"If you're going through Hell, keep going.": ego

About Me.

Background

My name is Michael Rivera and I am a Filipino-Chinese, 18-year-old student living in Canterbury, but originally from Hong Kong. My parents divorced when I was two, and when I grew up, there were two sides of me: the wild, outdoorsy, gutsy side, and the conservative, intellectual, scholarly side. I spent two years living beside a beach in the countryside. It was then that I learned how to swim, how to fish and how to ride a bike. I love the outdoors, especially when having barbecues and hiking. Outside of that time, my more studious side of me reads, writes, and has a great interest in a broad range of subjects including: television and film, travel, anthropology, human cultures, linguistics, food and drink, psychology, philosophy, literature, forensics, Greco-Roman mythology, European history and politics, South American culture and geology. My deepest love goes to, well, my best friend. But the love that exists just a tiny fraction below that amount of love goes to television series, beautiful beaches, lime margaritas, and books considered classics.

Feel free to e-mail me if you have anything you want to share, suggest, criticize, inquire or comment on! :D

E-mail: scylla.michael.charybdis@gmail.com

(Click this sentence to see my complete profile.)

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

62 - I'm bored.

I realize I haven't been visiting anybody's blogs for two weeks now. I'll get back to it soon, I just don't have much of a mood these days. I'm really bored, and I wish I had more money to go out but it's costly. This holiday sucks...

When other people tell me they're bored, I tell them a story, ask them if they want to go see a movie, have dinner, or go to the library with me. I talk to them for hours on the phone, perhaps, and I manage to entertain them until they find something to occupy themselves with finally, or until they're tired and want to go to sleep.

The sad thing is that I don't get any satisfaction out of it. I've served my 'duty' as friend or family, but I guess making another person happy just isn't enough to make me happy.

I'm not altruistic at all. I'm a big egoist, and a big egotist, and I'm a selfish brat. What's an egomaniac to do when society demands politeness, sincerity and generosity from him?

He is to say, and do, all the right things for others. He is to tell others what they want to hear to reassure them, comfort them, to put across a message of 'someone really cares about you.' He is to tell others, based on his own knowledge and experience, what he thinks others can do to improve their lives, or their relationships with others, by tactfully injecting confidence, courage, and the like, into their heads. He is to ask others, for favors or the occasional question, to feed their egos, and make them feel knowledgeable, wanted and needed. He is to help others accomplish their dreams, and perform their errands, in order to make their lives go by more efficiently, happily, or in a more worthwhile way.

All of this is, of course, if the guy wants to be accepted within his community despite being egocentric.

Yes, I'm bored. I really want to go somewhere, but I don't want to ask for other people's money, and I don't want to have to ask for other people's time and company.

Oh, well. Maybe I'll go paint a self-portrait or write my autobiography or something... The ego is a funny thing, ain't it?