rebellion?

I don't know whether my comment is real or whether it is purely a rebellious reaction to the posts of the others who keep livejournals, but ....... well let that stand as a disclaimer.

 I am no longer very sad in my life. I think the drugs took care of that. I just feel completely helpless. I have a direction that I want to head in. I feel superior to many others due to a feeling of sort of anti-superiority..... it's very paradoxical. i don't enjoy listening to people who stand behind slogans, or simplify their oppositions, and I try to complicate things whenever I catch myself simplifying. The current war-threat is a perfect example. I do suspect Bush of trying to line his pockets with (indirect) oil-money, and even if this is his only motive, it still seems very random to base ones views about an incredibly potent force in our lives on suppositions. I want to study semantics, the power of language in the hands of an agenda, and also Wittgenstein about how language is meaningless. I want to help the world, without polarity. I think there's too much of a focus on the personal individual--and how one can perfect, or effect an end--rather than on the societal individual--how one can process and work and push. I, of course, am not claiming to be free of any of the things which I critique here..... I'm just critiquing them..... Anyway, these are my thoughts for today. I'll hopefully fix some things from here and come up with some more tomorrow.

 Oh yeah, what was I getting at with my disclaimer? I think that I have a problem with depression. (HAHAHAHA, John is attacking depression, funny right?) I think what I mean is that depression, at least the way I experience/experienced it, is not a process but a termination. It's the assigment of a name, or a box to something that is dynamic. It's simplistic. It's resignation. I'm horribly guilty of it all the time. I just want to sort of announce that I have a theoy that it's nto the best way to go, cuz I always do have a choice, I always just take the easy way out. Anyway.......

free writing on my current thoughts

I think I need to realize that relationships cause actions. One person cannot be completely resposible OR not responsible for his/her actions. One person's actions are a catalyst to the other person's reaction. I need to work on the, "jesus Christ, I'M sick of that shit!!!!" as well as the, "I FUCKED IT ALL UP!!!!!" thoughts, both of which I do way too much.

I also think I'm too arrogant. I have no humility when it comes to my intelligence, or my reasoning abilities, and this helps fuel many semantic-based rifts in discussions that end in angry arguments. I think the reason that I'm arrogant, is that I have close to no self-esteem when it comes to the rest of who I am. I'm angry at who I am, but I spend so much time reasoning about it that I never do anything other than attempt to reason my way out of it. I think to be humble, one has to be content with himself/herself on a total level. I see this as a reason that everyone is arrogant to some extent; i might be just a little more polarized than some.

Thoughts on this, anyone?

I feel so strange that i don't know why i can't understand myself. i love my friends, i love my life, but i'm not sure if that's merely placation, or not.

Placation is a
Vacation from arduous thought that warrants
Investigation. Is this a good
Justification for the
Marginalization of the
Sensation of emotion that fuels the
Rationalization of my everyday
Immotion?

Wow, I like my poem that just came out (I did have to work through it a little bit.) I'm done now.

Mein 20. Geburtstag!!!!!!

today was my birthday. it started out wonderfully. first, my cute peace studies facilitator wanted to take me out for my birthday, and then i talked ot my friend asal for awhile. then, the day started to turn. my peace studies class was way simplified and dogmatic today, and then this girl Yuko, who I was gonna go read with, disappeared while I was arguing with my roommate Brynna. Then, it got really hot outside, and after I came home I ate too much. Then, I got in a really bad screaming fight with Brynna, where she told me that '"we" (meaning her boyfriend and her) were doing "you" (meaning me) a favor by letting you have that spot!!!!!!!!' I told her she was ridiculous. Then, I almost passed out from depression, you know the catatonic pathetic dying hate-the-world cuz you're uglier and smarter than everyone else thoughts??????? I know you know (except for Caito). Then, Scott came home and we bitched about Brynna for awhile, and THEN SHE CAME HOME AND APOLOGIZED!!!!!! IT WAS RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!! I was hella surprised. Then, my friend Jane invited me to come drink and smoke with her tomorrow night at her co-op. YAY!!!!!! Fun tomorrow night, good roommate times, and then drinking with my friends on friday for my birthday....... today, the day i ceased to be a teenager turned out to be a pretty good day. ICH BIN 20!!!!!!!!!! Ja, ich freue mich sehr an meine alte Koerper........

structural violence and positive peace

So, I read Kafka's "A Report to an Academy" today. It's a crazy story of an ape who learns to act like a man so he can leave his cage. He never experiences "freedom" but be claims it's not what he's looking for. I guess he just trains himself to act like everyone else, so that he can just exist, instead of existing as someone, as an individual. It's really interesting and everyone should read it. It's 9 pages or so. 

I've been reading lots of stuff about social convention lately, both for my Kafka class and for my Peace and Conflict Studies class. Much of the reading right now is trying to establish that warfare is a learned custom, just like marriage, or dueling, and therefore it can be unlearned. Or, better than being unlearned, peacefulness can be learned. It can be effected through attempting to root out both the impulse towards violent action to solve conflicts as well as the structural violence that causes one to receive that impulse in the first place. Structural violence as in racism, sexism, nationalism, homophobia, etc. With increasing globalization, the world is losing these distinctions. However, right now, the numbers of deaths in the world due to structural violence are the highest they've ever been. For example, when someone died 150 years ago of tuberculosis, that was just life and death, but today when some dies of polio, even though a vaccine exists for those fortunate enough to live in the "first world," this death can be attributed to structural violence. We must work to make a world not just free of war (negative peace), but also a world free of structural violence (this world is referred to as one of positive peace). 

Well, those are some of my own thoughts interspersed with some terms i've learned and a few new concepts. I really love the fact that I'm at a place in my life where I can look at the world and see problems, but positively think about changing them, instead of thinking that doom is inevitable.

I really enjoy life.

wow

I just had an amazing phone conversation. Not much of interest was said, but just the implications and the tones were amazing. I think I'm changing (of course, like always), but this girl. THIS GIRL! Stupid jesus.