the seed of disappointment. 

Coming to the realization that someone else can have more control and more influence over your own feelings than you have yourself…sucks.

I love those random late night philosophical deep talks with good friends. It really makes you think more about life, future, values, and everything beyond school work, finals, and projects.  It’s refreshing and therapeutic, and a much needed reminder that there’s more to life than going to college, getting good grades so you can hopefully get a good job that’ll help support your future family.  It’s nice to step outside the box and look at the bigger picture and really contemplate what you believe in in comparison with what your friends and peers believe.  One thing I was reminded of though was something I’ve always questioned, happiness.  Is it bad that I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever really and truly be…happy?  To me, being happy is the ultimate, it’s that final standstill - not content, not satisfied, but just happy.  My current theory is that throughout life we pursue happiness, we chase it, desperate to attain it, but each time we get close, it’s as if we’re simply just not allowed to hold on to it and it just keeps moving forward, letting us chase after it.  With that being said, my goal in life will be to attain happiness and be happy.  If that’ll happen, who knows, but it’s those glimpses of happiness that gives me hope; those brief moments where it’s as if perfection really exists and you can feel happiness in the palm of your hand, but right when you’re about to close your hand and grasp onto what you’ve been trailing this whole time, you snap back into reality and you’re still there just looking infront of you as happiness continues to get a head start on you…maybe I’m just weird. meh. 

hironukka:

Coincidentally in the almost middle part of the semester where I’ve learned a considerable amount of material in my classes, a new fauxavist movement called Kony 2012 sprout up. If I were a younger, I would have jumped on this bandwagon quickly because of a feeling of intense self-righteousness and my eagerness to cave in to the guilt that our generation employs to galvanize us on some sort of “great cause” i.e. “stop doing a bunch of irrelevant shit and watching this video and do something with you life you lazy, selfish, self-entitled piece of shit”.

I didn’t though because I’ve grown up a lot since high school and after I was first exposed to the Invisible Children foundation. I never quite had the critical thinking skills that I’ve slowly attained since high school so naturally, I supported the cause without really looking deep in to it. You know how most high school kids and hell, even some college kids are: willing to believe in anything as long as you package it in a way that concisely appeals to their consciousness.

Last semester, I learned about the “Elaboration Likelihood Model” that divided persuasion into two categories: central and peripheral. In my generation of unlimited accessibility of information, we don’t invest in a lot of time to sit down and sort through all the data we see right before our eyes. We have our social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr that places its information in chronological order. You ever wondered why you never bother to look into the depths of your Facebook for a happy birthday message your friend sent you back in 2009? It’s because the information isn’t attractive to our brain that’s wired to favor quick new data anymore. Once something more attractive appears on our feeds like a fresh and funny tweet or a new funny gif, we almost immediately forget about anything else that we once found as entertaining as the newness we see in front of us.

So when most of us saw this video about Joseph Kony pop up on the aforementioned platforms, we couldn’t help but watch because those posts appealed to our peripheral sense of persuasion i.e. the presentation looked really attractive (well-edited video, quick summary of what was happen with bolded points) and it employed heavy use of pathos to justify its cause (I’m sorry if this may render my explanation irrelevant but I did not watch the Kony video yet. However, it’s probably not as different as other videos IC has released in terms of production, cinematography, and editing. Sure the videos had some facts in there but who really remembers the facts after viewing the videos when you feel this heavy, untapped sympathy of these people in East Africa suffering in deplorable conditions?). Consequently, those two aspects add up to a less cerebral response to the movement; you don’t really thoroughly consider the implications about “stopping at nothing” to take down just one guy.

My discourse with fellow rational minded guy Sterling Higa should explain the rest of my opinion about this sudden galvanization of youthful urgency for immediate action without a substantial solution.

Watch out, it’s pretty text heavy. If you don’t want some knowledge, well, you probably stopped reading after the first paragraph you lazy fuck. I also emphasize the lack of formality because I did not do extensive research. Instead, it’s just analysis off the top of my head and light researching. I’m not doing this for academic reasons anyway, this is just for fun and it’s fun to swim against the tide.

The best part is that this is probably only the beginning. I encourage you to really dig deep about this movement. Suspend the pathos for a little while and think of the logos in approaching the East Africa situation. It isn’t as black-and-white as we would like it to be.

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(Source: alydoremi)