#secondentry

by Kim

One specific scenario which proves the statement, “Reality is often stranger than fiction” is the baby making industry in the Philippines. It is an underground business dealing in which baby makers, who are mostly victims of kidnapping and sex trafficking, are raped and forcefully impregnated by foreigners. After the baby is born it will then be sold in the black market where interested foreigner customers will purchase it. It is said that the baby production business in the Philippines is one of the largest in the whole world. Furthermore, unsold babies will then be regulated to feed the child pornography industry or be subjected to child labor. This is also why child pornography in the Philippines is the highest in the entire world. Readers who encounter this article would often find themselves rereading and questioning the validity of the text because it is very unrealistic that it may as well have come from a fictional book or movie.

Photo by Linda Xu on Unsplash

Blue Symphony by Laika

Journal Entry #2

Nagkaroon ng activity sa Personal Development tungkol sa Self - Concept. Sa bawat sitwasyon, mamarkahan mo siya ng 1 (weak) hanggang 4 (very strong). Sa bawat sitwasyon na binasa, nakikita ko yung sarili ko na mahina ako dun pero siguro masyado lang din ata akong naging doubtful. Pero I honestly answered all of the situations and I can say na tama lang ang rating ko sa sarili ko kasi no one really knows who am I except for myself. Then, dumating yung part ng sharing with seatmates. And in that, I didn't expect from them na sasabihin nilang strengths ko yung considered weaknesses ko. Then, I remembered something relating to the Johari Window in knowing yourself that we are sometimes not aware of what others see into us. They can see things na masasabi nila na it defines us that we didn't know, thus, adding to the factor of truly knowing yourself. Another part of the activity is the scores that we rated to ourselves and it seems that nakikita talaga ng iba kung anong potensyal natin at nalalaman nila kung sino ka talaga base sa kung anong naoobserbahan nila sayo. I realized na tama sila na hindi ko pa talagang lubusang kilala ang sarili ko at it takes such a long time to know who you really and truly are.

Intention and morals; this is a subject I think I've been wrestling with for a while, at least since my prepubescent years. This is something that has majorly impacted my mindset, how I act and what I believe in.

Keep in mind, these are my thoughts, and it's fine if you disagree with me. This is just how I work.

To me, intentions are very important. Regardless if society considers your actions as good, it won't decide if you are actually a good person. In my opinion, if you only do good things for your own benefits, you aren't this hero that should be upheld as an example of how a person should be in society.

Because regardless of your actions, your intentions by the end of the day were selfish. And that is fine, this is how the world works. The economy is driven by self-interest, the drive for consumption, and so on. We don't have to ignore this reality to acknowledge the fact that doing a good thing doesn't automatically make you a "good" person.

Yes, you can be nice, but how do we usually define what a "good person" is?Your definition may be different from mine, but this is my list of characteristics of what a good person is;

- Kind

-Selfless

- Regardless of what society thinks, does what one thinks is the right (moral) decision. AKA principled. 

- Empathetic

Now, keep in mind that when I say "a good person is xxx", I mean all these characteristics combined. A person can act nice, and still not be a good person. A nice person CAN be selfish. A person doesn't HAVE to be principled or empathetic to ACT nice. Because "nice" is something we see as a behaviour (although "nice" behaviour-wise may change depending on culture). When we combine kind with selfless, this person is truly somebody who cares about others and isn't just kind to exploit others. When we combine kind and selfless with principled and empathetic, we see a person who does what he or she thinks is right out of kindness and empathy, and not because they think they will get something out of society or because they otherwise are afraid of being punished by society.

To ME, this is a good person. And this is something I TRY to live after. Of course, there's countless of other characteristics that you can add to this to make a good person even "better", but this is just my general frame of how to define a good person.

So now, if we go back to what I said, that it's fine that you're not a good person... today, it has become really important for people, companies and organisations to express their morals, how good they are, how "right" they are and so on. Are they truly good when they have to scream how good they are? Or do they do this for the benefits they may gain from society?

If a company says that they sell items and that xxx amount of dollars will go to donation, is the company truly good, or is this a way to get more people to buy their product so they can get more profit? Sure, a company could be driven by values, but by the end of the day, a company will not survive and/or grow unless it profits.

Now let's apply this to people. When people say "I did [insert good cause]!", is this truly because they want to spread a message and encourage others to do the same, or is it for the attention they may get for being "such a good person"?

Yes, you could scream and say "What does it matter as long as the results are good!?"

Well, what if we blindly supported a cause to look good without looking at the consequences? Some may be screaming “but the results are good” without even looking at the results. This is where the problems come from.

Example: Donate your clothes to Africa! You don't even need to know what happens in the clothes! But you feel good, knowing you "did the right thing". Who knows? Maybe you can put out a picture of you doing it on social media?

Consequences: Local small businesses in Africa lose customers because customers can get free clothes from a nearby organisation, leading to further poverty as small businesses have to close down and more people end up unemployed, which means the locals are even more dependent on NGOs.

Yes, your intention here may be a good thing. But a lot of people may not have been here to do the right thing. Maybe they're just here to give themselves an ego-boost so they can give themselves excuses when they do something bad.

Now, I think it's fine if you want to do the right thing, or if you want to do the right thing purely for the ego-bost. But when we uphold "good" actions, which are truly selfish as heroic and the way to be, it becomes problematic. Because then, everybody is busy being the hero, without knowing what happens behind the scenes. Without knowing how they impact society as a whole, not only in the countries they live in, but also, abroad.

If you really want to help, donate responsibly. Look up the organisations and what they do. Look at research-data. See what the long-term impacts of the organisations' work have been in the local area where they are stationed. Don't just donate to whatever organisation that looks good because it looks good.

So hopefully, you're able to follow my post. Sometimes, I tend to jump from one subject to another, and sometimes others don't seem to get how I connect my dots. It's just that today, we're all so busy being SJW, PC or whatever, we don't even stop to think if what we're doing is actually good, or if we're doing it to just look good and be "woke". Do our actions really make a good change in society? With good intentions, we should care if our actions have impacted others negatively. But if we're so busy being "woke", SJW, PC, or whatever to realise what we're doing to others, then we're not heroes. We're not good people. We're just having our heads too deep stuck up our asses to see that we're harming others, and not helping.

Recently, I found an article from Instagram entitled “Splitting of The Moon” and the article really caught my attention that I ended up doing some searches on the internet for more information on it. It was said that NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) found a crack pattern on the moon surface and it was being said that the crack somehow looked like as the moon was once split into two.

Somehow, I found this topic has brought lots of arguments on blogs and most of the search results especially arguments between Religion and Belief. Sadly, not much information is found. The topic has been popular and been questioned since years ago but as the saying goes, curiosity kills the cat, I ended up scrolling down on all posts and comments from different blogs anyway~

“Even though the moon appears smooth and beautiful to the naked eye, telescopic photographs tell us its surface is, in fact, rugged and full of meteoric and volcanic craters of all sizes.”

(QatarLiving.com-http://www.qatarliving.com/forum/politics/posts/moon-split-common-even-nasa-says-so)\

but the moon is beautiful indeed :)

*****

Apollo mission photographs of the Rima Ariadaeus revealed a 300 km-long rift line on the surface of the moon.[17] On being asked in 2010 about Internet suggestions that this was proof of the Quranic story, NASA scientist Brad Bailey said, "My recommendation is to not believe everything you read on the internet. Peer-reviewed papers are the only scientifically valid sources of information out there. No current scientific evidence reports that the Moon was split into two (or more) parts and then reassembled at any point in the past." - Wikipedia

“Rima Ariadaeus are believed to be faults that formed as a result of tectonic activity. Some scientists believe that the linear rilles might have formed after large impact events, while others believe that the rilles were formed as a surface manifestation of deep-seated dike systems when the moon was still volcanically active. Experts agree that Rima Ariadaeus, about 300 km (186.4 mi) long, is a fault system similar to those on Earth.

(https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/lroc_20090928_ariadaeus.html)

*****

The Muslim believes that the finding was an evidence from the prophecy history of Prophet Muhammad SAW that also written in Quran in Surah Al-Qamar(54); 1-3.

Meanwhile, the other religion stated their beliefs and defending them.

There’s also some who believes in science and denies religious statements.

The arguments somehow ended up peacefully with acceptance and respects towards each religion and beliefs.

*****

I’m not intended to write down everything here and I don’t even have any comment nor a personal opinion regarding this topic, but I come to a conclusion that:

“We live to learn, so keep learning until we die”

“A connection that connects us with our God is FAITH” - it doesn’t matter what our belief is, and what we believe in. As long as we stay in our faith, nothing will drag us away from the truth.

 NOTE: This article is for sharing purpose only :)

First picture credit: http://en.shafaqna.com/the-splitting-of-the-moon/

“Peace be upon you”