Julio's Musings

It’s been so long since my last post. It’s been more than three months now. Time flies, it seems, though we all know that. I had actually meant to write in those three months. I do, in fact, have three drafts of three different posts. I simply never finished any of them. It was a mix of having other things to do, procrastination when I didn’t have other things to do, some laziness, and not really ever feeling like sitting and writing.

Well, it’s time for me to write something. Today will be yet another blog post where I simply write whatever comes to my mind at this time. The posts I have drafts of all have a topic to them, and since I failed to fully flesh out those posts, I’ll try writing about whatever comes to mind in hopes that something will actually get written and finished. I apologize in advance for the lack of direction and the confusion that will probably come from this post.

Sadness All Around

One of the things I’ve noticed over the past few months is that many people around me seem to be less-than-happy. There’s just a bunch of sadness going around, whether it be because of certain things that have happened or because certain things just haven’t happened. I have had many moments where I have wished I could make things better for these people; that I could make their issues go away or make their desires come true. Alas, I’m pretty much useless, unfortunately. I wish I could help them, but I can’t. All I can do is listen to them, try to understand them, and support them.

I’ve always been a person who wants to help others. I’ve always wanted to make things good and happy for those that I love, even if it causes me some inconvenience. One thing I’ve had to learn over the years, however, is that nobody can always help. Nobody can change all that’s wrong with the world. Sometimes, all we can do is stand beside the person until the troubles pass. Actually, I’m reminded of this comic:

Sometimes, all you can do is stand in the rain with your friend. (Though my friends would have to stand out in the sun with 120 degree temps for me. My problems would definitely not be rain related!)

I guess some of the biggest things that can cause of sadness are related to love, whether it be romantic or familial or the platonic love of friends. Putting ourselves out there is always risky, isn’t it? We can put so much effort into something and there’s a good chance it won’t work out how we want it to. The girl or guy won’t feel the same way or will end up hurting you. Your family will turn their back on you over silly arguments. Your friends will leave you behind for other people or simply not put any real effort into your friendship. Despite these things, we keep putting ourselves out there. It’s good that we do this. Eventually we will find the right people who fit into our lives. Of course, the problem is we sometimes take those people for granted and instead focus on those that have rejected us. At some point we have to learn to let go and focus yourself on those that are there for you and are worth your time.

And now I’m reminded of a quote:

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

 Ah, C.S. Lewis. Smart guy.

With seeing many others down and out, I actually feel a bit sad myself for an entirely silly reason: I feel bad because I’m not feeling sad like others are. It’s ridiculous, I know. It’s not that I’m particularly thrilled with how life has gone or how certain things have been going for me, but I just don’t feel any sort of sadness about it. I don’t feel uncared for, I don’t feel like people are taking me for granted, and I don’t feel like nothing is going right (though, hey, if a nice IT job wants to come up for me right now, that would be fantastic!). My favorite season is here (Fall is amazing!). I guess you can say I’m in a relatively happy state (with some blah moments here and there). Yet, I see my friends not being relatively happy and I feel like I shouldn’t be, either. Empathy has always been one of my bigger weakness (and occasional strength).

Ugh…Facebook…

So about a month ago, I deactivated my Facebook for about a week and a half. I did this after my cousin had posted that he wanted to either delete some people (he does have an overabundance of Facebook friend) or deactivate his account. He actually ended up doing neither, but his post made me wonder what it would be like to be without Facebook for a bit.

Social networks are a big part of communication these days. These networks allow us to communicate with distant friends and family as well as those we see all the time to share our thoughts, feelings, things we like, etc. They give everyone a little tiny space on the Internet to be themselves, no matter how crazy or strange or boring or exciting or mean or nice or all of the above we are.

That being said, these networks can be tiresome. I deactivated my account because I found myself constantly checking Facebook even when I did not intend to. I’d unlock my phone to send a text message, but instead I’d end up tapping on Facebook. I’d open up the web browser on my computer to look something up, but I end up clicking on my Facebook bookmark. I always ended up on Facebook!

It wasn’t just that, though. I honestly just got tired of reading what was on Facebook. We’re all pretty much regular people and lead regular lives. We all have our ups and downs. A lot of us are not exactly where we want to be or where we’d thought we’d be in life. That’s pretty much how life is, a constant struggle with some good and wonderful things mixed in. But sometimes people are too opinionated for my tastes (yes, I’m speaking about my own personal preferences here). This has become especially apparent with the constant bickering over politics or religion or civil rights or whatever else people love giving their opinions about. Now, I’m not saying that giving your opinion is wrong; far from it. It’s just that a lot of people these days are so intolerant to any sort of differing opinion. It’s an attitude of “If you don’t think the way I do, then you are an idiot, evil, a blind sheep, ignorant, etc.” We value being able to put our opinions out there, but we hate it when others put a different opinion out there. It’s absurd!

That’s how things are right now, though, aren’t they. People are so divided and with that division comes more hatred than I’ve seen in my lifetime. And why is that? Why are people filled with so much anger and hate? Why is it that a difference of opinion brings out so much disgust? What happened to being able to have civil discourse? I guess I’ll never know.

Some Other Things

• I stood in line with my brother for an iPhone 5. Well, actually, three iPhone 5’s. The line was relatively short and we were in and out in an hour. The ridiculous part about this whole thing (besides, you know, standing in line for a silly phone) is that fact that people were actually buying spots from those closer to the front. We heard a story that one of the spots up close sold for $1100! Seriously?! Why would you pay that insane amount of money for someone’s spot towards the front of the line? It’s not like they weren’t going to have enough phones. One lady who was maybe two people behind us bought the fifth spot in line for $200. She really didn’t want to wait in line and decided to go to the ATM to give these guys $200 so she could be fifth. If she had waited, it would have taken her an hour to be done, but at least she’d still have $200. You’re basically paying a ton of money so you can be up closer in the line to pay at least another couple of hundred dollars. It’s just stupid (in my opinion). 
• It is nice to have 4G LTE and actually be able to use the Internet when downtown. It’s much more difficult to do that when on 3G (or “4G” since AT&T likes to call it that…).
• On the train ride home this evening, the train stopped before reaching the 55th, 56th, 57th Street Hyde Park station. The announcement came over the speaker that we were waiting because there was some sort of medical emergency close to the next station. After a little more than 10 minutes, the train finally started moving. As we progressed slowly, I saw flashlights outside of the window. There were cops outside. As the train went a little further, on the rocks next to the track was the body of a young man (I had originally thought it was a girl, but the news report said it was a man). He had apparently been hit by an earlier Metra train. It’s not everyday that you see a dead body on your train ride home. It was disturbing to see. Poor guy. Such an awful way to go.
• Resident Evil 6 came out today, which actually has me excited! I’ve seen a ton of mixed reviews on it, but that’s okay. I’m sure it’ll be fun to play even if it has flaws. Actually, all of the RE games have had flaws, but they were still fun to play.
• Speaking of video games. I’ve been replaying the Metal Gear Solid games the past couple of months. It started when I got the HD version of MGS3. MGS3 is pretty much my favorite video game of all time. I. Love. That. Game. The story is fantastically told. The characters are great. The bosses are well thought out and are all fun to fight. Also, it does have one of my favorite bosses in The End. I love that you can kill him before you even meet him on the battlefield, or you can wait for him to die of old age, or you can go through one of the most gratifying boss fights and take him out that way. And the learning how Naked Snake became Big Boss is great, too.
• So, I’m on MGS4 right, which is also a good game. After that I’ll have to get the HD version of MGS2 and replay that one. Yeah, I’m playing them out of order, but I don’t care. Maybe I’ll even play the original MGS, though that one is a bit more rough to play since it’s only in its 14 year old PSone form (which looks really terrible these days). Yeah, I need to stop talking about these games because I could make this post twice as long doing it!