March 29, 2008
Self-confidence and self-worth
I just realized that self-confidence and self-worth are not the same thing. I know that a lot of the time these terms are used interchangeably. However, they denote two different aspects of personality.
Take a look in the dictionary:
self-confidence
noun
A feeling of trust in one’s abilities...
self-worth (or self-esteem)
noun
Confidence in one’s own worth...
Usually people with personalities with high self-confidence have high self-worth. Likewise, personalities with low self-confidence have usually have low self-worth.
In some cases, it is possible to have a lot of confidence in one’s abilities without having the feeling that one is worth using those abilities for oneself. This condition manifests itself with the appearance of having low motivation to do anything for oneself. At the sa
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March 24, 2008
Life through a pendulum's window.
This weekend I saw a old wall clock. It had all the normal features of a wall clock: face, hands, numbers. It also had a peculiar little feature that you don't see on many moddern time pieces; a pendulum.
The pendulum was polished brass set deep within the clock face. The only way it could be seen was through a tiny window that was no wider then the pendulum itself. The resulting effect was the pendulum weight shooting back and forth each second giving just a momentary glimpse of its shiny splendor.
There are people like this. People who spend most of their life hidden away in the dark of the clock face. Waiting. Gathering momentum for the brief time that they pass under the glass. It is then the whole world can see their elegance. The way the light reflects so beautify off there lustiered surface and move so smooth and keen. Then just as quickly as it were there, it are go again. Back into the clock to slow, stop, and start the process again.
Those standing outside looking in can only guess at the true nature of the pendulum. We have seen them before and can make guesses about it. How long the pendulum rod is, how wide the arc must be within the clock. However, these are just guesses. Everything outside the pendulum's window is a mystery.
Some time I wonder if the pendulum resents the world. It complains that on one really knows what kind of pendulum it is. They guess and make judgments on it without knowing much about it. But what else can they do?
No one will ever really know this pendulum until the face that it hids behind is removed. It will be exposed all the time. Even when it reaches the end of its are and stops for a instant. The pendulum's rod will be seen for its length and that sensitive, stationary point where it connects the the clock.
Could a pendulum that spent so much time alone in the dark aver do this? Expose its self for all its strengths and weaknesses just so its true nature can be known by someone else?
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February 17, 2008
The Magician's Last Assistant
The magician had always needed an assistant. I pretty young thing, who knew how the illusions and slight of hand were performed. Of course she knew these things, the magician had shown her how he did them. He explained in the greatest detail the hows and whys of every gesture and word. He thoroughly removed all pretenses of the "magic" he performed on stage.
The magician did this because he needed her complete support and understanding when the show went on. He needed her to help him if a trick failed or an illusion broke. The magician was unsure about his ability to perform, but he knew that he could make it through the night if he had an ally on stage with him.
However, this was not the desire of the assistant. The assistant had taken her job because she loved the "magic." She love to suspend her skepticism just for the moment and let the innocent world of wonder and mystery open before her. She thought when she became a magician's assistant she would have this feeling all the time; being so close to a man who could give it to her.
How disillusioned she became when every trick and mystery was explained. The world of magic lost its innocents and became as mundane as everything else in the world. Eventually the magician saw the disillusionment her eyes. He had needed her so very much. However, if he could not bring the laughter and joy of his performance the one person closest too him, what right had he to bring it to the rest of the world.
So he fired the assistant. Before she left his side, the magician had one last trick just for her. For the first time he did not her show how it was done. The magician realized he did not need her to know how it worked. It just worked, its just that little hint of wonder flowing back into a skeptical world.
The assistant knew why she was being fired. Her position was no longer necessary and she knew that no other assistant would ever work for the magician ever again. She was the magician's last assistant.
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December 3, 2007
Thinking politically
On my way home from work today I started to think about what I has seen while watching the latest GOP debate. It was a just panel of fussy old white men who's opinions only varied a few degreases for each other. Instead of debating the merits of there platforms, they just attacked and defended each others integrity. Is if the most important aspect of a political leader is his honesty.
However, the one exception to this homogeneous candidate pool is Ron Paul. It was easy to tell that the candidates have been blind sided by Ron Paul's very different policies to fix our current situations. Especially how he intends to handle the war. This time around the others where ready and made sure that Ron Paul looked like a crazy old hippy that has no idea what reality is.
The prevailing view that America has toward the rest of the world is a faceless/soulless entity outside our borders that wants to do nothing more then destroy our livelihood. The way to save ourselves is to strengthen our borders and preemptively strike and kill the members of this entity before they can do the save to us.
When a individual thinks this way it is paranoid personality disorder. When a nation thinks this way it is nationalism. In contemporary, America it is extolled as patriotism.
Here is a different way of looking at it. There is no formless entity that wants to kill us. There are individuals that want to kill Americans, but these are people, human beings that have reasons and motivations to kill Americans. To protect ours selves we needs to examine their reasons and motivations and find a way defuse them. This could be by compromising, or education, or simply understanding and respecting our differences. The answer is not to intimidate, or terrify into submission, or just kill those who desire to kill us.
One of the oldest stores of human virtue tells us that violence and hate will only create more violence and hate. It is a terrifying cycle that will only end when there is no one left alive to feel the hate, to feel anything. Hate, mistrust, and violence fuel the funeral pyre upon which we lay our shared humanity.
Even I have been brainwashed to believe that this type of though is the domain of whimsical idealist. Perhaps just talking out our problems and free love will not fix the worlds problems, but the unabated destruction of those who have wronged us will only amplify them.
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August 14, 2007
The cracked cup
There once was a cracked cup. It would slowly leak whenever it was filled. However the cup always wanted to be full, being empty feels so bad. So the cup would stay near a friendly pitcher who would always keep the cup full.
Eventually the pitcher became tired of keeping the cracked cup full and stopped filling it. The cup left the pitcher and for the first time it had to deal with the prospect of being empty. It used all of its strength to hold the crack closed and prevent the water from escaping.
The world is full of friendly pitchers and while the cup was holding itself together it happened across another one. It was all to happy to lift the cups burden and keep it full. Once again the cup could be full and happy without needing to use any of its own strength....
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August 12, 2007
How to tell if you are getting old.
Ok, I think I know how to tell if a person is getting "old." It is the belief that the best things in life happened in the past. When people start saying things like:
" _______ was better when I was a kid. Now it is just garbage."
or
"It used to be that __________ but now it just stinks."
or
"They should do it more like __________. It was better back then."
I know people who are physically younger then I am who already say this. Somehow they have already become "old".
One's mental age is only a product of their perspective. Ever hear of "You are only as old as you feel." Perhaps things in the past where the same as now, You, the observer, are the one who has changed.
That is how I plan to say young forever. By always believing that the best parts of life are the bits yet to come.
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August 8, 2007
Life is like climbing a muddy slope.
You reach and grab handful after handful wet sticky earth, pulling them down in a vain attempt to climb higher. The harder one grabs, the more mud will slip through finger and pull away from the wall. You may be pushing dirt down but that does not mean that you are getting any further up the slope. Never stop climbing. Of you stop for even a second, gravity will pull you right back down to the bottom.
So that is what you do: struggle. Put in twice as much energy to get half as far.
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April 5, 2007
Dancing metaphor
Last Saturday, I got SB out on the dance floor at Mojitos. He has never been club dancing before so he, like myself, had the moves of a beginner. I did not want to discourage him, so I pointed out the people around the edges of the dance floor who were just standing around. I said, "As bad as your dance may be, it is better then those who are standing still."
Retrospectively, this comment my apply to more then just dancing.
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December 2, 2006
Edgarverona religious musings
Edgarverona has some thought provoking observations about his personal faith.
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November 21, 2006
Milton Friedman provides a different perspective on government
Milton Friedman is a economist who won Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976. He advocates laissez-faire capitalism and limited government power. In this video he explains how laws like minimum wage and social security have go intentions but terrible execution. The main point of his argument is government programs should not be judged on their intentions but on their results.
Watch this video from a old PBS program. It provides a interesting perspective on the the economy on the United States.
There is what Mr. Friedman has to say about the argument that government needs step in to control the economy:
"Its a false argument. It assumes that somehow government is a way where you put unselfish ungreedy men in charge of selfish greedy men. Government is a institution where by the people with the greatest drive get power over their fellow man, get into a position of controlling them."
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October 5, 2006
Learning about self-disappointment.
Have you ever set a goal for your self and then failed to achieve it. It could be at work or at school or in your social life. The key attribute of it being you have no one to blame for your failure but yourself. You come to the realize that you are not smart enough or fast enough or lucky enough to reach your goal. This is a harsh realization and the feeling it produces is equally unpleasant.
It is easy enough to avoid self-disappointment. All one needs to do is not make difficult goals for themselves. Live in a bubble of mediocrity where there is no risk of failure. I have to admit I am like this. I find disappointment so unpleasant, I must avoid it by curbing my goals. The result is just that; mediocre.
Recently I have figured out that self-disappointment can also be a powerful tool in ones emotional kit. By experiencing self-disappointment one can strengthen their resolve. Remember how it feels to fail and putting that extra bit of effort into your next attempt. That is way one must fail in order to achieve success; grow and learn. That is the trick, self-disappointment is only useful if it one does not allow it to paralyze them.
So next time I feel self-disappointment I will remember how it feels and use it as a drive to try harder the next time.
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September 29, 2006
Negative Reinforcement: Uprooting your childhood perceptions.
Here is a particularity good episode of Negative Reinforcement:
Interrogate your inner child
In this session, NR talks about taking the thoughts and perceptions given you you during childhood and reevaluating them in the present. I find this particularly insightful because I have been spending a lot of time reevaluating my own thoughts and perceptions and seeing if they still fit with the life I want to live.
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September 25, 2006
Emotions are strange creatures.
Emotions are strange creatures. I call them creatures because they can act wildly and unexpectedly no mater how much one tries to control them. I postulate that one can control there feelings as much as they can control their hight or eye color. In other words, there is no control over them at all. It is up the the individual to determine how much to allow their emotions to influence their actions.
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June 1, 2006
Will our "information" god feel?
The concept of a information god is a common concept in science fiction writing. It usually conceits of a information network like the internet becoming self aware. The entity formed has the combined knowledge of all humanity and the ability to apply it to some goal. The result is a supreme being born from the collective conciseness of humanity.
However, in these fictions, the entity is still a logical machine. It does not have the capability to feel or emote. The example of this is Skynet from the Terminator movies. In these cases, the entity and humanity end up in opposition where each is fighting to destroy the other. It is such a common story, it practically a cliché.
Recently I found a website that examines the mood of blogs. The site is called We Fell Fine. It attempts to examine the language used in the entry to ascertain the emotional state of the author. This made me realizes how emotional the internet is. Every time a key is punched it is done so with emotional intent behind it. Even in the most clinical technical documentation, the state of mind of the writer creeps through in the nuances.
So if the internet did develop a consciousness, it would be just as emotional and fallible as the humans that contributed to it. It would be a the mind of a meta-human, a the summation and average of all humanity now and in the recored past. So it would probity be rather moody depending on the current emotional climate of the globe. In the event of a natural disaster it would feel depressed. During times of festivities, it would be more cheerful. Popular opinion would be its opinion.
Kind of a odd idea, don't you think?
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May 29, 2006
What type of animal is binhqx?
Lindsay brought her friend Stephanie to the party on Saturday. She was trying to get to know the rest of the group quickly by asking introspective questions. One of them was: "If you where a animal what would you be and why?" I could not think of a good answer at the time, so I just left it in the back of my mind.
So I have been mulling over this for a few day new and have a answer. I would a wolf and here is why;
Most of the times where people think of wolves they of their brutal predatory nature. However, that is not the aspect the relates to me. I was thinking about the ways and whys wolf's social structure. The lone wolf is fairly good at its job of survival. It can find supplies of food and resource it needs to survive without too much struggle. However the the ability of a single wolf becomes amplified when it belongs to a wolf pack. In a wolf pack, the individual abilities of each wolf complements the rest of the group and vice versa. The pack can take hunt pray much larger and more dangerous then a single wolf can. A large wolf pack can take down a moose or grisly bear. The pack can defend its territory and protect its members from outsiders.
Do that is how I see myself, as a single wolf in a pack. A pack made up of family, friends and anyones else that I care for. Once another individual is in my pack, they can reap the benefits of my abilities and I can be supported by them. In the end, with others I can accomplish tasks that would be impossible to do by myself. These mutuality supporting relationships are my most treasured possession.
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January 24, 2006
Painting reality; one stroke at a time.
The reality you know is the reality that exists in your mind. It is only fragmented shadow of the true reality, the reality that is governed but the laws of nature and is vast beyond comprehension. Why have we been given such a narrow view? Why can we only see that which is in front of us and not the complete truth of existence? It is as if we are attempting to pant a mural but have a brush consisting of a single hair.
Our five senses are remarkable, but as small transient beings we are limited by magnitude and time. What does a insect's elbow feel like? How dose a mountain taste? What sound does the moon make when it orbits the earth? What is the smell of nuclear fission? These are not impossible questions, but they are impossible experiences. Our physical bodies prevent us from experiencing these things. However, the mind can take the little bits of information and attempt to postulate the answers. A brush of a sing hair can still paint anywhere it wants too.
So are we limited by our body and mind or are we liberated by them? Look around you and for those who are trapped within the limits of their senses and those where are freed by the boundless possibilities the mind.
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November 26, 2005
Of respect...
Respect is the corner stone of all equal human relationships. There are many types of respect. Respect of abilities, respect of property, respect of integrity, and respect of achievement are types of respect one can have for another.
However the most important respect of all is respect of self-want. Knowing that your needs, wants and wishes are just as important to those of all others. Once one has found this, everything else follows. Express it and other people will admirer your determination and character.
How one treaties himself is the template of how others will treat him. If one gives his opinions and feelings the respect they deserve, one will find other people will show the same level respect. How can you ever get anyone to follow you if you can not lead yourself.
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August 29, 2005
Learning to live alone?
Sometimes SB gives pieces of advice that I do not agree with. One of them that really gets me is the standard advice he has for a person leaving a relationship. That is: "It is important to learn how to live without another person." Meaning that sometimes a person is constantly attaching themselves to another person and they forget how to be alone. I heard him say this after his younger brother informed us that he broke up with his girlfriend.
As if a person can forget how to not be in a relationship. This sounds a lot like like bullsh*t to me. We are missing critical factors here; How long will it take to lean to be alone? and How do I know when I have been alone long enough? I already know that his answer to these are "until you learn to enjoy single life as much as life as a couple." This makes no sense at all. If the act of being single could be made to be just as enjoyable and fulfilling as being with someone, no one would ever seek a partner. We would all just sit around becoming fat and not reproducing. There is a reason the human being desire to couple, it is critical for our survival as a species and we have been engineered to enjoy it.
His argument sounds more like "you should enjoy a life a celibacy like me because I think I am living life to its fullest without another person." Reeks of pure justification to me.
The only problem is that I am not the type of person to yell "That is total bullsh*t, you just want everyone living the same way you do; an otaku that depends on video-games and the internet to escape reality!" He can live anyway he wants to but when he starts suggesting other people do the same, it really pinches a nerve.
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July 28, 2005
Growing up and Grownup.
The result of Other people's happy news
I came to a realization of how growing up and grownup differ. When you are growing up, you prepare for what it is you really want. When you are grownup, you do the actions required to achieve that which you desire.
People who are growing up do not have true desire. They have the desires of other people, their parents, media advertisements, and their peers forced upon them. And they take them willingly believing those desires are there own.
But at some point you must decide what it is that you want. Not your family, not your friends, not your boss, and defiantly not any commercial entity; but a desire that comes from you and you alone. For some it is family, for other it is fame, and others want power. Every day is in one way or another part of that pursuit. When the day comes, you will find your desire and you will become grownup.
Hmmm... That came off a little more pretentiously then I wanted.
So am I grownup? No, not yet... but I can feel it getting closer...
Posted by binhqx at 1:12 AM | Comments (1)
July 26, 2005
Other people's happy news
My good friend vthornheart announced that he met someone special and its got me thinking...
Thinking, thinking, thinking...
Cryptic? Yes, but it is all I want to say right now.
Posted by binhqx at 12:56 PM | Comments (1)
June 25, 2005
carry the burden
When the time comes for a man to move in life, he must carry the burden of his possessions. When he can no longer bear the load and stops moving forward, he becomes one of them.
Posted by binhqx at 3:13 AM | Comments (1)