Prevention of Boredom

waking life

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 23:48:06 GMT

Wow I didn't know making it 20 minutes to my break could be so hard. My eyes are starting to close on their own - I slept atleast 9 hrs last night and I took an hour nap today - and I feel like taking another one - what is wrong with me? I'm not sleep deprived but I'm awake deprived. Perhaps I'm deprived of intersting and stimulating experiences in my day - so I have to sleep and dream to create interest. I can't get enough of my dreams and they are always atleast more intersting if not more pleasant then my waking life. I need something stimulating to take my mind off of this. Writing is one way to do this - i guess conversation would be another. I'm sick of all the pointless gossip about people who I went to high school with. I don't give a fuck. I want a real connection - real moments - not do you want room for milk or cream in that - or what size? would you like a straw or whipped cream? wtf is my life coming to if these are the most frequently asked questions - I mean that I ask to people - I question other things on my own and out loud usally only to my closest friends. Other people hearing my thoughts and questions would make things more interesting and entertaining for me... Maybe I'm overly concerned with entertaining and pleasing other people. Anyone who reads that part who knows me let out a laugh now.

Did you know that in Buddhism not having good actions leads to bad karma that can weigh your sould down into not trancending into your next life - I need to lighten up!

Refuge

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 17:53:55 GMT

I think all a relationship comes down to is who at the end of the day can relieve your stress and suffering the most and it doesn't need to be one person, or does it? Friends help a lot to just have people to be around and relax with. I think this Buddhist passage just sums it up better then I am capable of

A refuge supreme

They go to many a refuge,
to mountains and forests,
to park and tree shrines:
people threatened with danger.
That's not the secure refuge,
not the supreme refuge,
that's not the refuge,
having gone to which,
you gain release
from all suffering & stress.

But when, having gone
to the Buddha, Dhamma,
& Sangha for refuge,
you see with right discernment
the four noble truths —
stress,
the cause of stress,
the transcending of stress,
& the noble eightfold path,
the way to the stilling of stress:
that's the secure refuge,
that, the supreme refuge,
that is the refuge,
having gone to which,
you gain release
from all suffering & stress.
— Dhp 188-192

my job

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:57:30 GMT

rich old people even though they are very particular and critical they are usally equally appriciative for when a task is done well. That balance is something that would be good to achieve and is definatly not something that most younger people have attained

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:59:45 GMT

lust, infatuation, and love

Three distict stages of a relationship

Does love exsist or only infatuation and interest due to our biological phermones and other key indicators like common interests. What could be more interesting then finding out that they like O.A.R. too OMG!

That is all superficial, straight on the surfcace like fragile barely frozen ice.
To be continued after I have some food in my system and raise my blood sugar levels a bit to be less grumpy and generally groggy and pessamistic

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 19:36:14 GMT

I can't believe I have an hour left all I want to do is take a nap blah.

I need to start to write or do meaningful things and get myself organized. I wonder if anyone reads this, this is much easier then writing in a diary. I should try to recount my adventures of the past couple weeks and months but some of them are so private so what though because no one is reading this. I wonder how many blogs out there get read actually word for word and comprehended especially the way the author intended them?

It hailed and thundered out. A tree with three branches split down the middle.

I wanntt foood, and sleep and that isn't happening right now, blah

Nothing to do but this a title that gives incentive to read on

Sun, 02 Jul 2006 14:36:00 GMT

So i'm all facebooked, and myspaced out I've checked both my email accounts and now I'm here. Writing is doing something useful, right? Also I already read the Boston Globe and all about.com's blog about Buddhism so I'm pretty much updated on the world. I think I'll take a look at the BBC and Washington Post too. It gets progressively more difficult each day to wake up - not only because it's earlier each day and I work more hours but I'm sure that has something to do with it. Sleep is an essential function of the mind and helps one connect things in their subconscious. What one does not get out of their day - like happiness and entertainment can be achieved in a dream state. I need to try and remember my dreams that I have. Many times during the day I question what happened in reality and what happened only in my dreams. It gets confusing the more people I see in a day. Like bumping into all random people from concord is like setting up a minefield for my dreams/nightmares. I have certain associations with people and a certain amount of stress that occurs with them and during the day that leads to these unpleasant or pleasant perceptions.

Do you ever wake up and find that your opinion or what you previously thought about a person has changed 180 degrees simply because they were part of your dreams and they make sense to you in a different way now then they ever did before. You can piece different parts of their character together other then what you percieve with your senses within your perception of reality during the day. So your dreams and how they play out control how you can think about a person.

Over-thinking - good or bad? Over-thinking already makes the phrase seem negative. How can one over-think? If the mind is the only true thing and with this realization comes many others then there is no over doing it. Sure everyone needs down time. I defiantly need a balance because right now it's either at polar opposites of how hard I think. One mode to the next. Student to partier but that just requires a different kind of thinking.

But my friend at work said that if you do something so much (substances) that you have to figure out how to deal with situations differently and adapt because your mind is on that substance then that is addiction. I really have been thinking weather this is true. There are different levels of addiction as well though, but once past the experimentation phase it can't all be downhill.

There are soothing pharmaceuticals that help a lot of people it just where do you draw the line and I think every person must do that for themselves. Do your research and get in a good mindset and have a babysitter and be with people you trust fully. That's all you can ask for.

I'm glancing outside and I'm surrounded by branches covered in bunches of flowing, fluid leaves, the darkness and gray uncertainty of the sky reinforces my mood. For a moment everything is still. I can hear the buzz of the AC and the beeping of some unnecessary electronic device.
There are 3 screens around me I wonder how much my carbon footprint is now? at least this place recycles unlike that supposedly environmental and social concious corperation that I work for. I'm working on that too.

That's atleast a step forward and progress - to be able to realize that recycling needs to happen.

"Maybe I should spill all my guts and then write a letter just to tear it up" wise words of J5 who I really want to see this summer.

There's one site I haven't checked yet, jambase - I highly recommend it

my animal cruelty project/ be vegetarian

Tue, 03 May 2005 15:41:40 GMT

MLK non-violence
Included in six steps of non-violence as defined by MLK:
Non-violence is a way of life for courageous people
Non-Violence holds that suffering can educate and transform
Emphasize principles of justice and love instead of hate
MLK said, “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such crises and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to dramatize the ease that can no longer be ignored."

UN a whole organization focused on non-violence

Religion: 1500 BCE to answer spiritual and moral questions
Gandhi- non-violent movement set into motion -MLK based ideas on
Hinduism/Buddhism- karma results of actions and reincarnation
Jainism- non-harm extreme respect animals that they literally wouldn’t hurt a fly
Islam- won’t eat carnivorous animals such as pigs
Jews- respect for animals and out of this respect kosher foods show the compromise between ideal of not harming animals by eating them and reality.

Know:
Physical suffering causes pain
When something is directly controllable and nothing is done to stop then result of action is intentional- freedom to choose.
Humans are capable of compassion
When an any living thing like people or animals are harmed fear is felt and phys-io-logical effects on the nerve endings then the message is received in the central nervous system and then eventually felt in the brain

Therefore:
Controllable factors, why intentional, and forced suffering onto animals
Animals are beings who obviously feel suffering as they are used as food, clothing, entertainment, and experimentation.
Each can imply a life of suffering that can be alleviated by a choice of not contributing to them.

Commonly used companies:
Arm& Hammer, Armani, Aveeno, Bic Corp, Clairol, Clorox, Clean & Clear, Colgate, Gillette, Listerine, L’Oreal, Neutrogena, and Suave. (www.caring consumer.com/search company. asp)

Chemicals are fed, injected, put into the eyes of animals.
Some animals die, get paralyzed or are severely chemically burned, and products are sill released.
Some products already know to be toxic for humans
LD50 testing where 50% of animals die, if more or less die the experiment will be repeated.

27 Billion animals killed for food in the US (Meet Your Meat)

50 Million cases in US of meat-related food borne illness- thousands lead to death

98% of chickens had detectable levels of eccoli, indicating fecal contamination

Most meat- has dioxins, antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, and some arsenic. Animal protein is carcinogenic.

Laws against animal cruelty only for pets even though feel and think every animal suffers the same-legality is no guarantee of morality. (slavery legal, child labor, women‘s vote-no rights or laws against but moral to oppose- non-violent action must be taken)

Animals “less intelligent then humans so it’s okay to consume don’t use violence against less intelligent humans those with developmental disabilities. We don’t harm them and that would be universally understood as immoral.

Why do we feel one can keep a house hold pet yet still eat chicken, cow, pig, or turkey if they are equal in their suffering.

So no moral justification for eating meat, maybe economic reason. Economic hardship to society to abolish meat industry- like the slave trade, and child labor-immoral but provided financial gain for country-yet abolished

Plants and grains used to feed animals, which are indirectly fed to us through them. If direct plant diet used we would get 5-10x more protein and could help starvation and hunger across the world by providing food for the entire worlds population. Using indirect system we can feed only 3 billion half of the worlds population if plant based diet then 6 billion whole world population.

Flesh, blood, bone or “meat” is a euphemism for decomposing corpse used as food

wastin time

Sun, 03 Apr 2005 17:02:56 GMT

I keep wondering if what I'm doing is moving me forward it all. Everyday seems so slow, tedious, and repetitive. Like there's only a few insignificant aspects changing from day to day. Like most days I do the same 3 things, work, school, see Jake. Which is good, but then I mean why can't life make drastic changes from day to day. Human minds aren't well conditioned to change. Our condition inherently is changing, if only on a minuscule scale, the little changes form the the big change over time. Seriously, when am I going to break out of the cycle. Summer seems hopeful. This also sounds kinda depressing I realize but I don't intend it to be that way, I mean I like every aspect of my life, just ARE WE THERE YET? I'm just going to be a sophomore in college credit wise partially because my attendance to classes and partially thanks to a couple special advisors, thanks! But I guess I'm getting there, but people my age seem to be doing so much more then me like musicians, and actors who have already made their millions and financial security for life. But I'm following what I like to do so that's gotta take me some place good, even if it just seems like a dragging, mundane, cycle or organization and ordinariness. BLAH! I learning from my classes new things that are helping me make connections in my mind to further whatever i'm doing. But 6 weeks till summer and freedom (except from work) but I can take time off from that easily. just a couple more classes, even this journal sound like spewing crap back that I've said a million times before, the epitome of repetitiveness. I need to do things, like go to FL (Far off Lands), yet my parents seem to think that I'm coming with them and the family to Florida and the end of school, i don't think that that would be the way to end the school year and begin my summer, with staying in the same suite with everyone, i dunno... plane tickets $50 now so that eliminates the 18 hr drive with my cousin who will inevitable be the cause of anger and insanity for everyone. It wouldn't be so bad if I found a way not to be in the house soo much, like be on the beach! yeah the beach

procrastination

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 18:50:26 GMT

I tried to upload so photos we'll see how that worked out, they are literally the only 3 I have on my computer of my friends. I don't really need to study today, i have a religions of the world mid-term left over from last week when it got post-poned (<----weirdness to spell)till this tuesday! I have work today, but i'm not closing, but it's almost like not closing leaves you unsatisfied cuz you started something you didn't finish, but then again, I started some sleep I didn't get to finish last night.

I'm getting into this mag Spin, it has this festival in CA Coachella, with some pretty cool bands, despite there emo-ness. I'm not even gonna lie though I'm totally turning a little emo thanks to The OC. It's freakin addicting, I recommend not to ever watch one cuz there like fricken pringles or whatever it is you pop and you can't stop. But if you were to start on one it would have to the Christmakah episode. I love Seth! The curly hair + awkward, nerdyness...hilarity ensues.
Ouu so that festival though ppl should check out the bands that are in it: K-OS kinda Micheal Jacksonesque in some songs, and i mean screaming, not the kind that he does not confirm or deny with little boys. I don't care I'll download his songs! Aesop Rock is mentioned in Spin and a bunch of lesser known bands, you should prob download "Freeze" if you haven't heard of them or "Bazooka Tooth". Ouu and I just started listening to Afrika Bambaata "Planet Rock" "Looking for the Perfect Beat" these songs are apparently the roots of hip-hop and I'm somehow just discovering them but it's awesome.
I just wrote a paper on Ngundro practices of Buddhism which has four main ideas:

"The freedoms and the favorable conditions of this human birth are extremley difficult to obtain"

"Everything born is impermanent and bound to die"

"The results of virtuous and un-virtuous actions, [which are causes] are inexorable"

"The three realms of cyclic existence have the nature of and ocean of suffering"

I just read "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl, it's about what makes people unique and how if you were stripped of every material possession or even hope then what makes you who you are.

Dalai Lama quote of the day (I have a calendar)
"In order to change the behavior of a person, the ultimate factor is motivation, and the more attention needs to be paid to the mental state"