Earthlings

Speaking of love, maybe it is time for a slight twist on the subject to talk about something other than self-love.

Ever since I've started to recover from anxiety and perfectionism, I have been feeling a different kind of compassion towards animals. I felt it in a particularly strong way today. I used to be scared of dogs living on the street, as there are still a few ones that I come across occasionally and feel intimidated thinking that they might bite me or attack me. As I was walking home today, I saw a bunch of street dogs walk past me and I didn't feel anything other than affection. Even though they looked a little shabby and malnourished I didn't think anything other than how adorable creatures they were. I think they sensed it as well.

There is a documentary about animal cruelty that was being shown in this year's independent movie festival that I wanted to see but didn't have the time. It is called Earthlings. As I was reading some reviews of it , I found out that the movie is already posted on the internet, on google videos. So I was really excited and glad to be able to watch the movie at home for free.

I'm absolutely appalled by things I've seen in the movie. I'm so glad I saw it on the internet because I wouldn't be able to keep watching it if I saw them on big screen in a dark movie theatre. Once again, I have witnessed how vicious us humans can become at times.

I don't think any animal would attack a human on purpose, just for fun. If they do, I believe it's because they have been mistreated by humans in the past and thus developped hostile feelings towards them or because they have become "humanized" or learned to act human-like as a result of being over-exposed to the same niche with humans. I've read somewhere that most cats usually stop eating when they feel full as long as they know they will be able to find food easily the next time. But this is not the case with most pet cats. They keep eating as long as given food, even though they must be assured that food will be provided to them. This is because they have developped human-like eating behaviours since humans are one of the rare kind of species who would like to indulge in food after the point of feeling full. I realise that this is highly unscientific and might very well be false but I feel that it is part of the explanation as to why animals can act like humans sometimes.

I would definitely become a vegetarian if I still lived in the States. Right now, I decided to become a vegetarian in theory but I cannot really say that to my parents because if I told them that, they would do everything they possibly can to make me eat meat again. They would cook meat almost everyday and give me hell for not eating it. This is because I'm anemic and my parents don't think I can survive without meat. We are a family of omnivores and we generally eat vegetable dishes almost every day. So I don't intend changing that by disclosing the fact that I decided to become vegetarian. This will be our little secret! So from now on, I will try to eat as little meat as possible because I don't think that my conscience can allow me to do otherwise.

You can watch the documentary on Google Video. It has really graphic images, but I encourage you to see the movie and share your feelings about it with me.

The question

Is this caterpillar spending time in her cocoon in order to transform into a butterfly or is she fucking wasting her time?

That is the question.

More on love..

Imagine that you’re roommates with someone who hates you, who hurts you on purpose, who promises to do certain things but never does it. What would your relationship be like? Wouldn’t it be like hell?

Now, imagine that this person is you!! Have you ever abused yourself? Have you ever promised yourself that you would do a certain thing but never did it? Have you ever thought of ending your existence?

Just as you have relationships with other people you also have a relationship with yourself. You do have an inner voice that makes positive or negative judgments about everything around you. There is a voice which tells you that “you are doing your best” or “you are not doing your best; you need to try harder”. There is a voice that tells you that “you need to improve your actions”. There is a voice that gives you hell for the circumstances or events that are beyond your control.

Self love is not something that emanates from the result of certain actions or certain events. It is unconditional love you feel for yourself just because you know you deserve it. Most people base their self love on the result of certain actions. If you really screwed up a task that you were supposed to accomplish, then you don’t love yourself as much. If, on the other hand, somebody says something you’d like to hear to you, then you love yourself a little bit more. This is not the way to go thinking about yourself. Your self-love should be prominent no matter what the circumstances are.

Loving yourself is not equivalent to spoiling yourself because unconditional self acceptance does not indicate having an unrealistic image of yourself. On the contrary, it is very realistic because it brings out your worth to which you had been turning a blind eye for the rest of your life. It sheds light onto that reality that had been neglected for a long time.

When you love yourself, everything you do is motivated by your best interest. This is what makes you accomplish things. This is what makes you love the universe. This is what prevents self abuse. It’s not the obligations, it’s the self-love and acceptance that moves you and inspires you to do or change things.

If you do not love yourself then how can you expect to receive love from your environment?

You cannot do your best if you don’t love yourself and accept yourself as you are now. How can you do your best with the derogatory voices in your head? How can you do your best if there is a perfectionist voice that doesn’t like anything and keeps telling you that you need to do better and better and better and better. You cannot make anything better in the future if you reject yourself now. Because you never get to the future. Now is as close as you can get to the future. So you might as well try to make your present the way you’d like your future to be.

Woman marries herself

This is something that occured in 2003 but I happened to hear about it just now. Here is the story:

A Dutch artist is to marry herself to show people how much she loves the different sides of her character. Jennifer Hoes, 29, has ordered a complete wedding party, wedding dress and marriage certificate. She told Haarlem's Dagblad newspaper: "I want to celebrate with others how much I'm in love with myself." She says she regards the wedding as a reward for her years of struggle between the emotional and business sides of her character. Ms Hoes said: "Finally I managed to unite these conflicting parts of my character, and I find it most logical that it results in a wedding."

When asked if marrying yourself is a self-centered act, she said: "I believe if a person is loyal to him- or herself, he or she he has more to offer to others — to be active, straight and involved in relationships. Therefore, by no means, is marrying yourself a self-centered act."

When I first heard of this, I laughed my ass off but coming to think about it, isn't it something that everyone is supposed to do? We could do without a ceremony, thanks, but isn't loving yourself so much that you'd want to marry yourself the first thing to do before getting married with another person?

Supporting and standing by yourself for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health.. You may love yourself when you are doing well but is it just as easy when you're not doing so well? You may love yourself when you are young and beautiful but will you still continue to do so if, say, a terrible accident occurs and you lose your beautiful figure?

I believe that it's harder to be your own valentine than somebody else's. How come we can fall in love instantly with people whom we barely even know but spend our lifetimes in self criticism, pity, dislike or even hatred?

You can "get a life" with unconditional love. First towards yourself and then towards other people. It's easier said than done most certainly.

So I'm beautiful.. Now what?

I think I first became aware of the concept of beauty when I was in kindergarten. I don’t remember much from that period except for how they managed to make awful tasting chocolate puddings and what a difficult time I had trying to take afternoon naps (I don’t seem to have an issue with it now) but I remember that I thought “maybe it was because I wasn’t beautiful enough” when other girls ostracized me every now and then. I know I was an adorable little girl when I was six, but somehow I thought that if other girls didn’t want to play with me, then it must have been because of how I look, either my face or the way I dress. So the paradigm moved into my brain and made itself feel at home as I spent the rest of my life –until now that is– feeding and reinforcing the thought that made me lose faith in myself, sometimes even loathe myself to the point that I caused myself strong physical and psychological damage. Until it got too much… Then I realized that there is nothing wrong with me – it’s just that I’m doing something wrong. I had to take responsibility for “everything that’s happened to me” and learn different coping methods as painful as it may be.

Not being able to see beyond labels… this is what most of us get stuck spending our entire lives with. Your appearance, your lover, your car, your house, your clothing, your body, your job, your bank account, your family, your lover’s family, your lover’s car… the list never ends.

Loving yourself is not an easy task. So many people have issues with it because they get stuck on labels. I mean, if Audrey Hepburn thought that she was not beautiful enough back in the days, what does this say about a girl like me? This used to be a rhetorical question. Now it has an answer, which is, not much because what other people think of themselves should not be my criteria for what I should think of myself. If you keep disliking yourself, if you keep thinking that you’re ugly / worthless / uninteresting or whatever it is you are thinking, then eventually you will become that ugly person you think you are. You show the way you think you look. If you think that you’re ugly then people will be able to tell that from the way you act it out.

This week, for the first time since I was six, I looked at the mirror in the morning and I just told myself “damn, you’re hot”. What I saw was beautiful. I thought that the feeling would go away the next day, or the next second as it frequently does, but this time it didn’t. When I looked at the mirror the next day I felt the same, and day after as well. It just keeps on going. I would never imagine the day that I would tell myself something like that. It feels so much better when you hear it from yourself instead of from other people. That is what you really need, to hear it from yourself instead of from other people.

Now, I realize that I may not be six but I still embody that adorable little girl. I still have those ugly and sometimes even FUGLYYY mmpfghhh!#? moments. The difference is that they are much weaker now; I don’t let those thoughts become my identity because I managed to put my belief in myself before my environment’s (a.k.a. society) fabricated perfectionist standards.

The life goes on... I’ve always wanted to be beautiful. Now that I am beautiful, it keeps getting harder to figure out what I really want from my life.

I wanted to poke my eyes out

I came across this in another website and I wasn't going to post it first, but I just can't seem to get my mind off of it. Here is an excerpt:


Society has taught us to not publicly acknowledge the obvious - no longer dear friends. Women want money in a man, men want beauty in a woman – this is a factual force of nature. Women don’t ask “So, what does he do for a living?” because they’re interested in his personality and guys don’t ask “is she hot?” because they’re concerned with character... THIS GENETIC CLEANSING IS HOW THE WEALTHY STAY BEAUTIFUL.


IS THIS FOR REAL?

Yes, as my friend has previously suggested, people's quest for meaning has never been challenged this way before. "The world" (aka. USA) is becoming a very sad place.