Category Archives: Personal

Reasonable Discourse

There are trends in the way of thinking that almost always distort facts and specifics to the detriment of the entire thought process. Not to say that facts and specifics are the only important details of our mental models, but they are important. Here are some of those trends:

–Filtering: taking the negative details and magnifying them.

–Polarized: tending to perceive everything at the extremes, with very little room for a middle ground.

–Overgeneralization: coming to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence.

–Mind Reading: without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do.

–Catastrophizing: continuously expecting disaster.

–Personalization: the tendency to relate everything around you, to yourself.

–Blaming: holding other people responsible for your pain.

–Necessitating: having a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act.

–Emotional Reasoning: believing that what you feel must be true-automatically.

–Labeling: generalizing one or two qualities into a negative global judgment.

–Rewarding: expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off.

Often, these trends of thinking come with flavors of care and love. But that doesn’t defeat the fact that the capacity of these thinking models is limited to the time required for their discovery by others. At the end, no intellectual model betters tolerance for doubt, curiosity, and reasonable discourse.

Bullshit

There is so much bullshit in the leading trends of our popular culture. Our daily habits tend to be relevant to some opinions, we vicariously like to explore. Then we frequently observe the habit-to-opinion ratio, and as soon as that ratio slightly tops the bullshit bar, we characterize our habits as opinion, facts, or principles.

The fact of the matter is that certain attributes of bullshit might imply essential validity to the preliminary and independent account of human behavior. As such, I will expand on some various forms of deviating the attention to the matters that reside beneath certain trends.

I disclaim to know much, or have any leniency towards any trend, or not. But we should really see that people, at times not always, make thoughtless choices just to influence or shape perception of self. In that realm, you find republican meaning “high-status”, atheist meaning “smart”, and corporate-shoe-lover-princes meaning “sex and the city McFabulous”. The underlying fact with all these people is that they have too much time thinking about themselves. They think about their status, outfits, thighs, and career. And if they already have a good career, they think about how to be a spiritual Yoga teacher who eats, loves, and prays. A decent and selfless person doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about oneself, because they got shit to do. This is why you see a lot of celebrity women getting husbands after they adopt. The kids put everyone on notice shouting: Yo Bitch, Hello! It’s not all about you anymore.

Or, in relationship realm, for instance, it usually goes something like this: you meet a person called Morgan. Morgan is not really available for a relationship on some condition that absolutely precludes availability. Morgan gets around town on a skateboard wearing a shawl on a sunny day with 85 degree temperature. Or maybe Morgan just comes right out and says something obscure and open to interpretation like, “You can’t push emotions to love someone. It needs to happen all by itself”. Now, you might bullshit your way to trying to significant-other Morgan. You hang out with Morgan and have fun attaching yourself by high amount of oxytocin that kicks in. But beneath, you know you want more but you don’t tell Morgan. That’s your dirty secret, well, just between you and 100 of your close friends. You keep waiting and hoping that Morgan will figure this out. Guess what? Morgan will never figure it out because Morgan is already very comfortable living life without and away from you. You should have stopped bullshiting yourself in the first place giving up the notion that you could change anything.

Our social values have diluted. Men want to have it all going with the tempo of god, looking athletic in a 3 ft deep swimming pool, or being fascinating on Facebook wall posts. Women see no value in being a decent mother as the foundation of life. And these two essentially unattractive and confused group of creatures are supposed to attract each other –which is why everyone needs a shrink.

As human beings, we exist only in response to other things and what’s formed in our unconscious, and we cannot know ourselves at all without knowing other things. Also, there is nothing proven with experience, to support the theory that it is easy to know self. Our natures are, indeed, notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And in such messy and convoluted situation, honesty itself is bullshit.

Everything Popular is Wrong

Frank Zappa once said “Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read”.

The crux of this quote, when you dissect and digest it, leads to seemingly emasculating people around rock music. I disagree with the assertion, but I like the way the quote is formulated.

I yet to find anything more powerful than music that can bring people together and have them feel a social and converging connection.  Social connection is an essential aspect of happiness.

The problem, though, isn’t music. The problem is when musicians become popular. Popularity is boring. Popularity encourages no individuality or sense of self. It inspires no creativity and pushes followers to conform. Everything popular is wrong.

Stay unpopular and low key, Buster! The color of the key, to staying low-key,  is gray.

 

Love is no Option

Human beings drink water and breathe air. Technically, those are the main things we need for living. Well, add to that nutrition of some sort. And, by no means have I dismissed the fact that many around the world struggle to even have those primitive aspects of life. Then again, for all of my adult life the matters of heart seem to have been amongst the top two of everyone’s concerns, and most importantly, the matter that implies glee.

 Why is love such a hard proposition?

In all honesty, I really don’t know the answer to that question and I’m not sure if there is “an answer”. The span of answers to that question might be as great as half of the population of the world. And for the record I, as the person who sits in an after-work Irish dump in freaking Mountain View and drinks Jameson on a Valentine’s Day, should be the last person who could have any prophecy in that matter. But heck, you’re reading my blog, I might as well share some viewpoints.

Love is meticulous, in that it demands perfection form a bunch of imperfect creatures. It is the meticulousness that makes people analyze emotional relationship to no end. At times, one side blames another for not understanding their positions and expectations because there is a proclivity to develop hope for an uncertain future.

At times, we say we can’t stand drama and that all we want is a stable relationship with someone who loves and treats us well, but for some of us “stable” have hardly the appeal of “exciting”. At times, our status as single, independent, financially solvent has us sitting on a mountain of exceptional options. Options are exciting. So we want all the options. But having “options” is a cop-out for having nothing else, no interests, no commitments, and no values. Narcissism is not the quintessence of interest in any romantic or especially matrimonial connection to anyone worthy of a mature relationship.

One of my best friends with whom I used to discuss these things very frequently busted out of this endless circle and married to someone who had the main attributes of what he desired, and he was ready to forgive the rest of what he didn’t get. I wasn’t ready to forgive anything. Now he’s happily married with a beautiful baby girl and two dogs taking black and white anniversary pictures on snowy roads. I don’t even have a cat, but I have options.

Evolution is a lusty mistress. The human beings were original designed to live for 45-55 years. The clever animals that we are we screwed the game by tamping down infectious diseases and copiously swelling our food supply to live longer. We haven’t even begun to evolve into the world we created. Wait a bit longer, and you see that our qualification for someone’s idea of lifetime commitment will vanish altogether. In that case, having ‘options’ gets closer to the truth.

And of course in the end, you always find those shallow, coldly judgmental, obsessed with status, and unforgiving about any imperfections. You always find those who are angry and you represent everyone they have dated to that point. Before you chew the first piece of steak at a restaurant you’re the cheater, user, liar and irresponsible mate they’ve hated. That’d make you subject to many stupid tests they’ve read in relationship-for-dummies. Others have lived the party life and finally decide to settle down when you realize that settle means they’ll settle for you.

All of that shouldn’t irk you because if you are not alone, you have a different set of options. Yes, I assert there is something wrong with sampling liberally from the buffet. It reinforces what is already the problem for serial daters, both men and women. It’s not that you don’t know what you want. It’s that you only love yourselves. “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.”

 True! Love is not as sacred as it once was. Still, it is the most sacred thing I know.

Beautifully Boring

Some of the most interesting people are the ones who seem to know everything, despite the fact that; they appear to know information they had no participation in producing. Bunk information entertains if nothing else.

My memory is as good as a Kim Kardashian’s acting. But there are phrases I never forget. They’re the true meaning of random crap. I heard or read them in situations when my brain had a short-lived spark for saving garbage data. Here are some of those:

  • When you know nothing, you think you could do anything
  • Art is competitive
  • In all the movie lines, “You can’t handle the truth!” tops it all
  • Happiness is sporadic
  • In a PG-13 movie, one “fuck” is allowed
  • There are things that are worth regretting
  • If you’re using a pay phone, things aren’t going well
  • Good health is beautifully boring
  • The difference between an X-rated and R-rated movie resides on male genitalia pointing up or down

Carol doesn’t exist

A few days of sunny weather in the middle of the winter on the left coast gave an opportunity to walk around the city and enjoy the scenery. While reflective, the modesty of feeling like an outsider presents a fresh perspective on simple observations.

… I was close to the tail end of the daily walk. To get to the entrance of the building, where I temporarily live, I have to go through a long covered sidewalk with arches on the street side. I get to the sidewalk and I hear someone shouting “Carol, Carol, where are you?”. And he keeps repeating it. People who are simultaneously walking in both directions of the sidewalk are wondering and looking around as to who Carol is –since the guy is uncontrollably loud.

I get closer where the shouting comes from and I see this man maybe in his 30’s. Young but he looks old. He looked tired and wobbly. He has tears in his eyes and was carrying a few wore out stuff which could be heavy since he walked slumped over. For some off reason I felt like I knew him.

As we passed each other, we glanced at each other and he asked “Did you see Carol?”. I replied “No, who’s Carol?”. At this point, pretty much everyone around is staring at us and following this conversation as the man is so intensely loud and present:

He said “Carol, you know? I have been looking for her”

Me: “Who’s Carol. Is she your sister, wife, girlfriend?”

He replied “No, you don’t understand. Carol doesn’t exist”

Me: “Why are you calling her then?”

He said “I knew you wouldn’t understand. Carol doesn’t exist. Since last night, Carol doesn’t exist anymore…”

…and he walked away. It was the New Year’s day.

Seattle

I moved to a new city. I don’t know why but the main reason seems to be a combination of several lesser reasons. If nothing else, I’m no longer as comfortable as I used to be which is an advantage all by itself. Screw conformity of being comfortable.

 Any new change is first condemned as ridiculous, and then dismissed as trivial, until finally it becomes what everybody knows. But hey, no one I know, got the market corner on human suffering so who is to appraise the weight of change. That goes to show that not everything happens for a reason.

The glass is half full here but I miss Seattle. When you think about Seattle, a lot of adjectives come to mind, but pretense or look-at-me swagger are not one of them.