Selfless

“Why a doctor?  Why not an artist?”

A friend asked me this the other day, and it caused me to evaluate my reasons for desiring both, and what it’s kind of...saying about me.

I’ve wanted to be a doctor for so long.  I want to help people.  I’ve wanted to help people who actually have legitimate problems.  I don’t have the patience for psychiatry.  I don’t even believe in psychiatry.  I don’t want to listen to people with their fake problems and pretend to understand them, because I most likely won’t.

So I decided I wanted to be an oncologist.  I’m strong, emotionally.  I’m not the kind of person that is going to lose my composure while treating cases as awful as cancer can be.  Cancer patients need someone they can count on, and I’m that person.

I wouldn’t want to leave them to incompetent fools.  I know I can take care of them.

However....over the past few years I’ve discovered my severe love of art.  Art is highly mathematical for me.  Combining two of my favourite areas - math and art - seems like it would just be an ideal future.

So why not an artist?

I feel like being an artist would be a selfish choice.  Obviously, finding employment would not necessarily be easy, but after I did, my life wouldn’t be that hard.  Art school isn’t easy, but I’d bet it’s easier than Med school.  Art is also a form of expression, and it motivates people and helps them through inspiration, but in reality it’s wreaking the greatest benefit to me.  I’m the one that gets to express my ideas and concepts...It’s just up to other people to interpret them.

However, I still feel like it’s an easy way out.

Being a doctor....people would think that’s the selfish decision.  Because I’d be making a lot of money, people would think that would be more gain for myself.  But in all honesty, a lot of people don’t do it because they don’t want to sacrifice the money that it takes to get there...nor the time.  Being a doctor is stressful.  You constantly have to be waiting on people, and you can be called in for any emergency.

Being a doctor is much harder.  It takes more time, money, patience, and understanding.  If I all of the sudden decided to be an artist....I’d feel like I was just taking the easy way out.  And I’m not that kind of person.

I don’t want to be selfish.  I want to be one of those people that starts changing the world through self sacrifice and caring.

I don't like you, but I need you.

Can happiness exist without sadness?

Everyone always wants their lives to be perfect.  We always want to live in a world without pain, without sorrow, without hardships.  But if we lived in such a world, would we even be able to truly appreciate the good fortune we were blessed with?

The concept of a perfect world sounds...well, perfect.  However, we wouldn’t be able to even perceive how perfect everything was if we didn’t know the opposite.  In order to truly appreciate joy, you must experience sorrow.  You must have that basis of comparison.  If you’ve never experienced sorrow, then how can you know when something is positive?  You couldn’t.  It would just seem normal.

A world without misery would cause us all to take what we had for granted.

In order for humans to understand what happiness is, we must first understand that it is not the only thing out there.  If all we knew was happiness, then happiness would just seem normal, and in general, people are dissatisfied with normality.  Officially, a 75% is considered an average grade.  However, humans are, by nature, competitive.  By nature, we don’t like to be deemed “average”  or “ordinary,” so we feel compelled to go above and beyond that, because we know that there is something better.

So really, if everything in the world was perfect, then we would still be just as dissatisfied as we are now, because we’d be incapable of moving beyond and advancing from others.

If sadness didn’t exist, we still wouldn’t be happy.  We would just...be.

Our existence depends upon the interrelation of emotions in order to create satisfaction.  All we want is to be satisfied.

Konichiwaaaaa

Ignorant.

People who say we shouldn’t care so much about Japan are just ignorant.  I’ve heard from multiple people that Japan didn’t help us when Katrina hit, and that they just sent us “pocket change.”  I’ve heard people say that they don’t deserve our help because of that, and that we’re in an economic depression anyway, so we need to take care of ourselves.  And we do need to worry about our own country, but saying they don’t deserve our help is inhumane.  Natural disasters are brutal, and they’re not something we can control.

It’s so frustrating that people are so quick to dismiss things like this.  People are constantly only looking for the benefit that THEY can personally get out of things.  Japan didn’t help us, so we’re not going to help them.  What kind of a world are we going to create with philosophies like that?

If we all keep living with the general philosophy that we’re not going to help someone unless they help us, no one is going to help anyone.  Someone has to start.  Someone has to put their foot forward.  As soon as one of us makes the effort to be the bigger person, and help the other, then we can begin the process of making a better world.

But until then, we’re not going to make any progress.  We’re all just going to be power hungry, money hungry, self centered masses of people.  

YOU, my darlings, are kidding yourselves.

Love is the immense capacity of emotion that one person holds for another.  It’s such a concentration of feelings that in your passion, it’s easy to let emotions, positive or negative, get the best of you.

However, even if in your passion, negative emotions are put upon the person you love, your love for them prevents you from taking things too far.  If you love someone, you should never want to hurt them, and your desire to bring them happiness should override any torrent of anger that beseeches you.

At least, in theory.

So many couples fight SO often.  I’ve heard them say the nastiest, rudest things about each other.  It’s no secret that there are many abusive relationships.  And yet...they all claim to be in love.  That’s why they stay together, isn’t it?  “I love him. I can’t leave him.” or “I love her, it doesn’t matter.”

It freaking matters.  You should never want to hurt someone that you “love”.

But if emotions are just ways that we interpret stimuli, then does love really exist?  If all it is is a bodily reaction....then why should it influence us at all?

Regardless.  If you love someone, you should be trying to be the best that you can be fore them.  This often....is just not the case.

Or is that theory actually correct, and it’s just that all of these people aren’t truly “in love”?  That’s actually much more plausible to me, because I have a really hard time believing that a lot of emotions really exist.  I mean...I know they exist.  But I think that people just misinterpret their emotions, so what they think is love is really just a fondness.  Love is passionate, but always selfless.  And that just doesn’t define a lot of couples that I see.

And I’m not just talking about teenagers, I’m talking about everyone.  The divorce rate is staggering.

Everyone should just stop kidding themselves and not settle for anyone less than the person that makes them as happy as they can be, and makes them want to be the best they can be.

Stop. Just stop.

Racism is obsolete.

The Human Genome Project began in the early 90’s.  Its goal was first to write down and discover every base pair on human DNA.  Later, they decoded the base pairs and discovered the functions of all of the genes.

But my point is more in the discovery of the base pairs.  They discovered that humans are 99.9% genetically identical.  In that .1% of variance, humans have found hundreds of reasons to discriminate against each other.  It seems illogical that we can discriminate against people whom are 99.9% exactly like ourselves, but humans as a whole are an extremely irrational species.

We have so little variance in our genes because we are such a young species.

There’s not really a whole lot to say about this.  It just doesn’t make sense to me that we are all SO alike, and yet can be so prejudiced.  Intolerance literally makes me want to punch people in the face.  Not trying to like...totally shout out the fact that I'm asian, but BEING asian, I've gotten a lot of crap about stereotypes.  But since I'm basically you, a few base pairs off, how the heck can you say all the things that you do.  It's rude, and now that we know how closely all humans are related, completely obsolete.

Livin' the lifestyle.

Someone just asked me why I don’t consider being an artist a career option, and I didn’t really have a plausible answer for them.  I guess I just never really give it much thought because I don’t think I’m good enough, and because I’ve just wanted to be a doctor for so long that it seems like...impossible for me to choose another path.  However, I actually started weighing the pros and cons of being an artist....the lifestyle is an interesting concept, to say the least.

Negatives:

• No sleep

• Bad eating habits (because there’s no time to cook)

• Accidentally eating art supplies

• Inhaling art supplies

• Tons of energy drinks

• Poor mental health

• Correlations to depression

• Underpaid

• Hard to find work

• Every friend you ever have ever asks you for a picture

• They don’t stop asking for it

• Ever

• Usually inactive

• Usually have appearance that adults don’t find appropriate

• Most do drugs

• No sleep

Positives:

• See an attractive person: “I must draw you”

• You aren’t expected to be anywhere near fit

• You make money doing something you love

• You don’t have to spend any money on presents

• You’re not boring

• Other not boring people will be your friends through college

• You make life not boring

• People are jelly

• Your clothes are more awesome

• Nudity is okay (to draw)

Playboybunnyisdumb.

I’m obviously not the type of person that’s against body modification.

Okay......scarification really creeps me out sometimes.  Sometimes I think it’s cool.  But seriously it’s kind of creepy.....but I feel as if I have no right to say that because I have a love affair with piercings/tattoos.  At one point in time, they were looked at as disgusting too, before they made their way into pop culture.

Anyway.  I’m not against body modification.  Piercings aren’t permanent, so I don’t generally have a problem with getting them on a whim just to try it out.  The scars aren’t even noticeable unless you’re looking for it, they’re literally about the size of a pinprick if you’ve taken proper care of your piercing.  Tattoos, however.....are permanent.  You’re stuck with those for life, so they sure as hell better mean something.

There’s this girl.  She’s a junior.  She has a really poorly done pink heart with a black playboy bunny head right in the middle of it....on her hip.  And it’s not like it’s a small tattoo, it’s only a little smaller than my palm.

GIRL WHAT DA HECK YOU THINKIN. YOU’RE NOT EVEN A PLAYBOY BUNNY THAT THING MEANS NOTHING TO YOU.

If you’re aspiring to be a playboy bunny....you might want to reevaluate your priorities.

Things like that piss me off.

I’m getting a tattoo on the inside of my right arm that says, “I am not alone.”  It’s from the mission statement of a group that I’m really into...It’s like a support system for drug abuse, depression, abuse, self harm, and just general negative things that people tend to live with.  They’re trying to get people to realize that their lives do matter.  And I’m really into that.  And they’ve helped me before and provided motivation for me to change certain things about myself.  This is just a reminder for myself...to keep the change that I’ve managed to bring upon myself, and not to go back to old habits.  It’s a reminder that I find myself needing in more ways than one sometimes.

I’m also getting a tree...it goes from the inside of one hip, to my back and up my shoulder blade.  On the middle, there are little blooming flowers, which are a pale pink, and the only color on the entire design.  It’s a symbol of life.  I am alive.  Despite everything...I’m alive, and I’m growing to be the best person I can be.  It’s a new beginning.  I’m transforming from the dark, gray person I used to be and into someone with a zest for life and being alive.  I’m embarking on a new part of my life.  The flowers on the tree are symbols of spring....I’m in the spring of my life.  Winter is over, the darkest days are over, and I’m still here.  Growing.  Blossoming.  Becoming more beautiful in spirit.

If you’re going to put something permanently on your body...I don’t see why you’d want something meaningless.  It should be something to remind you of where you’ve been and where you’re trying to go.  It shouldn’t be something that people can look at and dismiss as “ugly.”  It should be a part of you and your beauty. Because we all are uniquely beautiful.

You =/= me. Them =/= you.

I have this friend.  Let’s call this friend a she because girls are generally irrational.

I have a friend that likes to compare everyone else’s problems with her own.

She likes to say that someone doesn’t know “real pain” because they haven’t experienced the exact hardships of her life.  She likes to say that people don’t “understand” her because her life is so hard.

Let me tell you girl, you don’t know hard.  You have parents that love you, you have a house, you have food, you have siblings, and you have known happiness.

I’ve known darker places than most people have.  I’ve known what it’s like not to be loved, or cared about, and I’ve known what it’s like to exist only as a burden to the people I’m with.  And yet....I seem to be much more content with myself and my life, and I don’t feel the incessant need to criticize everyone and compare them to myself.  I understand that our experiences are different, and so obviously different things are going to cause them pain and hurt than what cause me such emotions.

All life is relative.  Thus, because we all experience different things to shape our opinions, and because we all are different emotionally, everything about life is going to have a different effect.  I cannot logically hold someone to the same standards of pain that I know.  I cannot logically tell someone that their problems aren’t “real” problems just because they may not be the same, or as drastic, as my own.  Because to that person, they’re real.  And especially when those people are your friends, you should be doing everything in your power to make them feel better, not shoot them down and tell them they’re being stupid and weak.

I may say that no one is going to fully understand me because they don’t know what I’ve known...but we can never truly understand anyone.  Not completely.  But I’m okay with that.

ACT SAT NMSQT LMNOP

Standardized tests are REALLY unfair.

I just took the SAT the other week.  I thought I rocked its world.

At least I hope...because I didn’t do that hot on the ACT.  I consistently reassure myself by telling myself that I took the ACT on the day that I got sick with something that made me lost 5 pounds over the course of three days.

Regardless.  I’m aware that they’re “standardized” for a reason...To compare every potential college student against one another.  But different schools teach different things.  We’re all prepared differently.  There’s this whole array of different things that the colleges want us to know...but at the same time, our teachers have to teach in order to meet the state requirements.  We can’t satisfy everything.  There are only so many hours in a day.

The science section of the ACT is probably the most unfair section out of both tests.  The questions and scenarios are ridiculous.  The only reason I get through it and score well is by skipping the setup scenario and data ENTIRELY and going to the questions, then looking at a specific set of data and answering the question.  And only look at what the question is asking.  Because all of the information they give you is completely unnecessary, and I would not be surprised at ALL if they are just testing your ability to sort through BS.

That’s what a lot of life seems to be, though, so maybe it’s an applicable part of the test....

Again, it’s just completely unfair for them to judge us and basically determine our future based upon what they think we should know.  Going to college should be determined by our ability to gain knowledge and retain knowledge...not guessing what we’re going to need to know for a  test.

AGT pairs with TCA

“You are your parents.”

In bio we keep talking about this...and how no matter how much we try and say otherwise, we are a product of our parents.  They made us.  Everything that was inside of them is now inside of us....without them, we are nothing.

Thinking about that scares me.  I don’t exactly have the best genes.

I’m assuming that no one reads this and I dearly hope I’m right.

If we are our parents, then I feel as if you can just look at where they are to know where you’re going to go in life.  I know this isn’t exactly accurate, but if you look at families, they all generally resemble each other.  Of course there’s always the black sheep, but in general...families are patterns.

I can’t exactly go too far back with this seeing as my real family is all probably dead in Vietnam.  My mother and uncle were adopted twins.  My adoptive grandmother...well, I guess she’s also my mother because of some legal family matters...weird...but she’s generally not what I want to turn out like.  She’s uneducated, and uninformed, but she acts as if she is both well educated AND informed.  In reality, she’s not.  She’s a highly bias conservative that claims to be an independent.  My grandfather is someone that thinks he’s much smarter than he is because he got into a big corporation before there was a serious stress on education.  My mother didn’t even go to college and instead danced around poles until ten or so years ago.  My dad is/was a conman that we ran away from for a plethora of reasons.  Everyone I grew up around and everyone I’m a part of is someone I don’t want to be like.

Abused children always say they’re not going to be like their parents...but most of the time, they just end up doing the same things.  Am I going to be like that?  Does my extreme duress over worrying about this make it less probable that I’m going to turn out like them?

I don’t want to be a product of my genes and I don’t want to turn into the people I’ve come from.  I’m dedicated to changing myself as much as possible to be as unlike them as possible.  But in trying to change myself so drastically, will I even be myself anymore?  Or will I just lose my identity?  Is that better or worse than just becoming a screw up, if that’s who I am?

F genetics.

gtfo.

This is going to be a short spew of frustration..... :|

When I was at the gym today, there was a woman walking on a treadmill....and talking on the phone.  I don’t understand what the heck she thinks she’s doing, but obviously if you’re able to talk on a phone in completely comprehensible speech, you’re not exactly working hard enough.

But some people go to the gym and workout for completely superficial reasons.  I feel as if half of the people that “work out” only go there and put in as minimal amount of work as possible just to make themselves feel better about their bodies.  If you’re not there to do yourself any real good, then you might as well get out and stop using something that some of us could be putting to better use.

I go to the gym because it makes me healthy.  It gives me confidence.  And I’m just better off physically, because goodness knows I didn’t exactly start off with the best health.  But people like that...who can completely disregard that they’re not doing anything to better themselves...make me mad.  You’re already there, you’re already on the thing, at least put in some real effort.  Or lift some weights.  I love weights.

It just seems like a waste of time.  Go read a book instead.

There’s also a man that always goes on the stationary bike and reads...I meet so many interesting people at the gym.

Like the man that takes the clock off the wall.  But that’s another story.

2012 may only be a little off....

The apocalypse is going to basically just be a massive world war over food.

By 2050, the world population is predicted to be 9 billion.  We’re going to have to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the past 8 thousand.  That’s a lot of food.  The only reason we’ve even been able to produce as much food as we have is because of genetic engineering....and even that can only be taken so far.  HOW are we going to produce enough food to feed 9 billion people?

We’re all going to go insane.  And kill each other over food.  I wish this was a joke, but in all seriousness it’s completely plausible.

However, I suppose it’ll bring back a sense of “survival of the fittest”.  Ever since we started inventing things to accommodate the less “superior” people, humans have been passing on less efficient genes.  People who lacked cleverness or strength used to be taken care of by predators, or starve because they couldn’t fend for themselves.  But we accommodate for those people in modern society.  But if we literally have to fight to eat...then the less genetically fortunate human beings are going to be picked right out of society all over again.

Well, I guess it’s just another form of population control.

Welcome back.

Recently I’ve become reacquainted with someone that I wish had stayed part of my life during the time that our friendship was nonexistent.

We were friends a while ago, and a chain of events severed that.  However, now that we’re older and more mature...things are starting to work again.  We’re starting to work again.  I don’t know them very well anymore, but at the same time, I feel as if I know them better than anyone.  Because we began with each other...our start through the journey of adolescence began with each other.  So in a way, we helped to form the people we are today.  We both know who we were before we were who we are now...if that makes any sense at all.

Regardless.  I feel as if I can’t go where I’m supposed to go in life without remembering where I’ve been.  So this friendship, come back to haunt me from wherever it was hiding, is probably a good thing...I hope.

I wish we’d kept being friends.  I don’t trust many people.  But this person knew more about me than anyone at the time.  It’s hard to live without someone you can confide in.  I guess when I lost that friendship I also lost that convenience.  Maybe that’s why I’m crazy.

Living in isolation is impossible, but I tried....and I tried hard.  But it ended up doing more harm than good.

This is a lesson in remembering what’s truly important, and how nothing should get in the way of those things.