Words of Week 47

Adept: Very skilled
Facet: An aspect of something
Procure: To obtain
Tenacious: Stubborn
Toil: Hard work, to work hard
Lament: To express grief for, mourn

Words of Week 46

Opulent: Rich, characterized by wealth
Laden: Weighed down with a heavy load, burdened
Parch: To make very thirsty
Arid: Very dry
Belligerent: Hostile, warlike
Abhor: To hate
Frugal: Not wasteful or extravagant
Debilitating: Harmful, weakening

Words of Week 45

Eradicate: To erase or to get rid of
Excavate: To dig up
Dormant: Temporarily asleep, inactive
Imperious: Arrogant, behaving like royalty
Astute: Keen, shrewd
Banal: Unoriginal and boring

7 more weeks and we will be done. In the meantime, I hope you all are learning new words and expanding your vocabularies.

Charms in the Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter, 270 pages

Nathaniel Hawthorne

"In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbors."

"There was a remarkable intelligence in his futures, as of a person who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail to mould the physical to itself, and become manifest by unmistakable tokens."

"It may be less soothing than a sinless conscience. That I cannot give thee."

"But there's a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the  more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it."

"Youthful men, not having taken a deep root, give up their hold of life so easily!"

"All that guilty sorrow, hidden from the world, whose great heart would have pitied and forgiven, to be revealed to him, the Pitiless, to him, the Unforgiving!"

"Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feelings of hostility."

"[I]t is true, the propensity of human nature to tell the very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of another, would constrain them to whisper the black scandal of bygone years."

"None; unless it avail him somewhat, that he was broken down by long and exquisite suffering; that his mind was darkened and confused by the very remorse which harrowed it; that, between fleeing as an avowed criminal, and remaining as a hypocrite, conscious might find it hard to strike the balance; that it was human to avoid the peril of death and infamy, and the inscrutable machinations of an enemy; that, finally, to this poor pilgrim, on his dreary and desert path, faint, sick, miserable, there appeared a glimpse of human affection and sympathy, a new life, and a true one, in exchange for the heavy doom which he was now expiating. And be the stern and sad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never, in this mortal state, repaired."

••• § ••• 

I read this for my English 11 class, and I loved it. It's become a favorite. I do have a thing for classics, and I read this closely so I loved it more and more with each chapter. You need to know the time period, historically and literally, and the basic Puritan beliefs for the context to settle but the story is really engaging and yet sad. Hawthorne's writing, as my English teacher put it, is not "skimmable." You have to pay close attention and soak it all in. I had my own copy (pictured below) so I could highlight and sticky note as much as I wanted, and I suggest you get your own copy too, because Hawthorne connects some things so well, it's beautiful. The attention to detail, the symbolism, the imagery, and the characterizations are all well-crafted and it sort of becomes a scavenger hunt for the reader to find the dots here and there and connect them. So, if you are up for a challenge, I would recommend reading it!

Also, Hawthorne uses a plethora of dashes in his writing. He doesn't spare you. I think he might have had a dash-shaker and just poured it all over his writing, but it's not a negative, you just have to get used to his thought process. Second also, you might see more dashes in my future writing, if it becomes unbearable, please let me know.

{from my first library book-sale}

 

I Kant

"Always treat people as ends in themselves, never as means to an end." – Immanuel Kant

The main reason behind all of our problems – social, political, and economical – is the worthlessness of a person's humanity. We have dehumanized so many people, individual and group alike, we no longer feel bad about ourselves when we do certain things. Human relations on the personal level have become ways for us to leverage our lives materialistically.

We make friends with the smart people so they can help us pass a test. We hang out with the popular kids so they protect us from the bullies. We befriend people we don't like to call in favor later in life. We give gifts only if we know they will be returned. We don't disagree with the teachers so they can write us recommendations – for being dull and hypnotized individuals who have long lost the meaning behind authentic relationships based on trust and loyalty.

We have normalized these relations to the point where a random act of kindness surprises us. We call being nice, being flirtatious, and we call being parasitic, being normal. We have coined the phrase "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" because we don't believe that people can do things out of the goodness in their hearts.

But we need to start believing that people can and do good deeds just for the sake of doing good deeds. We don't from relationships, help, and interact with each other for personal benefits only – and we really shouldn't. We feel for each other and we do things because of a moral backbone that has developed us as different from animals. We need to start treating people with respect and sincerity because every person, no matter how strange or different, has a life of zer own and endures pain we don't know about. We need to realize that the highest form of achievement on Earth isn't quantifiable,  it's not our net worth, nor is it the number of people we know; it's how good of a person we are and how we affect others. It's how we improve the lives of our friends, and how we care for those we don't personally know.  

Sure, western capitalism is a thing, but as humans, we are everything but rational (Lord Henry reference for the Oscar Wilde fans), and we don't always act in our own best interests. And that's not a bad thing, it's a human thing, (ironically). We are different from all the other species that populated this planet not only because we are curious, and logical, and scientific, and have bigger brains, but because we have different beliefs and different standards. We have ethics and we have feelings. We have compassion, and kindness, and love, and friendship – and I really don't know how much more dramatic do I need to be to get this message across.

Society needs to shift the belief/paradigm that all humans live on a greedy one-upmanship system. We are human for a reason. Own up to it.

Lots of dashes,
∞Belle

Words of Week 44

Slander: A mean-spirited and false comment meant to injure someone
Immaculate: Perfectly clean, free from dirt or stain
Hovel: A shack
Jeer: To make fun of
Venerate: To regard with deep respect
Rue: To regret
Allege: To declare that something is true without proof

Words of Week 43

Keen: Having or showing eagerness or enthusiasm
Stifle: To hold back
Reminiscence: A memory, the act of recalling the past
Benign: Harmless
Barrage: A flood
Recede: To move away or become smaller

Words of Week 42

Confound: To puzzle or to confuse
Wily: Cunning, crafty
Salve: Something used to heal
Decree: An order or a command
Wane: To decrease in size or strength
Repugnant: Highly disgusting, offensive

Words of Week 41

Squalid: (of a place) extremely dirty and unpleasant, esp. as a result of poverty or neglect OR showing or involving a contemptible lack of moral standards
Quandary: A state of perplexity or uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation
Recuperate: Recover from illness or exertion
Sage: Wise, learned, clever
Posterity: All future generations of people
Quibble: Argue or raise objections about a trivial matter

Small Talk

-Isn't the weather nice out? 

+It's not really my idea of perfect -- 

-No? What's your idea of perfect?

+Well, for me, perfection is almost attainable, but the perfect weather would be.....

Almost everybody despises small talk. And almost all people look at small talk as that one routine thing in the world that is forced upon them to be able to socialize in gruesome circumstances and be miserable while they do. And despite popular opinion, I think small talk is wonderful. 

Like, full of wonders. 

Because, for me, small talk is the door through which we enter into bigger, and philosophically engaging conversations. Small talk is a sort of test: 

If I can turn around the conversation and make it more interesting, tie it into a topic that pulls in references from various cultural paradigms, then we won't only talk about the weather but about our fascination with clouds. From clouds, we will move on to that TED talk we both watched about a cloud appreciation society. And that society will open up into a discussion about photography, we will compare our cameras and our favorite photographers, and we will discuss style and contrast and shadows and from there we will move on to that episode of Supernatural where a shadow was the only characteristic of a creature the Winchester brothers could see. Would we like to be supernatural hunters, save people? We will argue about ethics and morals and then we will resolve our differences, we will learn about each other and we will learn about the world around us. 

Because a few minutes of small talk can lead to hours of intellectual debates and impassioned discussions. And that is how we discover our soul mates.*

*I am qualifying soulmate as someone whom I am on the same page with but not on the same sentence. We write different paragraphs, and complete each other's thoughts. [I am inspired by a fellow blogger for the definition.]

Lots of stamps, 

~Belle

Words of Week 40

Trenchant: Vigorous or incisive in expression or style
Viable: Capable of working successfully; feasible
Whet: Sharpen the blade of (a tool or weapon).
Pedantic: Scrupulous
Deft: Neatly skillful and quick in one's movements
Deleterious: Causing harm or damage
Rift: A crack, split, or break in something

Belle & Bete

As my hiatus comes to a happy end, I will start off with something positive and finally publish this piece from my drafts.

Despite my bias due to my beloved nickname, I think Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête, in original French version) is the best and the most meaningful animated romantic movie. The plot is beautiful, there are several overt moral messages, and the love experienced by Belle and the Beast is sincere. 

When compared to other Disney princesses and princes, Belle's love story is much more about how her relationship with the Beast develops than her falling in love on first kiss/sight/touch. Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, and Aurora for example, see their princes for a few seconds and then they get married. Snow White and Aurora marry the Princes who awaken them from their sleeps with kisses, and mind me, these girls are teenagers. 

While analyzing Beauty and the Beast, my admiration for scriptwriters and animation directors grew immensely. The musical pieces, the puns, the sophisticated vocabulary in spite of being directed at a younger audience are all enjoyable and they flow together very well. 

The story itself is very unique, thanks to Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont. She wrote the original fairy tale and I am forever grateful for her.  To start off the story:

"In the prologue, told through stained glass windows, an old beggar woman arrives at the castle of a French prince. The woman asks for shelter from the cold, and in return, offers the young prince a rose. Repulsed by her appearance, the prince turns her away. The beggar warns him not to judge by appearances, but the Prince ignores her and shuts the door on her. The woman then throws off her disguise, revealing that she is a beautiful enchantress. The Prince tries to apologize, but she has already seen the lack of kindness in his heart. She conjures a powerful curse, transforming him into a hideous beast, his servants into anthropomorphic household items, and the entire castle and all its surroundings into a dark, forbidding place, so that he will learn not to judge by appearances. The curse can only be broken if the Beast learns to love another and receives the other's love in return before the last petal of the enchantress's rose withers and falls; if not, he will be doomed to remain a beast forever. As the years pass, the Beast sits in his castle wallowing in despair, convinced that no one could ever love him."

Continued Synopsis from IMDB (unless you don't know the plot line) 

After Beast takes Belle as his prisoner, they gradually overcome their initial reactions toward each other. Belle stops being scared and horrified by his manners, anger, and appearance, and Beast softens his attitude and becomes more hopeful each day. They learn to treat each other befittingly and see each other beyond their looks. I think it's especially a big step for Belle because she falls in love with (a)/the Beast. However, equally admirable is the Beast's success in overcoming his vanity and madness. 

I know some people might argue about Shrek and Fiona being similar since Fiona was a princess and she fell in love with an ogre. But, we need to realize two things: one, Fiona had the ability to be an ogre and therefore she wasn't completely estranged with Shrek; and two, she knew that she could live happily after if Shrek loved her and broke the spell. Belle on the other hand, didn't know if Beast would be a Prince with her love although she saw his painting, because she didn't know about the spell. Her love was genuine and without planned future benefits. 

In the end of the movie, Beast learns real love because he puts Belle's happiness before his personal interests and risks her not coming back -- but Belle does come back and declares her love for him while he lies dying from a wound he receives from Gaston. At this point, the spell is broken and the Beast transforms back into the prince he used to be and they have their deserved happy ending. 

Lots of tea cups, 
~Belle

PS: I am working on a detailed synopsis/critique of the cartoon Powerpuff Girls, which Netflix recently put up. It's one of the cartoons I grew up with and rewatching it now, I see a lot of things I obviously couldn't have realized or understood as a kid. Hopefully that'll be enjoyable once I am done with it.
PPS: What do you guys think about animated movies in general? Which ones are your favorites? Share with me your ideas, give me feedback, spill it all out. Anonymous commenting is open, and if you are having problems you can message me from my tumblr.

Words of Week 39

Stymie: Prevent or hinder the progress of

Diffidence: Modesty or shyness resulting from a lack of self-confidence
Suffuse: Gradually spread through or over
Tenet: A principle or belief, esp. one of the main principles of a religion or philosophy
Animosity: Strong hostility
Transient: Lasting only for a short time; impermanent
Ravenous: Extremely hungry

Proximity

*This is going to be a post about death. Beware. (Good timing with Halloween, right?)

I have a few mentors who help me in my character building and faith strengthening quest as a teenager, and today we talked about how we ignore death, how we ignore its existence and its reality. But despite our ignorance and our disbelief in its immediacy, every single person is equally close to death in spite of zer conditions.

I am sitting here in front of a laptop in probably the most protected state in the US; the house doors are locked; my parents are home; and I have access to an emergency line through my phone. I am 16, and with the current life expectancy rate in the US, I have about 62 more years to live and prosper. I ride the bus every morning to school, avoiding a significant amount of car-related accidents, and my house is in a fairly secure neighborhood. I have a healthy diet and I exercise moderately everyday.

A girl on the other side of the world. A civilian in Syria, caught between war and hostility. She wakes up to gunshots and sleeps with helicopter engines. Her parents decide to become refugees and escape to another country. She travels through battlefields and tries to cross city borders. She runs from kidnappers, and she runs from rebel forces. She maneuvers around bullets and dances through landmines.

But we are not different. Not at all. I might die right this moment, before I publish this post. I might die from an unusual death like vinegar poisoning or something more common like a heart-attack. My bookshelf might topple over and break my neck, or I might fall while getting out of my chair and hit my head on the corner edge of my wall. She might die too, before I publish this post. She might not be able to run as fast as she had to, or she might get trapped under a collapsed building.

We look different. We belong to different places. We have different cultures and customs. But let's think together, because, really, we are in equal proximity to to our deaths, and that is eye-opening.

Lots of bears,
~Belle

Words of Week 38

Epitome: A person or thing that is a perfect example of a particular quality or type
Recant: Say that one no longer holds an opinion or belief, esp. one considered heretical
Futile: Incapable of producing any useful result; pointless
Retrospective: Looking back on or dealing with past events or situations
Sacrosanct: (esp. of a principle, place, or routine) regarded as too important or valuable to be interfered with
Impeccable: (of behavior, performance, or appearance) in accordance with the highest standards of propriety; faultless
Scapegoat: A person who is unfairly blamed for something that others have done

Words of Week 37

Condone: Accept and allow (behavior that is considered morally wrong or offensive) to continue
Quixotic: Exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical ( I think I found the word that describes my personality from an outside perspective)
Quintessence: The most perfect or typical example of a quality or class
Tome: A book, esp. a large, heavy, scholarly one
Qualm: An uneasy feeling of doubt, worry, or fear, esp. about one's own conduct; a misgiving
Tepid: Showing little enthusiasm
Browbeat: Intimidate (someone), typically into doing something, with stern or abusive words

365 Days

Today is a more remarkable day than the past 364 days. Coincidentally, today is not only the first day of Eid, but also the first year anniversary of my blog. October 15 2012 was the day I created this blog, and posted my first blog post.

This is a general thank you to anyone who has come to read, share, or comment on my posts. There were weeks where I didn't receive any page views, and there were times I couldn't summon up the will to write. I went through unimaginative phases and short-lived enthusiasm bursts. I conducted social experiments, and ranted about politics. But at the end of the day, there were always people who helped me continue and who convinced me to keep writing.

In the upcoming 365 days, I will keep writing insightful posts, update you on interesting books, and finish my Lexicon! posts. I hope you enjoy reading them and think about some of the issues I try to raise.

I have compiled my 10 pride posts from this year. I think they are a pretty good representation of how and what I blog. Leave me feedback if you can, and I will love you forever.

1. I.Am.The.Change (My most inspired and determined post, read this if you don't read anything else)
2. a.theist (My analysis and take on coexisting)
3. The Chrysalis Mystery (My biggest problem as a teenager)
4. Stand Up (Empowerment and encouragement)
5. Blocked  (When I had writer's block)
6. Would You Believe Me...? (The perfection of the universe)
7. What Makes You Feel Alive? (Purely personal take on how to not lose faith in humanity)
8. Fingertips (Some invention I will hopefully patent in the future)
9. Where Am I? (Well, what do you know about pop culture?)
10. The Bitterness Paradox (Good, better, best)

~Lots of ice crystals,

Belle

Words of Week 36

Panoply: A complete or impressive collection of things
Peregrination: Traveling or wandering around
Perfunctory: (of an action or gesture) carried out with a minimum of effort or reflection
Placid: (of a person or animal) not easily upset or excited
Fin de siecle: Relating to or characteristic of the end of a century, esp. the 19th century

Words of Week 35

De facto: In fact, or in effect, whether by right or not
Nascent: (esp. of a process or organization) just coming into existence and beginning to display signs of future potential.
Tumult: A loud, confused noise, esp. one caused by a large mass of people
Neophyte: A person who is new to a subject, skill, or belief
Obstinate: Stubbornly refusing to change one's opinion or chosen course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so

Blocked

Type, type, type, type, read, edit, type, type, type, read, delete. 

There is a spoken word poet, named Sarah Kay, and she has a poem named 'Worst Poetry'. I feel exactly like her but I also feel exactly unlike her. I have been writing more poems lately than blog posts and I am really sorry about that. I can't seem to put words together the way I want them to (at least in my blog), however I have been writing some pieces for my AP Lang class which I am loving with all my heart and enjoying with every cell in my body. I would like to post them here but they are personal essays and as personal as I get with you guys here, I would like to keep them at hand for the time being. I have 13 drafts for posts on this blog but somehow they don't click with me, and before I publish something I need to believe it's the most perfect I can do. I am still publishing my weekly words and salient charms so I am not inactive but I need something to happen in my life, I don't know what. 

While you mourn over my small rant hiatus, you can watch a YouTube video I made about my name and languages. If you never met me in real life then this is your chance to see how fabulous I am (:

~Lots of hugs

Belle

Words of Week 34

Macabre: Sisturbing and horrifying because of involvement with or depiction of death and injury
Credulous: Having or showing too great a readiness to believe things
Leery: Cautious or wary due to realistic suspicions
Avocation: A hobby or minor occupation
Livid: Furiously angry
Histrionic: Overly theatrical or melodramatic in character or style
Meander: Follow a winding course

Words of Week 33

Lackluster: Lacking in vitality, force, or conviction; uninspired or uninspiring
Indelible: (of ink or a pen) making marks that cannot be removed
Jaded: Tired, bored, or lacking enthusiasm, typically after having had too much of something
Ineffable: Too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words
Affable: Friendly, good-natured, or easy to talk to
Innate: Inborn; natural

Words of Week 32

Gingerly: In a careful or cautious manner
Fraught: (of a situation or course of action) filled with or destined to result in (something undesirable).
Nuance: A subtle difference in or shade of meaning, expression, or sound.
Gamut: The complete range or scope of something
Imperceptible: Impossible to perceive
Abstruse: Difficult to understand; obscure
Gregarious: (of a person) fond of company; sociable

Words of Week 31

Metacognition: Awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes
Ebullient: Cheerful and full of energy
Flagrant: (of something considered wrong or immoral) conspicuously or obviously offensive
Allegory: A story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one
Exacerbate: Make (a problem, bad situation, or negative feeling) worse

Charms in Requiem

Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver, 391 pages

"But after the cure, a wall came down inside me. Now I see that yes, I am quiet simply and inarguably beautiful. I also no longer care."

"Freedom is exhausting."

"How can someone have the power to shatter you to dust -- and also make you feel so whole?"

"This is what amazes me: that people are new every day. That they are never the same. You must invent them, and they must invent themselves, too."

"Only people who have something to hide make a fuss about privacy."

"He who jumps may fall, but he may also fly."

Review with Spoilers

The final book in the trilogy, Requiem was exceedingly slow. The love triangle between Lena, Julian and Alex took up too much space, and the overthrowing of the government was squeezed into 4 chapters. The ending was very vague. I would have liked to know what Julian felt and if the cured and the uncured lived together after the wall came down. Nevertheless, an easy-read and satisfying if you are interested in the dystopian young adult genre.

Words of Week 30

Covet: Yearn to possess or have
Deadlock: A situation, typically one involving opposing parties, in which no progress can be made
Penurious: Extremely poor; poverty-stricken
Defunct: No longer existing or functioning
Choleric: Bad-tempered or irritable
Dispel: Make (a doubt, feeling, or belief) disappear
Gaunt: (of a person) Lean and haggard, esp. because of suffering, hunger, or age
Dissonance: Lack of harmony among musical notes

Would You Believe Me...

There is a factory that exists somewhere on our earth that has millions of workers. And all of those workers are deaf, mute, blind and mentally disabled. This factory produces one of the greatest new technologies in the world: nanobots. None of the workers actually know where they are or what they are doing but each worker in the factory knows the entire database of the factory and they keep producing the best nanobots science has ever seen.

When a thousand workers come together they form a self-supporting group -- a self-supporting group that can feed and clean itself -- and when a thousand groups come together they form a building unit for the nanobot production. Mind me, they are in groups, but they still don't know what's happening.

Every single worker gets replaced with a brand new replica when his time comes but he never knows he is being replaced. The factory has a central command room with such technology that when the factory owner gives a command her message travels to all the workers in less than .07 seconds.

Would you believe me if I said all these workers, and all the supplies for the factory and all the ideas and the prototypes for the nanobots coincidentally appeared in the same place and just clicked together to make this factory exist?

No. No rational human being would believe me if I told her these and I wouldn't expect her to. It is irrational after all. All that happening by itself out of nowhere?  That's ridiculous.

But would you believe me if I said that factory was an analogy for my body and those workers were all the atoms and the groups were the cells and the building units were the tissues and the organs and the systems. And that command central was my brain, sending and receiving nerve impulses that traveled at 250 mph (x). Of course you would. That is what our bodies do, isn't it? Be amazing. Be unbelievable.

Yet how irrational we are to believe, that it can all happen by itself. It can all happen over and over again, 7 octabillion (x) atoms coming together to make a member of the same species, not knowing what's happening. How irrational we are to think that for all the people that ever lived and are to live, these atoms come together and function harmoniously not knowing what's happening. How irrational we are to think that impossibilities happen momentously and against all mathematical probabilities, atoms and cells and chromosomes form as if there is only one fixed arrangement.

How irrational. How very irrational to believe that all that happens, happens for no reason and with no direction and no consciousness. How so very irrational. Let's think together. Let's think and lets have the our brains send orders to our lifeless atoms. Let's think how we are so miraculous and let's think how we ignore that. Let's think together.

Lots of mitochondria,
~Belle

Opposites Don't Attract

Disclaimer: This post is not about love.

I was writing an essay about America's defense strategies when I made an analogy and I used the term 'the opposite gender.'

Now, nothing sounds wrong with that but it got me thinking, language matters a lot. And when we say opposite it makes it sound like we are enemies. It makes it sound like there is a battlefield, and females are on one side and males are on the opposite side, and we are fighting each other to death. Of course, misandry and misogyny exist but we aren't the opposite of each other. We are just different, but we are still on the same side. We aren't fighting, and we shouldn't be fighting. So from now on, I will use 'the other gender' when I talk about males and experiment how my mindset changes with that. Because I think that might be a contributing factor in our dislike of the opposite gender. If we had progressed through history, through time, knowing and believing that we weren't enemies and we were on the same side it could have changed our perspectives on each other. I know we are different physically and mentally, but both genders are human. We are both on the humanity side of the battle, and the battle is against inhumanity. We are fighting together against inhumanity. Join the fight, let's win this battle.

Lots of realizations,
~Belle

Words of Week 29

Cache: A collection of items of the same type stored in a hidden or inaccessible place
Profane:  Not respectful of orthodox religious practice; irreverent
Cajole: Persuade someone to do something by sustained coaxing or flattery
Writhe: Make continual twisting, squirming movements or contortions of the body
Catharsis: The process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions
Repudiate: Refuse to accept or be associated with
Concurrence: Agreement of results or opinions
Meticulous: Showing great attention to detail; very careful and precise
Contiguous: Sharing a common border; touching

Words of Week 28

Antsy: Agitated, impatient, or restless
Incinerate: Destroy (something, esp. waste material) by burning
Arcane: Understood by few; mysterious or secret
Incarcerate: To imprison
Ardent: Enthusiastic or passionate
Recalcitrant: Having an obstinately uncooperative attitude toward authority
Arduous: Involving or requiring strenuous effort; difficult and tiring

Words of Week 27

Aberrant: Diverging from the normal type
Elongate: Make (something) longer, esp. unusually so in relation to its width
Abstraction: Something that exists only as an idea
Dingy: Gloomy and drab
Alfresco: In the open air
Warlock: A man who practices witchcraft; a sorcerer
Aloof: Not friendly or forthcoming; cool and distant // Conspicuously uninvolved and uninterested, typically through distaste

The Bitterness Paradox

A close friend of mine started vlogging and one of her videos is named 'Failing at Life' (Drop by and say hello to her, she has a rather amazing camera and a more amazing sense of humor that comes from being bookish and intelligent)

In this video, she talked about looking around and being disappointed instead of being inspired because there is always someone who does things better than her. Someone faster, someone stronger, someone smarter, someone funnier etc.

This is a paradoxical statement because saying there is always someone better means there are people better than the people who are better than me. Since the better-ness doesn't come in cycles -- meaning I am not better than the person who is better than everyone better than me, the statement contradicts itself since there is no ultimate better-ness bur only a state of being the best.

Obviously there may be people who are better at some things than me, but I can be the best at something if I try. I know there are people out there who can sing better than me, but that's not my area of expertise. I don't wreck myself over it like many people. (Hence Bitterness over Betterness). After all, what did Einstein say?

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

 I can write and I strive to write the best I can. I can be the best writer who writes in my style and in my voice. Nobody can write better than me using my tone and my sense of writing. If I create something original, something purely new, then nobody can imitate it and make it better than mine. I create my work and I am the best at creating my work because I am the one who supplies the idea behind the work and I am the one who develops and grows the work. People can re-write my work, people can edit my work, people can criticize my work, but it would not have been there without me and that makes me the best at creating my work.

So, yes we can be the best at things we want to be the best in. There aren't people who are better than me at everything. Nobody is better than me at writing this post. Nobody is better than me at staying up till 2 am in the morning to finish this post. Nobody is better than me at what I do with a passion. In a society where we are all told to be individuals while fitting into the norm, I am best at doing things my own creative way and I may not follow the guidelines, and I may look out of place, but it's the way I do things and I am the absolute best at doing things my way.

Lots of mirrors
~Belle

Words of Week 26

Fringe: Not part of the mainstream; unconventional, peripheral, or extreme
Miasma: An oppressive or unpleasant atmosphere that surrounds or emanates from something
Balk: Hesitate or be unwilling to accept an idea or undertaking
Plumage: A bird's feathers collectively
Banal: So lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring
Livid: Furiously angry
Bolster: Support or strengthen; prop up
Avant-Garde: The advance group in any field, especially in the visual, literary, or musical arts, whose works are characterized chiefly by unorthodox and experimental methods.
Brash: Self-assertive in a rude, noisy, or overbearing way

Words of Week 25

Teetotalism: Abstaining from alcohol
Dread: Overwhelming fear
Exasperate: To make very angry
Amorphous: Without shape
Stark: Bare, without decroation

Where am I?

I start most of my posts with the source of my inspiration, and this topic came to me at 4:17 am in the morning as I was falling asleep thinking of how great of an author I wanted to become. Then it hit me, what am I to write about? Philosophical rants and humanity's faults compressed between two hard covers isn't what people want to read. We don't want to be reminded of our vices and our responsibilities. And that is why we read fiction: because we want to escape reality for a while, and think about other people or other creatures. And then a second wave of realization hit me like a strong aftershock and I thought to myself, even if I wrote fiction, my characters would be so out of this world because they hardly appear in any other fictitious work. What characters? Us, Muslims. 

I have noticed that Muslims are barely present in pop culture. We aren't in fiction books unless written by Muslim authors for Muslim readers (with a few exceptions). We especially aren't in dystopian books. So what? Is there an undercover conspiracy we will all be wiped out before the year 2100? We aren't in movies unless we are selling oil, committing crime or being involved in acts of terrorism (with a few exceptions). We aren't in comedies unless we are made fun of. We are not in TV shows that depict daily lives of people (with a few exceptions, those exceptions being when we are portrayed as suspicious criminals). We aren't present in schools in movies and TV shows while every other minority gets represented with and without their sad stereotypes. 

Why doesn't the protagonist have a Muslim friend who doesn't eat pork and dislikes gossiping? Why isn't there an antagonist who stops using drugs under the influence of a nice Muslim friend? Why isn't there a Muslim coworker who abstains from alcohol? Why isn't there a Muslim politician who is honest? Why isn't there a Muslim neighbor who brings over food in Ramadan? Why isn't there a Muslim fashionista with a hijab(head covering)?

We aren't that hard to write about or act out. A few dietary restrictions, no cursing, no gossiping, no lying, no flirting, no tight clothes. There you have it. Ideal Muslim teenager. Tries to appeal to the mind and heart of zer friends with the way ze leads zer life. Is confident, can't stand injustice, and performs selfless acts on a daily basis. Can make jokes and have fun as much as any teenager but can also lead intellectual conversations and discuss the importance of life. Is not perfect, makes mistakes -- because is human (SHOCKER!). We can be incorporated into any story, I guarantee it.

If you cannot find actors to play in your movies, you might as well ask one of us and we will do it. We do have acting talent in our community. After all, Muslims are only 1.6 billion of the 7 billion population of our globe, a mere 23%. In USA, we are a minority with a small number of roughly 2.6 million people. (Source)

So I decided to change pop culture and introduce some strong Muslim characters. (Belle dreams big #2) And I hope more people join in. If you aren't familiar with our lifestyle, I am certain you can befriend a Muslim and ask zer if you have questions. In the end, the life of a writer a movie maker and a public artist always contains large amounts of research and first-hand experience.


Lots of highlighters
~Belle

Expectations Everywhere

Succeed. Be remembered. Make history. Make us proud.  Be comfortable. Have a job. Get married. Have children. Be patient. Go to a good university. Be intelligent. Get a PhD. Own a house. Be wealthy. Drive a sports car. Be attractive. Travel the world. Make friends. Be nice. Donate money. Win the lottery. Be generous. Share your talents. Socialize. Adopt a pet. Be you...Only then maybe, you can try being happy. (:  

You see, there is an ancient gramophone in the back of my head that plays the above message on repeat. For me, that gramophone started playing when I started high school, and it has been there for nearly three years. And today, as I was spending a cynical and and equally miserable day, I thought to myself, why? Why do I put up with this ugly, bad mash-up recording?

The world expects each and every single one of us to act and exist in a certain way and we are burdened with countless external expectations as if our own self-established expectations weren't enough. So, to find a better track to play in the background of my daily life, I took a tour in the record store that supplies my imaginary gramophone and I saw that all the expectation records were categorized into three sections:

1. Inherent expectations,
2. Identity expectations, and
3. Individual expectations

I chose the top records from each section to represent that section.

Track 01 - Inherent Expectations, 'Me, Myself and My Soul'

These expectations come from being a human. As I don't believe in speciation and therefore a huge chunk of evolution, and instead believe in creation and having a somewhat sacred purpose in my life, I am expected to behave in a predetermined way. My personal belief dictates that I am not an 'animal' and I am not just a step in the evolutionary ladder either. I am not the result of infinite impossibilities and I am definitely not here by chance. I am above an animal, and I am above a plant. I am superior, BUT only if I lead a life that sets itself apart. My inherent expectations are to be honest, to be trustworthy, to be loyal, to be kind, to be compassionate, to be patient, and to be selfless. I enjoy this track because it encourages me to grow into a big-hearted person. I can do more than merely eating, sleeping and living a pointless life. I can do more than what an animal is capable of.

Track 02 - Identity Expectations, 'Insignificant Part of a Significant Whole'

These expectations come from being me. When I first started this blog, I wrote a post about identity, who I am, and to what communities I belong to. Every piece of my identity has different expectations. My gender expects submission and femininity. Our society and the way we have lived our lives from the beginning have shaped these expectations. In a matriarchal society I would have been expected to be dominant and stubborn. My countries expect patriotism, and to an extent, some nationalism. People whom I haven't met expect things from me, and then they act surprised when I tell them there is too much pressure on my back. As a teenager, society expects rebellion, peers expect perfection, parents expect obedience, and younger people expect exemplary lives. My school expects success, my teachers expect minimum grades, the education system expects proficiency in subjects that don't interest me, colleges expect participation in sports when I can't even kick a ball, and newspaper columnists expect revolutionary inventions and philanthropic organizations, so they can write about me: the outcast of her generation. As a daughter and as a big sister, my parents expect a sharing attitude, positivity and a healthy balance in my life. As a best friend to two incredible girls and as an attentive listener to the whole population, I am expected to be a locked chest full of secrets and problems and I am expected to be wise and give good advice. My relationship with this track is complicated. Perhaps, I need specialization in some of these categories to ease up on myself.

Track 03 - Individual Expectations, 'I Am Invincible"

These expectations come from myself. These are the things I expect myself to do. If you read my blog on a considerably regular basis, you'll know I expect big things from myself. I expect to change the world. Yeah. Belle dreams big. Apart from my seemingly unachievable dreams, and unattainable goals, I want to become a best-selling author, meet inspiring people, give a TED talk, intern for National Geographic or Google, marry someone I genuinely love, set up an art exhibition, live in a house near the ocean, and publish a photo journal. The problem with my individual expectations is that most of them are based on the future and I tend to think that only after I achieve them I will be happy. And, materializing my life and relying on achievement to be happy makes me everything but happy. I need to focus on now and carpe diem.


&&&

Now that I am trying to reduce the active expectations in my brain, I have been thinking about one question. If we cannot yet fulfill the expectations that come from being human, how can we fulfill expectations that come after? We are full of greed and narcissistic desires, and we don't strive to keep them at a low point. We can't get rid of them because we are human, but we don't work towards refining our values either. Which is more important: inherent expectations or identity and individual expectations? How do we raise our children, what should we focus on? I think if we focus on inherent expectations, we will improve as a society because 1. they are simpler and 2. they are broader. If we work towards being loyal in general, then we fulfill our inherent expectation AND other expectations such as friend and country loyalty. So, I am going to shift my focus on being a more worthy human and I believe the details will come by themselves.

Lots of record sleeves,

~Belle

Fingertips

I am taking an economics class this summer and my latest lesson was about protecting oneself from identity theft. Apparently, about nine million Americans every year get their identities stolen. They go around not knowing who they are or why they exist. The government recruits them for scientific research and after being given new identities, these nine million Americans are released into the wild to become a part of the working class and work their way up to have their identities stolen again.

*I am joking about the last part. They aren't released into the wild, they are sent overseas for dangerous medical experiments.

Apart from the provoked confabulation on my part, I was struck with an extremely inefficient idea to prevent identity theft. Instead of sending lengthy emails, delivering documents in the mail, asking for personal information over phone conversations and swiping cards and signing checks to pay, why don't we have all our information on our personalized body features. Since every human being has distinct fingerprints, noseprints and retinal patterns, we should get rid of all of our old identification methods and adopt a new technology with the entire population's distinct feature data in it.

Imagine a machine that combines fingerprint authentication, iris scanning, and noseprint recognition. One of the three would have been weak by itself, but in having three, we would ensure to reduce identity theft to almost zero. Along with reducing identity theft, the machine would also aid in:

• Creating millions of jobs: By requesting people who can produce the machine theoretically and materially, who can market it, who can manage the data inside the machine, and who can protect the data etc. 
• Fixing the economy: By reducing unemployment and therefore increasing the money supply in the market and also by inducing safe monetary decisions and transactions as a result of the reduction in identity theft 
• Reducing air and water pollution: Reduces air pollution by reducing the paper usage and therefore the need for cutting trees. Reduces water pollution by reducing the need for paper recycling centers which use paper and excessive amounts of energy to recycle paper and dump their processed water back into streams that either provide drinking water for people or habitat for marine organisms 

I think, it would also be convenient to add speaker recognition. That way, people would be protected from all sorts of psychopaths. If it were just fingerprints or noseprints, some desperate maniacs would go around trying to chop pieces of people's bodies. When we add iris recognition, although it eliminates losing parts of your body, it puts you in a all-or-nothing scenario in which an unstable minded person may as well deprive you of your existence and drag your dead body to my miraculous machine. So, if I also add speaker recognition (there must be a secret code to initiate a call to 911 and protect the person's account in case someone is holding a gun to their head) then, I am sure people would think it easier to get a job then to steal someone's identity. 

The machine will have all your needed data such as credit card bills, insurance plans, mortgage payments, loans, emails, tickets, passwords, cloud data and so on. To secure all this data a security system needs to be built for the sole reason of encrypting each piece of information and protecting it so it is impossible to access by pure computer hacking talent.

I am still thinking of a name, but I will update if I find one.
Until then,

Lots of TARDIS stickers,
~Belle

Words of Week 24

Con artist: A person adept at lying, cajolery, or glib self-serving talk
Ponzi Scheme: A swindle in which a quick return, made up of money from new investors, on an initial investment lures the victim into much bigger risks.
Ambivalence: Uncertainty or fluctuation, especially when caused by inability to make a choice or by a simultaneous desire to say or do two opposite or conflicting things
Succumb: To give way to superior force; yield

Cogitation: Concerted thought or reflection; meditation; contemplation
Stoic: A person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining.

I accidentally deleted my other post and I had to substitute my list for next week. I am really mad at myself and if you saw any of the words I posted earlier and can remember them, please tell me // 

Charms in tuesdays with Morrie

tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, 191 pages

*The title on the book is capitalized as I have typed, so it is not a mistake although most online reviews and pages for the book capitalize the t and the w.

"Simpson trial was in full swing, and there were people who surrendered their entire lunch hours watching it, then taped the rest so they could watch more at night. They didn't know O. J. Simpson. They didn't know anyone involved in the case. Yet they gave up days and weeks of their lives, addicted to someone else's drama."

"Love is the only rational act."

"Mitch, if you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone."

"Love each other, or perish."

"People are only mean when they're threatened."

"In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive, right? [...] But here's the secret: in between, we need others as well."

"Death ends a life, not a relationship."
--
No matter how old you are right now, no matter how many books you may be reading at this time, and no matter how busy you might be, allot three hours of your day today and read this book. Your view on how to live your life will completely change, and if it doesn't you can email me for the three hours you lost. This book not only has a powerful writing style, but also a beautiful plot. It is a highly emotional story, one that will definitely remain unforgettable to me for the rest of my life. I am certain that you will fall in love with Morrie and I hope after you read it, you take his advice and start thoroughly enjoying your life.

Here is a picture of my copy from the library. I have also read 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven' by Mitch Albom and I really enjoyed it, though not as much as this one. tuesdays with Morrie became a favorite as soon as I finished the last page and really, I cannot express how much I would be happy if every single soul on the planet could read this book and cherish it.

photograp by Belle, 2013

Charms in Insurgent

Insurgent  by Veronica Roth, 525 pages (Divergent #2)

"Like a wild animal, the truth is too powerful to remain caged."

"Noise and activity are the refuges of the bereaved and the guilty."

"There is no real reason for tear glands to overproduce tears at the behest of an emotion. I think we cry to release the animal parts of us without losing our humanity."

"People, I have discovered, are layers and layers of secrets. You believe you know them, that you understand them, but their motives are always hidden from you, buried in their own hearts. You will never know them, but sometimes you decide to trust them."

"[S]ometimes the people you oppress become mightier than you would like."
--
I really enjoyed every bit of this follow-up to Divergent. The plot kept me turning the pages, and the story was filled with both emotions and actions. I am looking forward to Allegiant, both for the mellifluous writing and the anticipated ending.

[Spoilers and a More Thorough Review]

The relationships between people in this book surprised me in each passing chapter. I think Veronica Roth has a talent with extreme plot twists and manipulation. Peter saving Tris, Caleb turning out to be a traitor, Tris allying with Marcus, Johanna stepping down from Amity... There was so much tension all throughout the book, but the strained relationship between Tris and Tobias made me anxious the most. Fight after fight they came back with more difficulties and secrets, although I had lost all hope at some point, I liked the reconciliated ending. The message deliverance and the factionless overtake was brilliant. One problem I personally had was the death of Jeanine. It was really sudden and I liked her as a strong interesting character, so I wanted to hear her logical fights and plans in an interrogation or a ceremony, but she just died. What I am left wondering is if the factions will open the gates, and go into the world, and who was the Prior who delivered the message in the video?

I. Am. The. Change.

My life, in all its flat eccentricity involves a lot of soliloquies, and yesterday after I watched 6 TED talks, and was in the process of getting ready to pray, I imagined myself a TED speaker. It was a rare moment of pure intellectual inspiration and I recorded what I was saying instead of typing it or jotting it down because I couldn't risk losing certain concepts that formed in my brain -- I had an inner discovery about change. Change as a general factor in our lives and in our society. This was shortly after reading through an infographic about the millennial generation.

In Turkish, there is a saying along the lines of "If you call a person stupid 40 times, he will eventually believe himself to be stupid." This is the case with our generation, the millennial generation. The generation before us (the adults) and the generation before them (the seniors) keep calling us lazy, impassive, inactive, bored, detached, indifferent and disinterested. And in the end, some of us will believe that we cannot change the world, but the world can't afford that sort of a mindset right now. We can't afford to have a fraction of our generation partially hopeful, a fraction of it completely cynical, and the remaining nonchalantly stoical.

Especially at this time, we can't have people unaware of their surroundings and unwilling to act because they don't believe in their power to change the world. There are lots of challenges waiting to be tackled and every single person on the planet needs to contribute to the solutions. By calling my generation stupid and unable to accomplish anything, not only do people demotivate us but they also drag us into a black hole they have created out of their debts, racism, sexism, discrimination, wars, waste and moral corruptness.

They want us to follow their footsteps and throw ourselves into this black hole, but we won't do that. Why? Because we CAN change the world and we WILL, but the first step is to believe. We need people to understand that we ARE capable of doing that. We are capable of changing the world, and we need people to believe that. We are so much more than what the last generation was. We are capable of producing ideas outside the box that is in reality a dotted circle. We are creative and daring. More than the ones that came before us.

But, we need to believe. My generation needs to believe, and everyone else needs to support that belief. The world took a downturn before us, and the people of my generation were the promised saviors. We were born believing and we were going full speed but suddenly obstacles appeared on our road to changing the world. Suddenly people started saying "Nope, there is a speed limit to how fast you can achieve near-perfection" and "You know, you might even be underage to be on this road..."

I am foolishly realizing that people KNOW we are capable of changing the world, and they KNOW we can help them out of their black hole, but they are so proud and so arrogant, they don't want us to succeed, which makes believing the first threshold we need to step over.

A few weeks ago, I had a small debate with a university professor about what should be done about the youth to insure our paths in life. I told him that the youth needs a clear sense of direction but that alone won't solve our issues, and the environment in which the youth grow and mature needs to be appropriate. And to achieve that environment we need to also direct the parents, the teachers, the leaders, and other influences on the youth in the right direction. He told me it was easier said than done, because no matter how much we work on the youth, we can never change the parents or the teachers or the adults in general because their personalities are already set in stone.

Well, with that mindset, of course we can't. If we believe that we can change the environment, we can. And, that sounds so naive and unrealistically optimistic, but it is true. If I believe I can change these people, I will, but I DO need help. I need people who are passionate and genuinely interested in changing the world. I need people who believe they can change the world.

The professor said, these adults already shaped how they live their lives, you can't change a person's lifestyle after he is 50 years old. That is partially true because 'child is father of the man,' but people change all the time. People change over the years, people change overnight, criminals become philanthropists, football players become artists, atheists becomes theists etc.

And society accepts them wholeheartedly. We don't say 'NO. You were a criminal when you were 17 and you need to die a criminal too. You aren't allowed to help our society by being a good person and doing good things. You are forbidden to change." Since this is not the case, why don't we accept small changes in personalities and mindsets? Small perspective changes to make people more acquainted with the world and open their eyes. If I present you with a new way to view the world, your brain automatically registers that and your horizons broaden despite you. You may not have wanted to know, but as soon as you hear what I say, you cannot undo that, you can't command your brain to erase it, you can't restore to a previous version, you have gained a new frame of reference and that's all it takes.

That, is how I believe I can change the world. And, I am not the only person who believes in herself and in this generation to change the world. There may be thousands of us, but that is still not enough. The world holds 7 billion people, we need to move quicker and we need to make people believe. We need support. We need sincere individuals with the same goal. And, we start small, but in the course of time we will grow. If each impassioned individual influences (yay alliteration) 50 close friends and family, and those 50 people become a part of this huge cause to change the world, the impact will grow exponentially. Each of those 50 people can influence 50 people and if everyone continues to pay it forward, and I was the only person to start the chain reaction it would take less than 6 complete rounds of 50 people to cover the globe's population.

And, if everyone believes, imagine how creatively we will change the world. Our diversities and our different educations, cultures, backgrounds, and languages will coalesce in a unique harmony and we will change the world abstractly. And, (not to brag or anything) my generation will be the artist behind this new masterpiece, my generation will be the author of this new world. A new world where education is free, poverty is at its lowest, people aren't hungry and there is a cure for cancer. We CAN do this. But to do that, we need to start, and to start is at the heart. We need to believe, we need to find it logical to believe, and we need to act.

Everyone needs to do something in zer power. If your best ability is to tweet then tweet, if you have a lot of connections on Facebook, then share with people, if you can video blog, then become a YouTuber, make a recording, post it on Tumblr, make a collage on your wall that tells a story, take a picture of it, put it on Instagram. Use the social networking websites/apps to change the same adults who shame them. Show them we can. Show them we can change them, show them we aren't disconnected, show them we WILL change the world. Show them how easy it is for us to accomplish that.

Be inspired. Be passionate.
Because we can get the hell away from that black hole and we can start a new world on a different star. We can watch the galaxies and we can travel on the moon. Is this relevant? Yes. Every ounce of it. I am inspired, I am happy, I believe. I believe that every word I type on this blog, every photograph I share, every single line I draw in my sketch book contributes to something. Something I believe in. Something that will change the world.

Yours truly,
A fervent Belle

Words of Week 23

Conjure: Make (something) appear unexpectedly or seemingly from nowhere as if by magic
Contemptuous: Showing contempt; scornful
Manifesto: A public declaration of policy and aims, esp. one issued before an election by a political party or candidate
Prudent: Acting with or showing care and thought for the future
Premise: A previous statement or proposition from which another is inferred or follows as a conclusion
Retrospect: A survey or review of a past course of events or period of time
Exuberant: Filled with or characterized by a lively energy and excitement

Sorry.

"Hey! At least I say sorry!"

In reality this quality isn't as positive as it implies because it means we do a lot of things that require us to apologize. Instead of boasting about how apologetic we are and how we always say 'sorry' when required, we should concentrate on reducing the amount of times we have to say sorry. Of course, we are fallible and we make mistakes, but if we are going to brag about our qualities, it should be about how we say 'sorry' at most 10 times a year.

To achieve that level of mindfulness we constantly need to be careful of what we say and what we do. People are fragile, but through perpetual awareness and caution we can  learn to treat each other properly and make it a habit.

Going off on a tangent, the word 'sorry' implies regret, sorrow, pity and suffering. Psychologically, using this word when it doesn't match the context, may make us feel bad about ourselves and lower self-esteem. Don't say 'sorry' when you are trying to go past someone, say 'excuse me.' Don't see yourself unworthy of people's time and energy. We all deserve respect. [I somehow manage to come back to this in each post.]

Lots of bokeh,
~Belle

Words of Week 22

Solicit: To seek to influence or incite to action,especially unlawful or wrong action

Makeshift: A temporary expedient or substitute 

Defraud: To deprive of a right, money, or property by fraud

Fallacious: Containing a fallacy; logically unsound
Slander: The action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation.    

Words of Week 21

Exasperate: Irritate intensely; infuriate
Soporific: Tending to induce drowsiness or sleep.

Chiasmus: A reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases

Vapid: Offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging
Hedonism: The pursuit of pleasure
Facetious: Treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor

Charms in The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
254 pages

"To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim."

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."

"[T]here is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

"But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face."

"[T]he value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it."

"You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know."

"It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances."

"Man is many things, but he is not rational."

"Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic."

"Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, History would have been different."

"Nowadays people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing."

"There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up."

"People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity."

"Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating."

"Unselfish people are colorless. They lack individuality."

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror."

"There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us."

"[G]ood resolutions [...] are always made too late."

"Ugliness [..] made things real. Ugliness was the one reality."

"Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion."

"If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart."

"[W]hat does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses [..] his own soul?"

--
This book is the embodiment of 'lyrical prose.' Oscar Wilde is a genius, he captures the attention of the reader immediately and creates an amazing story. The plot is unique and the development of characters and events are all breath-taking. I would definitely recommend it if you like the horror, mystery or psychological thriller genres.

Irrelevantly, I normally pair my favorite author Jane Austen with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but I think, she would have been well off with Oscar Wilde too. They both are wit-masters (:

Words of Week 20

Fend: Look after and provide for oneself, without any help from others 
Immisirate: To impoverish or sink into misery 
Rambling: (of writing or speech) Lengthy and confused or inconsequential 
Sanctimonious: Making a show of being morally superior to other people 
Ostentatious: Characterized by vulgar or pretentious display
Incompetent: Not having the necessary skills to do something successfully
Ubiquity: The state of being everywhere at once

Stand Up.

We tend to sacrifice things we like and cancel activities we enjoy in fear of being criticized, or humiliated. We feel penitent both for standing up for the things we believe in and for failing to do so. We mar our own desires and the society routs our goals and dreams. And in our deathbeds, we get overwhelmed with the contrition of everything we were too scared to do and every word we were too scared to say.

Do what you love and live according to your principles. Don't live your life drowning in your regrets. Say 'I love you' to your parents, say 'Thank you' to your teachers, say 'We have so much in common, we should be friends' to the person in front of you in the movie theater line who buys a ticket to the same movie as you. Recommend an independent book, blast your favorite jug band's latest song, mix your coffee with sparkling water. The norm is dull. The exceptions are limitless. Be an exception.

Lots of soda caps,
~Belle

Let's Save Trees (!)

Stupidity will be the end of humankind because idiots have the pride of fools and the intellect of fish. You can reason with an intelligent person, but an idiot will never understand you -- and even if he does, he won't accept the truth because he is vain in his idiocy. A sad example can be seen in Turkey right now. 

1. A couple of environmentalists impetuously come together to protest against the government cutting a trifling number of trees in Gezi Parki, Istanbul.  
2. The main opposition party takes advantage of the harmless protest to spark a bigger event. 
3. Police uses 'unnecessarily' brutal tactics to dismiss the protesters such as tear gas and water canons. They backfire.
4. Secret groups, undercover organizations, communist clubs and other cliques of people who are against democracy emerge from their hiding spots and integrate themselves into the environmentalists community. During their devious emergence, they whisper into the ears of uninformed citizens, European countries,  and tourists, that the current prime minister is a dictator. 
5. In the blink of an eye, the peaceful protests of let's keep the trees turn into violent uprisings of the prime minister should resign.
6. The public, acting on their primitive instincts of bestiality and savagery, spill onto the streets to join the revolts. At this vital turning point, the public knows nothing, the environmentalists are lost, the government is struggling, and the opposition party is having a party.
7. The idiots on the streets tweet about unrealistic events and imaginary persons while the foreign media soaks up everything like a sponge. No filter, no affirmation, just pure bias.
8. Western countries shake their heads and do absolutely nothing to help. 
9. The idiots keep asking Europe for help. Because clearly, European countries are flawless and perfect and completely exemplary for every other country in the world. Why didn't the prime minister think of that?
10. The protests spread from Istanbul to other major cities such as Ankara, Izmir and Bursa.
11. The tree-lovers of yesterday cause damage to parks, plazas, public institutions, party quarters, police stations, ambulances, buses, schools, and roads. They set flowers and trees to fire (anyone see anything wrong here?), they take apart sidewalks and barricade streets. The hole left in the national budget is over 10 million dollars in the capital city just in the last day [6/18/2013]. You know we could have invested that money in medical research, we could have invested it in our children, we could have invested it in the welfare of our people and entertainment and more plazas and parks, BUT NO. Idiots will be idiots. The economy is also suffering due to millions of tourists cancelling their visits, leaving the country, or changing their future plans all together. 
12. The image of the developing and strong nation-state of Turkey has been hurt beyond easy restoring. The prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been working for Turkey for a decade now. He is the perfect leader a country could ever ask for. He is determined, focused, and has realizable goals for Turkey. He has saved the country from the black pit of hopelessness it was previously drowning in. And as soon as he has all this nonsense under control, he will keep moving forward. 

People's stupidity both upsets and angers me. I am so insignificant, and have so little impact on the world. How do I change this? How can I become a leading figure in the world? How do I educate the masses as a whole? How can I stop cruelty, violence, discrimination, and inequality? How can I realize these huge goals of mine? How do I cure humanity?

Lots of tears,

~Belle

Words of Week 19

Infatuated: Be inspired with an intense but short-lived passion or admiration for
Prosaic: Having the style or diction of prose; lacking poetic beauty
Solipsism: The view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.
Socialite: A person who is well known in fashionable society and is fond of social activity
Placate: Make (someone) less angry or hostile.
Languid: (of a person, manner, or gesture) Displaying or having a disinclination for physical exertion or effort; slow and relaxed

Charms in Brave New World

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
268 pages

"The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects."

"Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly -- they'll go through anything."

"One of the principal functions of a a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies."

"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery."

"But God doesn't change."
"Men do, though."
--
My review on Goodreads.

Charms in 1984

1984 by George Orwell
328 pages

"The consequences of every act are included in the act itself."

"Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

"There was something he lacked: discretion, aloofness, a sort of saving stupidity."

"Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible system."

"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."

"[A]fter all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both past and the external world exist only in the ind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then?"

"[I]n moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy, but always against one's own body."

"If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love."

"But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make?"

"From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters."

"For it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely."

"There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad."

"Why should the fruit be held inferior to the flower?"

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood."

"What most oppressed him was the consciousness of his own intellectual inferiority."

"We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Powers is not a means, it is an end."

"If you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself."
--
This book definitely failed me. I hear and read so many references about it, I decided to read it. It's an easy-read, took about 3 days, but in the end I didn't understand why everyone loved it so much. The narration is confusing and the characters are so appalling. No character development, obvious ending, no moral lessons, no life-changing passages -- just a dull dystopian story.

Words of Week 18

Overwrought: Exhausted and excited
Bland: Lacking in special interest, liveliness, individuality, etc.
Candor: The state or quality of being frank, open, and sincere in speech or expression
Notorious: Widely and unfavorably known:
Sporadic: (of similar things or occurrences) appearing or happening at irregular intervals in time
Variegated: Varied in appearance or color
Nonchalant: Coolly unconcerned, indifferent, or unexcited; casual
Emulate: To try to equal or excel