My Hero, spiritualism and reality are the keys to making my list.

I have heroes for different things. My main hero (really a saviour) is Jesus Christ - I am a Christian. He lived on this earth some 2000 years agao and He is well-documented in the Gospels. He did make a difference in people's lives: He healed the sick, the bind, the lame, leppers, deaf, mute and cast out evil spirits. There is another side to His heroism, slightly beyond the purpose of this class however. He is an eternal hero, and his act has been played over again and again. He gave his life for those he loved, as a sacrife taking their place. For non-christians and for people who are not familiar with the idea of sin and needing salvation, this may not ring any bells for you. For me, I see this as a gift that we can choose to accept, and with a choice to acknowledge Jesus' self-sacrifice, living a godly (righteous, serving) life comes along in the package. It is hard for people to follow up Jesus' love for all of God's children, dying for the sake of humanity, but it is ultimately good, the right thing to do rather than living for our own self pleasure. Jesus Christ was selfless and served others before Himself. His attitude on life and living is that of God's (As christians, we believe that Jesus is essentially God incarnate, a manifestation of the Divine).
The fact that He accepted his ultimate calling to die on behalf of all people's wrongdoing shows how loving He is: an ultimate hero.

Another hero of mine is totally different. It is not a specific person, but all the people who fight for righteousness around the world., and this comes in many forms: sustainability and human rights being the closest to my heart. Figures such as David Suzuki, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr just to name a few.

My fictional heroes are very minimal in number. I like Superman because he's a ...superhero! His powers are amazing...and fictional. The mythical/fictional realm of heroes never made a big impact on my life. I knew they were fake, non-existant being and I'd rather spend my time admiring real people who walked the earth fighting for righteousness!

Well here's my long blog written in 10 min in the SFU Surrey Mezzanine! Thanks for reading! Ευχαριστω!

A Kaleidoscope of Emotions: Guilt is only one in the ever-changing mindset

How do you feel at the moment? More specifically, is guilt on your mind? Our complex world has enabled us to effortlessly bounce between emotions and thoughts. This means one emotion can only be our mind for so long. We watch the disheartening news about a famine in Somalia where millions of people are dying of starvation, but we can effortlessly change the channel and get a laugh out of The Big Bang Theory.  Though globalization has drastically connected the globe (economically) like never before, we can retract into our own personal world by taking advantage of all the things the world offers us to occupy our time with.

My first thought about whether or not a person could constantly feel guilt was simple: “for sure!” I will always know, deep in my soul, that billions of people are far less fortunate that me. Thus, when I hear people say, “I really need a new phone,” I almost immediately think of the children on the World Vision commercials, who really need food, medicine - and love. However, until the thought strikes me, I do not feel guilt or any profound sorrow. Could it be true that the tragic reality which is always in the back of my mind, could be so easily covered up, hidden away by a kaleidoscope of emotions, chatter and daily occurrences? It can be true, and if it’s the reality for me, it is probably a reality for many others. We are fortunate enough to have plenty of things to do in our day: things that require our attention. The things we occupy our day with thus have the power to change our emotions and thoughts. For example, when a person chats on Facebook with a friend, they probably aren’t thinking about the effect of Myanmar’s military dictatorship on its people.  There is no reason for them to feel sorry for Myanmar until they actually are faced with the reality, be it in the news or in a conversation.

Just like the people of Omelas - who are busy singing and dancing, riding horses and marching in parades – we are busy studying, chatting, working and relaxing. As an end result, we are too pre-occupied to think about the world’s suffering, too busy to let the guilt (grief should be more like it) reign over our thoughts and sentiments. But wait; aren’t there people who are not too pre-occupied? People whose calling it is to think about the misery of millions? Mother Teresa did that! She wasn’t a school teacher constantly nattered at by children, too occupied to give alms to the poor. She was a woman of God who took the responsibility of caring for the untouchables. The guilt, grief and sorrow of other people’s suffering was her every concern. Though her emotions obviously shifted, she was immersed in a place where suffering was (and still is) extremely apparent. She could not escape it, not like you or I who are so distant and removed from that world. We can just play basketball or read poetry; this is not the case in a city like Calcutta. But Mother Teresa’s life is a special case.

The citizens of Omelas are a great comparison to modern North Americans. That child is hidden from them, but they know it exists, just like we know of the sweat shops that exist for the benefit of our wardrobe. Those people that make our clothes, grow our food and make our iPods are on the other side of the world. In the same way, if the billions of people in poverty lived like us, they’d need people on the other side of the world making consumer goods for them. We could not survive like that; for us to have all the modern luxuries that we do, they must go without. If they used as many resources as our society does, the earth could not sustain us all. So we ignore their suffering so that we can feel better about our fortunate lives. If we do not ignore them and reject that guilt (that we have it all, and they have nothing), we will be consumed by the injustice that life is.

Whether it is a conscious or subconscious decision to neglect the anguish of people around the world, by doing it we can free ourselves to live our life as we like. By this, I mean serving our own needs instead of helping those less-fortunate than us. But if we were surrounded and gripped by the sorrow that grips so many others, would we not be moved to do something for them instead of forgetting about it and moving on?

Fall Has ARRIVED

Yea...i think it's fairly clear that summer has disapated. A few days of cloud and drizzle has definitely ushered in the new season. I even had a dream about fall, pumpkins and fallen leaves...and rain :(

First Post

So I'm just experimenting with this blog. Here's my name in a few different languages.
антони переира коста. Cyrillic
ანთონი ფერეირა ქოსთა。Georgian
アントニペレイラコスタ。Japanese
Ανθονή Περεηρα-Κωστα. Greek
.אנטוני פרירה קושתה Hebrew

(Now I'm editing it to say that I couldn't figure out how to put my Chinese name on here, but I could just look it up on google!)
Tadaa! Anthony in Chinese