I think therefore I exist?

I think, therefore I am. 

It boggles me to think of other philosophers. That sentence alone proves I exist? Do other things not exist around me? Is it just me? I suppose the mind is powerful enough to create an environment around me, but it's so bizzare to think that way. Who decided that thinking was what decided our existence? 

Is there really no other way to prove our existence? 

Although, I suppose in questioning our existence only proves our existence. You can't question about being tall if you aren't tall. You cannot question being angry if you aren't angry at all. Therefore, following the same line of thought, you cannot question your existence if you do not exist at all. 

I suppose thinking really does prove your existence. 

FAIL

Just a fast note to say...

Procrastination got the better of me. 

I did lots of homework on the last day of break. 

I failed.

Theend. 

Puppets vs. Puppeteers.

About a year ago, my friend and I contemplated whether or not we were destined to meet and be together. 

I told him that I thought so. 

He asked why. 

"God has a plan for all of us, we all have a destiny."  

"So... what about free will?"

I didn't know what to say. We all make conscious decisions in life from small to important, but if we all have a destiny, that would only imply the decisions we make were pre-determined.

After watching the second Matrix movie, Neo meets with the oracle, and he says that she must already know the decisions that he is about to make. The oracle smiles and says yes, but he had to figure out why he made those choices. 

Some people also say, that maybe our fate is only pre-planned to a point which depends on the choices we make. Some people are predictable, which may explain why that is. The choice we make will alter our future. It could have gone one way, but another decision would have changed that. Times are always changing? 

Upon returning to our conversation more recently, I've come to the conclusion that I don't mind if I don't have free will. If all of my decisions were already guessed and planned out in a larger scheme of things, I think it is more important to figure why we make the decisions we do. Bad decisions only teach us to make our better ones later. You couldn't have the good decisions without the previous horrible ones. That's what I think. 

.ha. 

The truest sentence you know.

A challenge that I read and would normally pass off, except for now that my brain has been slightly molded over the past semester, I took the challenge. I almost want to think about it, write my thoughts now, and see if it changes by the end of the year. The end of next year, or the end of my life. A nice adventure, no?

I asked around the people I am around the most and some people I rarely see, and got a variety of answers, including mine:

-People are irrational, but we love.

-There is a statement truer than "all chocolate is good chocolate."

-All is full of love.

-Burnt coffee is the worst smell in the world.

-You can do trigonometry with any triangle.

-A lot of things are truely true.

-Everything is temporary.

-I am an accumulation of my thoughts and actions.

-Nothing technically, since no on really knows if we even exist or if we're mere figments of something else. But homework sucks.

-Do something you love, then everything seems to work out.

It astounds me that people who are around each other so often, and learn the same things can end up giving so many different answers. So often I think we are all so alike, yet we are all so different. You can tell by glancing at the answers which people are logical, and which emotional. It's interesting to me to see that people who I know to be emotional thinkers did not answer with emotions, but with facts, and vis versa. Funny how people defy the common theme from which they are judged as. But people shouldn't be rational, it's less exciting.

Everybody's a Critic.

It's true. Just a short post to say: 

AS HARD AS I TRY, I CAN'T HELP NOT JUDGING YOU. 

I do my best to keep an open mind and look at every situation from your point of view, but I admit. I don't understand. Whatsoever. I'm trying though, but you don't earn points for life. (chad?!) 

I do not understand how you can complain and vent every time you open your mouth, and think it is wrong when others criticize after you. Ridiculous. 

It amazes me how blind some people can be to their surroundings, or actions for that matter. I know from experience, it took three friends and my mother to finally convince me I was disregarding many in my selfish attempts to be alone with a single person. Shocked, I remember being, at how oblivious I was being to my friend's feelings and sad that more of them didn't come to me sooner.  

From that point on, I have tried not to be a negative nancy about the criticism I receive from the people who are close to me. They are usually right. It's good every once in a while, to sit your pride onto the loser-bench and just humble down. Everyone needs to admit they were wrong once in a while. How else will you learn?

To church or not to church

I don't attend church. On any sort of basis. I wish I did, and I used to, but ever since my parents pulled us from our church (along with everyone on the east side who attended), my religion has been shaky. 

My dad says it was a cult. It was a Christian Fellowship, and to be honest, nothing they were preaching was wrong. (From what I believe.) The teachings were based off of stories and scripture in the bible, and how we can rely and incorporate god into our life.  The youth program was excellent, probably the best aspect of the church. The problem was not in the messages, but in the leadership. 

My parents don't really talk about it much, but from what I understand, people were being ostracized and manipulated, controlled and attacked. Eventually it got to the point where half of the church left, and we haven't seen anyone who still attends since. 

It makes me sad, because this had been the church I attended for the majority of my life. (minus five years overseas) My parents seem to have shied away from any more churches, and now they seem reluctant in returning to once a week worship. Although now that I'm driving, I can theoretically attend church on my own if I really wanted to. 

But honestly, I'm terrified. 

I am finding myself crossed between where to even start looking for a church. I've never really been told which denomination I fall under. When asked what my religion is, my response has always been, "Christian." To which I get the smug reply of "What kind?" And I'm stumped.

Even when I attended church, I had difficulty answering this question. I don't really know much about the differences between each type, or even what they all are. But even before that, there's part that does not feel ready, like I'm betraying some part of me. 

Without the weekly dose of spiritual guidance, my faith (whatever that is now) has declined, and though I feel a need to fulfill it, I cannot even think how to begin...

Post Secret.

This journal is dedication to Reshma, who first introduced my to this website through a journal she posted a long time ago. I only remember reading the first paragraph, where she introduced the website, and then stopped. (Sorry, but it was for this purpose I didn't.) Just in the first paragraph, she was able to sell me on visiting this site and inspire me to write this journal. I was afraid that if I read what she thought of the site, I would not be able to form my own opinion on it. Which is why the first thing I am doing after posting this, is reading the rest of her post. 

PostSecret is a site where people can send in postcards and anonymously admit secrets. I love this idea, and have visited the site every week since Reshma's post. 

In a way, it is almost comforting to me to read other people's secrets: Things that they probably would never share to anyone they know, and occasionally some that they do. There have been many moments where I have considered sending in a postcard, and sharing something that I've never shared with anyone before. There would be no feeling of regret that often tags along when secrets are spread, or worry that someone I knew would know it was me... That's the purpose of the anonymity. So often I find myself wishing I had never spilled some things, realizing that it may have been just too personal to share. But there are also those secrets that feel so good to let out, and express. PostSecret is one of those ways. Total strangers getting a glimpse inside you while you get a glimpse inside them. 

PostSecret has been my once a week reminder that nobody is perfect. 

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/