<p>Life is like a jacuzzi: it is against policy for minors to enter the spa without superversion. Please consult your doctor if you have heart problems, diabetes, or high blood pressure, or if you are pregnant or elderly. Please do not use alcohol or narcotics while in the spa.</p>
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<p><em>sniff</em> It is touching how people can find happiness in the most deplorable of situations. It does make me wonder: is all my unhappiness unjustified? Relatively speaking, I’m very well off. I’m comfortable, I have clean clothes to wear, I have access to food 24/7 … perhaps I’m focusing on the wrong stuff … perhaps I’m focusing too much on the negative and I should focus more on the positive things I have in life. </p>
<p>On a side note, here’s the other soliloquy that I absolutely adore. This one is less brash than the one I posted earlier, but equally moving. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbYu45DiJaA[/url]”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbYu45DiJaA</a></p>
<p>That was beautiful, just beautiful…</p>
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<p>@IceQube you really should stop…I’m going to start crying soon. I just relate to Hamlet so much, and in this version he’s got this facade that makes you think he could be a great king, a great man, the epitome of happiness and contentment, but underneath he’s got the same desperation as Macbeth even. I’ve got to find time to watch the entire thing.</p>
<p>@enfieldacademy there’s always been a part of me that wondered if I’d be happier if I lived a simpler life, the life of a poor man, or a shepherd. Sometimes I tell people that instead of going to college I’m going to start a yak farm in eastern Europe, because it’s something that I think I might actually enjoy, and it’s interesting to see people’s reactions. Relating this to my life personally, people always assume that I’m going to take some sort of highway, some fast-track or shortcut to success, and the way people measure success is in dollars, in figures, and in property. I think there’s a sense of guilt in seeing people who have less than you who are content (perhaps not in your case), but there are people who complain about their Iphones who seem sort of bitter when I tell them that I want to work as a doctor in lesser developed regions of the world. I think if a different sort of person were to walk by that man, and if that man were to smile, he would be resented for it. </p>
<p>@JimboSteve what does it mean if I want to buy a house for its jacuzzi? I want to throw lavish parties like Gatsby did and use it to wallow in self-pity.</p>
<p>@retrohippo I GOT EXCITED, plus I had work and time was of the essence.</p>
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<p>yeah, I completely agree. once when I was in India I went on a cycle rickshaw. the rickshaw cycler was singing quietly to himself. it’s a bit strange, but he seemed so much better off than all the kids at my wealthy, suburban public school even though he was poor. he just seemed so at peace.</p>
<p>When I was younger, say before ten, I had an epiphany that rocked my adolescent world. I was playing with a neighbor girl who was around 4 and I felt good about myself. I was acting like her big brother, helping her, being nice. It felt like the most important thing I had done in my young life. The little girl went inside and I returned home, eager to tell my mother. I thought of how to phrase it and decided that it felt like I was being a guardian angel. I felt like I was a protector. I went to my mother and she didn’t listen. She continued to watch television and ignored me. She didn’t care about my feelings, my euphoria for doing something worth meaning. So I began to think. She had done this often, and I only now noticed. It crushed me. That was when I decided to be independent. I never needed anyone’s approval because I didn’t want it. If my own mother didn’t care enough to listen to what I thought was the best day of my life, who else would? We are all self centered creatures. We want what is best for us. We only care for others when it is in our best interests. It’s sad to realize that while still young. It ruined adolescence for me. I believe that is why I’m introverted. I don’t share things because I don’t think people will care. Even this post, I believe no one will read it, no one will understand what I am trying to say. But I write anyway, because being ignored is something I can live with.</p>
<p>@dan2014, I read your post. and wow…that is some epiphany.</p>
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<p>Are you referring to the Hamlet monologue I posted :)? </p>
<p>I love the monologue. The first line - “I have, of late, lost all my mirth [happiness]” is just so profound. </p>
<p>I also love saying “what is this quintessence of dust?” LOL.</p>
<p>I don’t want to digress and make this completely about Kony, but I completely agree with posts 8 and 14 (I believe those were the initial Kony ones). I’m not sure if you guys already saw this, but have you guys seen the “action kits” or whatever they’re called? They basically contain a shirt, bracelet, buttons, stickers, etc. Oh and a guide of some sort. What are you supposed to do with all this advertisement? How does that help these poor children that everyone claims they’re so worried about? It’s great that they’re raising awareness, but what does all this awareness even do? People know about this? Okay? What are they going to do about it? Nothing, because that’s how teenagers are. Perhaps they’ll remember this for a couple weeks (max) and then another cause will catch their fancy. This is ridiculous. I agree that this blatant showcase of propaganda is rather frightening and alarming.
High school’s solidified my belief that people are ignorant and will believe anything they’re spoon fed. People rarely check their facts (unless they’re people like us- not to sound conceited) and instead, they’re all so easily convinced by rhetoric. It’s alarming. </p>
<p>I really enjoyed post 26, as well. I feel that way of lot of times. I don’t understand why people put some much emphasis, so much weight on the opinions of others. Especially when they don’t even like those “others.” If you don’t respect someone (not saying that you don’t respect your mom- this is just a general statement), why would you even care about their opinion? People are so desperate for approval from people that really don’t mean anything to them. Are some people that insecure that they would want approval for literally anyone?</p>
<p>This **** is so deep yo.</p>
<p>-sheds a tear-</p>
<p>@ post 26 - I came to this realization some time ago. It didn’t arrive to me in the form of an epiphany, I don’t remember when I truly figured it out. You’re probably right that it has helped us become introverts. If no one cares about us, why should we talk to them?</p>
<p>I’ve been a hard-working student for the whole of my high-school and elementary school experience. I focus so much on academic success and college admission, that I shun any social interaction. If I get an A-, I genuinely freak out and suffer from depression for the next few days. However, a recent experience has altered this view of mine, and here it is:</p>
<p>As always, I was sitting at my desk studying for my SAT biology exam extensively. I was so worn out that I decided to get some rest and watch TV. Upon grabbing the remote, my mother walks into the room with tears running down her cheeks. I look at her confused, drop the remote, and ask her what the problem is. She told me that our neighbor in first year medical school was mugged and killed the night before. I sat there speechless, not knowing how to grasp the situation, since this particular neighbor had been very close to us for a long time and only lived across the street. I expressed my condolences to the bereaved, but later on I began ruminating on the matter. It was such a significant event that it opened my eyes on a new life perspective: life can be over in just a minute. Even right now, your life could be over by a spontaneous heart attack, and yes it does happen (I know, because my dad is an ER surgeon). As Muslim Imam Al-Ghazali once said: we make future plans as far as ten years into the future, not knowing that we could be dead within ten seconds.</p>
<p>Grades, hard work, human emotions, and the value we put into life is all meaningless and the closest meaning to life is hedonism.
Prove me wrong.</p>
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<p>@Deziky after reading Crime and Punishment, I kind of converted to a sort of nihilism (I don’t want to give away any spoilers of the plot, but when I got to the ending, I was outraged). Basically, I thought that life didn’t have any meaning whatsoever, that nothing we do matters. At some point after, I kept thinking about nihilism, and why I do the things I do if they’ll never be of importance. One day all of us will be nothing but dust and there’ll be nobody to remember that there was ever anything but dust, so why try? But in a way, nihilism is the most freeing philosophy, because by accepting that what you do doesn’t matter, you realize and accept that you can do whatever you want, while also realizing that in order to have a society that doesn’t collapse in hatred and war, you have a responsibility to help others and to make the world that we are confined to as beautiful and livable as possible, because when those seventy-some years up, you’re done. I wouldn’t consider myself a hedonist, because I really think life is more about helping others.</p>
<p>“Nihilist: We believe in nothing, Lebowski. Nothing. And tomorrow we come back and we cut off your chonson.
The Dude: Excuse me?
Nihilist: I said
[shouting]
Nihilist: We’ll cut off your johnson!
Nihilist #2: Just think about that, Lebowski.
Nihilist: Yeah, your wiggly *****, Lebowski.
Nihilist #3: Yeah and maybe we stomp on it and squoosh it, Lebowski.”</p>
<p>Every time someone brings up nihilism I think of the nihilists in the Big Lebowski. Great movie.</p>
<p>@silencefell
Nihilists tend to disregard life, typecasting it as meaningless. Nihilistic thoughts can spread like a virus, and soon plenty of people believe that nothing they do will matter in the end. How very wrong they are.
Life is not meaningless. Everything we experience changes us in some way; everything we do affects another at some point. The more people we interact with, the more our lives cause a sort of “ripple effect” through the world. This is why society is everlasting.
Since our ideas define us, if you can preserve an action, a memory, a thought, of a person, you can preserve the essence of that person and pass it on, long after names are forgotten. In this way, we can never really die.
That’s my philosophy, anyway. </p>
<p>@caughtintraffic
About Kony 2012. I was reading up on it, and I came across a valid argument. It went something like this: “After watching the video, tens of millions of people knew more about Jason Russell’s son, Gavin, then they did about Kony.” The conflict has been so oversimplified and “dumbed down” that it does a poor job of explaining the real situation in Africa with Joseph Kony and the LRA (which is in reality much more complex than a neat, precise summary in a 30 minute video…)
Alas, too many people will shed a few tears, throw some money into an online “Invisible Children” donation box, and move on with their lives. The main problem is that the majority of the population still doesn’t care about yet another conflict happening in Africa, thousands of miles away. However, if making money was the main goal of this organization, I applaud Invisible Children for brilliant advertising- whatever they did to make their video viral enough to crash Youtube, it worked. </p>
<p>End rant.</p>
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<p>the thing is, you can’t prove this wrong using logic. it’s emotion which defines the importance and values of these things, which are completely illogical. so likewise you also can’t prove wrong that human emotions have no value. the two arguments have two completely different fundamentals: logic and feeling. we also can’t say which one is superior to the other, because, again, that would require adopting one as the fundamental of our argument</p>
<p>@catchtwentythree I completely agree with your “life is not meaningless” philosophy. I just wanted to add though, that some nihilistic thoughts arise from believing that even if others are affected, everything is still null and void in the end (which can also go into existentialism in the end). it’s like a lack of feeling. I think that, though the “ripple effect” is an mazing component, that there must be something beyond this effect, some ultimate goal which exists which also gives the ripple effect meaning. so, human actions give meaning to ripple effect. ripple effect affects others. the way others are affected works toward some ultimate goal.
I’m not sure how relevant that was and I know it was a bit rant-ish, but I thought I’ld put some thoughts in.</p>
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<p>I do not know why I keep telling myself I’ll be happier in college. For all I know, I might just never make it to college. I might get hit by a bus before making it to college. I might be the victim of a senseless home invasion. So perhaps I should seize the day today and make today the happiest day in my life.</p>
<p>you guys should watch dead poets’ society. “carpe diem. seize the day.”</p>
<p>@stressedouttt that’s one of my favorite movies! i love robin williams when he’s got a serious role.</p>