I hadn’t heard about this movie, but upon stumbling on the dvd cover, i was intrigued. For some reason, it was placed under comedy, when it would more appropriately be called a romantic fiction. Nonetheless, Cash Back was indeed a treat. it is a british movie and the humor may be a bit off but it does have its moments. it is a partial narrative of a guy who discovers he has the power to slow down time. he discovered his power through insomnia, caused by his girlfriend dumping him. He then undresses girls at a supermarket , just to draw them. the plot sounds stupid, and it is misleading. this is actually an artistic movie of epic poetic proportions. It is pretty close to the style of Perfume. the trailer below will give you a better feel of the movie.

Now i found it specifically interesting, because of how the movie makes you appreciate time. There are times we wish for time to go faster or slower. And fortunately, our minds are complex enough to create the illusion of the varying speed of time. But the only illusion we can’t create, is that of a second past. This isn’t a new thing, but its like a reflection. While watching the movie i began to remember how much difference ONE second can make. why is this important? why shouldn’t it be?! Appreciation of the little things taken for granted, is a gift. This movie just reminds me why i like to live in the moment. worrying about the future or regreting the past only distracts you from the present. Unfortunately, this comes with nullifying feelings from the past such as regret and remorse, and that may provide a battle for your conscience. however, a second spent worrying is a day of possibilities wasted. that’s how i look at it and despite the consequences of spontaneity, it is a great way of feeling alive.

Entertaining: A
Plot: C
Stimulating: B-
Overall: A

It seems that everyone is looking for motivation. Whether it is to wake up in the morning, to go to work, or even motivation to have patience with the people around you. Most people have reached a stage in their life, where there is simply no reason to use up any energy to do anything. I’m sure like me, people might have sought advice from outside sources hoping to get hold of some information, something inspiring or insightful that will provide that lil kick to make them look forward to the next day.

In my personal opinion, motivation is something you have to find on your own. It is a lot harder, but is more rewarding. one of my philosophies is that we are all capable of self healing, if our bodies heal from wounds, we can also heal from “mental wounds.” I have personally been training to just think, change perspectives and reflect. As vague as that sounds, it has helped me deal with a lot of things. Every problem can be simplified into smaller approachable steps. So taking a step back, lookin at WHY you are unmotivated, you’ll be able to simplify the problem into much simpler tasks to accomplish, to lead you towards what you want.

for example, in my case, my lack of motivation came from mundane repetitions and predictable routines day in day out. And one thing that psychology has pointed out, is that we are built to recognize change. you enter a room, you immediately notice the temperature and other things, and after a while you become accustomed to the room and it is off your mind. this simple concept can be applied to your daily lives as well. If everything around you is unchanged, you become accustomed to it and you are simply not receiving enough mental stimulation. So the next step is, what can i do to spice things up? I avoid routines, do things in no particular order and keep trying new things, trying new hobbies, new foods, new movie types etc. It may not make you want to go to work, but the mental stimulation definitely provide a lil kick in your step, and things seem a lot bearable.

However, there maybe more or different variables in your equation and the key is to try and break it down yourself and simplify it as much as possible. simple problems are easy to solve. This practice of simplifying everything into smaller problems or parts makes every task seem like a breeze at least from a mental approach. give it a try!

I just took a personality class and was amazed at how abstract it is to define what is responsible for a person’s personality. funny to say, personality falls in the same category as love and life, in terms of the numerous ways at looking at it from a psychological point of view. you’ll be amazed at the different theories that exist to define personality. there are theories that define a person’s personality as being related to the time of birth (astrology), numerology bases a person’s personality off a given number calculated from their birth dates, the famous Freud explained personality based off his theory of the id, ego and superego and the psychosexual stages of development, in Japan there is the blood type theory, where they believe a person’s behavior is as a result of their blood type, there is even a theory that bases personality off a person’s body shape ….this is just to name a few. so there is no clear cut explanation for personality and most theories are a reflection of a single person’s idea…Even all the personality tests that exist don’t define personality or tell you why you are the way you are. they just identify patterns and associate you with a group based off distinct factors like introversion, feeling etc if you’d like a quick test go here, the results are quite interesting and you may actually agree with the explanations in your assigned group.

So why are we the way we are, what are the key factors, is it too far-fetched to believe that the position of the sun and moon during our birth has something to do with our personalities?

well personally, if i had to chose any ones theory it would be that of B.F. Skinner. he believed that each person’s personality is as a result of conditioning and reinforcement. in other words, your personality comes from either imitating or being reinforced for any given behavior. this is an over simplified explanation though. i don’t entirely agree with him and if i had to come up with a theory this would be it:The brain at birth is forever working, like a computer. it is constantly receiving information from your senses and trying to draw connections and associations between objects being observed. and depending on both environment and biological factors (such as the different level of hormones and enzymes needed for brain activity) each person comes up with different connections which i like to call formulas and every time a variable is passed in from the senses it passes through these created formulas which are unique to each individual and are dependent on past experiences. in other words you can think of past experiences as constants in the formula. these formulas give a given result and these characterize a person’s behavior. that’s how i view personality in a nutshell. still refining it, who knows maybe your kids will be learning this new theory in the future…laugh now but i called it

One thing i can say i believe in is balance. it may be something that can also be analyzed as a psychological fabrication to further give purpose to otherwise unexplainable things. and maybe the connections we see between events is simply because we want to see that connection. but either case, if it really is just the way of nature or a coincidental connection of events i’m sure many of you will agree with me. there are patterns in nature and many examples i can give to back up my principle of balance. and the best case i can give right on the top of my head, is the relationship between the number of predators versus prey as you go up the food chain.

that system was built for balance. many other examples exist, but now the questions is, can we project that idea as a natural phenomena that also applies to events that occur in our everyday lives. can we say that good and evil balance out? many might say no, but balance may not always establish itself at a single point. in a vast world, an action  at one end could spark a counter event at the other end. and the balance may not only be spacial, but could also be temporal, where balancing events are separated by time. now can this be proven, no. can statistics back this up, no because there’s no direct proof linking the events.now why should we ponder on something that can not be proven, well because it is an idea and every idea has worth and this idea makes me handle negative events with optimism for the upcoming balancing event, u should try it