I've struggled with this post in various forms over the last several months, to tell the truth. Each time I've held back on pressing the post button, as something sounded too harsh, too world-weary. Too... honest. But tonight, it feels right. Like I've had a change in perspective. Or maybe I'm just not giving as much of a crap as I normally do. A bit of honesty can be a relief, but also a dangerous thing. Regardless, tonight I am going to write about the Blog Roll's topic of 'community', and tonight I'm going to press that post button and forget about it...
Singapore definitely has had a major impact on my life. Being in a different place, with different people, different problems, it gives you excellent perspective on your life. For pretty much the entire start of the year, I was fretting about what I was doing with my life. That I hadn't done anything with my life, especially in this year. When you're stressed, it consumes your life. Having such a major experience away really did calm me. Not only did it tick the box of having a worth-while experience this year, but it gave me a break from the stresses back in New Zealand. This in turn, has allowed so many more emotions and new ideas to enter, and really helped me start to get my life back on track.
This new-found perspective has really helped me examine parts of my life. What do they mean? Are they important? Which brings me to my thoughts on "community". As I mentioned, I've dabbled around it previously, but have never felt right about what I've had to say. Now I can look at it for what it is, and without struggling against it, I can finally call it as I see it.
"From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - Community usually refers to a social unit larger than a small village that shares common values. A community is a group or society, helping each other."
I'm going to come straight out and say it: I'm not part of any community, nor have I truly been part of a community, ever in my life, for very long. Sure, I belong to my city's community in the first sense of the term. Feeling a part of a group or society who is there for you, however - belonging - now that is a concept that is still estranged from me.
I believe we as a people, are a community of convenience. A lot of this ties back into my post about how we know we really love someone, which if you haven't read, you should, as it explains a lot about my views on what caring actually is. When things get hard, who really is left standing around to have your back? To be there for you? I know I'm bitter, but community means one thing for me: isolation.
You know that saying? You can feel most alone when surrounded by many people? That's how I feel. Being in a community for me is a chance for a "social unit larger than a small village" to consistently let me down.
I've not hid the fact from most people that I've not had an easy past few years. Heck, how am I special though? I know lots of people, friends, relatives, who are going through the exact same thing. It's called life. Quite often it sucks. Sometimes you get driven off-road. Sometimes your car then breaks down off said off-road. And sometimes you then get struck by lightning while trying to change the tires. Life is hard. Having someone there for you, who knows just how much life sucks is what community is all about. I know it may sound a bit boastful, but I'd like to think that every time someone has needed me, even if they didn't know it, I've been there for them. I had a friend commit suicide when I was younger. It really hit me for six, and I've never felt a bigger sense of regret in my life. That thought I maybe could've done something. If only I'd said something. If only they knew I was there for them. Whenever someone is down, whether I know them well or not, I always tell them I'm there to listen. It's not just the big things though; I turn up to your parties, not just because I like you, but because I know how it hurts having no one turn up. I reply to your texts and say hello to you when I see you because I know how it feels to be ignored and unimportant.
That's how it should be. That's my idea of community. Helping each other. Wikipedia agrees with me (and I swear I didn't edit it just to prove my point haha). Not just when it suits you, but often when it doesn't suit you at all. Often however, I feel like I'm a community of one. Once upon a time, I used to go to church. I used to be in a tight-knit group of people who would meet up each week, quite often more frequently. You'd probably call it a community. Every birthday, I used to go out and buy a $20 gift for that person. Something they'd enjoy. I'd help out decorating cakes for them. Not for praise, but because I wanted to show them how much they meant to me. For my birthday, I had a family emergency. I was probably the lowest I've ever been in my life. I tried reaching out to the people I'd think would understand the most. For my birthday, I got told they were too busy. For my birthday, my community let me down. Someone I hardly knew on Facebook was the only person who showed they cared.
I wouldn't say I'm part of any particular community now. If I had to pick something, I'd say my friends were the closest thing I have to feeling that sense of community. And even then, I feel just as isolated at times as if I were alone. Now I'm not going to get into the debate of online interaction versus real life, human contact, but when you're feeling alone, Facebook and social media can be such a degrading experience. A community at your finger tips, and still, you're no closer to that sense of true belonging you desperately crave than ever. I've lost count of the number of times I've asked people if they want to catch up. To be a part of my community. I feel like a fisherman, sitting on a pier, with lines dangling over the edge. You see a little nibble, and you wind the line in, only to find the fish have eaten your bait, and you're still no closer to anything meaningful, and you begin to wonder why you even bother with such an empty pastime. Only, the fish don't know any better. They're just hungry. Friends on the other hand...
It's been so long since I've had any meaningful contact with most of my friends, that I've begun to become far more introverted and I wonder whether you can call them friends at all, outside of that little plus avatar symbol on Facebook. You see parties you're not invited to. Fun that was had without you. It's all another person. It's an updated account of isolation and a painful reminder of how far a community can actually be from its true definition.
Which brings me back to my belief that communities are those of convenience. When people need me, I'm there for them. I've stayed up until all hours helping people with their problems. Done things not at all in my interests. And yet whenever I turn around, to see who has my back, I see people asking how long it will take, or telling me this week isn't a good time. Or the next week. Or the next... I know others feel the same way. That's not community. That's a 'me' society. And that's why I honestly believe I've never been in a community in my life. As terrible as it sounds, the word means nothing to me. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I dislike the definition. It's a lie people tell themselves to shelter them from the cold truth that most of the people in your life aren't going to be there for you. To me it means isolation. Hurt. Being let down. No, I'd much rather stick to being a community of one. Where I help people, but I don't have that expectation I'm going to be cared for when I'm low, or that people will treat me as I treat them, or even at least return the affection I feel for them. It's hard writing down what a callous person I guess you could say I am in some respects, but 'community' is what it is, and I'm not mad or angry. I can't change it any more than I can change the weather. I can recycle and turn of lights to help reduce climate change, but in the end, I'm just one person and it's not up to me. But saying we're part of a community is false, when in my experiences, the people around me have acted far from what it truly is. Let's call it a biosphere and leave it at that.
And with that, I press the post button, much too glad I got all that out of my system. I can now delete the other several draft of this topic I have clogged up my blog list.
Showing posts with label Blog Roll. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blog Roll. Show all posts
Saturday, 28 September 2013
Wednesday, 21 August 2013
Intention of the Reinvention!
It may sound a little egotistical, I but I really like myself as a person. I mean, that's a sentence which shouldn't really have a negative connotation, but it does. The world certainly would be a better place if more people liked themselves! So the idea of reinventing oneself is a tad extreme for my liking. I see it as... working on a custom car in your garage. You've got a great old car, but you tinker away on it, restoring it, improving it, making it into the work of art you really want to cruise around the coast on, top down and music up. I rarely think that you're so fundamentally flawed that the only way to move forward is to completely reject the majority of things about yourself and start afresh.
Other than periods I've had of major improvement in my life, there has only really been a single time where I can honestly say I've 'reinvented' myself that I remember. It must be noted also, that I don't mean in any way I'm perfect or beyond major improvement - in fact I'm a wholly flawed individual who could probably do with a bunch of serious life changes - and it comes back to my perception that to like yourself and state so, can be seen as a tad egotistical. Maybe it's the ol' New Zealand tall-poppy syndrome? Who knows...
When I was a kid, I was amazingly shy. I had few friends (I would probably say I only really had one, best friend, until I was a teenager) and was bullied seemingly everywhere I went. It sounds dramatic, but I really did have a hard time at most schools I went to; this led to the often bewailing of "Why does everyone hate me?". I had low self-esteem, was overweight and to cap it off, I started going bald at 14 and growing a full beard at 12. I loved myself as a person, but as a kid, it's hard to like yourself when no one else seems to. You even get settled into the role of "I'm here to be the unpopular guy" and you find yourself falling into the similar traps, actions and habits of someone who is seen as annoying and disliked. This, of course, perpetuates the problem and you soon devolve into a never-ending cycle of adolescent misery.
Cue art school. I was fresh from high school, and the brochure for the school made it sound as if it were speaking to me. Individual creativity. Friendly environment. The first week of art school I'll always count as one of the best of my life. I can't remember a huge amount of it now - it was nearly a decade ago - but I'll always remember the first course. It was in a giant theatre, and there were long tables along it, packed with new people. I knew no one, and I could feel the fear growing inside me. There was a girl next to me, who smiled, before returning to her work. I said nothing.
Then, without warning, something clicked in my brain. I still don't know where the clarity came from, or how it came to be in my young, muddled head, but it told me to stop. Stop being shy, stop continuing this isolated path. I remember looking at the girl next to me. I didn't know who she was. She didn't know who I was. I could be anyone. I can be anyone. I could, even if it were fake for now, be the person I knew I wanted to be. My voice was trembling, but after a few moments, I said hello to her. Her name was Hannah. Then I asked another person their name. His was Charlie. By the end of the week, I was no longer shy. I was the (mostly) confident, well-liked guy I wanted to be. Just like that. It doesn't seem like much, but looking back on it now, it still completely boggles me how something so simple as saying hello to someone, could change my life so dramatically. Just a change of thought to the cliche 'new place, fresh start'. I faked it for a while - and even afterwards struggled with reconciling what was more real, my old shy self, or my new confident self - but over the years, I grew with confidence, to the point, where I am no longer gripped with fear in new situations or when faced with new social encounters.
I'm still an introvert at heart. I don't think I'll ever be that guy who loves public speaking or feeding off peoples' energy at parties. But that simple reinvention of my thinking was undoubtedly one of the more profound moments of my life. I'm still fairly chuffed my younger self was able to come up with such a monumental decision! Without it, I wouldn't be the man I am today.
Other than periods I've had of major improvement in my life, there has only really been a single time where I can honestly say I've 'reinvented' myself that I remember. It must be noted also, that I don't mean in any way I'm perfect or beyond major improvement - in fact I'm a wholly flawed individual who could probably do with a bunch of serious life changes - and it comes back to my perception that to like yourself and state so, can be seen as a tad egotistical. Maybe it's the ol' New Zealand tall-poppy syndrome? Who knows...
When I was a kid, I was amazingly shy. I had few friends (I would probably say I only really had one, best friend, until I was a teenager) and was bullied seemingly everywhere I went. It sounds dramatic, but I really did have a hard time at most schools I went to; this led to the often bewailing of "Why does everyone hate me?". I had low self-esteem, was overweight and to cap it off, I started going bald at 14 and growing a full beard at 12. I loved myself as a person, but as a kid, it's hard to like yourself when no one else seems to. You even get settled into the role of "I'm here to be the unpopular guy" and you find yourself falling into the similar traps, actions and habits of someone who is seen as annoying and disliked. This, of course, perpetuates the problem and you soon devolve into a never-ending cycle of adolescent misery.
Cue art school. I was fresh from high school, and the brochure for the school made it sound as if it were speaking to me. Individual creativity. Friendly environment. The first week of art school I'll always count as one of the best of my life. I can't remember a huge amount of it now - it was nearly a decade ago - but I'll always remember the first course. It was in a giant theatre, and there were long tables along it, packed with new people. I knew no one, and I could feel the fear growing inside me. There was a girl next to me, who smiled, before returning to her work. I said nothing.
Then, without warning, something clicked in my brain. I still don't know where the clarity came from, or how it came to be in my young, muddled head, but it told me to stop. Stop being shy, stop continuing this isolated path. I remember looking at the girl next to me. I didn't know who she was. She didn't know who I was. I could be anyone. I can be anyone. I could, even if it were fake for now, be the person I knew I wanted to be. My voice was trembling, but after a few moments, I said hello to her. Her name was Hannah. Then I asked another person their name. His was Charlie. By the end of the week, I was no longer shy. I was the (mostly) confident, well-liked guy I wanted to be. Just like that. It doesn't seem like much, but looking back on it now, it still completely boggles me how something so simple as saying hello to someone, could change my life so dramatically. Just a change of thought to the cliche 'new place, fresh start'. I faked it for a while - and even afterwards struggled with reconciling what was more real, my old shy self, or my new confident self - but over the years, I grew with confidence, to the point, where I am no longer gripped with fear in new situations or when faced with new social encounters.
I'm still an introvert at heart. I don't think I'll ever be that guy who loves public speaking or feeding off peoples' energy at parties. But that simple reinvention of my thinking was undoubtedly one of the more profound moments of my life. I'm still fairly chuffed my younger self was able to come up with such a monumental decision! Without it, I wouldn't be the man I am today.
Saturday, 13 April 2013
The Weird and Wonderful World of... Flirting?
If you've ever had the displeasure and wholly uncomfortable experience of me hitting on you (and being pretty much sober for my entire life, I can say I recall it's a fairly low number; also, although me flirting with you may feel like hitting a brick wall, I do mean "hitting on" in the metaphorical sense), it's no secret that on a scale of zero to ten, my flirting skills have hit rock bottom and are digging for fossils. Which is great, as I've always had a fascination with palaeontology! Not so great for dating...
I'm not going to give you a history of my love life, to spare the shame of my ex's, but perhaps I'll share some anecdotes which have shaped my understanding of this most curious social interaction: "flirting". Get ready for lots of probable misinformation from a flirting-newb, completely skewed by my experience as a male (which I'll have you know is a completely different experience from being female I'm told). Aw shucks, let's be honest - it's a hashed-together post so I can moan about how hard flirting is haha... and yeah, it's a bit long. Lots of whining...
Flirting is hard to define. It's not really getting to know someone. That's a part of it, but when you get to know someone, it could be a completely non-sexual encounter, between two friends perhaps. Flirting really is probing that tentative area between openly saying you like someone and feeling that secret attraction to them; it's a scavenger hunt for that mutual spark, using such tools as wit, humour and flattery, where you let the other person know you're interested, but it's light hearted enough to allow for sufficient bail out contingencies. Sometimes you get rejected - or worse - but sometimes you find that connection and get a response back. Most times, at least for myself, you aren't quite sure if the other person is flirting, if you're getting a response back, or even if you yourself were flirting at all!
It perhaps wasn't until a year or two ago that I really even thought about seriously flirting with the opposite sex and trying to get dates (which is, I feel, a bit different from simply flirting, even if they are connected). I was very shy and not at all confident, so before I was even near a girl, I was already thrust into a confusing predicament. You always hear "Just be yourself!", which is great if your usual self is a charming, handsome so and so. But what if you're not at all versed in the ways of the female? Then you have to fake it. And that has been one of the major sticking points for me and being successful in flirting: it's a game, and not one I really want to play. You create interesting points, you thrust the metaphorical peacock plumes up and showcase your intellect and wit and make the other person feel engaged, in the hopes you can decipher if they're interested, and hopefully take it from there. I can be suave and charming in my own time, but around girls I'm a mess. As little time I can spend in that terrifying situation, the better! That's the real me. Girls don't want that (well from my experience anyway), so for me to be successful at the game, I already have to achieve some sort of deception, and give off the pretence that I'm calm and collected, which compared to the lies some guys spin when flirting, is light. Should we go around, telling guys and girls we're miserable or if you're shy, walk up to them and grunt while shuffling your feet? Of course not. But you cannot deny that the search for that attraction - this interaction we call "flirting" - is a game, and a game based on grandiose illusions and deceptions to beguile the other person into thinking you're amazing and desirable at that! Most of all, the game is entirely unavoidable if you wish to ever know truly if someone else is attracted to you.
So it's hard for me to flirt. Not every girl is going to be attracted to me. And yet the very premise of flirting is that you're trying to tar each girl with your brush (that sounds increasingly rude!), in the sense that you don't care if she's interested, you're going to probe for that spark anyway! And how do we make sure we're not dashing our hopes prematurely by not being what the other person wants? We present this edited version of ourselves. We use tactics from dating books, like not doing instinctual stuff like buying her a drink, or giving a compliment and then an insult. From the start, they're seeing a false person with a false way they act, and you're deceiving them and at the same time, lying to yourself. It's a wholly unsavoury affair. I don't like deception, and when it comes to girls, I'm not all that good at it, so already the flirting game is set against me.
To first even be successful at the game, you have to believe that every girl could be interested in you. That's the main reason why I didn't start flirting with girls until recently. I had low self-esteem and never asked any girls out for the simple reason of "how could anyone like me?" I wouldn't know if a girl liked me if she slapped me in the face. Literally. *Anecdote alert* I was a young lad at my aunty's birthday party. All the young kids were left to their own devices. This one girl kept slapping me. All I could think at the time was "It hurts... it hurts so very much...". It was probably the meanest a girl had ever been to me. Then she kept making me chase her behind the garden shed during our game of tag. Once back there she'd stop and start breathing heavily with silky eyes. Of course my natural reaction was to tag her and run off. A decade later I know that the girl was angling for a kiss (that naughty tart!), but I'm still more or less none the wiser to whether a girl is making an advance at me or is interested. That was obviously from before I knew girls even existed as a species, but in the years passed, there have been times when girls have perhaps been interested in me, and yet I felt so undesirable, that I never ventured any further with them.
Now I'm a bit more confident. I feel like I could be liked, even desired, by the opposite sex. I still suck at flirting though. I'm just not a great player of the game and in the end, I still do tend to let regrets of not asking girls out or going up to say hi slip through. Not because of the fact I feel that I'm inadequate any more, but rather because it really is a complex social interaction which I know I'm not fully versed in! Who really wants to watch me bumble through lines and dialogue that I'm not even sure is what you're after. Which begs the question, if a girl likes you, why can't they initiate?
Guys have assumed the hunter-gatherer role in the world, handed down from generations and generations of jabbing woolly mammoths to death to prove how they should get all the breeding rights. Our role, whether we're good at it or not, is to forever chase the things we want. And the majority of females are happy to be chased. Nay, expect it. It's not right or wrong, it's just how courtship has worked for the last... forever. Girls don't make the first moves. I've heard of rare cases where girls have. It's so rare, they even made a movie out of such a strange idea (if you've ever seen Leap Year, I pity you, as it's probably the worse rom-com I've ever seen, and I was forced. to. watch. every. frame). It'd be so nice to perhaps just be sitting there and a girl walks up to me and begins flirting with ME. And not only that, but make it obvious. Not in the strange, overpowering way, but complimenting my shoes is not going to make me automatically think "Ermehgawd! She's flirting with me!" So don't just sit there, thinking perhaps you're attracted to me (c'mon ladies, you know you're out there... okay, I'm seriously just kidding right now). You're scary! Flirting is hard! Guys like me aren't that good at it! I don't want to deceive you by acting like I'm super confident and wow you with my flirt skills! Why don't you try it for once...?
The exception is older women. I bet you're interested in why I, an innocent young man such as myself is embroiled in such nefarious affairs as flirting with older women? Well because ever since I've become more confident, I've been beating them off with a stick! Seriously, it's as if they've got a radar in their brain for guys like me! I don't even initiate (imagine my fear with a girl my own age, let alone a world-worn battle woman with wrinkles and distinction and all that). They leave nothing to the imagination. Normally it'd be great. I mean, they're female. And they're making the first move. And what's this? I can understand that they're interested in me? And they don't care that I'm not super confident? Whaaat? However, I kid you not, almost every mature woman who has hit on me in the last year has been married, engaged or at least had children. What's up with that you scoundrels? That's where flirting gets tricky. Technically flirting is harmless. You're finding out if you like each other. In the case of the male population, we liked 90% of all girls. It's nothing the other person doesn't already know. No harm no foul right? And yet it still feels morally so very wrong. For me, I won't go there. Even if I knew it wasn't leading anywhere, I still wouldn't go there. That's the grey area with flirting where I believe it's still a good rule that you have to be single. I mean, I certainly would feel insecure or sad or whatever if my wife were flirting with another guy. Although you could argue about trust and all that. Still, it's an area of flirting I won't go.
And thus it is my forever torment. Getting hit on by married women who are off limits, or not flirting with girls who don't flirt with me either. Awesome. So in conclusion, today we have learnt that my love life still sucks and that flirting is hard for me. Sob. That said, watch this space. Flirting is all about confidence; confidence in myself and now, confidence in my romantic skills. I guess once I exercise the "flirt muscle", perhaps even my fears of being terrible as a flirter will too dissipate as my past insecurities have. Will there be a Flirting Part Two: Steven Gets 'Game'? Who knows! Stay tuned...
I'm not going to give you a history of my love life, to spare the shame of my ex's, but perhaps I'll share some anecdotes which have shaped my understanding of this most curious social interaction: "flirting". Get ready for lots of probable misinformation from a flirting-newb, completely skewed by my experience as a male (which I'll have you know is a completely different experience from being female I'm told). Aw shucks, let's be honest - it's a hashed-together post so I can moan about how hard flirting is haha... and yeah, it's a bit long. Lots of whining...
Flirting is hard to define. It's not really getting to know someone. That's a part of it, but when you get to know someone, it could be a completely non-sexual encounter, between two friends perhaps. Flirting really is probing that tentative area between openly saying you like someone and feeling that secret attraction to them; it's a scavenger hunt for that mutual spark, using such tools as wit, humour and flattery, where you let the other person know you're interested, but it's light hearted enough to allow for sufficient bail out contingencies. Sometimes you get rejected - or worse - but sometimes you find that connection and get a response back. Most times, at least for myself, you aren't quite sure if the other person is flirting, if you're getting a response back, or even if you yourself were flirting at all!
It perhaps wasn't until a year or two ago that I really even thought about seriously flirting with the opposite sex and trying to get dates (which is, I feel, a bit different from simply flirting, even if they are connected). I was very shy and not at all confident, so before I was even near a girl, I was already thrust into a confusing predicament. You always hear "Just be yourself!", which is great if your usual self is a charming, handsome so and so. But what if you're not at all versed in the ways of the female? Then you have to fake it. And that has been one of the major sticking points for me and being successful in flirting: it's a game, and not one I really want to play. You create interesting points, you thrust the metaphorical peacock plumes up and showcase your intellect and wit and make the other person feel engaged, in the hopes you can decipher if they're interested, and hopefully take it from there. I can be suave and charming in my own time, but around girls I'm a mess. As little time I can spend in that terrifying situation, the better! That's the real me. Girls don't want that (well from my experience anyway), so for me to be successful at the game, I already have to achieve some sort of deception, and give off the pretence that I'm calm and collected, which compared to the lies some guys spin when flirting, is light. Should we go around, telling guys and girls we're miserable or if you're shy, walk up to them and grunt while shuffling your feet? Of course not. But you cannot deny that the search for that attraction - this interaction we call "flirting" - is a game, and a game based on grandiose illusions and deceptions to beguile the other person into thinking you're amazing and desirable at that! Most of all, the game is entirely unavoidable if you wish to ever know truly if someone else is attracted to you.
So it's hard for me to flirt. Not every girl is going to be attracted to me. And yet the very premise of flirting is that you're trying to tar each girl with your brush (that sounds increasingly rude!), in the sense that you don't care if she's interested, you're going to probe for that spark anyway! And how do we make sure we're not dashing our hopes prematurely by not being what the other person wants? We present this edited version of ourselves. We use tactics from dating books, like not doing instinctual stuff like buying her a drink, or giving a compliment and then an insult. From the start, they're seeing a false person with a false way they act, and you're deceiving them and at the same time, lying to yourself. It's a wholly unsavoury affair. I don't like deception, and when it comes to girls, I'm not all that good at it, so already the flirting game is set against me.
To first even be successful at the game, you have to believe that every girl could be interested in you. That's the main reason why I didn't start flirting with girls until recently. I had low self-esteem and never asked any girls out for the simple reason of "how could anyone like me?" I wouldn't know if a girl liked me if she slapped me in the face. Literally. *Anecdote alert* I was a young lad at my aunty's birthday party. All the young kids were left to their own devices. This one girl kept slapping me. All I could think at the time was "It hurts... it hurts so very much...". It was probably the meanest a girl had ever been to me. Then she kept making me chase her behind the garden shed during our game of tag. Once back there she'd stop and start breathing heavily with silky eyes. Of course my natural reaction was to tag her and run off. A decade later I know that the girl was angling for a kiss (that naughty tart!), but I'm still more or less none the wiser to whether a girl is making an advance at me or is interested. That was obviously from before I knew girls even existed as a species, but in the years passed, there have been times when girls have perhaps been interested in me, and yet I felt so undesirable, that I never ventured any further with them.
Now I'm a bit more confident. I feel like I could be liked, even desired, by the opposite sex. I still suck at flirting though. I'm just not a great player of the game and in the end, I still do tend to let regrets of not asking girls out or going up to say hi slip through. Not because of the fact I feel that I'm inadequate any more, but rather because it really is a complex social interaction which I know I'm not fully versed in! Who really wants to watch me bumble through lines and dialogue that I'm not even sure is what you're after. Which begs the question, if a girl likes you, why can't they initiate?
Guys have assumed the hunter-gatherer role in the world, handed down from generations and generations of jabbing woolly mammoths to death to prove how they should get all the breeding rights. Our role, whether we're good at it or not, is to forever chase the things we want. And the majority of females are happy to be chased. Nay, expect it. It's not right or wrong, it's just how courtship has worked for the last... forever. Girls don't make the first moves. I've heard of rare cases where girls have. It's so rare, they even made a movie out of such a strange idea (if you've ever seen Leap Year, I pity you, as it's probably the worse rom-com I've ever seen, and I was forced. to. watch. every. frame). It'd be so nice to perhaps just be sitting there and a girl walks up to me and begins flirting with ME. And not only that, but make it obvious. Not in the strange, overpowering way, but complimenting my shoes is not going to make me automatically think "Ermehgawd! She's flirting with me!" So don't just sit there, thinking perhaps you're attracted to me (c'mon ladies, you know you're out there... okay, I'm seriously just kidding right now). You're scary! Flirting is hard! Guys like me aren't that good at it! I don't want to deceive you by acting like I'm super confident and wow you with my flirt skills! Why don't you try it for once...?
The exception is older women. I bet you're interested in why I, an innocent young man such as myself is embroiled in such nefarious affairs as flirting with older women? Well because ever since I've become more confident, I've been beating them off with a stick! Seriously, it's as if they've got a radar in their brain for guys like me! I don't even initiate (imagine my fear with a girl my own age, let alone a world-worn battle woman with wrinkles and distinction and all that). They leave nothing to the imagination. Normally it'd be great. I mean, they're female. And they're making the first move. And what's this? I can understand that they're interested in me? And they don't care that I'm not super confident? Whaaat? However, I kid you not, almost every mature woman who has hit on me in the last year has been married, engaged or at least had children. What's up with that you scoundrels? That's where flirting gets tricky. Technically flirting is harmless. You're finding out if you like each other. In the case of the male population, we liked 90% of all girls. It's nothing the other person doesn't already know. No harm no foul right? And yet it still feels morally so very wrong. For me, I won't go there. Even if I knew it wasn't leading anywhere, I still wouldn't go there. That's the grey area with flirting where I believe it's still a good rule that you have to be single. I mean, I certainly would feel insecure or sad or whatever if my wife were flirting with another guy. Although you could argue about trust and all that. Still, it's an area of flirting I won't go.
And thus it is my forever torment. Getting hit on by married women who are off limits, or not flirting with girls who don't flirt with me either. Awesome. So in conclusion, today we have learnt that my love life still sucks and that flirting is hard for me. Sob. That said, watch this space. Flirting is all about confidence; confidence in myself and now, confidence in my romantic skills. I guess once I exercise the "flirt muscle", perhaps even my fears of being terrible as a flirter will too dissipate as my past insecurities have. Will there be a Flirting Part Two: Steven Gets 'Game'? Who knows! Stay tuned...
Saturday, 16 March 2013
Matters of the Heart
At the risk of having all my posts sound rather cynical, I am going to attempt to dissect this strange feeling humans sometimes get, called "love".
Why cynical you ask? Well, because I believe this "love" business is bandied around far too often. *Insert audible groan from reader on finding yet another pessimistic entry* Bear with...
The question is 'How do you know when you love someone?'. The answer is far from simple. Ask someone 'Do you love this thing, this person, this place?' They may reply 'Yes' or they could reply 'No'. But ask them 'Why' they love that thing, or 'How they know' they love that person, or even 'What' is love, then the answers become much harder to find. To answer how we know when we love someone, you have to first answer what your definition of love actually is.
So, what is love? Is it the tingling of butterflies in your stomach when you see someone? When you want to be with that person every second of every day? Saying 'I love you' to them? For me, my definition of love is probably not best explained in a sentence, but more an example. Whether you believe in him or not, the example of the love God shows for his creations is by far the most fitting definition of what I think love is. He takes these broken creatures and puts them in paradise, but doesn't try to control them, even when they ruin it all. They betray him. They kill each other. They reject him and ignore his presence. If it were Sim City, you'd have already started sending tsunamis and hurricanes to destroy everything before reloading. For all their flaws, all their sins, whatever they've done, God accepts them back. To you, it might just be a silly story in a very long book, but whatever God is to you, it can't be denied that this is some serious love.
If I was to put this into a sentence, it'd be the ability to accept and forgive someone for all their flaws, no matter how it hurts you, and to strive to make them the best they can be, and expect nothing, absolutely zilch, in return. That's my definition of love.
I was reading an article a few weeks ago (Link - Warning, some foul language) on how the world only cares what it can get from you. It's a sad thought, but in many ways, it's true. In a crude comparison, let's look at sports. Not at all about love, but a good metaphor for why I feel "love" is often misused.
Let's say you're brilliant at a sport. You're in a team. You help win games. You're invaluable. The players like you, the captain likes you, you feel like THE man. You get invited to every party the team has. They don't force you to substitute during a game. It's great. Now let's see that same player, but this time, he's terrible. Can't play too well. Lets the opposition get the better of him. Maybe he's injured? He may be a great guy (or girl), but boy can't he play sports. I've had the pleasure (or displeasure depending how you look at it) of being both of these players, sometimes all in the matter of a month!
When you're winning, everyone wins with you. When you lose, you lose alone. The second player has ceased being useful. He knows he might get invited to a drinks or two, but every time he drops a catch, or gets out, or misses a hoop, he knows there's someone on the sideline at least thinking they'd be better off without him on the team. It's simply gotten too hard to let the fact he is terrible at sports right now be acceptable due to the fact he's a nice guy.
'What does this have to do with love AT ALL?' Well, I'm fortunate enough to have a few friends and to know many people in my life. Some I could say I love, some would say they love me. But is it true love? Is it that love I describe above? That Godly, pure love? As a guy, I've been told you don't really have true friends. You have other guys you hang out with and do mutual activities with for a beneficial goal. You may meet with them for a drink. Go play a sport with them. Do a hobby. You're useful to each other. You're there to make sure the other guy isn't drinking alone. Or so that he has someone else to hit a tennis ball at. Or to pick them up. You don't even have to truly like one another all too much if you're really desperate. This may differ for women, but as guys, it's all about the pretence and the avoidance of actual emotion.
What if, just like our poor sports player above, things become harder? I've had friends do it to me, and I've seen it happen to others. You get divorced. You feel depressed. You get dumped from your team. What was once a pleasant mug of beer together instead turns into "feelings" and "mushy" stuff. You're no longer useful as the beer buddy. Your friend is sitting there all sombre and screaming inside his head 'My Lord! You're getting your flaws all over me and it's icky! Stahp!'
So, after this magnificent detour, what I'm getting at is that people may say they love you, but that their definition of love isn't always, if at all, really what it should be (at least by my definition of love). I've had many people say they love me, and I've told many people I love them. But the number of times I've actually experienced that true, Godly form of love which I feel is the purest definition of the term, is very rarely indeed. People may surprise you, but before you say you 'know you love someone', be sure it really is "love". It may very well be the 'I love you, but to a certain point', in which case, can it really be defined as love at all? In a way, there may very well be no people that you really love, or who really love you. A horrific thought. And yet how many people do you know would truly accept and forgive your flaws, and even when times got tough, when you're dropping every proverbial catch and losing all of life's matches, would still stick by you, even if it was to their every disadvantage? For me, the pool would probably be very small indeed, if at all existent. And if I was serious with myself, the number of people I would put myself on the line for to such an extent would be less than I'd like to think.
So now that you know what my definition of love is, and how I got to it, you know my answer to how I'd know when I love someone. When my wife is bloated and screaming at me in a hormone ridden rage from pregnancy, and demanding some obscure food at 3am, and I do everything she asks and do not care, and still somehow find her beautiful, that's how I know I love her. When my friend is crying on the phone and I'm tired after a long day, and it's been such a long call you get that sweat build up under you ear and you have to change sides, and still I listen and am perfectly happy to for another hour, that's how I know I love them. When I forgive someone their faults and accept them no matter what, and I do it all without expecting some pay off, no matter how many "catches" they drop or times they put me out, that's how I know I love them.
Why cynical you ask? Well, because I believe this "love" business is bandied around far too often. *Insert audible groan from reader on finding yet another pessimistic entry* Bear with...
The question is 'How do you know when you love someone?'. The answer is far from simple. Ask someone 'Do you love this thing, this person, this place?' They may reply 'Yes' or they could reply 'No'. But ask them 'Why' they love that thing, or 'How they know' they love that person, or even 'What' is love, then the answers become much harder to find. To answer how we know when we love someone, you have to first answer what your definition of love actually is.
So, what is love? Is it the tingling of butterflies in your stomach when you see someone? When you want to be with that person every second of every day? Saying 'I love you' to them? For me, my definition of love is probably not best explained in a sentence, but more an example. Whether you believe in him or not, the example of the love God shows for his creations is by far the most fitting definition of what I think love is. He takes these broken creatures and puts them in paradise, but doesn't try to control them, even when they ruin it all. They betray him. They kill each other. They reject him and ignore his presence. If it were Sim City, you'd have already started sending tsunamis and hurricanes to destroy everything before reloading. For all their flaws, all their sins, whatever they've done, God accepts them back. To you, it might just be a silly story in a very long book, but whatever God is to you, it can't be denied that this is some serious love.
If I was to put this into a sentence, it'd be the ability to accept and forgive someone for all their flaws, no matter how it hurts you, and to strive to make them the best they can be, and expect nothing, absolutely zilch, in return. That's my definition of love.
I was reading an article a few weeks ago (Link - Warning, some foul language) on how the world only cares what it can get from you. It's a sad thought, but in many ways, it's true. In a crude comparison, let's look at sports. Not at all about love, but a good metaphor for why I feel "love" is often misused.
Let's say you're brilliant at a sport. You're in a team. You help win games. You're invaluable. The players like you, the captain likes you, you feel like THE man. You get invited to every party the team has. They don't force you to substitute during a game. It's great. Now let's see that same player, but this time, he's terrible. Can't play too well. Lets the opposition get the better of him. Maybe he's injured? He may be a great guy (or girl), but boy can't he play sports. I've had the pleasure (or displeasure depending how you look at it) of being both of these players, sometimes all in the matter of a month!
When you're winning, everyone wins with you. When you lose, you lose alone. The second player has ceased being useful. He knows he might get invited to a drinks or two, but every time he drops a catch, or gets out, or misses a hoop, he knows there's someone on the sideline at least thinking they'd be better off without him on the team. It's simply gotten too hard to let the fact he is terrible at sports right now be acceptable due to the fact he's a nice guy.
'What does this have to do with love AT ALL?' Well, I'm fortunate enough to have a few friends and to know many people in my life. Some I could say I love, some would say they love me. But is it true love? Is it that love I describe above? That Godly, pure love? As a guy, I've been told you don't really have true friends. You have other guys you hang out with and do mutual activities with for a beneficial goal. You may meet with them for a drink. Go play a sport with them. Do a hobby. You're useful to each other. You're there to make sure the other guy isn't drinking alone. Or so that he has someone else to hit a tennis ball at. Or to pick them up. You don't even have to truly like one another all too much if you're really desperate. This may differ for women, but as guys, it's all about the pretence and the avoidance of actual emotion.
What if, just like our poor sports player above, things become harder? I've had friends do it to me, and I've seen it happen to others. You get divorced. You feel depressed. You get dumped from your team. What was once a pleasant mug of beer together instead turns into "feelings" and "mushy" stuff. You're no longer useful as the beer buddy. Your friend is sitting there all sombre and screaming inside his head 'My Lord! You're getting your flaws all over me and it's icky! Stahp!'
So, after this magnificent detour, what I'm getting at is that people may say they love you, but that their definition of love isn't always, if at all, really what it should be (at least by my definition of love). I've had many people say they love me, and I've told many people I love them. But the number of times I've actually experienced that true, Godly form of love which I feel is the purest definition of the term, is very rarely indeed. People may surprise you, but before you say you 'know you love someone', be sure it really is "love". It may very well be the 'I love you, but to a certain point', in which case, can it really be defined as love at all? In a way, there may very well be no people that you really love, or who really love you. A horrific thought. And yet how many people do you know would truly accept and forgive your flaws, and even when times got tough, when you're dropping every proverbial catch and losing all of life's matches, would still stick by you, even if it was to their every disadvantage? For me, the pool would probably be very small indeed, if at all existent. And if I was serious with myself, the number of people I would put myself on the line for to such an extent would be less than I'd like to think.
So now that you know what my definition of love is, and how I got to it, you know my answer to how I'd know when I love someone. When my wife is bloated and screaming at me in a hormone ridden rage from pregnancy, and demanding some obscure food at 3am, and I do everything she asks and do not care, and still somehow find her beautiful, that's how I know I love her. When my friend is crying on the phone and I'm tired after a long day, and it's been such a long call you get that sweat build up under you ear and you have to change sides, and still I listen and am perfectly happy to for another hour, that's how I know I love them. When I forgive someone their faults and accept them no matter what, and I do it all without expecting some pay off, no matter how many "catches" they drop or times they put me out, that's how I know I love them.
Saturday, 8 December 2012
Your Best Friend
As I sat here, bleary-eyed at 2am from a full day of cricket, frisbee and adventure, I was pleasantly surprised to see that a new Blog Roll topic had been posted - A letter to yourself 10 years ago or 10 years in the future. It's been a long time, no write, so despite the late hour, and my body's inside voice whispering "Sleep! Sleep time!", I think there isn't any time better than the present to get stuck in to it.
However, it's probably not advisable. 10 years ago... phew, that would make me nearly 12. There's a lot of dark memories and emotions that lurk back there. Most have been captured and placed carefully in a chest, buried somewhere deep in the sandpit of my mind, nary to be looked at except for the odd peek or prod over the years. A couple of you may know the reasons, most probably won't, but my early teen years weren't the happiest nor the fondest to look back on.
To be honest, I kinda feel sorry for that kid back then. I think instinctively we all feel sorry for our younger selves. They represent an innocent place. A sweet, pure place before we all grow, lose that magic fervour for life and get corrupted and abused by the world. The innocence and blissful ignorance seems so pitiful, but at the same time wondrously special and unique. It only happens once in your life. Once you are aware of the world, you can never go back. Your younger self is the embodiment of the passage of time and the gift of knowledge, which cuts both ways in giving enlightenment, but also stealing your childhood away. Your younger self is what you've lost.
I feel especially sad for my younger me, because I know what the next few years have in store. And not just that, but because even if I could, I probably wouldn't change the course of the coming years. They hurt. They ushered in the end of my childhood. But they made me who I am today. Looking back writing this, it almost feels like I'm offering him up as a sacrifice while I stand idly by. It's hard, but I know in the end, it all comes right. We can't stay innocent forever, and upsetting as it is, we all must lose our purity in a sense.
I was bullied from a young age. I'd probably even go so far as to say I've been bullied by various people from various vocations to this very present day. It never stops hurting. As a grown man, all my competitive instincts are telling me to write down that it doesn't, but the truth is, it never stops hurting. I've learnt to cope, ignore and grow a thick skin, but it affects you. Maybe you don't get sad or angry any longer, and maybe you even begin to realize that it's not your problem, but the bully's (I indeed spent a good portion of those 10 years blaming myself for the bullying), but it still affects you. I'd say being bullied is like being attacked by shovels. Saying it, it's actually kind of funny, but probably accurate. The shovels dig little holes inside you, taking bits of you out that were good, and replacing them with hurt. Over time, the holes get bigger and bigger until they make a great, deep hole. After that, if you make it that far, the shovels go in but they don't have as much of an effect. But they're still there. They never leave. They're always with you, somehow, some way, even if it's only in how they've altered your life, a sick reminder of how lost little boys and girls can forever brand you with their mark.
For me, being bullied left me with a profound sense of being entirely alone. Even to this very day, I feel that sting often. I remember one instance very clearly. I was sitting at assembly on one of the seats at the back. One of the kids kept looking back and laughing to his friends. He finally turned to me and said I was a loner. Looking back now I almost laugh at how silly it all was, and it's painfully clear why the boy felt the need to degrade others to feel superior - I play in the same cricket league as him now and he barely reaches my armpit. I feel sorry for him just as much as I feel sorry for 12 year old me back then. But the shovel still went in and with it comes a ripple effect. And with a ripple effect comes habits and experiences and deep-rooted emotions that even my now mature and rational brain struggles to root out and placate.
Bullying wasn't the sole part of my struggles as an early teenager, but it was a large part, and not having friends and the feeling of being isolated made the other strifes harder to cope with. So if I were to say anything to an 11 year old me, it wouldn't be long, and it wouldn't ruin all the hurt and joy and adventures and sorrows of the coming years. It would say only one thing: You are not alone.
I had a best friend when I was small, but unfortunately moved away from him, so for the most part, my childhood was friend-less and with none occupying that title of "Best Friend". I still try to this very day to make that connection with someone, perhaps as a way of fulfilling that little boy's dream and showing him he is loveable and worthy, despite the jeers and the bullies. Sometimes when I'm close, the little kid inside stand up and goes "That's not right! You're a loner! You don't have any friends!" and no matter what my rational brain tries to argue, I tend to push more friends away than I'd care. So maybe me in ten years needs to send present me a letter too, because I'd tell that little kid he does have a best friend. One that he'll never lose. One that will never call him a loser or put him down. The one friend who will never abandon him and who will always understand him...
His best friend is himself.
So don't think you're alone. You've had me there the entire time and no matter what, you're gonna turn out great and despite the hate you've shown me over the years, it's not your fault and I still love you. Oh, and you're going to go a family friend's party when you're older. A girl is going to be hitting you; it means she likes you. Then she's going to take you behind the shed and attempt to kiss you. Do NOT run away this time! Geesh...
And that'd be all I'd write. Maybe I'd listen to me. Maybe I'd think I was just B.S.'ing. But at least on those days where it was nearly all too much, maybe I'd know in the back of my head that I had a best friend who was there for me. And maybe it'd make those days just a little bit more bearable.
Phew! That was hard. With that, I think I'll stop prodding the thing in the chest, load the sand back on top of it and leave it until next time.
However, it's probably not advisable. 10 years ago... phew, that would make me nearly 12. There's a lot of dark memories and emotions that lurk back there. Most have been captured and placed carefully in a chest, buried somewhere deep in the sandpit of my mind, nary to be looked at except for the odd peek or prod over the years. A couple of you may know the reasons, most probably won't, but my early teen years weren't the happiest nor the fondest to look back on.
To be honest, I kinda feel sorry for that kid back then. I think instinctively we all feel sorry for our younger selves. They represent an innocent place. A sweet, pure place before we all grow, lose that magic fervour for life and get corrupted and abused by the world. The innocence and blissful ignorance seems so pitiful, but at the same time wondrously special and unique. It only happens once in your life. Once you are aware of the world, you can never go back. Your younger self is the embodiment of the passage of time and the gift of knowledge, which cuts both ways in giving enlightenment, but also stealing your childhood away. Your younger self is what you've lost.
I feel especially sad for my younger me, because I know what the next few years have in store. And not just that, but because even if I could, I probably wouldn't change the course of the coming years. They hurt. They ushered in the end of my childhood. But they made me who I am today. Looking back writing this, it almost feels like I'm offering him up as a sacrifice while I stand idly by. It's hard, but I know in the end, it all comes right. We can't stay innocent forever, and upsetting as it is, we all must lose our purity in a sense.
I was bullied from a young age. I'd probably even go so far as to say I've been bullied by various people from various vocations to this very present day. It never stops hurting. As a grown man, all my competitive instincts are telling me to write down that it doesn't, but the truth is, it never stops hurting. I've learnt to cope, ignore and grow a thick skin, but it affects you. Maybe you don't get sad or angry any longer, and maybe you even begin to realize that it's not your problem, but the bully's (I indeed spent a good portion of those 10 years blaming myself for the bullying), but it still affects you. I'd say being bullied is like being attacked by shovels. Saying it, it's actually kind of funny, but probably accurate. The shovels dig little holes inside you, taking bits of you out that were good, and replacing them with hurt. Over time, the holes get bigger and bigger until they make a great, deep hole. After that, if you make it that far, the shovels go in but they don't have as much of an effect. But they're still there. They never leave. They're always with you, somehow, some way, even if it's only in how they've altered your life, a sick reminder of how lost little boys and girls can forever brand you with their mark.
For me, being bullied left me with a profound sense of being entirely alone. Even to this very day, I feel that sting often. I remember one instance very clearly. I was sitting at assembly on one of the seats at the back. One of the kids kept looking back and laughing to his friends. He finally turned to me and said I was a loner. Looking back now I almost laugh at how silly it all was, and it's painfully clear why the boy felt the need to degrade others to feel superior - I play in the same cricket league as him now and he barely reaches my armpit. I feel sorry for him just as much as I feel sorry for 12 year old me back then. But the shovel still went in and with it comes a ripple effect. And with a ripple effect comes habits and experiences and deep-rooted emotions that even my now mature and rational brain struggles to root out and placate.
Bullying wasn't the sole part of my struggles as an early teenager, but it was a large part, and not having friends and the feeling of being isolated made the other strifes harder to cope with. So if I were to say anything to an 11 year old me, it wouldn't be long, and it wouldn't ruin all the hurt and joy and adventures and sorrows of the coming years. It would say only one thing: You are not alone.
I had a best friend when I was small, but unfortunately moved away from him, so for the most part, my childhood was friend-less and with none occupying that title of "Best Friend". I still try to this very day to make that connection with someone, perhaps as a way of fulfilling that little boy's dream and showing him he is loveable and worthy, despite the jeers and the bullies. Sometimes when I'm close, the little kid inside stand up and goes "That's not right! You're a loner! You don't have any friends!" and no matter what my rational brain tries to argue, I tend to push more friends away than I'd care. So maybe me in ten years needs to send present me a letter too, because I'd tell that little kid he does have a best friend. One that he'll never lose. One that will never call him a loser or put him down. The one friend who will never abandon him and who will always understand him...
His best friend is himself.
So don't think you're alone. You've had me there the entire time and no matter what, you're gonna turn out great and despite the hate you've shown me over the years, it's not your fault and I still love you. Oh, and you're going to go a family friend's party when you're older. A girl is going to be hitting you; it means she likes you. Then she's going to take you behind the shed and attempt to kiss you. Do NOT run away this time! Geesh...
And that'd be all I'd write. Maybe I'd listen to me. Maybe I'd think I was just B.S.'ing. But at least on those days where it was nearly all too much, maybe I'd know in the back of my head that I had a best friend who was there for me. And maybe it'd make those days just a little bit more bearable.
Phew! That was hard. With that, I think I'll stop prodding the thing in the chest, load the sand back on top of it and leave it until next time.
Sunday, 26 August 2012
Misery Loves Misery
Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap. High school and everything. Just skip it.
Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is?
Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.
Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? Total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? Those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that...
The above quote is from the movie 'Little Miss Sunshine'. If anyone has watched the film, and you really should, you'll probably remember Steve Carrell imparting this wisdom to his nephew. Despite being entirely funny, it is also very true, and probably one of my favourite movie quotes of all time.
The topic is contentment. Happiness in your current state of being. I read the word and imagine someone sitting in a warm, comfy armchair with a blanket, some snacks, watching tv or reading a newspaper. Maybe there's a cat purring away on their lap. It's all very nice. Pleasant. You're happy and don't really care what happens outside or if this moment ever ends.
It is also completely useless.
Contentment is the opposite of living. If you are content, you are more or less metaphorically dead. My philosophy has, and always will be, that experience is life. When you are content, you are experiencing nothing new. You are living in a stale, albeit comfortable, state where there is nothing left to strive for. So by that rationale, pain and suffering is life, as those are the only real times you experience anything meaningful at all. The times you are happy, content, comfortable, you are not learning anything. It's the years of hardship and pain that define us. What do winning sports teams learn? And what about a team that has lost? At the top, the only ways are stagnation or decline and the old saying, learn from your mistakes rings ever true.
People frustrate the heck out of me when they do not want to venture out of their comfort zone. They never want to feel discomfort. They're so zealous to actively avoid displeasure and pain that it rules their entire life. And when suffering comes, and it does, it hits them hard and they scarcely cope. But they learn. What were they learning by avoiding risk and by avoiding pain? They learnt only how to avoid living.
It may sound a bit like I'm stuck in Clive Barker's 'Hellraiser' novel, but I really do believe everything I've written above is true. I don't live for status or fame or wealth. I live for experience, because that is my version of success. The days I'm most miserable are the days where I do nothing. I don't experience anything. The days where I'm at home, stagnating; content and comfortable, but completely miserable at the fact. And from the misery, I learn. Mostly not to sit around being miserable haha...
So every day I strive to add a new experience to my life. At the end, I want to be able to look back with many stories to tell and say "I have no regrets". I may have experienced a lot of suffering, and I really have already in my short life, but to tell the truth, I kinda enjoy the pain. I look back on tough times in my life and think "I made it! I'm here!" There will undoubtedly be times I enjoy an experience, and other times I do not enjoy an experience, but the key thing is to accept every experience, appreciate what it can teach you and don't see failure, discomfort and pain as a bad thing, but as a chance to learn and live. Through being unhappy it comes around and in turn, makes me happy.
This feeds pretty well into a mind-blowing radio show I listened to late one night a few months ago. I kidnapped my family's head-set radio and flicked through the channels. I came to one, the last FM frequency, the local suburb's station, probably with an audience you could count on a single hand. And yet it was one of the most profound shows I've ever listened to, on Buddhism and suffering. If I look through the notes I took down, I'll find the name of the speaker and give it to you sometime.
The speaker talked a lot about suffering and pain. The true way to life is to take the 'middle path', experiencing the high and lows of the life around you. The joy and the suffering. The monks he talked of saw these experiences as positive experiences and that this middle path is the road to liberation. Buddha says himself, "Life is dukkha". No, it's not slang, it means suffering. Life is suffering. For Buddhists, the view of suffering is so vastly different from the association we make with the term in Western culture: unpleasantness, to be avoided, bad. But whether we notice it or not, from the moment we are born, to the moment we die, we are suffering. There is no avoiding it. Whether you learn from it is another thing entirely.
Although it's always nice to be comfortable and content, I think I'd much rather prefer to suffer and be happy in that suffering for the rest of my days. Always happy, but never content. I don't want to know that day I stand there thinking I've got nothing more to achieve, nothing more to learn, nothing more to gain and experience. The day we stop striving, suffering and seeking new experience is the day we are dead.
Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is?
Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.
Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? Total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? Those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that...
The above quote is from the movie 'Little Miss Sunshine'. If anyone has watched the film, and you really should, you'll probably remember Steve Carrell imparting this wisdom to his nephew. Despite being entirely funny, it is also very true, and probably one of my favourite movie quotes of all time.
The topic is contentment. Happiness in your current state of being. I read the word and imagine someone sitting in a warm, comfy armchair with a blanket, some snacks, watching tv or reading a newspaper. Maybe there's a cat purring away on their lap. It's all very nice. Pleasant. You're happy and don't really care what happens outside or if this moment ever ends.
It is also completely useless.
Contentment is the opposite of living. If you are content, you are more or less metaphorically dead. My philosophy has, and always will be, that experience is life. When you are content, you are experiencing nothing new. You are living in a stale, albeit comfortable, state where there is nothing left to strive for. So by that rationale, pain and suffering is life, as those are the only real times you experience anything meaningful at all. The times you are happy, content, comfortable, you are not learning anything. It's the years of hardship and pain that define us. What do winning sports teams learn? And what about a team that has lost? At the top, the only ways are stagnation or decline and the old saying, learn from your mistakes rings ever true.
People frustrate the heck out of me when they do not want to venture out of their comfort zone. They never want to feel discomfort. They're so zealous to actively avoid displeasure and pain that it rules their entire life. And when suffering comes, and it does, it hits them hard and they scarcely cope. But they learn. What were they learning by avoiding risk and by avoiding pain? They learnt only how to avoid living.
It may sound a bit like I'm stuck in Clive Barker's 'Hellraiser' novel, but I really do believe everything I've written above is true. I don't live for status or fame or wealth. I live for experience, because that is my version of success. The days I'm most miserable are the days where I do nothing. I don't experience anything. The days where I'm at home, stagnating; content and comfortable, but completely miserable at the fact. And from the misery, I learn. Mostly not to sit around being miserable haha...
So every day I strive to add a new experience to my life. At the end, I want to be able to look back with many stories to tell and say "I have no regrets". I may have experienced a lot of suffering, and I really have already in my short life, but to tell the truth, I kinda enjoy the pain. I look back on tough times in my life and think "I made it! I'm here!" There will undoubtedly be times I enjoy an experience, and other times I do not enjoy an experience, but the key thing is to accept every experience, appreciate what it can teach you and don't see failure, discomfort and pain as a bad thing, but as a chance to learn and live. Through being unhappy it comes around and in turn, makes me happy.
This feeds pretty well into a mind-blowing radio show I listened to late one night a few months ago. I kidnapped my family's head-set radio and flicked through the channels. I came to one, the last FM frequency, the local suburb's station, probably with an audience you could count on a single hand. And yet it was one of the most profound shows I've ever listened to, on Buddhism and suffering. If I look through the notes I took down, I'll find the name of the speaker and give it to you sometime.
The speaker talked a lot about suffering and pain. The true way to life is to take the 'middle path', experiencing the high and lows of the life around you. The joy and the suffering. The monks he talked of saw these experiences as positive experiences and that this middle path is the road to liberation. Buddha says himself, "Life is dukkha". No, it's not slang, it means suffering. Life is suffering. For Buddhists, the view of suffering is so vastly different from the association we make with the term in Western culture: unpleasantness, to be avoided, bad. But whether we notice it or not, from the moment we are born, to the moment we die, we are suffering. There is no avoiding it. Whether you learn from it is another thing entirely.
Although it's always nice to be comfortable and content, I think I'd much rather prefer to suffer and be happy in that suffering for the rest of my days. Always happy, but never content. I don't want to know that day I stand there thinking I've got nothing more to achieve, nothing more to learn, nothing more to gain and experience. The day we stop striving, suffering and seeking new experience is the day we are dead.
Friday, 27 July 2012
Call Denied
This post is probably best read whilst listening to a loop of 'Best Laid Plans' by James Blunt. I know I certainly was listening to it while I was writing! Words sum up perfectly everything I'm trying to convey through this post. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jWW0-Run_g
You could say this post was a direct result of the Blog Roll having 'a calling' as one of their current topics. You could say this was an easy post to write. It would all be a lie. I've written and re-written this opening paragraph a dozen times already, unsure how to word it, and to be honest, I'm not even sure this is what I'll end up with.
A reminder of a past sorrow came back today, and I needed to let it out on paper for reasons unknown. Sometimes sadness is too great to be kept inside, and when you haven't put brush to canvas for far too long, keyboard to pixel is often the best option for one's sanity. The guise of 'a calling' was probably the only way to deliver my thoughts cohesively, but really, it's nothing more than a slim cover for the hurt that I'm feeling right now. The only real truth I know that can sum up this post is that the one calling I want, no, need, of all the others, is the very one I can never have.
Have you ever wanted something so unwaveringly that every second you don't have it feels like you are strapped to a torture chamber, enduring the most heinous debasement, endlessly? You struggle at first, screaming and thrashing, disbelieving that such a terrible fate can be befalling you. Then after a while, you break. In the back of your mind you'll keep the desire to escape alive, but your body slowly goes through the motions of acceptance. Before long, even your mind has begun to fade and the dream of what you once had are long distant and clouded.
It's dramatic for certain, but it is exactly how I feel when I think about my two cousins. They're aged, well, I don't really know any more. The last time I saw them was many years ago. Boy have those years flown, each a measurable monument to the growing gap in my life caused by their absence. For reasons too complex and lengthy to dissect, I am no longer allowed to see them. You could say my relationship with them was nothing more than a chess pawn in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the decision made only to hurt and alienate.
I remember the very first time I held my cousins. The first when I was about eight perhaps, the other when I was older. I've never loved another being so much. I don't plan on having children for many years yet, but I'd imagine the feeling of love and caring I felt for them in that instant is as close as I'll get until such a time. From that first moment on, I knew it was my job to be their guardian in life. A role model and protector. We grew extremely close. I'd write them notes on how to be better people and look after themselves. I'd spend hours playing with them, teaching them, although I probably was the one who learnt the most out of the relationship; they matured me as a person in ways that nothing other than responsibility can teach. I'd never have thought that I'd know the day when I'd barely remember their faces, let alone struggle to imagine what they would look like now. The only thing I have left is that feeling of responsibility and love. The one that resides in me still from my time with them. A small nugget that keeps me going.
The goal has always been pure. To be there for them and to be a positive force in their lives. Nothing remains now but memories and this faint, nostalgic will I have to still be there for them, despite the miles and years that have transpired between us. You could label it a calling. An unbreakable bond I feel to my role as their guardian. I bide my time, but through the fog of positivity and hopefulness, I know it will be many years before I'll ever seen them again. When they're old enough to come find me of their own free will. Many years, many chances I've missed to be there for them.
I sometimes lie awake at night and sit watching a passing car's lights dance on the ceiling, thinking about how their day has been. What young men they are turning into. Sometimes I get sad. Thinking of the day they were bullied and I wasn't there to pass on the experience and reassurance I learnt when at school. Or when their pet dies and they need someone to confide in. Sometimes I get angry. Angry at the situation. Angry at how it's not fair. Angry at it all. Other times I roll over and go to sleep, apathetic in the knowledge that no matter how I try, we'll be apart.
When I was younger, although it still happens from time to time now, I used to get extremely excited when waiting for something. Not a thing or treat, but something to return. Our back door would be difficult to open, so dad would set me the task of opening it when he returned with another load of shopping from the car, or an item from the garage. I'd sit there, staring at the door, jiggling with excitement. I wouldn't know when or how or what would come through the door. But I knew it was coming. That moment of realization when everything slots into place, and the lifetime you felt standing there crashes into the present and you can see it all. The excitement I will feel, when finally I can fulfill the promise I made to my baby cousins, does dilute the weight I bear of the separation, making it easier to digest. Every day I carry on living, but in the back of my mind there is that metaphorical egg timer I know is ticking. I don't know when it will go off, but I know the day will come. And when it does, I'll be able to resume the calling held on pause for so long.
You may hear me say this a lot - and it's only because it is entirely true and something I live my life by - but you only have one life. One tiny blink of a life to make the changes and do the things you have to do. I have a large list. An infinite list that I know will never be completed. It pains me that the biggest regret, the biggest failure, happens to be the one thing I can truly call 'a calling'. The one thing I want more than anything.
One day, I think to myself whenever something reminds me of them. One day. And then I carry on living. I feel guilty, but I try and convince myself that when they find me, if they even still remember me, that they'll know I tried my hardest and forgive me.
One day...
Well! Hope nobody has hung themselves yet lol. Just had to get that off my chest. Two birds with one stone and all that jazz...
You could say this post was a direct result of the Blog Roll having 'a calling' as one of their current topics. You could say this was an easy post to write. It would all be a lie. I've written and re-written this opening paragraph a dozen times already, unsure how to word it, and to be honest, I'm not even sure this is what I'll end up with.
A reminder of a past sorrow came back today, and I needed to let it out on paper for reasons unknown. Sometimes sadness is too great to be kept inside, and when you haven't put brush to canvas for far too long, keyboard to pixel is often the best option for one's sanity. The guise of 'a calling' was probably the only way to deliver my thoughts cohesively, but really, it's nothing more than a slim cover for the hurt that I'm feeling right now. The only real truth I know that can sum up this post is that the one calling I want, no, need, of all the others, is the very one I can never have.
Have you ever wanted something so unwaveringly that every second you don't have it feels like you are strapped to a torture chamber, enduring the most heinous debasement, endlessly? You struggle at first, screaming and thrashing, disbelieving that such a terrible fate can be befalling you. Then after a while, you break. In the back of your mind you'll keep the desire to escape alive, but your body slowly goes through the motions of acceptance. Before long, even your mind has begun to fade and the dream of what you once had are long distant and clouded.
It's dramatic for certain, but it is exactly how I feel when I think about my two cousins. They're aged, well, I don't really know any more. The last time I saw them was many years ago. Boy have those years flown, each a measurable monument to the growing gap in my life caused by their absence. For reasons too complex and lengthy to dissect, I am no longer allowed to see them. You could say my relationship with them was nothing more than a chess pawn in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the decision made only to hurt and alienate.
I remember the very first time I held my cousins. The first when I was about eight perhaps, the other when I was older. I've never loved another being so much. I don't plan on having children for many years yet, but I'd imagine the feeling of love and caring I felt for them in that instant is as close as I'll get until such a time. From that first moment on, I knew it was my job to be their guardian in life. A role model and protector. We grew extremely close. I'd write them notes on how to be better people and look after themselves. I'd spend hours playing with them, teaching them, although I probably was the one who learnt the most out of the relationship; they matured me as a person in ways that nothing other than responsibility can teach. I'd never have thought that I'd know the day when I'd barely remember their faces, let alone struggle to imagine what they would look like now. The only thing I have left is that feeling of responsibility and love. The one that resides in me still from my time with them. A small nugget that keeps me going.
The goal has always been pure. To be there for them and to be a positive force in their lives. Nothing remains now but memories and this faint, nostalgic will I have to still be there for them, despite the miles and years that have transpired between us. You could label it a calling. An unbreakable bond I feel to my role as their guardian. I bide my time, but through the fog of positivity and hopefulness, I know it will be many years before I'll ever seen them again. When they're old enough to come find me of their own free will. Many years, many chances I've missed to be there for them.
I sometimes lie awake at night and sit watching a passing car's lights dance on the ceiling, thinking about how their day has been. What young men they are turning into. Sometimes I get sad. Thinking of the day they were bullied and I wasn't there to pass on the experience and reassurance I learnt when at school. Or when their pet dies and they need someone to confide in. Sometimes I get angry. Angry at the situation. Angry at how it's not fair. Angry at it all. Other times I roll over and go to sleep, apathetic in the knowledge that no matter how I try, we'll be apart.
When I was younger, although it still happens from time to time now, I used to get extremely excited when waiting for something. Not a thing or treat, but something to return. Our back door would be difficult to open, so dad would set me the task of opening it when he returned with another load of shopping from the car, or an item from the garage. I'd sit there, staring at the door, jiggling with excitement. I wouldn't know when or how or what would come through the door. But I knew it was coming. That moment of realization when everything slots into place, and the lifetime you felt standing there crashes into the present and you can see it all. The excitement I will feel, when finally I can fulfill the promise I made to my baby cousins, does dilute the weight I bear of the separation, making it easier to digest. Every day I carry on living, but in the back of my mind there is that metaphorical egg timer I know is ticking. I don't know when it will go off, but I know the day will come. And when it does, I'll be able to resume the calling held on pause for so long.
You may hear me say this a lot - and it's only because it is entirely true and something I live my life by - but you only have one life. One tiny blink of a life to make the changes and do the things you have to do. I have a large list. An infinite list that I know will never be completed. It pains me that the biggest regret, the biggest failure, happens to be the one thing I can truly call 'a calling'. The one thing I want more than anything.
One day, I think to myself whenever something reminds me of them. One day. And then I carry on living. I feel guilty, but I try and convince myself that when they find me, if they even still remember me, that they'll know I tried my hardest and forgive me.
One day...
Well! Hope nobody has hung themselves yet lol. Just had to get that off my chest. Two birds with one stone and all that jazz...
Tuesday, 24 July 2012
Burning a Hole in My Pocket
Ever feel the sting of a coin in your pocket as you walk through a street? You pass a busker, a homeless man, or more than a few sale signs. Like a kindred spirit, it yearns to be free. Sometimes you'll chuck it in any adjacent guitar case, but more often than not, it'll sit in your pocket. As you walk, it'll get heavier. The heavier it gets, the more excuses there are not to give it away; it may have become a lucky penny or destined for a function you'll never use it for. And there it will sit.
Blogging for me is like that coin. Being an extremely artistic person, who wears his heart on his sleeves made of open wounds and emotion, expressing myself comes very naturally to me, especially in the written form. I've always wanted to blog seriously - at one point I did to some small success, but they were from darker times in my life - but there has always been an excuse. I can feel the sting of needing to write down my thoughts, my fears, my words, but there has always been that fear factor residing in my mind, stopping me from doing anything more than a journal.
And then came along the Blog Roll. I watched it for several weeks, if not months - a group of friends blogging on topics and discussing their thoughts. My previous blog was anonymous. I enjoyed the free reign of being totally open with another being possibly sitting at their computer, reading and thinking about my troubles, knowing that someone out there heard my plea. Although a journal is great, there is something profound about blogging to an audience.
Over the years I've grown. Matured. I'm still in that process. It wasn't until just now that I decided to take the plunge and blog for real. No masks, just me and people who knew me. The risk is higher, but the reward too. I didn't come to the decision lightly. More than ever, I am aware that anything on the internet is public. Once it's out there, there's no taking it back. I'm at a point in my life where people know me. People from my career, my life, my friends. Not all people I expect to understand who I am or why I do. And there in lies the rub.
I, like most artists, work well when I'm emotionally attached to my work. Writing is just another form of that art. Writing relaxes me. Helps me work through my thoughts and understand myself better. It is an extremely personal and internal process. When you share yourself with another person, your emotions and fears and the reality of yourself, you are so very vulnerable. So you can imagine the surge of fear knowing that all this was being released like a torrent onto not anonymous readers, but possibly people I know. I nearly backed out of writing this. Like a coin I was attached to, I nearly shoved my hand back into my pocket and turned away. If I can't write from the heart, then it's not my writing; and yet that very passion is the thing which often gets me burnt. Not everyone sees the world with the same eyes - I'm not special in that regard - but in a way, it's time I liked it.
So here is the result. It may very well turn out that nothing more than bland posturing fills these pages, far from the suicidal and left wing ramblings you're probably expecting after reading all that (!), but at least I've taken the first step away from fear and towards a place where I am unabashed in expressing myself. The training wheels are off. If people do not like who I am, then they are not worth my time trying to convince them. I know who I am and am not ashamed. Expect to see my musings and thoughts on both the topics given by the Blog Roll, and on issues and events in my life. Maybe some of my work or anything I feel fits. However you won't see anything watered down. Edited and redacted in case someone I know might see it and disapprove. It wouldn't serve the purpose of my writing and I won't put you through that - I'd make for far too boring a read! People have always said one of my best traits is that I'm honest and they know where I stand. No masks, no lies. This blogger has seen far too many of those in his life and this is not a time to perpetuate them.
So let's go give that busker a coin. You don't need it any longer.
Blogging for me is like that coin. Being an extremely artistic person, who wears his heart on his sleeves made of open wounds and emotion, expressing myself comes very naturally to me, especially in the written form. I've always wanted to blog seriously - at one point I did to some small success, but they were from darker times in my life - but there has always been an excuse. I can feel the sting of needing to write down my thoughts, my fears, my words, but there has always been that fear factor residing in my mind, stopping me from doing anything more than a journal.
And then came along the Blog Roll. I watched it for several weeks, if not months - a group of friends blogging on topics and discussing their thoughts. My previous blog was anonymous. I enjoyed the free reign of being totally open with another being possibly sitting at their computer, reading and thinking about my troubles, knowing that someone out there heard my plea. Although a journal is great, there is something profound about blogging to an audience.
Over the years I've grown. Matured. I'm still in that process. It wasn't until just now that I decided to take the plunge and blog for real. No masks, just me and people who knew me. The risk is higher, but the reward too. I didn't come to the decision lightly. More than ever, I am aware that anything on the internet is public. Once it's out there, there's no taking it back. I'm at a point in my life where people know me. People from my career, my life, my friends. Not all people I expect to understand who I am or why I do. And there in lies the rub.
I, like most artists, work well when I'm emotionally attached to my work. Writing is just another form of that art. Writing relaxes me. Helps me work through my thoughts and understand myself better. It is an extremely personal and internal process. When you share yourself with another person, your emotions and fears and the reality of yourself, you are so very vulnerable. So you can imagine the surge of fear knowing that all this was being released like a torrent onto not anonymous readers, but possibly people I know. I nearly backed out of writing this. Like a coin I was attached to, I nearly shoved my hand back into my pocket and turned away. If I can't write from the heart, then it's not my writing; and yet that very passion is the thing which often gets me burnt. Not everyone sees the world with the same eyes - I'm not special in that regard - but in a way, it's time I liked it.
So here is the result. It may very well turn out that nothing more than bland posturing fills these pages, far from the suicidal and left wing ramblings you're probably expecting after reading all that (!), but at least I've taken the first step away from fear and towards a place where I am unabashed in expressing myself. The training wheels are off. If people do not like who I am, then they are not worth my time trying to convince them. I know who I am and am not ashamed. Expect to see my musings and thoughts on both the topics given by the Blog Roll, and on issues and events in my life. Maybe some of my work or anything I feel fits. However you won't see anything watered down. Edited and redacted in case someone I know might see it and disapprove. It wouldn't serve the purpose of my writing and I won't put you through that - I'd make for far too boring a read! People have always said one of my best traits is that I'm honest and they know where I stand. No masks, no lies. This blogger has seen far too many of those in his life and this is not a time to perpetuate them.
So let's go give that busker a coin. You don't need it any longer.
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