cheating made easy. that’s america for ya…or maybe just human nature.

i don’t think i’m ever gonna get married.

now, there are a number of reasons for this, but the one that flashes like a neon headline in my mind is that i’m so afraid of marrying someone who will cheat on me. over the past few years, most of my idealized conceptions of love vanished, and it is difficult now to locate the idealist in me. i know she’s there, hidden and buried somewhere deep within, and though she may never rear her ugly head with her rose-colored glasses again, i know she’ll never really die. every girl, no matter how jaded and damaged, wants to believe in love above all else.

irene sent me the link to this time article today, and i was truly appalled at its contents.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1907542,00.html
it is basically about a website that gives you an iphone app that has people pay $50 to sign up to participate in an extramarital affair. it’s basically eharmony.com for married people. the advertised benefits are that it eliminates the paper trail since it’s from your phone so that your spouse is less likely to catch you. ugh. the tagline for the webiste is: “life is short. have an affair.” UGH. they qualify that they are merely the platform and don’t think cheating is a good thing. um…WHAT? you’re creating a website designed for the express purpose of helping people cheat, yet maintaining that cheating is not a good thing? ridiculous. at least exhibit a little consistency. if it’s not a good thing, why promote it? to capitalize on the temptations that people have is NOT an acceptable answer, especially when they give a moral response concerning whether cheating is good or bad.

this grates against my most core principle, i.e., commitment, and seriously makes me not only upset but fearful. as the world grows increasingly technologically savvy, it seems that there are more and more outlets to secretly do whatever you want to do. again, this abundance of choices leads to horrifying possibilities that one may never have seriously considered, were it not for the ease and accessibility of it all. yes, it may cross everyone’s mind at one point or another, but to act upon that is an entirely different matter. the chance that someone will act upon something they know is wrong increases with the diminished possibility that someone will catch them. i seriously wonder how we’d all live if we felt like nobody would ever catch us. scary thought.

now here’s when it’s gonna sound emo and self-bashing, but honestly i guess it boils down to the fact that i KNOW that i suck and that i’m crazy and that i don’t think i’m great or fun enough to attract someone to me forever. yes, for a period of time, i can put my best foot forward. but it doesn’t last. i am who i am at the end of the day, and if given the chance, i would never choose me to spend the rest of my life with. i’m crazy, untrusting, cynical, messy, scatterbrained, and the list goes on. i really would not choose me. so why would i want anyone else to?

and even worse is that, beyond these insecurities that i already have about myself, business at things like this friggin website is booming and making it that much easier and more socially acceptable for people to engage in this appalling behavior. sigh.

so yes. perhaps i will expound on some other reasons later. but to add to my already long list of reasons why i will not marry, here’s to ashleymadison.com. i’d like to give your creator a friggin piece of my mind.

 

choice.

don’t dream too far
don’t lose sight of who you are

every so often we long to steal
to the land of what-might-have-been
but that doesn’t soften the ache we feel
when reality sets back in

don’t wish
don’t start
wishing only wounds the heart.

whew. liking something i wrote enough to publish it is becoming increasingly difficult (even though i only have three readers, heh heh). i decided to just give it a rest — that search for the perfectly written entry — and just write some random thoughts out. take a page outta carol’s book =)

something i’ve been thinking about all semester is whether having choices is a positive luxury or a negative one. past generations didn’t have the benefit of making whatever decisions they wanted to make. they were limited in their job selections so the vast majority basically became blue-collar workers in american society. some just committed to marry due to parental suggestions, and they stuck with it regardless of romantic interest.

however, in our day and age, our society is presented with SO many choices. (obviously, this is not a blanket statement over all american citizens, but more geared towards the middle class demographic of which i am a part.) if we’re unhappy with our jobs, we can get new ones in a different field. if we’re unhappy with our majors, we fill out a form and try out another one. if we’re unhappy with a relationship, we break up — and our appalling divorce rate testifies to and validates it.

basically, if we’re unhappy, there’s always a way out.

when i met up with pastor min, he was saying how my definition of love is commitment. when some people say they want love, they mean they want to have that genuine, authentic feeling, that romantic connection, and that is the deepest desire of their hearts. while i think that it would be amazing if something as ephemeral as feelings could last or be relied upon, i don’t believe they are reliable in the least, and i think that commitment is of far greater value than such transient feelings. knowing that hardships are imminent but committing anyways — this, from my perspective, is of infinitely more worth than the tenuous basis of craving a mere emotion.

however, i think i am practical to a fault, and this value i place on commitment stems from that. this pragmatism has drained much joy from my life because i have lost the capacity to dream. if something is not an attainable goal, why waste the heart and mind thinking about and pining for it? i used to take this practicality as a positive attribute, but i think it has resulted in a permanent establishment of the cynic in me. i constantly wonder if it’s possible to be realistic without being cynical.

so to return to my question of whether choice is good or bad: when are you exercising the positive aspects of choice, and when are you abusing choice so you can avoid what you don’t want? when does that point occur where reneging on a commitment becomes acceptable because the alternative would be disastrous? i think i fall too much on one end of the extreme where i think all commitments should be binding and there should be no quitting point, and i used to think that this was a good thing. but maybe i’m wrong and you should get out if you feel like you’ll be miserable forever. i just have this mentality that nothing’s doomed so it seems like a giving-up mentality, but maybe that IS being realistic. oy my mind. this semester has screwed with me a LOT. i feel all messed up in the brain.

anyhow. this was all over the place and had no conclusion. but HEY better than nothing =)

also. i am sweating. it takes me forever to fall asleep in this heat, preventing sleep from gracing me and therefore causing me to stay up later, think longer, and wonder more. i don’t know if this is a good or a bad thing, but i suppose it’s better than being mindless.

SO here’s to another sleepless night of pondering questions with no answers. good NIGHTTTT.

 

You’re Not Hopeless.

Charlotte & Bob, Lost In Translation

I watched this movie tonight for the second time.  The first time I watched it was when it first came out in 2003, and I just reeeeally didn’t get why people thought it was great.  But tonight when I watched it again, I got it.  Perhaps it’s the six years of life in between that did it, that made me connect with and feel these lonely, misunderstood people, but yes, something was definitely different this time around.

The image above is from my favorite scene (um minus the disc menu options, sigh) where they’re just talking about life and Charlotte says she’s stuck and wonders if things ever get easier.  Bob is telling her about how marriage will always be hard and how he felt like he and his wife both changed when they had kids, etc.  And she’s falling asleep while they’re talking, but she says in her half-awake stupor that her husband thinks she’s so snotty (because she cuts people down if they’re stupid, which is also a habit that I have acquired).  And Bob pauses for a moment, then responds, “You’re not hopeless.”  And then he puts her hand on her foot (pictured above), and they fall asleep.

I loved that they were two misunderstood people, not just due to the language barrier as foreigners in Japan but by their own loved ones, by the people who should have known them best.  Even though they were surrounded by people, they were alone and were acutely aware of that aching emptiness.  They tried to attain some sort of experience where they would be understood, but ultimately, they found that understanding in each other, purely as friends, and the bond that was forged was exactly what they both needed to believe that, despite appearances, all was not lost.  And I felt like that was what the movie was about: Hope.  He, as the older, wiser one, knew that she wasn’t hopeless, and the unwavering belief he had in her gave her reason to hope again for herself.

I think everyone has a void in their hearts, that empty feeling that Bob and Charlotte both felt.  And I think there are a lot of people who try to just fill their void with whoever is around, whoever will give them that attention they crave.  But I think there comes a point when we are brutally honest with ourselves that we realize that some voids never get filled.  Sometimes gaping holes are pierced in our souls, and no matter what we do, they don’t get patched.  We try to replace our burned bridges with new ones in hopes that the old will be forgotten.  But the ashes remain, painful reminders of the things that could have been, but never were.

It’s surprising how long I can convince myself of these things, that things are okay, that wounds have healed, that I have numbed myself and willingly relinquished my right to feel.  But it always comes back!!!  Sometime when I’m driving, or in bed in the middle of the night, or taking a walk on the quad (I know, super emo, sorry), it just HITS me…and I can’t lie to myself anymore.  No matter how hard I try to be un-empty, I can’t.  The void remains.  And it’s pretty heartbreaking, I’m not gonna lie.

All this to say, I think I just need to believe that someone is gently holding my foot and telling me, You’re not hopeless.  On my better days, I hope it’s Jesus who is doing that, who will be my older, wiser Bob to the younger, confused Charlotte, telling me with unwavering support and belief that I’m NOT hopeless.  Even though I’m snotty and cut down stupid people, even though I can’t figure out why I am the way that I am and behave like this irrational irritable idiot, even though I don’t know why I can’t remember things that should not be forgotten, even though I am constantly in this paradoxical state of simultaneous pride and repulsion at myself—there is still hope.  Again: Just gotta believe.

 

The End.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

I’m graduating (for the last time) tomorrow morning.  The fruit of one year’s misery will be in my hand in the form of a fake master’s degree (the real one is mailed to you in July).  Sometimes when I distance myself from the situation a little bit more, I can’t really believe that I’ve labored so hard for a piece of paper that signifies a change in status.  Was it really worth it?

…

Yeah, the $10,000 yearly salary increase does make it seem pretty worth it, no lie.

My thoughts are pretty vapid, which is weird considering how much academic work I’ve done this year.  I found solace in a busy schedule and the fact that there was never any time to sit around and think.  So I didn’t.  And now when I try to get myself to, I find that I can’t.  Just empty space in that thing I used to call my beloved mind.  It feels like all the substance has been sucked out of me, and there’s just this strange bitter shell left of who I used to be.  So with all this newfound freedom to spend my time as I choose, I have one main goal: to be deep again.  Lame, I know.

So though it’s the end of one (long) phase of my life, maybe it’s true: something needs to end before I can really start over.  I think I’ve been wanting a restart for the past couple years, and maybe there really is no way to acquire that without just leaving the past behind — in this case, physically.  So I’m leaving the place I’ve chosen to be my home for the past seven (wow) years, and I’m going to  restart.  As much as the possibility of being unemployed next year drives me crazy in my mind and keeps me from falling asleep at night, sometimes you just gotta know what you can’t handle anymore and leave it all behind.

The unfortunate thing about fresh starts is that they’re, well, impossible.  The me in the new place will be the same as the me in the old place, and a change of scenery will not yield a change of heart.  But I hope that it will be at least a step in that direction towards change and that I’ll believe more this time around that forward movement is guaranteed, even when it seems like an impossibility.  Just gotta believe.