State Pain for future pleasure

This summer is going to be annoyingly busy, and I really am grasping on to some lingering drops of achievement, and the hope that all this fucking work will pay off in the end.


I think education is the most important thing in the world. However you get that education (in school, through research, reading scholarly papers, online courses, ect....) makes no difference to the knowledge you soak up and dispense in the end. The point, albeit a gloomy one, is with no real formal education and no degrees, seemingly intelligent people are nothing more than people who like reading. People who are probably making no money, and usually dependent on others to get by. This is a small portion of the reason why I think education in Universities and Colleges should be free for all those who have the grades to get in, and who wont just fuck around in the process. Theres always the argument that you have to charge a lot for the "good" Universities so that they can hold higher standards than others, but in my opinion, money should not equal prestige. But it does. Tough. That's life. Although it is pretty disgusting when I see dumb ass people in my school, barely studying, and being satisfied with a 53% in a course just because it means they passed. Why? Because they dont have to pay! Their parents pay, and all they do is work as little as they possibly can, and float along. Education should not be a chore. People leave or stop going simply because they learn in a different way, and so do I in all honesty, and thats all well and great, but its not going to get you anywhere. Push yourself for a few of semesters, and you'll have all the rest you can dream of later. As crazy as this may seem, learning and studying get MUCH easier after University, and the really lovely, wonderful, spectacular beauty of learning is attempted on a much more personal level. I've realized something working 6 day weeks for the passed 3 weeks at a shit store with SHIT management, and even shittier idiots working around me: Formal Education is blind. It has no favorites, it has no sympathy, it has no emotions. You either have the marks and references that you need, or you dont. Period. At the dead end job I'm working at currently to make extra money to pay off OSAP however, myself and another employee are working with about 40 other people in setting up this new store. We are only tied to an employment contract for a 3 week period because they cant keep everyone and so they will base how hard we work during these weeks on who will be offered a position after the store opens. Now, I can pretty much stake my life on it that myself and the girl I work with (along with maybe a handful of others) are the only ones in the entire group who ACTUALLY work. There is a group of fuck tards however who (every time I have seem them) are either sitting and talking to each other, OR sitting down and drinking coffee and playing with their cell phones (both things we were not advised to do). Guess what? These fuck tards have already been offered jobs by one of the most vapid, and idiotic managers I have ever witnessed in my life. While myself and the people who do NOT stop working from the beginning to the end of our daily 9 hour shifts have had a grand total of ZERO offers. 


Now in addition to this throughly pissing me off and making me have recurrent urges stab them in their vaginas, it makes me really, REALLY appreciate the fact that I am simply there to work until the application process for grad school begins. Until the years I worked hard and got excellent grades pays off, leading me to a job where I will no longer have to deal with fuck tards who get beneficial treatment for simply being fuck tards, and a job where I am actually making a slight difference by helping people who need help and support, and a job where I will actually have a prestigious position in a work environment where I respect the people I work with, rather than pity them.


If its the last thing you do, work hard, and be the best person you can be. Don't settle. You can make a greater impact on the world this way. Things are not easy to achieve, and they will never be handed to you (unless you know a genie or you marry rich I guess). But myself, I'd rather be independent and intelligent any day.


Peace,


Todays Tea: Citrus Yerba Mate

Dreaming of hypersomnia

Things that I cannot wait to do after I finish finals:

• Take a fucking long ass bath
• Read all the books in my closet collecting dust that I haven't been able to read during school
• Watch my growing list of movies
• SLEEP IN
• Watch the TCM channel for an ENTIRE day with little or no disruptions
• Use all my gift cards I received as gifts for christmas that I've had no time to use
• Sleep (again, because I've been THAT deprived of it)
• Do yoga regularly and not just when I have time

....I have more to look forward to but I have to get back to studying :(

Todays Tea: Green tea with white tips (also called jade snow)

ps. I know more about the science of well-being than you every will. I guarantee you.

Peace

Open the Door

I'm someone else tonight. Someone who is not feverishly going over posted words to ensure they are safe or wise. Have I lost my talent? Had I any talent to begin with? I have all of these goals set up before me and all I literally want to do is read, sleep, and then quietly pass into oblivion. How peaceful. 
But I know there are people who need religion in order to feel at peace with themselves, with the afterlife. I guess a picture of some home in the clouds or 72 virgin wives sounds really nice and all, but it just kind of seems like shutting the door on a scary room. 


Let me explain. 
Its like having a really, really dark room somewhere in your basement-a furnace room maybe that emits this eery hum and contains so many crevices and small spaces that you cringe to go though it during the day, let alone at night. So you make it a point to close the door, and not look inside. You know what's behind the door. People know what is behind the door. You've seen it yourself. Its dark, and convoluted, and complicated, and intimidating. I mean you live alone-you are alone-its understandable. So you close the door. You keep it closed. Because even though you know what's behind the closed door, not seeing it makes you less anxious. Not seeing it allows you to muster up other-less intimidating and less frightening-images. And through this cover up, you feel better, at peace. 


This is the way I understand how religion works for intelligent, educated people. They know it can't be true. They know. They know the evidence, they've seen the records, the contradictions, the vastness of the universe...They know. But everything attached with knowing is way too intimidating. Too frightening to know that people die-there are no souls-there is no afterlife (what an awful waste of all those young boys strapping bombs to their chest and dying in the name of some ghost and his apparently bigot last prophet). Only corpses. It's too depressing-too empty. So what should they do? They close the door. They know what exists, they've seen the proof, but they choose to believe that there is something-anything-else other than this....life. 
Why? 


It's comforting, and I understand that. I myself was once the one pushing that door closed with all my might. But one day, I let it go- I opened it, and at first everything came rushing out like an ambush-I had never felt anxiety so fierce. But then...it was gone. Everything was clear. No superstition. No worry. No rationalization. And my life was still meaningful-I still had all the same goals I had originally-I still loved the same movies, music, the same people. But now I felt free. It was magnificent.


Until next time.
Think heavy.


Todays Tea: Jade snow with mint leaves

Half of life is making people go away

The other half is sleeping, apparently.


I am staying up WAY longer than I need to these days, and waking up disgustingly late. Especially since finals are fast approaching and anxiety ridden anger outbursts are slowly creeping up behind me. I can feel them.


I've realized that although the internet in its vast goodness is vastly good, it has made book reading and other forms of reading paper more and more difficult to do OR less and less likely, depending on how you look at it, and also if you read. And although I am aware people read on the internet, it hurts my damn eyes!!! And I am a lover of the simple life! (In a slightly related topic, I have consistently decided that any one of the vlogbrothers-http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers-is definitely for sure my soul mate, and I wish to meet them both and bask in the glory of their infinite wisdom and patience for acknowledging and distributing fascinating pieces of information).


But yes, the simple life-ideally one where long walks near quiet rivers and lush green grass with a black lab, and a cool person beside me talking about the wonders and horrors of the human condition, and also the empty yet unending unended-ness of the universe. A life where no one is preaching their shit religion or passing judgement on others because of their sexuality, profession, or personal choices. *sigh* I hope, hope, hope I can live long enough to see the world possibly take this beautiful turn into beauty.


And even though there are others who maybe think the way I do, I always feel indescribably alone and unsure. I think everything will change if I travel to a place like Alaska to finish my novel, that everything will change when I come back. That I'll suddenly stop equating money with a better life, and that I will stop getting upset at my beloved and wonderfully wonderful family members no matter what because they put up with me and all my strangeness for a very long time. My anti-social tendencies after all these years have remained partly due to shitty experiences with dumb ass gross people in the world, but also because I find that I only ever connect and enjoy being around a very small (almost insignificant) number of people. I mean I don't think its such a bad thing, but apparently if I don't go out and get shitfaced and surround myself with people ALL the time, I am not living up to my early 20s persona. I like to drink, but I prefer to drink with maybe one or two people, or while watching an old movie holding a glass of red wine. I don't mind socializing but I prefer not to. And I am totally comfortable with that, which more people may find even more strange. Honestly, delving into douglas adams or losing myself in some sort of wonderful book or film gives me more personal pleasure than a man ever did, or ever could. Trust me. And yet I am completely okay with this.


I was going to say other stuff like things and things about other things, but I'll sleep instead, but first leave you with the trailer to one of my favorite movies of all time, introduced to me by one of my favorite people of all time....Why? Because I can! And also because I recently started thinking about it, and remembered how beautifully wonderful, and great in all its greatness it actually is. If you will do nothing else today, ghosts reading my blog, watch this trailer, and then take a nap.

  What are the finer things in life.


Todays Tea: Sencha and matcha blend


GOODnight, and if you happen to come across my thoughts during a dream, remind them to wake me up early.

Selfless Fools

When we spend our entire lives entrenched in the ideals and opinions of others, we may lose track of what is truly important in life. We go about our days thinking of our diets, our relationships, and our goals. Natural disasters, and death seem millions of miles away-almost as if they are unreal, as if they never happened. We try so hard to desperately figure out the reason for our existence, and follow the rules garnering our lives. So hard that we often forget to actually live. To be able to look out from an open window and watch sunlight coat every surface within view. To take a deep breath, and spill out our thoughts, fears, and beliefs about the world without having to worry about being prosecuted for them.
We've lived so long this way that words like love, peace, patience, and empathy become infested with different meanings. They are no longer universal. You see people holding peace signs, while equipped with weaponry and shooting bullets into the sky. You see women not being able to make their own choices on their own bodies. You see contradictory laws like the legality of pornography, and the prohibition (which never works) of prostitution. People call humans egocentric beings-inherently selfish mammals that only look after themselves by instinct because of years and years of evolutionary changes. But this is a lie. This is a fabrication. Nothing is selfish about who we are. We spend an inordinate amount of time poking our heads and opinions into other people's business. We complain about others who don't believe as we do, who use their bodies differently than we would, who say things we would never say, and do things we would never do. Even further, we condone acts of violence against these people-why? Because they are not like us. We pride ourselves on being accepting, peaceful people, and yet we live our lives always trying to better the supposedly "wrong" things in other people, and at the same time, not allowing for equal right of all in the very country that we live in. What contradictory lines we cross. Life would be a lot better if we were more selfish. If we let others be, and we carried on each with a loving, peaceful nature, a determined will to achieve our goals-whether it be money, family, faith, leisure, or love. We live. We need to start to live.


Peace


Today's Tea: Honey Lemon

Ethics and the interpretation of data: Is Child Sexual abuse okay??

I read a particularly interesting blurb in my developmental psychology text today. It was referring to a controversy once surrounding the psychology journal, "Psychology Bulletin" back in 1998. Researchers (Rind and colleagues (1998) published a meta-analysis they had done looking at the ramifications of childhood sexual abuse in college students who had at one point or another experienced the trauma of childhood sexual abuse.


After analyses of the data was examined, researchers concluded, "Self-reported reactions to and effects from child sexual abuse indicated that negative effects were neither pervasive nor typically intense..."


In basic english, this means that researchers were essentially concluding that: there were few, if any, problems related to childhood sexual abuse. 


Obviously this lead to a huge up roar of rage from the public as well as the US government, and even disapproval from the scientific community. Psychology Bulletin (which is a pretty distinguished an respected scientific journal) and the American Psychological Association (APA) got a lot of heat for publishing the article. And even more horrifying was the plethora of pedophilia websites that cited the article as "proof" that having sex with children was not bad.


The APA did not back down. They continued to defend the research, and "academic freedom." What they did however, was provide a significant amount of space in the Psychology Bulletin for published commentaries that disputed and in many cases, blatantly proved the illegitimacy of the research findings.


Now although I will never deny the importance of academic freedom, there is also something called the ethical code, which states that researchers MUST be cautious with how they present and interpret their research findings. Not only was Rind and colleagues' article abundant with methodological limitations which were not thoroughly addressed (like a biased sample, unstandardized variables, a myriad of statistical errors, ect...), but the authors clearly violated the ethical code stating that research findings must be presented in an accurate manner to prevent misinterpretation by others (particularly laypeople)!!!


Now the simple fact that authors (following the huge negative response by the public and scientific community) began double-talking their asses off to try and regain any legitimacy in their research is clear indication that authors obviously did not present their findings objectively enough, while at the same time keeping in mind the overwhelming methodological and procedural limitations of their study.


From a research standpoint, the title of one of the commentaries sums it up best I think, "Sex with children is Abuse" It's as simple as that. And there are a whole shit load of WELL-DESIGNED longitudinal studies that have demonstrated just this: that early childhood sexual abuse is consistently and reliably associated with later psychological and social problems later on in life.


In my opinion, I think its a complete travesty that the article was even approved for publication, because although I sincerely believe in academic freedom, this is a clear-cut case where the benefits of the findings (in addition to being poorly executed) definitely do not outweigh the harmful outcomes caused by their publication.


Until next time...


Todays Tea: Organic japanese sencha

What a pity

@prime440 You're an idiot on so many levels. Why don't you take a break from you're christian supremacy standpoint, and try to educate yourself on 1) what atheism actually means and the set of beliefs associated with it. And 2) Everything else, because I think you're still living in the past, and I digress from even attempting to put logic, reason, and objectivity into the mind of a 48 year old who has  already solidified their views and opinions permanently. Peace.


This is the final message that I sent to the neanderthal, which failed to be delivered because I was blocked from responding to that particular video anymore. What a beautiful way to reaffirm my earlier points about christians: "Believe in what we tell you, or be an outcast" In this case, don't argue against us, or we'll block you. Not only was I blocked from replying to that dumbass's response (who btw, is the one who initiated the debate only to shy away from confrontation by blocking me from his channel afterward...pathetic), but the person (another dumbass under the name of "rosaryfilms") blocked me from accessing his channel to message him in general.


Now I may be wrong, but in my eyes, if Christians were really 100% sure about what they believe to be god, and his holier-than-tho son jesus christ, not only would they not back away from discussions about the contrary, but they would feel sorry for us (referring to atheists). Pity. Pity would dignify some sort of overwhelming, unbreakable belief in god.


However, I have NEVER once in my life, come across a christian (or muslim for that matter) who showed this type of strength in their beliefs, without first becoming ridiculously enraged. The pattern goes: The discussion ensues, myself answering questions with evidence coming from studies or calculations, and christians quoting phrases from the bible, which is hilarious needless to say, since they seem hellbent on ignoring the obvious atrocities, incest, rape, torture, and sodomy that oh so often appears in the bible (and a hell of a lot more so in the laughable excuse for a text that is the koran). Then after a while of discussion, when they seem to have lost the majority of their jesus covered ammo, they resort to calling attention to the "ridiculousness of the idea of evolution and how we believe we came from apes" ect... All the while ignoring the tons of evidence there is supporting the SCIENTIFIC theory of evolution (refer to http://www.youtube.com/user/ZOMGitsCriss#p/u/2/8nTnjx-JRzE for more information), and not to mention the big bang theory. And when you try to explain to them these points, christians drown you out by accusing atheists of simply being attracted to satanist temptations (again ignoring the fact that the absence of a belief in god that is characteristic of atheism would also include an absence of a belief in satan or hell for that matter). Then when you try to elaborate on these basic points, they erupt in anger, and resort to calling you every bad name they could think of, each having nothing to do with the discussion whatsoever. Leading you to sigh, and walk away.
Thanks jesus, for all that confidence =)


Atheists, never be afraid or ashamed to blaspheme. It is a very important ritual which can ground you once again into reality and the mere fact that jesus (as well as muhammad, and other deities held up on a pedestal) were simply charismatic leaders, human beings, that imposed their beliefs on others for some external purpose. And oh how well it has worked. And I sincerely hold true that both can fully kiss my ass.


Today's Tea: Yerbe matte peach
Peace.