Denial

If you've been a long time reader of mine, you likely already know (but may have forgotten) that I have a particularly severe case of ADD. It's so bad, in fact, that often I can't perform normal tasks because I get distracted and sidetracked, and inevitably wander off to do my own thing. My parents attribute this to apathy and laziness, and for my part, I can't deny that it has something to do with it. We're all lazy in our own way some of the time. But with me it goes a bit beyond that, because often it's not because I don't want to get things done, it's just that I often find myself finding other, more interesting things to do in the meantime.

Well, for the past five years or so since I was diagnosed, I've firmly been against the notion of taking any kind of medication to supposedly normalize myself. I've never been fond of the idea that I have to take a pill conform to someone's idea of what makes a good, productive citizen. But in a recent conversation about the difficulties I've been having lately, my sister pointed out to me that when I'm on my medication I'm more focused, never distracted, and significantly more productive.

I've reached a point in my life where I feel I'm being forced to acknowledge that, at least in some ways, this pill is necessary for me to do certain things that require focus and attention. It's reached the point where I'm not even able to do the things I enjoy doing, because I get sidetracked by random meaningless things that get my attention or stray thoughts that lead me off into wild tangents.

I've experienced life both with and without this little pill my doctor prescribed me, and I'm very reluctant to admit it, but maybe it's for the better that I take it regularly. As was pointed out to me, I'm still the same person either way. "It's not like it changes your personality or anything, Alex." (Quoted from the conversation.) This much, at least, is true. I suppose I should be thankful that the only thing it does is help me focus, and not alter my mood or readjust my personality to forcibly change my apparent personality to fit a more acceptable mold. In that sense, I guess the notion of having to take it once a day isn't such a bad thing if it'll help me have a more productive, focused life.

Living life in as a blur of distractions isn't something I recommend.

-=* Note *=-

As you may have noticed if you bothered to click on the tiny "my website" link on my profile, I have a deviantArt page. There's a feature on there called a "pastie", which is basically a small bar of your five most recent works that you can stick up on your blog, but for some reason beyond my understanding, it doesn't work with Xanga. Now I'm ok with HTML, but javascript is a little beyond my scope of knowledge, so if any of you can tell me how I can get it to work, I'd much appreciate it. In the meantime, you can just click on the link and see my art that way. Or if you're lazy click here:

http://randomkoreanguy.deviantart.com

Now Playing: Gravity by Vienna Teng
I'm somewhat fond of this song and the visual images from the accompanying anime are very stunning. (I had to reduce the quality, though, to make it possible for people with broadband to stream the video, otherwise it would've been too large a file. Like 60 megabytes.)

I drew a quick sketch, based loosely on one of my reader's profile pics. It's one of the readers who almost never leaves comments on my site, so don't bother trying to guess who it is. Oh, and I took down the lyrics. Most of you can't read Japanese anyway.

-=* Journal Entry Starts Here *=-

I don't normally post lyrics, but I couldn't think of a really good, inspired entry that was about love and joy. It's such a difficult thing to talk about, because positive emotions are often so much simpler and easier to understand than negative ones. And we often never really question them, or think to examine them too closely because we're usually too busy enjoying them. I think maybe that's the way it should be. If you think too much about why you're happy, you might kill the feeling.

Things are looking better for my car. Unfortunately, it looks like I'll have to sell it shortly after I fully repair it. *sniffles* My baby. Ah well, sacrifices must be made for the greater good, right? (That's what I keep telling myself to get myself to put it up for sale.) I'm not sure how I'm going to get around without a car, but it'll sure as hell be cheaper than what I'm paying now. Maybe I'll dust off my bike and ride that around.

Determination

O-Ren Ishii was born a half Japanese, half Chinese all American daughter of a military family. Brutally orphaned at the tender age of nine when both of her parents were murdered in front of her by a notorious Yakuza boss, her tragic life is the perfect subject for discussing determination and persistence.

Fictional though she may be, the childhood trauma O-Ren suffered is not unheard of. Had she decided to curl up into a ball and retreat from the world, perhaps the Bride would have had one less person on her hit list. Perhaps she would not have risen to become the supreme unchallenged queen of the Tokyo underworld. Perhaps she would have simply become just another face, another well adjusted human being living a typical, mundane life. Fortunately for all of Lucy Liu's movie-going fans, this was not the case.

O-Ren wanted revenge and this desire gave her the motivation to start on the road that would eventually lead her to the most unlikely of destinies, for she is only half Japanese, a woman, and American besides. Had she bothered to ask anyone's opinion, they probably would have laughed at her and told her to give up on her foolish pipe dream. No half Japanese, half Chinese, American female military brat could ever dream of being the head of the Yakuza. But she didn't ask anyone. It's likely she didn't care to ask anyone, nor did she want to hear what anyone thought. O-Ren knew what she wanted and went for it, without letting anyone tell her she couldn't, shouldn't, or can't.

We all have our impossible dreams... those things we long for secretly in the quiet corners of our hearts where no one will ever see it. Perhaps we fear it's too unlikely, perhaps we fear it's too impossible to hope for, or perhaps we fear what we know others will say is true: that it's an impossible and foolish dream; that it will never happen. If you're always listening to what other people say you can and can't do, you'll always be a prisoner of someone else's will and desire.

This is the lesson we can learn from O-Ren: with enough determination and persistence, nothing is out of our reach no matter how much people may say otherwise. No one claims it will be easy. No one claims it will not be a difficult road. Of course it will be hard, it may be one the most painful tasks you've ever undertaken, but if you want it badly enough, you have to make that sacrifice and endure that to get to goal you're trying to reach. Pain and hurt are a part of life whether you like it or not. But if you really want what you're seeking badly enough, you'll work past it anyway in your efforts to reach your final destination. You'll keep going through anything and everything in your path and if you fall, you'll just pick yourself back up again and keep going. Persistence means that if you fall a thousand times, you'll get back up again every single time and keep moving, because all it takes is for you give up just once and you've lost. All you have to do is throw in the towel a single time out of the hundreds, thousands, or millions of times you may stumble for all your efforts to crumble around you. That's why it's so important that you don't give up and don't get distracted.

I can understand that some people simply don't know what they want to do with their lives. Honestly, there's nothing wrong with that at all. What gets me is when people do know, but do nothing about it. They settle for less than what they really want because it's just easier to sit on the sidelines. It's easier to accept less because it's less effort, less work, less pain, less hurt, less suffering, less sweat. But they often don't realize until it's too late is that it's also less rewarding, less fulfilling, less satisfying. 

What do you dream about in your private moments?

How far would you go to reach them?

What would it take for you to gain that kind of determination?

For O-Ren, it took the death of her parents.

Is that what it'll take for you to find your inner strength?

Now Playing: Battle Without Honor or Humanity by Tomoyasu Hotei (From the Kill Bill vol. 1 soundtrack)

The horror. Naruto has been dubbed into English and will soon be aired on Cartoon Network's Toonami, Saturday nights at 9 pm starting Saturday. I've seen the clip, and it's . . . painful. I'm not a big fan of dubbing, but there are some really nice ones out there. I was hoping Naruto would've gotten decent treatment. Oh well. At least the translations don't seem inaccurate.

You can find the clip of the dubbed version here:

http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/video/toonami/index.html

I'm watching SNL (Saturday Night Live) and trying really hard to find it funny, but it's not happening. This stuff is lame and flat and not funny. It's just sad how far SNL has gone downhill. I remember when it used to get at least a chuckle out of me. The old stuff is the best, really. It seems to have become really watered down in recent years. Disappointing.

I want to see Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and the new Wallace and Grommit movie.

This is painful to watch. I think I can write better comedy than this in a dazed half-asleep, half drunken stupor.

-=* Edit *=-

This is Charmmy. As most of you are probably already aware, there's some kind of lure that draws girls of all ages to Sanrio characters. Well, this is one of their newest ones, obviously influenced by their most popular character, Hello Kitty. She's similar, except smaller and cuter. This particular item is a keychain / cellphone hanging thing. It's so adorable as to make you want to gag.

Well, I missed my sister's birthday this year. (I'm a bad brother, I know.) So upon stumbling on this little gem, I immediately bought one for her. Two actually, to make up for the fact that I never got her anything. The other one is blue and has her in a sitting position. Where can you find this adorable item and get one of your own, you ask? Well, here's the link:

http://www.jbox.com/SEARCH/charmmy/1/

Don't go too crazy now.

Based on the lack of responses to it, I guess that last entry was a dud. Ah well. My sister sent me this picture. I got a chuckle out of it. It's kinda corny, but entertaining nonetheless. Enjoy the weekend. I'll be trying to get my car fixed.

Note: I'm still taking suggestions on entry topics.

-=* Edit *=-

I've resisted speaking on this topic for a long time. With the news pretty much inundated with all kinds of stories about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans, it's hard not to be aware of what's been happening. It breaks my heart every time I see those images, photographs, and video footage of all those people suffering. I honestly and truly wished there was something I could do besides donate money, but I feel helpless to really accomplish anything significant with my limited resources. One thing I do suggest is to at least make sure you're educated about what's been going on. Here's an article from Newsweek you can read if you're unaware of the details:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9179587/site/newsweek/

I feel like I should be outraged and a part of me is, but for the moment I'm uncertain of what I can do about it. I didn't vote for Bush. I don't even like him, but there's no doubt in my mind that his administration is at least partially (if not wholly) to blame for the slow response time. It just... goes beyond words, I guess, how much it angers me with all the needless suffering that could have been avoided had they been better prepared to respond immediately and with greater organization.

Anyhow, I need to get my beauty sleep. I have to take my car in tomorrow to my mechanic.

Faith and Love

Faith. Next to love, it's one of those words we casually throw around, often without really pausing to think about its meaning. We hold onto faith, keep the faith, search for it in our darkest hour, but what exactly is it? Faith, simply put, is belief without proof. To believe in something without a shred of concrete evidence is to have faith in it.

I have no proof solid proof for you that any of my words are true. I don't have a formula, graphs and charts, or convincing photographs to show you to make my point more striking and real. I have no real way to truly guarantee that this is not a fabrication or some delusional theory conjured by a shattered mind. I simply write out my beliefs and leave it up to my readers to trust that I speak honestly, that I draw upon my experiences and life lessons to put to words what little wisdom I can dispense.

Almost everything we take for granted is based upon acts of faith. Most of us haven't personally verified any of the scientific laws and theories that are the basis of the technology we use, but we use it anyway, putting our trust blindly upon others whom we've never seen, and probably will never meet. We pay our taxes expecting that the money will be used for our own benefit by the government we elected, but we've never personally stood by and monitored their daily actions to make sure they're doing the right thing. Instead, we trust that (for the most part) they are making good on the promises they made when we elected them into office.

You will never be able to hover over the shoulder of your significant other every second of the day. There is no reasonable way to insure that the words they're telling you are true, that their feelings are real, that they are being as honest with you as you are with them. Instead, we make a leap of faith every time we introduce someone new into our lives that they will not take our trust for granted and hurt us. We follow them blindly into a dark room without any sense of direction, trusting that they're leading us some place wonderful.

Love requires faith just as much as faith requires love. To love someone, to honestly and truly love someone, you must trust them beyond the trust you casually give to your friends and coworkers. This is a very deep level of trust we give blindly, because there is no real way to verify one hundred percent that your trust is not being broken. Let there be no doubt in your mind that if your partner wishes to keep something from you that badly, they will find a way to do it. That is why you need faith. To have faith in someone is to believe in them, without being able to prove with any certainty that your trust is not being betrayed.

Many people have faith in God, but even unto their dying day they will never be able to prove that God exists. Such a thing is not something that can ever be proven. That is why I feel that belief in God is something that's important in a life partner, because if they can have faith in something as unproveable as God, then maybe they'll also have the strength to have faith in me.

Accidentally In Love

Often the best things that happen to us are the ones we never planned for. Many people claim they hate surprises, because it brings with it uncertainty and instability. Imagine for a second, though, what life would be like if it were predictable. We'd all die of boredom within a week.

Though we spend a great deal of time honing our skills, refining our talents, primping and preening and trying to look our best in an attempt to seek out love, sometimes love has a way of accidentally dropping in on you when you least expect it, in the last place you'd have ever thought to look.

So if you're looking for love (in all the wrong places), be prepared, because it might come at you from the least likely place you'd have ever thought it would and bop you right on the back of your head.

In the meantime, though, enjoy this video I cobbled together.

It's a montage of anime scenes set to the song Accidentally In Love by the Counting Crows. It should be playing at the top of my page if you have Windows Media Player 9 or higher and Internet Explorer. I'm not entirely certain it'll show up on other browsers.

Waking Hour

We spend our lives searching for that indescribable thing that we just know we'll recognize when we see it. No matter how we try, though, words just don't seem to do it justice because more than being a tangible object, it's more of a feeling we once knew that's somehow slipped through our fingers in the years since our long forgotten youth. But somehow you know deep within you that you knew that feeling once, because some small part of you still has a glimmer of recognition as to what it is you're looking for.

It's a feeling of comfort, of safety, of warmth and welcome in a place where we could have stayed forever if only we had been given the chance. It's filled with friendship, love, and most of all trust, where we are free, not just in word, but in spirit and soul. It is a place where we can live without inhibitions or barriers, without masks or walls, without lies or deception because it is the place where we know we belong.

Peace.
Tranquility.
Harmony.

What is it that we're looking for?

Home.

Note: The video currently playing is a monstrous 10 megs in size and eats my bandwidth like a maniac, so I'm only going to leave it up for a day or so. Enjoy it in the meantime.

Congrats to emjay83, my 100th subscriber. Woot.