desire? committment?

If you greatly desire something, have the guts to stake everything on obtaining it.
Brendan Francis

Commitment. Desire. Most often the meaning or usage of these two words are intertwined or used together. Its understandable, i mean how can u have commitment without desire or vice versa?

The past few weeks i have been involved in something that required alot of commitment. Endless nights of practice, rehearsals, meetings, and so on.

Today, i asked a friend to give me a topic and he mentioned commitment. Hence i thought the experience i have been through the past weeks may help in this blog.

In my opinion, the key to having a solid commitment is DESIRE, hence the quote given above. Almost every aspect of our lives are in some way governed by a need, a desire, the intention, or passion to do something. Be it in love, work, or anything, if its without desire, its gonna be tough.

Lets go back a while, think about the older days when wars were fought. The one thing that kept soldier alive, was desire, and it is that desire that drove theri commitment towards their cause. understand what i am saying?

Anyway, i am moving away from my point. As i mentioned, i was involved in something that required the commitment of many individuals. I have to be honest with you, even i wasn't that confident with this project and did not show the commitment or dedication needed for the project. However, after seeing the Directors of the project sacrifice their time,money, and almost everything to ensure the success of the event I couldn't help but feel compelled to do the same. And since then, the desire to prove myself worthy of the job chosen for me and to work together with everyone is what i thought led to me committing myelf to this project.

In my opinion, the event turned out to be a success, all because of committment. For example, an individual known as WK contirbuted immensely to the project and it was good to see him smile after the event, everyone loved it and the faces of the people involved were all filled with content, and pure happiness. I mean the feeling to me cannot be described, it was simple euphoria.

Going back to the quote above, it just goes to show, if you want something hard enough.. u wnat to accomplish something.. you just have to do it with that desire... this desire would lead to a greater committment alongside the other reasons for you doing something.

But....

sometimes... we often overlook other things when we let desire get the better of ourselves. Desire is good, but sometimes when you are pursuing something that will gain you power, that desire of power often leads us astray. Hence, it is important to keep our integrity.

Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not.
Oprah Winfrey (1954 - ), in Good Housekeeping

Some people are wiling to lose everything in order to gain everything. one thing you shouldnt lose is your integrity....

think about it..

Think about it

THIS PUTS OUR WORLD INTO PERSPECTIVE.

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:There would be:

57 Asians21 Europeans14 from the Western Hemisphere, north and south8 Africans52 would be female48 would be male70 would be nonwhite30 would be white70 would be non-Christian30 would be Christian6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.80 would live in substandard housing70 would be unable to read50 would suffer from malnutrition1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth, 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education,1 would own a computerWhen one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.The following is also something to ponder...

1. If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.2. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation...you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.3. If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.4. If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep... youare richer than 75% of this world!5. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace .. you are among the top 8% of the worlds wealthy.6. If your parents are still alive and still married, you are very rare, even in the United States and Canada.

Cult-ure?

Gothic: Of or pertaining to a literary style of fiction prevalent in the late 18th and early 19th centuries which emphasized the grotesque, mysterious, and desolate: a gothic novel. [This is the relevant definition in the dictionary. Think of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the works of Edgar Allen Poe.]

But what does gothic mean in regards to the group of people? Here's where it gets confusing. There are things that many Goths like that are not gothic (Industrial or Classical music). There are things that are gothic that many Goths dislike (vampires, interest in death). There are things that some people think are gothic that are not gothic (bands like Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails), and there are things that do not call themselves gothic even if they are considered gothic by most people (bands like Sisters of Mercy and Dead Can Dance). However, there's no Grand Gothic Judge to decree what is truly Goth and what is not, although there are plenty of people who claim to be it. It's an ambiguous label with many people using it that don't understand what it means. The people who do understand it often have many different definitions.

this is taken from http://www.darkwaver.com/subculture/

now, after watching a concert lats night, which i must say was an alright one *comments on that will be done at a later date* i couldnt help but notice people between the age of 14-50 walking around in "Goth-like" outfits or styles. Reading the description above, it clearly says that sometimes there are misconceptions and misinterpretations of what goth really is.

The sad thing is, that i see individuals who succumb to societal expecttaions, or in this case a misntepretation of what society perceives Goth to be, firstly, the cocnert i went to certainly doenst warrant goth-like appearnces, Hell, even the bands that played didnt dress that way.... so one cannot blame the music and the musicians.

it is clear that its the people, a friend pointed out to me this old man who looked like he was a 105 walking around with the black t-shirt jeans look and piercings and accessories that would look better on a dog and the both of us (friend and i) couldnt help but wonder why people do this. It is one thing to be a part of a culture, i am all for that but one thing that we have to understand is if to have one culture intertwined with another that particular person or gropus of people thinks its all the same thing. Like GOTH culture and MODERN ROCK dont mix, like the description above said. somethings that are thought to be goth are not, and somethings thought NOT to be goth ARE Goth.

The same goes for hip hop, a culture that was started by the African-Americans, the history and culture of Hip-Hop stemmed from way back in the 70's where theAfrican-Americans were in need for their voices to be heard and where they needed an identity some can argue... Hip-Hop doenst only mean RAP, its funk, motown blues, james, from James Brown all the way to 50 Cent. Nowadays, people often come to the cocnlusion that if hey wre to wear hip hop fashion, they are no win the hip hop culture...

sad...

be proud of your own culture... we dont have to immerse ourselves into other cultures when WE do not even appreciate OUR OWN cultures. that will only lead to false-hoods and not being true to ourselves.

Appreciate the other cultures, but you dont have to live it...... get what i mean?

the history of Hip-Hop can be read at http://www.daveyd.com/raptitle.html

Love Actually?

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

I wouldnt call what i have experienced so far as LOVE, well, maybe once... but thats a story for another time.

What is it about the opposite sex that renders one un-intelligent, naive, and so caught up in the illusion of lust and love that we often forget NOT to have any expectations cause generally our expectations will never be met. It is like going into a movie thinking and hoping it will be great only to leave the cinema feeling like you just wasted a good portion of your day of life dedicating it to utter rubbish.

hahaha

now please understand that i am not talking about LOVE per se, but the illusion of it; some of us may think.... or usually in my case, I think too much and often get caught up as i mentioned above in the illusion or expectataion that i am loved when the sad, awful truth sometimes is that i am not.

I believe love is primarily a choice and only sometimes a feeling. If you want to feel love, choose to love and be patient.
Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com Weblog, December 16, 2002

That is the problem, when it comes to matters of the heart one can either fuck it up or NOT fuck it up, occasioanally we get the middle ground where sometimes it just works. Patirence plays an important factor i think, or does it? I mean, one can pursue it quickly and make it work.... or u can either ruin it. the same thing when we wait, if we wait too long..sometimes it works.. sometimes that love just fades away....

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
Margaret Thatcher (1925 - ), in Observer April 4, 1989

But then how do we know when its the right time?

I guess we just do.....

"Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" loosely translated means "that feeling in the heart" and this pretty much explains the above question, i guess no matter what, if u think u have that feeling, we shouldnt dilly dally but just go for it, as they say "what is it do we have to lose?"

Absoultely Nothing.

Happy Valentines

Collatz

The way to procure insults is to submit to them: a man meets with no more respect than he exacts.
William Hazlitt (1778 - 1830)

someone once asked me or rather told me that he takes his hat off to me for being able to take or handle certain thoughts, words, or shall i say "insults" put forth in my direction. Now i am of the opinion that when someone insults you, or someone tries to show that he/she is smarter than you are, the bst thing you can do is just smile and let it pass. Why should u bring urself to their level by doing the exact same thing, there is no need to defend yourself or anything like that for it would be a total waste of effort and energy trying to do so. it wil be like water over a duck's feathers. it will reflect more on yourself rather than the other person if you were to say something back, by keeping silent you are in my opinion, showing a level of maturity or intelligence that should be applauded.

Now please dont think i am blowing my own horn here, i am just saying that, this is what i believe in and this is what i do, much to the difficulty of ignoring my inner voice that intends to break/smash/castrate/stab/ the people who often act like they are far more superior or far more inelligent when it an be clearly seen that they they dont know what they are talking about. well, we are only human, and i must admit even i sometimes fail to abide to the rules or principles that i stand for.... moments like those are when we realise that we r only human and are not perfect.

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering you own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew.
Saint Francis de Sales

i am using the above quote as a conclusion to my first point and to begin my second point, or it an also be said to emphasise what i mentioned towards the end of my earlier point.

i once read somewhere, that someone shoud not be judged by their virtues but by their depravities because virtues can be faked and depraities are real. Hence, never be too quick in judgin someone because they seem nice or whatever... this is the lesson that we all will be constantly learning everyday for the rest of our lives. u see, its always easy to have principles and rules that govern our actions, but one thing we need to understand is that it is only through our imperfections or our mistakes is that when we can meassure ourselves as individuals, and by learning those mistakes and starting each day a fresh with the knowledge that past mistakes have given us that would make us better individuals.

this can be seen everywhere, through redemption in examinations, in friendship, with family... only through our imperfections should we be judged. so never be too quick in coming up with a perception of someone.

As for the Superbowl this Sunday... although i am a Giants fan, Go SEAHAWKS¬!!!!