People dislike truth

Our entire law system is build on honesty. You have to do good things and in court you always have to be honest. Truth and justice and all that crap. Being honest is even considered a virtue. The the funny thing just is that people HATE hearing the truth about themselves. The primary reason for this is that we don't actually like that part of us. Maybe we don't want other people to know it, or ourselves to know it, because we would seem either evil or weak in the eyes of others.

I borrowed a game from a friend of mine, or rather, he put it in my hands and said: PLAY!

This game is called Persona 4, which is awesome, by the way. The game is about a bunch of teenagers who becomes capable of entering TV's and end up in a different world, where so called "shadows" are on the ready to attack them. Fortunately, our heroes are capable of summoning an avatar of their so called "dark side" (Which is the truth about themselves) called a "Persona." 

But there is a catch. before they are able to use their personas, they need to accept their "shadow selves." That is all there is required. But this is easier said than done, 'cause their shadow parts are mean and cruel. They still speak the truth though. They have the virtue of honesty. They are open about the weakness of their counter-part and what annoys them. From a freudian point of view, one might call them the subconsciousness. 

The point is that they can't accept their shadow selves to begin with and that is exactly what happens in real life. There is a part that we don't wish to acknowledge, deep inside us. It might be an opinion, an interest or some physical. Personally, this isn't such a big problem for me, I'd gladly admit that I am weak, or lazy or unattractive, if people point it out with some reasonable arguments. It's not a problem for me, since I am completely satisfied with who I am and accept that I am not perfect. This is partly because that whilst I realize that I am very "cruel" when it comes to some points, I simply don't care. It have been a problem for me, though. When I found out that I was going to be bald in a couple of years from now, I felt really bad about it, and I hated when people commented on my thin hair. That part of me is however gone. Which is why it pisses me off that I am still not able to summon an avatar capable of firing off lightning bolts!

So Persona got me thinking and I could actually recognize this kind of dilemma. After my en devours in bizzaro-TV-land, I was in a real-life sports competition, where we were in teams of 4-6. My group came in the 5th place, which means that we lost and so did the group of a guy I knew who were also participating. Th judges had a reward for everyone though, which consisted of a small candy-bars. Of course the winners received more. Both I and the guy I know who was also there, insisted on not receiving anything because of the fact that we lost. Still, later I see him gnawing on one anyway. At that point I ask him, why he might have changed his mind? He said, that since one of the winners offered him one, he couldn't say no. So he couldn't say no because a different person than the judge offered him one. I believe that he shrugged it off as being rude to say no, which, according to my observations, it wouldn't be, especially not if he told him about his principle of "loser gets no reward". Therefore I asked him: "So you said yes because you really wanted the chocolate." This made him very angry and needless to say, he gave me a childish reply, that made no sense whatsoever.

I believe that he became angry, because he was faced with the truth. He gave in. Craved. Having the tasty chocolate dangled in front of him twice was more than enough, and thus he decided to just dumb his principle and eat it. That is most definitely a sign of weakness, which I believe is why he didn't wanna face it. His "darker self" was smearing the fact in his face and he chose to neglect it. But I believe that we can learn a lesson from Persona 4. If we can't accept ourselves, we will grow weak and our we will in fact be defeated time and time again by ourselves (Which kinda seems humiliating.) But if we can accept ourselves, we will grow stronger (evidently without a cool avatar, though.)

It all boils down to whether we want to be weak, or acknowledge that we have a "darker side" and know that we are so much more than that. If we want to evolve and grow to acceptable levels, we need to be able to accept ourselves. Our "Full" selves.

You can exchange it!!

Ever received a present? Of course you have! We all do from time to time, as well as  give them out. I believe that no one can complain when it comes to being given a gift - or wait! I can! But I won't.... Wait... That's a lie, actually, I will.

I'll admit that getting Assassin's Creed II: Brotherhood for Christmas was nice. Or Storm of Zehir on my birthday for that matter! But aside from some very specific games and some creative surprises from my girlfriend, gifts don't really give me that much joy. Despite the fact that I dislike birthdays and Christmas a great deal, I also hand them out on said occasions.

I guess we get used to handing out and receiving presents and that is fine. The trouble is when people like me receive them, we don't really tend to get overly enthused. Instead we give a quick "Thank you" and a doubtful smile. Personally, I'd think that that would be enough of a display of gratitude, but sadly: NO!

Every-single-fucking-time I have to go through the process of my mother, aunt, or some crazy dude dressed as Santa saying: If you don't like it, you can exchange it!

Okay:

1. I fucking know

2. You already know I won't tell you that I will, 'cause it's rude

3. Why would I fucking bother

4. If you'd think it was okay to exchange it, why'd you fricken bother getting it? Just give me money instead!

Just because I like the gift, it doesn't mean that I'll jump and run around the house 3 times in excitement. It's just a T-shirt, come on!! And it's not like I am going to go through that theatrical sequence of pretending to really care for it, by saying: Uuuuuh, that's nice! Just what I wanted!

Of course I'd be good at it, better than most, but no!

When I give gifts, all future remarks and comments are actually inexistent. Once it's handed over, the deed is done and we never need to speak of it again. Case Closed.

Being smart

Being smart is cool. There's nothing better than overhearing two people at school or work, talking about the Roman kingdom (Regnum Romanum) and then being able to say "Did you know that Romulus was the first king of Rome? He build Rome in 753 BC :D LOL"

Then the people you just lectured stands in awe and says "Wow, you are both smart and good looking" (that's what happens in my dream world.)

... Okay, that reaction may be a lie, but knowing stuff is cool, and the best thing is when you are awesome at math, biology and physics. The only issue is that it most of the time can be kind of dull to get there.

Once you are there, though, it's all kittens and pink clouds.
But, I guess it's like juggling. We don't really want a stand around and practice until we're finally able to juggle around the 2 balls, 3 juggling clubs and the nine eggs that we want. Once we do know how, there's nothing better than showing off! Spinning the emotions of awe and jealousy around the room, with your magnificent skills.

You may be tempted to "let it go for now" (And never get back to it) and just go play Crysis 2, which is awesome when you are trying to master it, and boring afterwards instead. GO PROPHET!

I believe that the best way of going about this, is to pick a point of focus and then just stick with it until you can do it. I do that with German (and Japanese, but shush).

True optimism doesn't exist

Let me start out by saying: I am a full-blood pessimist. I do not have a problem with optimism, even though I don't quite agree with the ideology.

Recently a thought entered my über-intelligent brain and now I am going to share it. Hold on, now:

True optimism is inexistent!! :O

That's right!

Have a look at this sketch I made in paint!
Heres the legend:

• Black Pentagon = The act of ignoring problems
• Red Square = Pessimism
• Blue Square = Optimism

The arrows symbolize whether it's a negative thing (down) or a positive thing (up)

I believe that if you ask the ignorant commoners to answer whether these things are negative or positive, these will be the results.

Pessimism is negative. Fine.

Optimism is positive. Okay.

Ignoring problems. Sound kinda negative doesn't it?

I Believe that ignoring problems is part of optimism. The more hardcore the optimism, the worse the case. Focus on the positive, brush off the bad and forget about it. Ergo = IGNORE THE PROBLEM

Thus, the pentagon forces both squares to be... Da da da daaaam...:

NEGATIVE

We can thus conclude: True, or or pure if you'd like, optimism does not exist!!

Thank you, for your time.