Life Advice

Not real?

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I had a new experience since my last post. Somebody online got a bit aggressive in a discussion and I felt somewhat like it was a personal attack. Thankfully, it got no worse because I did not respond.

I’m well aware  I may be the only person on this blog, ironically, never to have had this happen before, so I’m not going to act like it was a big deal. It is actually the topic we were discussing that bothered me, because I’ve known many people to get defensive about it.

Well, specifically, I’ve known many people to get defensive about how they like to watch horror movies, or read what I would call horror novels, though I believe they are mostly known as Young Adult Fiction. (Yeah, burn.)

Seriously, the amount of times this conversation has happened is a bit scary to me:

Me: You like to watch so and so?

Person: Yeah, I love that (show, movie, etc.)

Me: But it’s horrible.

Person: ( a little less enthusiastically) but I like it.

Me: But stuff like that leaves images in your brain…

Person: But I know it’s not real.

Me: just because it’s not real…

Person: Well, it doesn’t affect me.

It doesn’t always happen in that order, but I can almost guarantee the words “I like it”,”It’s not real”, and “It doesn’t affect me”, will come up.

I should fill in a little bit more of that online debate. See the debate was about books and writing, not movies. That’s mainly because the people I was having it with are readers, and likely not as big on movies as the people I debate movies with. I used to assume that people who were readers didn’t have the same problems (content-wise) as people who weren’t, but I have been disillusioned.

I find to my shock that many teens of about my age or younger write mainly one kind of story. You know the type if you’ve ever browsed through the Young adult section in a bookstore or library. (I avoid that section now.) It’s dramatic, it’s about teens, it usually involves mutants, vampires, zombies, or a post apocalyptic setting that might have a combination of two or all of those choices. The narration is usually in first-person. There is a lot of fear, confusion, and fighting back happening in that person’s mind, soul, or surroundings. On top of this, the person tends to be either incredibly immature, or incredibly callous and cynical. And they can be as young as 12 or as old as 16, usually.

My point being, these books are almost always garbage. Even if they are well-written, there are still several inherent problems with them.

The first one would be they are extremely dark. And that is what my debate centered on, how dark can a book be? (And still be healthy? I presume is the implied question.) Most of the people in this online thing thought it was all right to put a lot of darkness in a story, if, in the end, good overcomes it. Others cautioned against putting too much, and one or two thought it was perfectly fine to get in touch with you inner-villain and go all out on your characters.

Something you guys need to know about fiction writers: our characters become real to us.

The evil characters are not like real people to me, personally, but the ones between good and evil can be,  and the good characters always develop a lot of personality.

But the good ones suffer the most, and that is why the darkness question centers on them. But it also centers on the reader. And on the movie watcher, because movies and books have this in common, they make you, the participant, part of the adventure. They have you rooting for the hero and getting upset when things turn out badly. At least this is what a movie is intended to do. A book does even more in that it can leave it up to you to judge what should have happened. A book gets your mind involved, a movie may only get your emotions. Either way, you are meant to get something out of it.

If there is a lot of darkness in a book, that is what the reader will walk away with. I once got a nightmare from such a book, and I am not a person who usually gets nightmares relating to what I read. When I read such stuff, something inside me just says “This is not right.” But personal feelings aside, I think there are biblical reasons not to focus on darkness.

Suffering, evil, and all that goes with it are a part of life. But going to great lengths in your imagination to see and create such things is unhealthy. We are not meant to live that stuff on purpose. As evidenced by the fact that actors who played too many psycho characters have committed suicide, and many bands that have music centered on darkness are not composed of very stable people.

All I am stating is common sense. If this is where darkness leads then don’t go there. But it makes people angry when I knock their favorite material. Which to me is more evidence in my favor. If someone knocks my reading and watching habits, I’m not going to get super defensive unless I personally have misgivings about it already. When I am confident it’s good, I don’t give a rip what anyone says.

But if a part of me were saying “maybe this isn’t good for me.” I would be defensive, or, I’d choose the better option of considering that this person might be right.

That’s what I ask of my readers, who may already agree with me, or maybe only read all of this because they were mad. I can’t know for certain.

But I know that this stuff is important. The fact that it is fiction only means that it represents what people will learn to expect instead of what they already have; and if you expect bad things, you will get bad things. That’s all I have to say on that. Until next time-Natasha.100_4316

My Report Card.

/ toseealife / 2 Comments

How do you handle disappointments?

I’ve had a lot of them over the past couple of months. They always center around people doing things differently than I was expecting, and not just different, but badly.

As everyone knows I have high standards, and they may be too high at times. I don’t see myself failing as much as I can see other people failing, and I feel let down. Sometimes I do actually have a legitimate reason to expect differently, but not always.

Can you relate?

Well, I can not write some inspired post about how to fix disappointment once and for all. If we were to grade our lives like a report card, how many Ds would we give them? D for a disappointment, D for feeling discouraged, D for despairing of change.

What about some other letters, hmm? How do I personally handle the first D so I don’t get the other two?

Well, I always think about my problem for a while, I weigh it. I may decide I just need to move on, I may decide I need to do something, but the main thing is that I have to give myself an F.

F is good on this report card. F means Forgiveness. Forgive the people who let yo down, forgive yourself for getting discouraged or upset. Forgive God even for doing something you cannot understand. (Not that God needs it, it’s for us.)

Then you might want to give yourself a C for comparison. Compared to bigger issues, this may not really be important, but if it is, C is for Conversation and Companionship. I find it helpful to talk to people about what happened, let them point out things I hadn’t considered, and provide comfort, and then be grateful that they listened to me.

B is for Be Real. It’s not all about me, and the people who let me down often have mistaken ideas about what I want, or they just forget, or they are truly wrong but still need grace. I’ve probably done similar things, so don’t be too harsh.

A is for acceptance. Stuff happens, but often it can end up being a good thing. Never forget that God might be using you in this to help someone else, or that you might be learning something important that you couldn’t otherwise know. At the end of the day, just accept that people will never make you completely happy anyway. It is partly a choice, and partly God’s gift.

You know, I just made this up off the top of my head, but it is what I do to beat disappointment, and  I think it’s pretty good advice. (I might want to copy this list for myself.)

So, how was your report card and do you have any other ideas about not letting disappointments discourage you? Feel free to share them below.

Until next time–Natasha.003zhaoshaoang-flower-bird

Good Obsession

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I have a confession to make, before Girl Meets World was cancelled, I was already losing enthusiasm for it. I liked some episodes, but others just annoyed me. On the whole I considered it a good show and I recommended it, but personally I was losing interest.

This is not abnormal for me, I have what is known (by some people) as an obsessive–compulsive personality. I’m not so compulsive, but I do get obsessed over things, it lasts a few weeks to a few months, but once my interest wanes, I start to have feelings of disgust for the object of my obsession, like you get sick of eating the same food after awhile. If I have just described you, keep reading because chances are you need to hear this as much as I do.

I’ve wondered: if I can lose interest in these things after such a short time, are they really good at all?

I’m not one to just say my brain works that way and leave it there, I only feel this way because of the standards I have that a book or a show eventually fails to meet.

I get this with people too, I like them for a while, and then I see some of their faults and I feel like I misjudged them.

But before I alarm anybody, let me reassure you, I don’t dump my friends every time this happens. I’ve actually never dumped a friend in my life. (In my memory.)

Which is because, obsessive personality or no, one has to realize what is really important in life, and that some things remain important even when they are boring.

My short-lived obsessions are good for me. They keep me finding new enjoyments, and they die out before they really become unhealthy; but the trouble is when the excitement wears off, I have to considered if the thing was worth it.

I’ve never considered if it’s worth it to be interested in a real life person because I value people too much. I think everyone is worth interest and if someone were to say they were not, I would have a problem with that. (I do however, think some people are not worth romantic interest because they are unfit for it, that is a different matter.)

But things are another story, which brings me back to the show. I actually had been watching t for less than a year when it got cancelled, I’m a relatively new fan, and yes, was questioning whether I even still lied t r not. The episodes were okay the firs time you saw them. I’ve used them quite a few times on this blog to help my point. They work well for that. The trouble was, they didn’t go as deep as I wanted. Each episode was only a half hour so that may just be expected.

When it comes to evaluating the merit of a show or movie, I do have to think of the flaws. Though my favorite movie, Frozen, doesn’t have any. Just kidding, it does. I won’t point them out, but they are there. Another of my favorite shows, Ever After High, had major flaws. The shows I currently like, though I would not recommend them to everyone, have plenty.

There is no such thing as a perfect movie or show. There is no perfect book (except the Bible. No punchline here.) There is no perfect person (except Jesus.)

That’s another thing. Some of you may have the 2–week Christian, or 2–week healthy lifestyle, or whatever. They try it, lose enthusiasm, and go back to their ordinary lives. We all have relapses, but in this case it’s clear there never was a real change.

I still can’t fully explain this phenomenon. I only can tell you that it is very hard for human beings to change ourselves,. The common ingredient of these failures is the person wants to get themselves back together, they will get closer to God; they will get on an exercise program or a diet; they will do better.

I’m young, people, but I already know, I will not do any of those things or do them well, if I am doing it just for me. Very few love themselves that much, and if they do they have a whole other problem to deal with.

I have tried to break myself of the obsessive habit, but I realized that God has used it to teach me things. I still have to control it, but it’s actually easier to do that once I stop hating it. As for what I obsess over, this is what I’ve worked out.

  1. I like stuff for a reason; find that reason; learn from it; digest it; and move on.
  2. It’s okay if it’s flawed, just be aware of the flaws, and either stop watching or reading or doing, or do it but eat the meat, spit out the bones.
  3. Only God has ever held my interest and trust at all times, and I am not alwasys feeling it even then.
  4. Let God be God, and let man be man. People fail, God doesn’t.

That last one applies to the writers of books and movies too, by the way. They fail, we need to look for their successes. Good and bad, that is their legacy.

That’s all for now–Natasha.20160628_201011

 

Get Wise

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SO, my next writing project is about Wisdom. My virtue speech went well by the way, it was even kind of fun, and I got a fairly good response on this blog. Since that worked out so well, I thought I’d try to post about Wisdom.

The reason I don’t mind using an assignment as blogging inspiration is that I’d like to talk about Wisdom anyway on this blog.

I could give you some dictionary definitions, but defining wisdom is not as simple as just looking it  up. I realized a long time ago that to even recognize wisdom you need to have a tiny bit of it.

And the best way I know of tot est your wisdom is to read the Bible. I’m serious, the more stuff in there that you can understand, the wiser you are.

Lest I risk alienating everyone who doesn’t read the Bible with that statement,let me explain it a little more. I am not saying only Bible–readers are wise, and that it is the only way to become wise. I’m still talking about what wisdom is.

Proverbs is famously known for being the book about godly wisdom, but a lot o proverbs have been retold, or hit upon, by other sources. Aesop’s Fables for one often has stories that line up with Proverbs exactly. In Proverbs we are told to desire wisdom above rubies, above gold and silver, to get it and understanding above all else. The word Proverb actually just means a wise, pithy saying that is usually just common sense. You probably knew that already. Of all the biblical books, Proverbs is the least spiritual and most practical. I don’t know why more non-Christians don’t study it.

Most of the sayings in this book are attributed to Solomon or his mother, Bathsheba. Solomon apparently wrote the book for his son.

I promise I’m giving you this background for a reason.

Solomon is known also as the wisest man on earth before Jesus. He was not born that way, but when he was still a child (by Hebrew standards) he became king, and God visited him, telling him He would give him one request and whatever he asked, he could have it. How many stories and movies have been centered around this idea? The Midas Touch, for one. I am sure there are others, the Fisherman and the genie; any Arabian night story almost has some point where the hero gets a wish. Well, digressing. Solomon must have thought about it, and he says (to condense it) “Now, O LORD my God, You have made Your servant king…but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in…Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge you people, that I may discern between good and evil.” (1 Kings 3:7-9.)

Sometimes in the bible, God has one of those jaw-drop moments, or so it seems from His reaction. Of course, He knew what Solomon would say, but God has this ability, kind of like a mom’s to know what to expect and yet still be surprised. he was so pleased with Solomon’s request that he promised him wealth, honor (respect and fame), and long life, on top of wisdom. Later Solomon wrote that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of  wisdom. (Proverbs 9:10.)

very few people like that answer. Why should we have to fear God to be wise?

Well, in my own experience, before we fear God, we always fear something else, whether it’s failure; rejection; people; pain; or loss. Sometimes we fear ourselves. Human beings have to fear something, fear is a natural emotion, but like all emotions, it needs to be directed at the right thing, in the right amount. The fear of the Lord is the healthy kind of fear. Until we fear Him, we will not cease to fear anything else. You have to be more afraid to be out of God’s will than to be out of your own controlled area before you can really do anything for God.

That said, wisdom is born out of knowledge of life, and the principles therein, and those come from understanding. The other thing Proverbs is always telling you to seek, usually right along with wisdom. It is because to be wise, you must first understand things as they really are.

This is why the Christian believes true wisdom is from God alone, because he can show you things as they truly are, and no one else can do that.

The word understanding that Solomon used in the above verses is synonymous with Hearing, a hearing heart is a wise heart.

This is important. In Shakespeare’s great play “the merchant of Venice” the heroine, Portia, utters a candid speech about being good. “If to do were as easy as to know what it were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men’s cottages, princes’ palaces…I can easier teach twenty what it were good to be done than be one of the twenty to follow mine own instruction!”

Portia makes an excellent point, it is easier to know the wise choice than it is to make it. The wise choice is always the best one, morally, practically, and in the long run, emotionally. But we all know people very seldom make the best choice. It is not hard to find wisdom, Proverbs 2 talks about her crying out in the street, for anyone to get. But they are not interested.

In the end, getting wisdom is not hard, wanting it is. Fools are the people too set in their own ways and own opinions to seek counsel and to learn by it, according to proverbs. getting wisdom requires wanting to hear it, and many prefer rather to talk about their feelings and their problems till the cows come home rather than spend five minutes listening to good advice. A prime example is Lydia from “Pride and Prejudice.” Who, in the author’s words, seldom listens to anyone for more than half a minute, and never attends her sister Mary at all.

The conclusion I come to after this is what I originally thought: asking for wisdom already demonstates that you have it. The beginnings of it.  That is why Solomon exhorts us to seek it, because if we do, we have already started to find it. Wisdom is tuly it’s own fuel, it builds upon itself.

Those are my thoughts for now, until next time–Natasha.

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Poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.

Unbelievable.

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I cannot believe what I just read, there’s this article on a news website about how one university in WA has declared proper grammar to be racist.

I was incredulous. I read the short article and from what I could gather, though the people themselves did not explain it clearly, their position is that because English is always changing, it is not fair to expect people who are speaking English poorly or as a second language to keep up with it. I am perhaps giving their position more credit than it deserves since they didn’t actually state that, they just said racism was ingrained in our culture.

You can read it for yourself, if you want exactly what they said:

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/02/22/university-of-washington-declares-correct-grammar-is-racist/

People, do I really even need  to say it?

Okay, I will: this is absolutely ridiculous.

Not only is this grossly unfair to young writers like myself and most of my followers, who want to do well in their writing, but it is an insult to the very ethnicities they claim to be assisting.

If you don’t speak English well, you deserve the chance to learn how to do it better. You deserve the opportunity to read and be able to understand great books, great concepts, and great feeling. You deserve to not sound like an idiot when you write and when you speak. You deserve to learn. You do not deserve to be written off by people who don’t understand what respect is. This isn’t even about entitlement, there is no record of the students complaining about this, even if they did, no one should buy that kind of thinking. It’s demeaning.

I don’t believe we are entitled to much in this world, but to learn and improve is one thing everyone is entitled to, God sends us into the world with that ability. Even the mentally challenged ones.

To tell someone they cannot use proper grammar is like telling them they cannot learn how to walk. It’s like telling them they are retarded, and not by choice, but by the system. Sadly, many kids are told they can’t walk. Guess what, a lot of them learn how to anyway. (See the testimony of Gianna Jessen.)

Now, it may be brought up that the English language really does change, and that is true. But so does the Spanish language. I have been studying Spanish for over a year, I also study French and Khmer and I know ASL. Each of those languages has slightly different or completely different grammar. If I do not use it, I will sound like I did not actually learn the language to the natives of it. That will demonstrate a lack of effort, and a disrespect to their tongue. They may forgive me if I make a few errors, but if it is clear I blatantly did not try, what will they think?

Why should I not feel this way about anyone who does not try to learn my language properly? Just because I clearly am a racist because my whole culture is, so I must be too. What a straw man.

The truth is I do not respect some people of other ethnicities, but it is not their race, it is their behavior. And I do not hate them because of it, I don’t respect some people of the same race as me either because they are not deserving of respect. There is a respect for humanity everyone must be shown, and I have no problem with that; but respect for intelligence, ability, and virtue, all that must be earned and anyone who says otherwise doesn’t understand what those things are.

Racism is not saying or thinking someone of a different race is stupid or uneducated or bad, it is thinking they are that way because of their race and not actually weighing them in terms of their behavior.

And saying someone is racist because they point this out, that is actually being biased. I trust all my readers are intelligent enough to figure this out without my help, I’m just laying out my position.

By the way, I have relatives who are Mexican, I am several different ethnicities myself, and
I have family members who have been the victims of racism, so I know what I’m talking about.

It does no good to hate people just for being what they are; and that goes for people born in the middle class and with white skin just as much as it does for the impoverished ones.

Education is the key to ending racism, and these people will only increase it by attacking grammar. Because then what next? history is already being rewritten as it is, will math or science follow? (Arguably science already has, but I won’t go into that.)

So I want everyone to see this post as a defense of the races who got dissed by this stupid idea; and a defense of the races who were supposed to feel defended and in reality were even more insulted. I’m not afraid to say all this either because I’m tired of us just accepting the labels.

P. S. (I may have unwittingly made some grammatical errors while writing this, I am not perfect.)

–Natasha.

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Reach higher.

Ladies and gents.

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Ladies and gents, may I call this phrase to your attention?

The one I just used, yes.

I talked about what it is like to be a lady, and now it only seems fair to say a word about the term gentleman.

I explained what gentry were in my last post, but though we still use the term gentleman (often sarcastically) today, a lot of us haven’t heard the term “gentlewoman.” Though it was also called being a gentleman’s daughter if I understand correctly.

There’s a scene in that classic book Pride and Prejudice in which the heroine, Elisabeth and the aunt of Darcy, Lady Catherine De’Bourgh, are having an argument.

It is without a doubt  one of the best scenes in my opinion. And at one memorable moment, Lady Catherine, (not at all acting like her title) accuses Elisabeth of trying to quit the sphere she was brought up in. The translation of that is: Mr. Darcy is too good for her. By this time Elisabeth herself feels this is true, but angered by the Lady Catherine, she retorts that he is a gentleman and she is a gentleman’s daughter, thus far they are equal.

Let me pause there. A huge complaint about men doing the things that used to be called chivalry is that they think women can’t take care of themselves. That’s why gentlemen get such a bad rap. But here Elisabeth states the culturally held opinion of her time, that a gentleman and a  gentlewoman are equals.

And if you examine the story, you will find no indication otherwise. In that time, and between that class of people, there was a code of conduct. Followed by everyone. It didn’t matter whether you were male or female. If you were well bred you followed it and were expected to understand it. In one example, there was a rule that only two gentlemen could initiate an acquaintance with each other, under certain circumstances, such as one moving into an new neighborhood.Under any other circumstances, a polite person would never walk up and introduce themselves, a mutual acquaintance, (male or female, it didn’t matter,) would make the introductions. In this way friendship circles would grow bigger and bigger, but also could stay very small if the friends so wished.

I point this out because it is just one example of how their society worked, and one we no longer use so no one can possibly get offended over it.

It applied to both genders; and that’s the thing we don’t remember anymore, that courtesy is gender neutral.

I could make a list of the few gestures of chivalry that men still attempt to make, but it’s not necessary, we all know them. I just wonder why we’re so hard upon them.

Gentlemen have  a hard time now, because  a lot of the world hates the very idea of them. They mark a clear distinction between male and female, dare I say, roles in society.

I think also the stereotypical image of the man, who’s really a boy, wearing kid gloves and lace, turns off the modern mind; but I might point out not long ago it was acceptable for guys to wear sparkly vests and frizzy hair and that was cool. I’m sure there’s some weird things we still allow that the 18th century gentleman would have found to be ridiculous. this isn’t really about looks.

There’s another novel, “North and South,” by Elisabeth Gaskell, that deals with the idea of being a gentleman, among other things. We meet several men in that novel who are not gentleman by rank, but demonstrate some amount of chivalry that prove that in their hearts at least they are noble.

The mark of a gentleman is strength. And it’s odd that I say that, for traditionally gentry did not work or exercise a great deal unless they so chose. But it’s strength of mind.

What good breeding was all about, at least before priggish people got ahold of the term, was teaching children how to handle things like criticism, being insulted, being ignored, or just having someone be rude to them in general. It also taught them how to treat each other and themselves with respect. how to disapprove of people without dehumanizing them. How to disagree with someone without making a scene or resorting to violence. Of course, if he had to, a gentleman was allowed to defend someone with force, but if among other gentleman, as he was always supposed to be, it was assumed he would never have to.

On a lady’s part, she would also never resort to violence, because it was seen as a mark of weak self control, not of strength. If ever she was in need of defense, she was trusted to have enough gentleman about her at all times to be able to look out for her. This was not a mark of weakness. It was simply a lady’s duty to set an example of gentleness, and a gentleman’s duty to see that she was always free and unafraid to do so.

That’s why to be a fatherless, husbandless, and brother-less girl was so serious. It was a matter of honor.

That’s not to say there wasn’t sexism, there always is, but sexism is not a class thing. It’s the choice of men and women, and it’s a private choice.

Being a lady and a gentleman was actually the best defense against sexism, because it taught you from an early age to treat the opposite sex with deference, and to respect their own accomplishments.

It’s true, that sunk to some shallow proportions for shallow people. Like valuing a woman only for her talents and fine clothing instead of for her mind, and a man only for his style and talents in sports, or cards, or dancing.

But class did not create shallowness, shallow people will be shallow whatever class they are in, and as far as that goes, the gentry probably had the least dangerous way of handling it.

My conclusion about gentleman is that, like ladies, they are made what they are by their hearts. If the way they show it outwardly is different than it used to be, fine. But whatever way they show it ought to be appreciated, not scorned.

Until next time–Natasha.

Doves: A classic symbol of gentleness.

Doves: A classic symbol of gentleness.