On Backing Decisions

Who knew France would awaken the blogger in me? lol 3 times in one month? That's gotta be some sort of record. I've mentioned the fact that I'm not very good at making decisions. I don't know where I want to eat dinner, and I have no clue what movie I want to watch. If you ask... well I wouldn't even bother asking because I probably won't have an answer. But when I do make a decision, I don't change my mind. In January I decided I would stop eating meat, so now I don't. When I make a decision, I don't usually back it because it comes on so suddenly I just have to accept the fact that I've just made a decision, and now the decision has been made. I could probably come to a decision, if I really tried hard and made pros and cons lists and lost sleep because I was thinking about it. But that doesn't really work. Decisions just randomly are thrown at me and I don't question them. I'll probably come home one day with a map of the world tattooed on my back because I decided over lunch that it would be a good idea. Maybe "decision" isn't the right word? When I haven't decided on something that needs to be decided I get a little hazy and block everything out because I'm undecided. Day to day decisions don't really... hmm.. affect me? It's not that they don't matter, it's just that I'm happy no matter what the decision is. I can go with the flow cause in the end all the rivers end up in the lake. hahahah just. kidding. lol Maybe it's like on old post, the one about being reasonable? I don't need to back my decisions all the time because sometimes I just know. I have a really good sense of knowing. I'm really sure about the things I'm sure about, and everything else just sort of floats around my head. I spend so much energy in being sure that I don't have much left to spend re-assuring. Meaning I avoid making decisions, but accept and stick to the ones my subconscious mind decides for me. I think a lot of people think this whole thought musing thing is useless bull shit. But I don't. I think it's important to explore the way you function, because then you'll start to understand the way you work. I wonder sometimes if I'm really predictable, or completely impossible to keep pace with. Some people like to take apart a microwave or a calculator so they understand how all the parts fit together to function. I like to pick apart people (ew no not literally) and explore their brain and see how their head works toward function. Is that any less useful than exploring a microwave? No. It's not. So for all you people who think brains don't matter and it's all about microwaves, you're wrong. It's about the balance between the brains and the microwaves that create the function we call life. Nothing is bullshit. (besides overhead notes) And nothing matters either. Nothing means anything, and therefore everything is nothing and in nothing, everyone will find their everything. :) Get what I'm getting at? Life is not just something you live. Life is something you were given, and you can turn it into whatever you want it to be. Life is what you make it, in a very literal sense. You make your life. You choose to pick apart brains or microwaves or both. You choose what you like, what you do, and who you love. Life is yours and no one elses and nobody can tell you what matters to you, because only you know what matters. And we're all made up of matter. And 'matter' is something that is made-up. You don't control what you're made up of and. Okay. I can see where this could get confusing. Because I just said "you choose" and followed it with "you can't control". haha The first you, the you who chooses, is your physical you, the really you that goes grocery shopping and walks the dog. The other you, the one you can't control, or at least I can't control, is the brain you. haha So, you control everything, you have control over nothing, nothing matters and we are made-up of everything. You love who you love, and you can find meaning in nothing because everything is matter. And if you can accept the fact that nothing ever makes "sense" then you can get away with not backing your decisions and being truly and honestly happy with life and the way you live and choose and at the same time don't control it. Life Lesson today is to smile and nod and pretend you understood what I just said. Steph out :)

Words.Words.Words

I love words. Bo Burnham is cool too. haha. But really, words are my favourite. I like reading them, I like writing them, and I like hearing them. But they don't mean anything. Words are just reinforcements or contradictions of actions. Sha la la la la la my oh my! Look's like the boy's too shy, he ain't gunna kiss the girl. sha la la la la la ain't that said? It's such a shame, too bad. He's gunna miss the girl haha like how I kept the sha la la's in there? Don't think about kissing her, don't tell her you want to kiss her, just: kiss her. I came to this realization during French class this morning. In France, I stare. All the time. I stare at my teachers while they talk, I stare at the 7000 illegal smokers outside (haha I don't actually know if it's illegal here...) I stare ay my french relatives and I stare at my classmates. I'm not ashamed to stare, because I want to understand. This morning I was staring at my French teacher and she was talking and talking and spitting and spitting because she is a human sprinkler when she speaks and I was staring and staring and cowering under my umbrella when I realized I had no idea what she was talking about. Not a clue! Maybe because she was speaking french, but then I thought about how the situation would change if she was speaking english. I didn't think it would change much. WOO VALENTINA JUST GAVE ME A TIC TAC! YES! She is my favourite. Anyways. It doesn't matter if this teacher at which whom I was staring at (who was yelling now) was speaking French, English, or Ojibwe. I didn't care what she was saying, and none of the words she spoke were impacting my life at all. If I understood, and was listening, at best her lecture could have sparked a thought. But unless I took the time to think that thought, and make it into an action, this two hour class would be just one among others spent wandering in words. You're not going to be remembered for your thoughts, you're going to be remembered for what you do. It doesn't matter if you can talk, it doesn't matter if you can think. If you can't take action, you're just another crayon in the box. We all could be metallic, a sparkly crayon in the box. We could all make a difference and make a change and change a life, but we need to learn to get out of our own heads. I have a lot of time to think here in France. I'm in my head all the time and sometimes a whole school day goes by and all I have to show for it is an empty page with a corner full of monster doodles. I like to think, but... as someone once told me: "analytical minds are destructive". It's the sad and scary truth. When you think, like I do sometimes, you strip down every situation until there isn't anything left but thought, which is useless without the other half of the equation. the equation: thought+action=outcome Without action, there is no outcome and therefore you are left with just thought, which means nothing. When all you do is think, you're whole being is absorbed into your head and you mosey around everyday life and maybe forget things like eating and sleeping, but you don't notice because you're so far gone inside yourself you don't even speak. It is for that reason I agree with the statement: analytical minds are destructive. Because eventually if you let your head absorb you, you'll be so far gone you won't be able to come back. Thinking is an addictive drug, but there's no rehab for thought abusers, so you have to look out for yourself. Next. Bored. "I'm bored." This is boring. You don't really ever have an excuse to be bored. There is always something to do. If you think you're starting to feel bored, do something. Go somewhere, look at something. Everyday we get a little closer to the end. Every second that passes is gone, and we're only given so much life time. So do what you want and don't waste time doubting. Don't waste time thinking. You catch the ball, and you throw it, you don't wait for the other team to surround you. Take what you get and work what you have. Don't be scared to start something because you're afraid of how it will finish. If you start by thinking about the end, well... why even start something you can only think about ending? I don't mean finish like complete, I think we should make a concious effort to finish what we start, I mean finish like... terminate. Alrighty roo. I hate yelling. Teachers here like like it makes us listen. Yelling makes me block things out even more. Never yell at me. I'll attack you. They teach us to box in France. HA. I wish. sigh. I actually wrote this during French class. I'm writing right now and I'm going to type it up later. It'll be the first time in a while I'll post twice in the same month. Life Lesson: If a Canadian asks to throw eggs at you while you (also a Canadian) are in France because it's tradtion on your birthday, don't say okay. I had to shake my head today because some people are really stupid. Don't worry, it wasn't me who got pelted, but that poor girl who thought it was all in fun... well maybe ignorance is bliss. No, I don't think so. I think there's middle ground somewhere between "ignorant bliss" and thought rehab. Life lesson today is to try and find it. Steph out :)

If You Ask Me to Write Then I Will

When someone asks me to write, I have to. That's probably the one of the things I get most excited about. When people ask me to sing, I usually won't. If someone asked me to show them a dance, I might. But when someone asks me to write for them, I just do it. So, it was super cool Levan when you said I'd been depriving you of Passion Fire. :) So here I am, writing.

I like accidents. I think that we find the best things when we aren't really looking. If life was a google search, we always find cool things by being vague in our discription. You don't search hedgehog, you just happen to find one as the last entry in the pet ads. You find that boy who used to smile at you in the halls by looking through someone's facebook pictures who you went to elementary school with. haha. I like accidents, because you can't fake fate. :)

Read this:

"Those who can, do; those who can't: teach; those who can't teach teach the teachers; and those who can't teach the teachers go into politics."

As for me, I think that his sentence is a bona fide profound thought, precisely because it isn't true, or at least not entirely true. It doesn't mean what you think it does at the outset. If people could climb higher in the social hierarchy in proportion to their incompetence, I guarantee the world would not go round the way it does. But that's not even the problem. What his sentence means isn't that incompetent people have found their place in the sun, but that nothing is harder or more unfair than human reality: humans live in a world where it's words and not deeds that have power, where the ultimate skill is mastery of language. This is a terrible thing because basically we are primates who've been programmed to eat, sleep, reproduce, conquer and make our territory safe, and the ones who are most gifted at that, the most animal types among us, always get screwed by the others, the fine talkers, despite these latter being incapable of defending their own garden or bringing a rabbit home for dinner or procreating properly. Humans live in a world where the weak are dominant. This is a terrible insult to our animal natue, a sort of perversion or a deep contradiction.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Muriel Barbery

Yeah so this book is kind of incredible. It's the kind of book I want to write. Philosophical musing. It blows my mind. It's like trying to swallow cinnamon. You can only read/ swallow a little bit at a time.

So, I'm in France now. It's summer time. Well for the past week it was hurricane weather, but now it's do-your-history-homework-outside-in-your-bathing-suit sort of weather. I get distracted really easily. The problem with doing an e-learing course is that it's e. Meaning, you have to be on the internet. Meaning there are endless oppertunities for your mind to wander. I think I have a mind who likes to wander. Wandering is okay, but focus is good too. If there was something I wish I had more of, it's focus. I'm amused very easily, but it's hard to keep my attention for long periods of time. But I'm a really good listener. I love to listen.

Life Lessons
Patience is a virtue. haha Just kidding. But I think that patience is important. Being in France and having to speak French and having to learn to communicate with minimal language skills and having to usually be clueless 75% percent of the time has made me very patient. And it's nice. Being patient makes you nicer, and it gives to you time to notice a lot of things you don't notice when you rush and rush and rush. Being patient allows you to appreciate. Don't be afraid of waiting, but don't waste all your waiting in wandering. Learn how to be a focussed waiter, and your mind will explode with reward. Frustration is such a useless emotion. People who can't be patient end up being frustrated.

I break everything, really. I don't know how I manage to. I bought a ring, broke it. Bought some french pants equipped with suspenders (haha) and I broke the suspenders. I think I get lost in thought and I'm not very conscience of my actual physical being. I turn knobs on microscopes absentmidedly until the knobs fall off (woops). I fiddle with paper and end up with a pile of confetti. It's very strange.

There was a bee on my bed the other day and it stung me. Now there is what Iris, my exchange partner, called a "night butterfly" in my room. Okay, no. This thing is like a massive moth equipped with spikes and fangs and vemon. It flies around and bumps into things and is very noisy. There is nothing calm or pretty or butterfly-ish about it. Maybe that's why it's a night butterfly? It's like the butterfly's alter-ego? haha

I really don't like bugs.

My french grandparents are coming over to drink tea and eat cake now. So, I should go join. :)

Learn how to be focussed and patient, you'll get more things done. Also read a book and maybe do a little bit of philosophical musing every once and a while. Even if analytical minds are destructive, if we never analyzed, we'd never move forward.

ta ta for now :)
happiness is the best emotion. and laughter fixes everything duct tape can't.