No Participation Trophies

You either win or you lose, you get the medal or you don’t. The philosophy behind a medal or trophy is simple, it belongs to the winner, and winner only.

In my own opinion, this is important because a child needs to learn that in the long run to be good at something requires a lot of hard-work and it is time consuming. This constant focus on giving medals, giving public praise … I think over time, this is giving this message that failure is so terrible we can’t let you experience it. We can’t even address it. We have to pretend that you always win. Supporters of participation trophies argue they serve as mementos of the time and effort children put into certain activities. In addition, they boost involvement among children and build their self-esteem, causing them to be bolder and achieve more. 

While that sentiment sounds nice, my argument is that participation awards actually has an opposite effect. The adults tend to overpraise children who struggle, are shy or have low self-esteem, which has been proven to cause those children to withdraw because they can’t live up to their own hype.

As for those with high self-esteem (in the words of few of my friends, Yours truly included), participation trophies help create narcissistic children because they view the awards as vindication that they’re truly as great as they see themselves. I think what does for me, create anger because I don’t want to be appreciated for losing, If I have lost, I have lost. I don’t need a constant reminder of that. Like in all honesty, why would I need it.

What I want is my friends who really take pride in their pansy ass participation letters is to realize it takes a long time to get good at something, and that’s OK, nobody expects perfection from the get go. We don’t expect them to be constantly winning. If you lose, that’s fine. If they win, that’s fine. But we should not be interested in results. As a person who is driven by competition (actual competitions and not self created in the mind competition to beat someone in the class in grades, cause that is JUST PETTY), my goal is always to come to this conclusion how much have I grown from this experience and have I learned enough to fare better the next time around.

Once children master a skill, they won’t need manufactured praise to tell them they did a good job because they’ll know it and feel a great sense of accomplishment.

 

A Letter to My Friend

A thought burst in my head And I need to tell you

Dear Holden,

Today is 22nd July, 2015, I just finished reading about you. I was always scared I might not like you. I thought you were a whiny bastard, to be frank. But now, I just want to thank you for taking me along for the ride; Because a lot of the things you’ve said ring true even if hardly anyone bothers to listen to you. I think I’d like to have an actual conversation with you, but I’m not sure if I could be quick enough to catch up with your train of thought, and I would be very sorry if I couldn’t understand you. Because I really want to. I think and I hope we would make very good friends, but a part of me is also very scared that you will think of as another phony, I like to believe I am not, but sometimes, it is very difficult to distinguish at times.

The more I read about you, the more I found similarities between you and me. Beginning with the way we see other people. Sometimes I can’t really help myself and am under the impression that everyone around me is a phony. I think you will be wondering, if it includes my parents, I want to say Yes. But there is another section I can’t help but adore, these are the people who are actually excited about what is to come, people who are laughing like no one is watching, very genuine people. As I was writing this last line, I could only think of one individual, my sister, which also makes me wonder how similar we both are. I can’t really explain it that well. I guess that is another trait we both share, Our inability to explain our opinions. Maybe we were having a conversation, things would’ve been easier. But Holden, what I guess I am trying to say is people aren’t so simple, you see. Human beings are complex that way, we can’t really categorize them because each one of is uniquely different the other.

I don’t want to be someone who doesn’t notice things. I don’t want to believe that life is a game. I want to be able to say goodbye, and not regret doing something when I start missing it. I want to be able to make a lasting connection. I don’t want to grow up and forget how it was like to be a kid. I don’t want to disappear. I don’t want to be just a tombstone littered with dead flowers. I don’t want to be stuck in depression and not be able to think right. I am sure we both know at this point that I have to make stand and not end up quitting, I have to get out of it.

Holden, I love how you always want to pick people up, it is such an admirable thing, but what if you fell? who will be your catcher? who will be there to save you? I know that you wish you could’ve caught your brother, but that wasn’t you fault. It wasn’t like he jumped off the cliff while you weren’t looking. You couldn’t have stopped it. I am hopeful that you will actually find strength within yourself to move and finally be happy and thankful for the life.

You gotta be scared before you can be brave. You gotta open up if you want to have a connection. Now that’s life. Spend time with Phoebe, with Jane, with anyone whose company you truly crave. Spend time with people who will be good to you. Because after all the hell you’ve been through? I think you deserve it.

 

Your Friend,

Kamran 

 PS : I am really looking forward to meeting you, maybe when we both are doing better mentally.

Eleanor Rigby Died …

(This is a post that has been in my draft since July 2017.)

A few years ago I loved The Beatles, I still do but you know. As the years have gone by I’ve moved away from them, turning to other genres and artists, and I’ve never really gone back. The Beatles’s place in my “favorite band of all time” slot has been replaced with Nirvana and The Smiths

Regardless, while talking to a friend of mine who happens to be a fellow music lover, The Beatles were brought up in our conversation. He happened to be a huge Beatles fan, going so far as to say that Sgt. Pepper’s is one of the best albums of all time.

(Just a side note, I do believe that Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is a good album. A great one actually, but I don’t believe it is one of the best. Its not even the best The Beatles album for me (Revolver) …Sorry.)

I had a special love for some of their songs, namely Eleanor Rigby, All You Need is Love, Good Morning, Hey Jude and Paperback Writer. Of all the songs the Beatles ever produced, Eleanor Rigby still stands as one of my favorites…. I guess it can be because of the amazing orchestra play in the back because I never understood the lyrics for a very long ….

When I chose to write this piece, I decided to pick a song I hadn’t listened to in a very long time and write about it. Write about how it made me feel, what it meant to me, or how it affected me. The Beatles immediately came to mind, and I quickly decided on Eleanor Rigby as my song of choice. That got me wondering what it was about this song that resonated with me so much that I knew I had to write about it without any hesitation.

To be honest, it was the lyrics. When I first heard the song I was 15, the lyrics always confused and intrigued me. I didn’t understand what half of them were portraying, but they always fascinated me. I couldn’t stop thinking about them. The slice of life, vignette style portrayal of “all the lonely people” was captivating.

A lot of the metaphors of the song were lost on me. Eleanor “wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door” wasn’t symbolic of anything: I thought it was a mask of some kind. Regardless, that became one of my favorite lines in the entire song. It was poetic and strange. The wonderful mixture of strange people, euphemisms, and symbolism had me listening to the song on repeat (I am listening to it on repeat right now as I write this..), totally pulled into the drab, gray, and lonely world that had been created.

The sad, almost longing tone of the song pulled me in as well. Up to that point in my life, most of the songs I had listened to had been happy, I wasn’t exposed to the harsh reality of life as yet. Eleanor Rigby was different. It painted a picture of lonely, sad people whose lives were intertwined. The whole song felt gray to me, as if the world I was hearing was perpetually cloudy.

That’s why it really stayed with me, even though I didn’t know it. It showed me that all songs didn’t have to be happy or joyous. They didn’t even have to use conventional “rock and roll” instruments. (Eleanor Rigby consists of nothing but The Beatles’ voices, and a small orchestra). It showed me that songs could be used as storytelling devices, and could portray characters and situations, real or fictitious. It really broadened my idea of what music can be, and what it can portray.

While I may not be as crazy about The Beatles as I used to, I still have a love for this song many years later. I listened to it many times while writing this, and haven’t grown tired of it yet. I really do attribute this song to broadening my view of music, and  how it’s more than just fun things to play on the radio. Music is an art form: a way of expressing oneself. Music is a way to tell stories, and share the human experience. It transcends cultures and times. Truly, it is one of the most powerful forces that can be created, and that’s why it demands to be made.

Hello darkness, My Old Friend

Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again…

Darkness has a particularly apt feel about it for me right now. In terms of my life I feel like this is a dark period. A lot has changed since the start of 2016. Hell i’d go so far as to say a lot has changed since May. I’ve been enveloped by darkness over the last few weeks and it’s quite unclear if there is in fact a light to be found. It’s all been one giant upheaval; losing Annie been the biggest and most depressing of the bundle. That human size hole in my life feels like it’s a vacuum that’s sucking any joy or hope from me. Then there is find bigger and better things in a different place. It’s quite a scary notion to me.

But now I wanna change that because for the last 4 months have been horrible as well. The silence was the worst part. The silence of my own voice. I lost the ability to speak, yes, in a literal sense. I was so stressed out I couldn’t communicate in a manner that could be understood by others, so I have become isolated. I’ve gone over this so many times in my head since, but I’ve tried to stop the spiral before it takes me over the edge – hasn’t worked up so far but I am writing this time, so that is something to start with.

So instead of getting caught in a spiral, I am going to lose myself in a song this time….

Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again…

Hello Franz

This is an extract from the book “Into the wild” by Jon Krakauer based on the life of Christopher McCandless who immediately after graduating from college in 1991 had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. I was deeply moved by this letter that McCandless writes to Franz (an eighty year old man) whom he befriends while on his travels and I just HAD to blog this.

In early April a long letter arrived in Franz’s post-office box bearing a South Dakota postmark. “Hello Ron,” it says,

Alex here. I have been working up here in Carthage South Dakota for nearly two weeks now. I arrived up here three days after we parted in Grand Junction, Colorado. I hope that you made it back to Salton City without too many problems. I enjoy working here and things are going well. The weather is not very bad and many days are surprisingly mild. Some of the farmers are even already going out into their fields. It must be getting rather hot down there in Southern California by now. I wonder if you ever got a chance to get out and see how many people showed up for the March 20 Rainbow gathering there at the hot springs. It sounds like it might have been a lot of fun, but I don’t think you really understand these kind of people very well. I will not be here in South Dakota very much longer. My friend, Wayne, wants me to stay working at the grain elevator through May and then go combining with him the entire summer, but I have my soul set entirely on my Alaskan Odyssey and hope to be on my way no later than April 15. That means I will be leaving here before very long, so I need you to send any more mail I may have received to the return address listed below. Ron, I really enjoy all the help you have given me and the times that we spent together. I hope that you will not be too depressed by our parting. It may be a very long time before we see each other again. But providing that I get through this Alaskan Deal in one piece you will be hearing from me again in the future. I’d like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover. Don’t settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience. You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances. Ron, I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. You will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely. I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventures and experiences behind you. Don’t hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did. TAKE CARE RON , ALEX

Hey Angel

HEY ANGEL

It is the STORY OF MY LIFE where I stay UP ALL NIGHT as EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU reminds me of everything that I WANT and I WISH. I WOULD do anything RIGHT NOW to SAVE YOU TONIGHT from all the horrid thoughts that CLOUD over you. People will say alot about us cause THEY DON’T KNOW ABOUT US and how we have been THROUGH THE DARK because its just in between YOU AND I. No matter how many times I run away from you I will always come BACK FOR YOU cause at the END OF THE DAY its GOTTA BE YOU. You are my DIANA cause all your LITTLE THINGS creates a MAGIC within me. So pause the MOMENTS cause this is a ONCE IN A LIFETIME thing and I hope it turns out to be SOMETHING GREAT and PERFECT. Please HAPPILY accept to go to prom with me and don’t say that you are TAKEN cause I’ve LOVED YOU FIRST and will always love you to INFINITY. Incase you have any change of plans please do go over this song , OVER AGAIN. Your yes could take us a LONG WAY DOWN and we could make some amazing HISTORY.

Love You, Goodbye

Ps: NOBODY COMPARES TO YOU and that’s WHAT MAKES YOU BEAUTIFUL

 

Time to Pretend

Guilty,
Of letting
My thoughts
Occupy my heart
Without giving them
The attention
That they
Craved

Guilty,
Of chasing
Them away without ever
Even asking why they were here
So I could take pen to paper
With hand and
Help

Guilty,
Of missing
The feelings that
They had tried to share
While they squatted
With patience
Eagerly

Guilty,
Of denying
Hungry thoughts
A safe place within
My head to
Feed

Guilty,
Of not allowing
My mind to listen when
My heart just needed to speak
This is just the life
Of a Poets
Guilt

Those Three Words

I normally don’t write stuff like this but recently I was listening to “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol on repeat where I came across this one line that made me think…

“Those three words, Are said too much, They’re not enough.” ❤

Over time, I have come to realize the importance of this certain phrase that I have refrained from using for a long time. There are a group of three words that if put in a certain order can change someone’s life.

These words have become a much bigger deal to me than they ever had before because now, they mean so much more. I have found that through films and music and television shows, we hear those words a lot more than one may realize and feel as though they are being over used. They are the personification of feeling from one person to another and they mean so much more than just a few words that can be thrown around carelessly.

Over the last few months, these words have never crossed my lips and it scares me to think of how deeply I care for you and how much I mean those words more than ever. It’s crazy to think how fast one person can fall for another and how deeply you can fall. I didn’t think I would ever find someone like you. You make me the happiest I have ever been and you helped pull me out of a hold I had been digging myself into. I don’t know how I managed to find you, you are the most special person I have ever met with your weirdness and kindness all rolled into one.

There are things about us I am never going to be able to forget and that I know I’ll want to relive for years to come. Through everything we have been through, even in this short amount of time, has made both of us stronger. We have had to be each other’s rocks and that in itself has made us stronger together. You are one in a billion and I couldn’t ask for anyone more incredible. There aren’t enough words in the English language or any language to be able to describe how you make me feel, they don’t do you justice. 🙂

 

Random 2:30 am Thoughts

Here I go again. I am awake at 2 am and I have no idea why I am writing this, like literally not a clue but the world is full of ideas on global climate change, immigration, education, alternative energy, poverty, mankind’s place in the natural order, blah, blah, blah. And Today I feel like writing something rather unusual.

Its a proven fact that chemical pollution harms the physical body, Whether its factory carbon monoxide ,fuel pollution or the chemicals used in our food and drinks. Beside the deadly pollution of substance addictions. But the devastation and harms which come from social pollution are more dangerous. Social pollution  have a greater effect on people’s  lives and our existence.. Social pollution is embodiment of lack of spiritual teaching,lack of faithfulness, morals, family unity and values. They are denying God in their lives. Mainstream media and social media’s pollution is purring more oil into the fire. Liberalism trying to deny us our civil rights and our freedom ,our  free will. They are defending the enemy and upholding failures and ignorance……

Honestly Social Pollution can come from anywhere. Our schools, television shows, friends, and coworkers are all potential sources of bad ideas. I guess most of us already know that….

Anyway…

We can oversimplify our thinking about society in eight general ways. I’ll try to keep this interesting

Nature often gets used as a model for what’s good and bad, what should be done, what shouldn’t be done, or why things are a  certain way. A male homemaker is going against the natural order of things [why is it such a big deal if a guy takes care of his own family]. We should only eat natural things. We shouldn’t be doing this because ….

Science provides a solid, factual foundation for building societies, designing social policies, and for defining how our relationships should work. We try to find moral principles in scientific research, then we try to apply those principles.George Friedman “Auschwitz was a rational place, but it was not a reasonable place.”

Biology/Genetics – No, they are not the same as Science, or even pretty much the same. We think that everything in human behavior boils down to biology or genetics. EVERYTHING we do is really aimed at reproducing successfully (I have lived long enough to know that). Revolutions start because males want access to the resources they need to attract females. John Lennon started a band because he wanted the same (I have realized every time I write an article I make a reference to something really popular, such a cliche)

Religion often introduces bias into our thinking about society. God decides who is rich and who is poor. Life is a veil of tears. My set of religious principles should govern society. My interpretation of Christianity/Judaism/Islam should guide society and screw you if you disagree.

Morality often leads us astray. This is really the same problem as we get with religion. A grandiose vision of how society could work biases our thinking. we may insist on rigidly enforcing a moral code without regard to the suffering the code causes.

Economic thinking pollutes our minds in many ways. We think everything comes down to money. Some sociologists assert that the society’s economic system determines all other aspects of that society.

Individualism gets us into big trouble sometimes. We think that people do what they want to do. We think of our own little selves as the most important thing in society, so we have no need to be concerned about anything else.

PS: I normally don’t post these thoughts because I find them socially incorrect but I AM REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. so this is posted to ignite that REBEL with in me 😀