Choice vs. Destiny

It’s been a while since I wrote my last self-reflective journal.

In our lives, we sometimes think about how we become what we are. And the answer is always through the contradicting ideas of the natural and the human influence. Some people would think that we are destined to be what we are at present. Others would think that it was choice that brought us to our present state.

I believe that everything is relative in this world. We might not recognize our very origins yet as hundreds or even thousands of generations pass by, our birth only seems to be our destiny. But we don’t understand that our lives are all up in the air.

We are destined to have a mind to be able to think, a free will to be able to choose and an uncertainty that we have to find out for ourselves and understand. It comes along with us as we are born… We are born with a worldview that our parents didn’t really make for us. We are born as individuals; we are embedded with the “self” idea because of that.

For this, I believe that our lives are not caused by destiny. After all, we are given minds and free wills and individual worldviews and perceptions. We are given the opportunity to choose what kind of lives we are supposed to have and preserve for the rest of our lives and hopefully will be inherited (not destined) to the future generations.

We live in a world filled with many directions and paths that will lead us into different lives. We are all able to become anything in this world. There are so many opportunities that we human beings can grab… all we have to do is to grab it and culminate ourselves to become the people who we want to be, who we think we should be, who we aspire to be, who we are willing to end up to be.

And the key really is “choice”…. not “destiny”…

Destiny is the result of our choice - and for that, we choose our destinies.

How should this help people in their pursuit towards the understanding of life?

The self is part of one’s life… You are part of your own life. Why do you always think of being enslaved? Why do you think of being predestined? You can make choices, it’s part of your free will! And most importantly, you can change your life overall; you can change your whole personality; you can pursue a different path in life…

What brings you there are the opportunities… the options… you see them around you, trying to inspire you, trying to draw you into a wild world, into a certainty which you might have never considered in your life to happen. You are given the chance to bore out and patch up the holes in your life.

Do not worry about what life has in store for you because there is uncertainty and you can always use choice through free will to fill up that uncertainty and tell yourself that life isn’t all about destinies - it’s all about choices.

~~

If you’re just wondering…

With regards to love life, I’m pretty sure this applies. Taking advantage of your opportunities will lead you into bumping on a person who might have recognized those opportunities as well and grabbed it along with you.

I have met and almost got close with about a couple of girls… but it’s sad because I rather choose not to commit for now and focus a lot on my studies. Though it’d be lovely though that I would be inspired in my studies a lot by a girl who I’d like to treasure in my life.

Cheers!

Sticks and Stones

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”

I was wondering before if there would be any quotes or passages that would relate to my belief that words are only utterances and blots of ink. I got this quote after hearing “Sticks and Stones” from a very successful Broadway show called “Avenue Q”. I heard this when Trekkie Monster was called a pervert by Kate Monster for using the Internet for porn - thus came the famous song called “The Internet is for Porn”. Just like Trekkie Monster, I did experience being called names and yet it never went into my mind to throw a punch at someone’s face or flick a knee on someone’s balls.

I detest people who would threat me with a punch in the face in exchange for mere words. It’s even more difficult when in a certain discussion/debate, I don’t realize I began throwing my passions rather than my intelligence - which makes me look like an arrogant person. But you can’t really put out a fire with fire and I feel so disappointed that some of the people I debate with don’t find the time to relax and reflect on what was discussed at hand and what messages are supposed to be sent and to which party - i.e. looking for the main point and see what we value so that understanding can kick in.

Sorry I got no time to tell a story, but I guess we have to accept the fact that people do get hurt with words and they will claim that they have the right to fight back with violence - some at a certain degree.

But words are words.

Pushing the envelope towards open-mindedness…

People do not have the same approaches in understanding a certain knowledge. Thus we start to think twice, doubt and even become inconsiderate especially if we become emotionally-driven learning that what we believe in is being attacked or encroached on through what we believe are influences and forcible attempts to change an individual.

Religion, politics, philosophy, ideas, even ordinary issues - when it comes to talking and communication, it’s not easy to discuss things because all of us have various views of life, the universe and morality. Rather than having a senseless debate where what matters is “The Winner”, we should be a lot more understanding.

We mustn’t try to understand the characteristics and reputation of the person who is debating against us, we have to focus on the topic or issue at hand and come up with common grounds that everyone can care about rather than being too aggressive or defensive with the language that we use and destroy our relationships with our friends all because of it.

We also have to be considerate. Consider this question: “What do you want me to understand?” You may disagree a lot with your honourable adversaries, yet simple conversations and debates do not last when one side agrees with the other or if one side has lost - no one loses in a debate, more research causes debates to rise that’s why no one should care about the fundamental views of people doing debates.

Debates last when there are “common grounds” between people. One of the main reasons is that we are talking for the benefit of everyone, not just ourselves cause we know we are satisfied with what we essentially think in certain issues and discussions. Talk about what we should value or what solutions or recommendations we should make or what we should reflect on.

~I’m going to talk about the “apathetic” view on a later blog.

Active Change overpowers Boring Routines

Ever worked as a cashier or a cook in a fast-food restaurant or a merchandise stocker in a supermarket or a department store? Ever talked to a friend about the same thing everyday?

They are all routine activities and it annoys the hell out of me.

That constitutes well with my philosophy as I see myself as a preserver and defender of “change”. My life have changed a lot. I did travel outside of the country as a child; I stayed eventually in my home country for a number of years to study and learn passively as most people do anyways in that country; I flew again to another country to study college and university, to become astonished and amazed with the notion of community service and volunteer work, to become naturalized, and to stay hopefully for the rest of my life.

I sure have shared with a lot of people my love for my family and I guess that’s normal for very obvious reasons: it establishes the image of my family to others and it results to making good relationships with other people when you let them know more about yourself - and it’s a good thing because you want people around you to at least give you a smile for being a caring person or being someone who thinks well about other people. I assure you that this expression is genuine (i’ll go on that particular topic later on). But one might think that this is going to be too boring when I talk about it again and again to people around me.

My love for my family is not a routine thing because I do experience being mad at my family and to anticipate those who are thinking why I’m not putting up my horrible feelings about my family here in my blog; the issue of family is very personal for me and the mood of anger and hatred brings my mind away from everything around me including my blog.

I would however react on other issues in any way possible yet those are more mind-utilizing rather than emotion-driven.

Another thing is that to other people, talking about yourself is something that they will learn for the very first time. So it’s not routinely for them to know about you - which is very obvious and is more interesting when your appearance differs from who you are.

anyways…

People do change in different aspects of their lives short-term and long-term whether it’s their personalities, their view on life, their tastes on clothes or TV shows, their attitudes towards a certain issue or object of interest, or their appearance. Change have brought a lot of people into different levels of moods but the feeling of relief, happiness and shattered anxiety and frustration is the most fascinating thing that have happened to human beings when they change.

Whenever I read one book at a time, I learn more about the world in many aspects and authors definitely show different angles to life that brings forth insight and new emotions even. An example would be laughing at someone who lost in a lottery or showing grief for someone who just met the lover of their lives or annoyance on issues like victims of bullying or travelling around the world which doesn’t really make me annoyed at all.

Normally, I’d rejoice with the lottery winner, I’d be excited for something like lovers meeting up for the very first time, I’d feel for the bullied and I’d anticipate the foreshadowing stories of travels and journeys of a certain person around the world.

Not only does change bring forth relief, it opens one’s mind to all the possibilities of life and why we react a certain way. I personally really want to bring myself into this world filled with the knowledge of feelings and the reason why we feel them in different situations rather than feeling one thing and being that way for the rest of our lives as if we only consider the dictionary definition of “love” and not ask other people or read books to expand our knowledge of the word.

If I’m going to expand on routines, it’s basically like my intro questions. Punching the buttons of a cash register, stocking merchandise on shelves, deep-frying fried chicken and french fries and flipping hamburgers, how would you possibly feel about it? You’d be bored, annoyed and feel sick. But some people don’t have any choice because they are being rewarded with money everytime they do such repetitive activities.

The same thing goes with conversation. If you always talk about how crappy your life is everyday, how would you possibly become uplifted and become confident about moving on in your life? If you refuse to make a new discovery and face it, how would you feel better? If you lose hope because you know you will never find a way to move on, how would that actually send you to bliss which you have always hoped for in your life? You’re going to sit down in a cold and boring environment! Another big difference is that you don’t have any kind of incentive like a weekly salary when you routinely talk with someone about the same thing.

That’s why Active Change overpowers Boring Routines. You need to feel great about your life everyday, you need to know a lot of lore and insights to make you feel better and eventually move on an even better state of life for yourself.

CHANGE! It’s worth it!

The Truth is Uncertain

Through looking at the times when there were skepticism on religion and imperfections on human abilities in terms of cognition and sensation throughout history, I found out that the truth is something that isn’t really perfect, it’s not perceivable, it’s not tangible and it’s not attainable all because people end up either taking a shallow perspective in the world where there is a supernatural being that guides the continuous movement of the universe, and on the other hand, people end up being too superficial thinking that the truth is in what we perceive with our senses in this world taking for granted everything that are deceptive.

There is something that is really missing from all these. And people are kept being ignorant about it. What proof can we have to argue that there is a God? What makes us assert that our senses can unfold the truth when the truth is different from every person?

If there is one truth in any aspect of life and the universe, everyone must agree with it right? But no! It doesn’t happen that way and this world is even created in unequal ways. For individuals, we have this fascinating phenomena called “uniqueness”. This reminded me of Gandhi who told us that we cannot kill anyone and one of the reasons is because everyone holds some kind of idea that can contribute to truths that people so care about.

~~

In a lot of instances, I always ask myself these questions:

Why do we think? How come human beings have come to this point in time? How come our environment is getting destroyed? Is there any supernatural being that guides the natural activities taking place in this world?

Of all the stars and planets that exist out there in space zillions of kilometres away from the Earth, what makes us human beings think that we hold the truth?

Can we hold the truth? Does our senses really tell us something? Does our thoughts hold some kind of truth as well? Is there a certainty in this world in terms of the truth that people must know?

Math is abstract, it is true that it facilitates counting and calculating, but what does that tell about the truth that is important in our lives? What does math have to do with researching the possibility that mobile phones do in fact cause cancer? What does math have to do with learning how many people are talented and how many are not? Why do we care so much about numbers? How come math through statistics and the scientific method become a legitimate rationale for explaining certain phenomena. What is the role of numbers towards truth?

What is truth?

With all the things that people put into their thought which they in turn persuade or force other people to believe… I believe that as we persist on revealing the truth, the more we are actually concealing it.

Determination & Enthusiasm

This should be part of my philosophy page but I decided to put it here since I’m not going to extrapolate on the issues that surround the ideas of Determination and Enthusiasm. Consider this as an appetizer i guess before I put this up on my philosophy page.

People are always thinking that they cannot make it to the top. People are always thinking that they don’t have all the freedom to attain what they want. People are always thinking that they are limited and through this limitation they could not move on in life.

Think again, if you find yourself a lazy bum, stop thinking and start working.

My co-worker told me that he hates people who’s all “Talk, Talk, Talk but not Walk, Walk, Walk” If you know you want something in life, attain it! practice it! make it a part of your life! Nothing is impossible in this world, we are only making excuses by telling ourselves the restrictions that would justify the idea that we can never move on.

ChosonNinja: Forgiving Yourself / Real Love / Choices

The person in the following videos is not me. I just stumbled into ChosonNinja’s account on Youtube and I found great “Food for Thought” Videos. Hope it can be of use to a lot of people out there who may read this journal.