So this is my second day taking Celexa.
And here are the side effects that I’m experiencing so far (at least, the ones I’m comfortable talking about).
From what I understand, it will take at least a couple of weeks to actually get the benefits of the drug and for the side effects to diminish. The sooner, the better.
This post is less about creative writing and more about being sorry for not updating as frequently as I’ve wanted to. I figured I needed to write something here to keep myself in the habit of doing so. (Also, I know how rabid my readers get if I don’t throw them a bone every now and then!)
I’m in the process of writing some short fiction and poetry for possible submission to literary journals and small press publications. I will keep everyone posted on the status of this endeavor, and if I successfully get something published.
I’ve become fascinated by the experimental and the unorthodox; as a result, I’ve been playing around with my style to see what lines I’m competently able to cross. I deeply respect those who can deviate from the mainstream when it comes to writing. People often seem to be uncomfortable with styles that push the boundaries of traditional. It seems to affect us all differently; while I am able to be moved by writing that can be described as avante garde, I know others look at it and dismiss it as nonsense.
Genius and insanity are separated by a fine line. The best parts of both can be found near the border.
Go subscribe to ProfMTH on YouTube. He makes highly informative videos concerning legal issues, especially issues relating to the constitution. Watch this video before you continue to read, otherwise I might lose you.
I was floored by the blatant dishonesty that Fox News felt it could get away with. If you are reading this, and you’re a Fox News viewer… you should feel insulted. Fox News just lied to your face, and figured you were too stupid to know better. Don’t you feel ashamed? Doesn’t it seem like they’re insulting your intelligence, and when the cameras turn off they just start laughing about how dumb their audience is? It’s disgusting. Their treachery truly knows no bounds. They’d run propaganda pieces on their own mothers if they thought it would benefit the right-wing hate machine. It makes me sick.
It’s amazing how they can paint Obama as this dictator who is doing something so unprecedented and is crapping all over the constitution… when in reality, he’s being far more prudent than he has to be. If I were in his shoes, I’d just be doing as many things as I possibly could to piss off the right. Why try to play nice with lying scumbags? Ugh, my blood boils just thinking about it.
The internet is Fox News’ worst nightmare. We can record what they say, compare it to the facts, and then put it on display for all to see. The kind of lying douchebaggery that they engage in can only work if the audience can’t go check their “facts.”
Politically, there seems to be a lot going on in the world right now.
The Middle Eastern region is on fire with protests against despots.
Libya is coming under intense pressure from the rest of the world to reject its tyrant.
And the United States of America is starting to feel the backlash of its right-wing shift.
I’m sure everyone by now has at least heard of the protests in Wisconsin over the Republican governor, along with the state congress, wanting to take away collective bargaining rights from unions. The labor protest that followed is something that, I believe, was largely unexpected by the right wing. I’m sure it was assumed that the bill would pass without much of a hiccup, and I’m sure that the Republicans were salivating at the thought of the next steps they could take to fuck over unions. Instead, this debacle took place. In the following days it came out that the governor of Wisconsin had been bought by a billionaire – as if no one saw that coming, right? And now he’s a joke, a laughing stock, even to his Republican colleagues. He committed the cardinal sin of becoming exposed as the corruptible lackey he is, and is now a leper in the eyes of his former political allies.
So, between the GOP trying to ream labor unions, attempting to pass bills that would excuse the murder of abortion doctors, and attempting to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, you must be feeling pretty hopeless right about now. Just try to remember that good things have been happening, too.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed. This is a monumental stride forward for gay rights in America.
The Obama administration will refuse to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court, because they deem the law, which refuses to recognize same-sex marriage on the federal level, as unconstitutional. While this is not an immediate win for gay rights, it is definitely a step in the right direction, and it’s a necessary hoop to jump through in securing an eventual victory for equality.
The obvious “wins” recently in the culture war were on the front of equality, and while this may seem a bit one-sided and narrow, I think it’s indicative of a sea change in the sentiment of Americans. I think, for the most part, Americans are progressively inclined. The reason that the right-wing reactionary machine gains so much steam is because it has become highly efficient at convoluting the issues and at creating fear in the voting base, while the left-wing engine seems to stall out and is unable to energize and galvanize the constituency.
I think we may end up seeing more protests if the GOP powerhouse attempts to overextend its reach. It’s a stark contrast to the Tea Party protests we’ve seen in the last two years, and it’s about time, too. Working class people are standing up for their own interests instead of defending the ridiculously wealthy from seeing a tax increase that would ultimately benefit them. The rest of the world seems to be waking up and standing against tyranny. While I don’t think our oppression is great at all in comparison, we certainly didn’t seem to be standing up to the corporate muscle that buys our politicians until now.
Here’s hoping for a path to progression instead of a trail to regression. Cheers.
As you can see, I’m currently in the process of revamping the look and feel of the blog. Over the course of the next week I’m going to be attempting to optimize the general layout of everything. Thanks in advance for bearing with me while I get the kinks ironed out!
An issue that I’ve been rolling around in my brain for a little while now is our collective cultural love of mediocrity.
Don’t get me wrong. There are still many things in which we expect and recognize greatness. In academia, we see largely a general strive for greatness. Those who excel in the various fields of science can find themselves publishing papers and receiving prizes for their discoveries and insights. In competitive enterprises, such as sports, we place great value on success and view failure as an undesirable outcome, so much so that fans and players may burst into tears when the game ends and victory was ultimately out of reach. So there are indeed things in our society that reject the mediocre or anything less than the best.
I suppose specifically my observation about the sub-par being lauded as “good” is more geared towards what I see in popular culture. Think about the content you see in most of the successful books, movies, TV shows, and music. While we do seem to be able to usually recognize good cinema and television (thanks to a group of “elites” that hand out awards… and of course, they miss the boat on some good stuff too), it’s painfully obvious that good cinema does not make the kind of money that mediocre cinema does. Take, for example, the travesty that was Transformers, and even worse, Transformers 2. Transformers 2 did very well at the box office. And, in my opinion, it showcased everything that is wrong with mainstream American movies. Overdone CG that became boring. Poor acting. Poor dialogue. Poor plot. Stupid humor. Megan Fox. And yet, the average movie-goer ate it up. Why? When did we begin to crave things which have no substance?
Another example of mediocrity, this time staining the reputation of the written word – Twilight. How did such a poorly written, vapid, miserable excuse of a series make its creator millions of dollars? Why did this book series become even moderately successful, let alone wildly so? I really wish someone would explain why these books are appealing. I find them to be a shame to writing as a legitimate form of entertainment or thought-provocation. A sparkling vampire and a Native American werewolf vie for the affection of a plain, ordinary, mediocre high school girl. Really? That premise seems plausible to you?
And music? The music industry systematically selects and produces generalized, simple, shallow songs and blankets every single radio station with them. People suddenly begin to think “artists” such as Ke$ha are talented. Or that bands like Hinder or Theory of a Dead Man make real music. These corporate monkeys dance for your dollar, and the average person seems content in being manipulated by generic, uninteresting, and worst of all, inartistic expression.
Of course, as much as I complain, I think I do know the answer.
Entertainment makes money. And the corporations that produce this content have to attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to appeal to as many people as possible, to ensure that they maximize profit. It all seems to come back to money. I suppose if movie studios and publishing companies and record labels weren’t finding money in vacuous endeavors, they wouldn’t pursue them. And I think that’s what frustrates me most of all: at the pinnacle of our society we crave the simple, the blasé, the basal, the dull. Funny comedies find themselves cancelled after only two seasons due to low ratings because they didn’t feature enough slapstick and fart jokes. Engaging dramatic masterpieces flop at the theaters because the average member of the public didn’t care to watch something of substance. The most talented musicians of our time are largely unheard of because no one will play their music on the radio.
I suppose it isn’t all hopeless, though. The internet seems to be shifting the balance of power in entertainment – music, web series, blogs, and art can be found here, alive and well. I suppose all that truly matters is that the spirit of art will live on, in spite of everything else. But my disappointment persists, and my hope is that one day we will tire of the same regurgitated music and movies and rise up as a culture to demand better. Hey, a guy can dream, right?
Let’s face it. Our culture is obsessed with our image. We’re fortunate enough to live in a time and a place (well, most of us do, I hope my readers in less fortunate countries will be lenient on me for making this assumption) that provides ample convenience and comfort, so much so that we have a lot of free time to worry about our appearances.
One of the biggest (ahah, ahah…) and most obvious factors in one’s appearance is weight.
Weight is a peculiar double-edged sword. On the one hand, it does not necessarily scale with beauty or desirability. Even in ignoring the case of the so-called “chubby chasers” or others who tend to prefer larger than average partners, the number that is your weight means different things for different people. There are a myriad of factors – frame, height, and build being among them – that determine how your weight affects your appearance. It would not be inconceivable to find two people of the same sex, height, and weight that look very different from each other. Slimmer frames with naturally less muscular builds will find that having as much weight as a person of a larger frame with a tendency towards more muscle mass will not be as flattering. Seems obvious enough, right?
And yet, on the other hand, our culture seems absolutely obsessed with obtaining the lowest number possible.
There are a number of reasons that this irks me. I am absolutely in favor of everyone aiming to achieve healthy weights, and to improve their eating habits and lifestyles. This is a goal that I believe is both admirable and necessary. In many ways, however, it seems that our culture is schizophrenic about achieving this goal. We worship junk food. We find new ways to market crap that isn’t good for you to make it look innocent, unassuming, and most importantly delicious. And then, when we lament about being overweight, we’re told of a plethora of scams solutions that will solve our problems. Diet and exercise? Didn’t you get the memo? That stuff doesn’t work. You just need <insert name of scam legitimate product>!
And in any of these commercials, weight is always… always… tied to how good a person looks. “I lost 15 pounds!” the woman on the advertisement says, who remarkably enough seems to have suddenly developed defined abs and thighs. They never mention that you have to work out regularly to obtain a physically fit body. Just by planting the idea in your head, by showing you the lady who lost 15 lbs. and is smiling and obviously much happier than in the ‘before’ picture, you associate the change with weight loss, instead of weight loss in tandem with exercise.
I’ve struggled with my weight since I was young. I ramped up to my highest weight at about 15, and from there I lost weight until 17, when I reached my lowest weight ever. And then at 18 I started my long climb upward, until I ballooned up to a much higher weight than I ever was. Allow me to highlight some of the changes I’ve recently gone through.
This was me nearly 2 years ago. I was around 275-280 lbs., and that’s where I stayed until about 8 months ago.
And this is me as of today. I’m around the 230 mark and still losing.
Now, as someone who has fluctuated dramatically in weight over the years, I can tell you that it does terrible things to your self-image. Even though the lower picture is more representative of what I look like today, I still feel like I resemble the top picture more closely. As a teenager, when I lost about 80 pounds in the span of a few months, the mental image that I had of myself did not change. And then when I finally started feeling like I was thin, I started gaining again, so even though I became 20-30-40-50 pounds overweight and going, I still felt like I was thin. My brain seems to be stuck in the past when it comes to realizing what I look like, and I believe that this is the case with a lot of people out there.
My point is this – as humans, our minds like to play tricks on us. It’s very easy to develop a self-image that isn’t entirely representative of reality. Our obsession with weight, as a culture, can encourage unhealthy habits in the name of obtaining an image that seems to be healthy. We strive to reach that elusive special number and feel that we aren’t attractive unless we attain it. We gorge ourselves on diet food that isn’t even that good for us, pop weight loss pills, and starve ourselves in the name of this sacred task. I believe that what we need in this society is less emphasis on the “perfect” body we’re constantly being told we have to acquire and more emphasis on losing weight because it will help us avoid health problems in the long term. We should be embracing good habits and shunning bad ones. We should be forcing giant food corporations to take responsibility for the products they produce. And we should get back to the basics – healthy living.
Healthy living means exercise and diet control. Controlling the types of foods you eat and the amount you consume. Getting a modest amount of physical activity. Yes, it really is that simple. Maybe not easy, but simple. And yet, it’s something we aren’t taught well enough from school or our parents. Kids seem to get raised into a diet of junk food, and unless the kid is overweight, parents won’t really think anything of it. I can only reiterate my first point – people view weight as the end-all-be-all of health and beauty. Just because someone is not overweight does not mean that unhealthy eating habits have not damaged them in some less obvious way. Cholesterol doesn’t care if you’re skinny or fat – eat a heavy diet of nothing but high-fat/high-sodium/high-cholesterol food for 30 years and I’d be very surprised if you didn’t give yourself heart disease or hypertension, regardless of if you actually get fat or not.
Even if you do lose weight quickly from some diet scam or unsavory method, the odds of you keeping it off aren’t good. I know from experience. I lost 80 pounds when I was a teenager, and I did it the wrong way – I pretty much quit eating regularly and only ate enough to get by. This time, instead of getting impatient and losing weight as quickly as possible, I’m attempting to go about it the proper way, the way that will ensure I stay at a healthy weight in the long run.
I wish I could offer some insight into how to start losing weight. The cause of weight-loss is very simple – consume fewer calories than you spend. That’s it. That’s the magic secret of weight loss. And yet we’re constantly told in advertisements that we can’t do it without <product X> because it’s simply so difficult, and not being able to find the will isn’t our fault. And I know why this advertising works. In the past, when I wanted to try losing weight, it seemed like an insurmountable task. It can be very, very, very difficult to find the will to go through with a weight-loss plan. I do not disparage anyone for not being able to successfully do it, because there are tons of factors that can stack against us. But this advertising works because we want to believe that we can’t do it alone. We want to be able to blame our inability to lose weight on factors beyond our control. It’s a very tempting proposition, and we’re typically too eager to accept it. Now, if that’s not a shameless, terrible manipulation technique, I don’t know what is.
For me, something recently just… clicked. A switch in my brain flipped. The best way I can describe it is this – for the first time, I feel like I actually want to lose weight. Yeah, maybe I wanted to before, but I didn’t want it enough… part of me was content as I was, and I didn’t feel like a change was necessary enough for the effort that would have to go into it. Special exceptions (medications, glandular problems, etc.) aside, I believe that if you actually want to lose weight – really, truly, unwaveringly want to – you can make yourself do it.
I suppose that’s all I have to say for now… I’m sure this came off as a rant, but that’s fine.
tl;dr – losing weight isn’t easy but you can do it. =)
Every blog has a beginning.
And so this blog is no exception to the rule. I figured I would start off with a simple explanation on the purpose of this blog, and why I bothered making it.
I wanted to have a personal sandbox to rant in. I had been in the habit of making specialized blogs that tackle specific topics, but I haven’t had a personal blog in many a year. So, I decided to give it a go. At worst, it ends up being a place where nothing substantive is ever written. At best, it ends up being an entertaining place for all. Either way, it should encourage me to write more often than I have been.
I’m going to pretend that I have already been asked questions at a regular frequency and am forced to address them. Thanks for playing along… =)
No reason in particular. It sounded like a decent blog name. And, on the off chance that people actually start reading it, maybe the name will begin to become a worthy descriptor of the contents herein.
I’m not sure yet. It is a possibility, but at the same time I don’t want my work stolen by dishonest opportunists. We’ll have to see.
Why yes, as a matter of fact, I am!
Accidentally Brilliant 