Love Yourself: Vanity and Self-love

The ‘Love Yourself’ single PHOTO LINK: http://www.justinbiebermusic.com/release/love-yourself/

Justin Bieber’s single, Love Yourself for his album Purpose, is literally everywhere! It’s on the radio, the television, on the ride to school, on my friend’s playlist, on my alarm tone, Gosh, I’m even singing it unconsciously inside my mind now! Which makes me really question, if what kind of magic has that song inflicted inside our minds?

The cover of album his new album entitled ‘Purpose’ PHOTO LINK: http://www.justinbiebermusic.com/release/purpose/

Well JB’s voice is one factor that made the song sound good, its catchy tune is another. When I first heard that song, I didn’t really know who sang it, or if what’s the title of the song, but I just picked up its tune and  started humming it until the rest of the day. And upon listening to the song again, as carefully as possible, the lyrics made a great impression to me. Its really meaningful and unique, and it tells a story.

“For all the times that you rain on my parade

And all the clubs you get in using my name

You think you broke my heart, oh girl for goodness sake

You think I’m crying on my own, well I ain’t”

So the girl here is a drag, and the guy here somehow is boosting his ego. (Vanity Alert!) It’s like he’s trying to prove something  to that girl, like he wants to pop the girl’s huge ego by telling her that she’s not much of a big loss to him, and he never saw her as someone to be sad for. That’s right! A big slap on the girl’s face. Ouch.

“And I didn’t wanna write a song

Cause I didn’t want anyone thinking I still care

I don’t but, you still hit my phone up

And baby I be movin’ on

And I think you should be somethin’

I don’t wanna hold back, maybe you should know that…”

On this part, we could obviously tell that Girl is still hoping to get Guy back, or maybe trying to get his attention because she can’t accept the fact that someone set her aside.  but it is plainly evident that Guy doesn’t care anymore and it seems like he wants to cut all connection he had with her and was even ready to bury memories with her. He doesn’t want to be with her anymore! Can’t she just move on?

 

“My mama don’t like you and she likes everyone

And I never like to admit that I was wrong

And I’ve been so caught up in my job, didn’t see what’s going on

But now I know, I’m better sleeping on my own”

Okay, so that explains why Guy is indifferent with her. Maybe she’s too nasty that even Guy’s mother didin’t like her a bit. I bet she’s even secretly praying for their break-up. And since guy was cloacked of the illusion of her perfect girl, he never noticed girl’s awful atittude. Or maybe he did noticed it already, but he’s pride just can’t accept the fact that he made a very bad decision of going-out with her.

 

“Cause if you like the way you look that much

Oh, baby, you should go and love yourself

And if you think that I’m still holdin’ on to somethin’

You should go and love yourself”

And that’s when he bursted! He couldn’t take it anymore, that he thinks that the best thing for the girl to do is to love only herself, which is what she’s really good at. Obviously, the girl is too vain about herself and her own appearance, and maybe she just thinks of guys as someone how belittled her. (Which is something that she couldn’t accept, considering her ego being wounded)

Self-love

So in my own interpretation, I think the song wants to tell the listeners that when you love, you shouldn’t give everything to that person, make sure to save a little more love for yourself. And maybe the love that you think you’ll find on other person is really the love that you’ll find inside yourself. Maybe you really don’t need another person to make you feel special or tell you you’re loved, because you have yourself.

Nevertheless, It is just my own interpretation, you don’t have to take it so seriously you know! Each of us has our own opinion about things. But one thing is for sure, JB’s Love Yourself is really a song that could easily get you hooked, and really worth topping the charts.

Writing is Tough Stuff

Writing.

If you think it is easy, then the heck you’re lucky! The idea of someone being able to turn his thoughts into words, his mixed-up emotions into sentences, and his wild imagination into stories that comes to life with every flip of the page, just makes awesome an understatement. Writers , authors, novelist, they are those persons that I really look up to!

Though I must admit, there are really some instances when I wonder, if why writers go through all the trouble of writing? Personally, I’ve also tried creating my own stories (let’s keep it our little secret, Okay?) and there’s just really those times when I stop myself from writing and I think to myself, ‘Why did I even attempted to do this?’ or ‘Why did I even thought that I could do something as incredible as writing a novel?’ Ugh. It’s depressing.

Which is why I’ve collected a few quotations from great authors that would give us an insight as to what those authors thought about writing, and probably would give us the inspiration to continue pursuing our #writergoals.

Writing is all about Patience

Photo of George Orwell from http://www.george-orwell.org/l_pictures.html

“Writing a book is horrible, exhausting struggle like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand” ─ George Orwell

For a writer, writing is more than just a passion, it is obsession. Some just writes pointlessly with no goal in mind, but to satisfy a thirst inside them. Thus, one of the most important qualification of being a writer is to be very, very Patient. Just as Jim Tully quoted, “Long patience and application saturated with heart’s blood─you will either write or you will not─and the only way to find out if you will or not is to try,” writing is a very long process and if you’re having second thoughts try asking yourself first if you’re cut out to start the journey of making a story.

Then next, you need to generate an idea for the story, and one way is through reading. According to Samuel Johnson, “the greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.” Through reading, you’ll get a lot of idea from other authors which you could mix and match in order to arrive at a unique concept that would really awaken your interest.

And then you’ll write, write, write… which is exactly for what?

Oh! Enid Bagnold has the answer to that in his quote, “Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything… It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.”  To cut it short, according to Bagnold, writing is creating life from scratch.

 

Writing is Creating Life

Photo of Eudora Welty from https://eudorawelty.org/

 

“The writing of a novel is taking life as it already exists, not to report it but to make an object, toward the end that the finished work might contain this life inside it and offer it to the reader. The essence will not be, of course, the same thing as being as the raw material; it is not even of the same family of things. The novel is something that never was before and will not be again.” ─ Eudora Welty

So according to Eudora Welty, same as with Bagnold’s, in writing you don’t just create a story, you create life itself. The characters in your story should not be there just to drive the plot, instead, they should make the plot! As Ray Bradbury quoted “Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by their way to incredible destinations .”  You need to believe that they are a living, breathing person. Think of them as someone you’ve known all your life, a family member, a bestfriend, or even your lover, but you don’t have the power to dictate them how to feel or how to act.

Like the  quotation from Ernest Hemingway, “When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people, not characters. A character is a caricature.” Lend them your flaws , desires and dreams, give them the right to be unique from everyone else, and every little details that would make your character as every bit as human as you. Because in the end, you are the persons in your book, if not, you wouldn’t be able to create something that you don’t know or haven’t experienced first-hand.

Make them do stupid things, make bad decisions, fall in love, hate, have fun, and discover because that’s what real life is, it is never perfect, it is perfectly imperfect. Each of us has a unique version of it, just as what a novel should be. If you started your novel with imagination, finish it with reality. That’s what you should serve your reader!

 

Therefore if you still believe that writing is ‘easy breezy,’ well, you’ve got it all wrong! Writing is a purpose driven process, fueled by the drive to make something new and extraordinary, the passion, the hunger, the inspiration and the little voice inside your head telling you ‘You can do it!’.  Possessing all this is what makes a great writer!

Caught On The 5th Wave!

Are you prepared to be invaded?

During this modern day techy-era, we only see aliens in mobile apps, virtual-reality games, in internet sites─ like YouTube where lots of videos of spotted UFOs could be found─, and on televisions. We watch and play them for the love of entertainment, but we never see them as impending threats to humankind.
What are the chances that real alliens are watching us? What if they are observing us right at this moment? Studying how the human mind works for their plan of invasion to be more convinient, or even worse, maybe they’ve already infiltrated the Earth and are walking among us while planning the destruction of the whole human race!

“It wasn’t about saving us. And it wasn’t about enslaving us or herding us into reservations.
It was about killing us.
All of us.”

(Disclaimer:I do not own this photo) The sample of the book. PHOTO LINK : http://static.tumblr.com/klvx12r/ZBFnqj6he/5thwave-1.png

This is the world that Cassie Sullivan, a 16 years-old girl, has to face alone. A world where everyday is a run=die, stay=die (as quoted from the book) situation because no place is safe for humans anymore, and the superiors of the animal kingdom were overthrown by extraterrestrial beings. Which could make us wonder if how could a mere teenager survive living in a chaotic world like that?
After a few unfortunate instances, Cassie is developed to be a fighter. Believing the possibility that she might be last human alive in the whole universe, she struggles to survive waves of attacks caused by the Others, the name they called for the intergalactic neighbors, and strive for humanity while finding a way to be reunited with her little brother, Sam, even through the small chance of seeing her brother still alive.

 

“Do you know how to tell who the enemy is Cassie?”

TRUST is one of the prominent theme in this novel. It’s basically about who to trust and who are too shady to be trusted.With the aliens believed to be inhabiting humans hosts like parasites, no one could tell who the real humans are and who are the Others, thus resulting into humans killing their own kind. Just imagine hoping for the help of fellow humans but instead you ended up being shot by one ─because they thought you’re one of the Others─ Yep. Ironic right? Making it the ultimate death scheme to wipe mankind from the face of the Earth.

LOVE, if that’s what you could call the attraction of a teenage girl to cute boys, is also present in the novel. At first, I was expecting another cliché love story, but somehow the author managed to turn everything around! But is it really possible for a person living in that current situation, to still think of, or much more prioritize love over all the havoc happening around? I sure do hope it’s just the feeling of need for someone’s attention and care, but not love! Oh well, I still enjoyed the love part in the novel, though I’m really rooting for someone else for Cassie. Ugh. just don’t mind me.
Wait! *Spoiler Alert* The author used the typical YA love triangle formula, which is a little bit confusing on this first book, but may grow deeper as the story develops further. No one could even predict who Cassie would end up with, so expect more of the unexpected.

The importance of FAMILY was also another matter that was really given the emphasis on the novel. The way Cassie loves his brother so much and how she was willing to risk everything just to find him made me reflect on my own relationship with my siblings.

The 5th Wave is the first installment to the 5th Wave series of author, Mr. Rick Yancey. It is a Sci-fi, YA novel that is very interesting to read. It really caught my attention once I found the trailer of its movie adaptation just recently this 2016. Even just the 2 minutes trailer was very interesting, which gave me all the more reason to give the book a try.

The events on the few first chapters of the novel was at a slow pace, since most parts were intended for backstories, but as I went further through the story, I felt the excitement of every events! It’s certainly one of those books that you would never want to put down once you’ve started reading it. It’s so addictive! And when you thought you’ve already predicted what’s going to happen next, well, you thought too soon! The unexpected twists and turns of events, specially on the end, would make you crave for the next book. (Okay, I’m guilty with that one)

The book cover of The 5th Wave. PHOTO LINK: http://rickyancey.com/images/cover-thumbs-large/5th.jpg

Like I’ve mentioned earlier, The 5th Wave is now showing on selected theaters as a major motion picture. And if you want some update about the series visit http://www.the5thwaveiscoming.com/ and for the author, Mr. Yancey himself, visit his official website at http://www.rickyancey.com/