Incoherent Rantings

Haven't posted in a while, and I'm not about to make another update mainly due to my laziness. I'm just going to throw this link out there. It's only interesting if you're old enough to have played Atari or Nintendo back in the day and remember it and am still interested in it. So yeah.

Oh, and I need a vacation.

posted by Eric @ 8:09 AM 0 comments

Christ. First Arnold fucking Schwarzenagger becomes the governor of California, and now this. I don't understand how the human race made it as far as we did with the level of sheer stupidity present in the population at large. I like the idea of democracy and equal rights and all that, but sometimes, just sometimes, I dream of the intellectual elite ruling the world, and putting those uppity proles in their place.

posted by Eric @ 10:24 PM 0 comments

Hey, check this out. Just read it.

posted by Eric @ 3:05 AM 0 comments

9:21 PM GMT+9:00, October 02, 2003, Tokyo, Japan

I have recently started saying pretty much anything that comes to my mind, and I'm wondering if it is a good thing or not. I have always thought that there are only certain people worth talking to, but I have never voiced this opinion out loud. I believe that (nearly) everyone thinks this, but they don't actually say it. If I actually say it, does that make me somehow more of an asshole just because I don't fear to speak the truth? I'm just saying what everyone else is thinking. Why, after all, are they not talking to me? Simply because they don't feel it is worth their time, of course, and usually the feeling is mutual.

Frankly, there aren't enough hours in the day to talk and be nice to everyone, so you have to pick and choose. People may not like the idea of this selection process, as they would like to continue believing that world is a bright and happy place where we all get along, but facts are facts. Ah, that's just cynical, you say. I don't think it's cynical at all. I'm not necessarily making a value judgement on the person themselves, but certain people just aren't worth my time. It's all about priorities. I'm just prioritizing my time, and some people just don't happen to make it onto the priority list.

Come to think of it, I really do sound like an asshole there, but I can't bring myself to care. I can't spend my time trying to please everyone, as it simply isn't possible. If I am not myself, then who am I? We all have our split personalities around different people, but keeping that to a minimum is a goal I think is worth shooting for. You are more than the people you interact with, and you should treat your interpersonal interactions as such. You are you, insofar as you exist independently of anyone else, and your existence does not depend on any external factors. Proving this is the truth is a very difficult problem, and not one I am willing to tackle, but you'll just have to take my statement on faith.

I must be sheltered in California, for I have never truly run into blatant racism and nationalism like I have seen here. There is one guy in particular, from Canada, who is incredibly racist, but casually so, if that makes any sense. That kind of thinking is so ingrained into his consciousness that there isn't necessarily any hate there, but there is a disdain, or contempt of sorts. He continuously talks about the best way to piss off a Japanese person, listing numerous ways to insult their heritage. He has forgotten my name a total of three times, and once when I ended a "discussion" with him by ignoring him, he tried to catch my attention by saying, "Hey, Chinese-American!" whereupon I had to restrain myself from exacting actual physical violence upon his person. He spouts nonsense about blue spots upon the base of "mongols" spines when they are born, joking that it is because of a tail, as if that were funny at all. He even made a joke about Japanese people having no depth perception, as if that were somehow humorous. I can probably count the number of people I would wish true physical violence upon on one hand, and he has joined that exalted group.

11:53 PM GMT+9:00, October 02, 2003, Tokyo, Japan

Musing further upon the idea of confidence, and priorities, I can only come to the conclusion that I have a much higher level of confidence than at any point of my life previously. However, this confidence is tempered by experience and the knowledge that only my years on this rock spinning through space can give me. I always discounted the idea that age necessarily equals maturity, and I still do, but age does confer a measure of maturity. This is, of course, assuming that the person in question has experienced things in those intervening years that you, in your youth, have yet not. As a person ages, it becomes more likely that they will have experienced more than you, and as such, hold that extra knowledge, giving them an edge up on you in most things.

What are the lessons of age? Well, first and foremost is that you don't know shit. That's right, no matter how much you know, there is always someone who knows more than you, and you can always know more. You are not God's gift to mankind, you are not special, if you died, you would be forgotten in a matter of months. Want to leave a mark? In the grand scheme of things, no one cares. In a few billion years the sun will bake this rock to a crisp, then shrink and leave us to freeze in the unforgiving cold of outer space. You only have so much time, and you should make the most of it.

If we apply this, we can come to the conclusion that balking at talking to a cute girl because you think she might reject your sorry ass is a stupid way to go. There are over 6 billion people on this planet, 120 million of them in Japan alone. Even on the small campus, there are hundreds of people, more than you could ever get to know. Thousands, probably. Even if you go down in flames because you were a quivering ball of nervousness and sweat, it doesn't matter.

Many things in life are self-fufilling prophecies, and a lack of confidence in a good outcome will only hasten the very thing you want to avoid but believe is approaching anyway. If I only knew what I know now when I was in high school, or even when I started college. The missed opportunities make me want to crawl into the corner and cry, but I'm too apathetic to really dwell on them for long. I came to an epiphany of sorts one day, when I realized that whatever happens, happens, and there's nothing I can do to change the past. When others were stressing over things that happened days, weeks, or even months ago, I was calm.

An "Asian" diet statistically makes for healthier people, and a stress-free life also helps your lifespan. Short people statistically live longer, so when we take all those factors into account, I should statistically be able to live to roughly 247 years of age.

6:18 PM GMT+9:00, October 06, 2003, Tokyo, Japan

As I sit here in the lounge breathing in carcinogenic clouds of smoke, I sympathize with the rabid anti-smoking people. Should we be able to stop people from doing certain things? Is it a slippery slope? I don't think it's much of a question in this case. Not only does the smoke stink to high heaven, it is also increasing my chances of contracting lung cancer, and lowering my effective oxygen absorption efficiency. Basically, it's killing me slowly. I don't like telling people they can't do certain shit, because I wouldn't want someone to tell me that, but if someone wants to smoke, I say just do it away from me.

My pants seem to be picking up the habit of developing holes in them, which is a kind of a signal to me that perhaps I should be getting new pants. However, the exchange rate being what it is, that is, horrible, I don't want to spend too much money. At the same time, I can't very well walk around with holes in my pants. I guess after using them for probably what is going on two years now, I've gotten my money's worth from them. But I hate shopping. And rather than be even less eloquent, I'm going to stop right now, and I'm going to let my brain vegetate for a while.

posted by Eric @ 2:59 AM 0 comments