Jake 🇺🇸

Killing Lions
2016-10-15 16:49:23 (UTC)

I want to get BETTER (THOUGHTS)

I remember those teen years, back when I didn't have a care in the world. I was so content with doing hardly anything with my life. There was this online game that me and my brother logged over a year of playing time on. I'm not disapointed because there was nothing i could do. I didn't have the support to do other things. I didn't have that many friends. I lived out in the country. I had more freedom alone, now I have more freedom but I'm tied up to a schedule I created.

This morning I ran 12 miles.

I averaged 8.12 min/mile. Not super fast but really far. It was the highlight of my week, it is the pain that I enjoy the most. I've realized that enjoyment isn't absolute. You don't know you're having a good time unless you've had pain in the past. The best part wasn't the actual run (though that was enjoyable), when you you're only 3 blocks away from home and you're in so much pain from pushing yourself for so long, finally you're home. You can collapse into a chair and just recover. For me that's the best part, I just sat there and drank orange juice (my all time favorite drink), I drank the whole pitcher (half gallon). Enjoyment is the derivative of how pleasant you're feeling. You feel horrible if you suddenly feel yourself losing that pleasant feeling.

I was also thinking about society stuff. I have a new favorite youtube channel: Roaming Millennial. It's this half asian chick talking about politics. I love it :), plus she's really hot.

I was reflecting on my own life. I need pain. I need to struggle. If life is easy then you are making a serious long term life mistake. I joined one of the very best research groups in my department. They publish stuff in "Cell" "Science" and "Nature" all the time. The researchers work extremely hard. Even though I feel like a failure around them I know that I will improving drastically. My current publications (that I did in undergraduate) are in shitty journals. I want a paper that will further science. I want a paper that people will cite. *sigh*

Everyone needs this in their life. Everyone needs to be pushed. If you want to move upward in society you need to surround yourself with amazing people. The biggest struggle I'm having right now is delayed gratification. There's a very fundamental law in nature (one is the Lagrangian's equation) in which nature always does the easiest thing (an exception would be in some quantum systems). Electrons always jump down to lower energy levels. Planets minimize their energy by orbiting around in circular paths. I'm a physicist, I can keep going forever lol. I think the same is with humans. Humans just want to do the easiest thing. This past year was the worst year of my life in difficulty, but, somehow it has also been the best year. Throughout this diary I've discussed how much stress I'm under and how i just dream for a normal 9-5 job. But, no. I want this. There's a part of me that enjoys a hard life. Fulfillment is the positive rate of change of pleasantness. I should make some kind of equation lol. Or maybe not. Maybe I'm just young and reckless. I guess 23 isn't that young...

Ehhh, anyway, i still have a lot of stuff in life i need to figure out. I still don't know how to love. I feel like my heart is hardening maybe? idk. I just remember a quote by CS Lewis:
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"[Relationships require risk. You can only keep your heart intact by giving it to no one] lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness, but in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."
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That's a nightmare for me. I know people whose hearts have become that: Impenetrable. I don't want that. I want to be a person who can open up and risk my dignity, money, life to love someone. As hard as this might be, I need to love my family better. So hard. But I need to do this for them and me.




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