Summer is well underway. I've been home two weeks now and its been good. I've been keeping busy, seeing grandparents, going out to lunch with them and stuff. I'm at that age now where I've realized that it is important to keep in touch with family. My grandparents had a small gathering with some of their old friends and I sort of chauffered, somewhat reluctantly since it took up most of my day. At any rate, I felt bad when they were talking amongst each other and saying, "What ever happened to so and so?"

"Oh, he/she died last year."

Obviously not everyone they mentioned died, but it was sad because they were all pretty old too. Then I felt bad for being reluctant to take them to meet up and eat lunch together because as distressing as it is to admit, they aren't likely to be around much longer. My grandparents, for the most part, seem pretty upbeat, but I wonder if thats how they really feel. I mean suicides amongst the elderly are quite high. One suicide is committed for every four attempts made by a senior citizen, compared with one suicide for every 20 attempts in the overall population. I seriously doubt my grandparents would attempt anything like that, but it would seem that being or becoming old is very depressing. I know that a lot of younger people get depressed, mid-life crisis and what not, myself included sometimes, but among the senior citizens, it must be difficult to see friends pass away.

On this whole depression thing, however, I've got other things to say. I ran across this article reading the news. Basically people who were diagnosed as "depressed" were given placebos, which were nearly as effective as real "antidepressant" drugs. First off, obviously there are those who have serious illness, bipolar disease, chemical imbalances, and they should be on the drugs for equally obvious reasons. However, I think that these drugs are overly prescribed. I mean seriously, people believe that they are sad and that a pill will cure all and its only part of the issue. People my age, and a lot of Americans in general have this giant hang up with being owed things and nothing (or hardly anything) is their fault. Nobody likes taking responsibility anymore. People love to blame problems on anything but themselves. "Oh, I'm depressed, its a medical condition so thats why I got fired, etc. etc." No, fine, you may be very sad or lonely, whatever, but you just need to suck it up and deal with it.

A few weeks ago, while school was still in session, I was talking about karma with some people and how it could be a belief system and what not. Then we debated the merits and basis of it all, saying bad things only happen when you've done something immoral, etc. If I had to make a choice, I'd say I believe in karma, but I haven't thought it through completely. At any rate, the whole discussion led me to a broad conclusion that people feel they are owed things. They believe that in life they will all get their fair shot, and concordantly, it is in America where we all have a fair and equal shot at the "American Dream", pursuit of happiness and all that. But I think it has become a problem that people expect things to be given to them or good things to happen to them, rather than them going out and taking advantage of their situations.

Things don't just happen if you wish, pray and say they will. Most things won't anyways. Very few people became successful and achieved what they truly wanted out of their American Dream and life without trying hard and even then others who try hard don't succeed. But very rarely is there somebody who didn't try hard that succeeded. And I get somewhat annoyed when I hear people say things like "Good things should happen to me" and stuff like that because no, no they shouldn't. Why should they? People born outside the US and Europe (or other developed countries) don't think that way because it simply isn't true. Being in America, having an opportunity to goto college, having parents who aren't abusive or drug addicts, being in good health, thats already "good things" happening to the person. I know I'm being hippocritical somewhat because I don't exert full efforts, but I certainly believe that I do not complain about not being given the opportunity to succeed and when bad things happen... well, I don't expect good things to happen to make up for it. The part of karma I thing I have figured out is that there is a reason why things happen. Its cause and effect, its not effect then more effect. If you did something bad, then something bad will happen to you. Its not, something bad happened then something good will happen to balance it out. If you donate to charity, then you will perhaps get some luck, etc. Its all controlled by the person's actions... not by external forces, in my opinion anyways, but what do I know?

What I do know, however, is that I got a job at Disneyland. Actually, my job is at California Adventure. But at any rate, I got a job for the summer and possibly after. Yay for me.

Black Eyed Peas f/ Justin Timberlake - Where Is The Love?

Things I Like #34: Finding out that people I haven't seen or talked to in forever have gone on to be successful, namely some people I knew back in elementary school who I had just thought up and decided to type their names into Google.

Holy crap, check out this month's Vanity Fair cover(warning 56k users, large image) and coverstory. Talk about a giant orgy of statutory rape fantasies. I got buying myself a few copies... to make sure other sick, twisted pepole don't get their dirty thoughts all over them... yeah, to protect society.

The Ataris - My So Called Life