"There is a famous myth about lemmings plunging over a cliff to their deaths en masse. This idea stirred something horrific, yet fascinating in our collective psyche. People puzzled over why they would do it, but I knew. Lemmings follow each other to a certain death because being dead with everyone else is better than being the only one left alive. Is standing alone, terrified, on a wind blasted cliff, sniffing the air for anything familiar really preferable to a short plunge to a known outcome with those of your kind? Being part of a group leaves one amazingly free, free of the responsibility to make decisions and free from the responsibility of those decisions. Once nudged, however, out of the group, once that long hellish decent into the solar system has started, it leaves one vulnerable, always falling closer to an unknown hell, alone, without the comfort of anonymity."

Fucking awesome.

Random thought

A good characteristic to judge someone's personality is their sense of responsibility. Individuals with a sense of responsibility; those who participate in many extra-curriculars, are extroverted, and are able to juggle many activities at once; are able to develop punctuality, are reliable, and have high moral standards (i.e. ethics).

People who are able to show true commitment to a task, any task whether it be school, sports, or some other hobby; people who are able to see something through instead of quitting when they become bored or the activity becomes difficult; possess a certain integrity.

I'm not saying that this is the only indicator. I'm just saying that many of my friends who I have a lot of respect for share this characteristic.

End of thought.  

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

What I learned:

Some people just "click." It's hard to express what love is literally. Love at first sight? Why not.

Meet a stranger and look into their eyes. Get self-conscious, look away. Two seconds later, you look up and your gaze is returned. This eye contact is accompanied by that warm fuzzy feeling that gradually becomes goosebumps. You realize that the other person isn't looking away. You can feel something nipping at the back of your neck. Your head feels heavy and your heart flutters. Those eyes look familar, like someone from an alternate life. You've met them before. You've known them your entire life. Love at first sight.

Then you break eye contact and go back to your conversation with your friends. Why? Because you're a fucking idiot.

End of thought.  

Currently Listening In Your Honor By Foo Fighters see related

-"Is this it? Is this what it's all about, Manny? Eating, Drinking, Fucking, Sucking, [Come on, man] Snorting? Then what? Tell me, then what? You're fifty. You gotta bag for a belly. You got tits, you need a bra; they got hair on 'em. You got a liver, it's got spots on it, and your eatin' dis fucking shit; and you're looking like these rich fucking mummies in here. [Come on, it's not so bad; it could be worse, ya'know?] Is this what it's all about? [Fo'get it] Is this what I work for? Look at that, a junkie. I gotta fucking junkie for a wife. Don't eat nothin', sleeps all day wit dem black chades on. Wakes up with a qualude. [Dont pick on her, man] And who won't fuck me, [come on...] cuz she's in a coma. I can't even have a kid wit'er, Manny. Her womb is so polluted, I can't even have a fucking little baby wit'er!"  -Scarface

This post is just internal monologue that has taken the form of a blog entry.

Time passes, people grow older, and, hopefully, wiser and more mature. One of the most important concepts that I took away from high school, was in my OAC English class. We read "The Great Gatsby" by Scott Fitzgerald and the novel was able to idealise the concept of self-improvement in a way that had a profound impact on me.

It outlined the American Dream. Immigrants coming into the country, trying to fit in. A cultural melting pot where individual beliefs are shed in order to assimilate into the bourgeoisie. On a different scale, life has a way of doing this to us everyday. We try to appease others, and in doing so, we lose a little bit of ourselves by trying to fit into the various social cliques and niches that exist. So, in the process of self-improvement, I have to constantly do a self-check to make sure that I'm changing, not to validate others, but because I am (in a natural progression) slowing turning into the man that I want to be.

Everyday I try to improve in any way. Every experience that I've had, I try to learn from. Especially the failures that undoubtably are abundant in everyone's lives. The best way to handle failure is to learn what you did wrong and move on. Everyone fails; Michael Jordan got cut from his high school basketball team, Babe Ruth struck out 300+ times. It's only the end result that people remember, the monumental final achievement that helps an individual transcend, regardless of the countless failures that occured along the way. If there was one endearing philosiphy of life that I live by, that would be it. Temporary failure only becomes permenant if you let it happen.

I have and still continue to put on lots of different masks and adopt different indentities. I have imitated people that I thought were cool, I tried all kinds of different things--this is natural and a good thing, as long as I always come back to who I am at the end of the day, and don't try to be something I'm not.

Sometimes I think that I analyze too much; that it limits my ability to have fun, and leads me to carry a heavy heart. And then I always remember that self-realization and dealing with my/someone else's issues when they originally appear and being verbal about it, are characteristics of the type of person I want to become. If others can't deal with it, fuck them, not everyone needs to like me. End of thought.