mindcandy pennies from the overgenerous lunatic

self-evaluation

I think I have been a nastier person over the year. yea.

 I'm so afraid of being hurt by people that I start imposing invisible standards on them, drawing a limit on everything the do, and when they cross the line they are no longer within the range of my attention. To me, the limit imposed is pretty reasonable: no irrational actions. Yes. Thats the one line. No irrational actions. I do give benefits of the doubt, but within what I can give. After 6 months down the road I suddenly realize how illogical I am in booting out people off my friends's list. The system worked perfectly for me and it kept my life to minimal drama, but I realize that I'll have to become a lil selfish bastard in order to keep myself happy. And that is not what I am. No. The not selfish me (around 2-3 years ago), if he sees me like that would throw a painful punch across my face and knock all my teeth out. I made a promise to myself that I wont dump friends that turn out to be wayward, instead I'd try to help them and still be their friend. I realized that by now I kind of have broken this promise in a way. Someone whom I consider as a friend dug her own grave and all I can say is "she deserves it" and get worked out over it. Only when I shared my opinion of her with someone else, I realize how irrational and immature I was. I should have thought "maybe she has issues, so I shouldnt judge" instead of what I am doing.

I feel like a total asshole now.

I've been hurt by some people, and I have let that to harden myself and act selfishly to protect my own intrests. Is that what I really want to be? I know people change, but thats not my goal of being a selfish little asshole who couldnt care less about how others are as long as I am fine and dandy myself. I want to be someone as kind as caring as she was, and show people what, to me and her, being a good friend is all about. I guess being a selfish asshole, although it feels good and its nice being able to hold off all the pain and hurt, but deep down I already know its wrong. Being a selfish asshole does help prevent more hurt, but at the same time, I'll be a cold hearted and selfish friend.

To care and yet not being a busybody is what I have yet to perfect.

Now I realized what she said all along was true. Now I realize why she left in the first place.

 Maybe I am turning into her. She went thru this also. And in some way, the exact same thing. She warned me already. But I was still hard headed and refused to listen. Now I know how frustrated she felt. How angry and broken when someone whom you care a lot refuses to listen and headbutts into disaster. I feel guilty, but I will make up to her by living a full life. And I will always keep your advice close to my heart. I'll always remember what you taught me.

I know somewhere you're reading this I have statcounter.

That aside, I feel that I'm more cruel now, in relation with what was mentioned earlier, by making myself harder, a lot of things dont move me anymore because I seem to readily accept people as they are, as in not trying to help or change them and watch them fall, and then say that they deserve every bit of it. Beggar on the street? Oh well. They should be able to work. Emo people? OMG DRAMA TIME! Oh man. I dont believe growing up means ignoring those who are in need in any way. Would be nice if someone taught me what is it about. I dont wanna be a selfish jerk at the end of the day. If I ever do, I wish that someone would give me a sock at the face, or God would snuff out my life because by then I dont think life has any more meaning. I would be like those people I swore not to be, look down upon, avoid and hate.

I'm having some really good friends now. And I wont let them slip past like the way she did.

Compassion

Like I have talked about in the two previous posts, compassion is a simple subject, but it is divided into 3 types: true compassion, pity and hypocritic compassion. true compassion is the one that not a lot of people have, pity is the one that most people have, and hypocritic compassion is compassion without passion, meaning that the actions are only just for show. I will dicuss all these three types in detail.

The first kind of compassion is true compassion. This is the impulse that you get when you see someone who is in pain. Compassion is not just looking at someone and feeling the pain, but rather, the impulse that causes you to do things to relieve that person froml suffering. Compassion is the love that Jesus Christ had for everyone. Compassion is the love of a mother to her children, the one that causes a mother to risk her very own life for her child's life. True compassion will cause you to do anything you can in your power -- or maybe even beyond your power just to help a person in need. True compassion can not only be activated by the sight of someone worse off than you, but anyone at all who is in pain, or who is in need of help. It can be also activated when you see a person making the same mistake many times, and you cant help but to feel sad, and try to help that person come out of that loop, either directly or indirectly. Compassion is a wonderful feeling and it is one of the things that only humans can experience and generate. But even so, not much people have true compassion, and those that do are very special indeed as they are a very rare breed, because true compassion can promote self development in many ways. You change yourself extensively because you fear to hurt anyone in any way, be it emotional, accidentally or physically. It would be hard, but you cant live with the thought that you have hurt another being in any way, and you change yourself. One example of compassion is when someone accidentally falls into a pool and drowns. The instinct to dive in and save that person, and that you do dive into the pool to save that person is compassion. You place the lives of others above your own. Even being with a friend when he or she needs you at his or her lowest point is compassion. With compassion, it is never with the reward. You dont care if the person you helped dosent repay you in any way, you are just glad that person is feeling better and no longer in pain, not because you want to feel better yourself. True compassion is a wonderful thing because it is also medicine for the soul and heals mental alignments such as depression, low self esteem and lonliness.

The second type of compassion is pity. Pity is exactly like compassion, except you can only feel what others feel, but not act on it. You just merely stare and say "oh, things are like that. There is no use trying to help." and that you have the power to help, but you choose not to because of some selfish reasons. You know other people are suffering, but you just couldnt care less because you have other things to do, or think that these people dont deserve your help. You place yourself in front of others, and in the process allow others to get hurt or experience suffering because they do not bother you a bit. That is pity. You are the on-looker. There are a lot of people out there who are merely onlookers. perhaps the best example is when there is a car accident on the roadside -- everyone wants to see the damage or who is involved, but none wants to stop by or at least offer moral support or consolation -- because they have more important things to do. This is pity, and pity can only work for people who are worse off than you. And with pity, although you can still learn things, you learn a lot less because there is no hands-on experience, and because you are just not willing to do more for less. Pity is good to some point -- because it proves that you are human. But it is not the best. Pity is compassion, but not as strong as true compassion, so it is the same thing, yet diffrent in degree. This diffrence in degree, however, makes a diffrence between life and death in some cases, which is why it should not be overlooked.

The third kind of compassion is the hypocritical kind. Unlike the previous two, hypocritical compassion is not beneficial in any way, perhaps beneficial short term, but not long in the long term. Hypocritical compassion is pretending to care when you dont really, but you pretend to because you want to impose a good impression on others about you. You actually could not care less, but because you are afraid that speaking your mind might leave a bad impression, you tell the person that you care, either directly or indirectly. The benefits is that you can have a good impression on that person whom the play was staged for, and it ends just there, although with a good impression you can reach far, but ultimately when people dig deeper they will eventually find out you are faking it. For example, a friend comes and tell you about his sorrows, but instead of just listening and telling him or her you never been through what he or she has and has no idea, but can only help but to listen to help alleviate the pain, you lie and say that you understand and fabricate a lengthy chunk from your life to make that person feel better. You may gain the person's trust, but with trust, expectation always follows, and when the person does someting he or she expects you to understand but you dont, you end up hurting people in a very deep manner. This is hypocritic compasion, which isnt compassion at all, and people who are a little more observant can easily tell the motives of your actions. Hypocritic compassion often get people into deep trouble because in their motive to make an impression, they usually jump to conclusions fast and end up doing something without careful consideration, thus appearing as true compassion to some, but in the end, their fakery will be exposed and people will realize that these people are faking it when something really bad happens and they fail to act, but when something trivial happens, they make a huge scene and become the good guy. Hypocrisy in any way can eventually breed low self esteem and depression because when time passes by, you know it is not true and that it is wrong and it will bother you, because you know that it is empty.

And that is the 3 kind of compassions that I have experienced. I hope that this article can help educate people curious about compassion, and be able to distinguish the diffrent kinds, being able to practise the kind of compassion that they aim for.

arrogance

I've been wanting to write on this for a very long time but I could not find a way to explain this, but yet, I still feel it is important for anyone who reads my blog to know.

 Arrogance has always been the cardinal sin in many religions. And a person with it is someone that anyone would love to hate. But have you ever wondered why? there is a reason for all these. In other terms, the same arrogance can be reffered as pride, but generally, it is the same, destructive additute.

What is arrogance? Arrogance is the feeling that you are more superior than everyone else you know. Whether or not this rings true in your situation is irrevelant, because you will stop seeking knowledge. Those whith spiritual friends/teachers/guides will lose them for good because you will find that they are useless even when they still have a lot to teach or share with you. You will start to think "oh, what others say are not true, because I know more than them, therefore they are inferior and should be avoided. I do not want to mingle with inferior people as I may stoop to their level." And this kills any bond you have with that person, be it your parents, siblings, teacher, friend -- all positive bonds, at least. You will start to look down on people around you even when you know very well that this person has his or her own good qualities, and that you think that this person is not worthy of your attention and such, whatever this person say would be like trying to challenge your high position and you will always find a way to doubt his or her advice. Slowly, you will lose all your good qualities.

Arrogance is also the appeasing of one's own selfish ego. Originally, arrogance was meant for survival during the primodial days of the cavemen. Arrogance helped give courage to these cavemen to tackle huge animals for food and subdue and domesticate cattle, horses, poutry and dogs. But now, there is no need for such an instinct except as a last resort to disipline children, pets and unruly subworkers. It should not be used against family or friends, or even teachers.

Arrogance is like a piece of radioactive material. It harms itself and others, except for those with proper protection. An arrogant person unknowningly harms himself and others who are not prepared to deal with arrogant individuals. He harms himself by shutting off the door to knowledge to himself, removing humility, one of the greater aspects of being a human from his system, and cause good qualities in himself or herself to fade, because when one thinks that his or her is always right, he or she will do anything and find justification for it to be right, even if it is clearly wrong. For example, an arrogant person may slander against another person and ruin that person, when that person did nothing wrong, and the slanders are all lies, but to the arrogant person, he or she is doing a noble thing for exposing the truth, according to their point of view. In this way, he or she loses sense of right or wrong, except those that are defined by themselves, and harm others by assuming things about them.

But how do you ask can you avoid being arrogant? Most importantly, how do you know if you are? This is very easy, but it requires you to guard your thoughts like the way a firewall monitors internet activity. Once you have that thought/feeling/preception that you know more than someone, or that you can overpower that person with what you know and make him or her stoop low, STOP THAT THOUGHT. THAT IS ARROGANCE. You will hurt that person's feelings and self esteem, and it has already been proven that a mental blow is no diffrent than a physical one in the brain, and therefore, what you are doing is wrong because you hurt another person unessarily with your action to appease your ego.

So my friends, please avoid arrogance as if it was a piece of radioactive material, dont go near it, for it will give you great suffering. If you have an arrogant friend, ensure that you do not dicuss anything with them, if you are unable to prevent your self esteem and emotions from bruising. If you are able to, then it is okay.