We're all into ourselves...

At least a little bit.

You might have heard of the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator. It is mostly based on Carl Jung's (dream guy/psychoanalyst) findings. You can take the test http://www.mypersonality.info/ there.

Once you have done so, or you already know what personality type you are, I have scanned some papers provided by my psych teacher for some more information.

http://www.box.net/shared/fxneej5jry
http://www.box.net/shared/ppge9xvobj
^These PDFs briefly break down what each thing means, and what they prefer.

http://www.box.net/shared/qya07qxkza
^"Mutual Usefulness of the Opposites"
Basically, what the opposite personality type seeks from you and what you seek from there.

http://www.box.net/shared/4al2otfia0
^Management/Leadership types

This test is in no way supposed to limit you in any way. I am an INTP, and do not only behave in the way that characterizes an INTP. In fact, I have used these results to further develop my extroverted side.

The Para-what? Olympics

Patriotism skyrockets whenever the Olympics come rolling around. We celebrate the winners and we wish the best until next time to the runner-ups and forgotten. Many people hold their compatriot competitors in high value, but it seems like there is one specific group that remains unrecognized.

The 2010 Vancouver Winter Paralympics were held a few weeks after the regular 2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremony. From March 12 to March 21, numerous of courageous people went out to the snow overcoming any setback or disability. This year the Winter Paralympic Games held 64 events in 5 sports with 506 athletes representing 44 nations.

Paralympic Games athletes have either cerebral palsy, amputations, blindness, mobility issues, or any other physical restraints. Why such an inspiring event receives very little media coverage baffles me. As BBC Sport reports, "Despite the Canadian hosts enjoying a record-breaking Games, in many ways the Winter Paralympic party in Vancouver never really got going."

Hopefully for the next Paralympic Games more news outlets will take charge and decide to broadcast or feature it. Many of these people prove to contain such high sportsmanship and emit such positive energy and inspiration, and they try even harder than any regular person with a full functioning body. Every four years after the Olympic Games, the Paralympic Games are held and ran by International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

The images above are not mine. They belong to The Boston Big Picture and I encourage you to check out the rest of the pictures and read the descriptions, which can be found here. (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/03/2010_winter_paralympics.html)

Murray's List of Psychological Needs

Murray thinks we need these in order to not suffer from neurosis.
I feel like agreeing with most of them, even if some seem a bit... out there. Some do need to be practiced in small dosages as they might hurt others, but they are still vital to one's needs so they must not be left in the dark. My quotidian example of each will be parenthesized.

acquisition to gain possessions and property
(Books. I love buying books.)

conservation to collect, repair, clean, and preserve things
(I like to take care keep good care of my possessions.)

order to arrange, organize, put away objects
(While I may seem messy, there is a certain organization to my things. I like having my clothes by color, books with most sentimental value higher on a shelf, etc.)

construction to organize and build
(I love making things for other people. Whether it be a juvenile painting, a mix-cd, or anything crafty.)

achievement to overcome obstacles, to exercise power, to strive to do something difficult, as well as quickly as possible
(I get good grades.)

recognition to excite praise and commendation
(I receive academic excellence awards.)

defendance to defend oneself against blame or belittlement
(Do this with my mom. q: )

dominance to influence or control others
(President of Key Club/Youth Ambassadors, Treasurer of SVC, editor of The Breeze, etc etc.)

autonomy to resist influence or coercion
( AKA I lay out my rules to my mom.)

aggression  to assault or injure
(Playful jokes with friends, "Slug Bug" game, etc.)

affiliation to form friendships and associations
(Strong bond with a few people, network of friends from clubs and organizations, etc.)

rejection to snub, ignore, or exclude
(No, thanks.)

nurture to nourish, aid, or protect
(Four nephews, one niece, been an aunt since I was ten. I love helping others.)

succorance to seek aid, protection, or sympathy
(Do this often enough.)

play to relax, amuse oneself, seek diversion, and entertainment
(Learning the harmonica, drawing, painting, being silly, etc.)

cognizance to explore
(Reading, people watching, going places, etc.)

Books, books, books.

A Course in Miracles
by Helen Schucman

Unfortunately I started this book with a distaste for Christianity and was put off by the mentioning of God. It has some interesting lessons and I do plan on rereading this book in the future with a more open mind.

I can harbor respect for this book, but it just was not what I had in mind. It's recommendable but only to those who will not stick to their presupposition of what Christianity is.

The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I read The Scarlet Letter in my junior American Literature class in high school. While many of the other students disliked the book for its complex sentences and advanced syntax and Puritan diction, I found myself very fond of this Nathaniel Hawthorne novel.

Hester Prynne is the super woman of Puritan Boston. She is the epitome of what most Calvinist women lacked: courage, freethought, independence, and deep reevaluation of morals and values.

A lot of the other students also found themselves overwhelmed by the amount of symbolism, themes, and motifs in the novel. Personally, I think that is what really shapes the story and makes this Hawthorne's "magnum opus." The copious amount of symbolism is what makes this book unique.

Overall, it is a great book and I am glad I was introduced to it. I highly recommend it. Themes it explores are society vs nature, human condition, and self vs society.

The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger

A very well written book that is either underestimated or over appreciated for the wrong reasons. We follow the "plot" by the first person narration of Holden Caulfield, who goes through extreme existentialism with a hint of misanthropy, often mistaken for teenage angst (or are they mutual?), and ends up in an asylum.

It is not one of my top books, but it is definitely a book I really like. I find myself being able to relate in some aspects to Holden from past ideologies and experiences. The main problem that Holden comes across is his fixation on preserving innocence. That is where we no longer relate. He tries to be that "catcher in rye" and we don't exactly find out if his perception on that changes by the end of book. (Correct me if I am wrong.)

I find it almost ironic that schools ban this book because of the explicit language. They are trying to bubble-wrap their students and preserve their innocence, just like Holden tries to do so with his sister. If only Holden knew the amount of kids he is corrupting...

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

You're going to die.

Alan Watts - Music and Life

NP: Air - Le Soleil est Pres de Moi

I've been neglecting for far too long...so I've returned with another video. Sorry for the lack from my part. I guess this is a good time to show good videos!

self-destruction

socrates, the gadfly of the b.c’s

because the wisest know nothing at all.
Socrates is quite respectable and admirable. His willingness to himself and what he stood for surpass the evils of the republic of Rome. He did not prefer to be exiled and coward away. He defended his reasoning and died with his reasoning. Of course, his philosophy was not killed along with him. It carries on. Point being.

"Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good; for one of two things, either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but the greatest king will not find many such days or nights, when compared to the others. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead abide, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there . . . that pilgrimage will be worth taking. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again! . . . Above all, I shall then be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in the next; and I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. . . . In another world they do not put a man to death for asking questions: assuredly not. For besides being happier than we are, they will also be immortal, if what is said is true."

raison d'etre
"The unexamined life is not worth living. Doing what is right is the only path to goodness, and introspection and self-awareness are the ways to learn what is right."