They say that a man who marries his mistress creates an opening in that position.
They say you can stand at the eye of a hurricane and be perfectly safe and calm.
I think that is where I am standing now. I think that I have been standing in the eye all of my life. I have created a whirlwind around me. Everything traveling at different speeds: going around, coming around. I’ve been in the middle, pretty much safe. Unaffected by the devastation going on around me caused by me.
I can see people in the hurricane. Swept up, carried away. Innocent people. I can see money going around. Being tossed higher and higher until I can’t reach it anymore. My education; my family; my past; my present are all in there. They spin and spin.
And the closer they are to me at the bottom, standing comfortably – the faster they are spinning. My head looks up and I observe the chaos. And I see it is time for a change. I need to step out.
People are often said to be walking around with their eyes either closed or at least blinkered in some way.
But it is not their physical eyes that they need to open: it’s their mind’s eye.
Those who are blind to change; racial intolerance: sexual intolerance; xenophobia; techno phobia; all need to open their mind’s eye so they are aware of the differences in the opposite sex, other cultures, the benefit that can be gained from computerisation; realise the beauty in these differences to overcome the fear they have that is keeping their eyes closed.
Would a self-policing society help overcome the problems we observe in today’s society. Natural justice needs to be taken to the grass-root level. Physical apprehension by three people is potentially a better deterrent than a fine for ?100. If it doesn’t deter completely, at least it would ease some minds in the community. The judicial system should be re-written. Email me on this point.
The simplicities of life are no longer celebrated.
What you consider to be barriers [to your actions], others consider to be mere hurdles.
People lack the knowledge and understanding to rejoice in the coming of spring and the imminent beauty of the season.
In a world where destruction is commonplace, murder and death are no longer scorned upon, merely taken for granted or ignored, the simple fact that new life is beginning, shoots are running and flowers arc blossoming should hold some meaning and influence.
They should at least be able to influence the emotion if not the nature of a thinking race that is inherently suicidal. The beauty of a tree is simplicity itself. Nature expressing her evolutionary genius in the cyclical harmony of the tree and human. As it breathes out, we breathe in. But what happens when we want to expand our roads? That tree is in the way, so we chop it down and strangulate the countryside. As roads get bigger, trees become less and less important. Cars are taking over. More strangulation occurs until eventually the human race has to learn how to breathe carbon monoxide as the tree takes its final breathe out and we can no longer breathe off its life.
They say romance is dead.
I say it never existed.
It is a fallacy created by women to pressure their intended into treating them with the respect that they should be treated with from the moment they meet. It derives from the years of oppression suffered by women for their role in society. It is a device used to create a standard to which men are to conform. Should they fail to meet this standard, the woman is likely to seek romance else-where.
I offer the simple fact that romance is just a variation on the theme of love.
If a man wants to walk hand-in-hand with his girlfriend down a busy street, it is not because he wishes to be considered romantic in public, but instead a gesture that shows other people who belongs to whom. This is also true of the woman.
If he wishes to take a walk through the woods with his lady friend in the early evening, romance is far from his mind. She will do it because it touches the romantic soft-spot. He will do it because he loves that woman and perhaps wants to spend time with her alone.
Why are two candles, soft music and dinner considered romantic? It is because it is a standard created by women to which they would like to be treated. It is not a romantic gesture on the man’s part nor is he living up to his romantic expectations: he is merely wanting to spend time in the company of the woman he loves for she is his partner and they enjoy each other’s company.
Does he kiss her all over during foreplay because it is a romantic prelude to sex? Does he do it to turn her on knowing that the skin of a woman is more sensitive than that of a man? He does it because he knows she likes it and he likes doing things that make her happy. Not because he rates high on the romance scale when his partner goes to work on Monday to tell her girl friends.
So I say that romance is not a trait some men lack: it is a loving that some men are incapable of.
This makes them seem cold-hearted, but it doesn’t mean they do not love their woman any less than the next man. It is because they do not fit into this ideal created by the female society that they are perhaps forsaken as unromantic. This is highly unfair to expect all men to conform to a level of love and understanding that women take for granted. It is in a woman’s nature to consider romance a major part of their relationship but the man is more prone to show his affection in a different manner.
Of course there are some men who take this level of affection for granted also. This may be due to their greater understanding of women or because they possess a feminine side that they are secure to show in public or to the one they love. Perhaps he is considered the man of the 90’s, again an unfair simile.
To conclude: romance is an abstract concept that can only be positively pursued by the more sympathetic man, but one that all possess to varying degrees. What one considers romantic, another does for the need or want.
The same as love, affection, tenderness, passion, devotion and respect.
Strength of character is often misplaced.
The man with the outspoken mind may not necessarily be the most extrovert person. Yet public perception would denote such a case as a strong character.
The man you see walking down the street with the perfect body, huge biceps and ripped stomach may appear to be strong. But inside he is crying out for that certain something: that something he knows is there, but is suppressing it for fear of mockery, acceptance or segregation.
Is it possible that this fine specimen of a man lacks the strength within to accept the feminine side to his persona? All these years he has been building on his masculinity; he has neglected a part of him that is fundamental to his pattern of thought. How does my hair look? Do my pecs look firm? Am I attractive?
By conformation to the masculine ideal that a man should be broad-shouldered with a good strong chin is perhaps an involuntary oppression of the mellifluous nature inside of him of which he sees, but wishes to hide.
This man has the physical strength to bench-press a double-decker bus, but he lacks the emotional strength, clarity of character and security in his own masculinity to admit that the guy next to him is perhaps attractive in some way.
He also needs the wisdom to understand that this line of thought does not mean he has any homosexual tendencies. Without this characteristic, this hidden emotional content that forbids him to appreciate beauty in its most simple form, he is vulnerable to attack from the smallest man, who may take control using his psychological advantage and completely destroy the man inside.
The inherent femininity in all men is apparent in me, but I lack the strength to take it any further.
I feel like a time traveler trapped between two dimensions.
I’ve just taken a trip to the past. It was beautiful. Birds singing; kids playing; flowers growing and rivers flowing.
I would like to stay there forever. And I can with my time machine. Only it’s not so easy.
One of my dials has broken and I can’t go back to my past anymore.
I am frustrated and angry because it was my stupid fault that the dial no longer functions. I became weak. I allowed my character to falter for a moment, and in a fit of rage, I hit the dash board of my time machine with my fist.
What can I do? I don’t want to go forward, back to my present time for the simple reason there is no love there.
I drown in the circumstantial pool of my past actions.
Backtracking is impossible. Forward travel inadvisable. Futile perhaps?
Now all I can do is sit and look out of the round windows of my time machine at the pretty colours that swirl and kick and curl and lick past me. I observe their gaiety and wish I was inherent in the space-time continuum instead of this passive reflector.
Perhaps I can’t fix the dial at all. But when I get back to my future, there may be a way to reconnect my past to the future allowing me once again to swim in the sea of tranquility I once briefly had.
Perhaps I do not deserve to fix it? Time will tell.
To succeed, one must have vision: have foresight.
One must be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
But it is not enough just to see the light:
You must feel the light.
Allow the warmth of the light to envelope you.
To embrace you.
To realise your light, you need to understand it.
When you understand that the light cannot be contained,
You understand your mortality.
But when you realise your light can be touched,
You realise your destiny.
My paradox persists:
I never knew I had a heart until somebody broke it!
All the causes worth fighting for are gone.
There are no more adventures to follow.
The last ultimate adventure is your sanity.
The final chapter is the loss of your soul in this godless world.
If you feel with your heart, things will seem difficult. If you take the feel factor away and think with your mind about the logical, rational implications of your actions, not your feelings regarding the ramifications, then you are on your way to being a more positive person. This does not necessarily mean you are devoid of any emotion. It just means that you are more in control of your thoughts and do not intend to let your heart ruin your life when you realise there is so much out there for a positive person to do. This is, in fact the definition of a man.
I wonder how many moths are inadvertently killed by their attraction to the headlight of an on-coming vehicle? And how many rabbits are killed because we are going too fast along a quiet stretch of road? It seems very unfair that we kill in a situation that is so unfamiliar to the victim. The deaths do not serve a purpose and all we care about is the relative damage to our car. I do not want the deaths of thousands of moths on my conscience or my windscreen. I may come back in another life as a moth and actively seek out that elusive bright light in the sky, then end up as a reason for a car wash on the front window of some hideous Capri.
On a Swiss Army knife in most countries, you can purchase a camper’s tool which will have, amongst other things, a knife, fork and spoon. I was wondering if the manufacturers (Victorinox) of the Swiss Army knife catered for our Asian brothers and produced a knife with chop sticks on for camping in the Far East???
Is youth a condition of the mind curable only by experience?
As technology changes the way we perceive our surroundings, I think it is time we took action to use this perception to benefit those who are less than fortunate. Take the people you see every day walking through London, chatting to themselves. You look at them, at their dishevelled clothing and their scruffy hair and immediately think they are mad.
Walking further down Bond Street, you then see a man dressed not too differently also talking to himself, but he has an earpiece in his ear and a length of wire coming from it. You assume he is on the phone.
I say we should give the same earpieces to all the so called “mad” people in London and watch how the perception changes overnight.
What is it with women? They seem to have something inherent that makes it impossible for a man to understand them.
If a woman has a problem and she shares it with the man she loves, it is natural for that man to try to come up with a solution.
How does she react to this? She doesn’t tell him what he can do to help the situation: she doesn’t give him any ideas as to the correct route to take to go about solving the problems. No! Instead, she tells him everything he can’t do; everything he didn’t do before and everything he wouldn’t do in the future.
And when he asks her how to do something, what is the middle ground, she tells him she doesn’t want to be the instigator all the time and that he should find things out for himself.
Where does all of this come from? Who thinks of all these philosophies like: When a woman says she is thirsty, she doesn’t want him to go and get her a glass of water. She wants him to relate to her and say that he too was once thirsty and knows what it is like to need a glass of water. I think it is so tacky to try to express yourself in every action you take. Yes, you can make a statement, but there is a limit you can make before people see them as obscene. Then your statements lose their credibility.
If all he needs to do is listen, then tell him.
Don’t tell him after you have made him feel so useless he doubts his own credibility. I see nothing wrong with telling someone they are experiencing difficulties and they could perhaps deal with them ‘like this’.
This is not a solution: it is a possibility.
Hard to believe this was written by a high schoolstudent… So well written, and so very true…
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.
We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less.
We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time.
We have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but less solutions; more medicine, but less wellness.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.
We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life; we’ve added years to life, not life to years.
We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbour.
We’ve conquered outer space, but not inner space; we’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve split the atom, but not our prejudice.
We have higher incomes, but lower morals; we’ve become long on quantity, but short on quality.
These are the times of tall men and short character; steep profits and shallow relationships.
These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure, but less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition.
These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes.
It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stockroom;
a time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to forward this page and make a difference…or just close your Explorer…