In Any Case You Mustn’t Confuse A Single Failure With A Final Defeat.

Must we suffer daily?

My brother and I had an argument a couple days ago. He was convinced, that sometimes we are required to undergo the labour of things we do not agree with or do not specifically enjoy, in order to bring monetary safety to our lives. He said, that he would have no objection to working a boring job if it guaranteed an agreeable salary.

Yes, I must admit that economy and money are very important parts of the world's present arrangement and basically I'm quite settled with this. But I believe (or at least hope), that this system can work effectively even in case you have a job to your liking. For example, you have a literature-related diploma and you go and work as a literary agent or as a publishing company's assistant. You might never become J. K. Rowling in magnitude but you'll work with material you're compassionate about. AND you're still not starving.

Naturally, not everything is highly profitable. And my brother has absolutely no vision of a profession he'd enjoy. For him it's a situation, where, even if he tried, he probably would never find the job of his dreams. Because his obsession is something that has no similarity with any existing job. (Though I'm not quite sure if my brother has any interest in anything at all)

So according to me, and you should take my thoughts lightly, we live in a comfortable historical period, when we are allowed and enabled to pursue happiness in nearly every possible way. Laws are meant to limit us but that's just sanity... Now is a great time to attempt to do marvellous and memorable things. We have all chances to become the people we wish to be.

There are always words of recession and political distress but these news only hold us back, though we would actually have the chance and capacity to transform into our own dreams. We shouldn't listen to the voices, that keep us slowing down and take unwanted and misleading turns.

Today is the perfect day to achieve anything but I'm not quite sure tomorrow will be the same, so let's be quick to break-up with the dead-end habits and misbeliefs.

There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Absence of celebration

When I was in elementary school, my dad always took me to get some ice cream, when it vacation started, because of my good grades. But it stopped with the beginning of middle school. Ever since, my birthdays have been celebrated only with my family, only was celebrated my girlfriend with me in private. I also had this graduation supper, where I got to be but a mere guest. I know it's not bad and I could be very grateful for this and I guess this all's just 'coz my ego can grow very rapidly but still, sometimes I really want to be celebrated. Today, like an hour ago, I finished the revision of my book. It's not in the phase of getting published or anything, though I count it as a huge step. But I'm sitting in my room, alone, typing this entry. When I finished the first manuscript (a very raw one) i got to go on a walk alone in the park.

You know, I'm not trying to get your empathy. I don't really need that. It just hit me, that I can celebrate alone. And so I will. I've had enough of dreaming of this. You know, I'm a believer, so I wouldn't say, that it's my achievement, ergo I'll mostly celebrate my heavenly Father. He always amazes me. Just like with this.

Randomness rules!

Wish I could do some of that

Been doing a lot of not practicing to get this good at parkour.

the word

In the post you’re about to make, replace cis/white/hetero/male people with the Jews and if the result sounds like something that could be straight out of Mein Kampf, you should probably reconsider your social justice blogging habits.

Some may say that I couldn't sing, but no one can say that I didn't sing.

Florence Foster Jenkins (a terrible singer)

First of all: get some sleep.

I am going to offer you two arguments. One of them is as rational as it gets and the other one has a personal example.

#1: As much as it's necessary to realize how things change, how everything's transient and how life can get fairly random, it's way overrated.

HIMYM is a sitcom and it's unjust to set high standards for it, I understand that. But I think my expectations should have been met by it because I didn't want it to end with an ultimate moral that somehow makes everything click. Of course no show can run without standing for something, however irrelevant or stupid that thing might be.

The arc of HIMYM and especially the finale really focused on the dynamics of the core five characters but other than that, the dynamics of life. It is a good observation that things are in motion and that cruel things will happen to everyone, undeniably and unavoidably. I further say that it is an important observation, since one may find him-/herself in the false hopes that maybe a good state of things, a good part of life may be preserved. That way of thinking ought to be reformed, illuminated, as it would eventually lead to bitter disappointment. So I accept the value of this point.

On the contrary, it is inadequate. The lead singer of Switchfoot, Jon Foreman, once said it in an interview that today's people have lost their connection with death and danger. If you read Hemingway, many of his characters meet their ends at some point of the story and it's really not a big deal (in the sense that it's not the end of the world, though death's always a big deal, even in Hemingway's works). I was really surprised by the way Robert Wilson teased the woman, who just shot her husband about how their relationship was already pretty bad anyway in The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber. It wasn't a weightless, irrelevant thing, of course, even so, it was the climax of the story, yet Robert Wilson's reaction was different from how, for one, I would react if I saw someone die. This isn't because of Hemingway's particular relationship with violence but because of a more general concept of life--one that's changed over the course of time.

Our culture has been softened so much that it'd be enough for us to realize that things come and go in life. It is treated as a great revelation because we live in much greater safety and we're pretty sure that our safety will not be seriously endangered and when it is endangered in someone's life, we consider it radical. We're so blinded by our security that we don't see past the possibility of change, whereas it would be mandatory to know how to act in case life should bring a wave of it toward us.

I say that a good story can't stop when reaching the so popular phrase of "the perfect imperfection of life" but rather it should offer some sort of remedy. To try to give us options and hopes is what I see as the primary mission of a writer or director.

#2: Hard things don't always happen to us but they are often made by us.

As much as Ted couldn't save his wife, Robin and Barney were completely responsible for the end of their marriage. One could argue that it was "written in the stars" but their personality traits did not determine how their romance will conclude.

Henri Nouwen wrote: "In the depths of my being, I meet my fellow humans with whom I share love and hate, life and death.". Everybody has certain flaws that gradually alienate their partners or that make being married to them difficult. These flaws differ from person to person but in one form or another, they are unquestionably there. It is also true that everyone shares the ability to love.

It's always an invalid defense to say that one was not a good match because of certain qualities or the lack of them and thus the divorce. I wouldn't argue against saying that someone wasn't the one but that should be realized before marriage and not years into it, though it's a sidetrack and I should return to my point...

Let me elaborate by pointing out something in my own life. I've been in a romantic relationship for over three years now. I intend to marry this girl sooner or later and I also intend to be nice to her. Furthermore I'm madly in love with her, what's not a bad thing once you want to marry someone. But there are moments, much like instances of insanity, when I feel distant from her. Sometimes certain traits come into focus that are flat out antagonistic in me and her. I have felt the capability of breaking up. If I ever wanted to end our relationship, there would have been moments for that. Of course, I never wanted to break up with her, that's why we're together, but my point is that I understand how it is in everyone to end a romantic relationship, as I know it is in me, too, whereas I also see that it is also in everyone to hold on to someone, as it is in me, just as well, and as I intend to live my life.

So I say that divorce is not an article of change that happens to some people, inasmuch as it is based on personality traits.

I never made it an issue whether or not the show would have a happy end or take a more dramatic turn. (Personally, I prefer sad ends--well, not in all cases.) And I know it's nonsense to say that a TV show is wrong, especially to say that a sitcom is wrong--but How I Met Your Mother is wrong :) JK

PS: I say it again, have some sleep. Seriously bro.

The famous sit-com, How I Met Your Mother, reached its end finally. It’s been greatly anticipated by many and is currently being hated and scorned by even more. I’ve heard countless negative comments on it but as most people aren’t philosophers, nor particularly good at deeply analyzing films,…

Love and do what you will.

St. Augustine

10 THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT F. SCOTT FITZGERALD Brilliant, interesting and heartbrakingly familiar...

A Question of Morality

Do we do things because they are the moral things to do or do we do them to achieve certain ends? I faced this question in a debate I had with my church's youth group's sort of leader. It was of course a peaceful debate--diplomatically ignoring my views eventually--but this question has been living inside me ever since.

I took a Kantian standpoint and argued in favor of the categorical imperative, whereas my opponent said that, the moral thing is to act to earn God's divine gifts in Heaven. And even though it seemed pretty obvious to me, in the past one week ambiguity has begun to cloud my confidence on this matter.

The heavenly gifts we earn for living a righteous life are quite naturally stimulating and indeed worth living that life for but I thought, that it is not the highest we can get. In my opinion--the one which I had then--acting out completely because of wanting to do the right thing is the most moral way of thinking. Only for the rightness of that action, not for avoiding guilt, or actually finding pleasure in it, or anything of sort.

Using Kant's reasoning however, would actually mean embracing the opposing view, not mine. Kant actually found God in morals this way. His categorical imperative suggests a certain joy felt over the moral act, properly proportionate to how moral the act was. Although he found a problem in this: say--and this is my example--you commit a crime but you have cleaned up after yourself well enough. Still, a clever detective somehow gets to you and you are persecuted. However, when being tried, you find a way to get away by adding just one more lie, that could clearly undo the validity of any evidence they have against you. Now you are faced wih the dilemma, that either you add just one more lie and get away, or act morally and confess. It is problematic to imagine a situation, where a criminal in the midst of trial starts to think about morality but let's accept it for the sake of the thought experiment. Now before moving any further, I add another crucial detail: because of the severety of your crime and the local laws, if you testify guilty, you will be executed on the scene without any delay. So now, acting immorally will just get you life, in which you can try to make up for the wrongs you've done and do probably some even more moral things, than confessing now. On the contrary, in the present state, the only justifiable action is testifying guilty. But this morality, thinking in earthly matters, is completely vain. It earns you nothing, neither for the community, and though everyone will agree, that at least you did the right thing when you confessed of your crime, you will still be marked as overall immoral, and above these, you will not have a chance to feel any joy over your moral act. Impending death, brought forth only by a moral act, which serves only the abstract morality itself, can take away this kind of joy...

In the case above, according to Kant, the only acceptable choice is the moral one. But without a sort of moral joy felt over it and any service implemented through this, it certainly becomes difficult to find any point in it. On the contrary, no matter the contingencies, such as one's lack of time for joy, you should still choose the moral decision.

Now this is a place, where Kant found God. After your moral act, you can have joy over it even after you are dead, in case there is life after death. In case there is Heaven, and it is accessible to you--well, anyone can say a prayer a be saved even right before death--this final moral act of yours, will prove to be not in vain and you will have a chance to have that sort of moral joy in the proper proportion.

No, no one has to agree with Kant. I know, I haven't seen into the depths he has or the depths there are to this question. But--without solidly stating, that this is the right way to think about this question--this is a possible answer, that put some things into new light for me. It's good to get it off my chest :)