Valentine's Day
So, really, Valentine's Day is just another product of consumerism and commercialism. Just like Christmas and Easter and Halloween -- all banked with propaganda to buy, buy, buy because the more you buy, the more the person/people you buy for will love you. "Say it with flowers" and other such sentiments.
Am I a romantic? I'm a realist. I like to think I am, anyway. Romance, to me, is Clark Gable and Cary Grant movies; things that look wonderful but aren't real. An idealist's dream, perhaps, but not mine. I'm not an idealist by a long-shot. I wouldn't run my hospital as efficiently as I do if I was an idealist. I wouldn't be the second-youngest person and first female in the history of major hospitals around the country to reach position of Chief of Medicine if I was an idealist.
Sure, perhaps I reached such that position with a dream in mind to do so. There's a difference between an aspiration and a ideal, however. There's a difference between striving towards a goal and living in a fantasy land.
Which brings me back to my point. Romance. Would I like to believe in romance? I'm a woman -- what woman doesn't want to believe in it? Women love being loved. It's just the way we are, realists and idealists alike. Perhaps if one day a man came along in my life and proved to me that romance was real, then maybe I'd change my mind. He'd have a hard time persuading me, however, unless he was especially convincing.
If I want to be pessimistic about it, Valentine's Day is a great day in the year to really segregate the people in relationships from the ones that aren't. To cause the ones in relationships that bother with such 'romantic' sentiments as Valentine's Day to lavish each other with gifts and adoration, while those of us who have no one to share that with sit on the sidelines and watch it all go by.
If I want to be optimistic about it, Valentine's Day is a great way to squander away money that people don't have, and I don't have that problem of having to squander my money away on anyone except my nieces back home in Massachusetts. That's the selfish optimistic approach to it. I don't think there really is a selfless optimistic approach. (In fact, I don't think there is such a thing as selflessness, period, but that's another rant altogether.)
And I say all of that like I'm on a soap box and then thwart it all by making the hypocritical statement that it would be nice if, for once in my life, I had someone to share such a thing as Valentine's Day with.
[mood|
pensive]
[music| Norah Jones - Don't Miss You At All]
Am I a romantic? I'm a realist. I like to think I am, anyway. Romance, to me, is Clark Gable and Cary Grant movies; things that look wonderful but aren't real. An idealist's dream, perhaps, but not mine. I'm not an idealist by a long-shot. I wouldn't run my hospital as efficiently as I do if I was an idealist. I wouldn't be the second-youngest person and first female in the history of major hospitals around the country to reach position of Chief of Medicine if I was an idealist.
Sure, perhaps I reached such that position with a dream in mind to do so. There's a difference between an aspiration and a ideal, however. There's a difference between striving towards a goal and living in a fantasy land.
Which brings me back to my point. Romance. Would I like to believe in romance? I'm a woman -- what woman doesn't want to believe in it? Women love being loved. It's just the way we are, realists and idealists alike. Perhaps if one day a man came along in my life and proved to me that romance was real, then maybe I'd change my mind. He'd have a hard time persuading me, however, unless he was especially convincing.
If I want to be pessimistic about it, Valentine's Day is a great day in the year to really segregate the people in relationships from the ones that aren't. To cause the ones in relationships that bother with such 'romantic' sentiments as Valentine's Day to lavish each other with gifts and adoration, while those of us who have no one to share that with sit on the sidelines and watch it all go by.
If I want to be optimistic about it, Valentine's Day is a great way to squander away money that people don't have, and I don't have that problem of having to squander my money away on anyone except my nieces back home in Massachusetts. That's the selfish optimistic approach to it. I don't think there really is a selfless optimistic approach. (In fact, I don't think there is such a thing as selflessness, period, but that's another rant altogether.)
And I say all of that like I'm on a soap box and then thwart it all by making the hypocritical statement that it would be nice if, for once in my life, I had someone to share such a thing as Valentine's Day with.
[mood|
pensive]
[music| Norah Jones - Don't Miss You At All]