A Meditation On Undead Slasher Films

I’ve just read, from a recent forum, about the common motif found in typical undead slasher films (“Friday the 13th”, “Halloween”, etc.). Although it could be argued, but an author of a graphic novel, involving undead slashers, theorized as to why undead slashers target the people that they target in their films. They do what they do because they possess a burning irrational hatred for the things that are denied from them due to their very nature—youth, beauty, sex, etc.

This pattern seems very obvious, because in nearly every undead slasher film, it’s almost a general rule that if people make-out, they’re guaranteed to be victims. And in many undead slasher films, young beautiful teens tend to be targets.

Whether this theory is true or not in the context of the actual films, it reflects an important truth about the real world. There are many murders and evil acts that are driven by a sense (justified or not) of injustice. The feeling of “I was robbed in my life because ______(insert reason)” or “he/she/they don’t deserve _____ because I was never given _____” is an overwhelmingly common reason that drives many people to do the wrong things that they do.

These undead villains (Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kruger, Mike Meyers (even though he’s technically not undead)) are dark reflections of ourselves that we recoil from, yet find an odd attraction towards. In many ways, one could argue how this theme extends to the very nature of good and evil itself—where evil focuses mainly on the self above others (how I feel, the vengeance I want), while good tends to focus on others above self (for their good, to help them).

Yes, it’s true that the line between evil and good are easily blurred if one limits themselves only to the definition above (people can do evil things for the sake of others out of a twisted sense of morality or people can do good for themselves without doing evil), but if one searches for this pattern of evil being “self over others” in horror films, one could easily find it everywhere.

A Metaphor for Blogging - Fishing

Just this Saturday, I went on a fishing trip to Sandy Hook with a few of my friends. As we fished off the beach and casted our rods, I began to realize how much blogging was like fishing in many ways.

In fishing you need the perfect rod, the right type of bait, and the right line and sinker setup for whatever you aim to do or catch. In blogging, you need the right type of blog layout and the right type of content to catch the right type of crowd or to accomplish whatever you set out to accomplish.

In fishing you need both the patience and willingness to wait, even if, at the end of the day, all you get are a few bites. In blogging, patience is a necessity, because hardly ever does anyone become an instant success overnight. And if your blog only gets a few “bites” here and there each day, you have to learn to be content with it, even though you should always seek to get more.

In fishing, chance plays a humungous role. Maybe the fish aren’t biting today. Maybe you just picked a bad spot. Maybe the weather wasn’t on your side. Or maybe your bait wasn’t right for the fish in your area. Blogging’s the same way. According to Problogger, Darren Rowse, a lot of his success owed a lot to being at the right place at the right time. This isn’t so surprising because of the chaos and vastness of the Internet. Literally, the Internet has become a vast ocean where probability plays a huge factor in getting people to see your site.

When I finished the fishing trip, I only caught two Sea Robins (the fish pictured above). Though, my friends caught several times more fish than me, since it was my first time fishing off the beach, I was glad enough to get my two. Unfortunately for me, I also ended up catching a real bad sunburn in addition to my fish.

With all the similarities shared between blogging and fishing, it’s a good thing that, unlike fishing, blogging doesn’t give you sunburn!

Five Ways to Unclutter Your Life (Advice From a Mad Hermit)

1.) Clean Your Space – To unclutter the world within, the best place to start is to unclutter the world without. Plus, it makes living each day a little easier. Trust me, everyone can use a cleaner room.

2.) Make a List of Priorities – It doesn’t have to be long. But it should be something that you take some time to do. Write down, one at a time, a few goals to set for yourself. Cleaning your room or workspace could even be one of them. When you gather your priorities into a list that you can see in front of you, life becomes a little neater.

3.) Take a Break – Sometimes all we need is some time to ourselves. A “time out” just to relax, take a step back, and gather ourselves is an invaluable option. If things are going insane around you, there’s nothing like a breather to put a little sanity where it’s lacking.

4.) Reschedule When Possible – If your calendar is too cluttered, it won’t kill you to reschedule certain things, especially if you can reschedule them. For instance, pushing back a dental check up to free up time for other things won’t kill you, unless it’s major surgery. All it takes is a phone call. So why stress out about something that you can easily change?

5.) Get Healthier Habits – Sometimes it’s low energy levels that make our lives more cluttered rather than bad time management. So, if you feel that you don’t have the energy to run the race, learn how to rest in between strides. Get more sleep. Make curfews for yourself. Are eating habits not working for you? Eat healthier. Get exercise. Cause a little bit goes a long way.

Why Do You Write?

Every writer must eventually ask themselves why they write. Everything represents something when it comes to being human, whether we like the idea or not. Humans are a very symbolic race and every day we are immersed in symbols and, in many ways, driven by things that are symbolized by other things.

There have been countless writers and poets who have waxed poetically on what it means to write. In fact, many have intermingled and overused the words “soul”, “essence”, and “spirit” into the definition to such an extent that the craft of writing is deified beyond what it really is.

To some writers, writing could represent their desire for fame or recognition. For others it could go as far as representing their value as a human being (“I am valuable because I have the gift of writing.”) or their means of distinguishing themselves from everyone else. Some writers may have more lofty altruistic definitions than others, while other writers may sway towards the practical.

But the question, here, is this—if you’re a writer, what does writing represent to you? Or, more to the point, why do you write?

A Meditation on Sleep & Some Interesting Facts About It

Over the past year or two, I’ve come to realize, more and more, the importance of sleep. In youth, sleep is hardly a large concern and is often taken for granted in most cases. But once you grow older and things start to slow down with job, stress, and age, sleep becomes that silver lining that highlights the twilight clouds of later life.

Those with sleep apnea have it harder than others. Those with insomnia can take their situation as either a gift or a curse, depending on how they see it. For me, who happens to have a little bit of each, I see it this way—in any place that you might be, in any age that you happen to be, the simplest things that you take for granted now will hardly ever remain that way in the future. Because, although God didn’t need to rest on the seventh day of Creation, He did it anyway, not only to enjoy Himself, but also to be an example for us.

To have needs is to be a part of creation, but to rightfully cherish those needs is to ultimately acknowledge the Creator beyond it.


Sleep Facts (Taken from “The National Sleep Research Project”)

-The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon. The record holder reported hallucinations, paranoia, blurred vision, slurred speech and memory and concentration lapses.

- Anything less than five minutes to fall asleep at night means you're sleep deprived. The ideal is between 10 and 15 minutes, meaning you're still tired enough to sleep deeply, but not so exhausted you feel sleepy by day.

- REM sleep occurs in bursts totaling about 2 hours a night, usually beginning about 90 minutes after falling asleep.

- Dreams, once thought to occur only during REM sleep, also occur (but to a lesser extent) in non-REM sleep phases. It's possible there may not be a single moment of our sleep when we are actually dreamless.

- REM dreams are characterized by bizarre plots, but non-REM dreams are repetitive and thought-like, with little imagery - obsessively returning to a suspicion you left your mobile phone somewhere, for example.

- Some scientists believe we dream to fix experiences in long-term memory, that is, we dream about things worth remembering. Others reckon we dream about things worth forgetting - to eliminate overlapping memories that would otherwise clog up our brains.

- Scientists have not been able to explain a 1998 study showing a bright light shone on the backs of human knees can reset the brain's sleep-wake clock.

- Seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%.

- The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, the Challenger space shuttle disaster and the Chernobyl nuclear accident have all been attributed to human errors in which sleep-deprivation played a role.

- Tiny luminous rays from a digital alarm clock can be enough to disrupt the sleep cycle even if you do not fully wake. The light turns off a "neural switch" in the brain, causing levels of a key sleep chemical to decline within minutes.

- To drop off we must cool off; body temperature and the brain's sleep-wake cycle are closely linked. That's why hot summer nights can cause a restless sleep. The blood flow mechanism that transfers core body heat to the skin works best between 18 and 30 degrees. But later in life, the comfort zone shrinks to between 23 and 25 degrees - one reason why older people have more sleep disorders.

- Ducks at risk of attack by predators are able to balance the need for sleep and survival, keeping one half of the brain awake while the other slips into sleep mode.

- Ten per cent of snorers have sleep apnea, a disorder which causes sufferers to stop breathing up to 300 times a night and significantly increases the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke.

A Meditation on Handwriting

Several months ago, because of some unusual circumstances, I found myself without any access to a computer for roughly a month. So, throughout that one month, I was reduced to relying on the two things that I've neglected for many years--the notebook and the pen.

Without a computer, without Internet, but with a head full of ideas, I found myself writing in a notebook almost each night. But you know what? That one month without a computer was one of the most relaxing months that I ever had, not just because I had less distraction, but because of the feeling I got when putting pen to paper.

It's been a long time since I used only one hand to write. But the feeling of writing against that paper was almost like the organic feeling you get when you carve a piece of wood and see its features slowly conform to the image in your mind. Yes, it wasn't the neatest writing in the world and, yes, there were a few cross-outs here and there, but the feeling was well worth it--even the left over ink smudges on my hand left a sense of accomplishment.

As long as there are college lectures and the need to take quick notes in meetings, handwriting will always have its place. And although handwriting won't die out anytime soon, the sheer "art" of it, along with the recognition of its organic beauty, will eventually come to extinction without either the care or the heart of sentimental antiquity.

Every now and then, we should teach ourselves to write without the keyboard. At least all writers should try it if they haven't already. And when such homage is paid it shouldn't be in simple notes, but in whole letters or even short stories. Because when homage is given to an art that's as old as civilization, it should be given the amount that's due.

Is Too Much Information Killing Us?

We have the Internet. We have Wikipedia. We have Youtube. And we have more websites and blogs than anyone can count. And each and every day these "sources" grow, most of the time, exponentially.

But can all this someday destroy us? I'm not talking about information bringing about inevitable Doomsday with bombs and large explosions and stuff (though it could), but what I'm trying to say is this: can the overflow of information end up doing humanity more harm than good?

Some of the possible detriments that I could see arising, in the near future, from the overflow of information include:

1.) An increased sense of apathy towards discovery and exploration. This may lead to less enthusiasm for scientific advancement if the younger generations become less motivated to discover and explore.

2.) A decreased appreciation for knowledge for the sake of knowledge. People may become less willing to learn for the sake of learning and they learn only when their situation necessitates it. This could possibly lead to cultural detriment.

3.) Knowledge would become more of a commodity rather than an inherent right. With knowledge being pumped out each day, there's always cases where companies and corporations attempt to "red tape", legalize, and put a price tag on everything. This could lead to a more "tied up" legal system where most of the government's legal assets are spent on sorting out messes caused by increased information rather than towards more legitimate cases.

4.) Plagiarism and academic dishonesty may become rampant if left to itself (it's pretty rampant as it is now).

5.) As knowledge continues to grow, more knowledge will inevitably become available to the masses, including to the criminal elements present within the masses. If specific pieces of knowledge fall into the wrong hands (bomb building, weapons making, nuclear device production, etc.), dire consequences would no doubt follow.

6.) An increased “docile-ness” and gullibility among the masses. With too much information to handle, less people would bother to investigate products or pieces of information, because it would be too much trouble or too overwhelming to look into facts. People would, therefore, grow to mindlessly accept what they’re told out of both convenience and apathy, even if the information's wrong or misleading.

Overall, I believe that there's nothing wrong with acquiring and having information. It's just a matter of why and how you got that information and what you end up doing with it that makes it either "wrong" or "right". But where should we draw the line with this? Or should we draw a line at all? What say you?

Interesting Facts About Caffeine and Its Products

A few years ago, I bought this National Geographic issue devoted to caffeine. Found out some interesting stuff about it. Today, as I sit here drinking a large cup of French Roast, I couldn't help but think about the impact caffeine has over our daily lives (namely mine). Below are just some of the interesting facts about it from the January 2005 National Geographic article. To say the least, it was a real eyebrow raiser when I first read it and continues to be even when I flip through it, today.

- Studies suggest that extroverted people are less sensitive to caffeine's effects than introverts.

- Pain relievers fortified with caffeine have proven more effective than the analgesics used alone.

- The robusta coffee beans used in less expensive brands contain almost twice as much caffeine as the arabica beans favored by coffee connoisseurs.

- Military studies of subjects who hadn't slept for 48 hours showed that 600 mg of caffeine improved alertness and mood as much as 20 mg of amphetamine.

- Going without caffeine for a day and a half increases blood flow in the brain, which may explain why people get headaches when they first give it up.

- Caffeine is so acrid that it's used as a standard for "bitter" in training professional food tasters.

- The caffeine extracted from coffee beans to make decaf is sold to drug and soft drink manufaturers.

- Caffeine is being developed as a pesticide for slugs and snails.

- A university student in Wales committed suicide in 2002 when he deliberately swallowed caffeine pills equivalent to 100 cups of coffee.

- Black tea, green tea, and oolong are all made from the same plant; the differences in taste and color come from their processing.

- One of the newest products to wich the stimulant has been added: "Coffee tights" are panty hose with caffeine woven into their threads to supposedly help shrink thighs.

- Vietnam is now the second largest producer of coffee worldwide, but it's largely a nation of tea drinkers.

- Cigarette smoking nearly doubles the rate at which the body metabolizes caffeine.

A Meditation on Coffee

Coffee seems to have adapted a certain image over the years. It’s been used to represent studiousness and a strong work ethic. It’s been used to represent addiction and, ironically, even a healthy lifestyle (especially when someone orders a coffee with a shot of soy and a touch of skim milk). And, at times, its been used as a symbol of status and sophistication, depending on where the coffee is bought (e.g. Starbucks) and how it’s made (“I’ll have a Venti Macchiato with a dash of Madagascar cinnamon and some soy milk gently stirred in.”). If people were approached with this matter, there’s no doubt that some would try to deny this to varying degrees. But, the truth is, everyone’s familiar with this trend and, by now, it’s a basic given that America’s most popular drug has become one of America’s most popular means for people to wordlessly “communicate” with each other.

Who would have known that coffee, out all things, would have become such a measure of comparison or a means of classifying other people?

Every time I visit my local Starbucks, in the afternoon, I always see a group of young high school kids in line to pick up their “Tall Vanilla Lattes” or “Grande Frappucino’s”. With their hip clothing and their cutting edge cell-phones glued to their ears, they carry their cups with a certain non-chalant, yet extremely peacocking, manner. Not only are they way too young for coffee, but something tells me that at least one of the reasons why they’re there is for the style as opposed to basic necessity. Because, as crazy at it may seem, something tells me that they’re not struggling with a 40-60 hour work week and are in a desperate need of a caffeine fix to get them through the rest of the day.

Of course, many other things have been and continue to be used by people as a way classifying and dividing each other (cloths, cars, jewelry, etc.). That would never change. But coffee? Come on!

Feel free to call me a bitter old man or a narrow minded philistine. Heck, don’t even be afraid to call me a hypocrite (because I probably am to a certain degree with this subject--feel free, hipsters, to laugh at the irony of that). But there’s just something repulsive about making such a common thing as coffee into a status symbol. But that’s just me. Now, where did I put my Starbucks™ Grande Café Mocha?

My Two Cents on the Illinois Shooting and Gun Control

Ever since the recent shooting in Illinois, involving the young graduate student, the issue of gun control has cropped up all the more and questions have been raised about whether increased gun control could possibly prevent further school shootings in the future.

In my honest opinion, increasing gun control, at best, would only be a temporary fix to the problem and, at worst, be a solution that may not have any effect at all. The reason why I say this is because the people who would tend to perpetrate such crimes are individuals who are often willing to be patient and resourceful enough to find ways of acquiring what they need to commit their crimes. All in all, they are desperate people, who see that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing what they devoted themselves to do. Making it more difficult to access firearms, may retard their efforts to carry out their agenda, but if a person's desperate enough they will acquire a firearm whether legally or illegally (such as stealing one from a parent, relative, or even stranger). Having an enforced gun law would do little against them.

Many people these days, make the mistake of assuming that it is the access to guns or the presence of violence in our culture that are the ultimate root of the school shooting problem. Though violence in the media can play a role and though convenient access to firearms can make it easier to carry out a shooting, the ultimate root of these incidents lie in the choice of the individuals involved and whatever factors made them to be the way they are. Overall, the politics of gun control in America hasn't changed that drastically over the past decade or so. However, the frequency of actual school shootings and potential school shootings has increased significantly in the recent years—very few would argue that.

These shootings, by and large, are a result of a greater disease and increasing gun control will only mask the symptoms of this disease for the short term rather than cure it.

To treat this spiritual disease, people and children need to be taught to respect and care for one another at an early age. Bullying needs to be curbed and prevented in every school and environment and pro-active programs devoted to better parenting skills need to be implemented on a much larger scale. Schools must be involved, parents must be fully committed and, yes, churches everywhere must make every effort. And this doesn’t just mean paying lip-service here and there; this means actually doing something and taking action. Because the two main histories that nearly every perpetrator of nearly every school shooting share is a history of bullying and a history of having a distant family.

This is my two cents.

A Super Bowl Super Meditation

Just this weekend I watched the Super Bowl with a couple of the guys over at my cousin's place. Obviously, since we were practically all from NJ, we rooted for the Giants.

Personally, I never followed football. And to be honest, I never really saw the point of it to begin with. But for some reason, this Super Bowl actually had me enthralled. Maybe I'm starting to get it and maybe I'm not, but last Sunday's experience brought up a good point when it comes to living life.

Yes, people have their favorites and some things can be person's cup of tea, while other things can't. There's nothing wrong with that. But the point is, whether you may prefer one thing over the other, the secret to life is finding some degree of joy in everything no matter how "not you" that thing might be. This of course comes with exceptions, like one shouldn't try to find joy in senseless evil and such. And of course, this doesn't mean that you should always pretend that everything in the world is beautiful, while turning a blind eye to the things that are wrong with it.

But taking this ideal in, while being realistic ad practical, is a real healthy practice to learn. Too bad, I'm still a long way from learning it. GO GIANTS!!!

Miserable With the Truth or Happy With the Lie?

I've asked this question to my friends and I've received varying responses all around. For a while, I've theorized whether one's answer to this question really reflects the essence of one's character or whether it didn't matter at all. Well, nothing's conclusive yet.

But putting all speculation aside, would you rather be miserable knowing the truth or happy with living a lie?

For me, though I don't follow my decisions perfectly, I would choose to be miserable knowing the truth because:

a.) I believe the truth will always come out in the end, so what's the point of lying to yourself. The truth is the truth, no matter how you feel about it. Live with it.
b.) I can't imagine myself being able to live happily knowing that something is seriously wrong. Oh yeah, did I mention that I'm a compulsive worrier?
c.) I'm an aspiring writer. So, in a way, I'm already a glutton for emotional abuse and self-torture. Might as well be consistent.

For all you readers out there, which is about a whole 4 of you, what's your view?

The Anatomy of Horror

The genre horror, in its most elemental form, is the cathartic exploration of human nature--the examination of what people fear with the hope of overcoming that fear/evil through some means or another. It is there to bring to the surface the things that people in general don't like to face and force them to face it. Whether it is through this act alone that allows people to get in touch with their higher selves or whether a moral is told through specific tales of horror--the need for catharsis and an eventual epiphany through that catharsis should be the focal point of every horror. All in all, I will say that this is pretty much stating the obvious, especially to all horror fans out there. But people need to be reminded of this.

With all the horror works that come out each year, it's becoming too easy to get caught up in the gore for the sake of gore; the shock for the sake of shock, while missing the entire point of what horror is meant to be. Yes, horror movies and stories are there to entertain, but all art (even the darker forms), in my view, should be there to make us into better people, in some way or another, rather than to degrade us.

If Monsters Existed...

Would the world be a better place if monsters (as in supernatural monsters) really existed? It seems like a strange enough question to ask, but when put under the microscope, there's actually more to it than that.

Assuming that the monsters aren't too overpowered or numerous, would it actually help humanity in the long run?

Here are some of the possible pros:
1.) Since there would be one entity/entities to act as a universal nemesis to mankind, mankind would most likely learn to set aside their differences and learn to fight against it in a unified front rather than with each other.
2.) People would learn to take life less for granted and they'll learn to cherish it more.
3.) Less moral ambiguity. With the existence of monsters, people can now assign a "face" to evil, which is good, especially when that face is absolutely inhuman.
4.) With the constant struggle against monsters, technology can possibly develop at a quickened pace.
5.) The monsters can limit the population of humanity and prevent over-population.

But here are the possible cons:
1.) Depending on the circumstance and the intelligence of the monsters, humanity can lose or even become enslaved by them.
2.) Any technology developed out of the struggle against the monsters may be destructive and may spell disaster for humanity in the long term.
3.) Monsters kill innocent people. Whether or not you see this as population control, killing innocent people is still killing innocent people.
4.) The existence of supernatural monsters doesn't necessarily mean a unified humanity. Certain governments or factions may attempt to exploit or even "domesticate" these creatures for their own agenda.
5.) The existence of supernatural monsters can divide humanity even more, especially in terms of the world religions, who may end up arguing over the nature of these creatures as a whole.

Would the world be a better place with monsters? Hard to say.

Not Okay To Be Normal?

It has become almost instinctual for everyone (depending on the context) to recoil from the idea of being "normal". Nowadays, it's no longer considered okay to be "normal". We must be different. We must "go against the flow"--we must all be different, as though being different or individually unique is an act that requires conscious effort as opposed to something that's simply innate or natural. But, the truth is, is this the thing that people should be worried about more than anything else? Should this be the primary objective in our life? The answer seems obvious, yet there are still many people out there who have made "being different just for the sake of it" the center of their universe (sometimes even at the expense of others).

There is nothing wrong being normal. There is nothing wrong with being average. And there is nothing wrong with being just a face in the crowd.

We, as human beings, seek out significance, as though it was something that must be "earned" as opposed to something that is inherent in being human. The fact is, though one can gain "significance" in certain contexts--such as being a significant contributor to a project or a company--significance in terms of inherent value comes with the territory of being created in God's image.

Every human being, "different" or "ordinary", exceptional or average is unique within the grand scheme of things as man is the only creature in existence created in the image of the Creator. Not even the angels themselves were given that gift--that high honor. Until human beings begin to see that more and more and recognize the Creator and our place with Him--then the search for significance in the wrong places will always remain an issue for man.

Another Meditation

The other night, I was up watching an Oprah rerun (there was really nothing else to watch). During that episode, she featured a story of a homeless man who was given $100,000 from a documentary producer who was conducting a social experiment. Over the next few months, the homeless man spent much of his money on frivolous purchases and indulgences. After only a few months, all of the money was gone and he's now back on the streets. A link to this story can be found here. After watching this story, I found it all to be a very tragic and frustrating and I'm pretty sure that there are many other people out there who feel the same.

But all of this reminds me about how a good portion of the problems that most people face spawn from their internal struggles as opposed to their external situation. I've heard many stories of people who were absolutely miserable and ended up killing themselves even though they had everything--a nice house, tons of money, and a successful family. I've also heard of people who really didn't have much, but were still happy with everything they had in their life.

Most of the time, we associate the idea of happiness with something that's external--if only if I had this or that or if only things were like this, then I'll be happy. Rarely, do we ever stop to consider that happiness is as much (if not more) an internal thing as it is external.

The Psychology of Atheism

Found this interesting read from an orthodox blog regarding the psychology behind atheism. This read was, in turn, taken from Dinesh D'Souza's book "What’s So Great About Christianity". Here it is:

Sigmund Freud saw religion as providing a cowardly refuge from the harsh realities of life and the inevitability of death... Wish fulfillment would most likely give rise to a very different God than the one described in the Bible. Wish fulfillment can explain heaven, but it cannot explain hell.

... the reason many atheists are drawn to deny God, and especially the Christian God, is to avoid having to answer in the next life for their lack of moral restraint in this one.

In a powerful essay, “The Discreet Charm of Nihilism,” Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz argues that in order to escape from an eternal fate in which our sins are punished, man seeks to free himself from religion. “A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death—the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders, we are not going to be judged.” So the Marxist doctrine needs to be revised. It is not religion that is the opiate of the people, but atheism that is the opiate of the morally corrupt.

If you want to live a degenerate life, God is your mortal enemy. He represents a lethal danger to your selfishness, greed, lechery and hatred. It is in your interest to despise Him and do whatever you can to rid the universe of His presence.

To me, this makes very much sense and can easily be one of the major reasons why many people turn to atheism. It's sad really. But at the same time, it gives hope to those who choose to be in a state of unbelief. For one, it confronts them with the reality of the issue.

Because just as they may think that religion is only a psychological crutch, the denial of religion can equally be so (perhaps even to a greater extent).

A Reflection on Solitude

Solitude is, by itself, a skill to master. People all around the world keep saying that only some people are "born" with or "wired" with the ability to find joy in isolation. But the truth is, everyone, even extroverts, need to master the art of solitude, no matter how elusive it may be for them.

Solitude is given all matters of stigma throughout our modern day, "hustle and bustle" society. It tends to imply that, when one is alone, that individual's a pariah for not engaging with society or tending to social events simply for the sake of it. But just as King Solomon once said that there is a time and place for everything--there is always a time and place for being alone.

One of the many disciplines involved in solitude is the art of reflection and tapping into a contentment that can only be gained by tapping into the inward.

In man's never-ending search for outward distraction and amusement, one can easily fall victim to callusing themselves to all forms of excitement, simply by over-use and repetition. But one who has mastered the art of solitude can be able to sit still in one place, alone, and still discover contentment. And, from that moment of being alone, they are renewed and rejuvenated, not only for themselves, but also in their interaction with others, their loved ones, and the rest of the world when they stop being alone. The secret lies in balance (for lack of a better term) and sadly people tend to go to either extreme.

This, by itself, is another aspect of mastering solitude--knowing when one needs it and knowing when it's too much.

Learning to Survive the Everyday

While I was running a few errands today, I stopped by a gas station to fuel up my car. Pulling behind the car up in front of me, at the front pump, I was suddenly honked by a van a little bit off to the side of the gas station. Apparently, he was waiting in line before I came onto the scene. The only problem was, he wasn't even in line at all.

In fact, not only was his van several yards away from the pump that I pulled into, but the guy was talking on his cell phone the entire time and didn't even bother to pull up behind the car in front him. So the problem was basically this--if he was waiting in line then he should have BEEN in line, so people won't make the mistake (like I did) that he wasn't on line.

Overall, it was a simple misunderstanding and one of my knee jerk reactions was getting all angry about it. But you know what? I decided not to and that's what got me thinking.

Being that it was still the holiday season and given that I live in one of the most over crowded states in the world (NJ), it's not a big surprise to see the roads crowded with tons of people looking for post-Christmas deals and cutting people of here and there. At times all this rush can drive anyone nuts. But the thing is, all of us are driven nuts by simple things only when we allow them to drive us nuts. So how do we not allow these things to drive us nuts? Well, it's quite intuitive actually.

First of all, we could learn not to put ourselves in situations that are prone to bring annoyances upon us. That could include waking up early, being organized, and not waiting until the last minute.

And second of all, we could actually choose to not allow mishaps to ruin our day. Yes, sometimes situations can get so bad that feeling miserable is unavoidable. But when it comes to just dealing with simple problems, we just have to keep in mind that those simple things that annoy us are exactly that--SIMPLE things. Though they will and do make us upset for the moment, but it's really up to us to decide if we allow them to get to us or not.

Personally, I always had trouble with keeping the right attitude even during simple situations. I mean, it's only human to not be perfect. But for today, I think I'll decide to be happy. Yeah, that's a good idea.

Random Meditations

For some reason I feel restless tonight. It's like a strange feeling of having the desire to write or to be productive, but at the same time not feeling like doing anything at all, especially during times of writer's block. This isn't the first time I felt like this. And obviously it wouldn't be the last.

For some reason this reminds me of a unique psychological condition known as "hypergraphia". A person with this condition essentially suffers from the continuous "compulsion" to constantly write. Supposedly Van Gough, the artist, suffered from this disorder and, according to some biblical scholars, the prophet Ezekial somewhat suffered from this condition as well (supposedly).

Personally, whenever I'm at a creative dead end, I have the tendency to envy those who have this condition. But at the same time I realize that the envy that I feel is narrow-minded, since what I'm wishing for is a life-debalitating condition that causes suffering to whoever has it.

It's quite strange how we tend to envy people for certain things, only to choke on the very things we envy once we received them. The problem that we have, as humans, is the tendency to idealize or repeat to ourselve "if only" continuosly without even thinking. This habit is almost intuitive to the human condition. I feel that this is because we know, deep down, that there must be something better than THIS--a world where everything that's suppose to be IS.

In a way, it's as though humanity has been imprinted within them the instict of Eden--the instinct that we are all exiles from a place that was perfect, but no longer is and that we must come back; that we must return home.