Back to school ...

I realized why it is that I want to go back to school so bad. Its because I dont feel intellectually challenged any more. Living in an academic world with people of comparable intellect, I was never overburdened with stupid comments or idiocy. But now, released into the 'real world' where there is no filter from this, I find myself surrounded by stupidity. I feel myself become stupider with every day I dont pick up a Math text book. My brain is wasting away, thanks to the general public. Sure, money is great, but is it worth it? I dont think so. I'd rather go back to school, be poor, but be intellectually stimulated. I want to be around people who understand my discourses, and can reason and ration with some semblance of intellect. If you're one of those people, send me a message. We should chat.


UPDATE (July 2011): I'm back in school! Have been for 8 months now. And although it is nice to converse with 'people of comparable intellect', I now remember how nice it was to have things like 'free time' or 'time to go out for a drink' or 'time to sleep' or 'time to do anything really'. Oh well.

What I Think...

People are stupid. We just are. Especially in today's day and age. I fully believe there was a time when people where stronger. When society was better. When people were purer. I am not pure. I wish I was. My name means purity. So where did I go wrong? (I'll come back to that) My point is that almost everyone I know has made some serious mistakes in life. I know I have. And guess what, there are always consequences for the decisions we make and for the actions we take. However, wisdom is not inherent in any one of us; it is gained from experiences. The man who has made the most mistakes in life is the man who has had the most opportunities to gain the most wisdom. However, most people I know don't learn from their mistakes. They make them, they make excuses for them, they pretend like they're ok now and it was a fluke and it'll never happen again, and they go on repeating them.

What I think is that life is about being the best person you can be. I also believe its never too late. I also believe its already too late for most people. The first mistake you make is the first opportunity you have to realize you've made a mistake, and not enough people do. I remember every single decision I made that I regret. And for all but one of those mistakes I can happily say I've not repeated. My one weakness .... I lack the catalytic ability to release what I see and hear and can feel inside.


.... this is one weird post ... I can't remember why I started or where I started from or how I ended up to where I am now, but I leave you with this ...

... How many times have you closed your eyes and followed your heart in the last week? If its under 7 its not nearly enough.

I have to go now. Who's closing their eyes? I am. Are you?

Some quotes I like ...

"Don’t be so humble - you are not that great."
"A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines."
"A goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid."
"All science is either physics or stamp collecting."
"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
"Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence."
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former."
"You can pretend to be serious; you can’t pretend to be witty."
"A word to the wise ain’t necessary, it is the stupid ones who need all the advice."
"I heard someone tried the monkeys-on-typewriters bit trying for the plays of W. Shakespeare, but all they got was the collected works of Francis Bacon."
"Why don’t you write books people can read?" - Nora Joyce, to her husband James
"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
"When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before."
"I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying."
"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock."
"You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone."

Second Rate

As I came to work today, walking through the parking lot, I noticed a woman on the ground with a maintenance worker sitting next to her. As a generally helpful chap, and since I'm an EMT, I decided to go over and see what was up. Turns out she slipped on the curb and hit the ground pretty hard, hurt her knee and elbow and was pretty light headed and close to fainting. So I sat with her checked out her knee and elbow (which all was fine) and talked to her and calmed her down, gave her some water, and sat with her while she lied down. Anyway, it took about 10 minutes for the Nurse to show up, and during that time I continued talking with this woman and helping her relax (she was fine. she was kind of just scaring herself to some bit) until the nurse came at which point I figured they'd take her to the nurse office to lie down for a bit before releasing her. Anyway, when the nurse came, she marched in right up to the woman and started bombarding her with questions. Her bedside manner was ATTROCIOUS. I mean, good god, it was horrible. If this was an EMT Practical and I was a trainer I would have blasted her for having horrible bedside manner (thank you IEMS for setting my standards of patient care high, although I suppose real credit goes to my grandfather, whose standard of patient care is higher than anyone else would ever be able to achieve, he was THAT good). Anyway, a security guard came with her and when the nurse came I backed off for a moment and was about to leave when the woman started freaking out again and looked at me with a face that shouted 'umm what the hell is going on, this nurse is freaking me out, come back, you made me feel calm' so I explained to the security guard that I was an EMT and that I waited here with the women for the past 10 minutes and all the guard said (I swear we could have replaced her with a robot. In fact, we could have replaced the nurse with a robot too for that matter) was 'thanks but you have to leave. you have to leave. goodbye, you have to leave'. Aside from being treated like a second rate citizen, which I HATE, it was really appauling to see the standard of care that this lady was receiving. If I was a patient with something wrong the last thing I want is a nurse who's freaking out more than I am. Anyway, I didn't want to cause a scene, that would have just made it worse, so I walked away. I don't know what happened to that lady, but I hope they didn't botch it completely. I'm sure she's fine, but man, some times, I really wonder how the heck people get off being so shitty at what they do.

Polidicks

I've stayed out of this whole political scene crap for a while now, but I got bored earlier and started reading some stuff about this health care bill. First, theres no public option. What the heck? Wasn't that the point? Anyway, I think that the public option was the whole hooplah behind this whole thing being groundbreaking, and now its not. Anyway, moving on, all they're doing is everyone HAS to have insurance (did the government just really tell me I HAVE to buy something? although I guess they already are doing that for car insurance so it isn't THAT much of a stretch). Somehow, this turned into the "government guaranteeing millions of people" insurance. Umm, no. They're not guaranteeing shit. They telling you, buy insurance or we'll fine your ass. re-TARD-ed. Oh, and the way they're paying for all this crap: tax people who make over 250k and decrease medicare and medicaid payments to doctors. You know what, this is a great frickin way to motivate people NOT to become doctors. Doctors as it is are getting jipped with idiots suing them left and right and so now we're going to pay them less too? What's the economic advantage to being a doctor now? Go to med school, rack up shit tons of loans, get paid not quite as much, and pay for insurance??? Yea, there's no money in Medicine. Now we just need this to be officially sanctioned as idiotic with Indian parents worldwide telling their children to either go into Engineering or Pharmacy, but don't do Medicine.

From the Vault

This is from early 2009. Excerpts from convos I've had. Enjoy:

V: often times i think people do things just because they know that they have been doing it and can't remember why they should do it or have been but figure that there must have been a darned good reason to do it otherwise they wouldnt have been doing it all this time and so they take that reason for granted and just continue doing it. their original reason often and usually is, however, quite a bad reason
S: example/point?
V: there is no point, its just an observation. and the example that spurred the thought is a rather grotesque and wholly unpleasant example that after told leaves the listener with the singular though 'why did i have to ask for an example ?'

V: fdr was an idiot. because if the only thing to fear is fear itself then no one would ever be able to live without fear, cuz fear definitely exists. and if it exists, then you're afraid of being afraid, but then you're already afraid so you tweek out even more until you finally just throw yourself out of a building to end it all

V: when you tell yourself you cant have something (like meat) you actually just end up wanting it more than when you were allowed to have it in the first place. so really the best way to be a vegetarian is to pretend to be a carnivore because then you won't have any temptation at all to eat meat because as a carnivore thats all you get to eat and you're really in the mood for broadening your horizons and having a few good vegetables

V: you and i both know nothing is ever how it is supposed to be
V: infact the easiest way to make something not happen is to arrange it in a way so that it is supposed to happen and then it surely will not go as plan and not happen at all

Faith

Faith is a nice thing. It brings people comfort. It quells their fears, and gives them confidence that their path is without issue. Some have faith in god, some have faith in themselves, some have faith in others. Some simply have faith in faith. And no matter what they have faith in, they all reap the same results. Do you have faith? I have faith. I have faith that whatever I set my mind to and whatever I put my heart behind I will accomplish. That is different than having confidence in the same. I have faith that everything painful in life is a challenge that we can either cry over or grow from. I have faith that I will be a better version of myself a month from now because of the challenges I will face in these upcoming weeks. I have faith that things happen for a reason, whatever that reason may be. That is MY way of making myself comfortable with what happens. I don't care about WHO decides what happens or HOW things happen the way they do or WHY they happen in that manner. Those are questions that do not bother me, and answers I care nothing for. All I care about is doing a better job of being me, making the people I care about happy and proud, and being at peace with myself, which in relative terms, I am. Are you?

La Empezad

I started putting thoughts onto paper when I was in highschool. I used to write weekly bulletins with words of the day and a message or thought. Most of it was highly cheeky, and that was the point. I started writing essays that were satirical and cheeky as well. I wrote for the school newspaper and among other things wrote satirical and cheeky pieces for the opinions section. I've kept travel journals writing down cheeky thoughts I've had. I used to write cheeky thoughts onto a memo pad and turn it into stand-up comedy routines for a few years. And now, I'm finally making the leap onto the internet. If anything, go grab a nice glass of wine, finish it off, and pour yourself a second before reading any of this. I am not to be taken seriously. The ideal reaction that you could have would be, 'huh. never thought of that. thats very ... cheeky.' or 'haha, thats kinda funny .... and cheeky.' Aside from all the cheekiness though, there might just be a serious thought or too. And actually, most of what I say has a serious thought behind it, its just deep friend with a very very incredibly thick batter of cheekiness.

Cheers!