Friendly Competition

the simpsons



Competition brings out the best and most competitive spirit in people. They fight harder to win, and they fight stronger to be the best. meanwhile, it can also bring out the worst in people. Competition can be a catalyst for bringing out the 'inner demon' of people. Sometimes the tunnel vision of winning shrouds out the other sights. Competition is both a great thing and a bad thing, depending on the person and situation. Sometimes friendly competition can push a person to change themselves to become a better, harder, faster, and stronger opponent, even when it is not even an official 'competition.'

Shrouding out the opponents in a 'friendly competition' can be a devilish tactic. Yet, some people do not ever resort to something like even caring so much about a competition. It is friendly to them, nothing serious. This is no sort of commitment. Yet there are the others who the only thing they think about is competition. The plan to win is to exploit their weaknesses in a friendly sports game. But one might just say that their motivation is just much greater, but how far does motivation go until it reaches the point of unfriendly? If a person seems to be willing to set aside a friendship in order to win, it does not seem to stay 'friendly.'

Competing can be completely intrinsic also. Challenging yourself. Personally, I always compare all my grades with one of my best friends. When they score higher than me, to be honest, I am disappointing. That is why I push myself to score higher. They have no idea I am in this marathon race with them, yet in my mind I am continuing to race and race until I beat them. It is still a friendly competition within my mind. This is not a marathon filled with envy or lust, but a test of change. The actions I take in order to change myself to be a better and stronger person are positively positive.

Competition can be both positive and negative. Two friends that race to the end of the court and back laughing does not seem to be bad at all. Like this, competition sometimes does not mean anything. When a competition starts to change from friendly to a serious race, it is all about the actions the person takes in whether or not it is still a justifiable marathon.

Repetition Repetition

It is no secret and it has been said many times that we humans are animals of repetitiveness. We repeat our actions over and over to make stimuli more and more familiar. I feel that the more we are exposed to repetitive actions, the more we are able to predict the responses and also the more we become accustomed to being in the situation.

Everyone has their morning routine: wake up, take shower, brush teeth, get dressed, spray on heavy fierce © abercrombie cologne, and be on their way. It is just something we do everyday. We do not think much of it, because at this time in the morning, and party due to a lack of sleep and much needed midnight call of duty playing, we are a robot at 6 am. We pretty much only have automated responses. If a question were to be addressed to us, we would reply with the sophisticated response of "uggghhh." Yet, how many times have you driven somewhere and then at your destination thought, "Huh.. I don't even really remember driving at all." This is the automatic processing that goes on in our repetitive brains. We are repetitive by nature.



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Go back a couple hundred, no thousand, years. Cavemen. What did they do? They went out, got food, came back. Hunters and gatherers. Our nature has proned and primed us into our lives today. We do what we know to do.

I have come to enjoy some of the repetitive environments around me. I have a friend who asks me the exact same question at the exact same spot at the exact same time of the day. What goes through her mind is, Just like yesterday we are going to eat, I need to ask "what are you going to eat? And then just like magic I always respond. I like this social aspect of them being friendly. Yet sometimes, personally, my answers vary... from pizza to pizza bagel.

I do like to switch it up sometimes, but I think that is just me. I do not know why, but one of my favorite things to do is find a crazy alternative route home. One time from my friends house in Hiawatha, I decided to take county road, which eventually led me into toddville as I drove along some random gravel road. Yet, I enjoyed changing up the normal (especially because my parents were paying for gas.. nice!). I think I enjoyed this because I was adding new excitement to my life. Even thought I was purely content where I was going the normal way home, I might have gone into robot mode and forgot about the drive entirely! So let me promise you, going on a gravel road next to a farm is more fun than taking the boring blairs ferry road that is the repetitive drive.

So let me break this down, repetition is not bad, it is just normal. Repetition shapes our lives into what it is and how we view our concepts on certain things. Whether they are a hassle or not, repetition of these events dulls the edges. So if you are content where you are right now, or if you want to change it up, either is a pretty damn fine way to go.

Another Take on Spreading Happiness

So I have tended to aim a lot of my posts at the conquest, or journey, or voyage, or the luxurious resort of happiness. That's right, happiness. what we all strive for and set our targets on. Without it, we are nothing. Yet, I feel we all have some of it somewhere inside ourselves so we are always something.

Several of my posts have been like "spreading happiness.." or something else cheesy like "telling lame jokes." But let me tell you a little story of something that happened to me.. personally! So I was sitting in class, dreading for it to begin. It was another average, normal, boring day. Another day of this and that from my perspective in the back of the classroom. Yet something exuberant happened! The teacher whirled in. It was obvious that the teacher was in a good mood from the moment thay started talking. They were cranking off joke after joke even at what I think they knew was a pretty boring topic. The topic's dull edges began to not be so rough as they lightened the mood. I do not think they were making the topic more interesting, I feel that they were setting everyone in a better mood. And that better mood made us want to be respectful and actually listen to what they were saying. (And yes, I understand it is hard to explain.. as it was one of those.. "be there" moments)

Let me get all hippy/japanese chi on you. I think that there is a force that moves between us. It is not actually 'real' but it is there. It is what people can transfer between each other. Something was transfered to me that day. I sat there in a good mood as we took a stupid test. I doubt that I actually did any better on the test, but I can honestly say I enjoyed it one notch more. So yes, I do feel that it is a force that moves. Sometimes someone can block all the forces you are taking in by giving off such strong negative energy towards you. But those people are the ones that I think can receive the positive rays of force. Just like a magnet, they are the ones with all the negative electrons that are attracting everything. Balance is key!

Spread Happiness!

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Exercise

Exercise: bodily or mental exertion, esp. for the sake of training or improvement of health.

So I have never been the most 'exercised' in the 3rd grade gym class, but I have always been able to pull my own weight (except on the pull up bar, I hate the pull up bar.) But really, what is exercise? It is no secret that exercise is 'healthy'. But at what cost? When you exercise, it hurts. My body is clearly telling me "Stop stupid, that hurts me!" Yet, I continue to do it because without it I would not be able to burn the layer of fat in my body. But also as I continue to burn this fat and gain muscle, I am getting rid of the typical human necessity- fat.

Fat is what our primitive ancestors craved and aimed at gaining everyday to survive. Yet now, they tell us we need to survive off burning fat. Pretty ironic, I guess.

Whenever I exercise, I feel the need to do it alone. It is embarressing when someone is watching me squat the bar. That is why I am perfectly satisfied doing my exercise video in my basement. I don't want people judging me on how much I can lift. All I am aiming for is results. I want to 'get big.' In the typical teenager frontal lobic thinking, we are not thinking of how much time spend exercising will increase our life span, but how much better we will look now and how many more senoritas we will get.

So in the end, I hate exercising. But I feel it is totally a necessity to our survival. We can always acquire the fats from wendy's, and thats how we differ from the men in loinclothes. As much as I hate it, I still gotta go do it!

The reason why I tell bad jokes

What is Michal De Montaigne's favorite soda drink? Montaigne Dew!


Lots of my jokes are pretty bad. My jokes tend to end with my recipient with a face palm reaction. Yet, I still contineously shell them out. It is almost embarressing when i saw something that I think is funny, yet no one laughs with me. But sometimes, the reason is not laughing with me, but at me. That in my mind is pure success. As long as the person I am speaking to is laughing, I could not care less of what I end up looking like.

Laughing is what some people consider the ultimate medicine. Joy can be a shotgun full of endorphines that can release into a brain, and I think that a joke can trigger this joy shotgun. I am such a giving person. I spread joy by giving face palm reactions. I think on the inside they are laughing. It is crucial to feel that you at least like your jokes, even if no one else does. Not only do I (think at least) am 'spreading this joy' I am also making myself happy in the process.

I come up with my joes usually from the same process. It is an extremely simple minded process. Take a word that sounds like something, and use it in that context of the something. That is what a pun is. America loves puns. Such as in the 1930's the president's favorite toy to swing around his waist was the 'hoover hoop' (like hula hoop? I know, that was really really bad, but It was funnier [to myself] at the time when I said it). So creating puns is not a hard process.

America loves to laugh!


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College

To answer my own question in the title of this blog, I have no idea. So if you are here searching for the answers, this is not the place. However, if you are with me on the same level, and want to meet me half way, we should first define what our questions are. I think that is we are going to try to get to the place where we can answer our questions; we need to think of them first.

So college, yes, it is no doubt that it is in the front (or back) of all high schoolers minds. Our lives are obsessed and addicted to it. It is all some of us think about. I worry almost everyday about it. College, the time after high school. Do my grades exactly correlate what college I can get into? And better yet, does whatever college I get into define my income job right after college, and then so if A=B and B=C does my grades and ACT score define the REST OF MY ENTIRE LIFE? But then I just keep being anxious. That is what they tell us. They tell us getting into college is important. They say to have a safety school. And they are warping our minds to tell us without a good college degree we are only setting ourselves up for failure. Maybe they are a little modest and saying they are not trying to warp our brains. Yet still, everyday they tell me high school is only important because afterwards it determines what college you go to.

But then that brings up the question of what college is right for me. Do I want to find a balance of 50% fun 50% academics? Or do I want to discipline myself into 100% and no play? yet, that makes me a dull boy. I need to find the perfect balance of college. I have no idea what that perfect balance is, but I think the only way to find it is through trial and error.

So I got what I am going to do there, now where am I going to go? What if I don't get into the one that I think is perfect for me? Holy crap, I don't even know which one is perfect for me! The common thoughts about a small school: all they do is study, and I might be missing out on the (quote unquote) college experience. Yet, if I go to a typical big school, I don't want to get lost. (Not physically, I mean mentally). Personally, I have always been able to deal and find my way in unfamiliar circumstances, so I don't think it will be a huge problem. But what if it is? I don't know!

College. It is important. That is what they tell us, and I have been brainwashed into believing them. It is current preoccupying my life indirectly, and soon it will directly. That is why I am nervous about it. But honestly, I think I need to just go with the flow and accept what comes my way.



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Why I Write

This is one of those mandatory 7th grade revised essays that everyone has to do at some point in their life. It is when their angry white-haired english teacher forces everyone to sit down and do a web outline defining why they write. Why do we write? It seems obvious, to get an A grade in english class. It seems that is the absolute only reason why high schoolers and middle schoolers write. None of them sit down and open a word document for any other reason. Word seems to be always started with their name and date in the top right hand corner; followed by a few lines of seperation, a title, and then five paragraphs double spaced. Yes, this is one of the reasons I write. But I can say it is not the only reason why.

I write about my experiences. Many times when I have time on my hands I open up a word document. From there, I move forward. I go back in time to some moments I have chosen in my life that I feel is important. These moments are what I write about, but I do not JUST write about these times. I do so much more; I define them. I define everything that happened that night. I do this in order to clarify, and I clarify everything. That is why I feel it is important for myself to go back into these moments and observe the life that happened. Memories can become distant, fuzzy, and unclear when they are shoved to the back of the bus that is your memory. That is why I do this. I think it needs to be brought back into the light. Not only do I enjoy rethinking about things that have happened to me, I learn from them.

Everyone says that the past can repeat itself. That is another reason I feel the need to waft away the smog that covers my memories. I believe strongly that the more clear our memories are, the easier we are able to replicate what we would like to happen if we were ever put in a similar situation. So that is why I write. I write to define my life. My life is unique from anyone else's, and I like to keep it that way. It is interesting to myself to see what I think about things. That is why I write. I write for myself, not anyone else. And yes, I write to not only declare my past, I write to define my future.



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