A word I often hear people use as though it is self-explanatory is 'integrity.' It is often used when I hear someone talking about a good deed that another person had done:
"They're a good person. They show a lot of integrity."
But I find myself asking whether or not people completely understand what this means. I take the word to mean something similar to integration, meaning that a person demonstrates a certain amount of consistency in character. In other words, a person who acts the same around their parents as they do around their friends, and in church the same way they act in a bar would ultimately be a person of considerable integrity.
This is not the implied definition that one might deduce from the way it is most commonly used. I had the same problem with people using the word 'belligerent' when I was a freshman in college, which refers to aggressive, fight-seeking behavior. My roommates used it as a word to mean very drunk, which while I admit is sometimes synonymous, is not necessarily.
The reason I bring all this up is because I feel as though Facebook has completely obliterated all semblances of integrity. We are so connected with people that we are afraid to say something that will offend anyone. I run into this problem very frequently. I say something that I would say to my college friends, but my family or people from my hometown read it and are offended. Now, I'm not concerned about what people say about me behind my back because I will tell anyone to their face that I think they are an idiot.. except maybe my parents.. but there are those who are close to me (specifically my mother, but others also) that are so troubled that everyone is able to read what I write.
Firstly, I'm no diplomat. Secondly, I don't want people to have these fairy tale assumptions about me, although if they aren't stupid they will be able to see the truth in what I write, or see the joke.. whichever I'm aiming for. Facebook has killed integrity, or at least it has exposed people for the double-faced schemers that they are.. in some aspects. Some people are wise enough to exercise discretion on the Book and not share hostile thoughts, but what that leaves is a very banal newsfeed.
What I find to be most irritating are the people who do say reductive, prejudice, and generally retarded statements behind the backs of others, and meanwhile present themselves as some noble hero through the feed. Yes.. I'm talking about my brother. You see, my brother is in the Coast Guard, and he is very proud of being in the Coast Guard. And in many respects he is really good at what he does. And I am proud of that. But the way in which he boasts his superiority is a little irritating at times. This is because he tells these stories which I know aren't entirely true, but he thinks will impress me so he embellishes. Actually, I don't think that he can remember what really happened, and so his brain fills in the gaps with whatever bullshit he can make up on the spot. This seems like it would be a symptom of pathological lying, but what do I know? I do know that I would respect him a lot more if he wouldn't try so hard to impress me. Further, I would appreciate him a lot more if he treated me less like an audience and more like a friend. That's just it though, I think he is so used to having an audience for his "epic stories" that he loses sight of the fact that he isn't the center of attention.
My mother would explain that it is his sanguine temperament that leads to this kind of behavior--which I think is retarded because people don't have temperaments.. humorism is pre-Victorian bullshit. I think my brother is just desperate to matter to someone. So what he does is he post these patriotic statements into the feed, making everyone think he is some kind of valiant hero, and meanwhile he is one of the most prejudice people I know. Not in a racial way, no.. more like he judges poor people, or people who don't look as polished as he tries to look. He judges white trash the same way I judge stupid people. Then he posts bullshit like "I'm so glad that Thomas Jefferson was good with words 234 years ago," and "My thoughts and prayers are with the Coast Guardsmen who lost their lives serving their country today." So noble, but my money is betting on him writing those things to glorify himself as a noble person, which makes the actions seem so hollow. But stupid people won't know this because they are stupid.
I know I sound really bitter, but the fact remains that I take a lot of heat for the things I say when I'm just being consistent. I'm annoyed that people think I should act in a certain way because it won't rock the boat. People are so sensitive about the sandcastle that is their social appearance that they are willing to sacrifice integrity so that people can be delusional. It's really fucking annoying. Mostly because I feel so displaced and invalidated by shallow plasticity.
Ok, I'm done ranting.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Focus and Distraction
I am reaching the end of a graduate exercise called the Thesis. Actually, the thesis is like the magnum opus of graduate school, the bulk of the project is a massive writing assignment. I started working on this last summer, and I will not be finished until August. The reason I say I'm almost finished now is because I am reaching the end of the writing process after which I can submit the rough draft to my adviser for editing notes. After it is finished, I will defend it, and then I'm done with grad school.
It has not been easy because there are so many distractions that I must deal with on a regular basis. Like I've mentioned before, I live with my parents now, and living with them has brought about many extra responsibilities that I didn't have when I lived on campus or by myself. One of those--or a few of those--responsibilities is yard work. Because my father has been working non-stop for the last eighteen days, I've taken over his yard duties. One of the perks to living at home is that my mother is here and is more than happy to do my laundry and cook for me when I'm hungry. I'm also very happy to help out around the house because my parents provide for me as though I am a child again. The only difference is that I can do a lot more with a kind of lenience I never got as a teenager. There are a few drawbacks however. One of those draw backs is that my parents are conservative anti-ganj folk. Normally, this wouldn't bother me, but my mother has been asking a lot of questions that she doesn't want to know the answer to.
The problem for me is that on the one hand, I don't want to take advantage of my parents since they are my only source of funds right now, but at the same time, they won't give me permission to medicate using ganj, nor the money, so I have to find a way around that. Well, my mother thinks that I am scamming them--which I may be in a way, but I am not happy about it. I'm not proud of myself, and I wish that I could be self-sustainable and financially independent. The only way I could do that at this point in my life is to deal drugs, which is an incredibly dangerous venture, with a high-risk, low-yield business model, and so is just not a logical solution.
So this drama has been plaguing my mind, but I've been trying to push through it by working on my thesis. I'm getting so close to finishing I can taste it. Also, I found that one of the things that was keeping me from finishing was the fact that I had nothing really planned beyond grad school. I know that I want to get my PhD, but without having taken the GRE yet, or applied to any grad schools, it is not possible for me to start a PhD program (assuming I get accepted) for another year. I gave this a lot of thought, and I've been very interested in medicine in the last... going on five years now, and now that I'm at the end of one academic road, I find myself longing to hop onto another one. It was for that reason that I decided to re-enroll as an undergraduate, add a second major, and complete an undergrad pre-med program, take the MCAT and apply to med school.
This decision has sparked a kind of motivation in me to finally finish what I've started. Because I really want to start learning about this new field that I've signed up to study, I am motivated to get started, but I am also disciplined enough to know that I can not start something new until my thesis is finished. That has really lit a fire underneath me, as in the last week I've written the bulk of the thesis, whereas I had been stuck for weeks, trying to figure out what I was going to write about. These days the words have been flowing freely, although for the night I think I can not write anymore.
So what I've learned is that when faced with a task, it is best to planned the future beyond that task in order to ensure that the first task will get finished. The reasoning behind this is that once you become excited about the new project coming up, there should be a renewed sense of motivation to finished the initial project. That has been the case with my thesis. Before, when I had nothing to look forward to beyond finishing my thesis, besides looking for work, I dawdled, I was not very concerned about finishing the thesis, and I wasn't concerned if I never finished school. Now that there is an end in sight, and a post-thesis plan, I can finish the project without any anxieties as to what I will attempt to do next.
So my words of wisdom for anyone who wants to accomplish something but has a problem maintaining drive to commit to finishing is to keep working until you find yourself longing to do something else. At that point, make arrangements to start something new, which will not only give yourself a kind of deadline to finish the first project, but it will also focus and motivate you to finish what you start before diving into another project. It probably doesn't work for everyone, but I've found this to be helpful. At the end of each semester, when I have a large amount of papers due, I find myself longing to read something other than what I need to to write the papers. So instead of distracting myself, I start a pile of books that I am going to read when I finish the last paper. This also helps with finishing books before starting another one. Pick out the next book before the book prior to it is finished, and don't start it until you've finished the first. The theory is that the motivation will sustain longer if the mind has the next thing to look forward to already in its sights.
It has not been easy because there are so many distractions that I must deal with on a regular basis. Like I've mentioned before, I live with my parents now, and living with them has brought about many extra responsibilities that I didn't have when I lived on campus or by myself. One of those--or a few of those--responsibilities is yard work. Because my father has been working non-stop for the last eighteen days, I've taken over his yard duties. One of the perks to living at home is that my mother is here and is more than happy to do my laundry and cook for me when I'm hungry. I'm also very happy to help out around the house because my parents provide for me as though I am a child again. The only difference is that I can do a lot more with a kind of lenience I never got as a teenager. There are a few drawbacks however. One of those draw backs is that my parents are conservative anti-ganj folk. Normally, this wouldn't bother me, but my mother has been asking a lot of questions that she doesn't want to know the answer to.
The problem for me is that on the one hand, I don't want to take advantage of my parents since they are my only source of funds right now, but at the same time, they won't give me permission to medicate using ganj, nor the money, so I have to find a way around that. Well, my mother thinks that I am scamming them--which I may be in a way, but I am not happy about it. I'm not proud of myself, and I wish that I could be self-sustainable and financially independent. The only way I could do that at this point in my life is to deal drugs, which is an incredibly dangerous venture, with a high-risk, low-yield business model, and so is just not a logical solution.
So this drama has been plaguing my mind, but I've been trying to push through it by working on my thesis. I'm getting so close to finishing I can taste it. Also, I found that one of the things that was keeping me from finishing was the fact that I had nothing really planned beyond grad school. I know that I want to get my PhD, but without having taken the GRE yet, or applied to any grad schools, it is not possible for me to start a PhD program (assuming I get accepted) for another year. I gave this a lot of thought, and I've been very interested in medicine in the last... going on five years now, and now that I'm at the end of one academic road, I find myself longing to hop onto another one. It was for that reason that I decided to re-enroll as an undergraduate, add a second major, and complete an undergrad pre-med program, take the MCAT and apply to med school.
This decision has sparked a kind of motivation in me to finally finish what I've started. Because I really want to start learning about this new field that I've signed up to study, I am motivated to get started, but I am also disciplined enough to know that I can not start something new until my thesis is finished. That has really lit a fire underneath me, as in the last week I've written the bulk of the thesis, whereas I had been stuck for weeks, trying to figure out what I was going to write about. These days the words have been flowing freely, although for the night I think I can not write anymore.
So what I've learned is that when faced with a task, it is best to planned the future beyond that task in order to ensure that the first task will get finished. The reasoning behind this is that once you become excited about the new project coming up, there should be a renewed sense of motivation to finished the initial project. That has been the case with my thesis. Before, when I had nothing to look forward to beyond finishing my thesis, besides looking for work, I dawdled, I was not very concerned about finishing the thesis, and I wasn't concerned if I never finished school. Now that there is an end in sight, and a post-thesis plan, I can finish the project without any anxieties as to what I will attempt to do next.
So my words of wisdom for anyone who wants to accomplish something but has a problem maintaining drive to commit to finishing is to keep working until you find yourself longing to do something else. At that point, make arrangements to start something new, which will not only give yourself a kind of deadline to finish the first project, but it will also focus and motivate you to finish what you start before diving into another project. It probably doesn't work for everyone, but I've found this to be helpful. At the end of each semester, when I have a large amount of papers due, I find myself longing to read something other than what I need to to write the papers. So instead of distracting myself, I start a pile of books that I am going to read when I finish the last paper. This also helps with finishing books before starting another one. Pick out the next book before the book prior to it is finished, and don't start it until you've finished the first. The theory is that the motivation will sustain longer if the mind has the next thing to look forward to already in its sights.
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