Suicidal Tendencies

I was having an atypically bad day today and of course it caused me to start thinking about suicide which is weird considering I haven't thought about that in ages. I don't even know what in particular brought on this onset of crazy emotions, but I know how to deal with it and I am just waiting for the next day to hit so that I don't do anything stupid. But today I thought that since I am feeling in this mood, why not discuss suicidal tendencies?

So there are a lot of people worldwide who think about suicide as a valid option for escape from their deteriorating lives. They think that having no life must be better than living in this hell hole. I can occasionally understand their point of view considering that I was suicidal for a good portion of my life, and so I speak with utmost respect for them, but what I don't like is when other people go on about talking about suicide as the worst thing a person can do to themselves. I do not agree with that. I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with suicide. In the end it is the person who is taking their own life, and since it is their body, their mind, their life that they are destroying, I think it should be their decision if they kill themselves. I think it can also be pretty cool to know exactly when and how you are going to die because then at least you can prepare for it. You can fix all the broken ties and leave on a happy note rather than on a tragic unexpected note that generally occurs with most deaths.

Others will try and say that suicide is actually a horrible thing to go through. It is selfish to think that it is only affecting yourself and that you will be hurting all of those people in your life that truly love you and depend on you to get through their own day. I think this is the only valid point against suicide, but at the same time, it is a weird concept. By telling someone that everyone else would be sad if they kill themselves it is almost like peer pressuring them into not offing themselves. I think it's weird that this form of peer pressure is thought of as good, but when peer pressure is used to get someone to start smoking it suddenly negative. I thought the point was to be your own individual and not let others peer pressure you to do anything you don't want to, such as live. So that is why I think it is sort of weird considering this option even though it is the only valid one.

I think the worst thing though is that in the states it is actually illegal to try and kill yourself. This makes complete and logical sense. Someone thinks they have a shit life, so instead of trying to make their lives better we are going to ruin it by giving them a fine/throwing them in jail (don't know the actualy sentence, but know it's illegal). Now where does that make sense? Make a suicidal person's life more miserable. Yes, I believe everyone should do that! Does the U.S. government really think that some random law is going to stop people from killing themselves? When you are dead, laws no longer apply! I mean if the U.S. wants to send dead people to prison then they can, but I feel our prisons already have too many people in them.

Now there are of course also success stories in which someone attempts to kill themselves, fails, and then leads a life and they suddenly are happy they never killed themselves. Now these stories don't occur very often, and are very one sided. You hear tons of these stories, but you never hear of the stories of the people who try and kill themselves, fail, and then wish for the rest of their lives that they actually went through with it. That may be because they are too afraid to come out in the open. Suicide is so badly looked upon that people are afraid to talk about it openly. Just like death, which is what I think the biggest factor in all of this is.

I don't personally understand why so many people are afraid of death. Everyone will encounter death in their lifetimes and so it is ridiculous to be afraid of it and to want it to never happen. If you stop someone from killing themselves now, they will eventually die anyway! You can't keep someone alive forever, and I don't see why you would want to. Yes, I understand that people fear death because it is unknown. YOu may have your faith telling you what is going to happen after you die, but you don't truly know. There is no scientific way (currently) of finding out what is going to happen to yourself after you die. And so because of this we are afraid of it. In fact we are deathly afraid of it (pun intended). But I don't like that fear, instead I like to consider it a celebration. Instead of being sad that someone died, why not celebrate the life they had? Everyone has some bit of their life that must have been extraordinary to someone. Even serial killers must have some good portion of their lives that is interesting to someone else. So why not celebrate that they were here, had fun some of the time, effected people positively, and moved on into the next phase of existance called death. I think being sad at someone's death is actually very selfish. The only reason you are sad is because you are no longer going to have the opportunity to say that one thing that you wanted, or to hug them one last time, or to have their presence. Basically, you are sad because YOU wanted them to still be alive. That is a pretty selfish thing to want I must say. But I guess it is in the nature of people to be selfish, which again loops back around to people killing themselves, selfish.

So I may be sad that people die, or kill themselves, but I am not going to let that sadness grow. Death is the end of your life which is fun, but I don't want death to be a sad thing. Instead I feel it should be celebrated. And I feel if someone does kill themselves, it shouldn't be considered sinful, or 'bad', instead it should be considered honorary that the person had enough guts that they were able to actually kill themselves. It should be honoured like in the olden days when suicide was sometimes considered very honourable.

So I will let you all think about that one as I get myself prepared for a long night of massive depression and not wanting to talk to anyone and just wanting the day to be over, because my selfish needs of self-fulfillment are not done yet.

Suicidely yours,
-Aram the Garmo

Jealousy

It seems that there are a lot of things to be jealous about in the world around us. We can be jealous of the super rich people out there who are able to buy anything they want without worrying how they'll be able to afford their next meal. We can be jealous of the super smart people who seem to have their brains prewired to be able to understand every single thing you tell them. We tend to be jealous of people who have something, especially when that something is what we want.

Is jealousy a good thing though? I personally can't see any form of jealousy that can be taken into a good form. If you are jealous of the rich, most people will just try and degrade the rich in order to 'bring them down to your level.' This can be done by causing a scandal, revealing secrets, or being extremely happy when something goes bad with the rich. You can also be jealous because no matter how you attempt to get that crazy amount of money, it always seems out of your grasp. But do you have the right to be jealous? Are you not happy that the other person was able to become rich? Are you not excited that they do not have to worry about feeding their family anymore? You may turn around and say that you really don't care because you don't know the person, but how about if you did?! If your best friend suddenly won the lotto, would you be jealous of them, and is that jealousy rightly placed? I feel instead of being jealous, you should be proud that your friend no longer needs to worry about their life. That, as long as the money was used properly, your friend will be able to support their family and actually pursue the things they desire. Isn't that something that we all dream of?

How about jealousy of the really smart? This is probably where I fit in, because I tend to be jealous of the really smart. But do we have the right to be jealous of the knowledgable? Isn't the point of discovering new things in order to understand the universe a little better? Should it really matter who discovers the next smallest particle, or the newest theory in math? It may be hard to see those around you succeeding in academics, but is that a valid enough reason to be jealous of them? We are all put on the planet, and we all hope to learn. I feel we should be happy of the people who end up learning more than we do because then they may be able to further our understanding of the universe. That one day may turn into us becoming a much more sophisticated species and be able to do things we had never imagined before. The main reason, I feel, that we become jealous is that because we would like our names to be written down in history books instead of others' name.

So in essence my question is, is there a reason to ever be jealous and to actually act on it? I am not denying that people get jealous, but I am wondering if there is ever a valid reason to be jealous and then actually take that jealousy to an extreme (such as stealing from the rich, and keeping it from yourself; taking ideas from the smart, and publishing it as your own; etc.). Is that ever permissable?

Inquisitively,
-Aram the Garmo

Aloneness

[Note: I didn't know if I wanted this in my blog, but decided why not just throw it in, so it is backdated to the day I wrote it, and has not been edited, and obviously was never finished.]

I think life can sometimes be a funny thing. We begin our lives attached to one person, literally. We eat, breathe, drink, think, and do everything this other person does. We don't even know it until a few years later, but this person is our mother. From here we are attached to a unit called a family. This unit in most cases consists of a mother, a father, and occasionally siblings or grandparents. From here on you are considered part of a family and your every move is noticed. Every sound you make is heard, every step you take is stared at, every time you touched something you were glared at; everything was noticed. You had a whole family with you; you were not alone.

You slowly grow older and you become aware of everything you are doing. You go into a form of the real world called school. In school you realise there are other people in your age group! For some reason or another you choose others like you that have similar tastes. You call them your friends and you start to do everything together. Whenever your family wasn't there, your friends were, and vice versa. You always had somewhere to be with you; you were not alone.

Eventually you start growing hairs in unexpected places. The grownups call it puberty, but you call it awkwardness. Some get acne, and some get breasts. It is an awkward time, and so you begin to withdraw. At the same time you also begin to realise that you are your own human being and start to become unique. Usually you would rebel against your parents, and have friends doing it too. You start doing everything with your friends, and when you are home, you are secretly wishing you are back with your friends. Your family keeps wanting to stay in your life, but you push them away and keep only your friends, but as long as you have your friends, you are not alone.

From then on, you keep your friends for a while. Sometimes you may lose them all and go back to your family for support. Your family will take you with open arms. Sometimes your family rejects you and so you stick with your friends, who take you with open arms. In either case there is a form of humans that stick by you. They are the people you turn to in case of problems, questions, and other such things that may arise; you are not alone.

The question becomes, what happens if somewhere along the line this system fucks up? What happens if you are desperatly, and utterly alone, sometimes literally. When alone, the world sucks. It doesn't matter what the world throws at you, there is only you behind the bat. If it's something simple then you are easily able to get back on track and keep going. On the other hand if it is something large and unavoidable, then you have problems. Being alone there is no where you can turn for support, there is no helping hand for guidance, there is no one standing behind you helping with the bat. And due to this you may not be able to swing hard enough to hit the problem away. What do you do then?

That question is very difficult because it then depends on the person. If you were utterly alone, what would you do? And I don't mean fake aloneness where you think you are alone, but you truly have people there helping you out and you just forget them; I mean when something happens where you can't even talk to any of your friends because either you can't tell them, or they refuse to listen or are not in a capacity to listen, and you also can't talk to your family because they are otherwise distracted and won't come to you for anything. What do you do when you are literally alone and a hard problem is thrown in your face?

And if you say turn to a topic you enjoy and work on it, such as a hobby and such, then let me add a stipulation. Pretend you don't have a hobby, that most of the time you just sit there and do nothing with your life. That in fact there is no point to your life and that only your computer would miss you if anything were to happen because they would miss you typing on them. The warmth of your fingers, the way they land on each key at almost the exactly same spot each time, the repetition of key hitting speed that does not change and can therefore sustain a liveable environment; your computer would miss you. But the problem would still hit you, head on. How do you deal with it?

Would you just dismiss it and hope it eventually goes away? Is letting it stand there staring at you an acceptable form of dealing with the problem? Is yelling at it at the top of your lungs helpful in the situation, causing a brief moment of insanity?

Lonely,
-Aram the Garmo

Last day in Paris (Part 3 of 3)

So today is the final installment of my trip to Paris! And luckily, it is short. I'll be uploading pictures and such on my facebook tomorrow, so stay waiting for those! I also have a lot of pictures on my photobucket site if you want to see those. For those you only need to go here. Almost all the pictures from the past few posts are on there, but hopefully I will be adding a couple extra. I will also put them on my flickr account for those who have that. You can find me on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/crazyinsanoman/ And also, once again, I have made it so each of the pictures you can click on and get a bigger version. But enough of all that crazyness, let me begin with the last half of my journey!

So we left off last time Sunday midday. I had just finished the Louvre and was meeting up again with Steven. Steven had spent all day at the Paris Marathon. So in honor of Steven's trip I included one of his 60 photos of the marathon. I call it 'the gay marathon runner.' I wonder if one day I'll ever have the ability to run a whole marathon. One can only dream. Well anyway, afterward we decided we were going to go and try and find the gay district in Paris. After walking a while, we were finally able to find the gay street in Paris. It was very cute and cuddly and pretentious. It was also VERY expensive. One can of Red Bull cost me 5.20 Euros. Almost $8 for a can of Red Bull! Anyway, so that night we decided we would go to a gay restaurant in Paris. I decided we would go to 'Le Gai Moulin' because it looked gay, and served traditional French food. Of course I went all out on this meal. I ended up eating escargot for appetizers. Escargot is actually really good. I thought it was going to be slimy and gross, but it turned out to be really really good. And the sauce it came in was a mint garlic sauce that was to die for. For Entree I had duck in orange sauce, which I'm pretty sure was my first time having duck before. And for desert I think I had a souflee. I had so many deserts in Paris I can't keep them straight anymore. The dinner was amazing though! And it only cost around 21 Euro for the whole meal. A bargain I say!

So after we went eating, we decided we were going to check out the clubbing scene in Paris. From checking online Cud Bar looked like a pretty chill place to go so we headed off there. We had ended dinner around midnight so we got to the club around 00:30. So it was very suprising to find out we were the 3rd and 4th people there. We grabbed a coke, which was flat, and sat down to just chat. After about 45 min in the club and only 6 more people walking in we decided to leave. That is when we saw all the crazy snow. It was snowing in Paris! It was very cold, but very beautiful. But I will never again go out in the snow in only a tshirt and a jumper! We went back to the hostel, awaiting the next day. Our day of SHOPPING!

So the hostel was pretty cool in that we would get free breakfast every morning. The breakfast wasn't amazing, but it was enough. We had a choice between yoghurt, cereal, and bread with butter/jam. Since I couldn't eat the cereal and bread is too much for me in the mornings I was forced to invent something that turned out really good. I would take the yoghurt and put the jam in the yoghurt. It tasted really good because it sweetened up the yoghurt and also added fruit. I would also have coffee and tea each morning to get me through the day. Monday morning though, I decided I was going to have fun with the coffee and drink it like the French do. So instead of putting it in a mug I put it in a bowl. I even ended up making my own mocha instead of regular coffee! All I did was mix hot chocolate and coffee. It tasted really good, and it was fun drinking from a bowl. So of course one of the first things we did was go to the Louvre in order to do the shopping under the Louvre. Under the Louvre we were lucky to get an amazing rainbow structure on the upside down pyramid. It was amazing timing on our part. So we spent almost all of Monday shopping for presents since I needed to buy presents for all of my family because I love them so much. Steven didn't know why I bought presents since it was a hassle and cost a lot of money, but for me, watching the person receive a present that they get randomly is amazing. Normal present times suck because you don't get actual happiness from the person. So I bought them all tons of presents and am hoping they enjoy it. My younger brother is IMPOSSIBLE to shop for though. I had no idea what to get him from Paris. Everything I looked at I felt he wouldn't enjoy. He is the hardest person to shop for. My mother is the simplest, and my stepdad is occasionally easy.

So of course most of my shopping consisted around the Champs Elysees since I am just that type of person. I loved this street because it felt very much like the shopping area I would love. It is high fashion and I wish I could afford most of the clothes there so that I can look amazing, but unfortuantely the money does not grow on trees. I did end up going into the Louis Vuitton in Paris though. It was so amazing walking into the very first Louis Vuitton. I ended up buying something for my mother and then it was funny how the staff finally looked all happily toward me. They treated me like royalty after that. It was sort of funny, but also very exciting being able to walk around and not being looked down on.

So of course after buying presents for everyone in my family, we decided to go to the Sacre Coeur since we had sunlight left over, and Steven really wanted to see it. It was crazy fun getting there. It is one of the highest points in Paris and looks over the whole city. We walked up so many stairs to get there, but it was every step. The view was breathtaking. After getting to the top though we noticed that a heavy downpour was heading our way! So just in the knick of time we got into a coffee shop and ordered coffee. I ordered my most expensive cup of coffee ever. It cost me 6 Euro. Almost $10 for coffee! Crazy right? It didn't even taste worthy. There was too much chocolate and not enough Hazelnut. Either way, we waited the storm out and went back to the hostel to drop everything off before heading off to dinner which again would be in the gay district. So this time it was Steven's choice to choose the place we were going to eat. He decided to go to a Spaghetti joint that we had seen the night previously. It was actually really crowded and very entertaining. It was very gay friendly and the waitors were very hot. The food was actually really good here too, but this time we didnt have room in our belly's for desert. We ended the night by going to a different gay bar that night. We went to Raidd bar which was amazing! The drinks may have been expensive, but it was tons and tons of fun. First off the music was not very loud so that you could have a decent conversation with people without having to worry about your eardrums falling off. Secondly, halfway through the night they had a special treat for the visitors. On the side wall they had a plastic wall that you could see a room through. Well, around 23:30 a guy in underwear walked into the room and the lights came on. He started rubbing himself with something like lube and started taking a shower. Of course he was also teasing the audience, and eventually took his underwear off and we got to see everything. It was a nice point in the night because it seemed very normal to everyone in the crowd. The funny part was that later that night we saw the guy walking around in the bar. The only part I didn't like was that no one was dancing. But other than that it was good and I wish we could have stayed longer. We ended up leaving around 00:30 because we had to wake up at 6:00 in the morning to catch the train to get to the airport on time to get back home!

So that was the whole trip to Paris. I hope this little thing helped you see how amazing it was and how you all should go and visit it. If there are any questions or anything people want to hear about/comment on, feel free to leave a comment!

Exhaustedly,
-Aram the Garmo

Second day in Paris (Part 2 of 3)

So here we are at day 2 of Aram's crazy trip to Paris. Today's post will be even larger than yesterdays, if that was possible! But luckily, tomorrow should be shorter. Also, this time I have made each picture a thumbnail, so if you want to look at a bigger version of the picture just click on it! So I am starting on Sunday if that helps anyone :-p To the left is a picture of the photographer of most of these pictures, Me! So I hope you enjoy the workings of the marvelous and dasterdly Aram on his amazing and fantastical trip to Paris, Part 2!

So we started our day bright and early at around 7:00! My personal goal was to leave the hostel around 8:30 so that we can be at the Louvre by 9:00. Unfortunately Steven was slow on the uptake and we didn't even get to breakfast until 8:30. I guess I shouldn't expect people to be able to get up really quickly in the mornings, at least as well as I can. So we finally got to the Louvre around 9:30 and the line was crazy long. There were around 100 people in queue just to get in. But somehow, the line was moving ridiculously fast. It took us only around 2 minutes to get in! Steven took a really cool picture of a statue and a water fountain so that it looks like the water is pushing the statue up, so I put it up right here. These statues and fountains were everywhere around the Louvre which was really cool. I personally didn't know what each of the statues were, but they seemed to mean something significant. So the good part about coming this sunday is that the Louvre was free and so it was pretty full. It is free the first sunday of every month which is why I planned our trip around this weekend. It turned out to be the weirdest weekend to choose to come to Paris as you will find out tomorrow. So if you ever plan on going to the Louvre, make sure to go on the first sunday of the month! It may be crowded but then at least you aren't paying 15 euro just to get in.

So the actual entrance to the Louvre was the pyramid itself. So the stairs are literally underneath the large pyramid which is really cool. The actual museum is in the building surrounding the pyramid which is sort of cool. The bottom section of the pyramid is also where you can enter the museum itself. The museum has 3 main sections and you enter them from underground which is pretty neat. The pictures here are of the same staircase from differing views. The one on the left is the stairs from the side with an elevator on the inside of the stairs which was pretty cool. The one to the right is an aerial view almost and you can see the elevator directly in the centre of the stairs. Pretty cool view I think. The pictures from here on will be pictures I took from the museum itself, and are ones I particularly enjoyed, or know about.

Statue of Marcellus By Kleomeles Front View Statue of Marcellus By Kleomeles Back View Emporer Augustus Statue Artist Unknown Victory Statue Artist Unknown

Centaur teased by Eros Artist Unknown Sleeping Hermaphrodite Artist Unknown Back View Sleeping Hermaphrodite Artist Unknown Front View

So all of the statues are just a tiny portion of all the ones that are actually at the Louvre, and I also do have a couple more that will show up just on facebook itself. The statue on the right was my favourite one out of all of them. It was supposed to represent the slave that had given himself totally to his master and had accepted his master even to his dying day. I think that type of devotion is really cool. I understand he was slave and all, but the concept of devotion to the extent that you are together until the day you die, now that is a thought that I would love to live by. Dying Slave By Michaelangelo

Now I am moving on to paintings. The picture to the right shows where most of the paintings I enjoyed were. That whole corridor is 1 kilometer long and is full of Italian paintings. I personally enjoyed Italian paintings the most, especially when they didn't have to do with Jesus. It's sort of funny how a lot of paintings have a lot to do with christianity. I am more of a greek fan but there were some cool Christian paintings. So here are all the paintings I liked. Near the end there are 2 modern art pieces that I included followed briefly by my 3 favourite paintings. Again, most of these pictures are pictures that I personally liked, but I have a few more in my collection and there are countless more in the Louvre.

David and Goliath By Volterra Front View David and Goliath By Volterra Back View Endymion By Anne-Louis Girodet

Interior of a Church By Steenwyck The Bold By Fraggonard The Crowning of Napolean in the Presence of Pope Pious VII By David

So of course one of the most famous pieces in the Louvre is the Mona Lisa. I decided to reluctantly take a picture of Mona Lisa in order to prove I saw it. It was a tiny piece of painting and I couldn't even get really close to take a decent picture due to the large numbers of people trying to look at the painting. That is why my picture is vaguely blurry.You can also notice that there are a lot of people taking pictures of the Mona Lisa. The picture on the right is the whole crowd. I personally don't understand the crazyness over this one painting when there are so many more beautiful paintings in my opinion. But I guess to each his own. And so I looked at the crowd and chose to dismiss it. It was also very heavily guarded. So in the same room as the Mona Lisa is this amazing painting called Marriage Feast at Cana and is painted by Veronese. It's the largest painting in the whole Louvre and was HUGE! It's supposed to be the time when jesus performs his first miracle or something like that. I wasn't fully paying attention, and most things were in French anyway. I personally much more enjoyed this painting than the Mona Lisa, but since the crowd was so big looking a the Mona Lisa, it was difficult to get a good view of this painting. Oh well, maybe another time.

Piece made of pins and nails Egyptian Cups

Young Man Seated Seaside By Flandrin Gallery of the Views of Modern Rome By Pannini The Education of Achillies by the Centaur Chiron By Jean Baptiste Regnualt So these are my favourite paintings in the whole Louvre as far as I could see. I really liked the one with Chiron because it reminded me of DLP and how much I really miss them. I can't wait to get back to Davis so I can chillax with them! The last one is the painting that my mom and stepdad own in their house. Of course they own a replica, but when I saw the one in the Louvre I had to take a picture of it. That painting reminds me of home and how much I miss my family. The one in the centre had to be my most favourite art piece in the whole Louvre. Something about that painting draws me in. I think it's because I am able to relate the painting to my own life that I enjoy it so much. I think if I were to ever buy a replica of any painting, I would probably choose that one. It means a lot to me.

So I am stopping there for today. I will finish Day 2 Night and Day 3 tomorrow. This post has already been long enough with all the pictures. Tomorrow is much less picture intensive, hopefully! So I will see you all again tomorrow for another day in Paris!