The Vices of Pride

It’s been a while since I blogged something like this.

I skimmed passed Xenia’s newest blog post (titled “Why do people get married?”) and I read the first sentence. She said that she learned a lot from doing research papers and then I realized…”whoa…no way…she’s right!” You do learn very much through doing mandatory research for papers.

But anyway, on topic, I have an informative speech due in like…2 days (and admittedly, I am pretty stoked about doing it but also very nervous!) And I chose to represent the Buddhist Philosophical culture for my topic.

I’ve always known a thing or two about Buddhist philosophy (After taking Philosophy 101 with my fantastic professor prof. Dupen. AWESOME and brilliant professor) but after doing some deep research (books and internet mind you)….I’ve come to realize something more about myself.

The teachings of the Venerable Buddha have explained to his followers to shed Pride, Vanity, Sloth, Gluttony. You realize these are all human aspects? Shedding these and realizing that the world is not about the individual, but is a symbiosis of worlds interconnected will lead one to the path of enlightenment.

I’ve learned and understood the non-individual part…but the problem is, I can’t seem to kick my way past the first carnal rule: Shedding pride.

I can’t seem to shake this pride from myself.

I was looking through a friend’s facebook and they had a quote that one of their friends says and it went something like “Why are there seagulls here? We don’t live near the sea! We live near the bay! They should be called ‘Bagels.’” (Bay-gulls = bagels)

Honestly, I think that everyone can find humor in this “joke”….but in the end, I found it nothing less than stupid. I immediately thought this guy who said this was a complete idiot.

And that leads me to the point about myself. I’ve realized that, yes, I am a pretentious asshole…but honestly, I never realized how much of a pride-coupled, fucking pretentious super asshole I could be.

I’ve found that college is suppose to be an experience of meeting people one’s own age…perhaps meeting people that one can relate to. And the sad thing is, I can’t seem to find one single person my age that I can relate to in terms of just…well, likeness! Sure there are people that share one quality that I look for (artistic or open mined or philosophical or etc) But there is not one single person that I can honestly say that I can have a comfortable conversation with about politics, philosophy, art, life, and beauty.

Haha I know, I know. Who really wants to actually discuss politics, art, life, beauty, and philosophy? Hardly dinner conversation right? “How can you compare an Empiricist point of view to the Kantian Ethical laws of universality?!” (Oh if any of you understood that and could make a pretty valid retort, I’m amazed. Its basic philosophical concepts, but since when is philosophy ever basic?) That’s just one example….hell I could talk about how the temperature of the water could control the outcome of a fibre based print, or how under exposing by greater than 3 stops can cause an image to flare out beyond allowable (2 stops + or – is the limit for exposing) measures.

But honestly, I can’t relate that to anyone. I’ve tried to have a conversation with a friend about the political state of China, but the return was, well, not what I was hoping for.

Is it pride? Is it that, after that car hit me and I found a means of waking up, that I morphed into a seeming know it all that cannot find joy in discussing why seagulls are not called bagels because we live in the bay area? That I can’t have a conversation about how awesome one of the aspiring american idols are? That I can’t find humor in people making childish remarks at each other?

It’s strange…I mean honestly its not that I have a superiority complex or anything…its really…well I can’t seem to connect with anyone my age on any level, and I do wish that it wasn’t like that. One can only go so far in life with philosophy and art as companions…but when life is devoid of human intimacy (friends, lovers) we find that its cold and lonely trek to the other side of the world, and that is something I definitely do not want to happen.

But then again, am I really putting myself in a position of change to bring myself, my ideas, my thought processes, down to a level of meager childish eventfulness that has nothing to offer constructively but prancing around, thinking life is good and that college is fun?

It’s hard to say because who are we to determine what is good and what is bad? For all I know, the way that I am is an ideal state, but then again, it could also be a vice. Same goes around for actually acting my age, not some 25 year old mystic philosopher hippie traveler.

I look back sometimes on my past connections with people…and its funny to see how these connections have broken due to the fact that I see myself as well as other people in such a differently light, as people and as perceptive human beings. We are all perceptive in our own way, but it is dependent upon the degree of which we allow ourselves to be exposed to this perceptiveness. To be so perceptive is to see everything, know everything, and make a clear judgment based on that. I feel that I have gone too far with my perceptiveness, scrutinizing and analyzing everything to the last degree, only to conclude and realize that there is nothing particularly morally correct about what I am perceiving. That what I am observing and judging is a fellow human that I have deemed a redundant, regular 1st world human who has the world perception of a pea because his/her life is so good, and I don’t mean to say that with malice or any other form of hatred. It’s just the way it is.

But my thoughts on this…..well I definitely disagree and am saddened by my current position of being so removed from what I could enjoy as an 18 year old…but then again I am also happy that I have removed myself from that because, since I already know all that I know and I like to think that it is beyond much of what people my age enjoy thinking about (you should have seen my philosophy class…..out of a class of 3o, only like….4 people contributed to intellectually stimulating conversations including myself. Those others that did try to participate flew so far off the given points it was…well….whatever.), it gives me a sort of pride within myself to have so further advanced myself from the redundancy of common teenage angst and social society….and if I further integrated myself into that style with the intent of desperation to make friends…well I realize that would be demeaning to myself and would do injustice to all that I have striven to learn from my strides through life.

When we bring about hardship upon ourselves for petty desires…well that makes us less of what we are. To me, friendship seems like a petty desire when it is with people that I cannot find any connection with (people that…all they want to do is sit around and stare at walls, waiting for things to happen) and I don’t want to have 1000 friends whom, when I am around, all I want to do is get away. That 1 friend who I can find a reversed mirror of ideas…someone who believes and contradicts and fights and argues against my own ideas, one topic after another….that, to me is a friend worth having.

Don’t get me wrong, honestly, what few remaining friends I have, they are truly beautiful people in their own right. I am not saying they are any less than I am. We are just on different levels of ideas and thoughts and I just can’t find a connection anywhere.

Its hard for me to say these things without seeming like a complete prick…but well, it is the way I feel about myself and the situation I am in. Its hard to be 18, but to find no joy in sitting at parties or sitting at get togethers that amount to nothing but laughing at childish jokes (no no no, stupid jokes are totally different and those are things I love. I’m talking childish jokes) and doing nothing but staring at the ground, waiting for something to happen. I cannot tell you how many times I have taken a 30 minute drive down to State only to leave an hour later because there is nothing to do and it was not worth standing around, doing nothing.

Well…..that sorta all I have to say about that really….. I feel lost about it and I’d like for this abject and totally self conceived loneliness to end soon…

I’d like to meet good people who have an open, constructive, beautiful mind…someone who shares similar vices, similar strengths.

I have high hopes about summer where I will try to get a job at a music store…chances are I could meet someone cool to hang out with….some person that I can feel a bond of friendship with.

Cheers from dark and windy san francisco.

Why Do I have to Believe in a God that isn’t even real?

I….always have something to say about religion.

Haha good way to start off a blog post right? Well it wouldn’t be a blog by Dzu Nguyen if every now and again there wasn’t a blog about God, the perception of God, the ideal of God, and the farce that is God.

I was sitting in church yesterday (after neglecting it for 4 weeks pretty much) and thought about the congregation and how weak and flawed it is.

I mean, not just the congregation but also the entire system of Religion and the Church, especially Christianity.

Humanity has always glorified whatever is in the grandiose sense. Even if we must fabricate it, we always create something grandiose to glorify in…yet in reality we use this facade as a cover to truly glorify ourselves.

Let me make a bold statement and see if you agree:

Man is God.

That’s right. In the entire philosophical and psychological sense, Man is God.

I’m sure you all know this already but maybe have never thought about it or what not, but there is so much evidence that Man is God.

Who wrote the bible? Man. We claim that it is the word of God, but if it were the word of God, there’d be more evidence that it was from the mouth of God himself. Instead, we are given the empty, half assed  reassurances that we must have faith and believe that what they tell us is really true, that the Bible is the word of God. Sorry guys, not good enough for me.

Who even created the ideal of God? Man of course! I mean there is no argument there! Given in the Bible, all these miracles happened WITH or WITHOUT Jesus Christ. It is true that Jesus was the vessel of God’s word, but even without Jesus, there were miracles (Noah’s flood, etc). So, where are the miracles today? I hardly see God reasoning that “Oh, man doesn’t need God anymore.” up in the high heavens there. If a God were to reign supreme among his creations, he must continually make his presence known for all the non-believers out there (ala me.) Besides, we are doing things that are for God’s doing only, thus elevating our positions from man to God in a rapid and rather constructive way. So if God were to be really there, I think that even he would see that as a threat and smite all of our technology and advancement.

So, where is this smiting?

However advance we humans are, we always have that weakness of disbelief within what is provided. We refuse to search for the answers to the unanswered and instead blame it upon a God that is non existent. We are weak willed, refusing to believe in our own choices, putting it blindly into the hands of something that doesn’t exist, a fabrication of our minds.

I think that as smart as we are, we are incredibly stupid as well. Jesus and Muhammad were not of divine origin, instead they were just like you and me. Instead, they were much smarter than we were then and smarter than we are now. They were philosophers of their given beliefs, not mouth pieces for a God or an Allah that doesn’t exist. Where I place Jesus is not the Son of God. He is a philosopher on the lines of Socrates, which does not mean I do not respect him. I love Jesus as much as I love Socrates. Muhammad I think I would have to say the same.

You see, religion is a device to exploit the people. I mean, when you have over half the world following you, who would not want to exploit that to reach whatever means we want? I mean, all the pope has to do is speak some holy words and he’s making more money than people who honestly work for their living. The irony is that Christianity and Islam are religions, but they are stricken with lies and false words.

My philosophy professor went into religion for a day or two and he explained that the pure origins of religion were to preach love and tolerance to people. Look what it has been bastardized into today. Alms collecting, false words, rules of how to live, hierarchies that leave the common believer far below those who are in actuality suppose to be serving us. In Islam, we have people dying in the name of Allah when in reality they are using that as a facade for their own weak human beliefs. Its ridiculous and I’m sorry that no one can see through that filth of indoctrination fabricated by the blind greedy desires of man to see what pure religion is: attaining an ideal state of purity with your fellow man, loving and coexisting with them as well as the rest of the world. Too bad we all can’t see that.

Shadows On the Sun

Anyway……

So recently I borrowed “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy (The guy who wrote No Country For Old Men now turned into a pretty good Academy Award winning film), and I have to tell you guys….this book gives me the chills everytime I read it.

To sum it up without spoiling a ton of shit for you guys, its a story of a nameless pair: Father and Son, traveling across a post apocalyptic wasteland where an unnamed catastrophic event has destroyed all that remains, leaving nothing but crumbs and embers of what was civilization, and the “adventures” they have while traveling….if you could call them adventures. Its more like, terrifying events that happen across the proverbial hell they are traveling across.

What I really like about this book is that McCarthy adds alot of social commentary, or at least philisophical commentary if not social, throughout the story. The travels of the father and son are marred with gruesome events that many people would not dream of ever wanting to see…and its strange because its incredibly compelling.

We read post apocalyptic fiction hoping for a story about survivors kicking ass and taking names, zombies being blown to smithereens by bands of courageous surviviors looking for the last vestige of the holy human race to make a final stand before they make impossibly concieved strides to reclaim the world from the grasps of this unamed malice. However in this story, we realize that all of these truths are nullified and that this is a different sort of post apocalyptic fiction. This type of fiction takes a much more melancholy route, bagging on the philosophies and terrors of surviving and the ever present hedgehog’s dilemma of two choices we should never, ever have to make: Life or Death? In a word devoid of life besides marauding bandits waiting to kill and feast on whoever they lay their eyes on, is there a reason to go on? Should we submit to death before we reach an ever inevitable fate anyway? We never question this and rightly so because we never have to, but this theme is now as real to this father and son as the apocalyptic ash and fallout that drifts across the long and terrible road that they travel upon.

Once again, I think that this is a bit of commentary on our views and perspectives changed after an enormous and sudden rapture. We live in such safe society that, when all that has changed or has been so suddenly seized from us, our transformed nature begins to show after these events. I think it even provides a notion of even hope for hummanity. We are so foolish, yet with the example of the father and son, we still have that primal truth of survival embedded within the very core of our existence, more so amplified by the father and son’s will for survival. We also, with much hope, see that even ethics can survive in a post apocalyptic wasteland. Everything we know has blown away, our primal nature from the beginning of time has shown itself a worthy means of survival….yet when the father and son see thousands of people locked naked in a basment, waiting to be devoured, we see that the purity of the child and the aegis-like nature of the father draw away from this temptation when the son states “we’ll never eat people right?” and the father says “we will never.”He even goes on to proclaim that “we are the keepers of the flame,” an even more inspiring sense of hope in his drawn and tired words. Even when near defeat by starvation, they’re ethical resolve remains resolute, scraping by through other means rather than succumbing to the temptation of this self destructive act.

Though I have not completed the book, I can surmise all the above I’ve written as a rather quintessential theme to the book, that survival bears our true nature, yet in a sense, it is also the marker in time where we decide where we stand on the sides of survival, death or life. In the end, with the written words and proverbial spells that Cormac McCarthy bombards us with in this book, the ethical matters, the melancholy truths, the everpresent inspiration of something called “hope” in a hopeless land, we can now assume that we are all but metaphorical Shadows on the Sun, secondary to a greater scheme of things in life that determine what and who we are.