imaginekellyn




I'm doing 29 things
 

imaginekellyn's Life List

  1. 1. decide what the hell I would like to do with the rest of my life
    1 entry . 1 cheer
    6,962 people
  2. 2. To live instead of exist
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    10,871 people
  3. 3. develop a personal philosophy of life
    4 entries . 3 cheers
    2 people
  4. 4. live passionately
    1 cheer
    5,591 people
  5. 5. Make new friends
    1 entry
    12,717 people
  6. 6. drink more water
    18,912 people
  7. 7. wake up when my alarm clock goes off
    1 entry
    7,511 people
  8. 8. practice zazen daily
    1 cheer
    29 people
  9. 9. lose weight
    36,270 people
  10. 10. Go to graduate school
    1 entry . 1 cheer
    1,188 people
  11. 11. travel the world
    1 entry . 1 cheer
    18,488 people
  12. 12. record my music
    2 cheers
    82 people
  13. 13. Read more
    4 entries . 2 cheers
    7,712 people
  14. 14. Floss Every Day
    1 entry . 1 cheer
    1,230 people
  15. 15. have conversations late into the night with fascinating people
    1 entry . 4 cheers
    2,205 people
  16. 16. read more existentialist literature
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    4 people
  17. 17. Visit Japan
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    5,508 people
  18. 18. drink more tea
    339 people
  19. 19. Learn Japanese
    1 entry . 3 cheers
    9,720 people
  20. 20. improve my vocabulary
    1 entry . 1 cheer
    1,067 people
  21. 21. stop procrastinating
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    26,908 people
  22. 22. Practice Yoga
    1 entry . 1 cheer
    4,097 people
  23. 23. become fluent in spanish
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    1,921 people
  24. 24. meet more lesbians
    1 entry
    49 people
  25. 25. ride an elephant
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    787 people
  26. 26. see the northern lights
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    16,847 people
  27. 27. Skydive
    2 cheers
    10,154 people
  28. 28. Go on retreat to a Zen monastery
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    43 people
  29. 29. Stop being afraid of bugs!
    1 entry . 1 cheer
    6 people
Recent entries
Vote for Obama
only 9 days left! 12 months ago

i carved this pumpkin in support of our next president.



develop a personal philosophy of life (read all 4 entries…)
mindf*cks are no fun 12 months ago

atlas shrugged and the fountainhead changed my life. after reading i became deeply enamored with ayn rand – her philosophy, her writing style, her intellect, her passion. never before had i connected on such a deep level with fictional characters and their struggles…which knocked me slightly off balance, considering i have little in common with a railroad executive or an architect or a russian-born writer living in another time. but i felt their fire and their resolve in my very core, exhorting myself to turn page after page after page to continue living in their world…among those who made me feel proud to be human.

i don’t know exactly what i was expecting when i picked up ayn rand’s for the new intellectual, which sets out to explain her philosophy, objectivism. but after about ten pages or so, i suddenly realized that i simply couldn’t buy into everything rand thought and wrote. my admiring gaze transformed into a critical stare that began to qualify what she was writing as the by-product of a temporally and culturally prejudiced, overly idealistic and blatantly bigoted philosophy that could never be truly realized. this sent my brain into turmoil, as i wondered how i could so firmly support and appreciate her fiction (ergo, her philosophy) and yet be so firmly against some aspects of her worldview (ergo, her philosophy).

wtf?!

i think i find most philosophies basically worthless in a strictly pragmatic sense, which is why i took issue with rand’s objectivism. though i agree with the basic tenets of many philosophies (read: zen buddhism, socialism, objectivism, capitalism, existentialism, etc.), i think they can never be truly realized in the world as we know it today. to reach their fullest potential and ultimate goals, they can only be fully implemented in a vacuum; there can be no preexisting conditions or assumptions in or about the world or its inhabitants. and the problem here lies in the fact that our planet is not a vacuum but an interconnected web of life with a extremely long and complex history, one that cannot and will not be changed to accommodate any given philosophy or system at any given time.

what philosophers thus demand is an absolute permutation of the world to incorporate some system of thought/belief that they deem to be right for every living being on earth.

on a theoretical level, i love immersing myself in questions of the bigger picture. but having arrived at the aforementioned conclusion, i don’t know how to continue this quest for knowledge and fulfillment. i’ve looked for answers in so many places, listened to so many voices, and sought out so many truths…i am beginning to wonder if truth is just as subjective as experience. if that is the case, then perhaps this quest is all for naught. on the other hand, some might say the quest itself is what ultimately provides fulfillment.

twenty-two years and i stand at a point of deep-seated conflict. not quite a crossroads, where i’m standing is more like the middle of a mountainous forest; i could take many trails to many destinations from this point. but plagued by irresolution and disquiet, i see little beyond the precariousness of everything around me. where am i going? where have i been? who dictates my direction? why does it matter? to whom does it matter?

i suppose these are questions i should ask before pronouncing judgment upon their answers.



Rock the GRE
done and done! 12 months ago

800 quantitative (how the hell did that happen?!)
650 verbal

considering i spent much more time preparing for the verbal section of the exam, i was a little perturbed when i got my score. but apparently they made it super difficult – a 650 was 93rd percentile! and i can’t argue with a perfect quantitative score…i didn’t even think i’d break 700. i’m so happy i spent the time studying and learning how to take the test – it definitely paid off. good luck everyone!!



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