Some say we have to set goals.

I say we all should.

But one must remember to avoid “target fixation”.

Say what?

This is when a person focuses on something so much that he neglects everything else, be it hazards, obstacles, or anything between him and the target. This is one of the possible explanations why the famed Red Baron went down. He fixated on one plane, followed it to a low altitude, and got hit by an anti-aircraft gun, which he could not have been hit if he were on high altitude.

In practical application, this is tantamount to achieving a goal through “all means necessary”. The problem with this is that we become like a giant steamroller, ready to flatten anything that stands between us and the goal we set to the ground and not be stopped by anything. Like everything that is good, this can be bad as well. Sure, it is a good deal if it means flattening all our negativity and overcoming hardships, but what if the ones in front of us are our parents who mean well, or friends who know that the goal we chose will not really do us any good? Target fixation will crush them all along the way.

In Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours song, he mentions “… open up your plans and damn you’re free…” I see the “plans” as the means in order to achieve a particular end or goal so:

You + Plans + Actions = Goals

However, the song says tells people to “open up your plans” and I think this is the right way. Do not fixate on one plan and one goal. Think of your main end goal, and as always, there are plenty of ways to reach it. If you want to become rich, or you want to be able to help other people, or just wish for a simple and quiet life, there are a lot of means to get them. I am trying to emphasize here that “having 50 cars” or “becoming a doctor/lawyer” is not an end goal. These are temporary goals that mean nothing. The end I am trying to instill is the end which is in the general sense, and with a lot of meaning to us, our families, society, or even to a particular industry. There is no road map for anything, so try to be versatile in your plans to meet your goals.

Fixation does the same harm as good, and it spawns minds which is Machiavellian on one side, and erratic on the other. When we fixate, we lose impartiality. We are biased on the positive effects of our ideas that we neglect its negative effects. What’s worse is that no matter how we try to pick out negativity from the fixated target, we will not be able to come up with anything substantial even if other people see it plain. That’s how powerful our minds are. It blocks everything and makes us focus on a goal, but blind on all else.

We are not robots to have everything planned out or encoded step by step to reach something. We are highly subjective humans who are capable of adapting to any circumstance. Flexibility of our body reflects the flexibility of the mind. Like robots who have rigid frames which reflect their artificial and rigid intelligence. They are made of calculations, we are made of hunches, intuition, calculation, analysis, gut-feel, and subjectivity. -Dar

In life, I’ve observed two variants of human leeching. “H-Leeches” are parasitic people who latch on others (hosts) in order to benefit from their juices. The type 1 leeches are those which latch on to others and suck enough juice from their host so that they can stay alive and survive the harsh world. They normally cling harmlessly and go unnoticed or are subsequently condoned, if noticed. However, there also exists the type 2 leeches. These leeches are resultant of mutation whereby a type 1 leech is not really a leech because it can fend for its own and are self-sufficient, but chose to leech in order to grow further. This type of parasites are the ones who eventually get too big for their hosts that they ultimately devour them in due time.

So where am I going with leeches and humans?

In my academic life, I observed that such people are always present in your everyday classroom dealings. What I hate most about the type 2 leeches is that they are people who study in their closets, try to look misinformed, and suddenly come up with good grades. I really do not care about whatever grade they get, but if they can get a good grade, the hell with them for still trying to leech on others! I, for one, may at times be mistaken as a “closet nerd”, but heck, maybe I’m just a little bit smarter than the average student? Really, if I say I did not crack the book, I literally didn’t. And if I study, I do so in the library and never anywhere else (except at Gloria Jeans before).

I hate people going around the class uttering their deceptive rambles of how they were not able to study and the like so they ask the people who really study in class to teach them about the subject matter when what really happen is that they try to absorb what the others know to add to their “knowledge pool”. They want to be better than their hosts that is why they do this, and I hate it. When I ask people to help me, I make sure that I get enough to survive, and not take advantage of them… and whatever I know, I try to share whenever possible to such benevolent people.

Well, the moral lesson of this post is that all you fucking type 2 leeches will somehow get what you deserve and maybe… just maybe… fail on the things which really count.

Karma, dear friend.

*H-Leeching does not only apply to the academe, but also in other aspects such as SPENDING (money), and the like.

Blah blah blah yakkity yak chatter chatter… -SMUG-.

Some people just love talking about themselves, their exploits, their accomplishments, their methods. These people are egocentric characters who care little for what you have to say because they deem your stories and words less than theirs…

Like me.

I, for one, have trouble listening. I try to be interested in what other people say, but if I think that I know more than you do, their words just wouldn’t go through. I love to tell people about myself, but if a person I perceive as uninteresting starts talking, I normally try to appear like a sponge. I listen, but, pardon me, such words will not be taken with importance.

It’s actually better if I talk to you.

If I do not speak my mind before your nor tell you of my exploits, that would probably mean you are an insignificant speck before my presence, much less than those uninteresting people I encounter. If I have this notion that a person knows more than I do, I become like a sponge. I try to add input to the conversation, but I normally think about what they say and absorb it if proven to be positive before my analysis.

In this sense, you can see that people who know a lot tend to brag (yeah, I know that I know a lot, although still a lot less than that of experienced elders). If you are wise, put such a situation to your advantage and absorb. Do not be offended if they see you as inferior because if they think of you as a competitor, they will bring you down instead. Their exploits are valuable and there are reasons why they are superior. Those reasons are the things that you should try to deduce.

In a nutshell, I am saying that people normally brag for a reason (they have something to brag about). Those reasons are valuable and you should apply them to your life to improve yourself.

WE are precious resources to exploit.

Relativity is the idea that speaks of independence. It does not conceptualize a universal thought applicable in all places, at all times, under all instances. To better appreciate this theory, a great scientist concocted this:

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour, but sit beside a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. - Albert Einstein

A complex scientific theory simplicized for the lay man. What is important to you may be worthless to other people. No matter how we view things, there will always be people who will oppose the idea. Of course we can put facts such as “Men need oxygen to live” and the like, but when it comes to point of views which are subjective, nothing is True. This now redirects us to:

Nothing is true, everything is permitted - Hassan-i Sabbah (allegedly uttered this in his deathbed)

This probably pertains to absolute truth. There is no such things as an absolute truth with regard to our view on things and everything is permitted. The second part which states “everything is permitted” aims to open the minds of people to allow subjectivity to flow. I also remembered what a pastor told us before where conflicts between religions arise everytime one faction tells the rest that their God is the only true God. If they permit the existence of the gods of other religions, then they could have lived in harmony save those extremists who believe that those not belonging to their kind must perish.

Going back, we can see how perspectives change the very essence of things. Water is everywhere in our country, yet Singapore imports their water. Oil is very precious to us, but for oil-producing countries, they’re cheaper than water.

Even relativity itself is relative since some people think that there are clear-cut categories which can determine the mindset of others.  Therefore, even if it is an absolute truth for me, it is extremely flawed to other people.

Talk about relativity… it’s all in the mind.