With knowledge comes suffering

I miss my childhood but I'm also longing for freedom. That's a paradox right there. Growing up has different kinds of suffering. The people i've known my entire life are changing or maybe i'm changing. I don't feel like i've changed at all but of course when i look back at my 2 year old self i realize that's a whole different person. You have to let go of things as you get older whether you want to or not. Like people. Your family gets old and dies or you go away to collage and leave all your friends. Or you say goodbye to your childhood familiarities, like sleeping, due to the fact that there's no time in highschool and collage. I've learned procrastinating is bad. I've learned not sleeping is actually painful. I've learned stress makes your head pound. I've learned so many lessons that i forget some of them and then i have to learn them all over again. I think being a teenager is so difficult because we don't know what to do with our lives or which direction to take them in that we end up going backwards. But that's part of growing up- we live and learn and mess up and have our own experiences. All that prepares us for the real world.

All in the family

My grandmother used to be a big part of our day to day life. I didn't even realize at the time how much she contributed to our family. About 5 years ago she was diagnosed with cancer and moved closer to live near us in assisted living. On Sundays it became a ritual for me and my mom to drive over to Clairmont Oaks, say hello to her many elderly friends, and take her back to our house to have a big dinner. My mom would cook dinner while my grandmother played the piano. I would sit on the couch and do the homework I always left for Sundays. Except of course when my grandmother insisted on giving me a lesson which i consented to grudgingly. When i messed up on a note she would 'hit me' on the head and reprimand me with a shrill voice. I don't think she was serious. My grandmother was always making us laugh, she was hilarious. After dinner we sat in the living room near the fireplace and listened to her play more on the piano. Sometimes she would make my mom play which was painful since my mom knows one song that she can't play very well. Then we would all get in the car and drive back to Clairmont Oaks. Actually i hardly ever took these trips because i was trying to cram in some last minute homework.
A year ago my grandmother fell and had to go the hospital. She was in there for a couple months then moved upstairs to hospice. My aunt came over from England and my grandmother got to die with her two children by her side. Those Sunday night dinners are what i miss the most because they were so familiar.

After it's all said and done

All the time now I keep wondering whether each little thing i do is in my control. It's driving me crazy because i keep going back to the same fate/freewill question or i think of even more questions. ITS HORRIBLE AND TAKING OVER MY LIFE. The worst part is i believe more in fate than freewill. Fate controls us so everything i do was determined a million billion years ago. That's not a comforting thought and i feel like a puppet. An image of human veins always pops into my head, running in all directions, some parallel, some touching. They represent the unbreakable strings of the puppet, or in other words, fate with it's iron grip on everything.

I guess my interpretation of fate is different from other peoples.
In Oedipus his fate was to kill his father and marry his mother. The main argument for fate in this story is whatever he decides to do he's screwed. Any path he takes will lead to that fate. So the freewill in the story is that he can decide the road (metaphorically) he takes but his fate of those 2 things (killing daddy, sleeping with mommy) will remain the same. But what if all of it, his entire life, every little thing he did, was fated to happen? His father was fated to hear the prophecy which would lead him to cast his son away to die in the mountains or wherever. Oedipus was fated to hear the prophecy causing him to leave his home in fear of what it told him. Instead of just 'sleeping with his mother and killing his father,' his entire life was planned out before he was even born. So the 'story' can never change.
I understand that there were gods in that story which isn't exactly realistic. And that the gods planned his fate instead of just fate.

My interpretation of fate doesn't have gods in it. For now it's pretty scientific---based on genes and environment. I was fated to want to change my fate (since i want control back even though i never had it). But no matter what i do fate is always a step ahead of me, or many steps, and me thinking too hard about this was fated to happen. The things that happen to me cause me to react. Fate knows my reactions since it knew the base of me (before i was born). By knowing the base of me (spirit) it knows everything about me since it can determine how i will react and grow in this world. So I'm envisioning some arrows in my head now, pointing from the pre-baby-spirit-thing's mind/emotions/reactions to the baby's mind/emotions/reactions to all the other changes. And of course there are layers to all that. And by the time i die all the arrows will probably show a circle.

I don't know that made any sense. The last part was confusing to me. Thanks to you ms. williams my brain will explode soon.

FATE OR FREEWILL?

Well.. before this week I would have said freewill but it's a tough question now. I guess i would have to say fate. The more I think about it the more I realize how little control we have over our lives. We think we have control because it's our own decisions we're making but the decisions we make are determined by the environment in which we were raised. Or by our genetics. So each of our lives were planned out a long long time ago according to those two factors. The people we meet and the events that happen throughout our lives do not change fate because all of those were marked by fate as well. It gets complicated to understand because everything/everyone gets tied together by interactions but fate has a strong hold on us all, it knows our reactions therefore it knows our entire lives.
I wanted to say freewill. Fate seems like we're all in chains but at the same time it's kinda like someone's looking out for us which is both reassuring and annoying. Like an overprotective parent. I understand that fate isn't like a God; It can't feel or think for itself. It's some kind of mysterious energy that doesn't have feeling or consideration for anything it causes.

Live or Die in LA

I'd choose 1. I've decided that money or being famous aren't going to make me happy. I think the 'middle way' is the best way to go because you're suppose to live for yourself not other people. What does choice 2 give you besides fame and a big ego? You might feel accomplishment but you can feel so much accomplishment in a normal life. Maybe more. What's so important about people remembering you? I mean you're dead so you wont be able to see all that. Having accomplished a normal life makes you just as much a "hero" as doing something wildly incredible. So why chose the shorter life? Plus you get a chance to love more, laugh more, understand more and so many other things. True you also get the bad things like when people you love die or having to work and pay for things but all of those make you stronger. Something inside you grows and you're able to move on with life. That's the difference between 1 and 2. Choice 2 doesn't give you a chance to live (figuratively and literally). And that's what I'd miss the most.

Remember when...

When i was little i was obsessed with Raffie (i hope that's how you spell it) songs. I loved baby baluga and watermelon. Most of his songs were so upbeat and always made me feel happy. They were easy to sing along to and they would always get stuck in my head, forcing me to think about them all day. I would play them at night before i fell asleep in addition to every second of the day. Once i got to see him perform live! It was an amazing experience i still remember to this day. Some of us got to go on the stage with him and participate in the songs. We were jumping around, bellowing the lyrics and having the time of our lives. He seemed like a kid himself.
One of the reasons i enjoyed listening to Raffie was because of his friendly voice. He had warmth and inclusion in his voice that kids trusted. He was one of my friends even though i hadn't really met the guy.

The western world

This philospophy seems to speak in riddles. There seems to be many layers that you can't just read, you also have to use your brain. The western mentality expains exactly where they are coming from. It has more bulk to it. This other philosphy is very metaphoric and expects the reader to connect the pieces. It also seems to leave the reader asking more questions while not fully explaining the main question.
Siddhartha is trying to explain to Govinda what he has interpreted from the world or the river which are the same thing. His main point is that everything is connected as one. He says what you see and hear is decieving, that you never know how far along someone is. He continues to go deeper saying that everything is matched with it's opposite. Everything is one and the other. What looks like an imperfect world actually imbodies perfection.