So what have we got here? I will TELL YOU what we’ve got here. A family party. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of family get-togethers. Yes, I appreciate the family, but it’s not something I’d like to spend my Saturday doing. As selfish, unappreciative, and wildly asshole-y as that sounds, it’s an honest confession. So what have I done to alleviate this debacle? THIS:

The medicine treating these wounds.

I’ll be writing some technical posts at times. I really try to do my best at explaining everything in detail so that non-technical readers can understand what I’m talking about. So if you’re wondering why there’s so much technical explanation (and at times, lack of depth), it’s because I’m assuming the majority of MOAR PLOX’s audience is not technical. I apologize?

Background:

So yesterday I took on the task of trying out some new stuff in OS X. (For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m referring to Mac OS X [pronounced 'Mac OH-ESS TEN'] — the operating system used in desktops and laptops manufactured by Apple. It’s commonly regarded as the prime competitor of Microsoft Windows. But enough explaining; I’ve already left out more caveats than I wish to include. Essentially, I’m talking about this) READ MOAR »

If you’ve ever truly taken the time out to look around and acknowledge what’s going on in people’s minds, it’s quite alarming. I think right around the time I cleared up the whole religion debacle, I started to take interest in social psychology. Essentially, I was interested in how people think, why they think the way they do, and how they act around others. Even more interesting to me is the psychology of the self. Read the first sentence of this post again. If you’ve ever stopped and observed the attitude/actions of people on an everyday basis, I’m sure you’d agree that what you find is a bit alarming.

My buddy “V” somewhat triggered me to write about this phenomenon. He pinpointed one of the problems people have in the way they think today.

(11:22:40 PM) V: you know what I hate about almost everyone
(11:23:06 PM) V: it’s that people are too fucking busy with the next thing in their life that they never pay attention to what’s going on now

He nailed it. READ MOAR »

I’m going to do something unusual. I’m going to try to make this post as laid-back as possible. I decided to write this without laying it out, without organizing it, and without trying to come up with some smug knock at religion. That said, I leave out a lot of what I’m trying to say. I usually write best when I’m angry (odd, right?), but I figured I’d give the calm thing a try. In a spur of the moment fashion, I wrote this post to promulgate my thoughts on something that’s been on my mind recently: Buddhism.

Since I was introduced to Buddhism in high school, I’ve never really let it escape my mind. As Theology was a requirement at my school, we were always forced to learn about the same, old Catholic teachings. It was not until my senior year that they began to introduce us to other religions/philosophies. I say “philosophies” because a lot of what is considered to be “religion” really isn’t; it’s more a way of life than an organized set of rules to follow or a list of restrictions by which to abide. But the class was titled “Comparative Religions.” Of course, this didn’t really interest me at first glance because for the past 13 years I had been learning about Catholicism and I really didn’t think there was much else out there. Not that I was completely oblivious to other philosophies, but I surely didn’t know very much about them. I knew that Buddhists dressed in orange garb, Hindus had dots on their heads, Muslims wore turbans, and Jews wore yarmulkes. I really didn’t know much else. READ MOAR »