The Bucket List

My grandfather recently passed away, for a while I've been keeping a bucket list of all the things I want to do before I die, and his passing made me realize that there are so many things that aren't on that list. I have things like swim with dolphins and attend the lantern festival, but I am missing the most important things. I mean, all those things are great, because I truly believe that life should be lived to its fullest not just in length, but width as well. What is missing though are the little things, for example: make a meaningful contribution to a charity, change someones life for the better, help someone accomplish something without them knowing, adopt an animal from a shelter, and so on. There are so many things that we should do with our lives before we leave this earth, things that aren't about us but about others. Many people are given so much, so much that they don't even realize what they have. In this day and age we have so much offered to us, we can do whatever we set our minds to, with the exception of gravity and physics almost anything is possible we just have to get out and go for it. I know that I want to do anything and everything I can, that includes the things that have no benefit for me. I don't want my dying thought to be that I didn't do enough in this world, instead I want to leave this world happy and at peace knowing I did all I could have to live and make an impact on this world. My grandpa was an amazing man, he most definitely lived his life to the fullest. He saw the world; he helped those less fortunate than him, he was a man that would give you the shirt off his back. He had a family who he loved more than life itself and he made sure that they had everything they needed. If the world was full of people who lived their lives like my grandfather I truly believe the world would be a better place. So, as for me, I am going to do everything I can to live a full life; I'm going to travel and see the world, I'm going to do things not only for myself but for others as well. Then when I do finally "kick the bucket" I will have crossed everything off my list.

The Power of Introverts

I myself am an introvert and I believe strongly in the sense of solitude and its ability to make me a better person. This video with Susan Cain shares the power of what being an introvert really means. Our society today pushes people to be extroverts; in school they force us to work in groups and in society if we don't act outgoing we are often ignored. I also want to share with you a link to Susan's book http://youtu.be/UAAoJc1oC9s . The world needs all kinds and I think that we often forget this. Carl Jung was the creater of the theories in which introversion and extroversion are based. The Myers-Briggs Test is used to determine what your personality is. I am an ISFJ, to find out what you are you can take the test at http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html .

Look Up

Beauty

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Unfortunately today the beholder is society, and society has distorted the true ideals of beauty. For thousands of years curvaceous woman were seen as being beautiful and most were highly revered. Even a decade ago women who were full figured were seen as the epitome of beauty, for example Marilyn Monroe; every woman wanted to be her, every man wanted to have her and she was no stick figure. Society today however tells women that they have to have tiny little waists and practically be skin and bone to be beautiful. I myself have fallen prey to this societal idea of beauty, and what is really sad is that even science is telling me that I am not ideal. My BMI range tells me that I am overweight and if you were to see me you would think I'm joking, but I'm not. Beauty is a funny thing, not in that it is laughable, but that it is so easily changeable. Great philosophers couldn't even settle on a definition of beauty, because beauty is a word not easily defined. What may be beautiful to me may not be beautiful to you. So who is to say that the women plastered on the billboards and on the cover of magazines are beautiful. Young girls starve themselves and practically kill themselves trying to live up to the standards of beauty society has set for them, and not just girls but boys as well. We have it so drilled into our heads that what society tells us is right, but that is not in the least bit true. Our "imperfections" are what make us human, we come in all shapes and sizes, all colors and sexual orientations. We say that nature is beautiful for its differences, one gem is just as beautiful as another even if it is not exactly the same, so why can't humans be that way. A curvaceous woman should be just as beautiful as a skinny woman, there is no "real" woman only actual women.

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Black and White

The world is full of opposites; light and dark, day and night, yes and no. People tend to see the world as being only black and white but the world is so much more, it is all the grey in between. The best parts of life are those that aren't one extreme or the other, but what comes between the two. The dim light and the shadows between the light and the dark. The sunrise and sunset that come between each night and day. The life that is lived between birth and death. Not all questions can be answered with a simple yes or no and the truth is that in most cases we are happy with not having the answer. In order to see the bigger picture we have to see the greys that fill in the spaces between black and white. There isn't only good and bad, right or wrong, heaven or hell; there is so much in between. Sometimes we can be good and other times we can be bad, we can do the right things and the wrong things, but we aren't always one or the other sometimes we just are sometimes we just do things that aren't always right and aren't always wrong. The way we are and the things we do all have the potential to be good, bad, right, or wrong but it doesn't always mean they are. Our lives are lived in an in between, life is an in between its not black or white but every shade of grey.

Loneliness

Have you ever had many people in your life but still feel all alone? I do, I feel this way all the time. I have a family who loves me I have friends who love me and yet I feel alone. I have never had a romantic relationship; I've never had a boyfriend, never really had anyone who was in love with me. When I think about it I wonder why it bothers me so much. People are happy being single so why can't I be, I have people in my life who care about me so I'm not really alone... but I think it's something different. We are here to live and love and thrive, without love life is an empty place. I am happy with my life, but I know something is missing and I understand that a man isn't going to suddenly make my life better. But I do think that the love of another person would make my life better. Loneliness is a funny thing, we can feel it when we are surrounded by people or when we are all alone. And I think that the sadness that people feel would be more understandable if they were all alone instead of surrounded by people. Because in our minds this doesn't make sense, but somehow we still feel it and it feels wrong. I have cried myself to sleep many nights thinking about the loneliness I feel and telling myself that its stupid to feel that way. I tell myself that I am not alone and yet somewhere inside of me I still feel it, and that loneliness isn't due to a lack of people who love me but a lack of someone specific who is in love with me. I think it's this exact feeling that causes so many people to take their own lives, because they feel all alone even when there are people who love them. I don't condone suicide and even though I once contemplated suicide I now realize how selfish of an act it is. As lonely as I feel I know that people still love me and they would be hurt if I was gone, so instead of thinking of only my own unhappiness I think about the unhappiness of others if I was no longer around. I think that when we feel all alone we need to take a step back and look at the world, there are so many people out there who are just as lonely as you and realize that you are never alone in the way you feel. We are all human, we crave love and belonging and we are all in the same boat together.

After the Dark

I think that most people watch movies and read books and only see what's on the surface. They don't take the time to look deep, to read between the lines. A few weeks ago I watched a movie called After the Dark, it was released in the US in February. If you haven't seen it and enjoy movies that challenge the mind I would suggest seeing it. The movie takes place at an international school in Jakarta, it starts on the last day of the students senior year and their last official philosophy class. The teacher proposes an experiment in which the students have to imagine a scenario where an apocalyptic event has occurred and the class of twenty students are all given roles in which they must decide which ten of the most significant roles shall be saved in a bunker for a year in order to reboot the human race. I watched the movie before I checked out the reviews on the IMDb website, and I'm gad I did. Most all of the reviews are bad, people state that the movie is poorly done and that the entire thing was horrific. These people I don't think truly saw the movie for what it was, it wasn't intended to excite the audience it wasn't intended to captivate the audience; it was intended to force the audience to see something that we often forget. The basis of philosophy is reason and logic, the movie attempts to prove that life is not philosophical. The class conducts the experiment three times; the first time their decisions for who will be allowed in the bunker are based solely on what roles would be most beneficial for the restart of the human race. I don't want to ruin the movie for you if you intend to watch it so I will simply say this, their first attempt ends in failure for one simple reason they fear the unknown. The second time they are presented with a second part to their role and the experiment is made a little harder with the students having to produce a child while in the bunker for a year. This time their decision on who is allowed in is based on their roles as well as their ability to produce a child, this attempt also ends in failure because they inevitably accept their fate. With the final time one of the students proposes a different decision making process. She chooses individuals not based on their roles or what they can do to reboot the human race but what they offer as a whole. This time ends much differently. These three experiments show different aspects of humanity, the first and second showing that logic and reason end in failure because we fear the unknown and we inevitably accept our fate. The finale time ended differently because those chosen brought forth life and happiness and they accepted the unknown and didn't fear their fate. The end of the movie is a little weird and at first I didn't like it or understand it, but the more I thought about it the more I realized why they did it. The end shows that the philosophy teacher, although he teaches and follows logic and reason he just like the rest of us is only human, and we as a human race choose emotion and feeling over logic and reason.

Magic and Illusion

Illusion: something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality; the state or condition of being deceived. I am a believer in magic and illusion, I think that a little harmless deception is a good thing. As humans we want to be entertained, and we want something that will astound and amaze us; which is exactly what magic does. I remember watching as a kid The World's Greatest Magic and Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed, I was in love with Penn and Teller and Lance Burton. When I was a teenager I would watch Criss Angel and I have continued to watch his "mind freak" illusions. Magic and illusion are a trick of the mind; the person doing that magic is deceiving you, but you as the viewer are accepting of this deception and find enjoyment from it. I am a rationalist, I believe in finding the truth in everything which is why I think I love magic and illusion so much because on one hand I want to figure out how they did it and on the other hand I struck by the notion that I don't want to know the truth because it would take all of the excitement away from it. From a simple card trick to a death defying stunt we as an audience are astounded by the simple deception, we know we are being deceived and yet we are all to eager to sit back and let them deceive us. There is a sort of wonder in the unknown and a sadness in the knowing. I want to share a video with you that I think helps to express my point, this man in the video is doing card tricks. The entire time you can tell he is using a slight of hand and yet the way he does it keeps you so entertained that you ignore it and are amazed by what he can do. Lennart Green In watching magic we set aside our left brain for a little while, we set aside logic and reason and open ourselves up to our imagination and let ourselves be amazed by this alteration of reality.

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