Harriet Richardson Ames is my latest and maybe only hero. She died a few days ago, aged 100. A day before, she had accomplished her dream: she got her degree as an NH teacher.
The over-achievers who knew precisely what they wanted to become since they were 6, laughed at such news. Some admired her tenacity. Others pitied her. What was the purpose of getting a degree at 100? Self-accomplishment and personal satisfaction, obviously. Yes, but what was the pragmatic utility of it? We do eventually things as we need to see through a practical finality. The reward of a long or short term effort. We work a whole month, we get the pay check. We study, we get a degree. We get a degree, we get a better job. We write, we get recognition. We sing, we get fame. We do a good deed, we get helper's high. We mate, we get an orgasm. We work on a practical reward system. Why did Harriet want her degree a day before she died? Sure, her message is simple: follow your dream, no matter what. Aim as high as you want, and go for it.
Aiming very high is not always recommendable. Your skills and potential might not help your, at times, unrealistic desire to get where you dream of. Ok, what is the solution then? Have realistic expectations. Harriet's expectation was not realistic yet she had a real stake setting. And went for it.
If things that we do are eventually for self- accomplishment it should not be an embarrassment if we go to school at 50. Or 100. Yet, it is.
Why are we then striving to get a pile of diplomas since we are teens? Because we want to be successful. What is success, then? A friend of mine made me re-consider what I thought of success. I thought being successful was to make an orchid re-bloom, be able to spend time with my daughter in between joggling a full-time job, mono-parental family and going to university again to get a second degree.
My friend added a new component to my modest, yet heartwarming list: peer recognition. Success is also a level of status in society and from where he was standing, it was not enough not be a failure to be considered successful. Success means also recognition, creation, and reaching a goal. What was my goal? Hold on, I knew the answer to this one. My goal is, to, ahem, hold on, and let me think a bit. Yes, my goal is to live. Bingo. Did I pass?
Oh well, I got newsflash for you. Just living is not exactly successful. Sure if you are a rabbit chased by a hawk, surviving is being considered a successful action. But this is not the case. I am no rabbit. I have to live creatively. And to get collegial appreciation.
Assume I create but I have no peer recognition, would this make me less successful? Then Vincent Van Gogh was a failure. Actually, he was. In fact, he did not sell a single painting during his lifetime.
Education certainly is not the ultimate scale to measure success, otherwise there would not be so many unemployed highly educated people or successful college drop-outs. Woody Allen, Bill Gates, John Glenn (the first man to orbit the earth), Michael Dell (yes, the same Dell like the laptop am typing right now) are all people without degrees.
On the other hand, Hollywood is the anti-example that education insures success. Let alone how success is defined these days (a sad and odd combo of social status, financial security, level of education, admiration, notoriety, goal achieving, PhDs collecting etc), there are a few common traits that successful people had in common: at a certain point, they did not care what others told them; they desired something very much and went for it regardless of their age; they did not consider peer recognition as a mandatory condition. And most of the times, they had unrealistic expectations. If Tversky and Kahneman were right, we prefer avoiding losses to making gains. So, dream on, eyes wide-open and go for it. What do you have to lose?
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The lonely wolves
Have you ever wondered what animal resides inside you? That after so many years of soul searching and spiritual vagabondage, you might have ended up as wolves, lambs, worms or horseshoe crabs?
In 1927, Herman Hesse wrote a book, called the Steppenwolf, in which he spoke of the struggle and the split between our humanity and our wolf like aggression. Apparently, Hesse re-discovered the wheel and what the ancient Greeks kept on preaching about our dualist nature. A concept that was taken over by Plato and Aristotle, but dates all the way back to Zarathustra, the Persian prophet from 18th century BC.
Octavian Paler, a Romanian contemporary writer, a lonely wolf himself, thought that the other wolves would tear us apart, if they knew that our howl is, in fact, weeping. Painful.
Funny, how many of us identify with lonely wolves, while wolves live in fact in packs. Are we naturally born to live alone yet meant to mingle with the crowds?
Outside the animal regna, in social terms, a lone wolf is someone who commits violent acts in support of an ideology, but does so alone, outside of any command structure. From this point of view, a lone wolf is a terrorist. It is admirable to have an ideology, but even within the terrorist organizations you need to obey the rules. Even terrorists need order, discipline and structure. Does it sound familiar to you? Yes, to me too. Not much of a difference, is there?
Hesse said in the Steppenwolf and later on developed in Narcissus and Goldmund, that as humans, we have two natures - a spiritual and elevated one, and a low, and animalistic one.
From this point of view, we were naturally born schizophrenics and our ancestral unhappiness might result from a permanent and irresolvable struggle between the two.
Thus, to obtain peace of mind, we need to come to terms and make peace with the animal inside us. Simpler said, than done. If the animal inside us would be a docile poodle, that should not be hard. Make peace with the animal inside you. Have you tried to come to terms or resonate with a wolf? What about a lemming, a tarantula, a Black Widow or a scorpion?
On an unrelated yet converging to the point topic, Cartesian dualism underlined rather a physical versus mental dual nature. Some 500 years later, Freud picked up on the idea and came up with the unconscious concept, which at Herman Hesse- a contemporary of Freud- was the wolf part. At Freud, the unconscious was the place where we repress the slaps we would like to give, the curses would wish to shout, the punches we would so generously share and the sexual orgies we dream about. Freud himself was not an original. And no, I am not picking up on Freud because I am anti-Semitic or puritan. I just think he was not original. He was courageous, true, but not original.
Man’s greatest chimera is not the achievement of happiness but the idea that he owns original thoughts. What is original? The virtue of introducing new ideas? The power of being unconventional? Since when being unconventional come to mean original and not anarchic? Is then anarchy original? There is nothing out there that is original, not even nature. Not even our genetic evolution is original. It is said that chimps share about 98% of their DNA with humans. Isn’t obvious that chimps have actually gone through more genetic change than us? Any human venture to discover or invent something new is pure rubbish. There is nothing original in life except the moment one creates and shares with another one. That is our uniqueness. How we relate to people, how we vulgarly and sentimentally display our emotions, weaknesses and flaws. It is not our strength that makes us unique, it is our weakness. So can we blame Freud for not being original?
Much later on, in 1966, Bannister described like no one else the human nature, which in my humble opinion, is the most accurate definition that someone adventured to give: Man is basically a battlefield ... a dark cellar in which a well-bred spinster lady and a sex-crazed monkey are for ever engaged in mortal combat, the struggle being refereed by a rather nervous bank clerk.
True, we are all humans, as defined by biology: biped position, major usage of the frontal lobe, hairless and clawless, altruistic and irrational. Some say, we are dual by nature. Others say dualism cannot coexist with causal interaction, and they are certainly and irremediably divorced. In fact, they were never married. How are the memories concerning consciousness created if consciousness can exist autonomously of reality? One easy way out of this futile dilemma is to apply the Franciscan Friar 's razor (Ockham). It seems to always work when dealing with more choices. Reduce the number of choices to as few as possible. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitate. Do not assume the existence of more entities more than it is necessary.
Leaving the boring theory aside, and sticking with our fable, at a closer look, you will notice that some of us are indeed dogs-which throw themselves on the master’s coffin, loyal, dependent, clingy, immature, naïve, aggressive, not very smart; others are cats- nonchalant, self-sufficient, independent, insensitive; others are bulls- good for hard work, thick necks, low IQ, usually being given extra tasks by the smaller but smarter cats; others are foxes-witty, slick, sly, scruple less, they lie, cheat or steal while looking straight into your eyes; others are doves-innocent, clean, pure, untouched by world’s evilness, that most of the times choose to seclude themselves far from the mad crowd in a desperate attempt to preserve their spiritual cleanliness; my favorites, the brainless but highly decorative peacocks-which they display their colorful plumage and flip their wings to get attention but this is pretty much all they know; the birds of pray- which hunt you down to China town and eat your corpse; the monkeys- usually found in the offices, working for peanuts; the sheep- regularly seen in large groups during election days, fake revolutions, coup d’états, civil wars, religious skirmishes; the sharks- lawyers, policy makers, aficionados.
And this is OK. As long as we know to which category we and the others belong to and we don’t mix races, in order not to risk to be eaten alive, is fine. Pretty much like in the animal regnum, sheep don’t mix with wolves, doves don’t mix with foxes, and monkeys don’t show their back to the bigger and more sexually frustrated gorillas.
Sure my story is very farfetched and I made no point. I have shed no light upon dualism, Freud or Hesse, or even personality typologies. What I humbly did, was to raise more questions. Yes, I considered that are not enough. So, what animal resides inside you?
In 1927, Herman Hesse wrote a book, called the Steppenwolf, in which he spoke of the struggle and the split between our humanity and our wolf like aggression. Apparently, Hesse re-discovered the wheel and what the ancient Greeks kept on preaching about our dualist nature. A concept that was taken over by Plato and Aristotle, but dates all the way back to Zarathustra, the Persian prophet from 18th century BC.
Octavian Paler, a Romanian contemporary writer, a lonely wolf himself, thought that the other wolves would tear us apart, if they knew that our howl is, in fact, weeping. Painful.
Funny, how many of us identify with lonely wolves, while wolves live in fact in packs. Are we naturally born to live alone yet meant to mingle with the crowds?
Outside the animal regna, in social terms, a lone wolf is someone who commits violent acts in support of an ideology, but does so alone, outside of any command structure. From this point of view, a lone wolf is a terrorist. It is admirable to have an ideology, but even within the terrorist organizations you need to obey the rules. Even terrorists need order, discipline and structure. Does it sound familiar to you? Yes, to me too. Not much of a difference, is there?
Hesse said in the Steppenwolf and later on developed in Narcissus and Goldmund, that as humans, we have two natures - a spiritual and elevated one, and a low, and animalistic one.
From this point of view, we were naturally born schizophrenics and our ancestral unhappiness might result from a permanent and irresolvable struggle between the two.
Thus, to obtain peace of mind, we need to come to terms and make peace with the animal inside us. Simpler said, than done. If the animal inside us would be a docile poodle, that should not be hard. Make peace with the animal inside you. Have you tried to come to terms or resonate with a wolf? What about a lemming, a tarantula, a Black Widow or a scorpion?
On an unrelated yet converging to the point topic, Cartesian dualism underlined rather a physical versus mental dual nature. Some 500 years later, Freud picked up on the idea and came up with the unconscious concept, which at Herman Hesse- a contemporary of Freud- was the wolf part. At Freud, the unconscious was the place where we repress the slaps we would like to give, the curses would wish to shout, the punches we would so generously share and the sexual orgies we dream about. Freud himself was not an original. And no, I am not picking up on Freud because I am anti-Semitic or puritan. I just think he was not original. He was courageous, true, but not original.
Man’s greatest chimera is not the achievement of happiness but the idea that he owns original thoughts. What is original? The virtue of introducing new ideas? The power of being unconventional? Since when being unconventional come to mean original and not anarchic? Is then anarchy original? There is nothing out there that is original, not even nature. Not even our genetic evolution is original. It is said that chimps share about 98% of their DNA with humans. Isn’t obvious that chimps have actually gone through more genetic change than us? Any human venture to discover or invent something new is pure rubbish. There is nothing original in life except the moment one creates and shares with another one. That is our uniqueness. How we relate to people, how we vulgarly and sentimentally display our emotions, weaknesses and flaws. It is not our strength that makes us unique, it is our weakness. So can we blame Freud for not being original?
Much later on, in 1966, Bannister described like no one else the human nature, which in my humble opinion, is the most accurate definition that someone adventured to give: Man is basically a battlefield ... a dark cellar in which a well-bred spinster lady and a sex-crazed monkey are for ever engaged in mortal combat, the struggle being refereed by a rather nervous bank clerk.
True, we are all humans, as defined by biology: biped position, major usage of the frontal lobe, hairless and clawless, altruistic and irrational. Some say, we are dual by nature. Others say dualism cannot coexist with causal interaction, and they are certainly and irremediably divorced. In fact, they were never married. How are the memories concerning consciousness created if consciousness can exist autonomously of reality? One easy way out of this futile dilemma is to apply the Franciscan Friar 's razor (Ockham). It seems to always work when dealing with more choices. Reduce the number of choices to as few as possible. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitate. Do not assume the existence of more entities more than it is necessary.
Leaving the boring theory aside, and sticking with our fable, at a closer look, you will notice that some of us are indeed dogs-which throw themselves on the master’s coffin, loyal, dependent, clingy, immature, naïve, aggressive, not very smart; others are cats- nonchalant, self-sufficient, independent, insensitive; others are bulls- good for hard work, thick necks, low IQ, usually being given extra tasks by the smaller but smarter cats; others are foxes-witty, slick, sly, scruple less, they lie, cheat or steal while looking straight into your eyes; others are doves-innocent, clean, pure, untouched by world’s evilness, that most of the times choose to seclude themselves far from the mad crowd in a desperate attempt to preserve their spiritual cleanliness; my favorites, the brainless but highly decorative peacocks-which they display their colorful plumage and flip their wings to get attention but this is pretty much all they know; the birds of pray- which hunt you down to China town and eat your corpse; the monkeys- usually found in the offices, working for peanuts; the sheep- regularly seen in large groups during election days, fake revolutions, coup d’états, civil wars, religious skirmishes; the sharks- lawyers, policy makers, aficionados.
And this is OK. As long as we know to which category we and the others belong to and we don’t mix races, in order not to risk to be eaten alive, is fine. Pretty much like in the animal regnum, sheep don’t mix with wolves, doves don’t mix with foxes, and monkeys don’t show their back to the bigger and more sexually frustrated gorillas.
Sure my story is very farfetched and I made no point. I have shed no light upon dualism, Freud or Hesse, or even personality typologies. What I humbly did, was to raise more questions. Yes, I considered that are not enough. So, what animal resides inside you?
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Not emotionally intelligent, just sentimental fools
Pigeons are not very smart birds. However, they are praised for their messaging qualities. Some times are given as example for their orientation and navigation skills. It seems they always find their way home. During summer, some pigeons mistake their own image reflected in the glass window for other birds (of a feather that flock together) and smash into the buildings. Tragic, how a creature, which can find its way home after such a long road, can die out of foolishness or vanity. The real explanation is because pigeons have monocular vision rather than binocular one so they bob their heads as they cannot perceive depth. We all have pigeon moments, when we are not able to perceive depth. The depth of a concept, of an emotion, of a feeling, of another human.
In such moments we become emotionally crippled.
Kaput, finished, defunct, wrecked, sensitively ruined, out of use, outdated, invalid, handicapped, non-operational, obsolete.
Quantum Physics claims that the act of observing something changes it, hence the moment we start observing love, we commence deteriorating it. Death begins when we are born. Love starts dying when we fall in love. We are the moral assassins and gravediggers of our own love. It’s not Quantum Physics that killed love. We did.
We should not pretend to be someone who is ‘fashionable sensitive but too cool to care’ or some circumstantially oriented positivist, just to make it through the modern world.
We are what we are, but moreover we are what we can become: old fashioned and conventional romantics defined by conservative tragedy. Not emotionally intelligent, just sentimental fools.
Drama queens with an extra touch of bitter-sweetness, which comes attached to our hearts, like an extra DNA line to the genetic zigzag. We are the masters of heartily calamity. Our heart map is ruled by the Milky Way of personal dramas. We take everything seriously, including ourselves.
It is not once, twice or thrice, but a million of times we tried to speak of love, hoping that if we desiccate it, like one would dissect a skinned frog in a biology laboratory, we would eventually manage to strip off its semi-divine halo. We took love in the lab instead of taking it into our hearts.
We encouraged and inflated the sarcastic in us, cowardly cloaking our sentiments and authentic beliefs behind an ironic and iron like barricade.
Let us cover ourselves with ashes and spiritually self-flogging in the agora. Let us be apologetic for not being tough, arduous, brutal or malevolent.
For being weak, impressionable, major weepers, incurable romantics, emotionally adventurous and unstable.
We truthfully hoped this denying and agnostic attitude would cure us or our quench and insane desire of finding what love is: the chemical mixture, the misattributed emotion, the trick of Mother Nature, a word invented by men to get free sex. It didn’t.
Our hearts are still deficiently patched-up by our amateur psychological pseudo-skills of pretentious love experts.
To be able to conceal ourselves better, we allowed the agnostic in us to surface. We needed to be bad, to suffocate what we really thought of love, so we could be righteous again. What have we thought of love before we fMRI-ed it? Are we happier now that we know is a mixture of adrenaline, dopamine, phenyl ethylamine, endorphin and oxytocin?
We had to defile love, so we can purify it again. We had to be sick, so we could healthy. We had to hate, so we could love. We had to fall, so we could rise. (2010)
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Weakness is another synonym for love
Ardor, amour, head over heels, affection, adulation, ardency, attachment, cherishing, crush, devotion, emotion, enchantment, fervor, fidelity, flame, fondness, hankering, idolatry, inclination, infatuation, involvement, lust, mad for, passion, piety, rapture, relish, soft spot, taste, tenderness, worship, yearning, zeal, and pathos are the others. This is how mankind defines love.
Some claim that loves makes you more creative as we seem to think differently when we are in love, which triggers global processing, which in turn promotes creative thinking and interferes with analytic thinking.
Others say that dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin (you know, the romantic passion cocktail) lead to feelings of euphoria, sleeplessness, loss of appetite and obsessive thinking. If this is the case, who needs love?
I don't know what love is but I do know what love is not: not unconditional and especially not everlasting. It could be a temporary tradeoff. And has to be fair, otherwise you feel outwitted, fooled, cheated as only functional tradeoffs determine species coexistence.
Ancient Greeks used to have different names for love: philia, eros, agape, storge, or xenia, according to the context.
Even nowadays, love comes in degrees: infatuation, intimacy, affinity, passion, commitment, settlement, and my all time favorite “we stay together for the children” type of love. Best case scenario is a mixture of all.
For Greeks, philia was a virtuous love, not influenced by emotional involvement, but not Platonic in today’s sense (the term was coined by Aristotle anyway), which implies no physical contact. But can we speak of love and not of pathos or emotion? Even the love of god requires passion. Especially the love of god. Cause one cannot unconditionally love a supernatural concept without blind passion.
Philosophia was the love of wisdom. But there was nothing passionless about philosophy and we all know about the intercrural (diamerizein) or irrumatio contact during the rite of initiation of young disciples. Yes, it involved corporeal love; it was a body and mind love of wisdom.
Storge was passionate and sensual love, something that Romeo and Juliette or Paris and Helen of Troy, or Young Wherter have experienced.
Nowadays, storge seems to be an old fashioned concept or at least a transitory and trivial one, and science says that what keeps a couple together is the age difference between a man and a woman and not mad passion (men should be 15 older to maximize their chances of having the most offspring that survive). If the age difference between spouses is the key to a successful marriage, that transforms all women in little girls looking for their fathers in their husbands. We are so Freudian after all.
Agape is a word that modern Greeks still use for love, and in the New Testament was used with the sense of charitable, altruistic, and unconditional. Like parental love. Now that is an interesting topic. We know what makes us fall in love with the opposite gender, the surge of hormones to the brain, the release of cuddle hormone, the appetite for sexual desire and the devilishly pleasant and irresistible tingle in our groins. The basic need to copulate and multiply. The insane desire to become immortal and conquer death by giving birth to our children. Or the mixture of intimacy, passion and commitment.
Why as parents love our children, it’s pretty much a no brainer. If we were god, we loved our children roughly, exigently, demandingly, pushing them beyond their human limits, asking them to overcome them, thus initiating their perfection. But we are not as there is no god. And the love for our children is passionate, irrational but moreover unconditional. We love our children possessively, simplistically, maternally, desperately, energetically, gloriously and sometimes to the point of alienation. At times we define ourselves through them.
Why do we love our parents? Should the shared DNA oblige us into experiencing parental love? Are our mothers infallible just because they gave us birth? Or because they fulfilled their emotional void through us? Do the blood-ties blind us?
Biologically and evolutionary speaking, once we exit their tutelage, and we seek no further support from them, our affection based on needs should cease. Yet, we keep on loving them. Or maybe it is not love. Like everything else in life, love and respect, even parental must be earned through permanent hard work and diligence.
Parenthood doesn’t come with the territory and a parent must earn his/her respect and love like everybody else. Anyone can breed but not everyone is fit to be a parent, let alone a good one. Parental respect is not self-understood and you should never take your children’s for granted.
As adults do we still love our parents? Or maybe what we feel for them is compassion, gratitude, duty and moral filial obligation, and sometimes respect as a remembrance as they led a righteous life. No one abandons the weak, especially someone from the same tribe.
For a while, we feel guilty for not being capable of loving them as much as you feel they love you, and you might wonder if there is anything wrong with your “love skill”. I haven’t seen an adult madly loving his/her parents, unless they are pathologic or Freudianly stuck at the age of 4. You are looking for possible excuses within yourself and them. Childhood sexual abuse? Nope. Domestic violence? Nope. Lack of affection? Nope. What is wrong then? Why can’t we love our parents back the same way they love us? Is it biology? Is it maybe because like rats, we push the elderly, the sick and the useless towards the edge of the cliff so we can make room for the young, voracious and vivacious? Is this what we are eventually? A pack of rats? A gathering of apes? Yes.
Shall we feel guilty and apologize? Apologize for what? For our faulty genes which determine us to shift our focus from our elderly towards our offspring? Both are equally helpless. Ironically, psychologists claim that insincere apologies are better than no apology. Well, if this is the case, we are sorry for being who we are. After all, biology is our destiny.
A proverb says that you can define a society by the way it treats its dogs and elderly.
Shall we then trust a society that mistreats the stray dogs or shows no compassion towards senior citizens but claims to have family values? Oh well, shall we?
Sunday, January 03, 2010
We love money!
I am one of those sorry souls that is subscribed to a gazillion of e-newsletters, which fill my Inbox with the nonchalance of a beautiful woman who dresses in see-through clothes in a hot summer day.
I gladly and willingly want my Inbox full of silly spam.
I watch the ads on TV without zapping to another channel - I even go to the Night of Ad Eaters show where I submit myself to subliminal or direct messages for 5 hours, slurping Coke, sucking on “No Smint no Kiss”, stuffing myself with Dunkin' Donuts (that I usually wouldn’t eat), whistling, tapping my feet on the floor, and making a terrible noise, almost competing with my 4 year old.
I am a product of the ad era and damn proud of it.
As, in spite of the consumerism aggressive messages and guerrilla marketing techniques, when I go to the supermarket all I have in my shopping bag are fruits, veggies, water, lean meat, cereals, low fat yogurts and whole wheat bread. OK, and, ahem, chocolate. And wine.
So, no, ads don’t brainwash. The worst enemy of your will power is your gluttony, also known as munchies, cravings…all in all, greediness. You shop frantically because you are greedy. You are fat because you are greedy. It has nothing to do with will power. However, the more you know- via direct reading, accessing info of any kind, researching on your own- the better you can combat mediocrity. Yes, reading and cultural bulimia can do all that.
Among the total pile of useless emails that I am subscribed to are the Ching, what happened today in the history, Zen and Buddhist prayers, Evolutionary Psychology
newsletter, today’s words of wisdom, also….the latest updates in the high-tech world, the most amazing gadgets and coolest websites, super reviews of the latest cell phones on the market, “I cannot conceive my life without a laptop” newsletter, the most modern LTE and 4G technologies, and of course Calvin Klein men underwear-oh, oh, oh, Victoria’s Secret-of yeah, oh yeah-and how else, recipes about duck breast with orange, and dark chocolate and bitter orange mousse. Boring still very instructive, pretty much like all the knowledge we accumulate in our lifetime and we end up vomit in pseudo-erudite torrents at some corporate party, just for the fun of breaking the ice.
newsletter, today’s words of wisdom, also….the latest updates in the high-tech world, the most amazing gadgets and coolest websites, super reviews of the latest cell phones on the market, “I cannot conceive my life without a laptop” newsletter, the most modern LTE and 4G technologies, and of course Calvin Klein men underwear-oh, oh, oh, Victoria’s Secret-of yeah, oh yeah-and how else, recipes about duck breast with orange, and dark chocolate and bitter orange mousse. Boring still very instructive, pretty much like all the knowledge we accumulate in our lifetime and we end up vomit in pseudo-erudite torrents at some corporate party, just for the fun of breaking the ice.However, one of these emails that occupy a part of my daily life was about $MONEY$ and got me thinking of the reproach most men these days make to women, almost accusing them of “being materialistic and money lovers and forgetting all about good ol’ luv”.
The email was saying that “Money is not good or bad, it is neutral. It has the value that you or society attributes to it. It's a very easy to use exchange medium and if you are living in western society you cannot survive without it. If you have more money you have more choice in life and do not need to concern yourself with issues of survival. This leaves you room to pursue other issues such as your personal growth.
Don't fall into the trap of neglecting money matters on the pretense that money is not spiritual. People who have money are in a much better position than the rest of the population to help others. Just look at how much money some of the worlds richest people donate to charity.
If you think that you should abandon your possessions and money to somehow become better or to find your spiritual side, then let me tell you that's just a complete load of crap. To walk the spiritual path and move towards enlightenment you need to be detached from the emotions that link you to needing money and possessions”.
I couldn’t have said it better! I made no secret of my pragmatic-realistic oriented character which seemed to bring a specific amount of offense to my male and exclusively spiritually oriented readership and friends.
At a certain point, I reminded men that they should wake up and smell the coffee (a Mocha Star Bucks, if I recall correctly) motivating with an old but nevertheless wise proverb that love goes through the stomach.
Now, love lasts three years, said Beigbeder
, and only two, said the scientists.
, and only two, said the scientists.Love itself is overrated. So are: honesty (which sometimes kills our reputation), justice, truth, charity…
Many women these days are way too willing and way too hasty to assure men that the money is not important in a (desperate) attempt to:
1) Hook up, mate, match, pair, suppress solitude just to spite society, family, friends or statistics which mercilessly claim that globally, women are more numerous than men;
2) Lift some customary burden off modern men’s atrophied shoulders;
3) Foolishly hoping that love (or whatever they think love is) will compensate for: lack of material comfort, lack of muscles, lack of physically fitness or brains;
4) Also thinking that nowadays women can make enough/at least as much money as men, so the role reversal can be easily supported and accepted by the modern and weak man.
The naked truth is:
1) No matter how modern and open-minded the man, unless he is a depraved bumblebee, he will never accept to be deprived of the ancient custom of providing for the (potential) mother of his offspring.
2) If he does accept-due to the present temporary financial crisis- he will end up resenting the woman. Maybe will not explicitly express it but with the first occasion he will definitely blast out. It is mere psychology and we cannot defy Mother Nature.
3) The woman, no matter how strong and leader oriented, will end up despising and disrespecting the man as it is encoded in her DNA that the man needs to be capable to care, cater, nourish, feed, provide for, and most over PROTECT her and her (potential) offspring.
When women fall in love and fail to acknowledge the course of nature, a disaster is set on its course. However, what they don’t know is that Mother Nature makes us fall in love with a man and his status as well. Try to imagine the rich guy you fancy without a penny and let me know if you find him as attractive. Or, add a few tens of thousands of $ to some uglish guy and see if he doesn’t suddenly seem more handsome. It is OK, don’t worry. It’s your genes.
Let’s not kid ourselves. There is nothing noble about poverty. Poverty is humiliating. It transforms people into animals by keeping them busy with their daily immediate survival instead of allowing them sufficient time to search for their spiritual side. Money is ultimately freedom.
So whoever thinks loves goes through the stomach, it is probably right. You cannot make love when you are hungry.
Money
is awfully important as it gives you faster, easier and better access to:
is awfully important as it gives you faster, easier and better access to:a) superior education;
b) important and rare books;
c) better health conditions, medical services, latest vaccines and medications that can save the life of a dear one;
d) more opportunities to travel and meet people thus improving yourself spiritually;
e) giving more money to charitable projects since you are so willing to be a superior human and help mankind;
f) fund scholarships for bright children;
g) and basically fulfill your ultimate purpose of helping your fellow human beings. (2010)
We have no problem with haggling...
I am one of those sorry souls that are subscribed to a gazillion of e-newsletters, which fill my Inbox with the nonchalance of a beautiful woman who dresses in see-through clothes in a hot summer day. I gladly and willingly want my Inbox full of silly spam. Oh, don’t be so Freudians. I said spam.
Among the emails that I am subscribed to are the Ching, what happened today in the history, Zen and Buddhist prayers, Evolutionary Psychology newsletter, today’s words of wisdom; but also the latest updates in the high-tech world, the most amazing gadgets and coolest websites, super reviews of the latest cell phones on the market, “I cannot conceive my life without a laptop” newsletter, the most modern LTE and 4G technologies, and of course Calvin Klein men underwear-oh, oh, oh, Victoria’s Secret-of yeah, oh yeah-and how else, recipes about duck breast with orange, and dark chocolate and bitter orange mousse. Boring still very instructive, pretty much like all the knowledge we accumulate in our lifetime and we end up vomit in pseudo-erudite torrents at some corporate party, just for the fun of breaking the ice.
However, one of these emails that occupy a part of my daily life was about money (ka-ching) and got me thinking of the reproach most men these days make to women, almost accusing them of “being materialistic and money lovers and forgetting all about good ol’ luv”. Ahem.
Hold on, hold on. Don't get all uncomfortable in the chair. Why do we feel uneasy every time we speak of money? A cognitive scientist was saying that he found it difficult to negotiate the price with a shopkeeper in Tunisia and he advised the travelers to think about their own social behavior. "If you are the kind of person who is cooperative in conversation and who does not like to feel as though you have insulted others, find a negotiation partner. Bring along someone else who will drag you out of the store or shop before you spend too much. That is, fight social pressure of one kind with social pressure of another”.
With this particular thought in mind we might as well hire permanently a "negotiation" partner every time we go for a job interview and we haggle about our ulterior paychecks. Normally, our cooperativeness in conversation should suffice to help us obtain what we want: either we pay the price we have in mind, without giving in to the salesman’s persistent looks, or we leave the shop with no remorse. The short term interaction we have with the shopkeeper is not enough to make us have behavioral remorse or post decisional stress once we leave the shop. Now, if we negotiate with a dear one and we are in the middle of a tradeoff over who gets the Porsche and who gets the Poodle, a negotiating partner (or a lawyer) is an advisable company.
Reverting to the thorny money issue. That cool money email was saying “Money is not good or bad, it is neutral. It has the value that you or society attributes to it. It's a very easy to use exchange medium and if you are living in western society you cannot survive without it. If you have more money you have more choice in life and do not need to concern yourself with issues of survival. This leaves you room to pursue other issues such as your personal growth.
Don't fall into the trap of neglecting money matters on the pretense that money is not spiritual. People who have money are in a much better position than the rest of the population to help others. Just look at how much money some of the worlds richest people donate to charity.
If you think that you should abandon your possessions and money to somehow become better or to find your spiritual side, then let me tell you that's just a complete load of crap. To walk the spiritual path and move towards enlightenment you need to be detached from the emotions that link you to needing money and possessions”.
I couldn’t have said it better! I made no secret of my pragmatic-realistic oriented character which seemed to bring a specific amount of offense to my male and exclusively spiritually oriented readership and friends.
At a certain point, I reminded men that they should wake up and smell the coffee (a Mocha Star Bucks, if I recall correctly) motivating with an old but nevertheless wise proverb that love goes through the stomach.
Now, love lasts three years, said Beigbeder, and only two, said the scientists.
Love itself is overrated. So are: honesty (which sometimes kills our reputation), justice, truth, charity…
Many women these days are way too willing and way too hasty to assure men that the money is not important in a (desperate) attempt to:
1) Hook up, mate, match, pair, suppress solitude just to spite society, family, friends or statistics which mercilessly claim that globally, women are more numerous than men;
2) Lift some customary burden off modern men’s atrophied shoulders;
3) Foolishly hoping that love (or whatever they think love is) will compensate for: lack of material comfort, lack of muscles, lack of physically fitness or brains;
4) Also thinking that nowadays women can make enough/at least as much money as men, so the role reversal can be easily supported and accepted by the modern and weak man.
The naked truth is:
1) No matter how modern and open-minded the man, unless he is a depraved bumblebee, he will never accept to be deprived of the ancient custom of providing for the (potential) mother of his offspring.
2) If he does accept-due to the present temporary financial crisis- he will end up resenting the woman. Maybe will not explicitly express it but with the first occasion he will definitely blast out. It is mere psychology and we cannot defy Mother Nature.
3) The woman, no matter how strong and leader oriented, will end up despising and disrespecting the man as it is encoded in her DNA that the man needs to be capable to care, cater, nourish, feed, provide for, and most over PROTECT her and her (potential) offspring.
When women fall in love and fail to acknowledge the course of nature, a disaster is set on its course. However, what they don’t know is that Mother Nature makes us fall in love with a man and his status as well. Try to imagine the rich guy you fancy without a penny and let me know if you find him as attractive. Or, add a few tens of thousands of $ to some uglish guy and see if he doesn’t suddenly seem more handsome. It is OK, don’t worry. It’s your genes.
Money is ultimately freedom as long as you don’t make a purpose out of it, but use it as means to satisfy your needs. Some might give me as example the illuminated beggar monks, or the Indians that eat roots and live in ashrams in the Himalayas. Yeah, sure, whatever.
So whoever thinks loves goes through the stomach, it is probably right.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Money is awfully important as it gives you faster, easier and better access to:
a) superior education;
b) important and rare books;
c) better health conditions, medical services, latest vaccines and medications that can save the life of a dear one;
d) more opportunities to travel and meet people thus improving yourself spiritually;
e) giving more money to charitable projects since you are so willing to be a superior human and help mankind;
f) fund scholarships for bright children;
g) and basically fulfill your ultimate purpose of helping your fellow human beings.
Next time you say money it is not important and you have a dying relative that needs an urgent surgery that costs a quarter million bucks, think about it.
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