Quote of the Day ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

        Jogging against the wind has always made me feel better about life; the wind is like a conquered enemy as I run against its efforts- a merry one too, rushing past with all the bustle of my gramma's kitchen at Christmas. Unfortunately, the weather lately has just been so dead; the harsh sun rays fall on us but we don't mind because we're so hollow and empty that we think that the continuous light will fill us. Can weather get anymore depressing?
       This drought is so very underrated; it's killing us all from inside (Read about the West Coast-South West Drought here). I suppose this is only the beginning....as a professional pessimist, I believe there is going to be a year when the spring turns to summer, but the summer never gives way to fall. What if the wind doesn't comes back one day? (President Obama isn't helping with his new endorsement of a plan to dig the Atlantic Ocean out in search of oil...)

             But I only miss the wind because it was an enemy I could feel; an enemy I could lash out at. This is the only tangible way to get back at the attacker, because every other antagonist in my life is ever so subtle: poking me in the back and then retreating into the shadows; laughing and talking down at me while hiding in my head.
            This quote actually doesn't really connect to my state of mind at all, but it's something I want to talk about. So here goes :)

From: www.redbubble.com

            Everyone worth knowing is a bit crazy, but they are what society deems as crazy. What if people who are strange/enigmatic/weird/crazy are actually the ones in the right? It's all subjective isn't it? So what if the majority of people is messed up, and the minority, which isn't, they call "weird"?
          The people with "problems" are the ones who feel the most; the ones deemed "messed up" are the ones who care the most; the ones on medication are the ones who think the most. Some of the most profound things I've ever heard, I've heard from people my gramma would call the "wrong crowd," people who know themselves to be outcasts, people who are "unsuccessful". This isn't just my experience of people, Sylvia Plath, Vincent Van Gogh, Ned Vizzini, Emily Dickinson...who's going to deny it? People who had the most insight; people who were the least in denial are famously considered the troubled ones, so much so that they do become the troubled ones...
         So obviously society's idea of messed up/weird is wrong...What if every other preconceived idea is wrong? That just scares me, but coming to think of it; we, as a people, are in denial. We go through life, one ambition after the next without stopping to think what it all means. It's all so scary; don't we see that our lives are mechanical...we form an idea of what we would make us happy, then we pursue it, then we achieve it; but by then we realize that this thing of happiness is not really a thing of happiness, so we form a new idea. It's an infinitely repeating cycle- a circle. Let's break this cycle. Let's think for ourselves; let's form views and ideas that are independent of others (if it's necessary, you should shut your eyes and close your ears to outside influence); let's step out of our shielded world of denial.
         I don't care what anyone says, but I'm going to respect the person with the most life views, the person who's thought about everything that interests them, not the person with the most money or influence.
I'd rather be flying up there with those bird which look so small from the ground..

The World is a Black Hole

Snuggled into my favorite blanket, and cradling a cup of hot chocolate, I stared out of the window. Somehow the mist outside had gotten into my head, my mind is a haze.

The outside world looked enticing; and, I felt myself being drawn to it like it was a black hole. It is a black hole. It’s terrifying, but attractive- the world outside, it drags me in and never lets me go. It makes me feel like I’m useless, like I’m not needed by anything or anyone, like I have no purpose (but do I have a purpose?). To and fro it marches, with the purposeful clatter of its stilettos, trampling my self-esteem underfoot. But I only go back and get hurt again. Those who wander aimlessly in this black hole are lost, and we are better off that way.

I wanted to throw off my blanket off and put on a coat, I wanted to run out into the foggy morning and prove my worth. I wanted to smile and laugh loudly and put on my own lethal-looking stilettos, but I knew that I would lose myself in the mist; I knew that my smile would falter weakly, and my laugh would turn to a whimper. The world would taunt me once more- slap me then pull me in again, drag me in again- until another bubble of my laughter disappears amidst the sound of a weak little cry.

I snuggled deeper into my blanket and took a scalding sip from my cup; I waited for the warmth to fill my body, but I felt a shiver run down my spine instead. No, I’d rather be lost, and aimless, and trampled, a bald dandelion, in this windy world of purpose. I’d rather get hurt again and again and again, than feel this haze in place of my brain, this haze that reminds me of my failures and freezes my insides. I’d rather go out and try my hand at proving my worth again. I’ll wander till I find my path. Besides, feeling a smile crack on my face, I thought, Not all who wander are lost.

The door creaked open, it has long since been used to my comings and goings, and I stepped into the back hole again.

From: www.longcitywalksblog.com

What is intellectual?

After a picture of Albert Einstein (who, I
think, was more intelligent than intellectual),
this is the first picture that
turned up on my simple
Google search

        Somewhere along the line, someone got the stupid idea that only those books deemed classical are considered intellectual. Of course, by someone, I mean Hollywood (There isn’t a day that goes by without me noticing the stereotyping created by what constitutes our entire film industry). Well, maybe I’ve been too harsh- it is Hollywood’s job to create stereotypes, to create an idiosyncratic character who reflects characteristics of the certain parts of society it wants to invoke -it is the way of art- but I still can’t help but cringe every time a new movie comes out and the nerdy-but-cute girl enters with an old-and-boring book in her hand, and huge glasses.

          Hollywood has programmed us to think that an “intellectual” is a man in cordovan loafers and a turtleneck, or a women with no fashion sense whatsoever; both have the essential glasses, and their noses stuck in a wearying book. Unfortunately, intellectual doesn’t mean that you read books of old- it means that you have insightful opinions on them. It is not the subject that makes a person intellectual, but the thought the person puts into it. One can be an intellectual on all things teen pop culture if they want; all they have to read is Teen Vogue, and Seventeen, and other magazines, and have an impressive opinion about the things they read- millions of girls simply copy their styles off of these magazines, but millions of others use them as ground zero, building up from there, and enhancing their own styles. So yeah, what I’m trying to say is that a person who reads Teen Vogue can be considered intellectual just as much as person who spent all of last weekend reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, but has learnt nothing from it-except for what has directly been stated, can be considered pretentiously stupid.

She's intellectual too...that style is unmistakably
original

              This is probably going to lead into stereotyping, so I'm going to stop before I go down that road. Any ol' person can study. Studying is easy, it's like being a kitchen sponge: soaking everything in, and then not knowing what to do, so you gradually let everything seep out. Learning, on the other hand, is more like being a frying pan: you take what you knowledge you get and then work on it, and change it, until you've made something useful from it. Because learning isn't about reading textbooks and other people's research, and rearranging it; learning is about reading textbooks and research papers, then forming your own thoughts about it-doing your own research. A lot of people focus on the reading, and they forget that thinking is a really important part of learning too! And just like that, you'll see that the original and stylish girl who reads Teen Vogue has learnt just as well as the guy who discovered a whole new side to James Joyces' Ulysses- because both of them did their research, and both of them thought about their research, and got new ideas about it.

Intellectual-ness (intellectuality? no that doesn't work either...)isn't about how much knowledge you have, and what kind of knowledge you have, it's about being able to think and use that knowledge.

Quote of the Day ~ Neil Gaiman

           I was reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane (even though I, technically, don’t have no time to do anything as unproductive as reading….I mean reading isn’t going to get me into college is it?), and I just snapped when I read this quote. I finally found the energy I thought I’d temporarily lost, the energy to write.

             It’s true isn't it? There’s no passing or failing at being a person. Whatever kind of person you are...you’re still a person, and that’s what counts. The real judge of whether you pass or fail is you. Do you think that you’re good at being? Do you think that you’d pass according to your own standards? If you bumped into yourself at the grocery store (one of the most judgmental places...don’t ever walk into the organic food section without designer clothes. Don’t.), what would you say later? Would you even make an impression...or too much of a bad one?

           That’s the question to ask. That’s the question we've all been itching to ask ourselves all those times we laughed at not-so-funny jokes, or tried to fit in though it kinda hurt us. We all thought that approval from others may mean approval from ourselves, turns out we were wrong. As long as you like yourself, you pass; you’re approved.

This is where I come in; everyone knows that you’re only happy when you approve of yourself. But what if you don’t know? What if you can’t decide whether you’re happy with what you see in yourself?
              It’s the forever questioning. It’s that feeling that you (I) don’t know what you are (I am). It’s the feeling that I don’t know what is right for me (and society isn't helping by being all, “College is good. Here, waste a fortune on it, and you’ll figure everything out”), and also the feeling that I’m passing myself when I don’t really know what grade I should give. But maybe that isn't the point. There is no pass or fail at being a person- I give up my right to judge myself. What is is what is (wow that statement looks so wrong in writing). Let me try again, What it is, is what it shall be- no stopping it (and by it, I mean life). For now, I’m going to just do what I think is right...I’m not going to judge my judgments; I’m not going to worry about whether I’m giving myself the right grade or not, I’m going to go with my flow-just do whatever I want to do without over-analyzing.

There’s no passing or failing at being a person, and there’s no passing or failing at taking care of yourself and wondering whether you're doing the right thing. If you've got the brains to over-think it...you’re probably fine.
(At least I think so)