Stupid Adults

I disagreed with some of grown ups' belief that "true love" can only be felt by other people just as grown up as they are. First of all, true love is the intensity you feel, not what someone else thinks you feel. Although an adult who has more experience and wisdom may be better able to guide his feelings and actions to achieve a more successful relationship, this fact by no means diminishes the feelings a younger person has. An adult's love is no truer than that of a teenager.

If a 85-year-old and a 11-year-old both like pizza, is it assumed that the 85-year-old's preference for pizza is more real or more intense than that of the 11 year old? Granted, the older person has had a more varied diet and is less likely to change his favorite to something else. Maybe the 11 year old would try lasagna when he is older and decide that would be his favorite. But those possibilities do not alter the fact that at this moment, he likes pizza, and his preference is in no way less real when compared to the 85 year old. Although a teen may marry someone else he loves when he is older, this fact does not diminish his feelings for the one loves now.

And although adults may have the freedom and resources to further their relationship, where as teens can only date, it does not dismiss a teenager's feelings. The 85 year old may have the money and freedom to eat pizza every night of the week, and the 11 year old might have to suffer his mom's cooking. And life might be easier for the kid if he abandons his preference for pizza and take to his mom's cooking, but he wouldn't do that. Neither should teenagers abandon attempts at love no matter how fruitless it may prove to be.

Not only should teens venture boldly(but cautiously) into love, they should view their feelings with every bit of significance as grown up love. Their feelings are every bit as holy and true as grown up love.

Religion

I think the reason I choose not to be religious(go to church, pray, worship God, and choose the path set out by the bible) is that I don't want to loose my power to choose. Religion is so predestined. Every moral decision has been made for you. It takes away your power to choose.

Even if I were to sit down and face every moral dilemma and all my decision coincide with the bible(so that I know there is no difference between being relious and not being religious), I would still choose not to be religious. What's the point if I'm "right" anyways. And I value my power to choose. I would be my choice, my life.

The fact that some of my decisions would differ from the bible would be more reason for me not to be religious. To be religious is to be destined, pressure to decide the way the bible/God decided. Being not religious, I could decide for myself. It doesn't matter if your opinions differs from God, or if it agreeds with God. It makes the struggle to decide more meaningful.


Conformity/Nonconformity of Dress

I think there isn’t much difference in students who are labeled "conformists" and "nonconformists" in the way they dress. Some nonconformists would say that the conformists worry too much about what people think, and that they are too insecure and afraid of being different. And then the mainstream people would say that nonconformists are just trying too hard to be different because they have issues with society, are not well adjusted, or want to feel special. And then there’s a group from both schools of thought who are indifferent and don’t really care what you wear. This is my favorite group because I think they’re right.

If you ask students why they don’t like uniforms, avocets of both styles would answer that they want to express themselves. Express themselves to who? If you think about it, there really isn’t such a thing as "taste in clothing". No one’s born with a particular taste in clothing. There’s only they way you want other people to see you. In a way, both conformists and nonconformist are insecure because they care too much about what other people think. Conformists dress a certain way to remain in fashion. Nonconformists dress a certain way to remain out of fashion. They’re both just different ways of satisfying the same existential philosophy; that someone is watching, and that makes it all worth it.

Stupid Physics

I think that if two person are far away from each other, they could just set aside a time to think about each other-and they would compensate for the time zone difference so that they are both thinking about each other in the same instant. But Einstein said that instances don’t exist. There is no such thing as an instant. Space and time are relative. Her instant and his instant are only perceptions. Each lives in his own isolated world-isolated by space, and now time. They can’t share anything, not even a moment. And all because of Einstein.
But does that really make sense? Don’t the cells in your body share the same time? If I looked at my reflection, aren’t my eye cells sharing the same time w/ my brain cells, so there’s some unity, some cognizance. If there is no instant, where does cognizance come from? Is cognizance just a perception? Is it just an interpretation of something that doesn’t really exist? Then what is it a perception of? My nonexistence? Ok, my cognizance is a interpretation of a reality in which I don’t exist. Maybe I don’t really have the unity I feel. (((The modern world feels itself modern b/c it thinks the present is reality. I feel cognizance of myself b/c I am unaware of out side the impulse))) Maybe what I’m thinking right now, all the things I’ve thought for my life, all that I’ll think for the next 50 years, maybe it’s all just a noninstant. Maybe I’m just an electrical impulse made by a cell in my body, and I exist for only a millisecond (millisecond outside the universe of discourse), but me, the electrical impulse, lives a whole life time, or at least what it perceives as a whole life time. And every noninstance that passes a thousand me’s are made by a thousand impulses from a thousand cells and I am born a thousand times and die a thousand times and the thousand me’s think they’re the only me.

Or maybe there is no such thing as physics and that the rocks have everything I have, and that it thinks just like I think and that we’re not living or nonliving but just things that perceive other things and make up our own interpretation.

Or maybe I am the one thing actually existing and everything else is what I make up. Or maybe I am something the rock made up.

And all that could be just as good as things are now because an instant doesn’t exist an we are all isolated and so everyone is a preception, because everyone is being interpreted.

All because I’m not the sum of my parts, I’m not the sum of infinitely nonexistent parts. So that in the end the smallest unit of thing is perception, and every perception I perceive is a perception. I’ll never know what the rock thinks of me.

Self-awareness

I think one of the most important things to be is to be self-aware. It's like being able to step away from yourself and think about who you are. I don't mean just being level headed or being about to evaluate who are you, but more than that.

When you're a baby, self-awareness means knowing what you want. It's similar to feeling sorry for yourself. Then as a kid, self-awareness is an unrealistic feeling that you're special. Then everything after that seem different among people, they differ in how aware they are of themselves. But you really can't judge someone by the way they act. Some people just don't act like themselves. And there's some people who are calm and level headed who may not be all that self-aware. And it's different for everyone. Like maybe I know who I am-it's a feeling that's hard to explain-but there's no way for me to feel what you know about you. And I think for most people, they do want someone to share what they know about themselves. Or maybe they find someone special and that they want to know the special someone. Not just know them, but to be able to see them in the same way he sees himself-be able to step back and look at her the way he could see himself. It's more intense then when you walk around in the street and see a stranger and you know they came from some where and they're going somewhere, but you don't know where. It's like you know they have the same feeling, the same awareness about themselves as you do, and you wish you could tell them you know. But you can't because it'll sound stupid. You can't just say "hey, I know you know I know, I just want you to know that."

That's the best way I could explain it. To some people, this might appeal to you. But then again, it might all seem lame and arrogant or just a bunch of nonsense. Either way, it's alright. I really do believe in what I've said, but I can't explain it well enough. It sounds kinda lame to me too. I didn't like the book Siddartha much because most of it I couldn't relate to. One thing I do agreed w/ is that when you try to put your thoughts into words, it all sounds thoughtless.


Maybe time is relative. Is the me from last week the same me this week? Maybe it makes sense if I wasn't. If I was the same person, then why do I slack off for weeks and then pull an all-nighter? Aren't I hurting myself? If I was, why don't I learn to do the research papers when I'm suppose to? I must be two different people from moment to moment.

If you ask someone if they would change places with someone rich and famous, they'll might say no because i'll be like dying. Over the years, if we change, if our personality changes, isn't that like dying? Someone else takes over.

What keeps us cognizant? Maybe we're not embodied by our personality. Maybe that part of you that's always been aware is not part of your personality, maybe that's you. The part that's always been able to take a step back from the present emotional turmoil but maybe can't stop it. I guess if who I am, my life is that, I could keep myself even if I change.

I dont think my personality is able to look w/in itself. Only my cognizance can do that. I mean, can a person's niceness examine itself? Can niceness examine affection? Can generosity examine honesty? A person doesn't really describe himself to himself as "I am nice, affectionate, and generous." Rather, it recognizes these traits.

But whenever you're asked to describe yourself, you might say "I'm nice, generous..." Doesn't really describe yourself.


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LM: Jan. 21, 2000