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influences
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Dear homeless man,

I started the same way you did and indeed every other human. A new born child all equally filled with just as much potential as the next. The only difference between us being our individual genetic make up and the environment we were born into. We can do little to change one’s genetic make up but what of the household and society we were born into? Are these to blame for your unfortunate happenings? Let’s start at the beginning.

We are raised by a household influenced by society, religion, culture, status, money and beliefs.
These are the foundations of us, of how we identify ourselves. We do not know this yet, barely able to sit up straight we are have no understanding of what is going on around us. As we start to explore the edges of our world, which extends from the front door to the backyard, our minds are whirring into action.

It is the first day of social interaction, kindergarten. Mingling with peers only went as far as cousins or family friends. This is a whole new world with other children, swings, play-doh, tantrums and learning to share. The happenings of the kindergarten playground may seem insignificant but these have a greater affect than one may think. These happenings are dictated by the people around you who have been influenced by past experiences, just as you have. What happens is only influenced by what has happened before. Lucy has the doll today so Katie gets the doll tomorrow. We are learning that others are important in decision making.

Upgraded to a classroom where it is not just learning to be a person of society but to read and write. The kindergarten days have had a large part into moulding us into what we are currently. We have learnt ideas such as others have feelings, that an act of kindness can bring a new friend and that sharing is caring. I see you standing there, having trouble playing with the other children. You have been ostracized because you hit one of them for not giving you the car. It is forgotten the next day, until you do it again. It is just what you have learnt, they shouldn’t blame you but they do anyway.

Ten years of age and the classroom has become more of a daily social gathering where you want to be friends with that person because he has the best cards to trade with or that girl because she can do the best cart wheel and where reputation matters. What you are perceived as being is how others treat you. They may know you but most of them don’t know you. Friends are chosen and you have but a few close friends. They are the ones you tell everything to, you do everything with them, share everything with them and they are who you value most. They influence you and you influence them.

We come to the teen years and we are meant to be mini adults, but some of us are acting less mature than we were 5 years ago. Learning has taken front stage for most and these years are crucial to what adult you will become. These years are filled with experiments both in and outside the classroom where “you should try this” and acting out is so in. I see you struggle to concentrate in class. A habit you never got the hold of during primary. Academically you aren’t doing too well but the school has made sure you have the opportunity to get the pass marks. School isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be.

School is over and you are now an adult. The title of adult holds great responsibility and you are what the younger generation are meant to “look up to”. This is no where near your mind. You do some things that get you in trouble with the law. Your money output is greater than your money input. Things aren’t going to way you want it to. You have no choice and we find you under a bridge, homeless. It isn’t the ideal way to live.

You were given every opportunity to be great, why didn’t you take them? You chose the wrong answer, you did the wrong thing and you made the wrong decision. It’s your entire fault, you are to blame. But what made you choose those decisions? What made you buy the blue top instead of the green top milk? What made you decide to leave school? What made you think that everything was going to be ok when it wasn’t? What made you make those decisions? Let’s start where we left off.

You are homeless because of the decisions you made as a youth. Your personality as a youth was dictated by what you experienced as a child and your childhood is a product of what happened even before that. At the same time, you were being constantly influenced by what you saw, heard, read, thought and felt. You were but an empty box that was gradually filled with what the people around chose to put in. You are not entirely to blame for what happens to you. You act how people have influenced you act and made decisions that others wanted you to make. You are a product of the others around you. But what or who influenced them?

Everyone does. It’s like a web where everyone is constantly influenced by everyone else. We have one thing in common and that is the society we live in, our breathing space. This is run by the adults of our world with their marketing schemes, money and social rules. One of them will make us think one thing and before you know it, everyone is thinking the same thing. We are essentially the product of them. Even if we aren’t directly exposed to them they make the people around us think one way which gets us thinking that way also. Who makes them think the way they do? Who dictates the minds of the adults of today?

It is only the adults of yesterday for the adults of today were only the children of yesterday. They were influenced in the same way as we both were and are. They were the children running around the kindergarten playground and they were the teens sitting in the classrooms. It is not only a web of everyone influencing everyone else but also a cycle of adults telling their children what do to do and what to become. We are the product of everyone and everything. What ever we are exposed to will influence us, even if it is but a tiny bit.

We make decisions on what we think is right and what we think is wrong. It is these decisions that make us who we are. When we are young these are made for us. We may be a product of everything but it is what we listen to and it is us that decide what we want to be influenced by the most which makes us different. You may have listened to the wrong tune or gone down the wrong track but you are where you are because of your decisions. The successful millionaire is where he is because that is what he decided, the woman in prison is there because of what she decided to do and you are there because of what you decided. You didn’t decide to be homeless but you made decisions that made it so.

We are influenced by everything but it is what we choose to listen to and that makes us who we are and what we end up doing.

From Novia

November 20, 2007 | 4:22 PM Comments  0 comments



I liked you because of your looks but I love you because of who you are...



Love. The feeling is unlike anything that has ever been experienced. The only things that come close are drugs that last only an instant compared to love and leave you worse for wear.... I believe that social conditions are programmed to believe that a decent boyfriend must be cute/hot/good looking. We are such a shallow community.

This has been observed from two different groups of people who are independent of their actions (i.e. the two groups did not know of each others actions) but are characteristic of boys and girls I know.

Group 1: Rebecca and Paula… At the international soccer game they were checking out and commenting on boys of the other teams. Paula then went to one of these players and got their phone number. Contact after this has followed.

Group 2: Johan, John and Dion… From the back of the English class they observed a pretty yr 10 and discussed her looks before going outside to get her attention.

My conclusion from these two observations is that only those who are attractive are desirable as boyfriend/girlfriend.

As shallow as it sounds it is physical attraction that determines whether friends can turn into more than friends. I feel that everyone could be compatible as individuals get along with one another and it is physical attraction that is the true attraction between a couple. For example my friend Larry from intermediate only decided he like Helen after mufti day. Perfect example of what I mean as up until that point he only saw her as a friend. The actions that he thought were signs of affection were only innocent as far as I know.

The sad thing about this social situation is that no one is immune. If someone who you found very physically attractive fell for you, you know you would fall for them… initially, after all just physical attraction cannot make a relationship it is very rare for a relationship to being.

October 26, 2007 | 1:12 AM Comments  1 comments





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