minhpho

"The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference."

I watch a lot of documentaries in my free time. You could say it's one of guilty pleasures, but really I don't feel guilty about it. I love watching documentaries, especially nature documentaries like Life and Planet Earth. The reason I like watching documentaries is that it satisfies my curiosity. For example, I started watching a series called Human Planet. It's a series about how humans work with and conquer nature in order to live in the most remote and extreme climates like the Himalayas or deep in the jungles. That just sounds so interesting to me and makes me want to know more about it. I tend to be curious about lots of random things and documentaries also help expose me to the world teaching me things I never knew.

Human Planet trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HiUMlOz4UQ

“I laugh, I love, I hope, I try, I hurt, I need, I fear, I cry. And I know you do the same things too, So we're really not that different, me and you.” -Colin Raye


Chivalry. That is a word that’s rarely used nowadays.  Last semester in my Men/Women discussion class we actually discussed chivalry and what it constitutes in society today. I said that chivalry means being a gentleman and self-sacrificing.  I was then asked by the moderators of the discussion what I meant by that to which I replied that it just means thinking of others, not only towards women. The classic example of being chivalrous is opening the door for someone or giving up your seat for someone who needs it more than you do. The question I asked myself today was does chivalry still exist and to what extent. I don’t think that chivalry exists anymore, at least in terms of how I define it. There is no more self-sacrifice in my opinion because there is always some benefit to yourself in being chivalrous. Most people act “chivalrous” because that is either the social norm or because it is the polite thing to do and they just don’t want to appear like an asshole. Think about it, in fine dining, the proper thing to do is the pull out the chairs for a lady and then push their chair in after they take a seat. Guys only do that because that is the social norm in that setting. They did it to gain favor from the woman showing them that they have class. I bet that if half the things people consider to be chivalrous wasn’t expected of guys in certain social settings that most would forget to do them. Maybe this is just the cynical part of me showing when I say chivalry doesn’t really exist, at least true chivalry.

“I start to feel like I can’t maintain the facade any longer, that I may just start to show through. And I wish I knew what was wrong. Maybe something about how stupid my whole life is. I don’t know. Why does the rest of the world put up with the hypocrisy, the need to put a happy face on sorrow, the need to keep on keeping on?... I don’t know the answer, I know only that I can’t. I don't want any more vicissitudes, I don't want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I’ve had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted.” -Elizabeth Wurtzel


So it's 5:11 when I'm starting this post that I've decided I'm actually going to finish. I have like over 20 drafts just sitting unfinished that I doubt I'll ever get back to, but we'll see. Anyways I've decided that before I go to sleep I'm going to actually update with a post about something. About what I haven't quite decided yet so we'll just have to see where my train of thought leads this post. I started out this semester with high hopes and a good sense of purpose, but I can say that now I don't have any of that. I'm no longer excited about this semester and I'm back to where I was last semester and last year. The thing is, I have a pretty good idea as to why I'm in this funk right now except I can barely admit it to myself let alone others. I just wonder to myself will I be able to accept this thing and do something about it or just keep it to myself like always and just let it pass me by. I honestly don't want to regret anything and I feel that that fear is what really gets me a lot of the time in making my decisions, even minor ones like what to eat for lunch. I don't want to pick something and then regret going down that path because there is no turning back. This just leads to my incredible indecisiveness for everything. This is one of the hardest things to change about myself and I feel as though I'll never get over this. This and being more self-confident/proactive about my life. It's hard to change who you are no matter how much you want. I just feel as though these are the obstacles that are standing in the way between me now and the me that's actually legit 100% happy and content with his life for more than a day.