Different Me

     Who am I? Do I actually know the answer to this question? Maybe.

     We all act differently when we are by ourselves and when we are in public, like in school, at work, etc. Maybe it is just human nature.

     All of us try to show the best of ourselves to other people, we dress differently, we do our hair, girls put make up on... Besides appearance, we talk more appropriately, we behave more gently...

     Me?

     I think to me, the biggest difference is the appearance. I do not really care about how I look at home, but once I stepped outside of my door, even it's just to get mails from downstairs, I need to do hair, dress up, etc...

     Other people may see me love food, love doing works. It's partially true. I do love food, and doing work, but when I am at home by myself, I won't actually cook, or not even thinking about what order, and Im kinda lazy when I'm at home.

     Not too long ago, I learnt a new meaning to the word "fake", which could describe people that " who falsely claims to be, feel, or do something ", and I realized that we have the similar word in Chinese. 

     How?

     The difference between how the world see you and how you actually are, may cause by various reasons. 
          - One of the most important reasons are, you are only exposed in public for certain time during the day, but you are yourself 24/7. And in most cases that period of time is the "golden" time, maybe you just feel like dressing up.
          - The pressure from the world/the society. Everybody judges, and some people enjoying doing so. When you are judged, sometimes you just accept the sentence, and start doing the things other people feel good. Deep inside your heart, you may not accept or agree with that, but you are still doing that for the sake of survival, or just to "gain respect" from all the "judges".

     We are all different when we are exposed in the public, it is normal, and it may be good.

Lost Star - Adam Levine

      That's the song that helps me cope.

(Lost stars by Adam Levine)

    
      I love music, and I had a band. I remember when we were rehearsing for our graduation ceremony, one of us played this song. I play guitar, and the rhythm this song is mainly made up of guitar, more specifically, acoustic guitar. Suddenly I fell in love with this song.

      After awhile, I was on the subway home at night, alone, I listened to this song, quietly. All the sudden, I felt the magic of this song, not only the rhythm, but also the lyrics. I feel like the meaning behind the lyrics is pretty deep, from surface, it seems meaningless. But after listening to it repeatedly, I realized something, and that's something can not be expressed by language. 

     I learnt to play and sing this song. Ever since, when I am tired, frustrated, I went to this song. 

     This song has its movie, after watching the movie, I became obsessed with musical movie, especially this one, not only giving me wonderful music, but also inspire me, make me a better person.

     I think the magic of this song, even the music in general, is they are the expression of certain motion, beliefs, or opinions. Everyone shares some of the same motion, and listening to it at the right time is just like expressing yourself; expressing you anger, or your happiness.

     Song uses its lyrics and rhythm, to turn this kind of motion into something that you can actually listen to, and you can share this kind of motion to other people that you think may be in the same situation as this song(or you). That's why I think Lost stars, and songs in general, helps me to cope, to turn the negativity into positive, or just make me feel like someone's with me, and agrees with me.

Bluebird

     According to Google, "symbolism" means: the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities. I think it is the when author uses some objects that are close to us, that are accessible to the majority of people, to express opinions or motions that authors want to tell us.

     In this poem, the symbol is the "bluebird", and I think here, "bluebird" represents the ambitions that grows deep inside of heart. They are the things that we have been dreaming of for a long time but which seems impossible to achieve.

     I think everybody has their unique "bluebird". As mentioned above, the bluebird represents our ambitions, which may seem to be hard to pursue, but we never forget about it. It has always been difficult for us to decide if we should release the "bluebird", and put thoughts into action. We hesitate because we know we may fail, and we may be embarrassed by other people because of the failure. One of the easiest examples are when I have crush on a girl, I always hesitate if I should start to ask her out. Every time when I am in that scenario, all the possibilities went through my mind. And for the most part, I chose to wait, and "only let him out
at night sometimes, when everybody's asleep." 

     Our life is made up of all those self-conflicting, we are always not sure if we should let the bluebird out. When we actually do, sometimes the bluebird reaches its destination, of course, sometimes it couldn't. In terms of larger "bluebird", it might change our life. For example, for careers, we have to decide between the ordinary route and our actual ambition. Different choices lead to different result, the ordinary route usually grants a secure and stable life, but you may not be happy; and choosing to pursue ambition, you may not be as successful as you expected, but most likely you are happy doing what you do. It's just like the choice between "practical" or "dream".

The most beautiful woman in town.

PPT: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_EGYayjFnrn0gYNCmWhj0a3_Y6xJ_pSbmX_XPDtXE9Q/edit?usp=sharing

In the story, Cass did a lot of stupid things because people accuse her of being pretty.(“People are always accusing me of being pretty. Do you really think I’m pretty?”) And she hurt herself several times by “running long hatpin through her nose”, driving pins under her eyes, trying to cut her throat, and lastly, committing suicide.

People always tell themselves and sometimes other people to not to care about what other people say. But in reality, we are all under the influence of other people, sometimes we even care about the joke that your friend told you. And we start to act differently, different from who we truly are, just trying to be the “perfect” one from other people’s perspective.

We only live our life once, and sometimes we have to do something that is “required”, like going to school. AS Nobody would ever know when he/she will be gone, it could be 80s, it could be now, so the first priority is to live your life wonderful, and make yourself happy. With the pressure from outside, you can hardly find the peace in your heart, because “other people” will always find something on you that is not perfect, and they will zoom out your weakness until they break you. Btw the suicide rate in Canada was increasing by around 11% each year in the past 5 years. Just like this pic says (...), we dont have to take shit from other people, if you think you are right, then your right!

Freely Dog

By Patrick Chen

The dog, the most human animal,

in this endless world.

We get him into our beautiful life, he was scared,

and then he started enjoying this world.

When he saw the variety of the world,

he started jumping and barking.

He looked like a waterfall, being free,

being loved.

Theme | “Other People" by Neil Gaiman

Theme 1 - Pain and suffering

Going through hell is painful and is such a suffer.

     "...was a cat o’ nine tails made of frayed wire."

     "Then the tines of the cat landed on the man’s back with a crack and a hiss, tearing through the expensive clothes, burning and rending and shredding as they struck."

     "The demon took apart his life, moment by moment, instant to awful instant. It lasted a hundred years, perhaps, or a thousand – they had all the time there ever was, in that grey room – and toward the end he realised that the demon had been right. The physical torture had been kinder."

     "It was like peeling an onion."

- Pain and suffering are throughout the story. The things that happen when the character(he) went through Hell, all the physical and mental tortures, make the man become hopeless. Near the end of the tortures, the man lost his will to survive and fight against the demon. Pain could be physically, could be mentally as well. Long-term suffering could actually kill a man, maybe not the death of the body, but it could be the death of your faith, the faith to fight against the evil, the faith to continue surviving.

- Detailed torturing methods are introduced throughout the text. By describing the reaction of the main character, it shows the process of losing humanity of a well-being human. From full of hope, to become other people -- demon.

- I always believe that behind every successful person, they must have suffered through a lot that we could not imagine. It is obvious that not everybody is successful, but almost everybody have been suffered. The ones who is not successful to themselves, are just like the character in this story. They were suffered, they were painful, and they did not make to the end. They lost their faith, or they gave it up even the finish line is right there.

Theme 2 - Acceptance

We all have to accept the truth, even when it is brutal.

     "He no longer wept."

     "He crouched on the floor, beside the brazier, rocking gently, his eyes closed, and he told the story of his life, re-experiencing it as he told it, from birth to death, changing nothing, leaving nothing out, facing everything. He opened his heart."

     "He crouched on the floor, beside the brazier, rocking gently, his eyes closed, and he told the story of his life, re-experiencing it as he told it, from birth to death, changing nothing, leaving nothing out, facing everything. He opened his heart..."

- Near the end of torture, the man finally surrendered. Not only to the demon, also to himself. He lost his faith to struggle, to fight back, even to cry and scream. Some people may say he gives himself up, but from another perspective, it is his acceptance, acceptance of the brutal truth, brutal situation.

- In the beginning, the man was screaming, fighting for his life. He thought he would be able to fight the demon and finish all those suffering, but he was wrong. He accepted the truth after a long time both physical and mental torture. He is break down. Mentally and physically. He is not himself anymore, now he is just an object that has been through a lot of inhuman suffering. And he accept that, he lost his own identity.

- Accepting the situation could be positive, it could also be upsetting. In some points in our lives, we all have to accept something we do not want to accept, i.e. breaking up, the death of our families etc. But eventually, we have to accept. As the time flies, those things fade away, and we move on living our life, meeting all those wonderful things and darkness. Learn to accept, is a basic concept in our life, which help us to move on, to explore the future full of potential.

Me

I believe in reincarnation, for some reasons, I also believe Heaven and Hell exist. Maybe Heaven and Hell are representing two places with total opposite atmosphere, one is for good people, another one, for the bad. I always think that everything we do will lead to something, and Hell and Heaven are the final results.

The man in story got trapped in Hell must do something that was unethical and hurt other people. Maybe he thought tons of OTHER PEOPLE did bad things, himself would not be the one to go to Hell. We human beings always have the instinct to copy other people's behaviour, it could be good, and it could be bad at the same time. We have the instinct simply cause we think if it is good, ourselves could benefit from that, if its not, there will be OTHER PEOPLE to bear the consequence, at least someone could share the consequence with you. To me, that is wrong, but sometimes, we have to do things like that.

I always trying to be unique, I always try my best to be the first person to do something. But it is impossible to always be the first one for everything. When other people are doing something that you think it is good, you have to do it anyway.

Like we discussed in class, our moods are influenced by news. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad. That's because we feel good or bad about the news. But after awhile, that moods fade out. For the most part, we forget what happened before. Since we always think:" I won't be like that, it will only happen on other people." That's why accident always happen, that's why people are still making the same mistakes that happened thousands of times.

Do NOT always think you will not be the OTHER PEOPLE.

My Favourite

-     "The demon took apart his life, moment by moment, instant to awful instant. It lasted a hundred years, perhaps, or a thousand – they had all the time there ever was, in that grey room – and toward the end he realised that the demon had been right. The physical torture had been kinder." --- People start realize something after difficulties, in this case, torture.

-     "'Come close,' said the demon, ... 'Now,' said the demon, in a voice that carried with it no sorrow, no relish, only a dreadful flat resignation, 'you will be tortured.' ... But the demon shook its head and made no reply. ... 'Yes.'" --- Throughout the story, the demon never talks much. Those simple but efficient responses represent the trauma that torture  brought, especially emotionally. Also shows that every demon has been through a lot before truly become a cold blood monster.

-      "A man stepped through the door. There was terror in the man’s face, and arrogance, and pride. The man, who wore expensive clothes, took several hesitant steps into the room, and then stopped. When he saw the man, he understood." --- From this man, the main character saw himself, that he was exactly the same when he first came to Hell. Then, he knows it is a round, and now he is the terrifying demon. 

Thinking

- If the Hell, or place like Hell actually exist? If yes, who will go to that place? If not, is it the demon that exists deep inside our hearts?

- When we are the "other people" from others' perspective? Is the "other people" good or evil?

Millennials

     One thing that was mentioned in the talk about Millennials is "Entitled".
   
     From Google, Entitle means "believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment." I strongly agree with the speaker that a huge number of Millennials have that issue.

     He mentioned that we were told "we can have anything just because we want." It is true. Nowadays, everybody is promoting the "encouraging education", personally I think it is good, but a huge amount of parents turned encouraging into spoil. It becomes saying things that are not true, becomes giving kids whatever they want etc, and that's where things went wrong. But thinking from another perspective I can definitely understand as parents, they probably have been through things like hungry, and they do not want that happen again on their kids. As a result, they do everything they can, to provide they child with the things they want, to say things they'd like to hear. After awhile, we, kids, think everything they have done for us is what we deserved, is how we should be treated, which further down caused laziness, selfishness and all other bad qualities older generations talked about.

     To myself, my parents gave me freedom to choose what I do, there were some sort of "spoiling", but not too much. Since there is not really much households are doing that, personally I think this kind of parenting strategy is risky, is like gambling. Once children have freedom, they may easily be guided to a wrong path, like drug, smoking etc. Luckily, so far I think my parents are not losing "money". I adore the freedom that they gave me, this really trained me and made me more mature, built me a more responsible and considerable person.

     There is NO FAILED PARENTING strategy. Every parents had no experience before having the first baby, they are learning while raising the kids. The thing that can truly affect an generation, is the generation themselves, it's us.

     The wrong "corporate environment" and the elderly were mentioned during the talk, which "only care about the numbers and do not really know what to do". That is real life, that is what real society looks like. For most cases, the parents are not always there to help you, people do not really forgive your mistakes when you truly messed up... I like the "corporate environment", which I think could really train ourselves to adopt all the challenges and high pressure.

     The problem is not really with the environment or the parents, the problem is transition. Most Millennials are NOT ABLE TO adopt the new environment and crucial society that fast. Because of the extremely short transition from wonderful school to real society, that makes a lot of Millennials become the ones older generations always talk about. Older generations are not really failing us, neither do we. Millennials, our generation in general, may just need a little bit more time, plus a little bit more patience, to truly get involved, get adopted to the society.