Love in the Age of World Domination

Growing up by Default

I've been rereading parts of Caroline Knapp's Drinking: A Love Story, one of my all-time favorite personal memoirs. There are so many memoirs around these days, and half of them are fabricated a la James Frey and now even Augusten Boroughs. You've got to be careful who's story you allow yourself to be taken in by, affected by, and changed by. 

I came across this passage in Caroline's writing that has always held great meaning for me, now more than ever:

There’s something about facing long afternoons without the numbing distraction of any sort of anesthesia that disabuses you of the belief in externals, shows you that strength and hope come not from circumstances or the acquisition of things but from the simple accumulation of active experience, from gritting the teeth and checking the items off the list, one by one, even though it’s painful and you’re afraid....Passivity is corrosive to the soul; it feeds on feelings of integrity and pride, and it can be as tempting as a drug. If it feels warm and fuzzy, it is probably the [addictive] choice. If it feels dangerous and scary and threatening and painful, it is probably healthy.

Replace "long afternoons" with "long evenings" and this passage is so a mirror or my life that I want to throw something at it. It is absolutely the days that I wake up and make my bed and show up, and cross a few of those items off my to-do list that give me strength and 'build' me. In contrast, the days when I live in my head, when I chase after my passion de jour whatever it may be that day - more success, more love, more chocolate, whatever - there I am spinning my wheels, chasing my own tail, - and those are inevitably days of waste and 'unraveling'.

After all this time I should know better. And I do. But the knowledge of what I may have to lose or gain, does not help me; I still automatically go for the addictive choice. Its some kind of brain switch that some of us are born with, and we have to learn to cope with it.

And these addictions -they do work as anesthetics. They numb you from the messy business of life, and of growing up. Every time you escape from real life and go somewhere else in your head, you miss parts of your own life - the parts that are required to get you from point A to point B emotionally. The much talked about 'growth' in self-help books, which is so challenging yet so vital.

I'd spent most of my life waiting for maturity to hit me from the outside, as though I'd just wake up one morning and be done, like a roast in the oven. But growth comes from the inside out, from trying and failing and trying again. You begin to let go of the wish, age-old and profound and essentially human, that someone will swoop down and do all that hard work, growing up, for you.

Forgiveness

I thought of all the bad luck,
And the struggles we went through
And how I lost me and you lost you
What are these voices outside loves open door
Make us throw off our contentment
And beg for something more?

Yeah what is that - when we have all we ever wanted, and we are reasonably content, what makes us beg for some undefinable "more"? Is it fear, fear of the unknown, fear of actual real happiness that somehow feels foreign and scary because you are so defined by turmoil and drama, the only two states of mind that you are really familiar with?

The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, Im learning again
Ive been tryin to get down
To the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think its about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don't love me anymore

One's will is a capricious thing. Sometimes it pursues its object and wild animals couldn't hold it off. Other times it wants to take a nap, exhausted from trying to figure out things for which there simply are no answers. As for "scattered" thoughts, a mind such as mine that is capable of thinking Yes and No presicely at the same moment... well eventually that leads you to a place of backtracking and flip-flopping, half-truths and white lies, and a tremendous loss of credibility.

These times are so uncertain
Theres a yearning undefined
And people filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age?
The trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness
Theyre the very things - we kill I guess
Pride and competition
Cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us
You know it doesnt keep me warm

Love in a graceless age - perhaps this blog would be renamed - these are indeed different times, things change fast, doesn't seem like love survives long in graceless places. Even innocence has caught the last train out, and there's nobody left on the platform to take the blame. Trust and self-assurance, twin virtues, but easily annihilated by a lack of consistency and integrity.

Ive been tryin to get down
To the heart of the matter
Because the flesh will get weak
And the ashes will scatter
So Im thinkin about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you dont love me

Everyone gets old, everyone dies. So ultimately it probably is about forgiveness, but I am not there yet. For now, I am just trying to keep me one disaster less.

(lyrics from Heart of the Matter by India Arie)

Compromise

I have gotten so used to being alone. Used to being just Me. As I want, when I want. I am happy in my own private world, with my warm life with the fuzzy edges, and the writing, and the tight circle of friends.

Interestingly, how I like to sleep is a good parallel to how I like to live. I like taking over a big bed all for myself. I want the duvet and the general space of the room all to myself too. And I sleep with the door closed to all other rooms, things, and people. Secure within my four light-blue painted walls. Part of it is that other people - even people close to me - even those in a relationship with me - feel threatening. Especially at night.

As soon as I find someone I like, I go into a knot of insecurity and anxious. Not insecurity about the other person. Insecurity about me, my ability to be a good 'other'. To live up to expectations, to love selflessly, to compromise. Because deep down there's a fear that I don't care enough to compromise. There's nothing I  hate more than compromise. There's just too much of Me now  - it wont fit in any space  with someone else.  Compromise feels like I am giving up on Her.

Because its taken me a long time to find Her. 

Almost all my life I was scared of being alone. So scared that it made me find certain types of people (usually unsuitable) and certain types of situations (usually inappropriate), and hang on to them like my life depended on it.  At some level my life did depend on it. Thats how I experienced it. At a gut level. Visceral.  They say that all painful behaviors, all such coping mechanisms, eventually fail. The solution becomes the problem. And it did.  My beautiful house of cards came crashing down.

And so I had to learn, go through the rubble, and put it back together, piece by piece, by myself. Thing is, once you've faced the worst of it, its all up from there. You find being you is not so bad. Then you get real good at it. Then you become supergirl. 

So, ironically after being terrified of alone for 29 years, I’ve faced it, and now in many ways its easier than 'together'.  'Together' is risky. There's a potential for failure. It’s much easier being me and the internet and the crazy dates. How did I get here? I’m afraid of the one thing I have always wanted more than anything else in life. It makes me sad.     

But I do know that I believe in love, and eternal companionship, and all those wholesome things. After all I have a blog with the word Love in the title. There's nothing quite like the love. Reckless hearts, the timing sucks, the time is right and the guy is wrong. But occasionally you get it right. The stars line up. And you find that affection is less dangerous when you're not afraid to feel.

In the end life together is messy. It will probably run the gamut from who steals the duvet to who's turn it is to be on top. To in-laws, and exes, and embarrassment and guilt, to fights about fighting and making up over never again. Its fixing the light bulb, to putting up the drapes. Its dustbuster flipflops and the soundtrack to Juno.

And somewhere in all of that, we'll find each other. And we'll get there. Wherever that is.

And Looking Forward

So I am making a list and checking it twice. For all I want to do in 2008.

Which is superficially: a) exercise more, b) drink water, c) stop eating chocolate, d)  just decide and marry someone already! 

I wonder what this year has in store. Is it going to be the Greatest Year yet or just an Average Year? In the end, does it even matter? I've come to realize that no matter what big goals one may have, and how many of them one accomplishes, all that matters is how each day was lived, and whether one was reasonably content each of those days. In the current age of discontent we live in, there is little point in pining your happiness on better jobs, bigger homes, thinner bodies, hotter relationships, or what have you, because getting any extraneous thing only holds its allure for a few months before you set new goals. Want more. Pine for the next thing.

An Average Year would be just fine.

In that spirit, this year I want to keep my resolutions really simple:

1) I want to care less about the things I really shouldn't care so much about. And more about the things I should - like health check-ups, and meditating.

2) I want to show up for people I've promised things to, for commitments I've made. And on time. To stop running, always an hour late, a dollar short, and a button missing.

3) I want to be thankful for what I already have, but most importantly, for all I already am.

4) I want to make the most of a life that is set in one of the freeiest places on Earth, in the most prosperous country, at the turn of the 21st century.   

5) I want to stop regreting time lost - whether it was the years lost back in the day, or just the hours lost yesterday. Everything takes the time it does. We get where we get when we get there.

6) I want more time to play with my photos, and picasa, to understand depth of field and white balance, to make memories in sepia. I want more time to think in colors, decorate, to match the carpet with the right shade of Roman soft shade blinds, I want more free time for learning and reading, editing things and playing with stuff.

The Year of Patience

2007 was a Hell of a Year.

At the beginning, like, everyone else I put down some resolutions.. some of which I actually did, such as taking the writing class and the photography class, writing a short story, and strength training + losing 6 pounds (although I gained it right back a few months later).

But there are things I achieved that I had not planned out to do at all, but which turned out to be major. First, after much hang wringing I left the World Bank and joined a environmental research think tank to work on clean energy and finance issues. And that was scary - leaving the security (and money) of WB  - but its turned out to be one of the best calls I have ever made in my life. Its turned out to be a spectacularly good fit for the weird combination of skills I have, and for my reading-writing-isolating personality, as well as an amazing place for leadership and personal growth, even though I haven't even yet taken advantage of all that.

Second, I really put on the Big Boots and tackled my convoluted finances, paid off my b-school loans in its entirety, bought a condo in DC, and put some cash away for a rainy day. It feels really good to be in control of one's financial future. And charming to live in one's own home. I feel like my feet are firmly planted on the ground, and on a piece of ground that I own.

Third, kicking and screaming, I started to date. It wasn't all fun, and most of the time I felt like "someone please shoot me" and 'seriously, do I have to do this?". But eventually I met someone amazing. Then circumstances intervened and that changed too. But all these were phenomenal experiences, which more than anything demonstrated to me that I really don't know much about what turn my life is about to take. Like who woulda thought that things would come to pass the way they did.

But most of all, there are the immeasurable things - 2007 was the year of Patience, of being alone, of discovery, of learning how to depend on myself. It was the year of confidence, of faith, of knowing that it was all going to be ok no matter how my life ended up. It was the year of small step slowly taken, like little pitter patter baby steps, but lots of them, and its added up. It was the year of coffee, and good reading, and endless conversations late into the night. It was the year of living freer, feeling stronger, making choices that matter. It was a spectacular year.

The Golden Rule

So two months down the road, and suddenly I am thinking of that Anniversary date.. and something is bugging me. Something about the Golden Rule.. Treat others as you would like to be treated.

Its a simple principal that we all learnt in kindergarten. Basically if you act in a certain way toward another, and yet would not tolerate being treated that way in the same circumstances then you violate the rule. Every major religion covers this.

So I think of C. I never said thank you. Here's this stranger who went all out and did something really sweet for me, and all I had to do was say " thank you for a lovely evening' and I just didn't do it. I felt terrible. I tried to find his email address but my in-box had been cleared out.. I finally managed to track down the email through my friend. He probably hates me and I am dreading this, but I know what I have to do. 

Dear C,

You must have wondered what happened to me - and I don't blame you if you think I was awful. I am deeply sorry and I hope you accept my apologies.

What happened was that - remember I had told you that I had family coming to town? Well they did - and it was a super hectic couple of weeks, and then work suddenly became very hectic. None of this of course explains why I couldn't take a minute to reply to one of your calls or emails.

Anyway I just want to thank you for the beautiful evening you put together when you took me out - the dinner, the flowers, everything - its one of  the best dates I've ever been on.  You were so thoughtful and kind and generous. It was very special and I really did have a good time, and I absolutely should have thanked you, and I am so ashamed that I didn't.  The flowers by the way lasted forever and I totally enjoyed them :)

Best of luck in all, hope things are going well for you, - H

-----------------------

H,

I am glad you wrote. I was, of course, a little hurt, but I understood that you had family coming all the way from Sri Lanka, and I wasn't so full of myself to expect you to be enamored with me after one date. I am glad you had a good time with me. It was a good date, and it will remain a pleasant memory for me. One of the few things we truly own in this life :-) I am glad you decided to write back. That means a lot, and shows a level of emotional maturity that I deeply respect. I hope everything works out for you. Keep in touch, if you wish. You know where to find me. Take care. -C

-----------------------

There. Done.

The Catholic Happy Hour

Its been many a moon since  I have been to a Happy Hour, and a couple of years since I've seen the inside of a bar.  Thus, ironic that my foray last week into that familiar old haunt should be for a catholic young adults event. By the way what is up with catholics and drinking? Not a good combination.

How did I find myself at a Catholic YA event - well a girlfriend invited me along and I thought why not - a nice quiet evening. My first surprise was walking into a loud jam packed bar full of young city professionals in work clothes. The young Catholic contingent in DC is very active/ powerful, and lots of young men and women frequent these socials and mixers to find like-minded people and even partners (now why didn't I think of that!)

I was also reminded (again) that some segments of this group are extremely articulate, opinionated, and not shy to tell you what they think. Which went something like this:

1) If you don't believe in Jesus Christ you'll go to Hell
2) Catholics are the closest to God; and the Church is infallible
3) We must lead by example, show the right path to those led astray by bad influences, and convert all these poor souls who are misguided into paragons of virtue like ourselves.   

Like. Wow. That was kind of awesome, just in its sheer lack of humility.

I had no idea that I was supposed to save people from themselves. I have been reading Mass for like 3 years now and I do it because its service work, which helps me. It never occurred to me that I do it to lead by example and influence family and friends to do the same. Hell - I rarely know whats right for me, let alone for anyone else. I would hope that people would find spiritual paths that suits their own interests and needs.

But you know what really makes me sad? I love going to church (often when its empty;), and I love some of the prayers and rituals, and readings. But I am finding it increasingly difficult to be around certain segments  of organized religion that are judgmental, intolerant, and anything but spiritual.

I guess all religions have good and bad, and there are ultra-conservative elements in society every where. What happened yesterday is just another data point supporting something I have felt since the age of 4 - religious people seem far more concerned with influencing the behavior of other people than focusing on their own spiritual growth and relationship with God...  weird because one can obtain much comfort from the latter while the former only leads to frustration.

OK, I know. I can be judgmental too! I need to work on that. And I am. Meanwhile, I just feel sad, when I read things like this Very Poignant Letter.

All I Need to Know I learnt in Kindergarten

Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school. These are the things I learned.

Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup? The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living. Think of what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world had cookies and milk about 3 o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

From the book by Robert Fulgham

These words made my week. Seriously, like the whole nap thing - I could have written that! I immediately looked for a poster of this and bought it for my wall.

Good Habits for the Last Quarter

Its October 1 today, which means we are now officially in the last quarter of 2007. How quickly we got here.

So I've been doing a bit of naval gazing (people who write blogs tend to do a lot of that) and have come up with a list of 'good habits' I want to focus on for the rest of this year. They are based on a bunch of great tips  I found over at Zen Habits.

1) Simplify my life. I’ve greatly simplified my life this year. I have consolidated my finances, paid off all my grad school debt, got rid of old furniture, and old clothes. I have less 'stuff' in my home, and less accounts and paperwork to manage across two continents. But I still need to set up a filing cabinet and efficient systems for laundry, mail, dry cleaning, house cleaning, and random administration.

2) Manage information overload and communications. I really need to figure out how to simplify communications with friends and family, and not swing from extreme to extreme. I either go AWOL and don't reply to anything for days, OR go crazy and spend 12 hours straight interacting on email, facebook, blog, skype, and MSN. I really don't know how to do the in-between - responding briefly in a timely manner, handling 'paper' only once etc. 

3) Plan 3 most important tasks for day and week. I love making To-Do Lists as much as I hate doing whats on them. Items such as 'dental check-up' languish on there for months. And I have this annoying natural inclination to do the least priority, least important thing first. Like, if my list today is - do expense claims worth thousands of dollars, pay an important bill, and update photos on flickr - guess which one I will do first and spend 3 hours on? Yes, that would be flickr hands down. This quarter I am going to force myself to limit it to 3 important tasks for the day, and aim to get those done first. Its the 80-20 rule. You get 80% of the value from 20% of the tasks. Focus on these. The rest is just icing on the cake.

4) Change my evening routine. An evening routine is supposed to be a good way to wind down from a long day, prepare for your next day so the morning isn’t so hectic. My evening routine involves anything but winding down. Armed with several cups of coffee/tea and a critical amount of sugar (in the shape of chocolate or ice cream), I get ready for a good 2-3 hours of hyper-activity on FB, blogs, email, YouTube,and 5 simultaneous conversations on skype and MSN. I really really want my evening routine to be a hot shower, a cup of chamomile tea, and sleep by midnight.

5) Change my morning routine. If there is one thing worse than my evening routine it is my 'morning routine'. In fact to dignify the train wreck that is my morning by calling it a routine might be too much. Morning people, early risers say exercise or meditation or quiet contemplation is a great way to greet the day. I hate these people. My morning 'routine' essentially involves me jumping out of bed at 9am and rushing half dressed to the metro. On the metro, between the 7 stops from Cleveland Park to Union Station, I put on some makeup, perhaps a par of earring if there is one to be found at the bottom of my handbag.  This quarter I will aim to get ready at home instead of on public transportation, and perhaps even have a banana before I leave the  house.

6) Exercise. Oh dear Lord, what I wouldn't give to be one of those people who is addicted to exercise. Who say things like "I love/need to workout, otherwise I am unhappy".  I know it to be true through direct experience that when I exercise, even for 20 minutes, I feel better, I drink water, eat well, sleep well, and have more energy. But getting there is like 90% of the battle, and it is one that I lose regularly. This quarter I want to go to the gym for just a half hour every other day, which is really not that much to ask.    

7) Be frugal. Now that I have a mortgage, and actually pay taxes (argh I miss the World Bank), I probably should not be having my twice daily starbucks tall skim latte, because at $7 a day that adds up to $2500 a year! Luckily I am not an impulse buyer or a big spender in any way, but I do spend with abandon on convenience items - cabs, lunch, snacks, magazines, books etc.

Not Knowing Sucks

How do you cooperate, with grace, when life rears its very confusing head? When everything feels like its upside down, and it takes all your energy just to keep running in the same spot?

I can deal with breaking anything down to 24 hour periods (you know the whole one-day-at-a-time thing) - anything can be done if its just for that one day - suit up, show up, eat 3 portions of veggies, drink water, get some sleep. But when I have time on my hands - and as we know, an idle mind is the devil's workshop - I start thinking about tomorrow, December, or next year. Then I feel impatient, irritable, and not-so-much-in-control.

Uncertainty is such a difficult thing to handle. Every time you think you know something, the ground moves and morphs under you. The world changes. Your beliefs of the world change. How in heaven's name do people deal with this? Is there a way to deal with it in a principled way? Some people suggest that the best approach to uncertainty is to be rational, make a decision tree, construct a model, use first order predicate logic, or something like that.

But for me logic is inadequate, for it is designed to work with information that is complete and consistent. Whereas, we are dealing with incomplete, inconsistent, and variable inferences. Other people say to base things not on logic, but on probability theory. But probability, if I remember from high school math class, makes all these assumptions about 'if this happens, then A, and if that happens, then B'. I guess its a start but its not really helpful.

What has helped me, if at all, are concepts such as faith and compassion. Compassion for self, compassion for others. To do the next right thing, even when the larger picture is not clear. Faith because I need to know that its all going to be ok in the end. And that if its not ok, its not the end. When we are in middle of a big thick enveloping fog that threatens to drown us, we can't see. But we just have to keep going through it in order to get to that clear and sunny space on the other side.

Because, what are you going to do - fight against the universe? I may be a force to be reckoned with, but hey - I am no match for the universe and the mischievous plans it may have that I can possibly have no clue of!

A good friend once said to me that the universe (or God if you believe in one) has plans for us that are beyond anything we could ever imagine for ourselves. Like, so much better, or rather so awesomely different that we cannot comprehend it. And the only thing incumbent upon us is to get out of the way, so that those forces working in our lives can do their job. Sounds a little too new-agey to me, but there is something to be said for accepting that we are not in control of 99% of what happens in life, so we might as well stop trying to run the world.

Ten Things you Like about Yourself

Solomother has a great post on this, and list other women bloggers doing the same.

This is an interesting exercise, not least because its the opposite of my preferred "Ten Things I Wish I Could Change About Myself" list. Which is much easier, and better fodder for the daydream machine.

But lets give credit where credit is due. While my list leaves me annoyed and frustrated, this list which I just tried, left me all zen and, dare I say, a smidgen grateful.   

Before I share it with you, the deal is you've got to try it too. And here's an idea - if you like, email me and I'll post it here.

OK here goes:
1) I may have issues with my body, but I like my face for the most part. I have a pleasant but determined  and inquiring look, the same look I was born with many moons ago, and which I'd like to think I have passed on to my little niece.

2) I also like my big warm toothy smile (some may call me the buck tooth Indian - yes you know who you are) but my pearly whites have rescued me from many a scrape. During times when the world was collapsing around me, smiling and acting as if it was all ok, is what made it all ok in the end.

3) I like that I have a good heart. I won't deny it- it has got me into trouble, and even dangerous situations - but in the long run its come through for me. There are things only the heart knows, things that the head can never fathom. 

4) I like that I am teachable and progressive, one of the best qualities that I inherited from my parents. For the most part I am open, curious, and willing to learn and change views and opinions based on new information.

5) I can do creative stuff - photo albums, anything with pictures, framing old paintings, decorating, writing, cooking and hosting dinner parties - I love playing with color, shape, image, and accents. I like old things and new things.

6) I may be tone deaf but I like that I have a damn near perfect ear for language. I can usually manipulate words to make them do what I want them to. This is essentially whats allowed me to hoodwink my way into some of the most prestigious academic and corporate institutions in the world.   

7) I like that I have a strong spirit - perhaps its God's Grace acting in mysterious ways - but I can withstand a decent amount of craziness and pain. Like Scarlet (O'Hara), I will cry and howl over a disaster but in the same breath, raise my head through the tears to say "tomorrow's another day".

8) I like that I am not judgmental (read conservative). It must be horrible to not like people just because they are different - different religion, different sexual orientation. I couldn't care less who you love or what God you pray to at night, or if you pray to a God at all.

9) On the other hand, I like that I have faith in some kind of higher power beyond 'me, myself, and my little plans'. The idea of God, that there is something that is working behind all this, just takes all the pressure off. It works for me. But if it doesn't work for you, thats totally fine too.

10) I like my ability to relax, to contemplate, to enjoy the small pleasures of life, like reading the NYT on a Sunday afternoon, like sitting in cafes watching people pass by, like writing thank you notes on real paper, like watching the monsoon rain, like drinking tea with little cucumber sandwiches without the crust.

Open Expression: Gift or Curse?

"...Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand..." (the Skin Horse)

And that says it all for me. Being Real is beautiful. Its the only thing that matters in the long run. Also, once  you know everything about me how can you not fully love me?  Unless of course you "don't understand me" This explains why I freely express myself, and why I need to write honestly, and often very personally. A need to share, to be understood. Fully. Because not to be understood feels lonely and threatening.

An extreme depth of feeling and sensitivity that needs creative expression. Mostly a gift. Often a blessing. but sometimes a curse.

The reason I this came up today is because I have been hearing quite a bit about the potential downside of online emotional nakedness. That it is not strategic. That it is not smart. That I must put up screens, filters, and walls to protect, conceal, and manage the flow of information about me.

The problem is that for me, to play different characters to different audiences, is artificial and often disingenuous. Who am I trying to impress? No one but myself. Hence I require, no I demand, unity of self. Emotional congruency. I consider intense emotional experiences as being vital to a full life. Especially to a writing life. Its not for nothing that "bleeding heart romantic" appears in the sub-title of this blog.

Spontaneous personal authenticity, and the intention, at least, to always be  "real" is fundamentally critical to Who I Am. Now I will agree with the naysayers that my desire to be real, at all times, with all people, could be dangerous. I know. But I can also taste the danger of losing touch with my real feelings. To ask me to ignore this inner conflict would be like to ask Luke Skywalker to ignore the conflict between good versus evil.

The dark side must be reckoned with, but good ultimately triumphs over bad, and love over hate. Or something like that.

But ok. I will stop writing personal posts, and write high-brow intellectual posts only.