Thoughts on relationships…

Recently, since we ended up cooling off with an RI (Romantic Interest), I had a *gasp* new, even if unoriginal, thought.  This is from an email I wrote:

My affection for women in relationships breaks down into two components:

1. Romantic – "she so hot, I want to be close to her and look into her eyes like a dog seeking a bisquit".  Revelation is in the fact that, despite the fact that each time I feel this yearning to be unique, it is actually identical to every other time I feel it.  This realization makes me feel like a detached observer of my own biological response to context of mating.

2. Human/intellectual – the want of your company to laugh, to know your opinion, to communicate and enjoy the conversation.  This also feels unique (on the rare occasion when I meet someone with whom I feel this), but I think this one actually MIGHT be unique due to the fact that ideas, human experiences, and humor itself, while still not unlimited, are nevertheless far more diverse than pure emotions.

What is still unclear to me is what the relationship is between the second and the first component, where the line is drawn, and how to bridge the gap so that the emotional part is not detached from the intellectual one, but is an extension thereof.  Having said that, in most relationships it seems to me people never really end up developing the second component…  run out of things to talk about.  This seems especially true as you get older and more focused and entrenched in the ideas that usually relate to your career, everyday problems, the variety of which is identical from person to person.

Musings: gym…

Feels so good. Just 15 minutes on a treadmill and some really really really minor lifting, and it feels like there is nothing that a some good old excercise can’t fix. At least when it’s in the head…

Men… women… still a mystery. I feel like I am perpetually walking along a fine line between loving and being selfish… between being honest and taking care not to break something so delicate, fragile… Unable to give what is asked of me, yet afraid of losing.

Yet again, I discover, that the whole male-female thing needs to have a well-written manual. Preferably MRI-backed studies that would measure pain and pleasure from different actions. There must be some pain-free way to move through a relationship without hurting other people, yet I seem to be completely oblivious.

Don’t get me wrong, unlike before, I am not crying for help here… I am just lamenting about our general lack of knowledge on these matters. For instance, if you can’t be with someone for whatever reason, the traditional response is walk away, let him/her go… but why? Is there nothing more to life than “relationships”? We don’t know how to deal with the situation, so we often take the sure way out – complete segregation. Otherwise, you have “pain”, “selfish”, etc. echoing in your ears.

I just can’t understand. I accept that I am not smart to control the situation most of the time, and hence I must accent this strategy, but I can’t understand its wisdom… it just seems so… inhuman… yet how can I do things so that I don’t hurt the people I love? Can we hurt who we love? Is it still love if they can be hurt by us?

And all this was written in the span of the last 8 minutes. Back to work… speaking of, anybody needs a second-rate programmer? I might be looking for a job soon.

Diary: bitchin

The one thing I hate more than realizing that I should stop relying on my family to keep me informed and accept the responsibility by asking the necessary questions is being told of the fact with righteous indignation as if I, on purpose, disregard those around me. Finally, even though a long time ago I may have promised to never do so, this morning I’ve resorted to the cliche American “whatever” in response to being dogged for “all the right reasons”. Ugh…

This weekend I realized that I don’t live in time. I live in now. The past is something I dwell on, an almost boundless source of both happiness and guilt. The future – a light at the end of the tunnel that hopefully doesn’t turn out to be an oncoming truck. The present on the other hand… Though making such extreme statements almost automatically turns me into a hypocrite. Perhaps that’s the function of hypocrisy – a negative-feedback mechanism to prevent one from veering from the truth, which, for the most part, is fairly natural.

Whatever. I still had an awesome weekend.

Diary: 2046

2046 by Wong Kar Wai… depressing, inspiring, confusing. Forced a whirlwind of thoughts and associations during and after the movie, all funneling down to one question: why? Why does this movie feel so tragic and why does it resonate with me, yet cause such a stir when juxtaposed against my life? Perhaps because, as with Murakami’s “South of the Border, West of the Sun”, it is what is wrong with our world. It is unnecessary pain caused by belief in archetypal roles perhaps – a sick society due to a sick framework.

Musings: A servant to two masters…

Saw an Italian play – happy endings are not unique to the states. Although with all the jolly humor, thoughts of more serious works and pain cross the mind, which leads to the thought of how much of a product we are of the ideas we brew in and would a society with nothing but, say, comedies be happier than that saturated with soul-searching drama?

Might this be quantifiable by observing existing cultures?

Diary: politics…

This picture, by Anselm Keifer, hangs in Tate Modern in London and, IMHO, is alone worth going to that museum. It hangs (from memory) a solid 5 meters wide by 3 meters high. When standing close to it, much like with impressionists, all you see is dabs of color and twisted wire coming directly out of the picture. Take 10 steps back and you see a breathtaking bird’s-eye-view of a city fading into grayness… There was something overwhelming about it…

Had an interesting talk with Z yesterday, which resulted in this question. Suppose you have a country A that is hungry and country B that has a terrible economy but furtile land. Now suppose that country A sets up a channel with country B (trade channel, free-trade agreement, etc.). Members of country B realize they can make money from exports to country A. They start growing crops, make money, and the economy adjusts towards capitalism. Now suppose that country A is capitalist in nature. Has it just expanded its influence onto B by virtue of creating a market? Now suppose that A is America and B is any country that can provide some goods to America. By creating a market for those goods has America expanded its imperialist influence?

My opinion? Capitalist imperialism doesn’t exist because capitalism is a cold drive for effeciency. Or rather capitalist imperialism exists as much as democratic imperialism which exists as ideological imperialism. If I show someone that 2 + 2 is 4 when they didn’t previously know, have I just colonized?

On the other hand, while imperialism to me is a silly notion, analysis of inlfuence is a valid and complex question that should be debated and that will always, IMHO, end up in a delicate balance between social and economic intertests.

Musings: post-Italy…

I wish I had the time to jot down all of my thoughts. To do as once did when doing a research paper or in a physics class when I take all of the havoc in my head and lay it a dusty layer atop whatever is in front of me so that I may be able to, afterwards, construct the thoughts out of ideas like a puzzle out of a 1000 piece set.

Recently came back from my trip to Britain, Italy, and Croatia. Something occured to me on this trip – there are two ways of thinking about life: static and dynamic. The static thought is that of a perfectionist… or an individual who wishes to be at some place at some time – when every action has a purpose to attain something. And then there is the dynamic percetion when one lives in the moment and gets pleasure from perpetual motion – when life is improvisation. Of course sometimes the two merge into bliss… when, for instance you are falling asleep in the arms of a beautiful woman and can just pass out there and then, when actions serve no purpose other than enjoyment of the moment… But other than that, it’s all improvisation and if it stops, if there is stagnation, people become miserable. I become miserable. Miserable, insecure, paranoid, etc. And when sitting down behind a piano, I find that I get immense pleasure from hearing a single note. And even though that the moment is arguably static, I take pleasure from the process…

Musings: Strippers…

Draft: 2

Every time the subject of stripping comes up, stereotypes come forth like puss from a pimple: dirty chavinist pigs (men) taking advantage of desensitized women, who turn to stripping as a last resort. This then leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy:

– men see themselves and act like the negative sex-crazed males objectifying women
– women begin to see themselves as objects and are forced to perceive themselves negatively, leading to them despising the men.

Which came first, the crude man or the despising woman is a chicken-and-the-egg problem.

But is this paradigm correct?

First, to dispell my perception – what do I see when I see a beautiful naked woman I am attracted to? I see someone to respect and revere – the archetype of a woman manifested in a beautiful naked body and graceful movements. Do I think about having sex with her? Of course. I yearn for her touch, for her attention, to be spoken to, caressed, noticed. But do I see her as an object? No. I see her as an idea.

Do I feel like I am in any way disrespectful? Absolutely not.