Love them or hate them relationships are always complicated. It's a miracle any of us manage to find someone to marry. Even fewer manage to do it for life. Making a life long marriage to one person work, takes a supreme commitment, lots of patience and stubborn dedication, to not give up.
Statistics say that less than 50% of marriages survive the difficulties and challenges of merging two lives. A pessimist might say that two people were never meant to know each other on such an intimate level. That knowledge, especially of each others flaws, is the downfall of relationships. And they might be right, knowledge of one another's flaws may well be the cause of many a failed relationship. But I disagree with the premise that we were not meant to be known intimately.
Humans are meant for relationships. Babies don't develop properly unless they have physical contact, unless they are held. People go slowly insane when isolated from contact with others. We need people, we need relationships, we crave to be know.
There are many reasons why relationships fail. One of the biggest reasons is that people move too fast. They get caught up in the way the relationship makes them feel and they let their emotions overrule their mind. Ignoring logic and rushing in. Commitment in a relationship should never overreach knowledge and vice versa. It's a fatal decision to build a relationship solely on emotions, because emotions fade and change. Any lasting relationship must be based on more than what you feel. It must be build on commitment and knowledge. Love is not blind, it does not ignore faults and wrongs, but it does accept and forgive.
So when you start a relationship it should progress slowly, not rushing ahead to the bedroom on the first date. Give your hormones time to cool before making any decisions. Keep it light to start with, have some fun. Why take everything so seriously. Loading a relationship down with expectations is another sure way to kill it before it has a chance to start. First dates should be for having fun and getting a feel for each other not delving deep into each others pasts.
Sharing deep and personal information like childhood traumas or physical abuse should probably wait till a rapport has been established and trust gained. Share too much too fast and you can build false intimacy. Which makes you feel close like you know the person and might incline you to take actions, or place trust, you might not otherwise.
Every time we meet someone new we put our best foot forward and hide our flaws. It's human nature to do so, especially if it's someone we like or are attracted to. Yet another reason to wait and get to know someone. As their guard comes down their flaws will begin to emerge and you will get a better idea of who the person really is. There can be no relationship without trust and there can be no trust without truth and knowledge. Truth and knowledge are both things that can not and should not be rushed.
A friend is someone who makes you better than you are. If someone is hurting you or tearing you down, they aren't your friend, this goes doubly for boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses. If they hurt you, walk away, no matter how nice or perfect they seem, there is nothing that makes that okay. It doesn't matter if it's physical or emotional; abuse is not an acceptable trait.
If you rush a relationship you might miss the warning signs that would have otherwise tipped you off to these tendencies. By the time you find out, it may be too late, you may feel trapped because of commitments you've made.
A significant other should be more than a friend, they should be a partner, a teammate. They should build you up, support you, strengthen you. They should be your compliment, holding you accountable. Helping you to stop bad habits, and start good ones. They should be a sounding board and a listening ear. They shouldn't be afraid to tell you when you are wrong.
A good relationship provides shelter and strength, it provides a firm foundation and a safe haven from which both partners can achieve greater things than they could on their own. Nothing inspires a man to greatness more than having a woman for which he is fighting and there is little that gives a woman more confidence than knowing she is loved and protected.
We can attain more together than apart, so take your time to build a solid foundation of trust and honesty. Take the time to see if someone is a good fit before making commitments, before giving away part of yourself.
When you do find that person who is a good fit, that is your other half, that compliments you, bringing their strengths to our weaknesses, be willing to commit. Don't go in with the mindset that you can bail if it gets hard. Really commit to it, go all in! Pour your all into the relationship. Love is a choice not an emotion, if you make that choice, commit to it.
I can't think of anything more exciting than spending a lifetime learning about my partner, and not just a knowledge of the facts about them, but who they are on the inside, what makes them tick, how they think, and what their dreams are. An intimate knowledge, beyond facts into the essence of the person. I could spend a lifetime learning and still have more to discover.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Confronting Truth
When you are presented with a truth or fact that contradicts what you believe to be true, you have three choices. Accept it and change what you believe, deny it and claim it isn't true, or ignore it and refuse to acknowledge that you ever encountered the truth. This last option is really just another form of denial. Rarely we will even encounter something so counter to what we know or believe that our mind rejects it outright, our mind literally can't believe that it is true.
But what happens when we are faced with a choice that requires action? What then? What happens when we are faced with a moral choice, one that has to do with what we believe to be true? If you believe that taking a human life is wrong, would you kill in self defense? To defend another? What happens if you do kill someone? Again you have two basic choices, accept it or deny it. Denying an action is much harder than denying a thought or idea. You have taken action and hard as you might try you can never take that choice back. You might be able to deny and ignore it for a short while, but the longer you do the more it festers unresolved.
You can try to rationalize it. "I killed that person because I had too", "I stole the food because I was starving". Humans are masters of rationalization, many could rationalize any action if the need arose. But rationalization is like painting over rot, the rot remains, even if you can no longer see it. Perhaps you don't feel as bad about it because it's out of sight, but your house is still structurally unsound.
Alternately you can accept what you did, accept the choice you made and deal with the consequences. What ever choice you make, you must decide what you believe about the moral or truth involved. Is it still true? To decide to change your beliefs may ease your guilt or shame over the action you took, but denying a wrong choice to save yourself guild does so at the cost of your morality and truth.
If you believe there is no absolute truth or morality, this isn't much of a problem. But then if truth is relative, why did you hold to the initial moral standard you believed. If truth is relative why have standards, why draw a line at all.
If truth and morality are absolute and you decide to change what you believe, you sacrifice your moral character and fiber. You might be able to live with this at first but each time you give ground on your beliefs, your morality erodes away. Till finally after time you look at where you are and where you came from and you have a crisis of faith or belief. You must now face the shame of your actions and what you have become, or decide that your morals don't matter to you as much as you say or think they do. Each choice makes the next that much easier. It may not be that your choices run directly counter to your beliefs either, they may be only slight compromises. But it's just as easy to find yourself going the wrong way as a result of a chain of small compromises as it is from one big one.
What ever the cause you have to deal with the result of your actions, whether, sooner or later. Accept, rationalize or deny, your choices will catch up with you eventually, and when they do you have to face the emotional and mental conflict and strife they bring. Without forgiveness there is no way to escape it.
But what happens when we are faced with a choice that requires action? What then? What happens when we are faced with a moral choice, one that has to do with what we believe to be true? If you believe that taking a human life is wrong, would you kill in self defense? To defend another? What happens if you do kill someone? Again you have two basic choices, accept it or deny it. Denying an action is much harder than denying a thought or idea. You have taken action and hard as you might try you can never take that choice back. You might be able to deny and ignore it for a short while, but the longer you do the more it festers unresolved.
You can try to rationalize it. "I killed that person because I had too", "I stole the food because I was starving". Humans are masters of rationalization, many could rationalize any action if the need arose. But rationalization is like painting over rot, the rot remains, even if you can no longer see it. Perhaps you don't feel as bad about it because it's out of sight, but your house is still structurally unsound.
Alternately you can accept what you did, accept the choice you made and deal with the consequences. What ever choice you make, you must decide what you believe about the moral or truth involved. Is it still true? To decide to change your beliefs may ease your guilt or shame over the action you took, but denying a wrong choice to save yourself guild does so at the cost of your morality and truth.
If you believe there is no absolute truth or morality, this isn't much of a problem. But then if truth is relative, why did you hold to the initial moral standard you believed. If truth is relative why have standards, why draw a line at all.
If truth and morality are absolute and you decide to change what you believe, you sacrifice your moral character and fiber. You might be able to live with this at first but each time you give ground on your beliefs, your morality erodes away. Till finally after time you look at where you are and where you came from and you have a crisis of faith or belief. You must now face the shame of your actions and what you have become, or decide that your morals don't matter to you as much as you say or think they do. Each choice makes the next that much easier. It may not be that your choices run directly counter to your beliefs either, they may be only slight compromises. But it's just as easy to find yourself going the wrong way as a result of a chain of small compromises as it is from one big one.
What ever the cause you have to deal with the result of your actions, whether, sooner or later. Accept, rationalize or deny, your choices will catch up with you eventually, and when they do you have to face the emotional and mental conflict and strife they bring. Without forgiveness there is no way to escape it.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Zone
No I’m not talking about the twilight zone. One of my friends calls it the “coder’s trance”, most people refer to it as being in the zone. The zone, is a trance like state where all distractions and external input fall away and you are able to focus with single mindedness on the task in front of you. As an artist and writer, I am intimately familiar with this phenomenon and it is an interesting occurrence. When I’m there, I lose all track of time, tune out all sound and noise, and devote 100% of my attention and focus to the task at hand. This allows me to work with an incredible level of detail, and not get bored, as many people might. Each person has their own way of getting into this state, I tend to prefer to work late at night when the world is quiet and peaceful and there are few distractions. There isn’t even the sun to tell you the passage of time. I will often listen to techno, both because I like it and because I think the repeated rhythmic nature of the music helps with the focus, as well as it drowns out any remaining distractions. Though once I am in the zone, I often no longer consciously hear the music anymore.
There is something simple and beautiful about being in that state. It’s restful, and pleasant. It can even make mind numbingly dull repetitive tasks tolerable. How you ask? Well once you know how to get into the zone, it can be used on just about anything. I have worked as a stock person, and there really is nothing more mind numbing then organizing an entire stockroom worth of product, by size, style and color. But if you get into the zone, shut all distractions out and focus, you lose track of how long it’s taking you and you just do it. Typically when I do this it’s a bit different than when I’m working on art, though. When I am in an art trance, I’m 100% focused on the art, while when I am in a work zone, I will often put my body on autopilot and let my mind wander. Partitioning off a small portion of my brain to work on the easy task at hand, while devoting the remainder of my mind to thinking about other things. Weather that be analyzing my life, planning my novel, or just pondering random things, like those posted here on this blog, but sometimes, the brain just shuts off all together and I just work. I don’t think, I just do.
I’ve found in my personal experience that most activities, even complex ones, once learned take a small portion of the brain to repeat. The trick is to then learn how to divide your focus, allowing the part of your brain that needs to focus on the task at hand to do so, while allowing the rest of your mind to do whatever it wants.
I’m curious if other peoples experience of being in the zone are similar or if it’s different for each person. Please I’d like to hear from readers about this one.
There is something simple and beautiful about being in that state. It’s restful, and pleasant. It can even make mind numbingly dull repetitive tasks tolerable. How you ask? Well once you know how to get into the zone, it can be used on just about anything. I have worked as a stock person, and there really is nothing more mind numbing then organizing an entire stockroom worth of product, by size, style and color. But if you get into the zone, shut all distractions out and focus, you lose track of how long it’s taking you and you just do it. Typically when I do this it’s a bit different than when I’m working on art, though. When I am in an art trance, I’m 100% focused on the art, while when I am in a work zone, I will often put my body on autopilot and let my mind wander. Partitioning off a small portion of my brain to work on the easy task at hand, while devoting the remainder of my mind to thinking about other things. Weather that be analyzing my life, planning my novel, or just pondering random things, like those posted here on this blog, but sometimes, the brain just shuts off all together and I just work. I don’t think, I just do.
I’ve found in my personal experience that most activities, even complex ones, once learned take a small portion of the brain to repeat. The trick is to then learn how to divide your focus, allowing the part of your brain that needs to focus on the task at hand to do so, while allowing the rest of your mind to do whatever it wants.
I’m curious if other peoples experience of being in the zone are similar or if it’s different for each person. Please I’d like to hear from readers about this one.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Skin
Random thought for the day, Have you ever just stopped and marveled at the miracle that is your skin? Think about it for a second. Your skin is your largest organ. It can be as soft and supple as your lips, or as callous, thick and unfeeling as the soles of your feet. It's elastic, yet rigid at the same time. It moderates your body temperature, reacts to the sun to protect you, and synthesizes vitamin D from sunlight. If you get an injury as small as a paper cut or even as large as a burn, it will scab over and knit itself back together. And lets not forget that it provides you with your sense of touch, without which we would all be in a world of pain, or more precisely, not be. Simply amazing! :D
Thursday, April 29, 2010
What defines us?
What defines us, what makes us who and what we are? What makes us good or bad? Is it our actions, our thoughts? Is someone who kills others better or worse than someone who only thinks about it? The courts make a distinction between premeditated murder and homicide. It’s somehow worse if you thought about it before hand. What if you plan it out but never follow through? In the eyes of the law you are a better person if you don’t take action, but do you feel better? What about say pornography and fantasizing? In most places that’s either frowned upon or a crime, and it most definitely is if it involves children. But it’s more of a thought crime than one of action. The person isn’t committing the act’s they fantasize. Is that any better?
We all wish someone would die from time to time, usually as a fleeting thought. I feel safe in saying few people would condemn you for that, so where is the line in our minds that once crossed moves you into the territory of being a “Bad Person”?
We consider soldiers to be good people, yet they kill people. What makes them different than a murderer? Is it because it’s for a cause, or because they don’t like doing it? Are you a bad person if you do “Bad things” but don’t want to, or don’t like it? Are you a good person if you do good things but think, “Bad thoughts”? What is the line, the convergence of thought and action that defines who we are? If you can do all the right things for all the wrong reasons, can you also do all the wrong things, for all the right reasons, and if so where would that leave you?
We all wish someone would die from time to time, usually as a fleeting thought. I feel safe in saying few people would condemn you for that, so where is the line in our minds that once crossed moves you into the territory of being a “Bad Person”?
We consider soldiers to be good people, yet they kill people. What makes them different than a murderer? Is it because it’s for a cause, or because they don’t like doing it? Are you a bad person if you do “Bad things” but don’t want to, or don’t like it? Are you a good person if you do good things but think, “Bad thoughts”? What is the line, the convergence of thought and action that defines who we are? If you can do all the right things for all the wrong reasons, can you also do all the wrong things, for all the right reasons, and if so where would that leave you?
Monday, April 12, 2010
Extended cost
Extended cost or cumulative cost, how much do we spend on small things over a month or year? How much are you really spending on coffee at starbucks, drinks at the bar, or cigarettes. How much are we spending on our habits?
Let’s start with coffee drinkers. According to http://www.e-importz.com/Support/specialty_coffee.htm “Over 50% of Americans over 18 years of age drink coffee every day. This represents over 150 million daily drinkers. 30 million American adults drink specialty coffee beverages daily; which include a mocha, latte, espresso, café mocha, cappuccino, frozen/iced coffee beverages, etc.” Let’s say you’re one of those 30 million, and you buy a grande mocha from starbucks every day. In Seattle that will now run you a whopping $3.91. After buying one every day for a week, you’re looking at a cost of $27.37. By the end of the month you would have spent $109.48 and by the end of the year your total would have risen to $1313.76. That’s a lot of money.
Ok then how about smokers. In a 2003 survey smokers age 12 and up smoked an average of 13 cigarettes a day on the days they smoked and the same age range of smokers, smoked an average of 23 out of the last 30 days. 13 cigarettes every day for 23 days is 299 cigarettes. In the US, a pack of cigarettes has to be at least 20. So at 20 per pack, the average smoker will smoke about 20 packs in a month. Tobacco Free Kids.org lists the average pack price at $5.26. Multiplied by 20 packs a month and you find you will be spending $105.2 per month and by extension $1262.4 every year on your habit.
God forbid you smoke and drink coffee daily, at which point you would be spending about $2500 annually on your habits.
Next, going to the bar? Let’s assume you go out on the town on Friday nights and drink moderately, having only 2 to 3 drinks. If you like mixed drinks you’re paying at least $4 and probably closer to $6 for a drink, so one night on the town will run you $12-18. Though I expect that’s probably on the low end. If you go out every Friday for a month, you’ve now spent $48-72 and if you go every Friday all year long, $624-936. Not as bad as coffee either but this is assuming you drink moderately.
How about other monthly expenditures, like cable tv, or Netflix? Comcast’s digital preferred service is $39.99 for the first 6 months, after which it jumps to $56 a month, so a year of cable TV costs $576. Netflix basic subscription of 3 movies at a time runs $16.99 a month or $203.88 a year. A movie once a month at $7 a ticket, $84 a year.
Fast food lunch every day, at minimum $5 a meal each day of a 5 day work week, $25 a week, $100 a month, $1300 a year. Gym membership at 24 hour fitness to work off the weight you put on by eating fast food every day, $30 a month, $360 a year.
So what you say? Everything you choose to do, eat or drink costs money. Not exactly a new idea, but each of those expenses means you have to make more money to support your lifestyle. This may mean working more hours or working harder, which in turn means you are tired when you get home. If you’re working hard to pay for entertainment, but are too tired to enjoy that same entertainment is it worth the cost? How much do you value your free time, time with family and friends? What is time worth to you? Is it worth a cup of coffee or, your cigarette? And this analysis isn’t even considering the physical effects that some of these habits have on your body. Time has value and is becoming a commodity in our increasingly busy lives. Take some time to think about the choices you are making and the extended costs of things in your life.
Let’s start with coffee drinkers. According to http://www.e-importz.com/Support/specialty_coffee.htm “Over 50% of Americans over 18 years of age drink coffee every day. This represents over 150 million daily drinkers. 30 million American adults drink specialty coffee beverages daily; which include a mocha, latte, espresso, café mocha, cappuccino, frozen/iced coffee beverages, etc.” Let’s say you’re one of those 30 million, and you buy a grande mocha from starbucks every day. In Seattle that will now run you a whopping $3.91. After buying one every day for a week, you’re looking at a cost of $27.37. By the end of the month you would have spent $109.48 and by the end of the year your total would have risen to $1313.76. That’s a lot of money.
Ok then how about smokers. In a 2003 survey smokers age 12 and up smoked an average of 13 cigarettes a day on the days they smoked and the same age range of smokers, smoked an average of 23 out of the last 30 days. 13 cigarettes every day for 23 days is 299 cigarettes. In the US, a pack of cigarettes has to be at least 20. So at 20 per pack, the average smoker will smoke about 20 packs in a month. Tobacco Free Kids.org lists the average pack price at $5.26. Multiplied by 20 packs a month and you find you will be spending $105.2 per month and by extension $1262.4 every year on your habit.
God forbid you smoke and drink coffee daily, at which point you would be spending about $2500 annually on your habits.
Next, going to the bar? Let’s assume you go out on the town on Friday nights and drink moderately, having only 2 to 3 drinks. If you like mixed drinks you’re paying at least $4 and probably closer to $6 for a drink, so one night on the town will run you $12-18. Though I expect that’s probably on the low end. If you go out every Friday for a month, you’ve now spent $48-72 and if you go every Friday all year long, $624-936. Not as bad as coffee either but this is assuming you drink moderately.
How about other monthly expenditures, like cable tv, or Netflix? Comcast’s digital preferred service is $39.99 for the first 6 months, after which it jumps to $56 a month, so a year of cable TV costs $576. Netflix basic subscription of 3 movies at a time runs $16.99 a month or $203.88 a year. A movie once a month at $7 a ticket, $84 a year.
Fast food lunch every day, at minimum $5 a meal each day of a 5 day work week, $25 a week, $100 a month, $1300 a year. Gym membership at 24 hour fitness to work off the weight you put on by eating fast food every day, $30 a month, $360 a year.
So what you say? Everything you choose to do, eat or drink costs money. Not exactly a new idea, but each of those expenses means you have to make more money to support your lifestyle. This may mean working more hours or working harder, which in turn means you are tired when you get home. If you’re working hard to pay for entertainment, but are too tired to enjoy that same entertainment is it worth the cost? How much do you value your free time, time with family and friends? What is time worth to you? Is it worth a cup of coffee or, your cigarette? And this analysis isn’t even considering the physical effects that some of these habits have on your body. Time has value and is becoming a commodity in our increasingly busy lives. Take some time to think about the choices you are making and the extended costs of things in your life.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Cost of Entertainment
Ack, it’s been way too long since my last post. So this one’s probably going to be short but it’s an interesting idea, the cost of entertainment and what we are willing to pay. With the cost of movie tickets slowly rising, I’ve started to limit the number of movies I go to. Tickets are just about $10 non matinee where I live and I’ve heard they’re up to about $20 in big cities like LA and NYC. So a dinner and movie, for two would run 40 for the movie, and as little as $10 if you went to fast food. Assuming your date would let you get away with that, so about $50, for a cheap date. That’s getting a bit nuts, and makes me glad I don’t live in a big city.
I am willing to pay $10 for about 2 hours of entertainment. This has kind of become my base line. Video games at $40-$60 are a bargain when you consider I’ll likely get 60 to 100 hours from a game, if not more and a subscription game like World of Warcraft isn’t a bad investment at $14 a month for the nearly unlimited amount of entertainment one could get if that was all you did in your free time. But that’s measuring quantity of entertainment by the dollar. What about quality of entertainment. Going to a concert, or a play, will get you about the same length of entertainment as a movie, but will hopefully be better entertainment. Cheap tickets to see U2 in concert are $64. Assuming about an hour and a half to two hour show, that’s over three times the cost of a movie in LA and six times as much as one at my local theater. But there is an experience to be had there that you can’t get from listening to CD’s. Cheap tickets to see Wicked in San Francisco are $142, over twice the cost of seeing U2. You pay more for these kinds of entertainment because they are “Art”. You are paying for the talent of the performers and for the ability to see it live.
Can we expect to see the cost of movies continue to climb? I think so, will it get as high as a concert? Perhaps. Considering the ballooning cost of making movies in the US, I could see ticket costs continuing to rise. The trick is that movies were supposed to be a cheap form of mass entertainment. The first movies were in machines called Nickelodeon’s. They were short, a few min at best, videos that you hand cranked and they cost 5 cents, thus how they got their name. In 1932 the first real theater charged 3 cents per person. By 1967 the average ticket price was up to $1.22, 1977 it was $2.23, only a dollar more in 10 years, where as by 1987 it was up to $3.91, $1.72 more. In 2000, the price was an average of $5.39 and has risen to an average of $7.50 as of 2009. For a further break down go here. The average cost includes all ticket sales together, whether they be matinee, children’s, discount or normal.
I don’t know what prices are going to do in the future, but if they continue to rise at the rate they are, I’m not sure how much longer I will be willing to see a movie. For comparison the UN World Food Programme, estimates it costs about 25 cents a day to feed a child, or 50 dollars a year. That means if I see 5 fewer movies a year I could feed a child for the same amount of time. So then, what is the value of our entertainment?
I am willing to pay $10 for about 2 hours of entertainment. This has kind of become my base line. Video games at $40-$60 are a bargain when you consider I’ll likely get 60 to 100 hours from a game, if not more and a subscription game like World of Warcraft isn’t a bad investment at $14 a month for the nearly unlimited amount of entertainment one could get if that was all you did in your free time. But that’s measuring quantity of entertainment by the dollar. What about quality of entertainment. Going to a concert, or a play, will get you about the same length of entertainment as a movie, but will hopefully be better entertainment. Cheap tickets to see U2 in concert are $64. Assuming about an hour and a half to two hour show, that’s over three times the cost of a movie in LA and six times as much as one at my local theater. But there is an experience to be had there that you can’t get from listening to CD’s. Cheap tickets to see Wicked in San Francisco are $142, over twice the cost of seeing U2. You pay more for these kinds of entertainment because they are “Art”. You are paying for the talent of the performers and for the ability to see it live.
Can we expect to see the cost of movies continue to climb? I think so, will it get as high as a concert? Perhaps. Considering the ballooning cost of making movies in the US, I could see ticket costs continuing to rise. The trick is that movies were supposed to be a cheap form of mass entertainment. The first movies were in machines called Nickelodeon’s. They were short, a few min at best, videos that you hand cranked and they cost 5 cents, thus how they got their name. In 1932 the first real theater charged 3 cents per person. By 1967 the average ticket price was up to $1.22, 1977 it was $2.23, only a dollar more in 10 years, where as by 1987 it was up to $3.91, $1.72 more. In 2000, the price was an average of $5.39 and has risen to an average of $7.50 as of 2009. For a further break down go here. The average cost includes all ticket sales together, whether they be matinee, children’s, discount or normal.
I don’t know what prices are going to do in the future, but if they continue to rise at the rate they are, I’m not sure how much longer I will be willing to see a movie. For comparison the UN World Food Programme, estimates it costs about 25 cents a day to feed a child, or 50 dollars a year. That means if I see 5 fewer movies a year I could feed a child for the same amount of time. So then, what is the value of our entertainment?
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