Value V. Progress

Dreamless Generation

This is a generation, which is lacking perspective. Young people coming up are converted into uniformed entities, slaves of a system they don't understand and therefore they hate. Quite shocking, although true.

Without much dramatisation, I can say, that a vast majority of people I know, work jobs they never wanted. It's not neccesary because they are forced to do something they're reluctant to, simply they have no visions of their own. It's fairly disheartening to see, how young people pick careers based on a story they've heard, or what their parents did, or what pays the most or any other common reason why they, or it's customary to say: WE choose this.

First of all there's one particular thing, that needs to be clarified. Experienced (I purposefully don't say wise but more on that later) men often advise not to choose a profession based on emotions but rather on rational thinking. I'm convinced, that even YOU were told this at least once in your life and YOU must have found this to be a great advice. But it's in itself controversial. Why? Because what is called rational thinking is an emotion, named fear. Fear of bankrupcy. When you start out from what you deem to be the safest or most guaranteed way of life is only a desperate choice, trying to provide a trustworthy method to survive. You're just too afraid to move out into uncertainty. Let's stop for a moment, and think, how many people are poor because they've pursued their dreams? Well I don't know but I think less, than the ones attempting to ensure monetary stability...

Whenever you hear your successful relatives, friends, acquintances speak of how they got rich, they tell their stories and you listen with your jaw dropped. When you analyse your life and your opportunities, you found it to be hopeless to do the same thing and even if you have the guts to make the same move, it will almost certainly end in catastrophe because what works out for one, doesn't have to do the same for the other...

After numerous disappointments and probably humiliating situations, you lose your enthusiasm. And when you're the most vulnerable, the predators come: parents, friends, older friends; people, who basically think they have a brilliant piece of mind, that they could share with you to perhaps help you out of your misery (which is, by the way, self-inflicted). They tell you, how you MUST MAKE RATIONAL DECISIONS. Or, TIME TO GROW UP and ACT RESPONSIBLY. But there's nothing savvy in how they try to drive you to fields you're not particularly good at and/or interested in. Yes, it may mean a respectable salary or a family house AT LAST. But it will also, most certainly mean the extermination of the potential that lies within you.

Whenever you get the advice to live by rationality and not to go for you dreams, you're being drifted away from the one and only way of real success. The one, which can provide you a nice fortune, but more importantly a SOUL. And when you truly dedicate yourself to a passion, to your vision, the money, the fear, and the lack of perspective will be gone. Not every dream leads to a million dollar contract in Hollywood but you might want to see the difference between craziness and passion; the second one can always lift you up.

Personally YOU and I are capable of doing the most amazing things. We will be the remembered writers, freedom-fighters, engineers, scientists, singers, and really anything at all. Please, let's not act with disdain toward this. Let us become the people we were born to be.

And a last word to the people with their advices about rationality: I'm not a billionaire-rock-star-secret-agent-astronaut, just a person like you. I can't say I've seen more or I've achieved more. I respect and honour you. BUT I suspect (and I might be wrong (though I'd be surprised)), that you've been disappointed, let-down. You've been to the bitter end and you try to save young souls from wrecking their lives because that's what happened to you. Or at least you think. Don't give up. You, yes YOU can still go to places you haven't dreamt of and you can be a person you'd admire. Just please, give it a second chance. And if it doesn't work out, change something in your plan and go for a third try, a fourth one and so on.If it doesn't work out try to figure out what might be against God. If nothing, your "failure" is not a problem. "Love and do what you will" /St. Augustine/.Just don't give up and don't make others give up. Believe me, this generation has a lot of potential, it just needs a little encouragement.

About the French languange

I started learning French two weeks ago, just as a hobby. I've always thought it's a wonderful language and whenever I heard someone say basically anything in French, my heart melted a little bit out of awe. Despite my former respect towards the language, it's never been a part of my endless list of interests. Until now!

Though I'm a mere beginner, a punk amateur, I feel I've found something of utter brilliance. As words form sentences and as a tiny bit of poetry slowly implants itself into the uninhabited plains of my mind, I'm loving it more and more. Though I've sampled several languages in my short life and have attained acceptable skills regarding one or two, nothing compares to French.

I find it inexpressible what a joy it is to be able to say 'You're perfect' in French and make it truly mean what it's intended to; or to be able to listen to this ethereal melody and have something of it understood. It's like falling in love. It's like discovering a very old book, which surpasses your taste in contemporary literature or basically just anything you've ever read in your whole life.

I'm so glad I started this. And it makes me enthusiastic of many other things. The beginning of something wondrous, like this, is always a perfect reminder of the fact, that there are infinite options, infinite chances in life. And the majority of them is better than I could ever dream. I realised, that there's just so much to do. Tomorrow, when I wake up, I'll know I have amazing and beautiful things to do, besides life's endlessly grave side. I invite you to start learning a language you've always wanted to, or to finally get to read (COMPLETELY) War and Peace, or just simply to begin a journey of any kind, which will make you more as a person and as a part of the ever-expanding interconnection of us: the people. Our days can get boring and miserable every now and then, but it's never, NEVER, unchangeable.

EVERYONE NEEDS THIS ON THEIR BLOG.

Breaking the Ice

For about half a year I've been stuck. I haven't written a single word worth mentioning. And that's a problem if you're trying to write something. I had a conflict that I had to rewrite before the climax of my story and nothing worked. I resolved I would not progress with he whole novel as long as this problem is not solved and today, with pride I say, I have solved it. It's possibly the sweetest, neatest, greatest, most dynamic, most intense part of the whole thing.

But why couldn't I write it? I've been in a bittersweet relationship with the Creator of everything. Last time in church, the scripture said that what the Lord requires of me is:

to try to live in love,

to live according to His laws,

and to be humble toward Him.

None of the above has been fulfilled lately. But He reached down to me and, so openly, he set the rules for me. I was finally told exactly where I'm lacking. Everywhere, apparently. But it's good, it's really the best. I finally know that I should do these three. And I'm so thankful! Knowing this is salvation. I'm saved... once more. This is the biggest thing of my life and now that it's done--not for the first time, sadly--life can/must move on for me. Move forward ;)

an important reminder

this guy... still hilarious and still helps a lot when it comes down to survival

Being Sherlock

Have you ever felt, that someone was talking to you like they were absoutely superior? As if they positioned themselves far over you intellectually? I suppose you hate those people but sadly... I am them.

The thing that bugs me the most in this wide world is stupidity and slow-thinking, thus I am impatient, egoistic and of course high-minded. But let's just take a step back: from my point of view, in obvious situations, I simply point out trivial truths. A phrase, which I find extremely fitting to use in most of the cases is "because I am right". How arrogant, isn't it?

But then, why do I treat people like that? It's because I've grown accustomed to behaving this way. When in an argument with my father, I never was (and still am not) allowed to reason because he considers that to be disrespect. What I've learned from this is, that though I am 99% right, reasoning and negotiating are not options. I know it's not good, sorry...

Taking it to a little more universal level: Why are there people, who have no compassion? Why can't we simply talk through things? What could be done?

Well, I must say, Sherlock is not Sherlock out of will but out of inevitability.

Randomness rules!

that’s about humanity’s dignity

An Open Letter to TFioS

Dear TFioS,

I got you for Christmas and I watched you in the movie-theater last Saturday and I like you. I like you but that doesn’t mean I don’t have something to say to you.

Of course your unorthodox and irreverent plot is refreshing and it really talks to people in many ways. This is somehing that people are craving—what I personally am craving and thank you for being this way. A book review said that you are “damn near genius” and you are so. It sounds like a huge compliment (one that I’ve never received, so I sort of envy you for it) but this isn’t the greatest one, which would be:”it’s genius”. John Green is made of awesome and so are you, TFioS, still, neither of you are made of genius. Let me elaborate:

#1: Is the fault really in our stars? John Rawls would probably congratulate you on the fine point you have made about how nature is creating random inequality and unfairness. What mindless animal would one have to be to say that it is fair what Hazel and Gus went through, none of it out of their own making or desert? Their example—and the title really—shows what a great fault there is in what our lot is in life. It would have been fair if Hazel and Gus’ cancer was given to an evil mass-murderer—yeah, I don’t really mean that; no one should get cancer, ever. You tell it wondrously that no matter who you are or what you’ve done, this sort of pain is unbearably immense. Everyone deserves the same and that same would be a normal life, which is free of disease, free of tragedy, free of all sorts of bad things. Everyone deserves it because of human dignity, which is everybody’s. When Gus calls Hazel to the petrol station to help him because he got very sick, we get to see the unromanticized version of dying from cancer, which is the true version of dying: painful and miserable. This whole thing is an attempt to introduce us—through characters we get to care about and truly heartbraking events happening to them—to the reality of undeserved suffering in the world. I used the word:”undeserved”, but is it really? It would also be fair if everyone on earth was suffering the same as these kids, wouldn’t it? As I’ve said before, only a terrible person would say that, and that’s because of human dignity. And where does that come from? One could say that:”Yes, people do terrible things sometimes but no one deserves to suffer or experience pain.” Such a statement would be based on the concept of dignity, which’ existence we can only assume, following our moral compass, our feelings. Naturally, I wouldn’t say that there’s no such a thing as human dignity or that I want to see someone go through this hell. My point is that the origin of dignity is not inspected thoroughly and it cannot be a groundless assumption. If we built on it, first we’d need to see why it’s an unshakable foundation. 

#2: Infinities are problematic. I’m not going to discuss the mathematical inexactitude of your statement about the size of the infinity between 0 and 1 compared to the one between 0 and 2 because you’ve already apologized for that and also because it doesn’t really matter. At the end of the story, when Hazel remembers her time together with Gus, she is really grateful for their “little infinity”. I suppose she means that their relationship and their experiences were immeasurably valuable, even if smaller in number than the one’s of someone with a greater lifespan. This serves as a poetic and sublime element, though it also implies that even where there is great pain, there’s beauty. But if all that is equal in worth to what other people have, then why is it sad that they have to die? Or is it not sad at all? Is it okay for them to have to go through all that horror and then die so young? It’s rather terrible—or unspeakably terrible. But if only the quantity and the length of beautiful things in life matter, what’s the limit of having a good life? If everyone had the same amount of happiness and the same length of it and an equal lifespan, I suppose that’d count as a good world. But wouldn’t we try to extend the length of our lives if everyone was to live 80 years already? It would be neat if everyone lived for 200 years, wouldn’t it? And if Hazel and Gus were to live 80 years, whereas everyone else 200 years, would that count as a tragedy, too? Is it just the relative length and amount that matters or is it the absolute of them? It seems that both do: we want a relatively and an absolutely longer, richer life. That’s alright, of course. The ultimate thing we would settle with is infinity—literal infinity, not just the allegorical one. To have Hazel be grateful for what they shared is really awesome, my point is really what this tells the audience is unclear and/or indefinite.

#3: Where’s that extra mile? When Hazel and Gus are talking about what comes after death, I thought some conclusion would be made. Okay, there was actually this: even people, who believe in something transcendent aren’t necessarily morons. Thanks, I appreciate it, but whether or not there’s an afterlife, or whether or not God exists, these are sort of important questions. Especially when you’re so conscious about your imminent death. The whole thing is understandable, of course, since to someone who is not a believer, it’s obvious that there’s no Heaven, no Lord, no nothing, yet I was extremely let down, when Gus said that there has to be a point to it all and Hazel’s reply was about the overall pointlessness of everything AND then no distinct conclusion, apart from what’s above. It’s nice of you not to take away the hopes of christians though. But to make two teenagers so profound as Hazel and Gus are and then just let them be diplomatic about the point (or the pointlessness) of being is just lazy. It’s popular to think that a writer’s duty is to ask important questions but it is also their duty to offer answers to important questions and not be like:”Yeah, ‘A’ might be the ultimate truth, but whoever says ‘B’ is it, well, yeah, they’re totally cool to say that.”

Okay, TFioS, I’m sorry for criticizing you, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings or something. You are a beautiful book—you never forgot to be awesome. Thank you for existing and thank you for feeling the pain of everybody, especially of those who feel the greatest pain.

Best wishes,

B

P.S.: Okay.