On Familiarity #4

Why do we do this? We torture each other with our respective conventions, reservations, and tendencies. We don't say much about them, because that would only create hassle and because it's always worked this way. Romeo and Juliet did not die because of too much clear communication and an honest expression of feelings. I realize there were other factors that went into their tragedy, but my principle holds true in that Romeo and Juliet did not have a model relationship, and that lack of functionality is engendered from a seemingly inherent and universal conception of how romantic relationships work. It's a common thing to hear men say, that women are complicated, they make no sense, their thoughts and feelings are hard to discern. I, even in the short time that I've lived, would tend to say that's true more often than not. (I don't mean to sound like men are superior to women. In some ways they are, one such thing being physical prowess. Not every man is stronger than every woman, but the strongest man is stronger than the strongest woman. Not every man can run faster than every woman, but the fastest man is faster than the fastest woman, and so on.) 


It's been an odd thing to observe, the psychology of females. Forgive me more my lack of record keeping/note taking, as all of these conjectures are being produced from my own recall.


Gender stereotypes tell us men are brave and emotionless and women are the opposite. Women are to be treated, pampered, protected, and in a way, dominated. Men are to make the decisions, be the authority figure, make the money, pay the bills, sleep closer to the door, etc. Women are supposed to raise the children, cook, clean, and be generally lovely. There is a paradigm that exists between the two sexes. It's pretty easy to see. Some feminists and other people who like to be pissed about things would argue that this is sexist, this is unfair, demeaning, and condescending to women. (I have been planning a feminist post for the future, so I won't start a rant here, I'll just say that feminists irritate me greatly.) I do not believe that men should have a controlling stake in a relationship. I don't think men should subjugate women. Women should, as a general rule for anyone, be respected and appreciated. These stereotypes though, some of which some of us would like to tear down, are not completely false. There are biologically ingrained tendencies for each sex. Men tend to have protective instincts, women have nurturing instincts. Women are, by design, the mothers of our children. It makes sense then, that they tend to be caring and emotionally relatable. Men are our fathers. If a child's emotional needs are more readily met by its mother, it would make sense then that its father would serve in meeting its physical needs such as food, shelter, water, protection from things that want to eat the baby and so on. These same duties and tendencies that are most often performed by or found in their respective sexes affect the relationships between the sexes. 


Women naturally have a larger emotional capacity than that of men, and with that, emotional pathways fire more often in a woman's brain, and because of that, women literally think via emotions. There was a study done in 2008 at the University of California-Berkeley that examined over 1500 men and women, of all ages, demographics, occupations, and IQs. The findings? Men have twice of gray matter that women have. Gray matter is the tissue in your brain that handles raw cognition. Things like math, science, and reason, occur in your gray matter. It's comparable to the processor of a computer. It just processes information and sends it on it's way, it doesn't possess the ability to ask itself how it feels about whatever it is thinking about. The same study found that women possess, on average, upwards of ten times the white matter than that of men. White matter in your brain carries information and transmits information across other parts of the brain. To go back to the computer analogy, it's like the wires hooked up to the processor. It doesn't process information, rather it serves as a pathway for information to travel. It also does not possess the ability to think about what it thinks about whatever it is transmitting, but it does deliver the information to places in the brain that do handle emotion. With all of these pathways that facilitate the transmission of information, and subsequently emotion, well, that explains why women are emotional. As for the gray matter in men, it doesn't say that men are smarter than women. It says that men are limited in their emotional capacity, more than women anyway, and with the limited emotional capacity there exists a broadened capacity for detached reasoning. Basically, the people at the University of California-Berkeley are saying women are irrational and men are rational, and they have the brain scans to prove it. There have been related studies that finds women are capable of experiencing a greater range of emotions in a shorter period of time. The opposite is true for men. The corpus callosum is the nervous bridge of pathways that connect the two different hemispheres of the brain. It is made of white matter, the stuff women have lots of. In women this massive nerve is actually markedly thicker than in men, generally, and this is explained in the myriad of studies done in the last hundred years studying differences between the brains of the two sexes. This also explains why women are more likely to be good at multitasking than men. The corpus callosum facilitates communication between the two hemispheres, and obviously, if you more matter to transmit more information faster, you'll be able to get many things done more efficiently. Men are just the opposite, in that they tend to do best when they do one thing at a time.


What does this mean? It doesn't mean men are better than women, or vice versa. It is massively annoying to me, when women present this facade of coolness and detachment, which is something that I neither enjoy or understand. It doesn't mean that we hate each other, or that we should throw out every sexual convention of our time. It means that men and women are really and truly, wholly and candidly different, and to think that the misunderstandings or fuzzy communication that results from these differences is intentional on behalf of both parties involved is ridiculous.

I'm not done talking about this yet. I'm going places.

More and more good stuff

Many points of my philosophy summed up.

More good stuff

Lewis Black. He yells a lot, but he's got a point.

Holy Shit

It's boring until about nine and a half minutes.

klnasdfk

On Familiarity #3

>> What I would call a quality relationship

Many relationships for young people are exaggerated flings. It is an uncommon occurrence for two young people (young people meaning people in high school) to form a truly meaningful and mutually binding relationship. I don't like that. I don't like stupid relationships. It bothers me. When two people are only interested in each other purely out of physical attraction, it seriously makes me want to punt a baby. Puke on my nice shoes. When two people put on performances for each other, going out of their way to impress/keep the other happy is equally as infuriating. It's sounds very chivalrous, to say that I respect people, and to value them for their very best attributes, and to be disgusted with those involved with them who don't see what I see. I'm not being chivalrous though. I like original, genuine characters. I like authenticity. I value true confidence, classiness. It makes sense then, that it pisses me off when a douchebag has smoothtalked his way into some girl's pants who is way out of his league. It's frustrating for two reasons: he almost certainly doesn't appreciate her, and she can do much better. He doesn't appreciate her because he's stupid, inconsiderate, doesn't appreciate himself, so he presents this facade of the happy-go-lucky guy who just wants to buy a van and take an adventure out to California, the whole way talking about other times he got high; or he cascades insufferably corny sweet sayings to her, which is a total and utter fallacy because he acts like he really appreciates her company and wants to be around her, when in truth it's a contest he's having with himself to see if he really can get her pants down. It's disgusting, and I've seen this happen time and time again.

I realize this sounds very cynical, but I find that the longer I live the more difficult it is to be believe there are things truly pure and good in the world. Sad, to think such a thing, but it's true. Not to say there is no purity or good to be had in the world, even if you could live to see a thousand centuries, there would be a speck of lasting optimism. A tiny gleam of light on the shore, looking in from a roiling ocean of filth, fallacy, sin, and deception. Jesus, I need to stop with these dark, illustrative tangents.

To be in love is a funny thing. Have I ever been in love? I really can't say with certainty. Within my limited scope of the world as a young adult I would yes, I have. If I think of the thousands upon millions upon millions of other people who have experienced the same thing, or something deeper, I would probably say no. Love is difficult to define. Sure, each person can come up with close to the same definition as the next guy, but what is love really? Some would say that it's the dependence of your happiness on someone else's. Okay, I can see that. Some others say it is deep and sincere affectionate feelings for another, often of the opposite sex. Yup, I can agree with that. Others say there exists a brotherly love. Yet others say there is selfless love, a genuine caring and compassionate demeanor towards everything. Still others will contest that being love is being lovedrunk, being so totally intoxicated with thoughts and feelings for the other person it completely distracts you from the rest of your life. Some say love makes a man mad, that it causes him to do things he normally wouldn't, to do rash things, to take unnecessary risks, to act weird. Some say love is to obsess, to be absorbed by something so completely and totally you would rather die than not have it. With all these differing kinds of "love", it's no wonder love is a difficult thing to define.

I find it annoying, the social conventions and norms that have evolved in my generation. Particularly, I'm talking about interactions between the two sexes. I think it good to first establish the fact that girls and guys like each other. It may seem silly, to have to state such a thing. I realize there are exceptions, (i.e. lesbians and gays) but the overall premise is obviously attraction to the opposite sex. Girls and guys like each other, but from what I have observed in my short time on this planet speaks to the contrary. When you are in kindergarten you inevitably hear that girls have cooties. Cooties are a real thing, make no mistake, and are quite uncomfortable to have, but girls in kindergarten almost certainly do not have them. If they do they stay home until the cooties are gone. I don't know why the girls had cooties, even now I really can't think of why adults or anyone else would come up with such a technique to keep playpens and playgrounds gender-segregated. Girls were icky. I remember going to day care. Girls thought boys were icky. This, although maybe somewhat true, is not. As weird as it sounds, when I was in preschool I had a girlfriend. I don't remember her name, all I remember is standing and looking sheepishly at her while she discussed how long we had been together, how committed I was to the relationship. I think back now and laugh, I hardly said a thing to her, if anything for that matter. I didn't think she was icky. I thought it was awesome, to have a girlfriend like my older brother. I, in my four-year-old naivety, thought we would grow up, get married and then do that special hug that makes babies. Oh, how laughable my lack of knowledge was that it created such binding and life-changing (though innocent) plans in a matter of minutes.

As the years progress, as you're well aware, the disconnect between male and female shrinks and shrinks, and before you know it there are hormones going absolutely nuts telling you that you are to mate with someone, preferably someone attractive with good genetics, and you're supposed to do it now. Such is what science tells us, and not what society tells us. Men and women are attracted to each other. One might assert then, that for that reason they would get along. Wrong. This is a terrible source to cite, but I'm citing it anyway as Google has failed me in producing relevant query results. The Notebook says it perfectly.

Noah: You're bored! You wouldn't be here if there wasn't something missing.

Allie: You arrogant son of a bitch!

Noah: Would you just stay with me?

Allie: Stay with you? What for?

Allie: Look at us, we're already fighting.

Noah: Well, that's what we do.

Noah: We fight.

Noah: You tell me when I'm being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you're being a pain in the ass, which you are 99% of the time.

Noah: I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings. They have like a two second rebound rate and you're back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing.

Allie: So, what?

Noah: So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. And we're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that, because I want you.

Noah: I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day.

*Allie sobs*

Noah: Will you do something for me? Please? Just picture your life for me? Thirty years from now, forty years from now, what's it look like?

Noah: If it's with that guy, go! Go! I lost you once, I think I could do it again, if I thought it's what you really wanted. 

Noah: But don't you take the easy way out.

Allie: *tears* What easy way? There is no easy way, no matter what I do, somebody gets hurt.

Noah: Would you stop thinking about what everyone wants?

Noah: Stop thinking about what I want, what he wants, what your parents want. What do you want?

*Allie shakes her head*

Noah: What do you want?

Allie: It's not that simple.

Noah: What do you want?!

Allie: It's not...

Noah: *exasperated* Damn it, what do you want?

Allie: I have to go. 

Jumping on the bandwagon

Just because it's Valentine's Day, and that I love this song.

jvarnvfiho

Watch this too.

ihofghf

Watch it.

On Familiarity #2

In the last post I talked about spirituality and religion a lot. I am not abandoning that avenue of discussion. I am but pausing for a moment to write a post that has been a long time coming.

Relationships. Relationships are everywhere, relationships are the basis of existence, for some people anyway. In high school, shit, relationships mean everything. They are life and death, can be anyway. I have seen a few relationships (after they ended) turn fatal. However, my experience as an adolescent with relationships I think has been markedly different from other people's. Oh, where to begin.

I like girls. I love girls actually. I love women more. In high school there are girls. In life, there are women. Those are two different things. In essence, girls are immature, women are not. A note to make, men are not men in high school. Many males are still boys in high school. I don't care if you have facial hair or how badass of a car you drive, you live with your parents, you are still identified with the emasculating denotation of boy. The same sort of concept applies to girls. That is, girls are immature when they're in high school, generally. Am I a boy or a man? I concede there are aspects of my personality that are rather boyish, however I would say there are a great many more aspects that are very mannish. So, we have males and females in high school, right? Lots of them are girls and boys. A far lesser number are young men and women. Boys and girls are immature. Think about it. When you were in kindergarten, or first grade, were you mature? No, you weren't. If you were, that's amazing and I think you should probably go tell some people with PhD's to study your brain. When you were in middle school, were you mature? Probably not. Maybe you were mature for your age, that's more possible, but you still probably were not mature mature. I went through a weird phase in middle school. I look back now and I see it was a very immature world view I had, and I generally just acted like a douche. After middle school, obviously, there is high school. From the time you're a freshman to the time you graduate there are drastic gains in physical and emotional development, are there not? Okay, so we have explored the wild and riveting idea that people mature as they get older. Fascinating. How does this relate to relationships though? How does it belong under a post titled "On Familiarity"?

In my experience I have observed that people who belong to the same group of friends, have similar classes, belong to the same clubs, and those who have similar socioeconomic statuses are those most likely to date. I literally have never met a popular girl who has never/is not currently date/dating an athlete. I'm being totally serious. I'm not saying it's impossible for such a trend to be broken, that's not what I'm saying at all. Popular people date popular people. Nerds date nerds. Pretty people date pretty people. Yea? I think so. It makes sense then, to assert that people who date each other have similar levels of maturity. Holy shit, revolutionary thinking. Many people don't really think of maturity when courting when someone. Yes, it may be a passing thought process, but much of what occupies a person's mind who is becoming infatuated, is exactly that, infatuating thoughts. "Oh my he's so hot, or she's so hot" "He's so good at sports, he's so popular, he throws all the cool parties". It honestly makes me want to puke, the way many young people express their love/infatuation for their "significant other". "Omg love you so much babe, happy six months <3<3<3" Just shut up. No one celebrates a six month anniversary, and it's honestly just stupid to broadcast it to the world. Young people date, and they stay together, in a relationship, but from my observations much of the relationship consists of cutesy little quips and expressions of infatuation. Conversation is about one's day, their problems, their family life, etc. You get to know someone, yes, by talking about these things, but the same effect can be acheived with friendship. The point I'm trying to illustrate is that many adolescent relationships are shallow and devoid of true meaning. I would even go so far to say that most relationships are not meaningful, whether it's teenagers or not. I am not attacking married people or people who are engaged or people who are in a committed relationship. If you're in a meaningful relationship, that's fantastic, and I wish the best for you. Quality relationships are a wonderful thing, and I think many people, especially adolescents, are not in wonderful relationships, but comfortable and socially acceptable/advantageous agreements between two people to like each other. Think about it. The popular girl dates the popular jock. This puts her in a position of power, what power there is to be gained in winning the popularity contest anyway, and gives her social approval. The popular jock experiences the same thing. Both receive general approval from their peers and move up the social ladder. It's a symbiotic relationship, one where both of them, on the outside anyway, benefits from dating the other. Entertain the idea now that they don't like each other any more and they want to break up. What happens? The girl may express some disapproval of the jock's behavior to her friends, and obviously depending on the situation the girl's friends will give her advice on what to do. They may tell her she's completely right and should dump him immediately, or they may tell her she's overreacting and it isn't worth the trouble to dump him. I find many people in just being polite convey the latter. If someone tells you, "I'm having relationship problems", what feeling do you get? Many people would probably say, "Oh I'm sorry, I'm hope you can work things out", when in fact they may be thinking, "Good! She's a total bitch and I just want to push her down the stairs every time I see her", or, "Yes! I hope they break up so I can date him/her", or, "I really don't give two shits about this person's problems, I just said that to be nice". People think of things as it effects them. It's true.

This post was sort of truncated. Next post is the same topic.

*sigh*

I know this is a bit mainstream, but I like this song too. Enjoy your face off.

I'm not surprised, not everything lasts
I've broken my heart so many times, I stopped keeping track
Talk myself in, I talk myself out
I get all worked up, then I let myself down

I tried so very hard not to lose it
I came up with a million excuses
I thought, I thought of every possibility

And I know someday that it'll all turn out
You'll make me work, so we can work to work it out
And I promise you, kid, that I give so much more than I get
I just haven't met you yet

I might have to wait, I'll never give up
I guess it's half timing, and the other half's luck
Wherever you are, whenever it's right
You'll come out of nowhere and into my life

And I know that we can be so amazing
And, baby, your love is gonna change me
And now I can see every possibility

And somehow I know that it'll all turn out
You'll make me work, so we can work to work it out
And I promise you, kid, I give so much more than I get
I just haven't met you yet

They say all's fair
In love and war
But I won't need to fight it
We'll get it right and we'll be united

And I know that we can be so amazing
And being in your life is gonna change me
And now I can see every single possibility

And someday I know it'll all turn out
And I'll work to work it out
Promise you, kid, I'll give more than I get
Than I get, than I get, than I get

Oh, you know it'll all turn out
And you'll make me work so we can work to work it out
And I promise you kid to give so much more than I get
Yeah, I just haven't met you yet

I just haven't met you yet
Oh, promise you, kid
To give so much more than I get

I said love, love, love, love
Love, love, love, love
(I just haven't met you yet)
Love, love, love, love
Love, love
I just haven't met you yet

My varying taste in music

I really like this song. There's a special someone out there I'm thinking of. Lyrics below, enjoy.

It's always been about me myself and I

If all relationships were nothing but a waste of time

I never wanted to be anybody's other half

I was happy to say that our love wouldn't last

That was the only way I knew till I met you

You make we wanna say

I do, I do, I do, do do do do do do doo

Yeah, I do, I do, I do, do do do do do do doo

Cause every time before we spend like

Maybe yes and maybe no

I can live without it, I can let it go

Ooh, I did, I get myself into

You make we wanna say I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do,

Tell me is it only me

Do you feel the same?

You know me well enough to know that I'm not playing games

I promise I won't turn around and I won't let you down

You can trust and never feel it now

Baby there's nothing, there's nothing we can't get through

So can we say

I do, I do, I do, do do do do do do doo

Oh baby, I do, I do, I do, do do do do do do doo

Cause every time before we spend like

Maybe yes and maybe no

I won't live without it, I won't let it go

Wooh Can I get myself into

You make we wanna say

Me a family, a house a family

Ooh, can we be a family?

And when I'm old and sit next to you.

And when we remember when we said

I do, I do, I do, do do do do do do doo

Oh baby, I do, I do, I do, do do do do do do doo

Cause every time before we spend like

Maybe yes and maybe no

I won't live without it, I won't let it go

Just look at what we got ourselves into

You make we wanna say I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do,

Love you

I am a better writer than most people

Don't believe me? Don't like what I write? Disagree with me? You don't have to, you're welcome to argue with me, and you're entitled to.

It's a vexing situation to be in, the one I find myself in. Of course though, as I will go into greater detail in other posts about this, this situation I'm in is completely fabricated by my own accord. I admit it's my own fault that I'm a bit different from everyone. I realize no one is identical to anyone else, I realize that everyone has varying degrees of "normalcy". What makes me so special I can call myself more different then? Do I really think that I'm that much better than everyone else to say I'm markedly and noticeably different from everyone? No, I don't think I'm necessarily better at anything than the next guy, though I know I have found I'm better at lots of things than most people. It doesn't matter to me though. If you're a regular reader (ha, funny) you already know what I value most, or what I've told you I value. I don't value numbers to denominate my performance. I don't care about grades, I don't care about percentages, I don't care about how many cups of coffee I drink, I don't care how many times I use my computer to download illegal software, I don't care how I'm ranked among my peers. I don't give a flying fuck about many things lots of people assign ridiculous and exaggerated, arbitrary values to. I don't care how much my clothes cost, how much your's cost, how many women you've had sex with, I don't care how much money you have or how many touchdowns you had in high school.


Call me narcissistic, but I think of myself before others. I am generally not a sympathetic person. I see things rationally, as often as I can anyway. I hold what I would call a sensible, secular, and level-headed perspective on most things, though I am limited in exposure to differing viewpoints and am not well-traveled. I think of myself before others because, besides obviously I exist within my own body, my own mind, I'm the one person that understands me. It sounds stupid, to say I'm the only one who understands me. Everyone, at least I hope anyway, understands themselves. Their feelings, their opinions, their, well, them. However, I would say many people don't really take time to understand themselves.


"The unexamined life is not worth living" --Socrates


I do understand myself, as much I can about myself anyways. Many people simply do not understand what I'm saying, what I'm doing, or what I'm trying to do 95% of the time. Just the other day I was trying to explain my job to someone and I couldn't even convey where geographically it is that I work. I used directions and everything. I told him exactly what it is that I do (I work in a restaurant kitchen). Still did not get it. It pisses me off honestly, when people can't comprehend even the simplest of concepts discussed in everyday conversation. If people can't do that, how am I supposed to expect them to understand anything more complicated? When people ask me what I'm thinking about I lie. It would take too long to explain what I'm actually thinking, and frankly it's none of anyone's business. Some of you might be thinking, "Well people don't understand you because you don't give them a chance. You're not sharing any information." To this I would say you're wrong. You're wrong because I discuss, or attempt to discuss anyways, several of the things I would tend to keep to myself. An example would be the situation with Israel and Iran. Bits of history that are often ignored or glazed over that turn out to be pretty important, weird physics, the complexity of society. These are all things I think about on a regular basis, and many times when I try to fit them into a discussion I'm met with a "wtf?" look. Really? Am I saying that odd and crazy things that it is just dumbfounding to think about? I once explained my take on life and how we all fit into this grand design to someone. It was a girl I said this too. I explained for probably close to half an hour. After all of it she said, "you think too much". No, I don't, so shut your face. It's infuriating. To say all of these long thought-about concepts and spill them all out in an ordered and rehearsed spiel, and I get "you think too much". Can you see now why I am annoyed with people?

I understand myself, other people don't. It's that I don't give them opportunities, it's that they don't get it. Sometimes I think of meeting someone exactly like me. A clone, if you will. If I met a clone of myself I think I would hate him. I would hate him and I would probably want to kill him. Seems contradictory, to want to kill the one other person who understands what I'm thinking. I would though, I wouldn't want him to live. It's a scary thing, to think there could be someone with the same identity as you walking around out in the world.

Blah blah blah blah blah listen to me splurge my words into a blog post. Gaaaahhhhh your face.

Went out to dinner last night. It was very good. We went to an Italian restaurant. I had lobster. My grandmother paid. She tipped $18. My brother was very conversationally retarded during dinner. It was my brothers and I, and my grandma. My brother, the weird one, talks way too fucking loud. Literally, you can hear him across the room. It's like he always has to hear himself at the same volume, so he compensates for others participating in conversation by talking over them. Shut up! Seriously, it's like the conversation just has to follow the course that he thinks it should take. It's like he's completely oblivious to social cues. He doesn't get along well with my other brother, and for reasons I will not go into he is appropriately awkward towards my grandmother. Jesus. He's infuriating and self-centered and completely cocky and smug in his demeanor. Shut up. Just shut up and quit smoking weed. Everyone knows your smart, okay? Just shut your face and cut your hair and quit acting like a fucking douchebag. One doesn't have to examine you very closely to see your nervous and anxious in social settings, especially around people who aren't stoned off their ass like yourself. Talking loud and not letting conversation take it's course is not how you disguise that, in fact, it does the opposite. If you'd like to exude such a countenance that suggests you aren't socially handicapped, you just act like you're having a good time. Also, don't take money from the cupboard without telling anyone. I need money to survive as well.

If you can't already tell, I don't much care for my brother much of the time. Sad to think he's older than me, and I'm more mature than he is. I'm not kidding you, my whole family will back me up on this. Mom goes on vacation, she leaves me with the vast majority of the money and leaves me in charge. Stupid bastard.

This post has a lot of negative energy, and I would just like to note that I'm not aiming to burden you with that negative energy. Think of this blog as a toilet, and I'm simply eliminating this negative energy via this blog. It really does help me feel less anxious, more content and calm about life.