"Humans fear making the wrong choice more than they fear not making any choice at all, and with so many more alternative potential mates to choose from, people appear to be more reluctant to make that commitment. Instead, they keep on searching for an unreachable perfection. What we need to realise is that perfection is not love." "Let us leave pretty women to men with no imagination." ~ Marcel Proust Unlike death and the universe’s size, picking a partner is fully in your control. We are all wired to get pleasure out of faces that are easy on the eyes and desire people who can delight us. Couple usually choose those who possess equal but different skill-set e.g. a accomplished businessperson with an attractive or cheerful mate. They are equal in their own ways, each possessing something of value in society. This is rather a general and natural tendency. In the real world, however, love is very rarely a match of the strong and often a union of equal weaknesses. Sometimes we act out our calculated plans; others respond to the situation out of excitement, or out of the inability to deal with their uncertainty or negative self-talk. They come out looking to enter the life which would be otherwise inaccessible. But there is more underneath this simple fact. Does fate control our lives or do we shape our destiny? Are we 'programmed' by our genes or our environment makes us who we are? My reply always is- isn't it both? Our world is overcrowded and we are lonely but we all are hopeful and feel depressed living like islands. We all hope to find love. We all imagine love. Life still can throws good surprises if you keep your mind open. "We often choose somebody who seems to be able to heal the wounds we received in childhood. Somewhere deep inside, you keep images of people who played a part in your formative years, in making you who you are today. These are images of parents and relatives that left their mark on your destiny. These images are often a mixture of reality and childhood imagination. We associate these images with love — the love which we received and understood when we were children. When a random person we meet somehow coincides with those images and wakes these dormant memories of our earliest and most dear relationships, we cannot simply pass them by or remain indifferent. We are intrigued, excited and very soon it’s likely that we will fall in love." However, while trying to fulfill our evolutionary purpose, we have clearly demonstrated our inherent capacity of mindlessness because of following our 'instincts' blindly. To survive this chaotic universe, people are in denial, pretend they are in control, short-sell anyone, we all justify what we do and are hard-wired to get obsessed with mindless thrills. Without being righteous the truth is people effortlessly time their bait manoeuvres, manipulate needs and play on fantasies. But note that the meanest and most brutal "super-specialized" beasts the world has seen have all died out, or rather evolved into, birds – from majestic falcon to the chicken sent to the tandoor. So maybe, to be brutally mean is not the smartest thing to be. I HATE being overpowered. The worst thing you can do is to turn negative because you were wronged. I would like to stress again that it's important to understand that unlike anything else in the known universe we are the only beings who turn hopeful even when it seems that all our chips are down. And then we have our greatest gift- the capacity for compassion. So the question really is- can we hope to find "love" in a relationship? Relationships are interplay of power, desire and vulnerability so there is always a tension which often throws up inner demons and past baggage after you had just managed to balanced everything. It's not difficult to understand why, in generally, everyone being so aware of the devastating consequences of failure, are afraid to build and trust anything. The 'terms and conditions' are brought out at the first instance... weirdly believing that they can dunk the ugly blame game when things goes south; as if using the phrases - "I told you so, you can't blame me"; "you knew what you were getting into" etc, helps anyone. I get the logic but I am not convinced that I should trust a person who is hard selling the fact that he/she is honest. We know there are no guarantees that are secure enough so how do we belief in love that will last a lifetime? Needless to add that each and every type of risks cannot be reduced and there is no single blanket style. You just have to discover yours. My understanding is that positive relationships simply need quality time, (of-course money; as the saying goes: “you can't put a price tag on love, but you can on all its accessories") and, more importantly, an understanding of the basics, so that the avoidable risks can be reduced. Personally, I tend to bond at meaningful level. In our world, the major rule is to get married before you're too old—and “too old” varies from 25 – 35, depending on where you live. The rule should be “whatever you do, don't marry the wrong person,” but society frowns much more upon a 37-year-old single person than it does an unhappily married 37-year-old with two children. It makes no sense—the former is one step away from a happy marriage, while the latter must either settle for permanent unhappiness or endure a messy divorce just to catch up to where the single person is. For a woman who wants to have biological children with her husband, she has one very real limitation in play, which is the need to pick the right life partner by forty, give or take. This is just a shitty fact and makes an already hard process one notch more stressful. Still, if it were me, I’d rather adopt children with the right life partner than have biological children with the wrong one. Life shows you that 'love' is of many kind (the purest, I rather not have) but in the urban jungle of consumption, myopic love = instant-ready-to-serve gratification. Either - people 'work with what they have' till something 'better' comes along. Or - are in the search for acceptable perfectness. These 'players' are looking for one 'tease' after another. They believe that it's them verses the world. Someone has to lose so better the other person. It's just plain paranoia clinging to narrow mindedness as if it were a raft in a storm. When they never open their heart to others, it’s hard for anyone to change. So how do you defend yourself from them? In this lonely and reclusive world, if you love to put up a good show or secretly wish to get entertained by such a show (and you know it will end), then that makes perfect sense. Either way you usually deserve what you wished for. You enjoy playing the 'conquer' game or want to be played (while putting on the helpless, sad act or the bad-ass tough act). At least playing the 'loved and lost' story gives you a reasonable explanation as to why you are alone in this world, work long hours for peanuts, eat with your TV and sleep with an empty space beside you. In time, untouched, you become what you were pretending to be, an unmovable version of yourself. It's an unhealthy choice but it’s easy to live with a kind lie. But once you start living a lie, telling yourself what could have been or would have been. There are some lies that we all want to believe in... some use that to take a free ride on our expense. It’s unfair but simple. We are collectively generous with social and personal hypocrisy so as to survive our unpleasant conscience that keeps us from being "a realist". Who can truly calm to have a clear conscience, free of hypocrisy and prejudice? The 'tease' game (seduction power boasting rights) is safer, callous and fully satisfying but fails horribly once your age starts showing (perhaps make-up & surgery could buy you time or you could turn into a rich celeb). One way out is that you could get 'married' to a situation (for emotional support to dump your shit, for financial security... hell I would, age factor, a pet to play with or spoil, trophy to show-off your status in society, to clean & cook) ... because the hard fact is - what are your chances anyway. A calculated, safer, convenient move is a rational, practical move because 'failure would be devastating'. However, calculated safer moves give you a calculated safer result and if that's what you wanted then why complain. I think this is the right choice but only if you don't wish for 'something that's not this'. You can't expect to have your cake and eat it too. But then why should I judge, this is a world filled with bleeding and parched hearts. I guess, to each his own, after all it takes all kinds to make this world. The solution is not in nuggets of clever words. It's in your handling the hidden, unfair, contradicting, chaotic, mutating situations revolving around. The solution is not in nuggets of clever words - but in being the ugly real you. To love someone else truly, you have to love your true self. To have lasting faith in someone else, first you have to stand on your own feet in confidence. It hard to recognise the source of your emotions. I always found help in imagining that if I were to be locked in a dark room with a potential partner, will I really want to be next to this person? The one thing that I have discovered is that, some flaunt themselves and others keep it simple, some are highly sharp, intellectually, while some are very dumb; but that has nothing to do with if they are the right partner or even a good person. Fear works, because it reminds you of carrots. But love works too; its positive power is most often underrated. There is no denying the fact that humans are sadists and a little power is enough to see how we corrupt. We enjoy licking someone's brain and as that person goes down and dirty. That’s clever but is it wise? The wise knows that he is a fool. The ignorant keeps running after his own tail, can't help but be drawn to licking his privates. The enlightened one is at peace, is at best dead to human feelings. But that's not what we wish for when we say we want to be wise. The answers are in finding total awareness, to be like the universe, able to take death and be born again, to expand and contract. Awareness lies in understanding that the edge between the good and the evil is what we grasp when we realise love in its duality. The truth is there is no spoon; and yet the duality is the reality. Love is like storytelling. A story is just a bitter-sweet lie, a make believe. But some give us... hope, dreams, strength and radiator-like positive energy. We know only humans can suspend reality even if we know it’s all but a fancy. Just ask any kid pretending dead or playing with his/her favourite toys. So love with all your heart but remember the heart only pumps blood, produces heat. The saddest example of this is someone breaking up with a person who would have been the right life partner because of external disapproval or a factor the chooser doesn't actually care about (religion is a common one) but feels compelled to stick to for the sake of family insistence or expectations. It can also happen the opposite way, where everyone in someone’s life is thrilled with his relationship because it looks great from the outside, and even though it’s not actually that great from the inside. There are a bunch of boxes that she needs to have checked—things like his height, job prestige, wealth-level, accomplishments, or maybe a novelty item like being foreign or having a specific talent. People may maintain their poker-face but everyone wishes to subtly entice by not-so-subtly declaring that they are new, better, different. That you are getting better value & your chances are better with them as they are more then the others. Just like all beasts, each trying to temporarily fool some other's senses using animalistic sexy/cute temptations. For example, women wear heels, make-up etc, men buy expensive cars, shows-off their social status etc; effectively to project a false image. In reality neither are the women that tall or pretty nor are the guys as wealthy or influential. This does not mean I am against people from claiming how much valuable is their best offer. I understand the dilemma. Even though your lie can hurt you in the future, the truth might just not be enough for your right partner to "see" you (obviously first impression or moves matter for you to build a history). You can effectively use deception but you may ruin your reputation. Even the smoothest assassin can't fool everyone every-time. You don't care as much when you find out the gorgeous jewellery around her neck is a fake, do you? It is important what people generalise about you, but it’s more important that it is not a big fake mask. You history is the most important thing, and if what people thought of you turns out as all lies and there were no real bonding then it’s meant for the short run... remember people do like worthless stuff but only if that individual stuff means something to them personally and it cannot be a duplicate. A twin of someone you love is not the same. The belief the person has of you is related to how that person reacts, your history with the person relates to your value. There is a fine line in framing yourself attractively as you might end up with a mismatch creating unnecessary headache due to misunderstandings/miscommunication. I only wish to call a spoon for what it is and put the matter forward as I see it. In fact I think this behaviour results in providing us with more choices. Then why is it that the while people work to optimize their chances of finding a fulfilling love, they end up with a mediocre compromise because it felt like a safer bet? It’s because we know it’s easy to get cheated. Try giving someone who particularly loves sprite, a 7Up in a sprite bottle; he/she will enjoy it until you tell the truth. Similarly, does it matter to you if you are eating organic or genetically-engineered food products if they taste the same? What about plastic surgery? On top of that we got overwhelming Choice. Now choice is not a bad thing but if there are so many possibilities, than it's very confusing. It becomes believable that the idea of 'the perfect one' must be true. If there are three possibilities, the choice is simple. You can be sure if you don't like any, but what if there is a million? Suddenly you can't say with certainty that your better half doesn't exists. So logically, you either wait; but then time doesn't wait. So when you do take the leap of faith, believing that you have found the perfect one ... it can end up leaving you feeling ...discontent, cheated. Plus, the search itself is so overwhelming that it's paralyzing, and if you survived that a couple of times then the experience itself becomes an over-stimulation and turns you numb. You find everything to be another bore. To compare your choices meaningfully you have to understand what kind of love you really need & what you keep fantasizing about. If you don't rightly prioritize and can't see beyond a fixed stereotype perspective then you are in for a slow-motion crash. When you choose a life partner, you're choosing a lot of things, including your parenting partner and someone who will deeply influence your children, your eating companion for about 20,000 meals, your travel companion for about 100 vacations, your primary leisure time and retirement friend, your career therapist, and someone whose day you'll hear about 18,000 times. Everyone has needs, and everyone likes those needs to be met, but problems arise when the meeting of needs—she cooks for me, he'll be a great father, she'll make a great wife, he’s rich, she keeps me organized, he’s great in bed—becomes the main grounds for choosing someone as a life partner. Those listed things are all great perks, but that’s all they are—perks. And after a year of marriage, when the needs-driven person is now totally accustomed to having her needs met and it’s no longer exciting, there better be a lot more good parts of the relationship she’s chosen or she’s in for a dull ride. Can love simply fizz out? Can the excitement be brought back or are these just big words? Potential partners are lot like fruits, to each his type, but they all come with an expiry date (for the sceptics: think of natural or unnatural death). Even if a person is not lonely he needs his kind of love, to give or to be allowed to get or both in some ratio. But then remember that love can and does die. Everything degrades when its time. It’s not difficult to know that which is different but it is hard to know when the rotting had started within. Maybe it’s like sweet syrup, it’s delicious but after a while it gets to your head and then unbearable. You need a ‘break’. That’s when conscious effort is needed to rejuvenate and re-establish, together like partners, and also giving personal breathing space. Every kind of humans from the first to the last has been in love and in pain. More importantly, what does your experience remind you of? You would find it’s something important that made you a better positive you in some way.... and chances are that this will be a major piece to you understanding happiness. The lazy wet childlike fantasies have always been easier to live with. Wake up and be aware. Even chimps & dogs choose porno over food, what about you? Get real; see the truth before someone takes you for a free ride. Once you know to enjoy what's real, you realise that in your one life, you have do what the best you can do (and love is always part of it) and not just fight, flee, feed and (you know the last f word). How to describe the water wheel of life or love (say your mate) that's as unpredictable as the weather. Your behaviour have minute similarities that's seems hidden and complex. The harsh lonely world makes us build shells we hid our-self in. Warmth, intimacy and enjoyment with a special someone makes us feel safer, making it the best thing in life. After all life is an interesting paradox or rather its "Fractal". Our situations control how we will grow but not exactly what we will be. How we condition our self is profound. After your simple behaviour sets in, you create long-term, beautiful and random pattern of your life. It’s impossible to know what life and love you will have but what can be predicted is what will be the type of your life's and love's pattern. Your love and life pattern is unique, and then everything happens spontaneously. It’s as uncommon as the branches of a tree or blood vessels. People don't realise that there is an equal possibility that we could be destined for more than one great so-called 'love'. Perhaps each partner comes into our lives to prepare us for the 'right one'. What is very important is- the intent, so that if things go right than 'the one' is enough to last a lifetime. You know love is not everything, but pain is. Factor that in your alternate/safety net in-case you or your partner decides to suddenly go through the exit door. Almost always, relationships come to a logical end, that’s the bitten truth. So get closure and keep walking on your path before you. Just be compassionate, always take what is rightfully yours and remember, fair or wrong, every manipulation/trick is permitted in working for love (think midterm for your own sake while anchoring in your relationship). I don't mean that you become sleazy or fake it. Just want to caution you not to bring, everything about you, out at once. Don't deny each other the unpredictable result of finding out the flaws. And surprisingly, in love, you cannot be hostile to win. You cannot force someone to love you. Sometimes all you can do is to let go and accept that you can lose. you also have to use your advantages-in-life responsibly & reasonably, find out where your partner stands on things, get involve with people you hate for the greater good, help people involved save face & just have patience cause the other person is waiting for a sign, a boom in the heart, a friend's reassurance that you are the one. To be rewarded you have to truly make the visible effort of giving something that has no value to you but if of great value to her (diamonds?) and for that you have to take advantage of hidden opportunities. The point is you have to be enough; and you don't have to do it alone because a worthy partner will guide you in. However, it’s never too tedious process when you are on the right path. It’s obvious couples have to do the fine-tuning in adapting to come even closer. (let's assume a couple has excellent in-laws and extend family members) in a live-in relationship a gal has the added pressure of coming to new place and taking care of her new home but not letting her profession go down the drain. The guy has the added pressure of letting someone not only take over his den but also give up his 'wolf' nature for a domesticated one. He has the pressure to provide for everything (even if his mate earns more than him) and only then he can be accepted as a real man. His manhood is under constant threat while she has to compete with an impossible idea called 'being a super woman'. The ratio of understanding and adjusting is the kind of balance which differentiates fire boiling water from sunlight hitting the sharp edge of raindrops, forming a colourful rainbow. Childish acts of indulgence are where you can't help but follow your blind 'instincts', which is often nothing more than finely tuned genes addicting your body to potent bursts of hormones, making you believe that you have fallen madly in love so that you follow your 'programmed' evolutionary purpose - propagate. I do not believe that one has to prove anything because in your skin's lazy lust you fancy everyone else is scoring like rabbits; however, misused or not, we have contraceptives that gives us the chance to learn if we make mistakes. You are fooling yourself if you think people (male/female) are blind to lust, if you think media hasn't affected you, or if you think people are just looking for the body but not the if-not-entertaining-at least-interesting mind (or even a big dose of that ''real' feel of authenticity). We love to be the center of attention, to be taken granted so that we can earn the attention, pretend to possess and surrender complete control, pretend to be on the edge of danger/unknown so that we feel alive, find a stronger distraction because what we get is never enough. When it comes to dating, society frowns upon thinking too much about it, instead opting for things like relying on fate, going with your gut, and hoping for the best. In life, you usually don't get good at something until you've done it a bunch of times. Unfortunately, not many people have a chance to be in more than a few, if any, serious relationships before they make their big decision. Single people to be generally bad, at finding out their actual relationship preferences. The respectable way to meet a life partner is by dumb luck, by bumping into them randomly or being introduced to them from within your little pool. Although everyone is not the same (and preferences, tolerance differ according to personality & ability) but smart people know how to avoid traps. This protects them from anyone looking to short-sell (everyone loves to take a chance for a free ride). Know what you are hungry for in life, so that nobody can exploit those strategic chinks in the armour with 'deception'. Never underestimate the realness of the dormant beast within us, the inherent capacity of man's mindlessness & the dead silence between every heartbeat. It has become common to make the excuse that that person was 'all caught up in the moment' or 'got confused' when in fact their act was to play the field in search for greener pastures. it's no surprise that people often change their minds (or rather their hearts) OR that I understand the logic for preparing a "pre-game plan"; but the hypocrisy of the situation made by a lover's betrayal is, unacceptable. I have this believe that when you are alive your actions are gonna define you and after death nothing really matters. We try our best to find someone who's from our own time and the rest is make-belief. Usually, when it happens, it happens. You meet a new chance, who is obviously not perfect, not by a long shot. A quirky dysfunctional social mutant that 'fits'.....and the answer becomes a simple act of peaceful defiance... a foundation for a belief, that you have someone to make you mad, hurtful and so damn 'happy' every once in a while. (It's funny that now you feel happy by the act of making your partner happy and your partner chooses to nest around the very awkward quirks built into you which you always wanted to erase). Even begin to share each other's deepest fears. You share a connection that instantly gives you an idea of how the other person is feeling. Your goals change; you see that the change in you is positive. Your weakness becomes insignificant as you find lightness and a deep strength in your heart. Romance can be a great part of a relationship, and love is a key ingredient in a happy marriage, but without a bunch of other important things, it’s simply not enough. You need to start building and protecting, together, matching pace. it's a love that's not seductive (for lack of a better word, I mean 'plain' & 'simple' here; playful romance to put the mind at ease and seduction to build up physical desire, is obviously needed to keep things refreshed. The hard part is to figure out how things can be made playful, dangerous, new). Flirting may not be directly for sex but for Fun (like a sport) or trying to see what it would be like to be in imaginative Romantic situations. Also the most vital aspect for a relationship to remain healthy is by keeping the level of mutual respect and trust is the green zone. Couples often avoid that they each have to (unambiguously & consistently) reinforce tough love for their relationship to survive on these few fundamental pillar stones. it's easier said than done but the maturity of couples are reflected and they know each other well enough to solve problems without letting negative emotions building up. One can only try to anticipate that-much wisely and be only so-much flexible in showing concessions. Because love's well-being and sustainability doesn't follow any rule-book. It's an anomaly but is strangely in the same path where a long-line of people before your time, during your time and in the generations to come, has walked. They had the audacity to belief that a matured but also fragile two-sided fantasy, made of hopes, mutual respect, has the power to stand the test of time and become something REAL. Then when as time passes you by, I hope, you are richer as friends, lovers, fellow travellers. So when you take a bunch of people who aren't that good at knowing what they want in a relationship, surround them with a society that tells them they have to find a life partner but that they should under-think, under-explore, and hurry up, and combine that with biology that drugs us as we try to figure it out and promises to stop producing children before too long, what do you get? A frenzy of big decisions for bad reasons and a lot of people messing up the most important decision of their life. The types of fear our society (and parents, and friends) inflict upon us—fear of being the last single friend, fear of being an older parent, sometimes just fear of being judged or talked about—are the types that lead us to settle for a not-so-great partnership. Am I enough for you, or do you need me to be better in some way? The alternative. Some don't really want a legitimate partnership. What they really wants is, both to keep her single life and also to have someone there to keep them company. "For most of recorded history, people married for logical sorts of reasons: because her parcel of land adjoined yours, his family had a flourishing business, her father was the magistrate in town, there was a castle to keep up, or both sets of parents subscribed to the same interpretation of a holy text." Since one cannot turn back time or go to an idealized version of the dark ages; people rather prefer to close their eyes and hope that they bump into (every-thing -will-come-&-happen-to-me) luck. Some people with open hearts believe that everyone should simply know that knowledge is of no use because nobody has any real control anyway. The best thing is always to take things lightly and have loads of fun fun and then some more. Live life large by experiencing different things and the future will turn out just fine. (They have a valid point, stress makes things harder) and why not? It could happen, right? Life is good when you are watching it from an old bar in a beach with ''interesting'' company. Because love is rooted with, evolving as equally but paradoxically erotic attraction or sexiness, is inherently about winning satisfaction by playing with the new spark. It will resurface. As the cool breeze hits you its divine to unwind by getting a little tipsy, laughing a little louder and drowning in the background music. Everyone deserves such a "break" for at the least 3 months each year. Cheers & be cool, man. For most of us, there are some alarming bits of our imaginations that simply refuse to fit in with the rest of our allegiances: we may be deeply interested in monogamy, and yet after a while, could find that we are only excited by the attention of complete strangers. We may be believers in every kind of gender equality, yet in bed, dream of humiliating someone. All this can be hugely challenging to our investment in appearing progressive and sane. It seems that, despite the rhetoric, we refuse to accept human sexual desires (in so far as these cause others no harm).
But couples who wed for the first time at 35 or over had a 17% risk of divorce during their first 5 years of marriage. "Western understanding of marriage has been based the last 250 years: that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning. We are looking to recreate, within our adult relationships, the feelings we knew so well in childhood. We make mistakes, too, because we are so lonely." What ideal partners do, according to Vedic scripture:
Extreme immersion in pronography appears to make sex with the one you love a turn-off. Where once pornography was used as stimulation for flagging sex lives, or an occasional treat for adventuring lovers, now it’s become an online cult from which a return to normal life becomes ever more difficult. It’s like our great appetite for cookery programmes, which are also, for the most part, a spectator sport; we’re a nation of guzzlers, supine on our sofas, watching other people cook while devouring ready-made meals so as not to disturb our viewing time. To describe it as ironic would be to seriously underplay the dysfunctionality of such behaviour.
Finally, we marry to make a nice feeling permanent but failed to see that there was no solid connection between these feelings and the institution of marriage. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not “normal.” Marriage tends decisively to move us onto another, very different and more administrative plane, which perhaps unfolds in a suburban house, with a long commute and maddening children who kill the passion from which they emerged. We should be aware that every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us — and we will (without any malice) do the same to them. There can be no end to our sense of emptiness and incompleteness. - Alain de Botton.
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AuthorI am interested in unfolding scene design, character design and image design; representing contemporary narrative strategy, narrative shot and narrative style. The flowing images, which combine aesthetics and ideology. NoticeThis site contains copyrighted material for purposes that constitutes 'fair use'; and has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. No fee is charged, and no money is made off this site. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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June 2020
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