Every Man for Himself

In The Hunger Games, Panem is separated into 12 separate districts. One boy and one girl are selected from each district to participate in the annual Hunger Games. Only one of the 24 "tributes" get the chance to continue living his or her life. Katniss, a father-less 16 year old, volunteers to take the place of her younger sister, Prim, in the games. The games are televised for the enjoyment of the viewing public, as if it was some reality show. In our world, reality shows are anything but realistic, but, in this case, it actually is reality television, because the question of life or death is on the line for each competitor. Not only is Katniss's life on the line, she is also competing against a boy who claims to love her named Peeta Mellark. Peeta knows Katniss from school, and he had once saved he life by giving her bread when her family was on the verge of passing away from starvation.

Despite the critical assistance that Peeta had once provided to Katniss, she decides that Peeta is only saying that he loves her to gain support from the viewing audience, in order to better his position in the games. I suppose this is what happens to just about everyone when they are faced with conflict. When there's something on the line, and we're forced to compete for it, everyone with the same goal becomes an enemy. Even though Peeta had once saved Katniss's life, Katniss questions Peeta's trustworthiness, and decides that he is lying in order to attain his own selfish goals. It then becomes imminent that Peeta and Katniss will come face to face at some point in this novel, although I need to read further to find out.

I think that Katniss's distrusting of Peeta is wrong, but not surprising in the least. It's human nature to be competitive when there is something of importance at risk. The same goes for every athlete, a group of singers trying out for a solo, a kid trying to win the talent show, or even a boy trying to win over a girl. In sports, a team is unit of trust, but an opponent is an obvious enemy. When I step on the field to play soccer, I build resentment for the opposing team, even if they're my friends, in order to get myself pumped up. When I take a step off of the field, we're all just average kids who play soccer. When a boy tries to impress a girl, he tries to cut her off from any other possible suitors in order to better his chances of getting a date with her, even if those other suitors are his best friends. When it comes down to it, there are no friends in competition. In competition you trust no one, and you depend on no one. Unless you're on a team, it's every man for himself.

Reading: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (pgs. 3-148) popular fiction

Hold 'em or Fold 'em

Maybe this entry is random, but I just got extremely unlucky in poker, and I have to vent about it. Let's see if i can make a good analogy here.....

I guess I realized that life is a lot like a poker game. Every single choice you make is a bet, and everyone is dealt a certain amount of chips. What you choose to do with those chips that you're dealt is entirely up to you. This analogy applies to to many aspects of the human lifestyle and human emotions.

Let's talk about stocks for example. Buying stock is essentially the foundation of an economic poker game. If the future looks good for a company, maybe you'll want to throw your chips at it. The same goes for business transactions. Maybe your company is going strong and raking in the dough. That company would most likely be more comfortable throwing their chips in to better themselves. A company that is dealt a worse hand, that maybe has not been as successful, might be a little more hesitant to take a risk because luck might not be on their side.

Now let's take this image full circle, and let's wrap it around to love. Young kids like me may have no idea what love really means, but I could imagine that it's also like a poker game. I could imagine that if someone has a crush on somebody, they'd be far more likely to take a risk to be noticed by the person whom they like. Picture this. The person who has the crush gets noticed by the other after they throw some chips into the pot. Eventually, these two people become a couple after the boy (or at least usually the boy) goes all in. Then a new poker game starts, to symbolize the development of a relationship.

Both members of the pair continue to throw chips in, until it's just plain ill-advised to back out of the betting. Eventually, one of them pushes all in when they think that they're in love. However, the risk, just like the imminent risk of going all in in poker, is there, because the person hearing the words "I love you" may be too afraid to respond. Either way, if a relationship results in marriage, the couple shares the pot. Therefore, in a healthy relationship, everyone wins, and nobody goes home beating themselves up about folding that open-ended straight draw, or going all in on that pocket pair. I'm just a high school guy, and I'm not known as any romantic, but I could imagine that real love means both people have pocket rockets. This is the kind of love that a family shares.

Whether you're a stock owner, an aspiring businessman, or a lover, life is just a game of texas hold 'em. We've all been dealt our cards. The only thing left for us to do is to decide when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

Death Games

I am currently reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The book creates a strict nation known as Panem, in which one boy and one girl are chosen annually to participate in the annual hunger games. The hunger games, however, are not games at all, unless one considers a life or death struggle to be a playful joke. The main character, Katniss replaces her sister in the hunger games and is forced with an opportunity for fame and fortune, or a certain death. There is no gray area in the decision of the winner, and no gray area in the decision of what the cost of a loss is. The loser will be guaranteed death, while the winner will be guaranteed a new, more luxurious life. Ultimately, the two prizes are polar opposites.

The catch in the story that I noticed from the beginning is that an ultimate sacrifice must be made whether one wins or loses. If one wins, they have to take the life away from another, stealing a child from a loving father, mother, or both. Even after the victory, the winner would be forced to live for their own survival, becoming less worried about the lives and well-being of others. If they do not win, they pay the ultimate price, which, as stated before, is their own demise. Essentially, Katniss must make a choice to take the life of another away from his or her family and friends, in order to survive and better her own life. Either that, or she must find a way to escape the binds of her strict and violent society in order to escape the pressure of critical decision-making. Katniss has an infinite amount of decisions to make, and her decision has the capability to affect fellow Panem citizens.

Break Away

Personality Plus tells us that we fit into certain personality types based on certain traits that we share with people of the same personality type. Are we destined to fit into the personality type that matches us from birth, or do our choices and influences lead us in that direction? I had done so much pondering, concerning the part of the book I had read, yet there was still so much more to be contemplated. Do we choose whether we're optimistic or pessimistic, or are just made that way?

I believe that our choices are the things that make us positive or negative people. We can choose to either look at things with a glass half full, or half empty. However, I think Personality Plus places people into personality categories based on how prone they are to make certain decisions. For example, perfect melancholies are more prone to collapsing to pessimism, while popular sanguines are more prone to looking at the bright side. Therefore, the choices we make define our personality type. Consequently, we can choose who we are. Maybe I'll always be a perfect melancholy, and I'll always need an outlet for my emotions, but I can eliminate some of my weaknesses, in order to be a better me.

Each personality type is uniquely defined by certain advantages and certain flaws. Nobody can be perfect, but we can all strive be our best. Every characteristic of our respective personality types isn't set in stone. I believe we can all try to eliminate the flaws that are symptomatic to our personalities. By doing this, we won't be changing our personality type, according to the standards of Personality Plus, but we will be improving ourselves. If I try to be optimistic, it won't kill me, even though my personality type defines me as pessimistic. We'll always be the same at heart, but what matters is how hard we try to make ourselves better, both for the ones whom we love, and for the ones who love us.

Make it Work

After I was finished reading through Personality Plus, I decided that, if i could, I would try to change the way I act, in order to change my personality type. Because my perfect melancholy personality type labels me as pessimistic, emotional, and sensitive, I tried my hardest to hold in my emotions and just smile for a day. For the most part, the smiling made me feel happier, but by the end of the day I just didn't feel quite right. I decided that I had to vent about the things that had caused me problems earlier in the day. After venting to a friend or two, I felt better. Consequently, I came to the realization that I'll always need to express my emotions. Changing how I acted made me feel happier, but it was impossible for me to change who I am- a perfect melancholy. No matter how hard I try, I'll always have those emotions built up inside of me, and, in my opinion, it's best not to let them build up to a point where they can cause me problems. It's always best to let your emotions out before they come to a climax.

However, knowing that i was able to flip my frown upside down made me feel hopeful. People would tell me how my natural expression is gloomy and depressing. I never even realized it. Sometimes I feel happy, yet my expression still comes off sad. Maybe it's best to smile when you can, and let the emotions out when they're there. Letting emotions out doesn't mean crying, swearing, or hitting someone in the face. It simply means showing how you feel. When you love someone, you tell them. When you're upset about something, you vent about it and then forget that it ever happened. I, myself, have a serious problem with holding onto things. I can never let things go. When something's important to me and I mess it up, it stays with me for abnormally long periods of time; whether it concerns a relationship, or whether I'm just playing poker with my friends. Essentially, I can regret hurting someone else, or I can regret folding an ace-seven off suit. No matter what the case, I know that one thing I can change is my problem with holding onto things. I may not be able to change the fact that I'm a perfect melancholy, but at least I can change how I carry myself. I can change my gloomy expression to a smile, and even though I may not be cheery on the inside, my smile will rub off on others. Whether we're gloomy perfect melancholies, or happy go-lucky popular sanguines, we all make our own happiness by how we approach the day-to-day.

Reading- Personality Plus (pgs. 1-100)- Nonfiction

Personalities

Lately I've been reading a book that discusses the different personalities of the human being. According to this book, the three main types of personality types are powerful chloric, perfect melancholy, and popular sanguine. After reading through a section of the book, I decided to skip around and take the survey to place my self in a category for personality type.

After taking the survey I realized that my personality type was perfect melancholy, as my score for perfect melancholy was significantly higher than my score for the other two types. After finding out my personality type, I decided to skip to that section and read about it. Most of the discussion of the perfect melancholy personality type seemed to refer to a depressed and sentimental human being. It took me a while to accept it, but I now realize how much i can relate to the description for the perfect melancholy personality type. The main characteristics of a perfect melancholy human being were smart, conservative, pessimistic, insecure, sentimental, thoughtful, and perfectionist. I hate to apply the terms somber and insecure to my person, but I can't deny that those traits fit me fairly well.

I read through the other personality type descriptions and I proceeded to notice some of the traits of my friends and family members. I was able to place a few people into personality categories just for kicks. I read a section titled " How to Cheer up a Perfect Melancholy." At that point I did not want to have anything to do with some of the traits applicable to the perfect melancholy personality, but after reading through this specific section I saw how closely I could relate to it. Most of the examples listed were things that could actually cheer me up or make me smile. In the end, I accepted my personality type, but I was perplexed by a few things. First of all, it made no sense to me how every single person in the world could fit their personalities into each category so comfortably. I decided that there must be certain people who share many different traits from the three categories. I also found it horrifying how I could be negatively affecting others with my pessimistic outlook on life. It was somewhat of an epiphany for me. I knew then that I had to change, because it had never been my intention to put others down. Lastly, I was able to acknowledge that I shared similar traits with the other two personality types as well. As far as the popular sanguine type goes, I share the ability to joke around, and along with other people who belong to the powerful chloric type, I'm capable of organization.

Literally, I had read a light book about the study of the human mind and personality, but, technically, I had just experienced a complete volte-face in my thought process.