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I do not usually speak about myself but I need a little advice and I think the onlyway is to tell a little about myself and my ideas, and maybe even get some insighton other things. I am not a good writer, many English teachers have told me I amquite the opposite, but I ask you to try and look at what I am truly attempting to say. You may find details that are inaccurate, but just try to see the big picture (which isobviously up to your own interpretation). I am sorry if it is a little long, and it isactually the second longest thing I think I have ever written. Maybe my ideas arecompletely wrong. This is why I am looking for some clarification and advice, and foryou to treat my disease. It’s called ignorance, and I use this term to mean a lack of knowledge, or more importantly, understanding of things.I am an undergraduate in college and I am relatively lonely. I do have friends, orpeople that I spend my time hanging out with, but I am not able to find much incommon with most of them. I have not been able to find many in my entire life thatI really feel connected to at all. I have always been relatively shy, but I do try to getinvolved with things and meet people. I guess I am the typical rebellious teen whodeep down tries to think he/she is so much different than everyone else (I knowmany of us have this feeling but never admit it). However, I do not walk down thestreets with a 2 foot Mohawk or with black clothes and chains hanging from myears, or with pants much too tight and pink hair, or with clothes much too big to fit, jewelry hanging from my ears and neck, and something used to barbeque chickenand steak in my mouth (it’s called a grill for all those who are not “in” on what iship).I have never understood why people try to be different by acting the same aseveryone else who tries to be different. I guess I am strange but clothing has alwaysmattered very little to me, and I usually just try to wear very basic things thatsociety accepts as average or normal. One is not defined by the clothes one wearsor how one looks, but by who one is on the inside and the thoughts and personalityone has developed, however my testicles and the chemicals in my brain tell medifferently all of the time (I know I am just so shallow, I wish I could be more like allof you). Maybe I am being ignorant and arrogant, but I do not really see whyclothing is such a giant deal in our society, from Goth to Gangster to perfect prep towhatever (this is obviously not my specialty), I find it strange that some peoplethink different patterns and colors on clothing actually help define a person. I hope Ibarely even need to mention tattoos. Express yourself by speaking and showingwho you are, not by hiding behind your ink destroyed skin.I have always enjoyed thinking about how things work, everything from toys toelectronics to people to myself. I like understanding things, and that entails beingable to see both sides of a story as objectively as possible. It may not be possible toever look at something with a completely unbiased opinion, let alone write about it(in the realm of thoughts it is much easier for me to understand things, and forsome reason I have a very hard time putting these thoughts on paper), but I guessat least I can give it a shot. Most things I read and see are simply products of manipulation, people attempting to convince others of things, without any concernfor finding truth. Some people can’t stand being wrong, and they need others to tellthem they are right and agree with them, because they are actually very insecureabout their own ideas (then again, maybe the only reason I am writing this isbecause I am insecure with my own ideas too). We live in a society based uponmanipulation, and flat out lying. Television, magazines, and newspapers are fueled by advertisers and bigbusinesses. I do not care about all of the different conspiracy theories that are just
 
as manipulative as the actual thing they are speaking against, such as: bigbusinesses or a secret organization really control the government, or all the thingsthat are “really” going on in the war on terror, or September 11 was done by thegovernment in order to get enough approval to spend many billions of dollars on awar, in order to get cheaper oil. Honestly, I will not attempt to look through a bunchof lies in order to look for truth that may not be available or even exist. I personallyknow many in the U.S. population that are ideal products of manipulation. Peopleare told what to think, how to think, and what they should think, and the ironic partis they actually believe they are individuals with free thought. Even the internet is afull of these kinds of people, people only concerned with making money, likeaffiliate marketers and advertisers who manipulate and lie to the masses about somuch on the internet. I guess it is just human nature for the “superior” to dominatethe “inferior.”Maybe it's pathetic, necessary, or even unavoidable in thissociety/world. But I do not want to live my life being a mindless drone.Many of my friends spend most of their time talking about "smoking blunts" orgetting "Fucked up." Honestly I think music such as rap (or any other music that isbased upon things that are usually associated as negative in society), is destroyingthe generation and culture that I am a part of, because everything previouslythought of as bad human traits are now considered cool. In my small world, beingignorant and dumb about the most things possible is considered cool. There arehundreds of things I see on a daily basis that are incredible to me, like the fact thatfun is derived from what other people say is fun, and that cool things are what yourfriends and TV shows say is cool. How the quotes "you should smoke a blunt, heshould smoke a blunt, or everyone, you guessed it, should just smoke a blunt" cananswer every question in this world is beyond me. These are the answers some of my friends on the extreme low end of the intelligence scale give me on a regularbasis, but these people bother me less than the intelligent people who alsocompletely and utterly follow the flow of society, but claim they are better and knowso much more than others do. These are the people who absolutely know Godexists, or absolutely know abortion is morally wrong, or absolutely know that gaypeople made a choice to be gay, or that God hates gay people. There are very fewrights and wrong in this world, and those who believe they have the answers, areincredibly ignorant.Every human being is both hypocritical and ignorant. I think the two areinverses in a sense. A very religious man who follows the bible completely is notvery hypocritical because he is told what to think and believe (assuming the bible isnot hypocritical), and therefore rarely contradicts himself and says things he doesnot believe. The person who is not very ignorant and understands a lot of thingsabout a lot of things, can be very hypocritical because he knows many things do nothave set answers, and maybe not on the outside for people to see (some areincredibly well spoken), but on the inside his thoughts are hypocritical because theyare always looking for truth, and picking different sides of an argument to find thebest one. So he may say something that he feels is true at one moment, and thenlater he decides he was wrong and he may change his mind (although he may notadmit it for fear of being looked at as a hypocrite). I am both very ignorant and veryhypocritical. I guess some would say that at least I am not horribly ignorant,because I can admit my ignorance. One of my favorite quotes is "ignorance is bliss."I am not sure how intelligent I really am when compared to the average populationand I try not to care. But I know that I can never just blindly follow others beliefssimply because they appeal to my emotions and my inner state of being. Many
 
people are not willing to see the truth, or even attempt to see it. I have neverunderstood why. Maybe they just do not want too, maybe they are not evencapable. Maybe I just need to meet some new people. But I do try to be honest and Iam incredibly hard on myself, without much concern for how it makes me feel. I amalways looking for answers (even if the answer is there is no answer, which is whatseems to happen much too often).Emotions are little more than chemical reactions inside the brain. I used toremind myself of this all the time, as a sort of a numbing agent, and when I look athow messed up the world is, this fact is very obvious. "Oh you are so pessimistic, oryou need to see the beauty in life, or you need to smoke a blunt." These are someof the things I hear when I try to speak to people about my ideas. But a world inwhich an entire huge group of people can decide to murder another group forreasons such as religion, race, or whatever, I suddenly do not seem so crazy. MaybeI am pessimistic. But to all of us who read our books and watch our news, and thenthink we are more enlightened individuals, then donate 12 dollars to feed a poor kidwhen we see pictures of his/her frail body on commercials, then while sitting in ourhome in our little relatively secure lives (and before I hear how bad your life is, thinkof the thousands of Africans who die from starvation and genocide every day) andwe sit and talk and think and get all upset about how a coworker looked at us, orwhat she said he said, or who will win American Idol, or if the Patriots really deserveto be let into the playoffs after being caught spying, or what other pathetic thingswe as human beings spend our life worrying and thinking about. We forget quitequickly about the people dying from starvation, the people being massacred andraped throughout the world, and that whole concept of other people. I do it and youdo it, and if you can’t admit that, you are either extremely ignorant or extremelyrare (.001 percent of the population rare).What makes a person "good?" I have always thought of it as someone whohelps others, someone who does not help other people for selfish reasons. But isthis possible? The religious people that help others simply because they feelobligated too and because they want to go to heaven are certainly selfish. Thepeople who actually give 1/10 of their salary or even life (very rare people) away tohelp others, do it for 2 reasons. This may not be the whole list but I am justbrainstorming right now.The first is because one feels guilty that one has so much more than another,and one tries to give the other things to feel less guilty, which is the same as feelingbetter.The second reason is that it actually makes one feel good inside to do good forothers. This is the purest kind of good person in my opinion, but the problem is theonly reason the person actually helps others is for the selfish reason that it makeshe/she feel good. Yeah I think it is funny too.I think it was the philosopher Hobbes (I only took high school philosophy, sodon’t quote me) that actually said that everything every person ever does is forselfish reasons. Now he is a pessimist. Everything everyone ever does affects themin some way, this is very obvious if you think about. Hobbes may argue that if youdive in front of a bullet to save someone, you are being selfish because the onlyreason you did it was either because you could not live with the guilt of lettinganother die, or whatever the effect, it is beneficial to you in some way (If someonepurposely hurts himself it may not sound beneficial, but it benefits the brain of theperson who does it, at least for the moment, people are insane and chemicals in thebrain are weird). I personally think the human is very complicated with many
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