Lifetime is catching up with me
Nighttime turns to morning so quickly.
I have always had trouble sleeping. Since as far back as I can remember I would stay up late as I could and find things to do and get into trouble. Exploration is important. Exaltation is just as important and nights are often the best for that too.
A lot of nights, particularly the hard ones (like this one) I sit or lay and think about things. Historically, I've a problem where I think about deep (read: existential) questions and problems too much. When I am patient with myself and I can focus and meditate more clearly anything will pop into my head. This night has had some sad truth to it.
And yet, Truth always has some beauty too.
Now that I see how love works and how I work in it more clearly I do not know how best to continue. I can define love but seeking it does not find it. Giving it freely may be nice but it does nothing to assure it in any way or in any particular person. When you find that person who feels right and you try too hard, she runs away; scared of getting tied down. When you find that person who feels right and you play it cool and take it slow, she loses interest; thinking maybe you really just aren't that into her. Timing is essential, but in most ways basically random, in the process: we have even at best little control of that either.
i.e. The girl who is right for you will never be with you while she is dating someone else seriously, and certainly not if you are looking for someone who you can trust and who embodies the necessary loyalty, to be that woman.
When you are "in love" as this culture would put it, (somewhat high school, I know) or infatuated (for lack of a more glamorous expression) with a person than it is very difficult to see their faults but the interest, the attraction are effortless. They are new and perfect for you and it seems like nothing will dissuade you of it. When you deeply love someone, there is a trust there, but also you generally build that trust from ground up and you know that person well, faults and all: you can see them for what they are or even deeper to who they are. This knowing them will make them really annoying at times because you will see their faults clearly and yet have little power to change them. The latter is far less romantic but to me seems so much more real. Can you have both? Don't think so. Can the former grow into the latter? Not easily in my experience, although this is the most common path people suggest to marital bliss. Statistical analysis (read: books and psychology shit I've read) suggests that it is rare for this to work. Can the latter grow into the former? I am still analyzing it but psychology strongly suggests numerous good reasons that for humans it just doesn't work that way. Now any ways about it you are going to pick a strategy and hope that the person you are with will be on the same wavelength as you. Nothing destroys friendships like one person suddenly expressing sexual interest in the other (assuming it is not mutual). Maybe you can get them interested but then what happens if/when it doesn't work: most likely you've lost a friend. So you really can't fuck your good friends without risking trouble.
Deeper to the problem than that, this culture has no accepted dating/courtship rituals so everything is practically a free for all. It seems like everyone has some idea (mental schema) of how it's supposed to go but no one is quite able to explain it. (I blame hollywood for this, we all have a slight ability to imagine it but when pressed with reason this mental image falls into so much bullshit, like a romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts.) Since the sexual "revolution" of the nineties, the double standard is gone (for the most part) but instead of finding common ground in the middle it was one-sided. Women are not only allowed to have many partners without being looked down upon, pop culture makes it seem like women are supposed to have many partners or something is wrong with them ("Maybe you're just not pretty enough... Bullshit!!! Looks have little to do with it and you know it!) So while I think that there is nothing wrong with sowing a little seed while one is young and curious, I would appreciate more people who can talk about sex with a healthy emotional perspective, and practice sex emotionally without thinking they are unhealthy. The people who talk about sex seem to do it for the power it seems to hold, like talking about it means your better than someone else, or that you get it more often than they do. Unlike all that shitty porn that feeds on this fake sexual revolution, I don't really have interest in tons of partners or throwing myself at every short skirted bimbo that looks my way. Moreover, that would be pointless, everyone knows that the way to not get SEX is to TRY to get SEX, at least usually not as guys are concerned. You have to be charming and show interest in the person and take it slow and have a plan to get them into bed and generally, worst of all: lie. I just don't think I want sex enough to lie. I know that lying would probably make it easier but it would be so much more meaningless. If I am lying for sex I shouldn't be having it. And anyone who wants to give me shit for the past, just understand and believe that I've changed principally and that I won't go back to that juvenile self. And if somehow I am lying for sex and you know it, call me on it. That is what a true friend would do.
Alas, clarity must eventually fade and you cannot see the whole picture and the small print at the same time.
The birds are chirping, the sun rises, and here I am: still awake.
It seems like many if not most people (in this country?) live as if always trying to be happy is somehow morally acceptable as a start, or as an end. I think that from my experience and consideration that strategy fails as either and certainly as both. There has to be something else that one lives for: maybe an aspect of themselves they focus and hone (a talent or skill perhaps), or for their culture, or family, for their idea of the better good, for their children and all children and to assure a better life for future mankind. These last ones are truly admirable goals but to expect results in them is optimistic. I believe that till the end we have to be optimistic. Humans have created, destroyed, and changed the world and put it so out of balance... well dammit!! We are capable of putting it back into balance... once we figure out what that is, if we survive as a species long enough. But one thing is clear: if we keep buying this bullshit consumer culture and media full of deception and lies, then our chance and our lives will be gone and there will be less there for our children and their children.
This is such an incredibly beautiful world and I want to keep it that way even if that means life is going to be harder for me.
I have always had trouble sleeping. Since as far back as I can remember I would stay up late as I could and find things to do and get into trouble. Exploration is important. Exaltation is just as important and nights are often the best for that too.
A lot of nights, particularly the hard ones (like this one) I sit or lay and think about things. Historically, I've a problem where I think about deep (read: existential) questions and problems too much. When I am patient with myself and I can focus and meditate more clearly anything will pop into my head. This night has had some sad truth to it.
And yet, Truth always has some beauty too.
Now that I see how love works and how I work in it more clearly I do not know how best to continue. I can define love but seeking it does not find it. Giving it freely may be nice but it does nothing to assure it in any way or in any particular person. When you find that person who feels right and you try too hard, she runs away; scared of getting tied down. When you find that person who feels right and you play it cool and take it slow, she loses interest; thinking maybe you really just aren't that into her. Timing is essential, but in most ways basically random, in the process: we have even at best little control of that either.
i.e. The girl who is right for you will never be with you while she is dating someone else seriously, and certainly not if you are looking for someone who you can trust and who embodies the necessary loyalty, to be that woman.
When you are "in love" as this culture would put it, (somewhat high school, I know) or infatuated (for lack of a more glamorous expression) with a person than it is very difficult to see their faults but the interest, the attraction are effortless. They are new and perfect for you and it seems like nothing will dissuade you of it. When you deeply love someone, there is a trust there, but also you generally build that trust from ground up and you know that person well, faults and all: you can see them for what they are or even deeper to who they are. This knowing them will make them really annoying at times because you will see their faults clearly and yet have little power to change them. The latter is far less romantic but to me seems so much more real. Can you have both? Don't think so. Can the former grow into the latter? Not easily in my experience, although this is the most common path people suggest to marital bliss. Statistical analysis (read: books and psychology shit I've read) suggests that it is rare for this to work. Can the latter grow into the former? I am still analyzing it but psychology strongly suggests numerous good reasons that for humans it just doesn't work that way. Now any ways about it you are going to pick a strategy and hope that the person you are with will be on the same wavelength as you. Nothing destroys friendships like one person suddenly expressing sexual interest in the other (assuming it is not mutual). Maybe you can get them interested but then what happens if/when it doesn't work: most likely you've lost a friend. So you really can't fuck your good friends without risking trouble.
Deeper to the problem than that, this culture has no accepted dating/courtship rituals so everything is practically a free for all. It seems like everyone has some idea (mental schema) of how it's supposed to go but no one is quite able to explain it. (I blame hollywood for this, we all have a slight ability to imagine it but when pressed with reason this mental image falls into so much bullshit, like a romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts.) Since the sexual "revolution" of the nineties, the double standard is gone (for the most part) but instead of finding common ground in the middle it was one-sided. Women are not only allowed to have many partners without being looked down upon, pop culture makes it seem like women are supposed to have many partners or something is wrong with them ("Maybe you're just not pretty enough... Bullshit!!! Looks have little to do with it and you know it!) So while I think that there is nothing wrong with sowing a little seed while one is young and curious, I would appreciate more people who can talk about sex with a healthy emotional perspective, and practice sex emotionally without thinking they are unhealthy. The people who talk about sex seem to do it for the power it seems to hold, like talking about it means your better than someone else, or that you get it more often than they do. Unlike all that shitty porn that feeds on this fake sexual revolution, I don't really have interest in tons of partners or throwing myself at every short skirted bimbo that looks my way. Moreover, that would be pointless, everyone knows that the way to not get SEX is to TRY to get SEX, at least usually not as guys are concerned. You have to be charming and show interest in the person and take it slow and have a plan to get them into bed and generally, worst of all: lie. I just don't think I want sex enough to lie. I know that lying would probably make it easier but it would be so much more meaningless. If I am lying for sex I shouldn't be having it. And anyone who wants to give me shit for the past, just understand and believe that I've changed principally and that I won't go back to that juvenile self. And if somehow I am lying for sex and you know it, call me on it. That is what a true friend would do.
Alas, clarity must eventually fade and you cannot see the whole picture and the small print at the same time.
The birds are chirping, the sun rises, and here I am: still awake.
It seems like many if not most people (in this country?) live as if always trying to be happy is somehow morally acceptable as a start, or as an end. I think that from my experience and consideration that strategy fails as either and certainly as both. There has to be something else that one lives for: maybe an aspect of themselves they focus and hone (a talent or skill perhaps), or for their culture, or family, for their idea of the better good, for their children and all children and to assure a better life for future mankind. These last ones are truly admirable goals but to expect results in them is optimistic. I believe that till the end we have to be optimistic. Humans have created, destroyed, and changed the world and put it so out of balance... well dammit!! We are capable of putting it back into balance... once we figure out what that is, if we survive as a species long enough. But one thing is clear: if we keep buying this bullshit consumer culture and media full of deception and lies, then our chance and our lives will be gone and there will be less there for our children and their children.
This is such an incredibly beautiful world and I want to keep it that way even if that means life is going to be harder for me.