Happiness, It is far From Reach

“Certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” 

This quote is by Thomas Jefferson in the Deceleration of Independence in 1776, have you wondered that why instead of just saying “liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” why can it be “liberty and happiness”? Because the term “happiness” must come from a certain pursuit by the people. Yes, we can have happiness, but is only for a short amount of time, not for long. And sometimes getting too happy about something might cause a serious damage on someone or something, this is in the Chinese old saying “Extreme joy Begets Sorrow”. Likewise, instead of having happiness, not matter how long it is, you will never get a full happiness, because by the time you achived something that make you happy and at the moment of happiness you raises your view point higher than before and eventually you want more and more, this is the pursuit of happiness, we want happiness, but is simply far from your reach. Because the main cause that raises you desire is the desire you have it before, and this kind of show goes on and on forever. Beside of saying that happiness only last less amount of time, you can also says that happiness, although is far from reach, it could be infinity since you just go on as soon as you finished your desire or goal of something. Yes, is like setting a goal for yourself, is a kind of encouragement, without it you will be thinking what’s the meaning of life if there’s no goal for me to gain.  So the existence of happiness actually direct us to be never give up, and keep on going and don’t stop. Happiness is like a tour guide for your life, it gives you direction and it gives goal to gain, but last short, because happiness don’t wait.

Anger, Not for Long

Have you ever get mad at someone? I mean really really mad at someone and sometime you want to kill him, or just simply punch him in the face to unleash your anger. We all know this is wrong, but for me, is natural. Men are born meant to have anger in it. But also, anger to me is just a temporarily frustration, it will be gone just for a matter of hours, sometimes for me is just a matter of minutes!  Yes, I certainly believe that ‘anger’ is only for short period of time. My grandmother once told me, anger won’t change one’s thinking but I will change how one’s looked at you. She is also a Christian, when I was young, I’m very mischievous, and my grandmother always tell me to come to her room while she’s reading her Bible. She told my that Jesus is the creator of the universe, I must be a good boy in-order to go to heaven. And the foods we eat, like the rice we eat every single day, shall not waste any grain of it, or else Jesus will collect it and by the time you died, Jesus will force you to eat it. First I think is reasonable but slow I grew up. Although Science have prove many wrongs toward my Grandmother, but I still believes in him, I believe that Jesus was the creator of everything. So even today, I read Bible and my grandmother will give me a hour or so lecture about the Words of Jesus. There is one thing that influence me the most is the line my grand mother once told me:

“Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. He who had been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his hand, that he may have something to share with those in need.” (Ephesians 4:9)

This one little line give me the whole new thought of anger that I should not be angry for over a day. Instead of being angry, do something productive, and helpful. I think all this reasonable just simply because the line from the Bible, this line have remind me to stay calm and do not be angry for too long, is not good for me and the people around me.

Understanding

Understanding a thing is never complete. You cannot ever tell someone your thought completely unless the one you  are talking to thinks the exact same thing as you. However, you never know how well a person understand you or how well you understand them, is only the matter of perspective of how you define whether or not you understand a particular things. Understanding a thing is like passing a story to one’s mind, and then you pass it to someone else. During the action of passing it, you might rephrase it to your own word just for your own comfort. By doing this action it have already corrupted one’s thoughts, therefore you cannot pass your thoughts to someone else completely. Likewise the word “Understand” is just a word with no definite meaning and sometimes it don’t even really exist. So never expect someone to understand you fully, even though you tell them you understand them. Also, even you mother and dad may or may not fully understand you, this can easily cause family conflicts. In order to prevent this type of conflict you must therefore tell them what you think, but don’t expect them to understand you. Or on the parent’s side, they might think that you are just making things up or you are really telling the truth, but you never know how well you understand your children. The nature of understanding is not understand it FULLY, but instead understand it briefly, or to know it. To knowing something is not just understand, therefore understanding is only the part of knowing something. Another example is a Math teacher who taught his student to understand how to work a formula out, instead of just listing to the teacher ‘completely’ students offend finds the best way to solve the formula. Therefore a man can’t never understand things completely

Think too Much?

Thinking is a act of organizing information in your brain. Organizing is always good, but depend on what kind of situation you organize things. Thoughts takes time to think, during the process of thinking, be aware of the time. Time is money, nothing can get the time to fast forward nor back wards, it is impossible, therefore, time must not waste on things that is useless. If you think on something for very long then you must consider to be worth it, or else the next time you think logically will be painful. Actions are the product of a logical thoughts. Therefore, before doing something no matter is big or small, you must consider it well and fast. But how can we achieve that? The answer is by waiting. For example, love. Loving someone must that good care, and consider it well before you told he/she that you love them. Once the declaration of love is done, there’s no way that you can regret. You can, however, but only for your own, not other. Loving someone is hard, takes time to consider if you love them or not. This consideration takes time, therefore telling someone you love them, can wait. If you cannot promise you will love them for a lifetime, the you can simply stop thinking and give up. If you ignore this idea, then you will suffer. If one day you decide you don’t love them no more. First, your reputation will go down, second the ones you loved will be very depress. Another example is in the Shakespeare’s play Hamlet.  If 1000 of people read Hamlet then there will must be 1000 different  kind of Hamlet in them, since Hamlet in the play is a quite mysterious  man, therefore we don’t know a lot from him, but one thing we know is he loves to think long. Yes, thinking long is good for planing on something, but if taking too long time to think may cause a good chance that you might miss to start your plan. Chance is like time, only comes but never come back again.

Reality

What is reality? I define it as a thought or vision by ourselves, not unnecessary real. Some said that “seeing is believing” and believing can relate to believing something that is true, which therefore, will be Reality. So if the things you saw is reality, then I think that is wrong. Note that only a certain thing that reflect off light and the light saw only may therefore become visible.  What if there is something that it don’t reflect off light? So seeing is believing dose not always give you the full vision of reality, because you never know that what the things you saw, whether or not is complete. Moreover, reality does not fully exist. Only the the one who make the things we saw may know the true reality namely the God. If, as a assumption, God is the one who made all the thing in the universe, then therefore he is the only one who knows the reality. What about there are no God? Then if it is in that point reality do not exactly exist. Reality can be someone’s though, or instinct, there are no definite meaning of it, it may just be logical though. Likewise, it can be a kind of encouragement. Only if  you ‘believe’ in something, then you can achieve that thing with much greater trust or confident. If there are reality that you believe in something, then therefore there must be reality base on your point of view, does not necessary means that anyone else must follow your thought. You cannot simply tell someone to believe in something without any logical reasoning. Therefore, this we call it ‘convincing’. It is a act of a individual telling others to believe in something, or force to. As conclusion, in order to have reality in someone’s mind, then, the act of convincing must not exist, Vise Versa.

Being a Student is a Joy and Pain

As people grow up, students like me got from liking to go to school from hating to go to school, but I have a feeling of  not skipping it, because, by the time you get back you have to catch up with your classmate. Now, just think that I am not a very intelligent and lazy student, but want to stay on the same track as my other classmate, how can I possibly skip school? And also, hating to go to school dose not necessary means that I will skip it. But if I want to skip it, I can’t, because, due to my laziness I don’t want to do ‘make up works’ like making my homework up because that day I skipped that class. No, I would rather ‘suffer’ in school than making up works and have to keep on track with the others while I already can barely follow them.  So skipping classes or school is the worst thing I hated it. Now my reflection is about being a student is a joy and pain, why? The joy of mine in every school day is to get to hang out with my best friends. Instead of staying home and play computers, I rather stay in school and hang out with my friends, and you won’t miss anything on the classes. But the pain of mine is, as the grade of mine went up, my teacher started to asking for more homework each day, and more essays to type. These things do gave me a lot of pain, but think about it, you can finish it and grade it by the teacher and gain the sense of achievement. Another things is that, I rather do more work  just to full-fill my  thirst of  sense of achievement, and also  to prove myself that I am working hard instead of fooling around all day. So the consequence of that is I cannot afford that works are not done, even more funny is, I can’t sleep without completing all my work!

Say “Good Bye”

Saying ‘goodbye’ is sometimes hard for someone to do because, what if you are saying good bye to your family? Yes, you may say it out loud, but you do not necessarily mean that your mind is genuinely thinking that. However, what if the hardest thing to say is not ‘goodbye,’ but something that perhaps we lack the confidence to say the thing we’re really wanting to say? You know, something like “I love you.”

To say those three words takes a lot of confidence, especially if you highly revere those words. I suppose many say these words with confidence but lack care or sincerity at the profundity of the words. Furthermore, those who say it casually never consider the consequences of their words. But I regress. Or else, what if the idea of loving is difficult for a person. And, to combine these two ideas, to not say “I love you,” while at the same time having to say “goodbye.” The prospect is overwhelming.

But, there comes a time when all fear of change  comes to an end and we have to be brave. We have to say “goodbye” to those we love and hope for a new “Hello.” This reminds me of an old Japanese folk-tale.  We all know that the capital of Japan, Tokyo, wasn’t the capital long before in Japan. Then there was a Japanese ruler who learned how to give up his land and castle and move the capital of Japan to south east part of Japan; namely, Tokyo. On the day the ruler was supposed to leave, he literally bowed down in front of the castle and said “Good Bye” in Japanese. The result of that action, gained that ruler a new ‘Hello’, just by saying good bye to the old capital. And, consequently, Tokay, the new capital, remains until this day. But, it will somehow be change sometime in the future, it is determined.

Good Things Come to Those who Wait

I walked into my classroom confident that I would make a good grade on the quiz I was about to take. When the paper was given, I looked it over and realized that I was not at all ready. I finished the quiz after some time and thought that I was bound to receive a terrible grade; my average would be greatly affected by this.

I then thought, ‘Maybe it’s God’s will that I didn’t do well today. Maybe you’re only permitted one bit of good news per day. No more or less, only one.’ Well, it wasn’t unreasonable for me to think this, and truly my life experience has shown me that this is generally the case.  

So, I proceeded through the day waiting for God’s good to come to me. And, finally, toward the end of the day, it reached me. I found out that I received BETA permission to play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive from Steam.

I know you’re probably thinking, ‘That’s kind of lame, man.’ But, I was very excited. Why? Because I have spent the past several months preparing for various exams and projects for schools and applications for new school that I’ve had no time to enjoy the things in life that give me a small amount of pleasure; for example, gaming.

You see, it was more than a month ago that I submitted my application to have BETA permission. I waited eagerly for their approval  week after week. So, when I received nothing, I basically gave up. But, amazingly, Steam cared about my feedback about the game. And now, a month later, they have given me access.

Now, I realize that access like this can hardly make up for a failed quiz. True. But, there was a good thing that happened despite the failed quiz. In the end, I learned that good things come to those who wait. But, sometimes waiting doesn’t mean passivity, though sometimes it does, but that we have to take our own initiative to set things in motion so we can attain the expected outcome in due time.

And for me personally, I think that God himself timed this to give me comfort on an otherwise pretty bad day. It’s a small example, but I think it can be applied more universally.

Windows 8: Reimagined

Reimagined -> Reimagine

1.To recreate something, or plan to recreate something, in a fundamentally different way.

2.To create a new and improved image or lifestyle for yourself.

—-Today….

Computing has been changed

•Mobile devices.

•Wi-Fi and 3G.

•Screens range

•Storage / cloud.

•Multi-core CPU and GPU.

•Touch screen

People focuses on apps much more than OS.

—- Reimagining…

Reimagining Windows doesn’t mean starting over from scratch.

•Improve great Windows 7 fundamentals.

•A new touch-optimized interface.

•A platform to create a whole new generation of full-screen apps.

•A new Windows Store.

Redesign the Windows experience and built on everything you already love

*  *  *

September 16, 2011. I eagerly open my download manager on my computer and downloaded Windows 8 Developer Preview, not quite count as BETA yet. I install it, I think is very good job with the Metro UI, but too many BUGS in the system! I was too lazy to report it to Microsoft. I continually using it and test it, I found out Adobe Flash Player 10.1 don’t support Windows 8 DP and plus too may bugs that made me feel angry, system is not so fluid as I expected, so I said goodbye to this system and continued on using Windows 7 SP1.

Everyday I looked online and check any update News about Windows 8, finally, in the beginning of 2012, I found out Window 8 BETA will officially called as ‘Consumer Preview’  and Microsoft prepare to lunch it on the end of February. Time flies, so I finally waited the moment of download it, and so I did, and quickly I installed.

After more than a month of testing and sending feedback about the bug that I found in Win8 CP. First I wanted to said that Windows 8 will rule the Oprating system market once more! Second, every device you have (Tablets, Mobile phone, etc.) will be related to Windows 8, the best part I want to mention is the completely new Metro UI they have, It is the best way to be connected with your friends and family. But all this is only the matter of Internet speed. See, 4G LTE is rising and most of recent released mobile device in USA support 4G (Ex: Nokia Lumia 900) , which is way faster than 3G. And Windows 8 will have no doubt that it will support 4G LTE on a ARM based device. for PCs, it might take a few years.

Brand new Logo by Microsoft for Windows 8

(Window 8 Consumer Preview released on Feb. 23, 2012; 3:00, PST )

One thing about the lock screen, is you get to chose you wallpaper and adjust it to you system without any third party software. That means the action of changing the wallpaper is officially granted by Microsoft, so 0% of  risk.

Default wallpaper on the lock screen

Windows 8 CP Lunched! By Steven Sinofsky.

WOW! Graphing! Awesome….It explain everything actually about Windows 8, so please spend time and ‘read’ it over. The ambitious Microsoft are planting to unified all three big device.Which is possible

Now I really liked about the new IE10, because it gave me the full download speed that I can have from my ISP. For example…

IE9:

I got this dowload speed of: 100kb/s

Meanwhile IE10…

Can have a speed of: 600kb/s+

IE10 Metro version (right) Desktop version (left)

The Metro UI—This actually can change our life! With Motion Tiles! Keep you updated!

(Open this picture with a new Tab to enlarge to 2048*1151)

Now this is now we called the ‘Blue’ Screen

Yes, believe it or not, this is a screen that you see every time when your computer crashes on Windows 8 only!

Now this is the old one

See the difference?

As a conclusion:

Windows 8 is a revolutionary product by Microsoft, it is fluid, fast, and updated.

The Amazing Everyday

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. But today is a gift”–Anonymous

This quote gave me a very deep thought. In essence, I thought about being graceful if I’m still alive. A part of this is to not always look back at the past. Why? Because the past is history and cannot be changed, or even visited. And, since it rests there unattainable and unmovable, why reflect on in?

On the other hand, tomorrow’s difficulties and blessing are unknown. Think about it, there are people in Japan or New Orleans that had something else planned the day the tsunami hit the coast of Japan or the hurricane hit Louisiana.Yet, they could never have, not even in their wildest imaginations, predicted the impending disasters that hit them on those particular days.

There is this excitement that comes with the ‘not knowing’ what’s going to happen next. We never know how the day will turn out, this is why I call each day ‘amazing.’  Everyday I wake up and think, “Is today going to be good or bad or neutral?” I just can’t wait to find out. While there is the possibility and frequency of each day being a bad day, it may just as likely be a good day. For example, there are those days in which you forget that there will be a test in the morning. And then you wake up thinking it will be a good day. Then, while in the middle of breakfast the thought enters your mind that reminds you of the test. “Oh no! I forgot to study!” Yeah, that’s not a good way to start the day (yes, this happened to me just the other day with  a math test).

But, those moments of panic may be pacified when you get that test and it is a bit easier than expected. Then, there’s that feeling of uncertainty – of anxiety and excitement – in which you start guessing you did something wrong because it was too easy, yet you are confident that you did it right and it was just easier than you expected. In the end, only the results will validate one feeling or the other. For me, I was able to pass that math exam.

It is these moments that are truly amazing because there are days in which all the preparation put in ahead of time seems to be oriented to aid in your failure. Still, there are other times in which all the preparation in the world, or lack thereof, help you succeed.  So yeah, that day, with full of amazement.

All we can do is live in the moment and embracing the outcomes. Carpe diem.