True Ambition

If I do really well in my career, I one day hope to having savings in excess of five million dollars. That means that if you took twenty of me, you'd be able to cover Larry Ellison's annual salary. If he saved that salary for twenty years, he'd have the net worth of Ted Turner. On the other hand, it would take more than twenty Ted Turners to buy a Bill Gates.

On the other hand, with five million dollars I'd be able to conservatively spend about a thousand dollars a day for the rest of my life without really worrying about working down the base.

If  I only look upwards, I will always be miserable.

It's the same with smarts, really. My adviser is pretty hot shit in our field and he talks pretty reverently of a few people whose contributions have been even more important. And whenever I get a chance to talk to those guys, they're always going on about how much they wish they could do really hard math... the kind that wins Wolf prizes.

It's always endless if you look upwards. The next level always seems unapproachable and if you do get there, there's always another level to go.It's good to have ambition, but its critical to have a sense of scale.

Besides, twenty years from now when you get a call from a hospital about my love ones dying, none of this will matter at all.

What is it that makes people (try) to be monogamous?

Tonight I went to class and we were discussing the psychology of human pairing and relationships. Now I accept the fact that pairing is, from an evolutionary point of view, a necessity. However, the Evolutionary Psych point of view leaves itself open to criticisms, such as in the case of homosexuality, infertility, birth defects (specifically of the reproductive organs and the brain), and most importantly, of why there is such a desire to become paired. I've read many studies and seen many statistics on depression, anxiety, and suicide, and one of the leading causes seem to be this phenomena of human bonding; whether it be an individual in a relationship, or lack thereof. This seems counter-intuitive to evolution as this behavior, while beneficial to procreation, may also be detrimental to the individual(s) involved. Likewise, it still doesn't explain why there is (pardon the Freudian term) such a drive for humans to WANT to have relationships. Keep in mind, that procreation can and does happen outside of relationships (i.e. single parent families, etc.) As a I mentioned before homosexuality really complicates things even more. Individuals in relationships, especially long-term ones, consistently rate their happiness higher. I don't see a contradiction there: relationships increase the odds and survivability of offspring, so we're designed to want to be in them. Homosexuality may not be adaptive, or it may. Looking into kin selection, which makes sense in this context. Or it could be something else entirely. Homosexuality exists throughout the animal kingdom, so it may serve the same purpose in humans, or not; human sexuality is complicated.

Got a New Rescued Dog

Has anyone here ever had a rescued dog before? yesterday, my sister got a terrier from friends of hers, and while not necessarily a rescued dog, he's a bit underfed and has been picked on by other dogs. when we introduced him to out rottweiler today, she actually was nice to him, surprisingly enough, and we're introducing him to my malibu tomorrow. my question is, how long does it take for a rescue dog to learn to trust someone? while my sis has made friends with him fast, he gets the shakes whenever i start coming towards him, and will even back up while i'm petting him. do i just let the trust grow over time, or look up a dog book online about "making a dog learn to love" or something like that? i think it might have something to do with my build, as i'm 6'2.

My current struggle

I come from a family of engineers and business managers. From birth I was raised to study the sciences and find practical solutions to problems, to think logically. I excelled at math and science in high school and got into a good technical college.
However i realized about two years ago, I dont want to be an engineer or a mathematician or a scientist. Dont get me wrong I love the sciences but I love them for different reasons than my family does. My family loves the power of what science can do. I however love the stories and history of science. I love reading about the great men and woman who created and discovered amazing things and I love retelling them to other people. Hell I just love history and literature. I get no greater joy than reading about amazing events and understanding how and why the world is the way it is today. I also love literature and story writing and reading.

Im currently an economics major (its as close as I could get to the social sciences with my family still supporting me cause its math based.) But when i brought up the idea of majoring in the Arts they all thought I was joking and didnt even take me seriously. Why would you waste your time doing that, they said. Im so confused, I would love to be a college history professor and help my students understand the world through very different prospective, but i dont know how my family would react and theres just so much pressure.

Fishing: Catch and Release.

I love fishing. It's so relaxing, it brings me closer to nature and brings out the primitive in me. Not only that but it's the only thing I've really done as a hobby with both, mom and dad lol I'm from southern California but I have a lot of family in Canada, and my family visits a lake in Canada for a few weeks every summer, so we fish quite a lot there.. 99% of the time we practiced catch and release. No one in my family really likes fish (my dad will eat it maybe 2 times a year), so there is no reason to keep them. But if a fish got injured in the process, we'd keep it and my dad would clean it and give it to a friend/relative to eat, so at least it didn't go to waste.


The million dollar question: Is catch and release really okay?Does the fish really die from it? Doesn't it cause them unnecessary pain?

I've seen fish take a lot of damage. Once I was out fishing with my parents on the lake in Canada, and my mom managed to hook some stray fishing line. We always pull in all the line/lures we can find because we like to keep the area beautiful, so my dad started dragging it in. On the other end was a 1 1/2lb-2lb small mouth with large Rapala hooked in it's mouth and all down it's side. It was so sad, there was no fight left in the poor thing and we didn't know there was a fish attached to the line until it got right near the boat. My dad got out his pliers and unhooked the Rapala from the fish's mouth and side, and then slowly started reintroducing it to the water. It took like 5 minutes, but eventually the fish seemed to recover. My dad held onto it in the water for a few more minutes until it shook free and dove. At the end of that summer I caught the same Rapala, messed up gill in the same spot! This time the fished looked refreshed and lively! That's the only fish I seriously injured that summer and I caught a lot of fish. It's stressful I'm sure and you have to handle them with care, but it's very rare to watch a fish go belly up after releasing it.
As far as it causing pain, from my observation I would say the pain involved is fairly minor, if there is pain at all. Either that or fish are really bad ass and tough as hell. Catch and release is perfectly fine. Pain depends on where the fish got hooked. The real issue is when it swallows the hook or it goes to far into their mouths and you have to cause more damage to remove it. If I ever get a fish that is going to get something torn on the inside I put the fish down because it won't survive. Keep in mind one of the most important things with catch and release is to release the fish as quickly as possible. Life expectancy and recovery decreases DRAMATICALLY after about 30 seconds out of the water. more than 2 minutes out of water is pretty much a death sentence. I honestly think the pain is minimal, most game fish eat things that can fight back with sharp pointy bits. The bigger concern is being stressed and exhausted by prolonged toying with them while they are being reeled in. Hope this helps and have a great weekend!

Some thought on religion.

I personally cannot believe in anything with 100% confidence to be true based on "faith", the closest I get to this is a belief that my memories are true, and even this I would say is somewhere under 100%, which is why I cringe whenever I hear someone say I am 100% confident in the existence of a none prove-able being of unlimited power who is male and the only one of his kind and has been so since all eternal and therefore his gender is in the end pointless other than a representation of male supremacy. Aside from the the whole religion concept is totally wrong. I think the word "religion" gets misapplied a lot. In fact I'd go so far as to say that the mainstream understanding of the term is part of a recent cultural move to demean certain types of beliefs as being bad and grouping them all under the name of "religion", in other words the common definition is wrong as it is based on psychological defense mechanisms. perhaps religion is more scientific than anyt other field out there. The "religion" in question being scientism, whose wikipedia def. doesn't go far enough to explain all the intellectual errors inherent within.
What is your point of view on religion?
Are you religious? , If so why? if not why?
If you are unsure which side do you lean towards? if neither think about it.

Bored of Present Literature

Sorry i haven't post int two days, my academic studies have hold me back from my social life this entire week. I wrote a total of 17 pages just this week alone which was very frustrating. A friend of mind is so sick of literature that he has lost faith in literature on it. He realize that everyone writes about the same thing. Stories are written in melancholy fashion for the sake of being so, and do not actually use their melancholy as a vehicle to speak of something greater beyond the confinements of their bad narratives.

I'm going to try to paraphrase everything he said "The New Yorker is publishing garbage. The Paris Review is publishing garbage. The 'Best American Stories of this Shitty Year' are selecting shit, and have had shitty writers write the introductions for their shit (I think one of the recent copies had an introduction by Alice Sebold, who wrote (The Lovely Bones, which was shit). These are supposed to be the crème of the crop when considerate of short literature—but they’re giving me shit. To top it off, I was in Barnes and Noble today, and walking past a small kiosk dedicated to David Mitchell’s fifth novel, I saw only praise for what was undoubtedly David Mitchell’s only shit novel (because dun’g’m’wrong, his previous four books aren’t shit, they’re THE shit – but The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Shit was shit). What do I do? I’m falling into the majority of people who don’t read because “Hyuck, reading is boring.” Yes. Yes, reading IS boring, because everything being published today is shit. And I’m running out of classics. I’ve even turned to reading poetry (John Clare is pretty dope, but still)."

Please excuse language, but he sure makes some good points. Any ideas to address his issue is welcome

Mormons

Some would say that people are repulsed by the “weirdness” of Mormon beliefs, but how many Americans have ever even heard any of these beliefs? No, the one thing that everyone knows about Mormons–and it’s the only thing that matters–is that they’re serious. They actually believe “that stuff”. When they say “God bless you”, they’re actually asking an omnipotent Being to do something, and that freaks people out. “These guys are nuts! We’ve gotta keep them far from power,” thinks “moderate” America.

Catholics used to be a despised group, because Catholics, you know, actually believed “that stuff”. Then came Vatican II, when they gave society at large that wink and nudge that means “we’re not serious”. Now, instead of anti-Catholicism, in America we have anti-clericalism, because the public still can’t shake the suspicion that the Catholic clergy, at least, are serious. Would that it were true!

Collective Uncouncious

This is a must watch short documentary on the great Carl Jung regarding human identity. Its just around 20 minutes long but is very informative and to the point. The main thing I want to point out is Jung's most famous theory "the collective unconscious." Jung argugues that we as humans share a history that no matter where we are from we share common ideas and behavior patterns through the collective unconscious. These commons ideas are past down through history, religion and culture; it is this collective unconscious that leads  human beings around the world to adobt similar behaviour patterns without even realizing it.

Free Verse

My dad just got back from a 3rd world country and he says "people are just happy to be alive and walking around and loving life, really happy people, but extremely poor and living in terrible conditions. Then I come back to America, and see people bitching about their job, their life, ect."

So.. I just felt like writing something.. I've never really written a poem (more like a free verse) before but this is just some stuff that's been on my mind lately. Hope you enjoy.

We're all part of a man made world.
Man made economy,
Man made reality pulled over our eyes,
Man's routine life
What's that they tell me, oh yes..
'The Real World'
What is the real world?
A 9-5 repetive life they tell me,
Sitting in that metal box, inching your way to work
That, is the 'Real World'
If someone attempts to step out, to be different,
They are told and forced back into this so called reality.
However, what is reality?
Reality is the state of things as they actually exist,
rather than as they may appear or may be thought to be.
Why do we still blind ourselves from reality then?
Important things in life should not be money, greed, nor jobs.
Live the real reality, with your own standards,
not your mothers,
nor fathers,
not even grandparents,
don't live by society's standards of reality.
Live by Your Own.

Oceans

8.9 tsunami hits japan. my heart goes to all affected by it.  i will later post a whole blog about it. but first i would love to share some videos on how crazy the ocean can be! the ocean is so unpredictable and fisherman know this more than anyone out there. they really experience another  view of life that many people will never see. the aw and respect they have toward the waters is just amazing.

Rogue Wave caught by Deadliest Catch

Even big boats get tossed around 

 

 

Why Nature? Because It's Bad Ass.

A little on Nature

Thousands of sardies found dead just a few blocks from my house. The theroy is that some how a tide wave pushed all those fishes to a really compacted areas in which water levels were low and kill the fish due to the lack of oxygen on the low levels of waters. I just could not believe this, I actually when down there and by God was it true. Thousands of sardines floating dead not only on the superficial lever but on deep levels as well. It was really sad seeing the poor fishes flapping around. They fish were making this "shhzzzz" noise as if they were being fried on a pan.

By a conisidence we were discussing, The Perfect Storm, a novel based on a true story in which a fishing boat sinks on the Great Banks of the Atlantic Ocean due to a massive storm. From these expirences I  just can help but wonder how vulnerble I am to nature. The human race consider itself to be well advance and most of them think they have conquer nature. In reality nature can crush us like a bug. Everything can kill us. I live in California and we are for sure due for the "big one." In the Midwest you have tornadoes, and on the East people are always concern of hurricanes. Hawaii is cursed with tsunamis. Nature is alive.Animals are Nature. Humans are animals. So humans are nature. Lets stop thinking as if we are superior to nature because we are not, and we won't realize this until something tragic happens to us. In fact we will never dominate nature, because we simply are a part of nature.

KENKO MAYO

I went to a international food shop today and had to get this since i've heard it's amazing. I plan to add it to various rice dishes, but I was wondering if anyone has some delicious dish recipe for a big family. What do you love to put your kenko/kewpie mayo on? Kewpie is Superfantastic! But I have found it's greatest power is with my younger siblings when they do not want to eat something. As it is sweeter than American Mayo it tends to add [pop] to the mystery cheese on a cheese sandwich, or mixed in with an ancient grated cheese on penne pasta instead of butter. I have found it useful as a base for a vegetable dip for those cursed vegetables as well. But never try to add it to a big recipe or known anyone who uses it that actually has some experience with this sauce. I always make this recipe and its always good no matter what!

Yakisoba fried noodles

-1 chukasoba pack, cook, strain and run under cold water
-fry 3" ginger, half an onion, 2 carrots and mushrooms
-fry meat of choice
-add noodles
-add yakisoba sauce and keep on med.
-add more yakisoba sauce, kenko mayo and mustard.

back to civilization

I just got back from my camping trip at santee lakes, which is just a couple miles from san diego. I for the pas 3 days i was withdrawn from any sort of technology and it was so amazing. I felt free and learned a lot about my self and the people around me. I felt the primitive person inside of me! I felt the tranquility once get when they being to realize that we are just part of nature. no computer no phone no television and so much fun. makes me question whether technology really makes our life better. these types of questions wouldnt come at a better time; as i keep reading carl jung, jung himself blames technology for our detachment from our true individuality. no phone no television no computer made notice the little things that i usually ignore. i was actually communicating  and express myself in a better way to those around me. technology most of the time isolates us and prevents a lot of confrontations that makes us human. my mission after my trip from london is to go camping but this time with little to no food. its amazing how much nature could teach of about our self if we give it a chance. have a great weekend. cheers!

It’s possible that the most mundane and monotonous experiences in western life is trips to the local grocery store. Most people know the long aisles and tall shelves by instinct and could maneuver through the store with their eyes closed. It’s very rare that a person might be more observant and analyze their surroundings as if they are having a brand new experience. In order to sharpen my senses I’ve decided to become one of the very few people to pedantically scrutinize their whereabouts to notice subtle details that most people are unconscious of at their grocer. I started reading Carl Jung (such an amazing and intelligent man) and so far he has had this kind of influence on me. I'll post more on him soon.