Being a bad student sucks. Because I still am a student at heart. Works pile up, no satisfying piece of intellectual works produced, dissatisfactions all around in the standard of any student.

'But other things are important!' The 'other thing' is just procrastination in terms of academic attainment. But the 'other thing' is the other parts of life, the other measures of success in life, perhaps. It's what I feel like indulging in-- being me around people, listening to music, cooking food, smoking cigarettes, talking fashion, dancing freely, dressing hippie, celebrating wit-- the indolent list goes on. I could be lying to myself about how valuable all these things are-- since for me, much introspection is a hobby and inspiration a snack. I don't seek to 'create' something, let alone create any 'value'. I like doing it, so I do it, without much other purpose. It's like a videogame in my mind.

Look at me writing this post and not doing work.

If anything, introspection is a double-edged tension. Gets me real happy about myself sometimes, and gets me real down about myself other times. Makes me moody and greedy.

Introspectively looking back, I never had much moderation for anything. I did what I wanted to, and found myself disappointed at times, and found myself telling myself to moderate more, only to realize that I won't. I am only here as who I am because of the things I indulged in. Experiences shape ways of thinking, nurture was to develop emotions, and tell you about yourself. But I also know I missed out a lot by indulging and not really having changed anything with self-discipline.

I just don't have much drive for self-discipline.

Why is that indefensible? Like a greedy little child, I want to disprove it. Why do something else if one thing will make you happy? Why sacrifice the best--the best--of present for the fictional future?

But I know I should go do the 'right' things and be 'successful.' I know I want it. It's part of me.


"You're too greedy," my friend told me once.

"In a good way."


As long as I believe it to have value, it has the utmost value.

Mothagesso.

A Greek investigative journalist released a list of two thousand something Greeks who have bank accounts in Switzerland, a possible sign of tax evasion.

Everyone will not fail to hear the echoes of Julian Assange. Investigative release megaphoned through the internet and social media, the sounds multiplied in ways that we had never imagined. Masses started to talk directly with these megaphones that only journalists held. Journalists started to incorporate this faceless mass-talk. Everything echoes now. And these sounds got the government not just debunked but desecrated. Is this encouraging heroism of the individuals, or is it finally the age of collective intellect, and the power of the masses finally? What is happening, is this good, should this be encouraged or should this be a one time thing? It was a new power with old, raw morals. We didn't know what appropriate responsibility and limitations to give this new power. History rolls forward in the mud pile.

'Yeah, I am also not the biggest on the argument that claims the riches of the rich should be used to solve all the problems.' This political argument mixes heated moral sentiments and numbers into the hallways of what Rawls perhaps envisioned. 'It's understandable on an individual level. But the individual's interest is not always of the public's. And it's not about sacrificing your individual interest, but more so modifying it. In South Korea, they had the biggest foreign exchange crisis in the early nineties, so there was a campaign to donate gold for the country, and people donated all their gold jewelries, and even gold crowns. South Korea got out of it faster than anyone in the history of IMF, and IMF records our success. Noblesse oblige?' More a temporary unification of all will, all parts of the soul of the republic. 'It was just the power of the people, not people of the power.'

'I think I'm more a Jeffersonian meritocrat.'

'Ew, categories are disgusting.'

'Well, I think you just sound like a person who ignores and condescends on other people, and think that they are somehow smarter than the rest of these people.'

'I mean, I guess so. Perhaps the potential I can consider, but the reality is that some people are smarter.'

What I am part of refuted what I am.

So, it's, maybe, about being able to be the meritocratic individual I am and being the humanized individual of pan-sympathy or something. Because human is capable.

'I don't like it. It's auto-tuned.'

'But it's so soothing. It's so soothing.'

Complexity and capability, for the future.

Collecting voices,
Mothagesso.

1. Twitter
2. Cleaning up after
3. Asking questions
4. Small talk
5. Checking the weather before I go out
6. Scheduling
7. Numbers, dates, time, money
8. Decision-making
9. Italian
10. Confrontation
11. Embarrassment
12. Anything in the kitchen
13. Things involving vibration (singing, vibrato)
14. Taking criticism I never unasked for
15. Dealing with nitpickers
16. Taking your mama jokes
17. Bring crass
18. Restraint
19. Giving advice
20. Committment

"I've always indulged in my life. If you want to do something, and you know that you shouldn't, that just means you want it. It means that if you don't do it this time, you're going to want it the next time. It's going to knock on your door." 'It's funny because I've been bombarded with readings for classes that unanimously voice that moderation is the highest virtue. This is also funny because when I was asked, 'what is the highest human virtue?' I answered that it's moderation of desires.' "But I've always indulged. In tenth to eleventh grade, I was in a relationship, and I let it subsume myself. I used to just get back at one and do homework until three, just barely doing it. During senior summer, I just partied. My life consisted of drinking, socializing, playing billiard and video games, and drinking more. I wanted to, and I could, so I did. To oblivion, literally. Then now I find myself hoping to indulge in this, and I consciously thought to myself that I will indulge. I had a little crisis and aversion to plunging too deep, then I am yet again steadily sinking into it. At one point it will become easier. After indulgence you can always say, 'I've been there, done that and felt this,' and just be done with it." This is my self-consolation for not working hard in college. There are too many beautiful things about being with people and creating memories. Something too beautiful and limited to college that I cannot spare. This might be a foolish hypothesis. This is a self-justification for my indulgence and I am quite at terms with it. I'll be done with the indulgence in less than two years regardless of what I want. 'This long and foolish way works for me. Besides, indulgent desires make me feel alive and content.' It's a drive void of connotations of responsibility. It's more satisfying than liberating. I think the former is cooler.


Mothagesso.

I'm easily overwhelmed this month. A few things pile up and I freak the fuck out. Lists help.

Guichanaso.

Reading old letters gives me an uncomfortable tingle in my belly because they're all so full of honesty. The kind of honesty I'm now too embarrassed to express, like, the kind that used to fill my journals in grade school, oh the feeling they give me when I read them! It's like revisiting an old home that is now too small to contain me. And sometimes when I found things so warm or hilarious or sad I'd comment on them with different colored pens, only to realize those very comments may prove to be funny later too, so now when I open my crimson journal from seventh grade there's a chain of different colored pens commenting on each other's opinions like a choo choo train, hands on shoulder, following one path down to where I came from.

When I was moving into my new home I reread all the letters I'd received. It must have been at least a month ago, if not longer, that I plopped on my beige chair and started reading.

Perhaps it was what the letters said. Perhaps it was who wrote them. Maybe it was because some of those people had drifted from my life and could never write me a letter like that again. Maybe it's the sense of emotional impermanence I got from them.

It could also just be my imagination going wild. Something about imagining a person sitting down with a pen and letter paper to write evokes an incomparable sense of sincerity.

I thought to myself, do I deserve that? I didn't think I did. That made me sad, guilty, and when I cried I felt as though I was crying for all the lovers who had cared enough to write.

Guichanaso.

'What- what if love was just a word that was invented to trick us? If we hadn't known, we would have felt a feeling like it less, or even create this fictional feeling by ourselves. That the identity and interpretations of love are so diverse that just by saying it the word has a soul to evoke so many broad categories of things. So many that we just create these emotions and feelings for ourselves. That love is not a natural entity, because its perfect form is not even something understandable. Therefore a infinite source of self-perpetuating inspiration.'


Mothagesso.

I'm just super tired all the time, yet I'm restless, so I keep moving. My mind is restless yet my body is tired. My body is restless yet my mind is tired. Either way I am pulling myself in different directions at the same time and it makes me focused yet disjointed, but listening to Portishead helps because I like Portishead. At times like these I keep searching for the things I know I like. There are so many things I know I don't like that when the things I do like end up disappointing me, I feel like running away and giving the fuck up. But because I have no choice but to keep searching for that one solution I KNOW has worked each time. I'm also fucking drunk. And upset for no reason? I'd like to step outside and get some fresh air but I cannot for unspeakable reasons.

Its strange to think about things that upset me because that would also entail admitting that I am heavily affected by them. It's admitting that something you dislike is way under your skin. It kind of has the upper hand, you know, instead of you being able to control its effect on you. Not so fun.

But when you finally do admit it's kind of liberating too, I think.

Hey, I'm nonsensical!

Guichanaso.

"Without a full and profound experience of the phenomena, the intellect is a void."


Mothagesso.

"My friend and I were having this ridiculous discussion about how nothing matters, while laughing the entire time. We just talked about how nothing really matters. At the end of it, we were both just saying, "dude, I don't want to do anything," "yeah, there's no point." Then he said that he liked me because I know that I don't want to do anything. It's really depressing, but if you argue for it, nothing really matters."


"That's actually very interesting because I was talking with this kid the other day about how one's religious faith in political terms, in political theory, cannot really be resolved. You cannot prove your faith to be true to everyone because you can only prove things to others with rationality. It's not in the same realm. It's between natural reason and supernatural experience. The former cannot explain the latter because they aren't even in the same category. Thus the separation of church and state is one of the best methods of compromise for coexistence. We then also did talk about how amazingly William James 'proves' the real effect that the latter possess nonetheless.

But anyway, it's similar to what you guys discussed. (The naturally existing) Meaning of life is not accessible to rational inquiry. In a way, it makes sense because we are given reason as a result of life. It just came with our brain. So the meaning of life is a concept that includes and presumes the idea of life itself. So not unsurprisingly it is more or less impossible to be garnered through reason that is made accessible to us only after our lives start. Like the religion discussion, meaning of life cannot be deduced with logic."


"The question of 'what is the meaning of life' already presupposes the existence of 'meaning of life'. The right question should be, 'is there a meaning of life, and if so, what is it?' We cannot prove that there is a meaning of life out there, universal or tailored individually. So the discussion of 'what is the meaning of life?' necessarily is possible to be led to the answer that nothing in life matters, because we couldn't prove if it existed or not, even."


"Yes. We can construct the meaning of life with logic. 'Hey, we have these constructed unique human values, and we can uphold and follow them because it feels good when we do it. That should be the meaning of our lives.' But that doesn't have to be. It's a constructed possibility. We cannot deduce anything down to 'thus, the meaning of life is...', or 'the meaning of life exists.' Is that right? Deduce?"


Philosophy empowers as a consolation and as the provider of clarity. I will contend that this is an objective benefit that we get; while I did subjectively choose the answer that provides consolation for me, everyone can do so for themselves too. For discussions on religion, it gives contenders of this debate understand the structural issue, and hence be able to work more efficiently and cooperatively to envision a solution instead of criticizing each other with the old arguments from old issues while no problem is ever solved. The clarity provides understanding. For contemplations on the meaning of life, it safely keeps us from misleading ourselves with the wrong question, ending with an answer that we somehow find flawless yet uncomfortable. Arguing against our existence itself is detrimental.


"Yeah. Wait. No, it cannot be 'reduced' down to that, instead of 'deduced'. It's irreducible."


This knowledge is a consolation for our existence by itself. We might then find much easier to cherish what our existence has allowed us.



Mothagesso.

Breathless, breathtaking, breathe-


Mothagesso.

I realized that these days, I can be stressed out, annoyed, and sad-- but I've also never been happier before. I'm uncomfortable because I am at loss, at loss as to how to even react to the happiness and appreciation and inspiration. You start to think and feel differently. I feel even like I don't deserve this, that this is just too good for me, and that I should work harder, work harder, work harder. Thank you.

Mothagesso.

"My fantasy is, if I can have one, me sitting in my room, with a lot of money, and having all the stylish people coming to me and telling me what to invest in." Busy, inefficient, forgetful; strict and stressed, but content, happy, happy, glad.


Dreaming,
Mothagesso

"Yeah, you should come on Thursday. Our topic is 'work hard, party hard' and we'll just be talking about how awesome that is."

"What. I would be like, 'hell no...' I mean, I haven't reached such perfect efficiency yet, and I don't think I can, so I will keep working on it. But if it was a point that can be reached, and had I the option to go for it, I'd never do it. I feel like people who are actually living by those principles are frequently weird. Too divided, too uptight, I don't know. If you are able to work hard and party hard, that means you know what both of them are exactly. I don't. I'm still figuring them out and I'm pretty sure the best work or the best parties I've had all came from unexpected things any way."


Mothagesso.