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What does "I hate calculus with a passion" even mean?
If by passion, you mean intense hatred - abhorrence so strong you want to crucify it (as in the Passion of Jesus Christ) - then you're just really weird, because as we all know, you cannot kill calculus by nailing it to a cross. What - you're going to hammer a couple of integration questions to a crucifix and stand it up atop a hill?
I don't think so.
You can't simply just say "I hate maths", full-stop? What's wrong with just saying "I hate maths"?
You're pretty much undermining the word hate... You're saying that the word hate is not good enough for you, it does not fully articulate the vehemence you experience. I personally think that the word hate works fine on its own. There's no need for the addition of such nonsense to emphasize. I hate the phrase "with a passion", with a passion!
In most cases, we stop focusing on what others have "done to us" after we begin to see how our displeased behavior is affecting other people. Anger is a release, it's a way of stating the hurt we feel inside, and it's uncomfortable to be around, it's unsettling, uncontrolled and simply relentless. However, releasing bottled up emotions can be a critical step in achieving harmony with other people and one's own conscience. Anger aids in making the hurt person more self-aware of his own needs and wants, and spurs him on to take action to fight for what he wants, rather than letting the hurtful experience continue or come back.
Getting mad over superficial, petty things, I'm sure, is something that everybody gets irritated by. It's childish, and there's no need for blowing things out of proportion. If your problems were handled more calmly and less emotionally, then maybe other people could assist you more efficiently, and life could move on a lot quicker.
But the more I think about it, the more I feel that all anger is unnecessary - whether it is socially acceptable to be angry or not - even if a country were to bomb one's own nation, even if a serial killer were to choose a member of my family as their next victim, even if someone were to walk up to me while I'm having a drink at a bar and punch me in the face.
Because anger does nobody any good. Sure, people are jerks, and life is unfair, but let's just cut the big reactions and just get to the open discussion and forgiveness already. Anger distracts you, from the multitudinous things you have to do everyday, and from the actual problem at hand. Anger causes you to be irrational and do things you don't mean to. Getting mad doesn't help anyone. There are better ways to carry yourself.
So dial down the temper and let's just learn to calm down, 'cause I'm so tired of the shouting, stomping and the slamming of doors. Take a chill pill. Make peace, not war. Just relax.
Recently, I have been trying to join a blog distributor. What this is is basically a system in which bloggers are paid to blog about certain things, to give their opinion on certain products and services. Clients signing on to the blog distributor will be looking for a certain theme of blog, like 'travel', to advertise their sleeping bags, for example. The blog distributor will notify the blogger, telling him/her to blog about sleeping bags, and the client gets what he wants, and the blogger gets paid a certain amount of money, 75% of what the client pays, and the other 25% goes to the blog distributor.
I put 'Do you hate it too?' under the 'Humor' category, because I'd like to think this blog is funny (or is it just me?). I got to choose a few more categories, so I chose 'Anger Management', 'Entertainment', 'Entertainment for Youth' and 'Stand-Up Comedy'. Amusing, isn't it, how I chose Anger Management?
Anyway, what I was thinking was that clients would be looking for some funny blogs, and so they can check in with me, the creator of 'Do you hate it too?', to see if I can write about one of their pet peeves. It's quite a long shot, I must admit, but I'm willing to try anything to get a bit of financial benefit from my blogging.
Last week, I received an e-mail from the blog distributor, and let me just copy and paste a segment of it here:
In order to have your Blog Certified with Blog Distributor, it must not contain profanity. The following is a list of the profane words we found in your Blog: s--t (6), p--ses (2), f--kin (2), f--king (2), f--k (4), b--ches (2), a-- (2).
I found this hilarious when I first read it - the fact that they actually counted the number of each profane word. Then I realized I would actually have to go back through all my posts, locate these cuss words and modify them so that they still made sense. I've already done it, and I can tell you, there was a lot more profanity than they actually counted. It was quite annoying to do so, and I don't entirely understand why it mustn't contain profanity. In voicing your opinion in a public forum, sometimes bad words are effective tools to create emphasis. Surely, many professional critics out there swear in their reviews sometimes, right?
On second though, perhaps not.
What do you guys think? Would you still be the same bloggers if you had to censor your writing?
Have I seriously had this blog for ninety days already? Because it feels like so much longer...
It must be the way that time flies when you're having fun, the way you reflect on months that've gone by without you even realizing it, as you're caught up in the everyday errands you must complete, with the school you must attend, the work you must do, the holidays you must celebrate, the meals you must have and the people you must spend time with for your entire life. We are born with nothing.
Let me illustrate this for you: when we are born, we are born with no sight and limited senses of touch, taste and smell. All we perceive are sounds, loud, loud sounds, and we cannot express how scared we are as we are exposed to the world and the world is exposed to us. We cannot run away in fear, we are incapable of speech or mobility. We cannot hold our pee, help our hunger, handle anything for ourselves at all. We are unable to hold up a briefcase full of paperwork, a schoolbag full of books or even a small toy truck, let alone our own heads, let alone support our own bodies on our own two feet. When we're born, we can't even roll over, or breathe upside down without killing ourselves. We even require help to simply burp, and all we can do, all we know how to do, is cry.
From the moment we are born, we cry all the time. We're told that there's nothing wrong with crying by our mothers, that there's everything wrong with crying by our fathers. We cry on wedding days and at funerals, at baptisms, births and birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, on good days, on bad days, in the spring, summer, fall and winter, in the rain and sun and wind, in war, in public, in hospitals, on planes, boats and trains, on beaches, when we're by ourselves in our own rooms, or when we're together with friends, family or a group of strangers. Whether we're young or old, gay or straight, rich or poor, happy or unhappy, male or female, intelligent or ignorant, alone or otherwise, we all cry at some point or another, whether we're frequent criers or not.
We all cry for many different reasons. What I sometimes do whenever I get extremely mad at someone, especially someone I care deeply about, is imagine them crying. It makes them human, the image makes me empathize. The pain, the struggle strikes me with a lot of impact and it calms me down to know that these people that are pissing me off have another side that I can sympathize with.
Whenever I actually do see someone crying, I want to help them. When it comes to people that I don't know so well, I'm not one to charge at the opportunity to dry the tears, but I will take some action. I don't want to overstep my boundaries as crying is personal, so I will just put in my effort and if they want more, I'll give more.
A few years ago, I saw an old woman on the train. She wasn't that old, she was wearing a pink T-shirt, had a sports bag, relatively 'hip' glasses and a stylish hairdo. I was sitting across from her and I listened to her talk to her son on the phone. The son, most probably a full-grown man already, according to his mother, never went home for dinner to drink his mother's soup or inquire about her back pain. The old lady was telling him how disrespectful and cruel her son was treating her after all those years in which she raised him to become a man. I was welling up from the opposite side and I shook the tears out from the corners of my eyes. The old lady's son hung up on her and I watched her bow her head and cry to herself.
It took me a while to realize I was staring at her. I looked around and everyone in their school uniforms and business suits were staring at her, too.
And I despised them all, I despised myself. What was I looking at?
When the time came for me to get off the train, I walked over to the old lady and gave her a pack of tissues, with one taken out and placed on top of the pack of tissues for her convenience, so that she could wipe her tears away. She sniffed and thanked me. She was a cute old woman... Everyone else was staring at us during this ordeal, but I didn't care.
Since I realized I was staring at her that day, I've hardly ever stared at someone else in public again.
It has occured to me that I haven't written a post for a week (since December 26th). It's because I wrote five days of posts in advance, used photos in the sixth one and a, you know, Youtube video for, you know, yesterday's post. So excuse me if my mind appears to not be set to writing mode. It's been a while.
Many times in the past sixty to seventy days, I have realized that I actually have a surplus of ideas for this blog. In some cases, these ideas were suggested to me from fellow bloggers and friends. In other cases, I just have a bad day where everybody irritates me. But I can only talk about one thing per day because that's what I promised myself.
Sometimes, I really have to let out this anger and rant about it in front of others. In serious cases, I will confront the person that's annoying me and tell them what is discomforting to me about the way they behave. They usually, of course, argue back. I then try to reason with them, and tell them my perspective in a way they might understand and empathize with. And then they will tell me to chill.
Right now, I can't think of anything more annoying to say to somebody that's angry than to tell them to simply: chill. Perhaps I know how you feel or an insincere apology come close, but chill, relax and dude, calm down have to be at the top of the list. It just angers me so much, more than whatever they annoyed me with in the beginning. The rage burns inside you and you want to explode or strangle the other person.
I understand that being chill is good. I like things natural, peaceful and simple too. But gosh, chill is the most ineffective and unhelpful thing to say to someone that's fuming mad and wants nothing more than to release their emotions. It's funny that it has the opposite effect. It's weak advice.
Another one is just let it go. I like to fix problems. I will argue with a person until the issue is resolved. I will not let it go until a resolution is formed. I will not chill or relax and float around with an unsolved problem on my back. It's peaceful, yes, but you have to work hard for your peace to make peace. You must make things resolute by exchanging opinions so as to formulate a conclusion which all parties involved can agree with. I will not settle for peace roused by ignorance and lack of initiative.
Gosh, I need to chill.
(I don't know if I'm going to make sense. I'm pissed.) Today, I got really upset by one friend and tried to find consolation in four others. I still ended up arriving home utterly pissed off. I didn't want to be. I wanted to write about something happier today, but no. No, because I just had to get it out of my system. It's taken my six hours of playing online poker and watching television to finally wrap my head around why I hated what I hated today. This post's title is pretty self-explanatory. I hate it when people know you're (getting) upset but they don't seem to care.
At our school, we take a class called Theory of Knowledge (TOK), also known as epistemology, the study of knowledge. Much like in any other subject, but especially in TOK, we are required to define what we actually mean by the different words included in the essay question/topic. In other words, I need to tell you what I mean by the words in my title step-by-step, so that you can grasp onto the general idea considerably better.
That's exactly what I'll do with this post because I feel that there are many reasons behind today's problem depending on which part of the title you or I focus on. Here they are:
Let's start with the word 'people'. Usually, you feel like people are being insensitive to your feelings when you feel that those people are close to you. You trust them and care about them. Therefore, you expect them to be sensitive because you're sensitive toward them.
But that's just the problem. Expectations.
Expectations of receiving in return all that you've given them. But in reality, perhaps they don't care about you and/or they mightn't trust you. They may not feel like they're close to you. These people may not actually be sensitive toward you even if you expect them to be, even though you want them to be, even though you need them to be. The first part of this problem may be due to the fact that these 'people' whom you expect to care about you just aren't the 'people' you thought they were. They're not your friend or your close family. You've given them a big title like favorite aunt, most trustworthy, or best friend but they fail to live up to that title. Are these people really as good as you made them out to be?
Going back to the actual title, this is about getting upset. In my experience of knowing people, it's quite easy to spot when somebody is upset. They pout, they cry, they don't want to talk, they limit their social communication, they shake their head, they sigh, they stop smiling, they stop joking, their humor gets dry, et cetera...
The second part of today's annoyance is the fact that maybe these people in question are too unaware of other people's feelings. They don't hear the disappointment in your voice or they don't sense that your sarcasm is being used as a defense mechanism rather than as a comical tool. I always thought that I was pretty open with my emotions but when people continue to joke around, smile and laugh around me when I'm upset, I wonder to myself: "Am I obviously angry right now? Am I actually coming across as sad?" What do you do when the people around you can't tell how you're feeling even when you're displaying your emotions ever-so-openly? Doesn't it worry you that people can't tell by your facial expressions and your bodily mannerisms that you're upset whenever you are? Or is it just the fact that they're stupid?
Now, the final bit is what angered me the most. It builds upon Part 1 and Part 2, in that it sort of reinforces the fact that they're insensitive. Part 1 was that these people were insensitive because they didn't know they were meant to be sensitive since they didn't believe the relationship was tight. Part 2 was that they were insensitive because they were unaware that you were upset. Part 3 is a lot more annoying.
Part 3 shows that even when they are the right people, your best friends and your close family, and even though they can see you're upset, these intuitive people whom are close to you just don't show you that they know how you feel, that they care about how you feel, that they want to make you feel better or even acknowledge the fact that you're upset, even though they know.
If it's because they purposefully ignore your distress because they just can't be bothered to deal with that right now, then it's pointless in remaining close with them for any longer. You go to a person for consolation and just because that person is feeling happy, he/she feels that he/she can ignore your feelings lest he/she might become upset too.
There's also the possibility that people 'don't know how to deal with' you being upset. I can understand that. There are some people that I will never know what to say in front of but the thing that sets apart real friends and less loyal friends explicitly is whether or not they try to make you feel better. As long as I feel people are acknowledging that I'm upset, showing that they respect my feelings and care about them, I will always, always reciprocate and show that I can be sensitive for them too in their times of need.
I hate it when people never try to deal with problems, whether they're battles within oneself, conflicts with other people or disagreements between him/her and me. Sometimes, it's obvious to me that people care about me. They just choose not to. They choose to say they 'don't know what to say' because it's just easier. How lazy and uncommitted is that?
The general problem with people being insensitive when you're upset is the fact that it raises so many questions in your mind. Do they really not know that you're angry right now? Is it not obvious that you're upset? Do you appear stoic? Why don't they show some compassion? Do they actually feel empathy? Do they not want to because it's just difficult? Does this actually seem fair to them?
Do they expect you to do all the work in this relationship while they sit on your coattail? Why even bother with him/her, even when you're happy, or even when they're the ones that are upset? Are these the right people you should be expecting to care about you? Do you really need anybody to care about you?
I hope I've demonstrated that coming across as being insensitive is a dangerous thing to do. It confuses people, makes them worry, scares them even.
When people know you're upset but come across as if they don't care, do you hate it too?
A seriously bad habit of mine is my tendency to lose my temper easily, otherwise known as flipping my lid, throwing a fit, hitting the roof/ceiling, flying off the handle (what?), going mad, flipping my wig, blowing a fuse, having kittens (huh?), blowing my stack (...whatever that means), 'combusting', going ballistic, going crackers, going bananas and being driven up the wall.
The word 'temper' comes from the Latin word, temperare, and it used to refer to the balance of certain elements within a mixture that would soon be 'tempered' into metal. People later used the word to refer to mental balance, and when one loses that balance, they are said to have 'lost their temper'.
I guess it's not the getting angry part that I dislike. What I dislike is the childish behavior that comes with it. I'm talking about the long, quick, dramatic strides while walking around, the loud slamming of the door, the exaggerated heavy breathing accompanied by larger nostrils, the obvious glares one sends towards the guilty party, the pounding of books, canteen trays, coffee mugs, pencil cases and other items upon the table, the refusal to speak, the crossing of arms and just the general temperament that radiates one, single message to everyone around you: I'm f***ing pissed, living in my world SUCKS, I'll make YOUR world suck, by SLAMMING doors and POUNDING books on the table, so that YOU can have a taste of the suckiness I'M experiencing.
All of that is really immature, don't you think?
I remember I had this one birthday, where I got this cool, new watch as a present. I was trying to put it on myself, but then my grandmother offered to put it on for me. She took the watch right out of my hands, and started to help me, but I just lost it completely. My independence must've been a big deal, even then, 'cause I threatened to step hard on to her foot if she attempted to help me a second time. My mother made that mistake, I slammed my foot onto hers and stormed out of the house crying. Crazy stuff.
I guess if you do get mad, you need to have good reason. I remember there was one occasion where I was trying to throw a paper CD case to my friend. It ended up hitting a girl in the face and she got really mad at me for... a day or so. I apologized on the spot, but she still had good reason to be angry for a while. And I know she reads this blog. Sorry again!
When you win a game, you still get your sore losers though, and at school/work, you get the rebellious classmates/co-workers that don't get treated 'fairly'. Oh, and when people do any of the things that I've discussed in this blog, I can get quite irritated if my mind dwells on it for too long. When things don't go our way or when they irritate us, handling it is quite a test of patience, tolerance and character. I lose my temper a lot and it does get quite awful at times.
What do you think? Do you hate it too?
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