Inner Thoughts

Time passes from one second the other. Each second that passes is one more I will never be able to retrieve. If I were to look back on my life, I wonder what I would have to be proud of. What would be my legacy and what would others have to say about me? A few somewhat interesting things have come about in my life as of lately. For one of my classes I was required to have a language partner. I feel this is a very good thing. So now I have one, but I feel too afraid to speak. I lack confidence and more than before, this is clear to me. Before this characteristic was only pointed out to me by others, but in this case it is made clear to me. I want to do well and be successful in life. However if I ever want to truly gain happiness and freedom of expression I need to find a way to break down this barrier that I have artificially created.

Putting all of this aside, I have also determined that issues I have had in the past have not truly been resolved. Some of my earlier posts reflect these issues. I believe the key factor to most of my self-inflicted problems, is not truly knowing who I am. When a person finally discovers his or herself, I believe that life can unfold easier. Part of this self-discovery is up to the individual. The other part of the discovery is the person discovering who she or he is in Christ. Currently, I am trying to discover who I am relative to everyone else in this society. Still I find myself separated. I hate being different and yet I also hate being categorized. I want to ask people what it is that truly divides us? What is it that could truly divide us after all of the clothes and outward appearances are stripped away? We possess minds that are capable of recording experiences and in turn are shaped by those experiences. Every single individual that is around the world is different and no matter if they grew up in the same place and under the same environment, they are ultimately different from each other. This is also true about identical twins. They are almost biologically identical and yet are still different as early as in the womb due to different environmental factors that affect the various genes. I want to present this question to people from all over the world. What is it that makes us all so different from each other? And why do we need to be divided and how can you divide humans when in truth there are no definite divisions presented outside of physical appearances?

Every second I am with you is like a dream

Life is both wonderful and cruel. I have learned to guard myself against the world. Although there remains one thing that presses hard on my soul. I have always had problems opening up to people. I am not close to many. I have tried so hard to not become attached to others and yet here I am facing one of the greatest obstacles of my life. Maybe it isn't really that serious, but it affects me in everything that I do. The phrase "Every second I am with you is like a dream" perfectly describes how I live. The only time I am truly happy is when I am with him, the one I have fallen in love with. But what is the point? A dream is only a dream. A figment of one's imagination. Once you awaken, it is all gone. No matter how real it seems, reality stands as a rude awakening. The thing about love is no matter what you do or tell yourself, if it is true, you will have no control over how you feel. I do not choose to feel this way, I only want to go on with my life being perfectly content with never feeling anything at all. Truly I wish this could be how it is.
Love is cruel. It follows you around, plays tricks on your mind, and binds your soul holding on to your mind and heart. Because of my true love, I am unable to move on, to see what is before me. I am a slave to my heart. I can only love him and still so while knowing he could never care for me no matter what I do or how I change. That is why love is cruel and also why I will never find true happiness.
I love you, you love me not, I will always love you and you will never care. I am lonely once again only seeking peace in your smile. A week without seeing you is a eternity of pain. Now I live only for release. I never asked to feel this way, I only wish that for once in my life someone would love me too.
Love is cruel and unforgiving. Love is pain and love is loneliness.
I only wish I could be given a chance. For once I only wish I was given a chance.
Sorry I can not be more perfect.

These are my personal feelings not meant to be interpreted any particular way.

Peace in Direction continued

Everyday I have to face this same divide. Even though we may be close, we can never really have a connection. Ok so people with multiple backgrounds feel left out. There is definitely more to it. From my experience, people find ways of making these feelings of exclusion worse. I have always hated people to ask me “what are you?” or “what is your background?” The question alone is reasonable, but what can I say? I do not want to go through the list. There is not one that is over another and when people ask and you answer there is always a “no way” or “you are lying”. They assume I am lying and that one group I list is perhaps a minuscule percentage such as 12%. Well no! Why cannot people except this. They want to know what group makes up the majority. I am what I have said and if you do not believe me, there is nothing I can do. So I do not tell people.
Lately I have realized something more that deals with background or maybe even origin. Some people will not date outside of their “race”. This has been around for a while, but I kind of thought that maybe it was not so much an issue anymore. So I hope that it is clear what I am trying to explain. No identity, not background, equates to no relationships, no future and further loneliness. So I feel now I am not only unable to find an identity within a group of people, but now no matter what I do I will always be alone and unloved. It really hurts. It doesn’t matter who you are or how nice you are, they don’t care because you are not apart of their group. Even worse is when you are part of their group and just because you don’t look a certain way or because you are not “pure blood” you are still nothing to them; worthless. Perhaps these words are in reflection of personal experience. Some people fine there place, but with discovery, does not a certain divide take place. So if I feel more comfortable with these people over another… does that mean I am rejecting part of who I am? So everyday I wish I were someone else, someone better than who I am, for the person I love and for those around me. I want to be better than others too and show them that I am kind, caring, loving and determined. Then maybe they will accept me. I know it seems dumb, but this is what some people have to go through. But from all of this, I have become able to see the world differently than others. I do not see a Latino person or an Asian person, I see a human being and an individual. This perspective I would not trade for anything and I wish I could clearly share it with the world. Perhaps if people all over the world would understand as I do, there would not be genocide, discrimination, superiority complexes, and violence between people. I wish it could be this way. There is more I wish I could say, but for now I have to be silent about this issue.

Peace in Direction

I think that it is time that I become more truthful on how I feel about certain topics. There are many things in my life that I find stressful and difficult to discuss. I want to first go over the issue on unity and past identification. Throughout the world lie groups of people who banned together and share a common ethnicity, ideal, and religion. These people have over time created their own traditions and customs that have become like their identity. So what happens when someone does not have that unity found with one group of people? What if the background or identity ties are unclear or disconnected? This is an issue that many people with more than one background have to face. This is a journey that can be long, lonely, and often painful. Until recently I have not really paid much attention to the “racial” divides people have artificially created to form the “them” and “us” divide. But race really does not have much to do with it. The Encarta World English Dictionary says:

Race n.
each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics : people of all races, colors, and creeds.
• a group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.; an ethnic group : we Scots were a bloodthirsty race then.
• the fact or condition of belonging to such a division or group; the qualities or characteristics associated with this : people of mixed race.
• a group or set of people or things with a common feature or features : some male firefighters still regarded women as a race apart.
• Biology a population within a species that is distinct in some way, esp. a subspecies : people have killed so many tigers that two races are probably extinct.
• (in nontechnical use) each of the major divisions of living creatures : a member of the human race | the race of birds.
• poetic/literary a group of people descended from a common ancestor : a prince of the race of Solomon.
• archaic ancestry : two coursers of ethereal race.

So what does this mean? These racial categories can really consist of whatever similar characteristics the mind of the chooser decides upon. I could create a racial group consisting of those who have rather busy eyebrow and call them their own race. So who decided how these racial groups would be divide? Back in the early 19th century an emphasis was placed on race as a way to explain and support ideas of racial superiority and social Darwinism. The inferiority of some races over others was used as justification for slavery, attitudes of discrimination, exploitation, and ultimately extermination. This extreme came fast in the 1930s with the rise of the Nazi regime and ideology and other fascist groups. Now though, it has been made very clear that intelligence has nothing to do with racial background. As birds, human beings can come in many different colors, shapes, and with different characteristics. Even so, it is also clear that genetic variation between individuals of the same race can be as great as that between members of different races. We are all the same. This should not be surprising.
So race is but an illusion perpetuated by humankind. It does not need to be an issue, but I feel that people have become so use to categorizing things that they find comfort in groups and divisions. There is something in knowing that you are with others “just like you” that share so much in common and have things that only you have always had together. There is a peace of mind and a comfort. So it can be understood, this need for grouping, race. Even so, with grouping come exceptions. What of those who do not fit in to the common groupings? I come from a multiracial background. It never bothered me before, but the more I witness the way the world thinks the more I am pushed to find my place or be left as an outsider. Looking at others I see them proudly exhibiting their families traditional way of cooking or traditional music and story and am pushed even further way. I do not have that. I was born in America. This country is all I have, but what are the traditions of America? There is one major difference between the USA and other countries. America is not only a very young country, but what makes America America is that it is made up of people from everywhere. This concept I find to be amazing, but frightening at the same time. Other countries are made of thousands and thousands of years of traditions, customs, and history. When people come to America, they bring their history with them and share it with others while holding on to what makes them them. So when you have a multicultural background these traditions can be lost and someone as myself ends up without an identity. Identity is the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. It is both a simple and complex concept. To know who you are is to be free from uncertainty and to truly live. I don’t feel I have an identity or that I really even exist. This is one of the worse feelings a person could ever experience. With it comes loneliness, fear of rejection, and emptiness. It is strange, I am speaking from personal experience, and in so I am saying that even though I have friends that I love very much and know are true, I still feel that I do not belong when I am with them.