Mar 2, 2008

The Truth of Society is Bigger than the Market

On Friday I finished a workshop about the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" -- Manager's version. No, I am not a manager, as you all know that, but my boss thought it would be a nice seminar for me to take. He said it could help me organize my time, if I wanted to. I agreed out of "what the hell". Would I not been so stressed, I would have considered the workshop an absolute waste of my time, but this way I took it as nice vacations. As it was, I walked expecting a load of shit served in a nice hotel, with no access to Internet, but thankfully some chance to write my journal or read Némirovsky under the table. Then, the following things stood out:

- The consultor/expositor was some American guy from California with a really strong accent and a terrible grammar. He's tall and has a very nice body, clad very nicely, perfect preppy "Trunks"-like haircut and nice eyebrows. However he's as fake as a three dollar bill, full with the 7 Habits shit, which he can't let go and uses as his magic formula for everything. It's his shield and his worktool, both of them locking away whatever real "Eric" (that's his name) into the depths of a person consumed by a job where he probably needs constant reassurance that what he's doing is what he really wants to do.

- Fabricio, a self-procclaimed "Italian" with deep rings around his eyes, short and so desperate to become a clon of Eric, he seemed to me as gay as it comes. and add to it, a desperate bottom crying out for Eric The Master's attention. It was so pathetic the way he ran to comply with each suggestion and "homework" the American gave. Really... for someone posing as a leader, he's such a pussy it's ridiculous.

- Cristiane Alkim, the Brazilian economist chick. Smoking hot, great body, blonde and smart, until you find out that she's an obsessive person who speaks so much and so fast he cuts your windpipes with talk. Rather irrational, as the only thing she is willing to hear is her self, she's a lot like me, and that made me think: am I also that asphixiating? I could be and that worries me.

- A bunch of stupid managers who really thing that paying the workshop and sitting in there already downloads into them the Escence of Sucess and Effectiveness, and from now on they will be super-managers because now they the "Stephen Covey" power in them.

- Thomas Saccone, a French man who impressed me.

I didn't learn much from the workshop, but I learned fron the people. I learned from Cristiane what I look like, what am I achieving with my aggresiveness and my forcing of my point of view. The first day I was convinced Eric wanted to fuck Cristiane, and I was pretty sure she was interested too, but then... well, I don't know, but it sure didn't look like that the next day. On Friday Eric paid the drinks of the people who would stay after the seminar was done. Surpeinsingly, a lot of people was gone quickly, as if they would have been waiting desperately for the chace to escape. Well, it says much of Eric's work, right. People stayed then for the promised beer, the ten of us, and then, in less than two hours, everybody was gone. I wanted to stay because I had nothing to do, and so Eric and I stayed for like two more hours until 21-21:30 or so. He seemed more relaxed then, though he never undid his tie. He move to full English mode and we talked a lot of things, me sharing more info than what he did, all about personal things, personal believes, and then my trademark inciscive remarks like: "You strike me like someone as fake as a $3 when you talk at the workshop, save when you are fanatically speaking of Mentor Dr. Covey... really Alternative Church-like. Then you follow formulas so much, fuck! You pretend to be polite but ignore the people you are speaking with?" And this was the soft-core stuff. The hardball came when he told me he loved working with a student exchange program because it gave him a fulfillment feeling, and I told him it was selfich bullshit and that program only stroke his god-complex.

I've got my own share that ranged from "people-user" to "superiority complex" all the way to "You are a very attractive woman, but your cinicism makes people stay away.... then again, your openness, your attitude towards sex makes you again attractive."

It was a nice chat and it was nice to hear him laught. We talked about his girlfriend and he asked me about my time of man, then he drove me to the bus station and kissed my cheek so soundly, his face so pressed to my face, it was as if he would have almost Frenched me. It was odd as well that, him being American, said good-bye to me with a "Bon nuit". French get to me, but did I mentioned it to him? I'm sure I didn't. I only say to him that my type of man was the European one, and that nothing meant ... oh.

I told him how it broke me down and how it got to me when a guy shared something with me such as a quote from Sartre or his own broken attempt to translate a part of Lermontov's poetry to me.

Like in most series, sexual tension was high there, but it never came resolved. Either he was too involved with his girlfriend and affraid of trying something new, or my cinicism scared the hell out of him and so he decided to decline. Me? Well, I was in for the "free ride": good if it happened, and fine if not. Too bad Thomas didn't came the second day, though. That would be something.

You see, something that I have learned, and not now but for some years now, is that men should not be chased, should not be sought, but you must let them come by. See something nice, reach for it, but don't run into the wild with the idea of hunting down someone. The moment you see a man, without looking for one, you can take him in as he is, with his humanity, his shields and the guy itself, withouth the added filters your eyes could add up, such as "make it a man", and the see only the gender. Men are beautiful because they are more than a gender, a dick that hangs with his balls between his legs and hardens at the rights stimulation. Men are also the smile, the smirk, the narrowing of eyes and the sparkle in the corner of their beautiful, colourful, rich eyes. They are the arms goind behing the head with locked fingers to hoist the head and show off their hard earned biceps. They are the focusing eyes, that see nothing but the concept in their minds, their soft voice as they slowly speak out their minds, as they unwrap their beautiful feelings, as they let out the simple and gorgeous threading of thoughts, wishes and emotions. You must let them come, appear in your life and happen and then, like flowers in the wild, birds in the forest, you reach out for them or let them come close, like the beautiful deers and stags they are, and enjoy themmm within their freedom, never take them home, never change them, never domesticate them, but let them be, as beautiful as they are.

I am happy there are men in the world.

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