosophy course. As I was listening to the teacher lecturing us on Francisco Romero's philosophy...
He also got into Kierkegaard, Derrida, Descartes, Husserl, Hegel, etc.
Kierkegaard said "Subjectivity is untruth".
Quote
Subjectivity, inwardness, is the truth. Is there a still more inward expression for this? Yes, there is. If subjectivity is seen as the truth, we may posit the opposite principle: that subjectivity is untruth, error. Socratically speaking, subjectivity is untruth if it fails to understand that subjectivity is truth and desires to understand itself objectively. But now we are presupposing that subjectivity in becoming the truth has a difficulty to overcome in as much as it is in untruth. So we must work backwards, back to inwardness. Socratically, the way back to the truth takes place through recollection, supposing that we have memories of that truth deep within us.
EndQuote
- from here
In the analysis of truth, Romero discusses the psychism: intentional and pre-intentional. This got me thinking about the implications of philosophy itself, for some reason, and I questioned myself: "Why do I enjoy every course so much?" What I found is that philosophy offers a perspective to interpret everything around it. Like a series of schemes, each designed to interpret and justify that interpretation of reality. Obviously, the way we conceive the world is crucial in our attitude towards is. Such as I have sort of decided to take as many philosophy courses as I can afford, and read as much of it as I can. Hopefully I'll stand by this decision and I'll make it a rule to read philosophy whenever I've got time.
Though I already found my way, I'm at a point in my life when everything is confusing due to the horrendous number of meanings I can find. Now that I know my way, I am open to any thinking, I'm looking for the surroundings of my path, so to speak, looking for what I'm supposed to be looking for in my journey. I want to recognize what I'm interested in, and for this, philosophy is the best means. Realizing this, I'm slowly shifting some of my attention from the scientific evolution perspective to the philosophical perspective, a.k.a. our humble existence on Earth.
---
Thursday
Okay, now I'm home. And I could write forever. I've managed to let out what I've forcefully held in for so long it was almost bursting out of me. And I feel so much better. Yet I still need to write, more and more. When will it end?
Yesterday I read in philosophy how after an object exists for a certain period of time, and people observe it, attribute meaning to it, make it part of their culture - then the object gains an existence in itself. That's another way to express the power of creation in human beings - amazing!
It's so wonderful to learn how to feel again after a time when you were numb. The best things in my life always happened after a very depressing, boring, or monotonous period of time. Maybe best in contrast would be the right way to call it, though I'm pretty sure that fate made it such that those great times were also very great in themselves...
I've got so many thoughts and in such a random order. Yep, that's me. Always confusing my reader without the intention to do so. Let me see...
---
It's funny how it takes so much work to close your heart, and a single second can open it up again.
The life within our soul is much more than life. We, as human beings, are capable of things that we can barely understand...
And maybe some of you dislike or misjudge this difference I point out between mind and soul. Maybe you think of the human being as just mind. Or mind and heart (well, where the soul is, although not exactly). Or mind, soul/heart, and spirit. Or just spirit. Whichever way, think of the soul as the part of you that feels and travels through those feelings. The spirit is somehow more general and rather not contained within ourselves, usually regarded as a guardian or a presence above our heads maybe. The mind is the easiest of all, right?
...So, I was saying, our soul is capable of much more than our mind thinks. The secret is (listen to this one) to not take yourself seriously. Every time you make a big fuss about the sudden feeling you've had, you're probably going to fail to understand it. Why is that?
It's interesting to notice that over involvement, tumultuous activity inside of yourself makes you feel so much alive (in the sense that time passes so much slower), but it also makes you see less of the actual soul you possess. Most of the times when you try to think about what you're feeling, you're practically looking for signs and question your heart about what it's doing. Blah blah blah, why are you feeling like this and that?
Want to know a secret? That's not the way to do it! Whenever you would like to understand yourself and your feelings better, open your heart to the "what if" and just put your mind aside, observe what your heart does, what it feels. Follow it.
Of course that may sound absurd. I mean, where's myself if I follow my heart? Is the heart its own entity? No. Of course not. The heart is the nucleus of our deepest feelings and our intricate design always ends with it. It's the center of our inner life and as long as you listen to it - the heart, a part of yourself which you cannot completely control (even though you'd so much like to, sometimes) - you will not just be happy, you will know thyself, what you represent, which way is your wind blowing and what to expect. Since, with evolution, human beings have gotten so complex, it is predictable to see that now so few people understand their hearts and get to think "hey, screw the heart, I can do so much more with my mind." No, you can't. You can control the heart more than the mind, yes. But that only means that others can do so in your place too. What do you make of that? If you like to be in control, you have to learn how to communicate with yourself. Because, just as you can't force someone else to feel, think or do something, you can't force yourself, or at least not without losing what you once had. Being in control is a good thing only if you don't cross some certain boundaries. If you're trying to control everything, even if it's just about yourself, you're not doing very well.
Let's put it this way. Can you recreate yourself? No! God can. God gave you these complex heart and mind to deal with, so unless you're God, you better get used to the idea that you're not almighty. No, only God is omnipotent. Hence, stop trying to have everything under control, you will almost certainly fail, every time. Knowing yourself is not an act of being bossy, of challenging yourself and following your own orders. You have to agree with yourself, to love yourself, to be patient with yourself and care about your own existence. It's also all part of what the society nowadays tends towards - freedom of the individual. If other times it was more important for groups to be free, now the focus lies on the individual: same-sex marriages, more rights for every citizen, equality, freedom of opinion, acceptance, and the list can go on (I just don't read the news:D)...
Care for yourself.
I just recently found out that the one girl in this world right for me will be very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very hard to find. And to get. And to keep. And the reason I believe all that is because she has to have a couple of things that 99.9999999 of the people in this world don't have. She has to be capable of love, and understand how much that means and how much a part of oneself it becomes once present. She has to be able to live without me. She has to believe in me, at least half of how much I believe in her. She has to believe in love. And in people. She has to love people. And the world. I'm not even gonna start with the smart, cute, and adorable kinda things.
And then, I'd really really want her to have long hair. Love walks in the park, rain, snow, sunsets and sunrises; she should know how to be a kid but be able to act as an adult, and capable of doing the right things when the situation calls for it. She should be selfish enough not to let me go without a last kiss, and selfless enough to tell me everything she feels even if it hurts me like hell. She is everything. Have I already met her? I don't know. How do you know when you've met the girl of your life? You don't. You just feel it... I guess that relates to what I wrote above... I feel it now and I hope that she will stay.
---
Friday
I'm just in one of those moods when I don't know what the next word I type will be. It just comes straight out. Here. And here. And here. Wow. That's fast. That's me... thinking... How fast could I be thinking? Sometimes when I wrote something I was so inspired that I knew, ahead with a few paragraphs, what I was going to write. I was so desperately concentrated on what I was writing because I didn't want to forget that last paragraph. It was the key scene. The thing of the things. Here, now, I have no plan. I'm just hoping this goes somewhere.
The way I figure it, someday, somehow, I will re-read my writings and - cling! - I'll have THE IDEA. The idea of a best-seller. THE BOOK I've always wanted to write but never before did. Gosh, I pray I'm right. Speaking of praying, I believe in God more and more lately. Could God be an entity that life teaches you exists, and those who don't believe in Him just ignore the signs? It's a definite possibility. Signs. I believe in signs too. They're not coincidences. It's all part of the reason you have to be patient with yourself, spend time and care about your inner being. Yet I'm always open to your point of view. So tell me, don't be silent. Silence is not golden on my blog.
Did I forget who I am? I think not. It doesn't feel like I did. But why, then, do I have trouble remembering what I thought yesterday? Wait. I lost my trail of thoughts. I forgot. I was going to write about a lot of things and now it just feels like I've only one thing to talk about. L - O - V - E.
---
What do you see when you see what I see? What do you see when I see what you see?
This picture makes me shiver. It's called "Don't be afraid little girl", and I'm the type who gives credit, so, I got it from here, by MessedUpMind.
That's what I thought about a lot lately. The fear. Of life. Of distances. Of obstacles. What's fear, anyway? Can we defeat it? Some famous quote says "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear." (Mark Twain) Fear is what? Not understanding? Not believing in yourself? Not thinking ahead? Most of the times you are not wrong to believe in yourself. You are wrong to believe in things blindly. If you're blind about yourself, you might be wrong. But don't be. Stare at yourself in the mirrow. What do you see? Are you afraid, little girl? Or little boy. This picture has so much meaning, I don't even need to tell you anthing else. You can see for yourself, in yourself, can't you? (whadda ya know, the title of my blog)
---
No matter how confused I am, I've still learned something today. A lot of things. Right now I'm just thinking about one. Concerning myself. I've found a new passion: I want to meet, know, and understand people. Another disturbing discovery, for what could I be? A shrink? A therapist? I feel not only I can help people and understand them, but I can relate to most of them as well. I can bond with someone in a few minutes. And, whatever you're thinking, no, it does not imply any lying, cheating, or pretending. I've just been through a lot. At least, for my age. And I think this, somehow, states the new future of youngsters. They will have to deal with more and more, grow up faster, live as kids for a longer period of time. I think this is already happening in the US, more than anywhere else perhaps. People here all seem very young, at heart, so un-challenged. It's like they haven't yet had to deal with the hardships that other people have had to fight through.
It's sad, if you ask me, all people having to grow up faster. And work. Assume responsibilities. More and more countries in the world are beginning to employ teens for easy jobs. And even hard ones. I don't think that is right... I think we're trying to accelerate the world towards something we don't even know yet, and submitting our young to such a risk is not only irresponsible, but foolish, stupid, and unfair. Why should they have to go through all that? Why should the adult individual have increasingly more free time and the youngsters have less and less? Think about it, what's the best time of your life? Your 50's? I doubt it. At least for most people. But, anyway, this is a very big issue... too much to talk about just on a simple blog post. The pressures on the teenager nowadays are huge. Read Christoph Dufosse's Sfarsitul Orelor (L’heure de la sortie, School’s out) to get a picture of it. A strange picture of it.
---
I want to learn. I want to master three wholly different areas. I want to be... as close to THE TRUTH as I can be. Yet that is not what I desire. I believe in love. And as long as I can, I will fight for it. Sure, there might be times when I give up, times when I can't handle THE TRUTH as a whole, when I only choose one side, like most of us humans do, and live with it, for a while. But, see, I think it's best to realize as much of anything as you can. To be able to accept someone else's interpretation. To really put your heart into it, and try to see it not only through the other's eyes, but through his mind and heart as well. To believe in the other like he was yourself. That's how Kant said we should treat others anyway, isn't it? As "ends in themselves, not as means to an end." How many times do you hear the phrase "Oh, if only someone could see it like I see it", "if only someone could see it through my eyes." It=life, love, the ocean, the sunset, the world, the passion, the excitement, the smell or taste even. How many times have you wished someone could live inside of you for a while and see everything through your eyes?
To me, really knowing and understanding something means knowing as many sides of its truth as possible. Yes. And then living it. And, pratically, you can never know every side => You can never know the truth. Which reminds me of a quote:
"1. Never tell everything at once." (Ken Venturi's Two Great Rules of Life).
You can never know everything. The truth. But you can feel it. That's how we're made, I think, to understand life better by living it, feeling it, being every moment. But that's not carpe diem. It's all part of being crazy responsibly. Doing what you do and not forgetting yourself along the way. And your responsibilities. And your beliefs. Your top three. Mine? Love, hope, faith (these three words have changed my life).
I am alive. And I am so glad to be alive that I can't actually describe it. What have I done today? Facts, there are so few I can barely count them. (Which reminds me, funny. Do you think that counting up to three is done so rarely that you'd actually have to think a bit to remember how to do it? I can't remember the last time I counted.) But what I realized is an entirely different thing. I am so glad to be in my shoes right now. I love the Universe. And how it works. And how lucky I am. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to have stories to tell, and now I think I do. I have the story of my life, which is very beautiful to me, and that is enough. I thank God for this day. I thank God for this story. And I thank you for being a part of it. This is so exciting! Oh wow!
---
I've thought about doing some pretty wacky things. And now's the perfect time to think and talk about them again. I wanna try bungee jumping. I wanna try sky diving. Scuba diving too, maybe. I wanna jump using a parachute. Drive at 200 miles per hour. Make love on an airplane. Visit an ice-water hotel (that is, a hotel made of ice). Ski. Pop a really big balloon. See a shark live. Spend a night on the bottom of Grand Canyon. Shoot with a bow and arrow. Be hypnotized. Kiss upside down. French. Jump from the second floor (or as high as possible without hurting myself). Eat on someone else's body, heh. Tear clothes. Sleep in a cave. Watch the rain lying down, on the ground. See an avalanche. Hug a tree - this one I did, but I'd do it again. Build a really big snowman. There's also a couple of weird things I'd like to try. And also some things with meeting people. I love to see people's reactions to what I do, and I mean that not in a "hey lemme test this bomb on this guy" way, but in a "i feel like being this way now" way. Get it? There's so much I can barely stop. I wanna try myself. Challenge myself. Prove myself that I can do so much. And that's not just for me. Right now, it's not just for me. But I want to be my own entity, even if I feel I depend on someone else. We all do, I think. Being happy is not a consequence of self-sufficiency. And, anyway, most people are not sufficient to themselves. If they were, they wouldn't need anything or anyone else in the world. Wow, not even things! Who can be that self-absorbed?
---
I wish I could write a poem now. But I think I will go dream, instead. Dream of a beautiful world. And remember who I am. And why I'm here. And what I can do. I wanna be alive, so much alive! And I'll keep discovering who I am through philosophy. And life, and dreams. It's all too much now, but time will take care of me. It sure will...
---
Wanna read some Romanian language posts about time? See this.
Friday, February 09, 2007
The unexpected
Quote:
In psychology, there is a concept called learned helplessness, which arose from a series of animal experiments in the nineteen-sixties at the University of Pennsylvania...
... Dogs were restrained by a harness, so that they couldn't move, and then repeatedly subjected to a series of electrical shocks. Then the same dogs were shocked again, only this time they could easily escape by jumping over a low hurdle. But most of them didn't; they just huddled in the corner, no longer believing that there was anything they could do to influence their own fate. Learned helplessness is now thought to play a role in such phenomena as depression and the failure of battered women to leave their husbands, but one could easily apply it more widely. We live in an age, after all, that is strangely fixated on the idea of helplessness: we're fascinated by hurricanes and terrorist acts, and epidemics like SARS - situations in which we feel powerless to affect our own destiny. In fact, the risks posed to life and limb by forces outside our control are dwarfed by the factors we can control. Our fixation with helplessness distorts our perception of risk. "When you feel safe, you can be passive," Rapaille says of the fundamental appeal of the S.U.V. "Safe means I can sleep. I can give up control. I can relax. I can take off my shoes. I can listen to music." For years, we've all made fun of the middle-aged man who suddenly trades in his sedate family sedan for a shiny red sports car. That's called a midlife crisis. But at least it involves some degree of engagement with the act of driving. The man who gives up his sedate family sedan for an S.U.V. is saying something far more troubling - that he finds the demands of the road to be overwhelming. Is acting out really worse than giving up?
EndQuote
Even though the passage mostly relates to driving safety, and how S.U.Vs are much more dangerous than cars - easier to control, the appearance of safety and helplessness is very broad (as the article itself says). It's easy to give up what you believe and adopt something that seems safer or more comfortable. It's easier to just enjoy life and run away because you can't handle it. It's easy to pretend the past never happened, give up, and fight for something new. Or just think of it as "moving on". But is that what we should be doing instead of "acting out"?
---
I've spent a lot of the past weeks trying to understand yet another curiosity about human nature. Also trying to figure out who I am. Looking back, I've changed so much from who I was 4-5 years ago. I'm more confident, more of a believer. Back then I was more of a hoper. And as I looked through my past I've learned one critical aspect of understanding oneself, or anyone else as a matter of fact:
It is much easier to understand someone by understanding what that one is thinking, by looking above the words, and seeing the idea behind the thought, the original launch site. Descending into another being's soul (or mind), or even my own, is a whole process. It's like imagining yourself in a blank room - just white, no shape, no time, no space - and then coloring the surroundings with impressions, ideas, facts, hunches, feelings, anything will do. On the whole, you start to get a picture of who the person is and how that correlates to you - even more likely since you are in the middle of the room. Now, you might not be one of those people that like putting themselves in other people's shoes, but I am. And I love doing it, struggling to understand, feeling what the other is feeling. What's interesting is that 99% of the time this doesn't necessarily have to do anything with analyzing the other person. By actually trying to live in that other world I get such a good picture of it that I don't have to think about his or her inner feelings and thoughts, instead find myself already knowing some of them.
I'm also a believer in self-education. Since probably most of us are twisted human beings, either because of our (often traumatizing) childhood experiences, or surprisingly bad things happening one after the other, or maybe just the plain old go-with-the-flow-forget-who-you-are-along-the-way kind of thing, I strongly promote (slow-)careful-paced self-control and self-manipulation. Even though that may sound evil (>:)) to some of you, it's not... not in the right hands that is. And love yourself. Appreciate yourself. Don't forget that you are most at knowledge of what's inside of you and always exert your ability to see yourself through others - the better you're at it the more confident you will be in what you do. I've recently been told how important it is not to use strong words such as 'never', 'always', 'very'. It's always very important never to forget that :))
Time was slow, life was empty, I guess the beginning is often the hardest part. For a while I thought that the universe was holding me back. Now I see IT has actually been pushing me forward - thank you God, for your blessing. Aside from the sudden boost of energy that I had (I've been sleeping much less because of that, I felt so well rested, amazing!), I've been more determined to fight for myself and to see that I can do anything: without boundaries, without any inhibitions that I might've had when I was younger. Yes, damn it! I am a fighter! And I will keep being who I've always been, I will keep doing the things I've done and start the things I want to do.
Sometimes the best way of arguing something to someone is through that someone's words, through his/her thinking. In writing whatever it is I'm trying to write, I've usually thought that when the target of the essay is "any reader", I can only be myself. And I consider myself a bit better when it comes to person-to-person discussion, perhaps a reason I think I could become a therapist or something similar. Today I've added the "Contact me" link on this blog. You can write me personally... Here's a quote from Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic: "... the dimension of the imagination is much more complex than those of time and space, which are very junior dimensions indeed..." Sometimes the best way to understand someone is by abandoning yourself and living through their eyes, through their imagination. That someone might even help you with a good description, heh.
I've taken a math exam today. Quite predictably, last night at 11 p.m. I was still studying for it (typical student attitude, isn't it?), when I noticed how fast I went through the book. It has about 800 pagess. Addmitedly, I didn't go through all of them, yet after an hour I almost did 200. And it took me 4 hours, skipping some chapters too. Of course it can be done faster than that. And I only skipped through, carefully reading all the definitions I found and looking at the hardest exercices (if I could do the hardest, the others wouldn't be a problem, right?). It has been a while since I thought math, or learned anything fast-paced at all, except reading and writing essays. I remembered why I like it so much: I enjoy building up on the skeleton of reasoning - in math's case: math reasoning. It's like a sort of pyramid, you learn and learn and build up until you reach the top. It won't fall if you ommit a couple of bricks along the way, but it would not last that long; nor would it be easier to keep building up afterwards. Try being good at math, then not doing it for quite a while, then coming back, and see how easy it seems to catch up, and how creative it is. That's how it was for me, I was in top shape, really! And I hope I'll pass. It was actually fun. Missed it...
Recently, I was hit by a wall, metaphorically speaking. "Carpe diem" - Live (in) the moment. That's what I hear, that's what I've heard. Unfortunately, this great phrase often has to do with frustration, abandonment, the refusal to fight or the need for plain ol' human enjoyment. I believe we all do it from time to time, whether we like it or not. However, a life lived by such standards is usually very empty - that's the life of a non-believer. What makes people non believers? Failing. Being overpowered. Lost. Exhausted. Underestimating obstacles. Overestimating themselves, or living in a dreamworld for too long. I think this too goes like a roller coaster: the 'downs' are those moments when you just don't believe anything you used to anymore, yet justify every act of yours by the same phrase: "carpe diem", either in this form or in relation to others. Say, time - it's about time I did this, or age - I'm too young for this, or space - the obstacles are too much for me. Then the 'ups' would be those moments when life has so much meaning that you feel it through every inch of your body.
So, my advice to you is: don't "carpe diem" through life for too long, or you'll end up lost and empty. One point of being alive is making a difference, and to believe in making that difference. Wandering around undecided about anything is wasting time. Unless, of course, you are searching for what you're supposed to do (hate this clichee, give me a better one). It's true: life's much more enjoyable if you just take in everything life has to offer, make it a rule not to sacrifice too much or to keep yourself within the limits that you think of yourself as being - those are all killers of the truth, the bigger truth, which, in my opinion, encompasses every little thing there is to know, feel, and understand in this world. I just realised last week how much I believe in love. And that's been true since back then, 4-5 years ago. I believe in devoting yourself to whatever it is that you are involved in, to believe in what you do and follow life with care and involevement. True, there is too much happening and so little room in your mind (or heart, although...) for all of this. Uhm... yeah. NO! Actually, your mind is unlimited, as far as you consider the short life you're gonna live, you are 99% unlikely to ever fill up your head fully. Since we probably use little of our brain for focused thinking and reasoning - because we're lazy, not to talk about memory, you're unlikely to ever run out of space :). So, you can't really put too much brain into it. And the heart is even bigger, as most human beings are capable of a wide range of emotions and remember them to a very great extent. We're fascinating beings, you and me! Really! Be happy for that! Live life. And believe in yourself. And in life. I can't tell you to believe in love, you might feel something else is most important. There might be. There's so much to fight for... and so few fighters.
I want to learn to write with my left hand. It's one of my wishes from childhood actually, cause I was originally left handed, but was sort of forced to write with my right hand. And now I want both. Ambidextrous, that's how it's called.
Too much talk about me, I feel. But I hope that you can see yourself somewhere along these lines. Understanding someone else is a priceless thing sometimes. We can learn something even from the people we least expect to teach us. The moment will come when the unexpected happens. That's life, isn't it?
Friday, February 02, 2007
Myself
Have you ever had a Déjà vu?
Howdy y'all... I've put a new look on this blog, although I said I wouldn't. But, then again, I was lost. Now I might have found myself again, yet I'm confused. A bit. Funny, isn't it?
I also wrote about the design and about me a bit, check out the About me page.
Lately I've asked myself (over and over) Who am I?, and mostly Who am I for you? And I asked others as well. Gee, it's so nice to know that I'm constantly misjudged and misinterpreted by most people around me...
... but I'm sort of asking for it. It takes a long time for someone to get to know me (or at least to think so), and I always end up doing something new and apparently prove them wrong. Again. "I didn't think you were this way..."
This has simultaneously been my excess and my deficiency... a problem and a solution, ability and inability to recognize who I am, more in the eyes of others rather than my own. I know much of who I am, but others don't. I guess it's true for everyone, to some extent, that people see as much of who you are as possible, but almost never all. However, for me, it's weirder than that...
I suffer from Déjà vu (since I was very little), meaning I feel something happening now has previously taken place in the past, in a strange way. Those of you who have had any Déjà vu feeling at all know how it is like. When I was little I was very confused about this and nothing more - I just figured "hey, I must've dreamt about this before", or "this happened yesterday too", but I knew I couldn't exactly point out what it was that made me feel I had been there before, what triggered the feeling. For some periods of time I thought I was paranoid, or weird. There were weeks when I had a Déjà vu each day, which was amazing. Those weeks were golden for inspirational writing and thinking in general. I always thought Déjà vu's helped me figure out a lot of things about myself that otherwise would probably be unknown to me. A Déjà vu is not exactly like a revelation, even though it feels like that a bit. You're somewhere, sometime and a minor detail of what you're seeing, hearing, or feeling in any way triggers your brain - "this happened before", and you start detaching from reality...
... or at least that's how it works for me. And then I think and think, try to look back and remember: where did I stumble upon this again, what happened before that got me here... again. Again is the key word. Hence, with time, I desperately (well, not quite, but a bit) tried to figure out what made me have them, and I feel I've constantly gotten better at it. It's great. For one thing because some of the Déjà vu's revealed that I really had been there before (once I remember walking nearby a bus station with a friend, and a bus with a certain number passed by, which actually DID happen again, and the friend remembered that too), and for another thing I remember events that I dreamt about or places I've imagined previously, which I wouldn't have remembered otherwise. The Déjà vu can also be related to premonitions, since, if you feel that you've experienced something before, you could think you know how's the test you're going to take, or what will be the outcome of a challenge you're about to face. Indeed, I have taken a test which I had dreamt before, and it really didn't feel at all like I'm solving problems for the first time. I thought I remembered each answer instead of making it up, and after the test I really didn't remember what the questions were, but I did remember the answers.
As a matter of fact, it's important to point out my belief in Déjà vu's since it answers my question: Why am I this way?
Intense events that happened when I was a kid have a strong influence in my life now. In this case, it made me question the nature of life, reality, and reason. I believe I'm a very open minded person, and one of the other things that makes me... me is my belief that you can pretty much be any way you want. And the weird things I experienced when I was young make me treat weirder things that happen now with much more understanding. But they also make me much harder to understand in the eyes of others.
I've read on Wikipedia that "Many theorists believe that the memory anomaly occurs when one's conscious mind has a slight delay in receiving perceptive input. In other words, the unconscious mind perceives current surroundings before the conscious mind does. This causes one's conscious self to perceive something that is already in one's memory, even though it was in one's memory only a split second before it was perceived."
"the unconscious mind perceives ... before the conscious" - hey, that's exactly what happens to me! Or at least the scientific description of it. My unconscious mind... that sonds scary, it's something in me that I can't control... something in every human being. I'm dreaming, or I'm absent, and then I perceive and it unconsciously hits me... Thankfully, I don't seem to suffer from jamais vu! But I've experienced all three Déjà vu's: Déjà vécu, senti and visité (seen, felt or visited), each of them much more than once. For me 'felt' includes smelled, touched, tasted - all of them! And for most of the time I can remember when and where, or how come. Especially for the most recent ones, although it's been a while...
It's all part of being myself!
What does Déjà vu have to do with how others perceive me? Well, even without Déjà vu I have experienced and lived strange things. As I said in the About me, my life's not very unusual, it's just original, like everyone else's I guess. But I've met a lot of people and almost none of them intuited who I am right. This doesn't mean that they judged me wrong or I thought that they did, it only means they told me, or appeared to be surprised when they found out new things about me (what can I say, maybe I'm exciting, maybe not). Only a few intuited who I am, most of which are my friends. Another couple or so had an idea about parts of me... Well, I probably won't intuit who you are either, I'm just saying this so you can see how hardly ever people really know who you are...
So I have a question for you: How do you know you've found yourself?
It sounds like a basic question, yet I have a few issues I'd like you to consider:
1. Since you probably found yourself after an intense event that changed your life, and then see how the way you feel is so right and so much better than what you had before, you believe that this way is THE WAY to be and live. But how do you know there's no better way? And, isn't it possible that your inertia, your desire to remain where you already feel well, safe, and perhaps even happy - all these make you just not ask this question anymore?
2. Finding yourself often means knowing what you will do and make of your life further on, what's your character and what represents you. However, after a while of being the same self you end up knowing lesser and lesser about who you are. How do you keep in touch with yourself once, supposedly, you have found who you're supposed to be? Your need for certainty and knowledge of this certainty might undermine your ability to understand the new and the unknown. If you've found yourself and you're not changing that (well, at least not much), what's your relationship to you from now on? 'Cause if you've found your character, you've got to have a relationship to it, erm... him/her :) based on what? if you already know...
So I think maybe nobody really knows who he/she is, but just thinks so (in the best of cases; most people recognize they haven't found themselves). I'm beginning to believe that finding yourself is not a teenager-type-o' event, but rather a lifetime achievement, just like happiness... not a goal, but a path. What do you think?
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Giving up is hardest?
Alex Hitch Hitchens, from Hitch - the movie:
- One dance, one look, one kiss, that's all we get, Albert. Just... one shot, to make the difference between happily ever after, and 'oh? he's just some guy I went to something with once.'
But what if we don't even get that?...
---
I had my chance, I lost it. I'm a dreamer. I have to wake up.
"Please wake up", she begged.
...But he won't wake up.
"Were you here all this time? Where were you?"
But he left. He left a long time ago.
"Were you ever here?"
He was not sure. But what he felt... was sure. The moment they met was still with him. The errors, the dreams, they had THAT something. They probably never understood each other, maybe they never will. He had hope...
"I shouldn't have left", he said like he was there. But he wasn't. "I'm not sure I deserve an explanation even."
She didn't cry. She was way past that.
They were far away. They weren't even understanding each other. They were strangers.
"I need to hear your voice", he said, "if there was anything we ever had worth anything, we should at least try to make sense of who we are now. I WAS with you, I WAS yours, you had me..."
She did. There were times when he forgot himself, times when she forgot herself. They were together. But she didn't want to think about anything anymore. She didn't hate him. She still felt something. Something... maybe hurt?
He always thought he knew her, he knew everything, but he was wrong. They were both wrong. Somehow, they only knew each other barely. And they lost touch. They were away. Far, far away...
But their love was real. "Everyone loves in their own way," he said, "and our love was real. You might be my someone. I'm acting crazy, I know. I ruined you, your life... with your help."
He did. She helped. She was far away, he didn't understand a thing. He couldn't even grasp what she felt, or who she was now.
"You said you had nothing before I came along. I'm not arguing for me here, but I did give you dreams, hope, love, faith. You gave me all those too. There might be everything wrong now, but my love for you was never stronger. You'd be surprised to realize how much people can do for love, you did much yourself... and we believe. Or believed...", he cried.
There was no hope. No way back. No. This was real. This was life. They were far, far away. She had rethought everything. Him too. He was always pushy, begging for her to come back, wanting her for his happiness no matter how harmful he was to her.
"We don't need to start over," he whispered, "that's not possible. You think I'm stupid, foolish, crazy? I asked myself if what I feel is THAT love, or something foolish, selfish, ... childish. You did love me differently. But what I feel is love too. Maybe I just didn't show you this love. I think I did, but you were looking for something else. What are you looking for? Why are you fooling yourself again? Why am I fooling myself again?"
She almost hated him. She knew one thing, though: she would never come back. Never. Yet he still seemed to think that she might. Was there no hope of this ever ending? Then she would end it herself.
"I'm not here as a kid anymore. I'm here as the grown-up. And I'm here believing that all this time we did so much wrong. But, see, what we had right, was our trio: love, hope, faith. Those which you have taught me about. We might have had them in different ways, but we did do everything together. I did share my life with you, I believed, I loved, I gave myself. You had a more mature view upon everything. You still do. Call me crazy, but that makes us even more meant to be: you lived your childhood with me. You learned to feel love with me. You wanted to love me this much. And I wanted to believe in you, I believe... that's why I'm so crazy. I can't see anything but happiness with you. But that's not just happiness for me... that's for us. For US. WE CRIED TOGETHER FOR HOW HAPPY WE WERE, for heaven's sake! And you're telling me I'm destroying you? We didn't know anything about anything before we met. We didn't know what would happen if I left, we didn't even know how to act. You were strong, you were yourself. I was strong, I was myself. I didn't make you be... You exhausted yourself, you tortured yourself, and I couldn't see. We should have just kept quiet about everything and should have just written letters to each other instead. Just talk on the phone maybe. We might have lived. But now... we're dead. And I'm telling you, I still love you, dammit! I LOVE YOU! Now, if there's anything still left in your heart, you won't think about us anymore. Maybe you don't already. I hope, I pray that one day you will see me again. That one day we will meet again and you will open your heart, because, God, baby, I'm crazy in love with you. I love you even more now... You are still my someone. You gave me strength to see myself through your eyes, and now feel like I'm going to die. Die, and love you..."
Now she hated him. Or...
Monday, January 22, 2007
Sunt mic, mic. Dar insotit de 6 litere.
Trece timpul pe langa mine... trece viata pe langa mine? Cum se face ca parca n-am disperat vreodata? Am stat calm. "Da, Paul, nimic nu e grav." (Note: This is a lie.)
Ei bine, acum e grav. E timpul...
... sa dau tot ce e mai bun. De la cer pana la pamant nu voi renunta la ceea ce cred. De ce? Pentru ca, in unele momente ale vietii, tot ce-ti mai ramane e ceea ce crezi. Iti doresti, visezi, traiesti... implinesti vise, dar viata trece... si tot cu ceea ce e cel mai important ramai. Ce e cel mai important pentru mine? Nu pot sti cu siguranta, pot simti. Asta cred. Asta simt. Si acum simt ca cel mai important nu e ce, ci cine. Nu, nu e frica mea de singuratate. Nu, nu e dorinta mea de a fi recunoscut. Toate sunt acolo, desigur, dar nu ele sunt. Sunt un copil rasfatat, stiu... Dar uneori e deajuns sa simti, si sa abandonezi totul... pentru ca ai inteles. Sa fugi. Sa te opresti si sa privesti. Apoi sa te intorci. Sau poate nu. Dar orice ar fi, orice s-a intamplat, realizezi ceva. Despre tine, si despre ceilalti. Despre ce si cine conteaza...
Sunt mic. Ma simt atat de mic... si, foarte ciudat, si lumea mi se pare atat de mica. Am citate peste citate, intelgeri peste intelegeri. Viata ma urmareste... nu stiu daca si pe tine. La fiecare pas mi se arata cate un semn, in fiecare clipa am parte de-o coincidenta. Coincidente in care nu cred. Si coincidente care inseamna ceva, ceva special... Pornesc radioul, aud melodia... ma pierd. Citesc o carte, descopar un citat, ma pierd... Privesc o poza, vad frunze. "Ce vezi?" Acelasi lucru. Mereu. Mereu. Si ce e si mai ciudat e ca sunt mic, sunt prea mic, Doamne! De ce asa de mic? De ce nu candva cand as putea sa fiu mai mare, sa pot sa fiu mai intreg... sa nu ma simt atat de inutil? De ce acum cand nu pot sa lupt cu toata energia pe care-as putea sa o ofer? Sunt mic. Pierdut. Pierdut... in realitate.
Bine-am venit! Welcome! Bienvenue!
Si maine ce se va intampla? Da, stiu, o iau de la capat. Dar macar sa cresc. Stii, intr-o zi nu se va mai repeta... intr-o zi vom fi mari. Intr-o zi voi putea implini toate acele vise. Intr-o zi voi fi mai mult decat eu... si pana atunci imi voi ingadui sa visez, chiar daca poate din ce in ce mai putin. Poate intr-unele zile si sa sper. Sunt mii de cuvinte nerostite. Sute de sentimente neimpartasite. Milioane de realitati nesimtite de catre celalalt. Dar ceva e... si oricat de mult m-as pierde eu, oricat de mult s-ar pierde orice altceva si oricine altcineva... acel ceva ramane. Si are 6 litere. Sau opt. Si uneori e tot ce-a mai ramas...
... si uneori e retoric totul...
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Nimic nou sub soare...
As I've been trying to say, I've started to post some things on another site (a couple of weeks ago actually): http://gewissen.wordpress.com
[RO] To address my Romanian readers, but not a last post:
Dragi cititori, cei care ati mai ramas in viata pe blogul meu anyways... Nu inchid blogul, nu am de ce. Doar m-am hotarat sa incep ceva mai... organizat, si dupa ceva experienta la bloguit m-am saturat sa tot schimb template-ul in incercarea de a gasi o imagine mai personala si calda a sitului. Oricum am schimbat-o mi s-a spus (si de cele mai multe ori am fost de acord) ca a devenit mai putin personala, mai rece. Asa ca scriu... in mai multe parti...
Azi a fost o zi in care am dat la o parte panza de sentimente, frustrari, si tensiune care s-a asternut de-a lungul lunilor mele Americane, si am vazut ceva mai mult din mine. Gauri, mici sau mari. Determinarea cu care am venit aici sa fac din lumea asta lumea mea si sa nu ma schimbe ea pe mine. Pare-mi-se (un cuvant special pt mine ce mai) ca am crescut putin. Am avut vise multe inainte sa vin, dar stiti ce? Am crescut. Si eu, si visele. Si visele nu erau doar ale mele. Si nici nu sunt. Sunt ale noastre... Nu am renuntat sa lupt, dar am invatat inca lucruri noi despre ce inseamna 'a lupta'. Viata mea imi cere mult mai multa maturitate decat credeam (ce surpriza). Multe din cele ce credeam ca sunt 'acceptabile' sau 'trecatoare' s-au dovedit a fi gresite, si nu doar pentru ca s-a schimbat locul unde ma aflu. Nu, chiar erau gresite. Trebuia sa vad asta. Azi, consemnez: cresc. Poate ce v-as ura eu voua daca ati spune acelasi lucru: nu uita sa pastrezi copilul din tine acolo unde el chiar era la locul lui...
Da, copilul vreau sa ramana in viata. Poate de asta tin la mine. Altfel, sunt doar un oarecare. Prin el am si realizat ca sunt in stare sa ma comport, in sfarsit, nu numai la modul "da-mi aia, vreau aia, nu vreau sa accept aia". Acum accept. Invat. Traiesc. Cresc.
Suntem liberi... si sunt momente cand cred ca pot vedea dincolo de toate pretextele, pot vedea... in realitatea mea. Si nu numai a mea... Dar ma vei recunoaste, voi fi acelasi din prima clipa, si mai mult. Nu te voi striga. Am invatat. Am acceptat.
Accept. Invat. Traiesc. Cresc. Cresc.
Si oare cui ii pasa de toate astea? Nu conteaza. Consemnez... pentru mine macar. Cu pasi mici, incet-incet... cu optimism sau nu... dar trebuie sa supravietuim, nu? Fiecare dintre noi. Oricat mi-as dori uneori sa pot face orice... Poate intr-o zi chiar o sa fac ceva pentru lumea asta. Pentru ceilalti... caci eu singur nu contez. Dar cresc. Cresc. Si invat. Accept. Traiesc... Pentru cine stie piesa de teatru, "Si fluturii sunt liberi"... vreau sa zbor si sa zambesc cu toata fiinta... Te salut, realitate! Bine-ai venit!
Thursday, December 28, 2006
The tern second
I'm on vacation in Las Vegas. That doesn't really mean the same thing to everyone who reads this. I'll write something short, that I was made to think from... a movie.
Imagine this moment:
... You're on the street and find you're short of a dollar to getting something you really need (supposedly). Of the few people around someone looks dressed like he has money. And you ask him for a buck... but he was even poorer than you, he was... POOR. He gives you the dollar without saying anything, even though he might not eat that day...
The tern second that this happens the world turns around. Values... fate, decisions... what are they?
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Quoted advice for inner self
All from:
Smart Question Email Coaching
STOP and THINK for one thoughtful minute per day and you'll CHANGE YOUR LIFE
http://www.smartquestion.com
I have extracted some excerpts for you to read. They're not so bad... although just reading them won't change your life.
Email 1:
*** COACH'S TIP ***
Write your dreams down! Don’t have any dreams? Please care about
yourself enough to go searching for them. It’s bringing our
dreams to life that gives our lives meaning and purpose.
Clearly defining our dreams, setting intention and giving them
attention, moves us towards our goals. And this brings us
excitement, passion and fulfillment.
*** INSPIRATION ***
"The purpose of goals is to focus our attention. The
mind will not reach toward achievement until it has
clear objectives. The magic begins when we set goals.
It is then that the switch is turned on, the current
begins to flow, and the power to accomplish becomes a
reality." -- From The Best of Success, compiled by Wynn
Davis
Email 2:
*** COACH'S TIP ***
All blocks arise when we’re not being authentic, when we’re not
being true to ourselves.
When our thoughts, feelings and actions align with our essence,
we express the qualities of soul. Always trust that your soul
knows what's best for you. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND ACT ON YOUR
IDEAS. Give yourself permission to do what you want with your
life. Take the initiative to set meaningful goals for yourself
and achieve them. Begin to tell yourself why you CAN have what
you want.
*** INSPIRATION ***
"A true knowledge of ourselves is knowledge of our power."
-- Mark Rutherford
Email 3:
*** INSPIRATION ***
"Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You
can't cross a chasm in two small jumps." -- David Lloyd George
Email 7:
*** COACH'S TIP ***
We are creatures of habit, of patterns. While initially
the habits may have served us, they may now be limiting
our ability to experience more of life.
What aspect of your life has become routine?
How might you bring new life to it?
Do some outrageous dreaming!
*** INSPIRATION ***
"The most important thing in science is not so much to
obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking
about them." -- Sir William Bragg
Email 16:
*** INSPIRATION ***
"Why has time disappeared in our culture? How is it
that after decades of inventions and new technologies
devoted to saving time and labor, the result is that
there is no time left? We are a time-poor society; we
are temporally impoverished. And there is no issue, no
aspect of human life, that exceeds this in importance.
The destruction of time is literally the destruction of
life." -- Jacob Needleman
Email 22:
*** COACH'S TIP ***
Always trust that you know what's best for you. To move forward
in your life, gather information from the ‘experts,’ consider how
their advice relates to your situation and then act only on what
feels right for you. You are the only expert for your own life.
*** INSPIRATION ***
"If [the teacher] is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the
house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of
your own mind." -- Kahlil Gibran
Email 35:
*** INSPIRATION ***
"Your body is the ground and metaphor of your life, the
expression of your existence. It is your Bible, your
encyclopedia, your life story. Everything that happens to
you is stored and reflected in your body. In the marriage of
flesh and spirit divorce is impossible." -- Gabrielle Roth
Thursday, April 20, 2006
[HA] To transform you
I read this and I found it interesting. I know that, although many of us work and think amazingly well under circumstances unusual for the others, some of these steps mentioned here provide a good point for looking into ourselves and understanding what is it we are after, and how to get it:
"You attract not what you want but what you are." -- Brian Tracy
The Top 10 Steps for Success and Fulfillment
Break through your blocks, unleash your potential, find peace of mind and freedom, and make a difference by using these top keys for success and fulfillment. If you're really serious about change, follow these 10 key steps:
1) Develop personal discipline - It takes discipline -- commitment, effort and time -- to learn and grow and change. We often know what is best for us, but then stay with old ways because they are familiar. Change requires that we pass through a stage of discomfort until we adjust to new ways of being. Learn to focus your mind and your time on your goals, and to persevere until you succeed. Master willpower and you can master anything.
2) Master time management principles - Get the very most from your time. Continually evaluate whether what you are doing serves your greatest purpose. Value your time and your life as priceless commodities. Own your power to live your life your way.
3) Tap the power of daily journaling - All you need to know -- all the answers and the wisdom you could ever need -- lies within you. And journaling offers the best tool to access that wisdom.
4) Set meaningful goals - Goals help us identify what we want, set priorities, create action plans and attain results. As you plot targets and achieve them, you will take control of your life. Your self-esteem, happiness and fulfillment will grow. Success breeds success.
5) Stimulate your creativity to expand your options - Every mind is creative. All you need is the training and practice to get your mind working in new and different ways. With enhanced creativity, you will solve problems faster and more easily, and have more fun doing it!
6) Develop your awareness and intuition - When we depend solely on rational thinking, we lose access to a valid and highly valuable source of knowledge within us -- our intuition. With simple awareness exercises, you can significantly expand the information available to you for improved decision-making. You can work through the blocks and connect with imagination and inspiration.
7) Empty your mind regularly - Only when you have a quiet mind can you truly be stress-free, creative and intuitive. With rest and recreation, you can let go of worldly pressures and connect with the essence of who you are. Practice meditation or periods of relaxation daily. Do not compromise your holidays. Allow your mind to take a break.
8) Know your life purpose - As we align with our life purpose and unlock our inner power, life becomes easier and more meaningful. We become more focused and energetic, and we attract synchronicities and gifts of abundance that help us fulfill our mission.
9) Track your growth and success - It's so easy to get caught in busyness, doing what's urgent rather than what's important. Tracking tools help you focus on what's most important. They offer measuring sticks so you can monitor your growth and successes. With this regular discipline, each year will just keep getting better!
10) Accept yourself fully - It's only when we truly accept who we are right now that we can change. Why do you want change? If it's because you think you aren't good enough now, this lack of self-worth will undermine your efforts to grow and achieve success. Love who you are, with all of your strengths and weaknesses. This gives you a solid foundation to make your life even better! You will turn your dreams into reality!
"As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
[HA] Another journey inside...
You know the website (check previous posts marked . I cut out these fragments:
Know your motives
Labels limit us
What is your life purpose?
"Having a purpose is the difference between
making a living and making a life."
-- Tom Thiss
Why are you here?
Few of us clearly know our life purpose. But if we watch how our lives unfold, and if we know what questions to ask ourselves, we can begin to understand why we are here.
Our purpose reflects:
- What we naturally DO best in life - the gifts, talents and skills our personality has to offer the world.
- How we aspire to BE in life - the qualities of our authentic self.
Knowing our life purpose and fully living it brings much meaning and fulfillment into our lives. When we consciously align with our deepest reasons for being, we tap into rich reserves of energy, personal power and passion. Our lives begin to flow in new and delightful ways.
"Here is a test to find whether your mission on life is finished: if you are alive, it isn't." -- Richard Bach"One must not always think so much about what one should do, but rather what one should be. Our works do not ennoble us; but we must ennoble our works." -- Meister EckhartSunday, April 16, 2006
[HA] Fragments about a happy perfect life...
Although these beliefs stated here are slightly different from my own, I hope you will think carefully about the truths stated.
http://www.higherawareness.com/
Since the website I'm quoting promotes it's courses, and I do not wish to entice you into that, I have included here just some fragments I found interesting. Here they are:
All is mind
Everything -- absolutely everything -- that happens in our lives has a spiritual cause. Events on all other levels -- mental, emotional and physical -- are only effects.
When we are struggling with any challenge, whether it be ill health, a lack of money, a lost job, poor relationships, an accident, whatever -- we need to look for the spiritual learning. We can ask ourselves, "What quality does my soul want me to live more fully?"
Embrace the positive and negative in wholeness
People often view the spiritual path as a search for the light. In truth, spirituality asks us to bring light and darkness together in wholeness. And in fact, this is the only possible solution. In our world of duality, any effort to focus all attention on the light only serves to increase the power of the darkness. Our aim is not to deny or reject anything but to embrace it all.
"Opening our hearts to the mystery and meaning
of our suffering can bring us into God's presence.
Be grateful for this opportunity." -- Mark Rosen
A spiritual approach to healing life's problems
The challenges we meet in life hold the power to open us to higher consciousness. Every block is there to help us let go of the personal, limited viewpoint of our personality and open to the impersonal, unlimited glory of our soul.
Life becomes both meaningful and joyful when we know the greater truth of who we are. And like it or not, going beyond positive thinking and working through problems is the only path to meaning, fulfillment and spiritual growth.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
[HA] "This is the time of your life.How are you spending it?"
Attention: This is not my original creation. This fragment has been selected from http://www.higherawareness.com/time-management-skills.shtml
-> Spend time with your soul
How much do you value your life?
- Do you treasure each day?
- Or do you allow each new day to come and go, a carbon copy of the one before, basically unnoticed, unappreciated and under-used?
"Until you value yourself, you will not value your time.
Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it."
-- M. Scott Peck
