me

Sad Story

2005-11-28T03:30:00.000-08:00

Boy: I heard you found someone new...

Girl: Yes, and his better than you.

Boy: Why? Can he make you smile and laugh like I do?

Girl: No, but he never makes me cry... like you do..

What a sad story this is. But it made me think... When you love someone, there would be surely moments when you will laugh and cry whether in joy or in pain. People always say that in loving someone you would indeed cry, and usually in painful tears. But there are times when you cry beacause of joy for the one you love, when they make a sweet gesture or even as simple as saying the three magical words.

When I read the simple story, it made me think about love. Would you rather be with someone who you don't really love so you won't cry because of him? Would you rather leave the person you love because he makes you cry? Would you rather be with the person who doesn't make you cry, but also doesn't make you laugh or smile? Ultimately, would you prefer to escape the pain and anguish love is going to bring you than risk being hurt by the one you love?

Risks is a part of our everyday life, whether in business or in love. If you don't risk your heart and let the person you love go, you would always keep on wondering what could have been. I'm not saying that you should go find a boyfriend right away and risk getting hurt so you won't wonder what ifs; I'm just saying that when the time that you fall in love to that special person, be sure to grab hold. Love is a rare occurance, be sure to grab hold of it when the time comes.

Teen Suicide

2005-11-27T23:51:00.000-08:00

It is important to take the subject of suicide seriously. It doesn't seem right that a teenager who has lived for such a short period of time would choose to die. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, suicide is the eighth leading cause of death for all people regardless of age, sex or race; the third leading cause of death for young people 15 to 24 years old. Over the past years, suicide rate for adolescent has increased at a tremendous rate. The reasons behind a teen's suicide or attempted suicide are often complex.

Adolescent depression has been considered to be the major reason affecting people mental situation; people who have depression are 20 times more likely to die from suicide than those without psychiatric disorder. Those people who were physically or emotionally abused as children were more likely to suffer from depression. Despite the high rate of suicide, depression in this age group is greatly under diagnosed. Maybe the reason why depression in teenagers are often missed is because adolescence is a time of emotional turmoil, heightened sensitivity and most especially rebellion and behavioral experimentation.

Youth suicide rate has gone so high in recent years is maybe due to the easier access to tools for suicide (e.g. firearms for boys and pills for girls). The pressure of modern life are greater compared to the simple life back then; most of all is the pressure to fit in socially. Competition for good grades and college admission is also at its high point so teenagers need to perform good academically. There's also the awakening of sexual feelings, a growing self-identity, and a need for autonomy that often leads to conflicts with the rules and expectations set by others. Lack of parental interest may be another problem. Suicidal teenagers believed that their families did not understand them and that their mother and father denied or ignored their feelings of unhappiness or failure. Dealing with homosexuality in an environment where everyone disapproves of it can also be a great cause of suicide.

Lack of support network, for me is the greatest factor for teen suicide. If the teenager has poor relationships with parents or peers, they are more likely to feel worthless that often accompany depression. They might have the feeling of social isolation and have the greater possibility to commit suicide for they think that no one cares for them and nothing would be lost if they died. When they face a troubling situation and no one is there to support them, they might feel more distressed and hopeless in the situation they are facing.

Suicide among teens often occurs following a stressful life event, such as a perceived failure at school, a breakup with a boyfriend or girlfriend, the demise of a loved one, a divorce, or a major family conflict. After these stressful events that signs of developing depression appears. These warning signs include unhappiness, isolated behavior, and drop in school performance, loss of interest in activities that formerly were sources of enjoyment, have trouble concentrating or thinking clearly, fatigue or lack of energy or motivation, sudden outbursts of temper, experience changes in eating or sleeping habits, pull away from friends and family, and most especially self-destructive behavior like increased drug or alcohol abuse or even driving too fast.

Remember that any on going conflicts between a parent and a child can fuel the fire for a teen who is feeling isolated, depressed, misunderstood, devalued, or even suicidal. The risk of suicide increases dramatically when kids and teens have access to firearms at home. Be sure to lock away your guns for the own safety of your children.

Suicide rates are different for boys and girls. Although girls think about and attempt suicide about twice as often as boys, still boys die by suicide about four times as much as girls. Don't think that it is because girls are to scared to go through the act, its just that girls tend to attempt suicide by overdosing on drugs or cutting themselves, which doesn't always result to instant death. However, boys tend to use more lethal methods of suicide, such as firearms, hanging one's self, or jumping from heights, which may lead to an instant death and a slim chance of survival.

I am writing about teen suicide for people to be aware of suicidal people's actions and symptoms. You won't want to have the guilty conscience on your mind when you don't do something to prevent the death of a friend or a loved one.

Reality or Illusion?

2005-11-11T21:25:00.000-08:00

We live our everyday life like we always normally do...Going to school, working, studying, reading books, watching television, eating with relatives, sleeping, grocery shopping, hanging out with friends...normal everyday peaceful things. But what if we suddenly learned that the life we live in is just a mere illusion? A mere illusion of a life that in reality is full of war and tension?

Heraclitus states that life is full of flux and tension; it only appears peaceful because opposites balance each other while in conflict. He believes that peace and stability is merely an appearance, a pretense. Heraclitus was able to state that the world we live in is always changing and everything we see now will be different from what we will see the next day or any other days after. Everything changes in just a split of a second or even less. The Chinese symbol of "Yin and Yang" where there is a perfect harmony that exists between good and evil. It is a sign of motion; it is continuously moving.

The most appropriate example is the "Cold War" or the war that took place between the United States and Russia. There was no blood ever shed which pertains to its appearance. There is tension between the two super powers during that time; however, despite the conflicts there was no all-out war because they were able to balance one another. It would be a disaster for all if a war took place, but they were able to balance each other even during their conflict.

On the other hand, what if you learned that there is no real change or motion, instead there is permanence and oneness? What would you do if the world you live in is just an illusion? What if all that we see or seem is just a dream, a dream within a dream as Edgar Allan Poe has said? What if everything only seems to be moving and changing, but in reality it is only an appearance? This is because nothing cannot exist-nothing means an absence of something. Therefore nothing cannot exist without something because this is so, then existence must have always been, so it has no beginning and no ending. There can also be no empty spaces; therfore there can be no motion.

Parmenides concluded that change is just the outer shell and that the reality is permanence, oneness and Being. He states that it is one single, continuous object. It has no beginning and no end. It is uncreated and is therefore indestructible. It is alone having no empty space and no motion. It is single and has no parts. It is a hoop which means that it is eternal; therefore, it has no beginning and no end. Everything is stationary and though we may see that things are moving this merely serves as an illusion and nothing more.

Zeno's paradoxes are used to give support to Parmenides' theory. Some of these paradoxes are Achilles and the turtle and the flying arrow. The flying arrow is the easiest to understand. The flying arrow which we can all see is indeed in motion, but as Parmenides says that it's just an illusion. Our eyes deceive us to see that it is in motion, but in reality in is not moving and is stationary. Zeno states that every time you freeze the arrow, it occupies a certain space in a certain time so it cannot possibly move.

To me it seems like the sketches of cartoons that we see in movies and television. The artist merely sketches numerous pages of the cartoon and flips it very fast to conjure up a moving image. Our eyes seem to look at moving object, but in reality it is just countless papers that are flipped continuously in a very fast rate.

Where would you rather live in... in the so-called world of Heraclitus or of Parmenides? This lets you think about life and how we perceive our life to be.

Why love is blind?

2005-11-10T17:42:00.000-08:00

One day, Madness and Love decided to play hide and seek... Madness decided to be the first to count... as he was counting, Love can't decide where to hide, so at the last second, she threw herself at the rose bush. Madness searched butcouldn't find Love anywhere...so in fustration, he thrust a spear into the rose bushes. Surprised to find blood, he looked further and found love's eyes mixed with blood and tears. He cried and promised Love that hell be her eyes forever... From then on, love was blind, accompanied by madness.

This is a nice little story that explains a lot about love.

Quote of the month!

2005-11-06T20:08:00.000-08:00

There are some people who meet that somebody that they can never stop loving, no matter how hard they try. I wouldn't expect you to understand that, or even believe it, but trust me, there are some love that don't go away. And maybe that makes them crazy, but we should all be lucky to end up with somebody who has a little of that insanity. Somebody who never lets go. Somebody who cherishes you forever.

CRASH!!!

2005-10-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

I saw this movie titled "Crash" that made me start thinking about things. "Crash" is a story about a Brentwood housewife and her DA husband. A Persian storeowner. Two police detectives, who are also lovers. A black television director and his wife. A Mexican locksmith. Two car-jackers. A rookie cop. A middle-aged Korean couple. They all live in Los Angeles and as the story progress in the next 36 hours, they will all collide. This is a story about the raw and unsettling morality in todays urban setting.

In this story, those characters that we perceive immediately as the bad guys ended up repenting themselves. This is a happy thought and we hope that this would truly happen. But then again, those characters that were good at the start of the movie had some unfortunate circumstances. What does this mean?

If you are looked upon as a sinner, everybody would want to help you and you have the determination to prove all those who scorn you as wrong. Maybe because of this the bad guys at first turned out to be decent people after all. But what about those people who do everything right? Don't they need somebody to look out for them? They are the people who are most pressured in our everyday life. When they make even the tiniest mistake, everyone would be disappointed with them. I'm not saying that we should all do bad things so we won't be pressured. I'm just saying that these are unfair to some people, especially the noble ones. Maybe people think that they already know what is right and what is wrong so they don't need somebody to look out for them. But it can be lonely if nobody appreciates those things you do.

Our lives are all inter-connected. At some point in our life we can affect other people we don't even know, maybe for good or not. We must be grateful for even the slightest bit of fortune we get. We must be thankful for the people who care for us and even those strangers who we pass by.

Existence of God???

2005-10-22T22:43:00.000-07:00

Does God exist? This is a question that no one can really answer. Some people believe that God exist and some people doubt that there is a God. But who can really be certain with the existence of God that is all powerful and all good? We really can't be certain about this topic.

For me, I don't really believe in God. I think that our minds are set up to believe that there is a God so that we can hope for the betterment of our lives. If there is a God, we will think that we have a chance to have a better life and all the setbacks and the failures in our life are just some drawbacks but ultimately will still lead us to success. We only conjure up a God so that we can still hope that we have a salvation. We only give excuses for our mistakes. When we have good fortunes, we say that it is because of God that we are so lucky; and when we have bad fortunes, we say that it is only God's way to test our faith. It seems to me that whatever happens the church or our own selves always finds an excuse; whether to give credit to God for all the good fortunes or to say that God only tests our faith in him for all the drawbacks we experience.

I always wondered why everything we do should have something to do with God. It doesn't mean that if we don't believe in Him, we would do something bad. We know the difference between right and wrong, and it is because of this that we do the right thing. It doesn't have to do anything about God. We do things on our own and it is our choice whether to do good or evil. Why does it have to be because of our fear of God that we would do something right? Don't we have our own individuality to decide?

My doubts about God have been greatly intensified after reading the article by Bertrand Russell titled "Why I Am Not A Christian". I realized that all my doubts before was rightfully so. I don't wish to change your faith, I just merely stating the reasons behind my own lack of faith.

To those who wish to view this article, here is the site:

http://www.users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html