Of pregnancy and abortion

I dreamt I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke.
Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a
butterfly dreaming that I am a man? - Chuang Tzu

When I first read this as a kid, I found it truly beautiful. I don`t know if it was because it involves a butterfly or dreams. Even though this is a parable on the interchangeability between appearance and reality, I often figure out that it can be used to help people who feel that their opinion is the ultimate truth. This goes along the same line as George Orwell`s concept of "doublethink" whereby a person`s mind understands and accepts two contradictory ideas/believes/thoughts.

Today I read the opinion of a girl, who, I suppose is a very religious person. She was quoting a holy text to support why she is against abortion. I respect people who are religious in the same way that I respect Twilight fans; I would never understand why they are so much into it but I admire their zeal. However, I would never understand why someone would base her entire opinion on something as important as abortion on a text that was written thousands of years ago.

Anyway, coming back to adopting contradictory thoughts, my point is, you should always keep an open mind. Opinions change and it all depends on your situation. When I was a teenager and I`m sure I must not have been the only one, the epitome of horror was the idea of getting pregnant. Even though I was not sexually active at the time, it still scared the crap out of me to hear those stories of girls who, out of love or naivete or both got pregnant and who had to leave school and take care of their kids. Getting pregnant meant the end of that youthful nonchalance characterised by teenage years. Abortion would, of course, have been an option if ever I had gotten into such a situation.

As I got into adulthood, and seriously, I mean as from last year, I started thinking that if ever I got pregnant, I would happily await the arrival of the flesh of my flesh, the blood of my blood even on the occurrence that he/she is an accident. It`s just that I am now emotionally and financially ready to take this responsibility. I am talking about myself and this might seem terribly narcissistic but it`s just that being pro-choice or pro-life is deeply subjective. It`s the kind of opinion that evolves with time and I might add, maturity.

I know some women of my age who have had an abortion and I know one of them who has decided the keep the child. To each her own opinion and I salute each one of their choices... Who am I to judge anyway?

You never actually change until you hit rock bottom

I`m not one of those who would be quoting random stuff heard on TV or read somewhere, my last post made this clear enough. But the title of this post is actually something that Earl from My Name is Earl said, not word for word. But the essence is here: "You never actually change until you hit rock bottom".

Think about it... When was the last time you decided to eat healthy or workout? Is it because you suddenly had enough of seeing the state in which you were? Did you hit rock bottom? 

When did you decide to go slow on alcohol? Is it because you had enough of making a fool of yourself at every party? Did you hit rock bottom?

So today this thought occurred to me as I was trying to save the cake I`ve baked while figuring out how I forgot cream cheese for a birthday party and how I did not notice that my dessert cream in the fridge was way past expiry date. To top it all I had to fill some official papers, which I did at the last minute, committing lots of blunders and having a hard time fixing everything. To make it short, I had hit rock bottom... Hard. 

I had gone down from being the girl who had everything in control to someone who was mildly interested in everything that was happening around her and that she had to cope with. I had become the kind of person I hate.

And so the paperwork was done and the cake was salvaged. The birthday was a success. But still... There`s this nagging feel of self-disappointment that I gotta cope with...

Why you should get your own mind

Recently (or is it because I`ve started caring?) my Twitter feed and Facebook page is being flooded by random quotes and/or "witty" thoughts about friendship, relationships or life itself. Those quotes are often accompanied by images that I gather are there just in case you didn`t get what the message is about. On Twitter, those messages take the form of "retweets" of random/anonymous/seemingly meaningless accounts such as "daily-random-in-your-face-inspiration-quotes".

What`s the deal with inspiration quotes anyway? Who the hell is really inspired by those? You know what`s my idea of an inspiration quote? It`s anything that`s going through your mind at the moment that you are inspired into doing something and that`s it. It`s not some random quote about "life being a tree or about motivation coming from the heart or happiness being the key to the soul". These are so random that they become utterly ridiculous.

So why should you get your own mind? It`s simple: If you feel the need to constantly speak what has already been spoken and to "borrow" quotes from people, at the end of the day you end up being nothing but an empty shell, deprived of all willpower and ability to form words on your own. I know said like this it sounds serious, but it really is. What makes a person (especially on the internet) are first and foremost the words that the person speaks. Get your own mind, make grammatical mistakes, it`s OK. You might not turn out to be as witty/sarcastic/funny as you intended to be but those will be your own words.

Nothing is as liberating as speaking your mind with your own words. Absolutely nothing.