On Love and Tolerance, and on Hating the Vice, Not the Person...

Hi, everyone! I submitted my midterm paper for a philosophy class that I'm taking this semester today, and now I can say that I'm done with all the midterm stuff! Yes! And that is why I can have a time to sit down, and face my laptop like this right now. I don't have to feel like I need to study, and I don't have to feel guilty for not studying, and not banging my head again books and notebooks. Oh, I do love reading books, though. lol

So today, I am going to write about things that have been sitting on my mind for a while. It is about love and tolerance. Why have I come to think about these 2 things lately? Well, it's because I watched a YouTube video by Jeffree Star (I hope I spelled the name correctly!), and that made me think. I love watching his videos, and his works of art; I love watching him talking, and being who he is. I am subscribed to his channel, and have enjoyed following him on the Internet. I think he is so beautiful, and I also love his personality from what I can see through his videos. I have never met him in person, so obviously, I can't say I know everything about him, but at least to me, he seems to be really open-minded, honest, and nice.

Recently, he uploaded a video which is titled "racism" on his channel. In that video, Jeffree talks about his past and the mistakes that he has made along the way. He says that he had always struggled to find his place in the world, and that he had always harbored rage and anger because he couldn't find peace in his mind back in time. People would say the nastiest things to him, because he didn't look like most of us. And he acknowledges that there were times when he fought back with nasty words as well. He then continues to admit that it is wrong to fight back nasty words with a bunch other nasty words, but back in time, he knew nothing better. He says he wish he could erase and fix all those mistakes, but as you know, nobody can do anything about what has already happened. Although he had made mistakes, and flashed offensive remarks in the past, those things does not represent who he is now. He is very sorry for firing those words to people, and attacked people back. And he added that it's sad for him to see those clips from the past, and see people still use them to mock him, and to try to degrade him. Nobody's perfect, and we're all just a small human being at the end of the day, and he says that he knows that, and he's a person who tries to be better just like us. And he isn't the same person as he was 10 years ago, and he sends out a message that he wants to set an example, and wants people to learn from his mistakes.

So, that was what was said on his video, but what you read isn't what Jeffree exactly said. You got some bits of information about the video through my words, and that's not exactly the same as watching the video yourself. So go watch the video. It's always better to check out the source when you can.

Alright, so from this paragraph, I'll write about what I thought after watching the video. Here we go. You know, it's easy to love what you love. Love is easy when you are fond of the person, of the object, or even the idea. It's so easy to love the things that look pretty and beautiful in your eyes. But you cannot say that you know the truly meaning of love when you can only love things that you love. The true meaning of love lies in loving and showing respect to even the things you don't like. There are so many things, people, ideas, etc., in this world. And you don't have to like every single one of them. Of course, you can have your opinions. A thing is not for everyone. I always try to be open-minded as much as possible, but I cannot promise you that I am going to love everything. I can't agree with every opinion from every single person. It's okay to have an opinion, and dislike things. But things get pretty messy when you try to exclude things you don't like.

Sometimes you may bump into a person, an object, or an an idea that goes beyond your comprehension. I think LGBT or boys wearing makeup can be classified in this category (for some people). Please keep in mind that I love seeing boys wearing makeup, and I do follow male makeup artists on social media to see their amazing works. And although I am a straight girl who dates a boy, I am a supporter of the LGBT community. Nobody should be ashamed of who they are, and nobody should be judged by their sexuality. LGBT people aren't abnormal, and they're not sinners either. They're human beings who celebrate love like anyone else. In recent years, more and more people have become aware of the need to break boundaries, and we've witnessed some amazing progress. But things were not always like this in the past. The backlash against the LGBT community must have been much more severe. I think that it was hard (or even impossible) for people to understand the concept of LGBT back then, when all people were supposed to be heterosexual. But you need to know before hand that sometimes things that are beyond your comprehension happen or exist, and that's okay. It's easy to get scared of things you don't really understand. People feel uneasy when they cannot find a category for an object; people do not like uncertainty.

But even if you don't like a person, an object, or an idea, that person, that object, and that idea have a reason to exist. You may hate a particular person for some particular reasons. But you don't need to treat the person accordingly at all. You can still treat the person with respect, and acknowledge him/her as one of the members of the society, and as the same human being. And that's the definition of tolerance, isn't it? No, it's different from faking your emotion. If you think tolerance is about faking your emotions, and having to say that you like them when you feel the opposite, you haven't learned what tolerance actually is. Tolerance is about being okay with things you aren't really familiar with, accepting them, and acknowledge their full right to be there. Tolerance is not an emotion; it's a choice, and it is a will. Love can be the same too. Love is not just about loving the ones you love. Love is not just about loving the lovable aspects of a person, it's also about loving the person as a whole, including the flaws. Love is not just about loving a person when you want to; it's about keep working hard to strengthen the love and the bond between you and that person even during the hardest time. Love is not an emotion either; it is a will.

Ok, now let's talk about this: hate not the person but the vice. The next time you feel like trying to degrade and disgrace Jeffree, or any other people because of what they did in the past, try to think about this: do you want to do so because you hate the action, or because you hate the person? It should be hard initially, to draw the line between these, especially when you're the very person who was attacked and offended by the person in question. But eventually, you'll need to move on. It may be tough to hear this, but you cannot get satisfied by continuously blaming the person. I know it's not easy, but you need to try to blame the action instead, especially when the person is apologizing to you, and learning the lesson. You can't justify the act of firing racist words, but I think Jeffree should be also allowed to explain his circumstances, and defend himself. It's not fair to take out a bit of information without examining the whole context, and just blame him. And to all those people (most of whom do not even know Jeffree personally, I guess...) who talk and write shit about Jeffree, you do so not because you want to inform people, and to bring justice, but because you simply hate him, and you love humiliating him. You just love finding fault with him.

I love memes. They're mostly funny and enjoyable. But some of them are rather nasty and mean. When I first saw the meme that says something like, "If Donald Trump is drowning, would you save him?" I was shocked. I saw so many people commenting that they would not save him. This is disgusting. Some may say that they were saying no as a joke, but that joke is not funny at all. Well, I do not agree with what he says, and I'm not a hands-down Trump supporter. But if he was actually drowning, I would make an action to save him. Even if we may not agree with each other on different topics, he's a human being just like me. I mean, it doesn't have to be President Trump; it can be anyone. Those then-kids who bullied me...Yeah, I would save them. Why? Because I don't hate them anymore. I just hate what they did to me. It's impossible to forget how hurt I was back then, and what I had gone through in the past. I will never forget the pain and the loneliness that they made me feel. But that doesn't make me go and revenge on them. I won't justify their action, but I know how bullying works. I confess that it took a while to come to the state of mind where I am now. But eventually, I learned not to hate them but to hate the action. You should try to do the same. Hate not the person bu the vice.

So there you have it. This is what I have been thinking about lately. Oh, yes, I know. Nobody asked me to write these things, and like I said, I've never met Jeffree personally. And making this kind of post can be taken as interfering and nosy. But I love writing and writing helps my thoughts to be clearer and more organized than they're just floating around inside my head. And I just didn't like keeping my mouth shut when I have some words to say. I just didn't like to remain silent when I can see those mean tweets or comments directed to him. You can decide for yourself whether you like this post or not. Even if you dislike what I wrote, there's nothing I can do. I can offer, but I can't force you. And that's how things go. If you happened to stay with me till this moment, thank you for reading my post. English is my second language, so it must have been hard sometimes to make sense of what I wrote. lol Lastly, I want to thank Jeffree for letting us explore the world of makeup with you through your videos. And thank you for being honest and trying to be as open as possible to us. You are strong, and you will keep shining by being you. I will always be excited to get to know more about you, and hearing your words.

Let's Exile Physical Punishment!

Hi, everyone! It's already the middle of June! The first half of 2017 is about to fly away! How's everyone been doing? As some of you might know, the rainy season has started in Japan. In Japan, June = the rainy season. But we haven't had much rain as far as I can remember! How weird is that?! lol Moreover, it is repeated again and again on the weather channels that the air is so dry! We're in the rainy season, but the air is dry? Like winter? How can this kind of thing even happen? I almost have no knowledge about the science of weather, so this is very mysterious to me. If anyone can explain what is going on, please do!

So, in this article, I am going to write about my past... My not-so-fun side of my past. And it is about my home that I grew up in. This can be a very personal post, and if you're not interested, I do understand that. But if you find this article worth reading somehow, then please keep reading! Thank you. 

My mom was (and perhaps still is?) very strict. Very strict. Yes, I understand why she had to be strict. Parents are not friends. And raising a child is not always easy, and can be pretty tough. You need your child to do things by themselves. The child needs to be able to live by his/herself in the future. The child needs to be a decent adult, and know what's right and wrong. The child needs to have self-discipline. The kid needs to study and learn things. Sometimes, the child has to go through hard times so that they can learn that working hard and being patient pay off. Yes, I understand all of these. 

But, kids, too, need a break from time to time. I wrote that parents aren't the friends of their kids. But sometimes, they need to be their friends. Well, I wished that my parents had been willing to be my friends sometimes, at least. They never were my friends. Even worse, I have never really trusted my parents. Yes, my parents did raise my up, and they are the ones who paid for all of the things I needed in my life, such as education. They fed me, secured a house that I can live in, worked hard to earn money so that I can go to school, etc. I know she has always wanted to do her best to raise me up, and wanted me to be the best that I can be. She was a perfectionist. Well, it's not totally a bad thing to be a perfectionist. But sometimes it can be a bad thing, especially when you're rubbing your version of perfection on your kids face, ignoring what they feel inside. 

When you're raising a child, you cannot just keep smiling all the time. You need to expose your scariest face sometimes, in order to let your child know that he/she is not supposed to do what they are doing. You need to scold your child sometimes, you know? Again, your child need to be a decent adult, and be independent in the future. And spoiling your child is not good for him/her. I mean, once in a while, you can spoil your child. Kids need that sometimes. Not just kids, we all need some treats after a hard work, right? Ok, so my point is, you shouldn't spoil your child too much because you don't want your child to be a spoiled child and a spoiled adult in the future. 

Scolding your child is necessary when your raising a child. But how you scold your child is very important. Long story short, this is where my mom failed. I was yelled at a lot by my mom. And there were many times when she beat me when I did something wrong (or when what I did didn't turned out as what she expected?). I was slapped, I was beaten, I was kicked, and the list goes long if I were to mention with what she beat me. I simply cannot write down all the reasons why she had to beat me because there are just so many. So... let me give you just one example. I remember it so clearly. My mom was really enthusiastic about education. How well her kids did in school really matter to her. Some parents do not even know what their kids' homework look like. But my mom wasn't satisfied by merely completing schoolwork and doing homework. So at home, I had to complete another curriculum at home. One of the things I had to do was the weekly kanji test. My mom would read out a sentence at a time, and what I had to do was to write the kanji in question. For me, confessing that I cannot write the correct kanji because I could not remember it was so scary. Why? Because she would get angry. And when she was in a bad temper, things got catastrophic. The memory starts with a scene where I am standing in a room in an apartment where I used to live when I was in elementary school, with my nose bleeding because my mom beat me. And I am crying so hard because it hurt a lot, not just physically, but also mentally. She got outrageous, and beat me that hard because I was doing good enough in the kanji test that day. Some blood dripped down from my nose to the tatami floor. My mom yelled again because I wasn't supposed to make a mess in the house. I was crying, and my nose was bleeding, and I covered my nose, hoping that it prevented the blood from dripping down to the floor, which didn't really help. I was nothing but the definition of miserable. I didn't know what to do or what I was supposed to do. And once again, my mom shouted, saying, "Go wash your face!" So I went to wash my face in the bathroom, put some tissues in my nose to stop the nosebleed, and went back to the room where my mom awaited. My notebook had got crumpled up because of my tears, and moreover, because my mom had beaten me with it. 

This is what I remember. And there are lots of episodes like this. Oh my gosh, I was beaten with so many things. We humans use tools, right? lol Anyways, seriously speaking, I never want any kids to go through such experiences like I had to go through. I am against physical punishment. No exception. It took a while until I realized and fully acknowledge that my mom was abusive. I had always avoid that the word "abusive," and chosen to say that my mom was strict. But being strict and being abusive are very different. Being strict doesn't mean you can beat your child in the name of education. My mom would always say, "If you can't understand it by hearing it, you have to be beaten;" "If you can't understand it by words, you're less than human; you're the same as farm animals;" "If I have to beat you to make you understand, then you're the same as a cattle or a pig!" And by saying so, she justified her violence towards me, until I started to think that I deserved to be beaten because I was a bad child.

Some of you may think and say, "Well, if your mom is abusive, why don't you tell somebody, and ask for help, then?" Like I said, I thought my mom had reasons to beat me, even though I did know at the same time that she was doing too much. To me, talking about it is almost the same thing as notifying people that I was a bad kid. And I didn't want to do that, of course, because obviously, that's embarrassing. Plus, I knew talking about the issue to other people wouldn't help. I knew my mom wouldn't change for other people's opinions. She has always believed that physical punishment is necessary. It's not like she loves and enjoys beating children, but she had to sometimes. She thinks physical punishment is unavoidable sometimes. And honestly, she has a tendency to get too emotional and overreact sometimes. I guess she was just not good at controlling her emotions, which still doesn't count as an excuse to beat her kids, though.

She has never apologized for hitting her kids. Not a single time. I have apologized to her so many times when she was hitting me. I just kept saying, and screaming, "I'm sorry." But that didn't stop her from beating me. She stopped beating me when she was done. It was like you can't control the weather. I had to wait until the storm goes away. And I know she never will apologize. She doesn't see any reason to apologize for.

Unfortunately, my mom is not the only one. There are still a constant number of people (mostly older generations) who thinks that physical punishment is sometimes necessary. In the old days in Japan, physical punishment were much more common. Even if you were slapped by your teacher at school during class, that was not really a surprise back then. The coach in a sports team would hit the members of the team in the name of coaching, and making the team stronger. Nowadays, younger generations do not like those "You can achieve anything if you have a tough spirit!" kind of beliefs, but the atmosphere of this belief was used to be stronger. Japanese education has changed, and nowadays, teachers do not hit their students. More and more people believe physical punishment is wrong and unethical. But what is sad is that there are still some teachers, sports team coaches, or educator in a broader sense, who are accused of using violence towards their students. From time to time, you see news about those sad events through media. But I think violence at home is less transparent from the outside than violence at school or workplace. And I believe that there are still many children who suffers from violence from their parents.

Violence at any place is bad, and need to be excluded. Violence does not teach any good lessons. Violence really gets in the way of building a trust-based relationship. My mom has been my mom for more than 24 years, but I still cannot trust her, and be open to her. I tend to hide my feelings in front of her. When a person was confronted with violence, fear dominates him/her, and he/she can no longer think. The person will learn he/she is not supposed to do certain things, not because it is a wrong thing to do, but because he/she will get punished. This is really important, and you'll see why by looking at this example: you shouldn't kill anybody because killing is bad, not because you'll be thrown into a jail if you kill somebody. Well, it doesn't have to be killing; it can be stealing, cheating, or any bad things. Thus, when fear dominates you, you stop learning things properly. Moreover, fear brings helplessness, and it suppress spontaneity. Spontaneity is what so special especially about children. Not only children, but also adults learn best when they are allowed to think freely. Interesting ideas come from spontaneity. When there is fear, we start to watcher over our actions and speeches. We start to behave based on fear. We refrain from speaking up, and try not to cause any "trouble" so that we don't have to be punished. This is what will happen to children surrounded by violence. They'll think they're bad children even if it's not true, and limit their actions in fear of punishment for a very long time.

As I said, it took a while until I acknowledge that my mom was abusive. I didn't talk about this issue to my friends or other adults, except for my boyfriend. He is the only person whom I have allowed to touch the deepest place in my heart. I told him my secret, and how I have been raised up in my family. His eyes were filled with tears, and he said, "I am very sorry for all those things you had to come through." And he also added that what my mom had done is wrong, and that I should never think myself as a bad kid. My mom wasn't being strict; she was being abusive.

I don't want anyone to experience that same thing as I did. I do not believe in physical punishment. And now that I have recognized that my mom was abusive, and that I was never a bad kid who deserved to be beaten, I have been able to be more vocal about my childhood. Never justify violence. Physical wounds may disappear, but mental wounds will never disappear; they'll stay as nasty scars forever. Let's put an end to physical punishment. 

A Negative Rambling...

Hello. I hope you're having a great day or week, life, whatever. lol Ugh, I really hate the fact that I haven't been able to come here so often compared to what my situation was a few months ago! I have been failing to upload even once a week, and I hate it. I don't really like being busy (I sometimes do... Only sometimes...), and I don't like people who almost brag about how busy they are either. What I'm trying to tell you though, is that I've been busy! So ironic.

Well, job hunting is supposed to be the time when you meet different people, get to know different industries/companies, search for your future career path (i.e., your "bright" future!), etc., and it should be uplifting. But I feel like I'm at the other end of the emotion scale; I'm depressed, basically. Other people may be imagining their future selves, and thinking how wonderful their lives can/will be. Joy of life? Not for me, really. I feel like my life is draining. Haha, that was kind of an exaggeration. 

Alright, today's post doesn't have any topic or theme or whatsoever. I just wanted to sit and write. ...Write about me being pessimistic. lol It's not like I'm sad; I'm just pessimistic. And being pessimistic and being sad are different. And I'm not mad or angry either. No, I don't feel anger. You could ask me if I'm happy. The answer is, to be honest, I don't know. I don't really know what happiness is, to begin with. If you cannot define happiness, then you cannot tell whether you're happy or not, right? I know, happiness is a state of mind, and everyone has their own definitions of happiness. Some people may define being rich, and having an abundance of money as happiness, whereas others may value different things. But in the first place, you cannot define happiness so easily. There are different and many factors that can affect happiness (e.g., money, human relationship, environment, etc.), and I think it's the combination of these various factors that people refer to when they try to define what happiness is. So, then, I guess that in a way, happiness is your life goal, and if your current situation is somewhat close to your life goal (i.e., what you want and what you want to be), then you're happy. 

Ok, now I'm going to make a new paragraph because nobody likes big, long and dull paragraphs. So, if you desire to know whether you're happy, you need to have a goal, at least. And I think I am having a (major) problem here. Currently, I don't have a goal. I'm not really sure what I want, what I want to achieve, what kind of person I want to be, etc. The more I learn, and the more I read, the more I'm confused. I want to reach out to the truth (if there's any), but it's like trying to catch smoke. I can't be sure about anything. 

Hmm, I guess I'll just stop writing here for today. My writing spirit(s) went away, and doesn't seem to come back anytime soon. Thanks for reading this depressing post if you happened to make it this far! See you next time! 

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Hi! It's been two weeks since I last posted... But this was not because I was busy, to be honest. I had much time especially the last weekend of April and the first few days of this month. But I had been out of my house, and spent time doing different things which aren't worth mentioning here. lol

To tell the truth, I am so glad that I didn't quite blogging. I say this because I'm really bad at keeping a journal. At first, I never fail to open my notebook at night, and write a few paragraphs or so, but unfortunately, this good habit doesn't live long in my life. I have tried to keep a journal several times throughout my short lifetime (It's an ongoing process, of course; I don't have any plan to pass away at this point.), but none of the trials ended successfully. Well, in the first place, think about it. I wouldn't have to have my own blog if I were a capable person who makes journal entry everyday. What I write here are merely my soliloquies. The only difference is that whether the writings are public or private.

Ok, so that was my casual talks before I get right into business. lol As it says on the title, I am going to talk about a book called "Animal Farm" which was written by George Orwell. Yes, it is a fairy story about animals on a farmland, and yes, it may sound like a happy, peaceful story, but it is not. Oh, before I go in, please just let me remind you that I will reveal the basic outline of this story. If you do not wish to know anything about the story line, I have to suggest you to stop reading this post. Alright, so I read a copy of the book published from Penguin Books, and on the back of the book, it says:

"When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and plenty. But as a cunning, ruthless elite among them starts to take control, other animals find themselves hopelessly ensnared as one form of tyranny is gradually replaced by another. Orwell's chilling 'fairy story' is a timeless and devastating satire of idealism betrayed be power and corruption." 

Yup, that's how basically the story goes. The animals on the farm were living a miserable life, and that was Mr. Jones and all other humans' fault, they thought. Or at least some of them strongly felt that way. Others were just not clever enough to think critically, and process their opinions, or just weren't that interested or enthusiastic, but took part in the rebellion as a result. Humans have been dominating their life, abusing them, and exploiting them, and they have come to think that they didn't have to let it be that way. And that ended up being a rebellion against humanity, and the couple who owned the farm (Mr. & Mrs. Jones) were exiled from their own farm.

Soon after the rebellion, the farm seemed to won peace and freedom. But it wasn't long before one specie (i.e., pigs) started to take a lead of the entire animals. They were doing all the "brain-works" for the animals and for the farm, and didn't engage in labor as much as other animals did. And among the pigs, two leaders emerged: Napoleon and Snowball. The two was always disagreeing with each other on every discussion. And the rest of the animals were mostly not clever enough to think which side to take, and they seemed to go with the one who was present in front of them and speaking. When Snowball was presenting his opinions, they thought he had a better idea; when Napoleon was preaching to them, they thought they should agree with him over Snowball.

But on day, to their surprise, Snowball was exiled by Napoleon, and Napoleon have come to become the sole leader of Animal Farm. From that time on, whenever bad things happened, Napoleon claimed that Snowball was the mastermind. You wouldn't really know whether Napoleon was correct, and Snowball was actually the bad guy behind the scene, but the pigs always found ways to convince their comrades. And now you already see the way the rebellion is headed. Now it's hard to see the goals and ideals that animals had imagined before and at the beginning of the rebellion.

There was a set of rules which was called "The Seven Commandments," and it was supposed to function like a constitution. The commandments were set right after the rebellion, and those were the rules upon which all animals should live. But the commandments were "adjusted" whenever the pigs wanted to, and the adjustments were always done at night when the farm is asleep. For example, one of the rules was: "No animals shall kill any other animal." But one day, Napoleon massacred animals who planned to set up him or had thoughts of treason against him by secretly allying with Snowball, in front of all the other animals. The next morning when they saw the commandments, it read: "No animal shall kill any other animal without cause." Of course, the animals do feel like something has been changed (The commandments are written on the wall with a white paint, and can be read from a distance.), but one of the pigs named Squealer who is really good at giving speeches and convincing people to believe what he says, always made sure to convince the animals that they had false memories by asking them, "Are you REALLY sure you didn't memorized it wrong? Can you prove that it was different before?"

There were many times when the animals didn't get enough food because of the harsh weather. But Squealer always reported them that they were having more harvest and food than previous years, which false statistics, but the animals couldn't tell the the reports were false because they couldn't really prove it, and the pigs knew it. Even during the hardest season, when the animals was starving and hadn't had enough food, the pigs and the dogs (i.e., the guard of the pigs) had plenty of food to eat.

In the end, the pigs had become just like human being, the ones toward whom they had the greatest hatred. They started sleeping in bed, wearing clothes, and drinking alcohol just like humans. When the animals witnessed the pigs partying with humans, they now couldn't really tell which was which. ...And that's the end of the story.

The book was published in 1945, and Orwell wrote this story to tell people the real situation of Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution. I am glad that I read this book since it's very alarming. From the third person's viewpoint, it is always clear that the rebellion is starting to head to a weird and dangerous direction, but the animals do not have ways to stop that even if they noticed that something was wrong. For them, it is impossible to point out the problem with full sentences, and they don't even know when and why exactly the rebellion went wrong. It just happened, and they had already become just a small fraction of the entire system and the events. The books was published more than 70 years ago, but the it doesn't sound like an old story from the past, which is surprising and frightening. This can really happen! And it is an important thing to keep in mind. Totalitarianism is not the story of savage, inferior countries of the past or far away from yours. It could happen anywhere, and yes, even today. I feel like more and more people have become aware of this, and been feeling cautious about our societies due to the current political situations we face today.

Again, I am really glad that I got the chance to read the book. I wanted to write about Orwell's life, but I won't at least in this post since it would take up too much space, and it's actually impossible to sum up his life in just a few sentences. I will just say that he had an extraordinary life.

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you in my next post! Bye!

The Middle Way...

Hey, everyone! Seems like I can upload a new post once a week lately! I wish I could post twice a week, but I guess that's impossible for me at least for now... *sigh*

Alright. In this post, I am going to write about balance. Life (and all the facets of life) is all about balance (= moderation). Sounds so simple, doesn't it? But it's easier said than done actually, at least for me!

I am pretty bad at keeping a good, healthy balance in many aspects of my life. For example, I am a hard worker. It might sound strange to say something like this about myself, but I truly am. lol I don't try to find a way to look like I'm working hard when I'm just sabotaging. When I have a homework assignment to do, I really work hard on it. I don't write trashy papers. When I have to write a paper, I always do my best to write a good one, one that is interesting enough for the professor to read it. I would hate myself so much if I did try to write a boring one just to finish the paper more quickly so that I could free myself from the duty. Moreover, I don't want to waste the professor's time by forcing him to read my meaningless paper. Isn't it rude, don't you think?

I know, it's good to be hardworking; it should be encouraged. But sometimes, it gets too much and too intense. Sometimes (or more than sometimes...? lol), I even feel guilty about taking a break. I feel like I should be studying more, instead of watching Netflix (Oh, by the way, have you watched Iron Fist? I highly recommend it! If you haven't watched it, stop reading this blog, and go watch it right away! lol) or reading comic books even when I deserve a good break. There are other examples like this. When I assign myself a rule, say, "I am going to eat healthy," I need to eat 100% healthy 100% of the time. I would eat lots of vegetables, no junk foods, and I would not have snacks or desserts at all. I would be so strict to myself, and make myself suffer. I also tend to work too hard on my romantic relationship. I am a girlfriend to an amazing man, and I always want to be the perfect girlfriend. I force myself to be nice, kind, and pretty all the time, to cook a lot for him, to help him with his work, etc., and tend to wore myself out. But I can't do that permanently, and so, I sometimes "fail," which leads to self-hate. And when I feel depressed, both of us are unhappy.

So, the point I am making here is: being hardworking is good, but when you start to work hard too much, and work too hard, you start to suffocate yourself, and that's when things become problematic.

This semester, I am taking a class called "Japanese Thoughts and Religion," and in this class, we are learning about Buddhism, especially Zen. The semester just started this month, and we've had only 2 classes so far since the beginning of this semester, so I still have so much more to learn obviously, even though I have already learned new things. I hope I can share more by the time the semester ends in July!

In the last class, we briefly learned about Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha, "the awakened one"), and his life. He was born in a royal family. After he was born, a holy man prophesied that he would either become a great king or a great monk. His father wanted his son to be a king just like himself, and decided that he would provide anything to keep his son in the palace. He thought, if his son is satisfied with his life in the palace, he would not be interested in the world outside of the palace (= the real world where people need to experience suffering sometimes, if not all the time).

But as you've probably guessed, he couldn't cover up the truth like that forever. Siddhartha Gautama became interested in what and how would the world outside of the palace be like, and one day, he got a chance to get out of the palace, and see the real world for himself. Of course, he was shocked to see how the real world looked like. He had never suffered; everything in the palace was so beautiful. Everyone in the palace was young, healthy, and beautiful. He encountered old people, ill people, and also dead people for the first time in his life. He returned to the palace, but his life in the palace wasn't the same anymore. He decided to leave the palace to go on a journey to find the truth, and did so when he was 29, leaving his duty as the price, and the future king, his wife, and his new born child behind.

This is the story that I heard in the class (I heard the same story in another class that I took last year.) of the life of Siddhartha Gautama before he started his journey to the enlightenment. And from that time, it took 6 years for him to achieve the enlightenment (= nirvana). First, he tried to achieve the enlightenment (= to be released from suffering, because according to him, life is suffering) through tough training which made him suffer physically, such as starving himself for days. But it didn't bring him any good outcome, and he wasn't satisfied. It didn't work. And one day, he realized that he didn't have to choose the extreme way; he could choose the middle way. I had to go through this part rather quickly and briefly because I do not know much in details yet... Sorry.

Too less is not good, too much is not good either. The moderate amount is always good. And this principle applies to everything. I know this principle, and I understand what this principle means. But for me, it's not so easy to practice it in my everyday life. If I wish to release myself from suffering (because I am suffering from doing too much!), however, I need to practice it, and learn to balance myself. It took Buddha 6 years to learn that it's all about the balance, and I'm wondering how many years it'll take for me to learn that. Definitely more than 6 years! lol

I hope you enjoyed the little story about Buddha. Try not to push yourself too much! Keep in mind: a good moderation is the key! See you in my next post!