That truly is the eternal question. Freewill or fate is almost like asking science or religion? Neither is ever fully right or wrong. It's simply a matter of the brain vs the heart, what kind of person you are. I would normally say that it's a combination, but IF I had to choose, I would say freewill.
There's a saying people have; "Everything happens for a reason." I've found that to be false, but at the same time frighteningly true. It's a paradox. Wow!!! For example, if someone brakes into your house, rifles through all your belongings, and takes whatever it is he or she wants, there are two ways to look at this situation. One side says that the thief, having little himself, randomly selected a house on a street (that just so happened to be your own) and snuck in to grab what he deemed necessary for his survival. Whether he took food and clothes, or he snatched jewelry and a camera to pawn off for food money. While you never know the real truth, the rational side explains the mentality behind it all.
On the other hand, there's religion. This side states that you were robbed so that God helps you understand humility and forgiveness. Yeah, right!!!! Being stolen from doesn't make you a better person, and it certainly doesn't make you feel sympathy towards the thief.
Even though "everything happens for a reason" both rationally and religiously speaking, I choose to believe the rational side. The side that says the thief's freewill (combined with other circumstances) lead him to bombard your house on that less than fateful afternoon. Freewill is what it's all about.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
The Big Bang vs. Personal Satisfacion
Which would it be?
1. Living a long, average-Joe life, but remaining known only to a small group of people, or
2. Living large, dying in your early twenties, but remaining insanely famous for the next 1,000 years.
The choice is obvious to me. Average-Joe all the way. While being famous is high on some people's priority list, to me fame is merely a relative state of being. When fame is mentioned, most people automatically think of the cliched movie star who runs around at parties, acts like an idiot, and makes the daily tabloids. But who's to say what famous really is anyway. There are many different types of fame. You could be rock star famous or founder-of-a-secret-island famous or even small-town-America kind of famous. You don't have to live it up in Hollywood to become known. Think about it, corpses that have been popping up daises for decades are still recognized everyday for their accomplishments. Newton, Einstein, Caesar, George Washington, and many, many more. Not to mention the fact that all these people lived long, satisfying lives and died at old ages.
Furthermore, what is so wrong with getting educated, finding a well paying job, settling down, traveling the world, raising kids, and growing old with the one person you've been able to stand for more then five minutes at a time for the rest of your life? Absolutely nothing. That's my plan. Even though my life so far may seem short in comparison to others, I have learned at least one important thing about myself. I'd much rather prefer to have many small, spaced out adventures with my close friends than to have one big adventure with random people I've never met before. But that's just my personal preference.
One other thing to consider is that people who die young and go out with a bang most often have the most painful ways of dying. When you look back on history, there have been rapes and murders, drug overdoses, bullet wounds that slowly kill you, drowning, and suffocation with poisonous gases. Now, which one would you want. Take your pick, but they all sound very painful to me. Old people are suppose to die, so naturally theirs would be much more painless. Those who want to die famous and young will probably have the saddest end of all.
1. Living a long, average-Joe life, but remaining known only to a small group of people, or
2. Living large, dying in your early twenties, but remaining insanely famous for the next 1,000 years.
The choice is obvious to me. Average-Joe all the way. While being famous is high on some people's priority list, to me fame is merely a relative state of being. When fame is mentioned, most people automatically think of the cliched movie star who runs around at parties, acts like an idiot, and makes the daily tabloids. But who's to say what famous really is anyway. There are many different types of fame. You could be rock star famous or founder-of-a-secret-island famous or even small-town-America kind of famous. You don't have to live it up in Hollywood to become known. Think about it, corpses that have been popping up daises for decades are still recognized everyday for their accomplishments. Newton, Einstein, Caesar, George Washington, and many, many more. Not to mention the fact that all these people lived long, satisfying lives and died at old ages.
Furthermore, what is so wrong with getting educated, finding a well paying job, settling down, traveling the world, raising kids, and growing old with the one person you've been able to stand for more then five minutes at a time for the rest of your life? Absolutely nothing. That's my plan. Even though my life so far may seem short in comparison to others, I have learned at least one important thing about myself. I'd much rather prefer to have many small, spaced out adventures with my close friends than to have one big adventure with random people I've never met before. But that's just my personal preference.
One other thing to consider is that people who die young and go out with a bang most often have the most painful ways of dying. When you look back on history, there have been rapes and murders, drug overdoses, bullet wounds that slowly kill you, drowning, and suffocation with poisonous gases. Now, which one would you want. Take your pick, but they all sound very painful to me. Old people are suppose to die, so naturally theirs would be much more painless. Those who want to die famous and young will probably have the saddest end of all.
Monday, September 10, 2007
The Hidden Savior
When I was younger, one of my favorite things to do was read a book. Whether my mom read out loud imitating the characters voices, or I read to myself slowly so as to not miss a single word, reading (for me) was a way to experience the world. Some of my all-time favorite books include Esperanza Rising, Chasing Redbird, and Who's Going to Take Care of Me?. As I look back on these stories, a few similarities pop out in my mind. First off, each book's protagonist is an outsider. They were either put this way due to a certain situation or by merely the nature of their personalities. Either way, they somehow are left out in the world. The second similarity appears in the shape of a boy. In these books, the boy, who in a sense is a savior, provides comfort in the vast world of insecurities. My interest always lies in whether the boy becomes a dear friend, or maybe something more. I like to think that everyone has a special person that takes away the anxiety one feels when forced into a strange situation.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
One In The Same
"The world, friend Govinda, is not perfect or on a slow journey toward perfection; no, it is perfect every moment; all sin already bears its forgiveness within itself; every little boy already bears the old man within himself, every infant bears death, every dying man bears eternal life. No one is able to look at someone else and know how far along on his journey he is; in the highwayman and dice player lurks a Buddha, in the Brahman lurks the highwayman." p. 77 Siddhartha
The quote from Siddhartha, implies that every emotion, every action already presides in each individual aspect of life. You aren't born either good or bad. You aren't either a success or a failure. You aren't either shy or outgoing. You're everything at once. Everything is inside you just waiting to be let out. What we see as an outside observer is one particular emotion or action at one time. I does not mean you are always that way. It simply means you expressed that part of you at that moment. Everyone has the potential to be everything.
Living in a western society, we as a group do not think in this mindset. We tend to believe that first impressions can tell us almost anything about a person. But based on Siddhartha, a first impression only reveals the specific emotion that person held at that time. Judging someone on your first meeting can be quite deceitful. However, in America, we think life is a journey and depending on where you are, it will determine who you are at that point in life.
The quote from Siddhartha, implies that every emotion, every action already presides in each individual aspect of life. You aren't born either good or bad. You aren't either a success or a failure. You aren't either shy or outgoing. You're everything at once. Everything is inside you just waiting to be let out. What we see as an outside observer is one particular emotion or action at one time. I does not mean you are always that way. It simply means you expressed that part of you at that moment. Everyone has the potential to be everything.
Living in a western society, we as a group do not think in this mindset. We tend to believe that first impressions can tell us almost anything about a person. But based on Siddhartha, a first impression only reveals the specific emotion that person held at that time. Judging someone on your first meeting can be quite deceitful. However, in America, we think life is a journey and depending on where you are, it will determine who you are at that point in life.
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