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.

On dreams..

I had to live and learn for many years to come full circle. To get back to my inner child again. When I think about myself at first grade, I realize that I loved everything about me. I loved my excitement and my wacky dreams for the future. That was what I had lost over the years. My purpose.

Somehow our dissapointments over the years may cause us to lose faith in ourselves. How many people are there in this world who are actually doing their dream job? How many people can say "If I were to be born again, I would chose exactly the same path that I have chosen in my current life"? As we are growing up, some things happen that cause us to give up our dreams to become an astronaut or whatever it was that you've wanted to become. We move towards the more "mainstream" values and give up our dreams because we had become someone who thinks that we're not good enough to pursue them or that the "right conditions" are not there. We mistreat ourselves because we have been mistreated by others in the past. We choose to keep up with this tradition. I remember that in high school, people's main way of feeling good about themselves was making others feel bad about themselves. Every single thing that other people do or say about you sends a signal to you about what kind of a person you are. This might cause you to either open up to the possibilities in front of you or move away from them towards what seems to be available at the time. Most get caught up in the latter and turn out to be ignorant, indifferent human beings. For the love of God, don't base your worth on what other people say, do, think about you. The first person from whom you need encouragement is you.

I had visited some relatives over the holidays and what I can remember the most vividly from that time is the livelihood of my cousin's two year old son. The way he was so ready to suck every information like a sponge, the way he wanted to know everything and got so excited with every single bit of attention, is the way we all used to be when we were little kids. Then something happened along the way and we lost the excitement with the so called self-constructed "pain", "emotions", "stress" etc. I'm starting to to get my wacky dreams back, and I will do everything I can to pursue them. I'm slowly getting in touch the overexcited 7 year old girl inside me and it's feeling really good. I don't want to be a ballerina anymore but I have an image of the wacky dreams I want to pursue. I hope that everyone gets to have a dream they can pursue with passion. Because it's the second best thing you can possess, the first being your life.

Perception of wealth

I want to make one more remark about how people mesure their wealth with the amount of money they have. (I was reminded of this also during last saturday's lecture.) You possess things that are priceless, that no money in the world can buy. How much do your eyes cost? Would you give both of your eyes to me for a billion dollars each? How about one of your arm? That's just one thing. What if you're living in a city that's got all of the four seasons and plenty of sunlight? (I do.) By how much would they have to compensate you to make you move to another city with 3 hour long days and a severe winter? Why did materialism take over our lives so much? Why is being motivated by self interest means chasing after money? I don't want to be motivated by self-interest, I want to be motivated by my best-interest. And chasing money all the time is not for my best-interest. I aldready have two billion dollars for both of my eyes. I wouldn't sell any of the things I've learned in the past 6 months for any price. Certain things are truly pricless and we have to remind ourselves more frequently that it is something that goes deeper than a stupid mastercard commercial.

First thought of the day..

Having gone to an elitist private school, and an uber-elitist private university, I was around a lot of rich kids whose lives I have envied and gave myself hell for: "Life is not fair!", "Why can't I go to Canary Islands for spring break?", "If I had money, then I would be beautiful, because I'd be able to afford expensive clothes, beauty products, liposuction!! (sad but true, I'm blushing) and all that jazz".

Aside from the fact the fact that I am already rich compared to 90% of the world's population, money definitely does not signify wealth. Having some money in my wallet and some more in the bank already puts me in the top 10 percentage of the world's richest people. There are many people on earth who don't know where their next meal is going to come from. That being said, having money does not guarantee a rich life. Those who are rich can have very poor lives too.
Let's take this rich friend of mine as an example. Her father already had millions of dollars in the bank, and it was enough money for her and her kids so that she didn't care about school or learning or grades that much. What she did was, study and go to classes maybe 10% of her time, and spend the rest of her day shopping, hanging out in her room surfing the net, buying DVDs and watching them in her room, downloading sitcoms online and watching them in her room, watching television, shopping some more, watching some more sitcoms from her DVDs, going to expensive restaurants, reading fashion magazines, buying, buying and buying. You get the idea. Just to give her some credit, she was very social and had lots of "friends" and she also hung out with them frequently. But the thing is that most of her friends were the kind of people who respected her a little bit more when she bought a new Gucci purse. The other thing is that she more frequently chose to watch "Friends" on TV than to hang out with her real friends.

When I went to a meditation club meeting just two days ago and J., a yogi and a spiritual mentor, told us that your mind is constantly seeking love, peace, security and happiness, but does not know the difference between actions that truly give us the desired outcome and those that just create a temporary illusion of it. Your mind just runs after the things that will give you a momentary feeling of love, security etc. without noticing what's lasting and what's not. It is something other than your mind which knows the difference. That's why enough is never enough for most people. That's why your new i-pod or laptop does not give you the fulfillment that you thought it would.

You're sitting in your room and need some love, some company, maybe some adventure, some action, but instead of trying to make these things happen, instead of trying to make some friends for instance, you turn on the TV and watch "Friends". That fills the void inside you temporarily. It gives you an artificial feeling of what it's like to be amongst friends. And what do you get in return? Nothing! You get no love, no affection, no fulfillment by watching that sitcom. Instead, you fill your mind with assumptions as to what kind of a life you should have, what you're supposed to look like etc. You get what you put into things. What do you put into watching TV? Nothing. What do you put into reading fashion magazines? Absolutely nothing. What do you put into surfing aimlessly on the net?, What do you put into buying 20 pairs of shoes?, What do you put into compulsive flirting? Nothing at all.

Imagine that you suddenly stopped all the activities that don't require any input. How hard it would be to come up with new ways of finding ways to fill that time!! 4 hours spent not in front of the TV or internet, but with something else. We all do it. We all have "soft addictions". You would (or maybe not) really have to push the boundries of your creativity to come up with something really meaningful to do with your time. You would risk getting hurt or criticized but it would be worth it.

Now I realize that her life, which I've envied so much, was empty.
It was shallow.
It never gave her the things she really needed.
It was a poor life.

Now, I like my life better. Maybe I didn't go to Canary Islands or Barbados for spring break but I went to Cuba and it was quite enriching.

(PS: I'm going to make a difference in my life and not watch that sitcom that I used to watch every monday evening. I challenge you to change one thing in your life that you know is superficial but keep doing it because you are sort of addicted to it.)

First snow of the season..

Believe it or not, we had sunny weather until the end of January, and it was quite pleasant outside. It felt like a mini spring in the middle of winter. Some people call it global warming but I call it good luck; it happened because I wished for it. At a time when I most needed it. Today, it started snowing as I was having breakfast, and then it stopped for a while and the sun showed its face again. I love it when you have the snow and the sun at the same time. When the sky cleared, when it was light blue and bright again, even for just 2 minutes or so, I thought a true beauty (as opposed to enviably hot person X) was being revealed. I was really grateful to experience the feelings and the memories that came with that moment. Yet, the most important thing is to realize there is no moment like that one. That moment cannot be duplicated. Just like there will not be a sunset exactly like the one today. All these moments are unique.

It is these little moments, these snapshots that comprise your life.

And they are all free.

This divine creation does not care about what you look like, how much money or how many friends you have. It offers its beauties equally to everyone.

Why deny yourself the pleasure that is so generously being offered to you by obsessing about your "problems"? Your "problems" don't exist to tell you that you don't deserve this pleasure. Your problems shouldn't prevent you from living and having fun. You should be generous to yourself and not let what's in your mind take you away from these moments.

I'm so glad that I got a snapshot of that moment in my brain. It makes me feel alive.

How amazing it is that once you start loving yourself, even just a little bit more, you look at everything around you differently. What you see becomes unique and beautiful, once you see the beauty that is you.

I'm just grateful

All my life I had been conditioned to think a certain way that was detrimental to my well-being.

I had been making too many assumptions.

I had been taking myself and other people too seriously.

I had been looking to other people to affirm my self worth.

I had been turning myself into a victim in order not to take responsibility for what’s happening in my life.

I had been complaining a whole lot and seeing the glass half empty.

I never realized that it took very little things to feel alive and content. Very little things to make me feel privileged. All my life, I never really pondered about the things I’m truly grateful for.

I’m so grateful that I’m healthy and still young.
I’m so grateful that both my parents are alive and here to support me.
I’m so grateful that I have a home to live in and that the heating bill gets paid every month.
I’m so grateful that I’m amongst the privileged few who have a computer and internet so that I can share my feelings with so many people at the same time.
I’m so grateful that I don’t have any physical “deformities”. (Not because it changes your value, but because it restricts certain actions)
I’m so grateful that I have two legs that function well so that I can go outside whenever I want to, so that I can run for 40 minutes, so that I can take walks by the seaside at night as the cool sea breeze caresses my face, instead of obsessing about how short and fat I think my legs are and missing all these moments.
I’m so grateful for being able to feel the sun warm up my face, instead of thinking how I want bigger eyes, a smaller nose and more visible cheekbones.
I’m so grateful for people who care about me.
I’m so grateful that I’m alive so that I can see A fost sau n’a fost? at the movie theatre and laugh at the top of my lungs.

I’m so grateful that I’m still alive
to feel
whatever needs to be felt.

And I’m grateful for a million other small things. They let me know that life is beautiful.

As for the aforeyoutubed song, I read a review of it in a website (I’m not a feminist) and it had been sucking my head ever since. I think to a certain extent, it was my theme song for the last decade or so, with some (major) exceptions.

God knows
I’ve been taking a lot without giving back...

You gotta give to get
You gotta give to get back
You gotta give to get
You gotta give to get back
To the love...

My worth comes from what I can give, not from what you see when you look at me.

Wha?

Sometimes the random things I see on the street amaze me. A lot.


It reads:
Free Your Mind: Sunshine Solarium

I wonder what they had in mind when coming up with this motto.

Confused..

It's one of those nights again.. I cannot bring myself to sleep. I had started reading this book called "Buddhism For Busy People" which is apparently supposed to be a crash course into Buddhism. After reading a few pages, I got overwhelmed again by the 100th realization of the fact that the things we think will make us happy are of no avail. There are very few people in this world who are truly happy. Those who are rich, those who are poor, those who are beautiful, those who are ugly, those who are well educated, those who are illiterate, those who've had plastic surgery, those who haven't -yet- (haha), those with lovers, those without, those that are sexually promiscuous, those who are not, those with loving parents and those without, religious people, atheists, those who cheat and those who don't.. all kinds of people.. They share one thing in common: They are never truly happy.. There is always a need to have more. People embark on one quest after another, without even getting a chance to cherish what they have in their hands. Nothing, at least nothing "temporary" satifies people. But what is there to life that is not temporary? Isn't the life itself temporary ? Then what's the point of all this rush? What's the point of being an economist/a web designer/an anthropologist etc.? What's the point of becoming?

I know that I'm here for a reason. There must be a purpose to my existence. However I cannot seem to have a clue about what it is. What is my mission? What am I here for? Maybe life is all about the search and not the answer. But does that mean happiness is never attainable?

I just want to be. Get to know myself. Feel the immensity of my soul.

Right now, I want to take myself to a pleasantly hot summer night, when I'm lying on the divan at the balcony of our summer house. Where the sea is entirely still and you can hear nothing but the sound of the fireflies. When the full moon is hypnotizing and the azure of the night encompasses every living soul. I see myself truly existing. My thoughts are still like the sea. I complement the universe yet I'm so complete within myself. Love manifests it omnipresence and I feel grateful for being a part of this divine creation. I close my eyes with a subtle smile on my face, looking gracious with the bliss of having fullfilled the purpose of my existence. Can this ever come true?

"Screw this! I wanna go home and eat some chocolate!!"

...is what I've thought when I was working out today. Why I still continued the work out remains an enigma. I'm not going to post stupid chocolate photos here though.

Behold the new me..

Geez. I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since the last time I posted here. It doesn't mean I've been slacking off though. I had been doing an equal amount of thinking and slightly less feeling.

I had gone to the movies, alone, yesterday and the feeling of lonliness suddenly struck me. I found myself thinking how pathetic I am walking alone like this, having no one to go to the movies with. (I actually prefer going to the movies alone by the way). There was this condescending voice in my head telling me how things are supposted to be like. I know to whom the voice belongs. It belongs to the all the wrong signals and conditioning that I'm getting from the media, ignorant people around me etc. From all the subtext implying that the more people around me, the happier I will be. Everybody believes this religiously. Being alone is on par with being miserable and destitute. Of course it's fun to go out with friends but why can't I let myself have fun when I go out to do things alone? I think that it's more difficult to learn how to have fun by yourself than with other people. You obviously don't spend your entire time with others but you're obligated to spend your entire life with yourself. That's why you have to make an effort to like yourself, enjoy your own company and have the guts to face yourself with all your strengths and weaknesses. Many times I've heard people say that they're scared to travel or do things alone because it makes them start thinking!! They want to avoid thinking because when they do, they will think that they are lonely, thus pathetic losers, that nobody loves them and they should be pitied. They will think about what they're doing wrong. Isn't this what the consumerist culture tells you to do? "Don't think. We will do the thinking for you. We know what's best for you and we'll tell you what to do. Do as we say, but don't think, don't scrutinize."

Everyone is responsible for his own life. Those who claim that loneliness is pathetic can be the cowardest, the weakest of all because they're nothing when left to themselves. Their sense of self depends on other people which I find very sad.

At least, I'm learning to cope with difficult things. That way I will know how to appreciate a genuine company and to hold on to it not because of desperation but because of love and respect. I may have to be alone sometimes but so does everyone, so I'm not alone.

Time Tested Beauty Tips

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; Never throw out anybody.

Remember, If you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.

The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!

-Sam Levenson

How much do I want to beleive that!!

Religious holidays..

There is a bloodshed in the neighbouring apartment's backyard and I'm feeling nauseated.

More quotes..

Such a great night for soul searching and I just would like to share this quote with you. What I wanted to say has already been said before. In the most elaborate yet simple way it could ever be done.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
-Ghandi

Quotations from Chi

Those who claim to need others the least are the cowardest of all.

-Chi

...then comes the realisation that Chi is not capable of building proper grammatical sentences while making up her very own self acclaimed quotations...

...which was followed by a bittersweet realisation that she has accummulated a heavy emotional baggage by taking coward people's shit and trusting them more than she did herself. They're not worth it. Better recognized late than never.

Okay, okay, okay, okay. I'm not gonna write in third person anymore.

Your New Year's Present

Some of you will hate me after seeing this, but here is your new year's present. I was looking for something a bit more classy but youtube did not live up to my expectations. I still like the song and the message it conveys. Have fun!