Opinions That Matter

As people living in a society that seeks to keep all elements together, we are normally affected by what others think or say about us. It hurts us if someone thinks ill of us - be it in a justified or unjustified way - and it pleases us when someone thinks good of us. We fear reprimands or humiliation, and we bask in flattery or recognition. These elements can go more shallow or deeper depending on the opinion and kinds of opinions we allow to affect us, un which way and how long. For instance it could be normal to feel bad if an acquintance - a coworker or a neighbour - notices that our clothes don't match, or we have gained or lost weight, but it wouldn't be normal to be depressed about it and consider suicide based on that opinion. It might not be wise either to pay no attention with a coworker let us know that something we do isn't right (we are not keeping the deadlines, we are not delievering our work in the proper format or the proper channels, or maybe our attire isn't adecuated for the dressing code of the office), and perhaps even indicate us what can we do to improve.

After some happenings occured some weeks ago regarding a certain religious convention, and the uproar it created across blogs, social networks and podcasts (which I follow), and inspite of the fact that this thing doesn't affect me directly as it's not related to my religious denomination, it did upset me on General Principle, just by being a human being and by the tremendous bigotry displayed. The several people I read and listened to, were honestly upset - and within their right! - about the actions and spoken opinions of someone of their group they consider of a high status. And though I share the displeasure with them and consider they are right in their anger, I stopped to think about how much shall this bigot person's opinion matter? Shall it matter enough to occupy your thoughts more than a couple of minutes? More than it takes you to say "You can be a high and mighty as you want, but that thing you just did is plain wrong no matter how you want to look at it, or how much you try to justify it"?

It is easy to remember the story of the two monks and the woman at the river (*), and say "let it go, and don't carry around the resentment for things that have happened", but sometimes it's not so easy. We might be able to let go offenses deal to us personally, but it's not so easy when the offense is directed to a community we belong to. An offense towards our family, our nation, our profession, our school, our neighbourhood, our gender, our generation, our sexual orientation, our lifestyle... You might find it easy to forgive someone who says that you are ugly, but you can't find it that easy to forgive someone who says that all women are golddigers or that all men are brainless pigs.

Yes, maybe we should let these go, but it's also true that generalizations should be fought in order to "re-educate" our society and the future generations. No, it's not men's place to support solely their home, women can also cooperatate bringing home the bacon. No, women's dream isn't to become a wife and a mom, but many of us do find fulfillment in being professionals or spiritual people, or whatever else! Motherhood isn't the ultimate expression of a woman and her final stage of maturing. It's not true either that gay people are out there to convert others, nor it's true that Christianity is the only religion in the world that can save you, or that talks to God. Living together without being married isn't a sin, and God can very well give His blessing over a union without the holy intervention of a priest, but living together is a choice and a lifestyle. Long term relationships aren't for cowards and losers, but they are also a form to keep a relationship that demands as much commitment and love as any other type of relationship.

People's status shouldn't weight anything, but their way of thinking as well as the validity itself of their actions and opinions. A cardinal could be really up high in the church hierarchy, and if he doesn't deem pedophilia and dishonest abuses commited by priests against minors, as a major matter the church should be concerned with, well, he might be quite high on the ladder, but he's still wrong. If someone respected by the community boasts publicly discriminates against a given group of people, that person is wrong. (As it has been so eloquently said, in private you can make meetings with very particular groups of people, like only your closest family, or just your guy friends or your girl friends, or a meeting only for the people of your political affiliation who belong to the youth team and have been active in the last 12 months, are over 21 and under 35, have an income of X and work in marketing. PUBLICLY, you can't. If you are going to speak about your bathroom issues publicly, anyone interested should be given the chance to attend.)

So, though we agree that educating our society is everybody's responsability and we shall work on erradicating harming misconceptions, what should we do when a respected member of society goes against it?  My advise would be, not to shut up, but neither to give it much of our time. State clearly that you are disagree with what has been said or done and why, maybe also suggest what should have been done. However, after this person or group has acted or spoken in this way, the action should not be forgotten, but they should be watched, and if there are no signs of correction, or if the behavior repeats, consider the level of respect, the position, the hierarchy assigned to this person and remove it. Evidently someone who works against the given community, and promotes its's segregation and disintegration, should be separated, unless you are fine with the destruction fo your whole society or community.

Sadly, there's people everywhere, who seek only to create drama. Drama by inventing rivalries or creating situations such that promote the supression of some parts of the community in favor of the dominance of others, without this conducing to a greater good (I mean, if someone is seeking to reduce the benefits of the rich to bring more benefits for the most needed and the middle class, they have my whole support!), then such people should be stopped, and their actions and opinions considered as product of a separatist or destructive mind.

Respect isn't an inherent thing, isn't a matter that you are born with, but a priviledge for which you must work every day. You earn it and you can lose it. So, don't be afraid of retiring it from someone, even if that someone is way up high in the hierarchic ladder of your community.

(*) It's a story about two monks - Buddhists, I believe - who are walking to some place and they walk to a river they need to cross. At the same spot there's a woman who needs help to cross. The monks should help everyone in need, but can't touch women. One of them decides to help the woman, takes her in his arms and crosses the river with her. Puts her down and continues his journey. The other one is astonished and horrified at his actions, and after a while walking, he turns to his companion and says 

"How could you touch that woman and go against our teachings?" 

To this the other monk replies 

"I left that woman at the shore of the river, but you've been carrying her around all this time". 

The lesson is that we should let go instead of mulling over things that have already happened and gone.

Setting More Each Time

Again one of those "daily life" posts. This was my first day waking up at My Home. It was quite awesome that I woke up to a wonderful white, snowing day. I realized that's usually a bad thing for the people leaving here for, like forever, but for me that's like "hooray! Miracle day!". Forgive me, but I've spent a lifetime with nearly no snow unless I paid for a planeticket to go and see some... for two to four weeks.

I woke up with no alarm clock shocking me up and away from the delicious bed, and I woke in a bed I choose, on a mattress as soft as I wanted it to be. Only the covers and the pillow weren't perfect, but that's easy to solve. My boyfriend had to run out, late, to attend business, while I slowly swirled out of the bed and arranged things. As a kid of this age, after pulling my feet out of the bed, my first action was to turn on the computer and plug into the internet. Still in my sleeping gear - a tee and knickers - without make up, without brushing my hair or my teeth, and logged in.

Things still needed to be arranged, things still needed to be assigned a house to live, a shelve to live, a drawer, a corner in the apartment. The process is wonderful and delicious.

In a way this is what reflects a New Life: you don't have around the old, but from the lessons of old, you find your way around these new things. And as with a box full of books and a bookcase waiting for them to be ordered, so is life in its many other matters. In a new relationship, or a new job, and even with a new family member, you bring with yourself the experiences and lessons you've learned from previous relationships/jobs, and seek for a way to make them work, fitting to the new the old forms while also learning from the new, taking from it to enrich the warehouse of your life.

Where does the problem comes? When you either sit there expecting the new to give you everything without you putting from your side, or when you seek to enforce your old ways onto the new. This is how we find people who preech about how men are oppressive beings seeking to supress women and subject them to a patriarchal order, or people saying that all women care about is money, they are stupid and unreliable, who would go away with anyone paying them enogh money. This is also the kind of attitude of the people who says that all bosses are out there to abuse of you (even if you have had such an experience repeatedly in the past), or that women-bosses are all hags out there to make you suffer for their past sufferings.

There cases where people don't yield to the new - often said as being resistant to change or afraid of change -  are not this easily recognizable. Such is the case of people with prejudices or preconcieved ideas about something. Now, don't get me wrong, we all have preconcieved ideas - that's how we navigate through our lives, by "fixing" some things so we don't have to "learn them again" in order to proceed with what's really important in our life. For instance, most of us have the preconcieved idea that people known to be criminals are not to be trusted. So we won't go letting someone previously charged with house burglary housesit for us, or a condemned rapist babysit our child. However there's people with fixed ideas about things other people don't have such a strong position about it. Cases like this are, such as ideas about secretaries being all whores, all tellers steal, all public employees are lazy, all lawyers are dishonest, all doctors seek to cut you up and all dentists try to squeeze you out of your money. And here I don't mean the jokes you normally hear about it, but the actual behaving and talking as if these ideas were a proven fact.

What can you earn from rooting into old ideas without receiving nourishment from the new? It doesn't mean you must discard the old entirely, but rather think of your experiences as a tree: with your experiences - all of them - the tree of your experiences, grows stronger and firmer roots that keep the trunk, which is your life, your present, your current status. But this trunk has branches and the branches have leaves that need light and air, and the roots themselves need water and nutrients from the Earth. Be the nutrients of the Earth books you can consult to grow deeper in your experience and knowledge, water, air and light are always the new elements that also bring with them to you more of those nutrients, and which you need to be exposed to, unfiltered, so you can grow always strong, insteand of wilting and dying.

Open up to chance, open up to the new, and keep yourself strong, don't lose your past experiences and your knowledge from site, don't cast out without reason, don't alienate yourself to the new, but don't oppose it: there's always a middle way you can take, from which you can always profit more, and from which the new can also grow.

First Post From Home!

This is my first post from my new home. My New Home. ^_^ It wasn't trouble free, as nearly no moving is trouble free, and we are still pulling stuff out from the suitcases, but I am home now. My home, the place where I'm the Lady of the House. There's still a lot to unpack, and still many dishes to wash before giving them an assigned home. There are still decisions to be made about what goes where, and where shall I put the groceries and how can I get a picture in the kitchen. The bookshelves are getting filled, and we made our bed for the first time tonight. My boyfriend is waiting for me, with a bottle of champagne we opened for dinner. A romantic he is!

I'm clsing my lines, writing from a cluttered dinner table that serves as our desk - shared desk! - while we get a couple of desks that suits us both. (I want matching desks since they are going to be in the same room and on the same end of the room.)

Blessing to all of you!

The Day does Shine and the Danube is Blue

I had a very upsetting nightmare where I spent a whole day quarreling with my boyfriend because of the mess he kept doing everywhere he went, and instead of fixing things and cleaning up his mess, he constantly came up with excuses about why things were the way they were. When I woke up, I smiled relieved that it was only a dream, and there was no pile of stuff left every step of the way in the most inconvenient and unpleasant manner. I went to the bathroom, washed my hair and was happy. A nice warm shower always makes me happy. ^_^ Then I came out of the bathroom and my boyfriend was engaged in the other bathroom running the water, while the bed was undone, his computer was left on the table - as I told him not to do it, because a coffee table, in the middle of a living room isn't the place to park an unused laptop, open and with the cables spread all around like ivy - and the makings of a breakfast and unwashed dishes around the place. I've got upset, and told him that sure he made dreams come true, and told him about my dream, and chewed him out for solid three hours in a row. Yes, when I get upset, I'm really unpretty. Then again, it's a family thing, look at my Grandpa! And all for a dream, you'd say? No, all for waking up and finding yourself in a real life continuation of a nightmare. Wouldn't you do the same?

We had plenty of stuff to do, like move more stuff to our apartment, both from here (now here we've only the worth of three small suitcases! That's quite an accomplisment for me!) and from my godmother's place. By then we were quarreling some here and there, but lightly (as I use to, because I believe in instant barking, when you love someone, instead of holding up and exploding some day), and lots of I love you's, as we use to, all the time. Personally, if you ask me, I believe that's the secret of our relationship is exactly this: we say what's wrong when it's wrong. We don't hold it back, nor we fake our feelings about it. We are open. and we say "I love you" plenty too! ^_^

Set to our goal, and with the fresh and beautiful feeling that our home is taking shape, we drove to our  apartment with some stuff from our current place. The day was bright and so crispy! Shiny and clear and marvelous, and there, when the road took us running next to the Danube, I couldn't but stare in awe at how truly blue the river looked. I've never been a fan of blue, but this blue was there and was filling my eyes with the most wonderful whispers of Mother Nature. It was there, live and flowing, unaltered, framed by civilization, bricks of the past and the present, pushing into its waters, and yet Mother Nature had found her way to bring out the Danube's legendary beauty, the shine and azure that inspired from old and created one of the most remarkabled valses I've heard. Once again God, in His Infinite Wisdom, choose a river in this occasion, to tell the world that man can plan and create and do as he pleases, but not the biggest building or the most elaborated bridge, or the longest harbor can ever come into His plans, because His designs are Divine and unalterable.

The visit to my godmother was troublesome. After she vehemently said she didn't want us living there, now she was sad and claimed we have abandoned her, we never visit here and were never there to help her. Desperate and terribly sad, she insisted she needed protection from her neighbours, who claim to be connected both with the Ucranian maffia and the police, scaring the poor lady entirely out of her money. I promised to help her, like I've done before, but this time I finally got to see the numbers of her expenses and her debts. In a simple, sad little grey notebook, I notice how her mind is failing her, noting things with no order, often no amount, no more date than the month on the top, and filling the pages with notes about how much she's supposed to owe other people, though there's no noting about why or how does she come to that number.

Initially it seems orderly, but as I started entering the numbers in an Excel file, I noticed that not only the numbers don't add up, but neither the details seem right, often with over $300 in alleged amenity bills. I'll see what can I do to help her with her situation, but the more time I spend with her, the more I'm sure that she souldn't be making decisions for herself about herself, but should be urgently put under professional supervision. It's sad because she's still lively and she's physically fine, but her mind is very, very much gone.

This time around, in an effort to get things done at my godmother's with the packing and moving, I went up to the house and took the reigns of the packing myself, paying no attention to what my boyfriend said, who countinued packing with a list in hand almost as if he were shopping, and wasting precious time and turning around boxes already packed and looking for what he needed. I concentrated in this case on the kitchen, where I took two boxes and quickly started putting in one the important things that needed to be moved at once with us, and in the other the things that could wait because I would still make decisions about it - like will I keep it or give it away to goodwill or something. In a matter of an 30 minutes to one hour I had goned through the entire place, and had even cleaned out the table which was littered with bills and envelops of my boyfriend, that laid around aimlessly, placed there "so they are in full view so he can take care of them". Like that's ever going to happen. I'm totally going to get him a wire basket where he can dump all his "must be where I can see them" stuff an out of the rest of the orderly and neat place I intend to keep.

From there we went home and on the way we discussed my godmother. Sometimes I have a softspot for her and would think about moving in with her and help her get around - and I know my boyfriend's soft spot is bigger and he really wants to be around and help her - BUT she's unreliable, and though she wants help today, tomorrow she decides we are in her way. Today she says her neighbours are threatening her and taking away her money, and tomorrrow they are her friends, care for her and she gives them money because they need it more than she does.

Things with her are murky, but as today the Danube was blue inspite of men and their inventions, I hope to believe that the skies will be clear and happy with her one day too.

Pandora

Last year - I believe - I heard for the first time about the Pandora bracelets. The idea at first was funky and fun: the idea of making your own bracelets, and by then I have been going around with beads making necklaces and earrings for myself and my friends. There's a certain magic in wearing a piece you've done yourself, that's unique and nobody else has. But also because you know what it took you to make it and it's a piece with even less compromising than pieces bought done, where you either love the whole thing or you'll have to settle for the parts you like and leave with the rest.

Pandora kind of opened this up giving you the option to decide each part of your bracelet, picking the beads and the amount of beads, as well as the bracelet string, where you place the beads you've picked. I definitively had to check that out. So after lots of looking around and searching, I found a store in Costa Rica where there place was set like a quite expensive jewelry store, with counters displaying the beads. And well, it is expensive. Beads go from $21 to $1155, and the bases can go from $90 to $5780. Naturally, the prices depend on the pieces, but with this prices, and considering that a base gets filled with 15 to 20 beads, on the cheaper end you can end up with a bangle that takes you back $675 (the cheapest pieces are too thin so I counted a piece of $21 base, 15 thicker beads of $32 and five thin ones of $21). So I ask, does it worth it? Does it worth wearing a bracelet composed by yourself for so much money?

The answer for me is "no". Thing is that to express your individuality, your creativity and make fabulous jewelry for yourself, there's a huge and quite inexpensive world out there of glass beads. Look for a local craft store - google it if you have no idea where to look for! Or ask around - or go online. You can prepare a simple base with a craft thread (looks much like fishing line!), or with leather strips, waxed thread, or silk thread, like the one used for Chinese or Celtic knots! Your imagination and just a little bit of practicing can help you create your own bracelets mixing beautiful knotwork and beads.

On Amazon.com you can get a bag with assorted beads for as little as $5, and they work beautifully with your imagination and give your creativity a boost without being held down by what your wallet can pay for. Even more unique, could be the bracelets you make out of pieces of your old jewelry, or pieces you've picked up from the street. (I'm one of those people who can't help but pick up pieces of jewelry I find on the street, like half an earring, a pendant for a necklace, a broken bracelet... if it has something beautiful in it, something usable, I pick it up, bring it home - nearly cook it to get it clean! - and then store it away until I decide what new fabulous peace will that forgotten, fallen piece of jewelry become. In a way it's also a way to honor the previous owner. Whenever I've lost an earring or a necklace, or any piece of jewelry, I'm sad for a while, and miss it a lot. The thought that somebody found it and liked it an made something pretty out of it gives me a certain comfort. I don't know for sure if that happened, but I like to think about it, so I also do that for others: pick up their fallen jewelry and give them a new, loving home ^_^)

Possibilities are endless, and you don't need much training or many supplies to make a bracelet. Then, if you would like to prepare something a tad more elaborated, you can always ask at your craft store (if you found one) for classes on how to work with pliers (it's really simple and all it takes is practice! I myself still have some work to do to perfect my technique, but that doesn't keep me from doing the job!). This way you can buy a length of chain in any color you want, or just the wire and prepare the chain yourself, and then add the beads to it, either by keeping them in the line with the links, or by dangling them from the links like little charms. The posibilities are only limited by what you can come up with, and how much you want to do it.

So, the next time you walk by a Pandora store, don't frown at them. Go inside, check the store out, the beads, and get inspired! And why not? Maybe you'd like to treat yourself, buy a bead or two, and go home, take out your silk thread, your wire, your leather strips... whatever your imagination calls for, and make yourself unique, beautiful jewelry that reflects the awesome, beautiful person you are inside.

How About You Do Something About It

It seems there's an inmutable fact of life, that there are people who just like to complain. They have a terrible boss, they have annoying coworkers, their relatives/partners don't understand them, they are in a relationship that lacks respect, they have poor health, nobody helps them, they can't get a decent job, their income isn't enough... you name it. You, I and everybody else know at least one such person, and though there are cases where the bitching and complaining is entirely justified, there are cases where it's not because the person dishing the bitching could do something about it.

The people who bitch with reason are people who are in a difficult situation, but are actively looking for a way out of it, either by quiting the situation (be it job, relationship, or moving away from the pain-in-the-ass relative), or if that's not an option (say there's no other job, or no other job as good as that, or the unbearable relative turns our to be a child or a sick parent), then they are looking for ways to work around the unpleasantries and diminish their effect. Your boss is stupid, your coworkers are morons or what you do is not fulfilling you, BUT the company you work in is great? Well, you can either decide to quit altogether, look for a position in another department, OR work out ways to counter the negativity, such as avoid your coworkers if they are stupid and always contact your boss for everything, or avoid your boss by getting in contact with him only thought e-mail and his secretary, and then keep close contact with this boss, or seek for new ways to make your job more exciting (nothing ilegal, though!). And if non of these are viable, then work on yourself, so you can ignore the things that bother you, or work around them, and then give yourself the needed place to unload the unpleasentries in a civilized manner. Say you meet with friendds, or join a yoga class or something.

If family is unpleasant, well, you can always find ways to keep less and less in contact with them, and when strictly needed, you can always find ways to make it last the least posible amount of time.

So, you see, there are ways, and healthy people can and do find these ways. They complain to blow off some of the steam, but they don't seek to burden others with their problems, have others solve the problem for them. They just don't. However there's people out there who are in a crappy job - work with a crappy boss, or have unbearable coworkers that make their lif hell, or are exploited and paid poorly -  or have a really bad relationship - the boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse cheats on them, or bully them, or one of their parents constantly belittles them and make them feel like the worse type of scum on the planet, or a sibling costantly steal their things or expect them to solve the messes of their lives, or an aunt or grandparent constantly harrass them with why they don't do things the way it was done 80 years ago... - and all that is nice and fine, and you know it's a bitch to have all that, but these are things that have a solution: you can either face them and solve them, or quit the situation, or maybe just take distance from it. But this kind of people rather complain.

They always use terms like "this is going to be the last time" and "now it's for real" or "I have dignity" and "I should be treated with respect", and maybe even things like "they always do this" or "well, it's not like the last time". I'm one to tell them in their face that we are no longer buying that if "now's for real", they should get real, because now's just for show, just like last time. And this isn't the last time, because last time was the last time, and the time before that too, and yet they continue in the same shit. And if they always do this, why are you so upset? Shouldn't you just see it coming? Shouldn't you be used to it? I'd say that if you keep in this after "they always do this" then you must like it, otherwise no sane person would take it. 

As for "it wasn't the same as last time"... give us a break! It's completely irrelevant the detail of it, when what happens is basically the same thing: you were offended, you were abused, you were disrespected one way or the other, so does it really matter how were you disrespected this time around or should you rather concentrate on the fact that you were disrespected. Yes, it was the same as last time, and it's becoming a tedious cycle.

Time and again this people bitch like it's the end of the world and they want our attention for it. They come up with new sicknesses, or new people mistreating them, or new world threatening menaces, and all to get attention. Yes, it all goes just to get attention. Sure, they call it "asking for support" and some "consideration", but really? When it happens almost in a seasonal fashion? some people just need to live in a continual drama, with people around them fixing the mess they created, and thing is that fixing it once won't solve the problem, because they'll keep messing it up and messing it up until you've got fed up and leave them, and then you'll give them yet another reason to complain and play the victim.

So what to do? Ignore them. Plain and simple. If you notice that no matter how much hadve you tried to help them, they keep fucking it up, or when you suggest a solution for whatever they are currently bitching, they come up with excuses about why that's not good, then leave it like that. It's not your problem, and probably isn't even their real problem. They just want to complain. So close up, show them that you are not an audience for their cheap drama, and continue living happily ever after.

Ikea breaks so easily.. or shall I say, rips?

It's Thursday, nearly Friday, and again on a #FF day. This time around I'm a bit more aware than usually, but that doesn't mean that I'll go #FF-ing anyone, nor I'll probably give a flying f* about any of the lists of #FF I'll appear. And what's really an #FF for? "Follow Friday", a hashtag used to socialize, to promote your followers and hope you are promoted as well.

It's Thursday and we are not near to move to our apartment, but coming close. There's no more furniture to move - in or out - but there are plenty of boxes with furniture that still need to be ensambled. Well, and due to a small accident product of an overzealous attempt at DIY, a piece actually cracked and needs to be fixed tomorrow. For your general information, I believe you should know that the Skandinavian furniture - namely Ikea here - isn't as 1-2-3 as you'd imagine. It does say that no furniture should be put together by one person alone, but after today I believe it should say "some pieces, like the biggest ones, are at letas a three-people job". Furniture is gorgeous, don't get me wrong, but through that cracking we've got to realize that some of this stuff (maybe all of it) isn't as sturdy as it seems to be, and the compressed material more than compressed wood is rather compressed cardboard. Yeah, I know.

The credence and the bed were put together today, so we've the shelve units, the closet, the night stands and the table to be put together tomorrow. I hope also that we dimensioned the furniture well, as it seems we might have a little bit more of clothes and a little bit more of books than originally planned, and these furniture don't seem like the type that would accomodate well my usual "winzipping" of stuff into small places.

So, #FF... I'll be busy - as usual - doing something else, and while several people in the cyberspace will be terribly busy checking if they get acknowledged by their peers or not, and dutifully acknowledging others, I'll be otherwise engaged making a home out of the apartment, and hopefully, getting in time to the movies to see "The Shame".

A Day of Procrastination

The day started somewhat late, deeply burrowed between thick, warm blankets that may or may have not been made out of feathers. At the right side a curtain muted sunshine tried to break into the tiny blue room, accompanied by the comfortable heat of the radiator. The cats - all of them - should be out there, probably wondering what the fuck is wrong with the new, scary people who should be delievering their meal by then. At the left side there was also heat, but mingled with a sort of sour scent. A shared bed. Hell, still gara get used to it.

He had come up late last night, probably around 2 am after driving a beaten up white truck with all the furniture - new and old, that was to go in or out of what would be called "Home" in a few days - or weeks - and from then on for an unspecified period of time. I was awake when he arrived home, but nicely in bed and tired as hell, inspite of having indulged in a bubble bath. I closed my eyes and drifted into sleep as Iheard him come into the bedroom, take off his sweater and then quietly close the door behind himself, to avoid disturbing me. The sweet thing. Like there is a thing other than an earthquake or the rare case of insomnia that can disturb my sleep.

Around 3 am I was woken up by a sound and a sour smell. It was him. I couldn't figure out what could have he eaten that would smell so foul, but didn't care much as sleep was prioritary.

It was around 10 am, perhaps. The acrid scent was the result of something he prepared himself as a quick dinner, probably a strange Hungarian concoction that makes sense only to the people born and brought up in this flat lands can understand, like raw raddish and onion with lard, a sausage and sauerkraut.

His day was quite packed with appointments, as usual, plus a trip back to the Ikea warehouse, to replace the matress we've got wrong. (Our bed - being a sofa-bed - uses two separate mattresses of 80x200 cm, which is good because I like my bed outrageously soft while he likes his bed abnormally hard. The mattresses weren't both at the same place, but one - mine - was at the store and the other one was at the warehouse. Add to it, the packed mattresses don't look anything like mattresses, but rather like sort of pillow. Add to it, it was dark, we were tired and we didn't notice the guy gave us a completely different mattress of 120x200 cm.) Then we was supposed to run up home to move some more things and unroll the mattresses, since it would take them 3 days to get their actual shape.

My errands would have included a trip to the Official Translations' Office to get my diploma translated, a trip to some paperstore to get myself a map, so I manage to drive myself around Budapest successfully (where in the freaking hell are my maps?? I had several), a trip to the Evangelical Church headquarters to inquire about a Lutheran church near my new home (since I've been basically chased out of my usual church by a relative who believes to be anointed with the power of God to decide who can and who cannot enter the church, and I'm not feeling feisty, but am ok with picking another church all for myself), and maybe also go to the movies to see what's there to be seen and also to take on the chance - once at the mall, and raid one of my favorite bookstores with the complete list of all the books that have been offered to me via e-mail, and I've decided to get a glance at.

However the day went on drawn in long, lazy, hazy lights, with the hours meshing one into the next, with a liquidity seen only on days of rest and extreme pleasantry. Clouds washed away, as if spilled fresh in a pool of celurean blue, washing off the sky, but getting lost themselves as well. Things needed to be done, like the laundry, washing my hair and finally tackling a recipe to make chiles rellenos, the Mexican way. The hair was done, the laundry was taken care of, and after a trip for the supplies for the chiles rellenos - which proved inapropiate, as it seems I paid for a rather fine piece of meat, simply because I don't know what the other cuts are - I set to my first cooking task since we arrived.

It was hell. The peppers refused to get burned even when I pur them directly into the flame and expected them to get charred, blistered or at least change color. Could it be that Californian pepper bells react different than poblano chiles? Not that I've seen poblano chiles in my life, but still. Wishing to avoid, then, the deep frying - it's not my kitchen and there's no deep frier in here, though I may need to get one! - so they went into the owen. It was one of the worse ideas that could have occured to me - kitchen related. The peppers didn't get cooked, the egg remained unpleasantly raw and it ruined half a pound of perfectly delicious  meat and mozzarella cheese. I was supremely disappointed.

He came back just for lunch, which again extended eternally with the heating of a soup that refured by some sort of demonic stubborness, to get heated. A bag of pasta for the soup was prepared, but half of it baked itself into the bottom of a pot way too small to house so much pasta, and then only a spoonfull was eaten, the rest went to feed the puffy wastebasket.

All the errands planned got moved 24 hours, and then only the raiding of bookstores and movies remained on the list, but as the day stretched, the milky skies slowly darkened, like a plant wliting too slowly, or a love dying so softly into emptiness.

The hours spun around the face of the clock, round and round, two skinny witches circling around and unseen but ever so powerful altar making magic happen. There, before my two dark eyes the day was gone, and a mind fixed reading a book that hasn't been published yet, completing as it read the pages unfinished, the story of a character and their journey through life, lingering long on specific details, taking pleasure in the picturing of a gesture, a soft smirk, and words pronounced slowly with the absolute conviction that they are their own, invented by their own, but nothing is theirs, as they don't get to exist if I don't decide it so.

Isn't this "creating" one devillish contraption, that makes mortals feel like gods? Doesn't it foul the mind with the absolute power upon what doesn't exist? "The Artist exists within the religious frame of its  creation". And the hours go by. Another day has clocked out, and another will come tomorrow to take its place.

Another Account of my Daily Life

It's 22h here and I think that it's 14h at Mom's, probably with lots of sun and warmth and whatnots. I think of my workmates (still workmates? Former workmates?) all tucked nicely in the glass tower with stupid and inapropiate air conditioning and the newest addendum to the office life. Slivers of information filter down to me and I feel somewhat relieved at being able not to call that "my reality".

My reality has been taking more shape today, or shall I say more definitive shapes, as today an important part of the moving was done: we went to Ikea and bought our furniture. Okay, granted, not all the pieces, but the main pieces: There's a bed (more like a sofa that opens to a bed), a shelve unit, a mirrored closet, an armoir, nightstands, a dining table... but there are things that still need to be bought (and we'll do a little without using old pieces while we find the perfect ones), such as the desks, the couches and chairs for the dining table. It was my first time buying furniture at Ikea, so the whole concept does was a bit strange to me, with several rooms worth of furniture set in flat carton boxes with codes.

I'm showing you quickly some of the pictures of the furniture we've bought, but as they were showed in the store. However, since Blogger is against vertical photography, please feel free to twist your necks to see the picture as it should be.

This would be the nightstand.

This white shelve unit will be our shelve unit. 

I eliminated the glass doors on the shelves to the right and added an extra 80x200 cm of shelves.

In here you see basically our sofa-bed, the nightstand and the shelves on top of it.

We've got only two shelves, and those go over the desks... as soon as we have the desks.

In here notice the armoir or credence. (The one under the mirror)

There's a matter of storage space we need to address and this was perfect!

And this would be our table.

Didn't got to the chairs, but I want also white chairs.

Yes, all of the white, as I plan to paint the walls brown, specially since I've managed to work on the stiff resistance that my boyfriend put to my fabulous idea. It's also amusing how a half Latin, like myself - for that's what I am - gets such a Skandinavian environment. All of the furniture comes in decidedly Skandinavian names, like Sven, and Erik, and Valter and Hemnes... It's like they would murder you any time and set a tattooed girl to investigate you or a fucked up lawyer girl with a scar on the lip and a big police detective with a softspot for cats.

Personally I don't mind the lack of tropical flavor and quite enjoy the vikingish style, truth to be told, only I never really imagined this is how it would be. Then again, what can you expect when you pull your whole decoration from Ikea? (Then again I've seen homes furnished entirely from Ikea looking like a refugee campsite.)

The advance for the framing of the pictures was arranged, and then I worked some errands online, fixing the things so that the furniture could be bought without any problem, paying some bills and stuff like that.

I'm here, setting my life in motion, living where I always dreamed to live (though not exactly in the same arrondisement, but I'm getting to that), looking for a job and hoping for the best, and it seems the best is coming my way. ^_^

Kicking the Start

Another day of my life, my new life. This thing about getting your life started, all this "blank slate" and what-not... it's not really as all cool anf fun as you would think it is, particularly not in a place across the planet, and I freaking know this place! 

The moving was supposed to get started today, but it kinda didn't go that way. My boyfriend had plenty of things to do, and I also managed a few things of my own, like getting my pictures framed. No, they haven't been framed yet, but I've found myself a place where I can get them framed, and the lady was so nice and so adorable to me, that she expressed how much she loved the pictures I've brought (it seems she's also a big fan of Mucha), and was delighted with my pick for frames: white. She expressed concern about the color of the walls, and I was honest. I told her our walls are currently white, but I inted to paint them brown, and so all our furniture is white and so the frames need to be white to pop up nicely. This made her giddy. She must absolutely see a picture of this when I'm done! So many people in Hungary are to terribly conservative about decoration and fear to make bold statements! Truth to be told, I don't consider chocolate walls to be any sort of bold statement, as brown is basically a muted, neutral, earthy color.

We discussed the pictures, the frames and the accompanying "passepartout". The Mucha pictures (two of them) will get a sweet chocolate passepartout, while my dear Chat Noir will receive a black one. The frames are all equal and all white. In the case of the Chat Noir it might seem strange, but as we set the frame sample and the passepartout, the contrast was so magnificent it was amazing! On a white wall, the frame would ghost over the picture while the passepartout - as in the Mucha pictures - will give you the feeling that that is indeed the frame. On a chocolate wall, however, the white frame will nearly float in space making a visual statement without ever overpowering the picture itself - as it has been my intention.

It never ceases to amaze me how people often choose massive frames for certain pictures that are not so well done, or not so big, ignoring entirely the fact that this way the attention shifts from the painting or pifture itself to the frame. Large, golden or silvery, massive pieces end up coming out terribly tasteless and a clear statement that owner or the person ordering the piece does think that money or the appearance of money is the one thing defining taste.

The job won't be inexpensive, but it's well worth it to finally see my pictures framed and hanging on the wall of my home. The pictures will be done - Hyne willing - by Thursday, and if things go as planned, then by Thursday we'll be halfway ready in the moving - and at least all our furniture will be at home, and hopefully an important part of it will be assembled.

I also did another not-quite-inxpensive purchase. I met today with Jules for lunch and some getting up-to-date with each other - I totally love that guy! He's such a sweetheart! - and as usual, we met at a certain place we always meet, and where there's a quite important Evangelical Church. Lutheran actually, I believe. Well, ever since the happenings of yesterday, I've decided I'll "arm up" myself for "biblical" defense - though there's no need really, to defend myself from a religious or church-point of view when I'm okay with God and the rest of the world can do what they want about their own opinion of Him - and for that I happen to need a Bible. I do have one, which was given to me by my grandmother some 24 years ago or so, and that's currently in Costa Rica, so I needed one now, here, and preferably in Hungarian, so if I need to quote, I get the words right.

The funny thing is that I've got this quite particular idea about a white Bible. I wanted a white Bible and I kept seeing in my mind myself consulting a white Bible. Sure, I'm currently concentrating a lot on the white: white furniture, white frames... a lot of white walls to be dealt with later... there's a lot of white, so maybe I had the color creeping up to me from there, but still, there I was "white Bible, white Bible, white Bible..." I haven't seen many and I believe they are mostly for Catholic children making their First Communion or something like that. Well, be it as it may, when I was parting ways with Jules, I told him I still gara pick up a Bible. We went to a store but there were no Bibles there (a regular book store), and from there we remembered the place where we met (duh...) and so we went there - we had to both, as there we could also each take our train or tramway to continue our separate journeys - and quite quickly we located their bookstore - an Evangelical Bookstore. I thought: "they must have white Bibles", so was we were greeted, I said to the salesmen, that I wanted a Bible. Here questions started in an odd way. "Catholic or Protestant?" Geez, ain't like the same Bible for everybody? I told him I'm Lutheran, so that's Protestant. Ok, "New translation or old language?" O_O Whadda ...? Make it new, I need to understand. There was another question, I believe regarding the year of the translation or the type of translation, or the congregation... I'm not sure, which I couldn't answer. The salesman slowly started packing then the table with blue, wine, green and black bibles explaing that this had comments, this had not, this had a larger font type... There was a white one I saw but wasn't sure it was a Bible - it could be a prayer book or a song book - so I asked the man:

"How about that white one?"

He turned to the only other white book in the whole wall and pulled a book that had some Transylvanian or whatnot translation. The book wasn't the one I had my eye trained on.

"No, I mean that other one. Is that a Bible?"

The man turned then to the one book I meant and seemed hesitant. Yes, it is a Bible, but that's a something I didn't understand, and it's bound in real leather with goldened pages (the borders) and this and that... I was afraid it was not for sale, and it was so beautiful! The man then explained that the matter was that the book was pricey. I turned the book - neatly kept in a plastic bag - and checked the price. Honestly I didn't check the price of the other Bibles so I have no idea how expensive that one really was, all I knew was that I had the money.

"This is the one I want."

And I've got it! Perhaps it's stupid, but I found it so amazing that I had been thinking exactly of a white Bible and from a selection of many, many other bibles, I've got the only one that was white (and pleasing to me). It filled me with hope, like a sign telling me that dreams do come true, that my dreams are becoming real and that God is indeed with me when I need Him the most. Inspite what others may say, inspite what others may bleakly forecast, there's no space for doubt, only for doing, only for going ahead and trying, for God is with me in this journey, and things are going to be just beautiful.

Good Morning! How Miserable Do You Want To Be Today?

Was that question a little bit of a shock? Well, believe it or not, more people than you would imagine, wake up everyday with an answer to that question, and that answer is not "no, I would rather not be miserable today". How many of us wake up in the morning and start the day thinking about negative things that predispose us for the rest of the day to see everything in a bleak light? "Gara go to work and see the faces of these and those I dislike so much", "another day dealing with the same crap", "yesterday's problems are still unsolved and I probably won't solve them today". You may wake up sleepy, tired and annoyed at having to get up and get ready for work when you could continue sleeping - I know I do all the time! - and maybe the "Fuck... it's morning again" thought is hard to chase away from your mind, but this doesn't have to condition the rest of your day. However, you can choose to have a wonderful day everyday. It's your day, it's your life, and yes, you can choose to let others or yourself fuck it up for you, or would you rather make it a nice, happy day.

You could start your day with a "Fuck, not morning already!", and continue with a "bed is so nice", which is a happy thought, even as you try to get away from it to get your day going, but takes your from a negative though ("fucking morning had to come so early") to a really happy, positive one ("bed is so good, warm, nice and fluffy, and my sleep was so delicious!"); or you can take consciously an empowering turn to it. "Well Morning, I'll beat you today! Inspite of waking up early, I'll have a great day!". And there are so many things you can do in the very morning to start your day with the right kick. Treat yourself with something you like for breakfast, put your favorite music while you drive, or if you commute, sleep a little more if you can on your way to the office. If you can't, amuse yourself, purposefully looking for beautiful things on the way to the office. Maybe take two seconds to smell the flowers of a garden, touch a tree, look at a nice dog or cat on the street, watch the sky, find a fun looking cloud...

How about you prepare from the day before for the morning? Make yourself a special breakfast bag, Just pack in the things you like, or leave at the office, in a drawer your favorite candy or drink, or your favorite parfume, a vase with flowers... anything that pleases you and could make you smile.

Our day's first decisions are important, but so are the decisions we take through the rest of the day. It's okay if you have negative thoughts, don't repress them, but look actively also for the positive counterparts, or just a positive thought as well. Maybe there comes the annoying neighbour lady who constantly complains about your pet, or the Jehova Witnesses cornered you and will give you the annoying converting speech regardless that you swear to them that you are Christian, are late, so please let you go. Maybe there goes again your old fashioned relative bugging you about why are you not married, why don't you have children or why are you "living in sin", why do you do this and this and that and "reminding you" how God is supposed to hate and go postal on people like you and how He hates you above everybody else (yeah right!) because just by being who you are and how God saw fit to make you, you are somehow worse than Hitler and Charles Manson balled up into one. Maybe, someone at home decided to leave again all chores on your neck, or bug you about money and how you don't help, and how you are this and this and that. Maybe... maybe things happen that piss you off, and that's okay. Are you going to let these fuck up your day?

How about your car decided to take the day off and didn't tell you in advance? How about your bus just left you behind and you'll get late? Maybe you forgot your homework at home, or someone you were depending on failed you, or an unexpected bill landed on your lap... you name it. Does it upset you? It's okay, be upset! Bitch! Vent! And then let it go. Sure, it might be hard, nobody said it was easy, but it's up to you to make it easier or harder than it needs to be. Can you solve the situation? Can you solve it in a way that makes you happier? Then solve it. You can't or the proposed solution doesn't make you happier, but makes you more miserable? Then fuck it. You don't have to do anything you don't want to (except going to school or work). Whatever you do, wherever you are, you always have to options: do it or not.

Today at mass, as part of the usual praying something caught me. In the prayer it was said basically that we turn to ask God's forgiveness and salvation because we have no other choice. That's not true. We have another choice and that choice is to go on living giving a fuck about whether God forgives us and saves us. Yes, there are consequences, but that's a choice we have. In the freedom of choosing - knowing we could very well give a fuck about God's forgiveness and salvation, choosing this forgiveness and this salvation makes it all the more valuable, as by free will and independent thinking we choose, and not mindlessly like a herd trapped by the fence, accepting forgiveness and salvation but actually giving a fuck to it because "it's the only path". In this sense, how our day is spent is also a matter of two questions: do you choose to be happy or do you choose to be miserable? And with free will we choose one of these ways.

Yes, negative things do affect us, and it's okay. We are not inmune to negativity, but it's up to us to choose if we want all that negativity to stick and determinate the rest of your day and on, or whether we are willing to defeat it and go back to the positive side of life. Are you willing to let other people's negative approaches and actions weight more on you that their positive actions? Would you give more importance to one insult or negative criticism than to a compliment or a positive comment? And why would you do that? Would you rather have a miserable day or a good day?

The actions are simple, and often all they need is a little bit of will. Will to be happy, will to take over our lives and will to realize that there's no need for us to be the center of attention of others to be validated. Though people usually are more attracted to the disgrace of others than to their happiness, being happy and unnoticed is far better than being miserable and notorious about it.

Having a positive attitude won't save you from hearbreak, from sadness, from depression, anger or disappointment, but when life dishes out some of that, a positive attitude gives you all you need to bounce back faster. It gives you the tools to understand that these are a natural part of your life, that these feelings make you human, but are not there to rule your days.

Meditate, express yourself, explore yourself and allow yourself to be the first person everyday in making you happy. So the next morning you could say to yourself "Good Morning! How happy do you want to be today (after coffee)?" ^_^

The Nookie

Today I've a really awesome topic, or should I say I "HAD" a really awesome topic for the post. It's really good and I haven't even forgotten it, which is rare, and it's perfect! Yes, except that it's almost 22h, and today my boyfriend and I had a lot of things to take care of regarding our soon-to-be home, and one of those things was cleaning. We did hire a cleaning lady, an adorable, sweet Transilvanian lady (they speak Hungarian and refure to be acknowledged as "Rumanians" even though they are, but rather like to be considered as a Hungarian minority) wearing her beautiful traditional clothes - yes! People today wearing traditional clothes! I still can't get over it - but we helped in because the work was quite some for such a small place, and so we are tired to death with the scrubbing of the kitchen. Honestly, it was also quite disgusting to scrap up from the walls, the floors and the stove the remnants of other people's dinners. Bits of bread on the windowsill, baby bottles stuffed in the closets, and old pieces of noodles and onion, rice... stuck all over the stove? Come on, people, really?

Some parts of that kitchen looked like we would need to call in a HAZMAT team.

Work isn't finished, but we certainly are. God willing we would be buying our furniture on Monday and start the moving (in and out, as all the old furniture I haven't personally approved is a goner), or busing in Tuesday, but still tarting the moving on Monday, and you know Ikea furniture, you gara ensamble it yourself because "that's part of the fun"? Whadda fuck? Freaking Skandinavians, they creat a LEGO and then they think all people wanna do is DIY. So we are up to our eyeballs in tasks and chores, but right now we are TIRED. I mean, I could go on for a little bit more, but I've got an ultimatum from my boyfriend: either I'm in bed within 30 minutes or he'll be asleep, and that means, no nookie. So sorry, nookie beats blogging, so that awesome topic shall be written some other time!

To Mirror or Not to Mirror... that's the Closet Question

It's past 23 h, and after a day of running around, taking mearurements of the apartment to see if we can fit the furniture, and then going to the movies to see "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", I'm honestly tired. Tired with eyes closing and thinking "fuck, I'll log the food on the fitbit thing tomorrow. What's there to remember anyways? Fish and chips for lunch with coke and bread with butter and coke for dinner". If you ask me, the movie was great. I haven't read the book - YET! - but give me a break! I've a stack of other books on my plate - and one of them is my recently acquired "Gone With The Wind" on Kindle, AND I'm a slowpoke reader, so, it will take me a while. I do hope the other two books will get to become a movie, and that they keep Daniel Craig in the cast. Oh dear, that man is so freaking HOT!

Today I was alone a big part of my day. I sat writing letters to my friends - well, one of them, as I'm also a slowpoke writer - did some chores around the house, and then went to get my brother-in-law his birthday present. I don't like the chap much, but I'm great at picking presents for him! Far better than my boyfriend, or their mother. My boyfriend doesn't even have an idea about what could he give him, so given the success of my last present pick ("The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", actually), I took on the task of finding him a good present: more black novels by Skandinavian writers. I'm still quite surprised that Asa Larsson, my favorite Skandinavian black novel writer hasn't made it here. They have Stieg Larsson, Camilla Läckberg, Arnaldur Indridasson, but there's no Asa Larsson anywhere.

I had lunch at a pretty nice restaurant close to where we are staying - quite famous around here for it's expensive menu - but I was honestly disappointed at the blah taste of the fish in my fish and chips - even though the presentation was quite adorable, as well as for the remarkable lack of attention from the waiters. And it wasn't even a peak hour! Goodnes Gracious! Where they expecting me to starve to death before offering me the menu? So be warned, if you ever find yourself in Budapest, and you think about going to a  restaurant over the Krisztina krt, called "Déryné", please make sure you eat something beforehand!

They had WiFi, so I took the chance to toy with my Kindle, and since I was there and the Kindle was there and there was WiFi, I stared at my sample of "Gone With the Wind" and said to myself, "Self, you are going to buy this one, so what the fuck? But it at once and let's get over with it!". And so I did. I was feeling cool and fabulous, much like each time I'm here for vacations - except this time my vacations ain't gonna be over so easily! - and so I took my time with everything. I sipped slow on my coke, I eat each fry slowly, completely taken over by Margaret Mitchell's word and living without a single care in the world. Ideas flowed then to my mind about a lot of wonderful and potentially awesome post topics for the blog, but Miss Scarlet was first. Of course, little I knew I would come home barely able to stand and so sleepy I nearly doze staring at my slice of bread instead of actually eating it!

My boyfriend and I are now making numbers. It happens that the mirrored closet he wants fits in the nook of the wall we have there, so he wants it, but that shoots the numbers I made up to heaven! So we are seeing how can we make it work. Yes, the mirrored closet is awesome, and much better than any other solution wirh have contemplated, not to mention it opens the space beautifully and uses better the space we have, but what about the budget? Damned, time for me again to Excel up and think about possibilities. Am I really off the clock in here? Because this doesn't feel like it.

Another Small Little Day of My Life ^_^

After quite some time, finally I've got to see "the apartment". What can I say? It's bigger than what I expected. Usually "bigger" is better, when it comes to a place, but in this case I was concerned due to the budget. Are we going to have enough money to furnish all this space? I had already made some calculations with some sizes I had in mind, and it was a stretch already, but it seemed doable, however, standing in the middle of the apartment I realized that one single bookcase unit wasn't going to cover it. So I kinda panicked a little, because in the end, it's not like we are on a TV show where money doesn't seem to matter when it comes about making a place look Divine. It didn't help either that basically all of the existing "furniture" was to be banished from the premises. Many of the pieces my boyfriend had were not only worn and dated, but too bulky in size and shape to fit a place like that apartment, which calls for more slender lines to look less cluttered.

The guy renting the apartment came and the contract was finished, the keys and everything handed over, and the apartment itself was in quite a mess. Dirty windows, dirty kitchen, stuff left behind everywhere... That's going to call for a major cleaning task, which might be hopefully happening sometime this weekend... or the next week.

I was a bit at loss after seeing the apartment, and honestly worrying for the money side of the equation, when my boyfriend suggested we go to my godmother's to pick up some stuff. I still don't get his desire to move a large part of our stuff to my aunt's where there's no place, and then have the moving to the apartment go from two fronts: my aunt's place and my godmother's place. I said I wasn't in the mood to deal now with my godmother's new ideas about the future, and instead we decided to go looking for furniture. Just window shopping, mind you. He had a couple of places in mind, two of which had gone out of business and the others were already closed. We did checked out Kika, which not only didn't have the type of furniture I like - either too outdated or too bulky for my taste - but it was also insanely expensive. Worn and annoyed by the experience, we were about to return to my aunt's place, when I told him to let's check Ikea. He wasn't very happy about it, but most of the furniture we like we saw on their catalogue, os it was worth the effort to seem some pieces in the flesh. It was well worth the effort - particularly after Kika - for suddenly I found a lot of pieces we liked and in quite a good price range. I'm still concerned about the budget (I'm actually doing the mathematical part of it after finishing this post), but at least we finally are getting around what we want - and I'm pleased with it.

The bed, which is the most important part of the whole furnishing (which has to be a sofa-bed), happened to be pretty much half of what asked at Kika, and much better suiting our taste - well, mine.

Another step into consolidating a life together, a life here, my new life. It does feel interesting!

Collectivity and Individuality

Spinning off from a conversation with a dear friend, I'd like to give it a try to the topic of "collectivity and individuality". From many other conversations followed with my friends, time and again at least one of us stumbles into what seems a pretty contradictory position regarding what you believe an individual should do, and what a collectivity - be it a family, a household, a society, a country, a planet - should do in order to be better. Other times, the seeming uniformity in positions (same rules apply to the individual as to the collectivity) bring up a series of holes in the logic that can't be ignored. So what's going on?

Though one can argue whether the individual is the product of its collectivity, or the collectivity the product of its individuals, it is undeniable that both the cllectivity and the individuals shape one another, BUT no collectivity is the carbon copy of a particular individual, nor is there an individual that embodies perfectly a given collectivity. A collectivity is a "body" - so to speak - imprinted by many individuals, who carries also the imprints from individuals that have been part of it in the past, as well as often the transfered imrpints of individuals that are not part of it. The individual itself is an element that bears both the partial imprints of a given collectivity - each different depending on the individuals of the collectivity it has more relation with - probably other collectivities as well, and a fair share of its own molding. This still - this difference in the way they all shape each other -  wouldn't give us much footing for stating different sets of rules for each, but what does mark this difference and what does give is the landing for different sets of rules and different conceptions for each, is the fact that while an individual is ruled by one will - their own will, whether they decide to submit it to someone else or not - while the collectivity has no onw will (except in freaky cases), but many wills, all of them pulling and pushing and giving motion to the whole body.

As individuals, more than freedom, independence and responsability are important for healthy, proper, successful growth. As an individual, from the moment you are conscious, you must take your life in your hands and make the decisions that allow you to learn, grow and find your happiness. Delegating your life on others, expecting them to fix it, or blaming the sun, the moon or the stars on your failure, simply won't do it. As an individual, it is entirely up to you whether you decide to live a fake life, a life full of excuses and placing the blame everywhere but where it should really be placed (you), or whether you want to take your life in your hands and make things happen, shoulder up for your mistakes, your failures, your miscalculations and take them fro what they are: you fucked it up, but now you know how not to do it.

As an individual, it's not so much about who you depend or not on, in which way and for what - though ideally you shouldn't depend on anyone but yourself - but what suits you best, what works for you best, and own up to it. Do you want to be a kept person? Ok, find someone to pay for you and live with the consequences of that life style. Do you want to be a provider? Good. Find someone to provide for and live with all it entails. Do you want to be alone and do whatever the fuck you want to do when you want to do it? That's also cool, but then also shoulder the consequences of a lot of me-time and no humans to greet when you get home.

Can you, as individual, have it all? Yes you can, the thing is that you are probably not wanting "all", but a lot of partials of a lot of different situations. Think about that.

As a collectivity, we are not ruled by one mind, deciding for the fates of all, but as a collectivity, a lot of wills, seeking a lot of different ways to achieve personal happiness (in good theory) collide with one another. Some wills have more muscle than others, and thus work to repress those wills that stay in their way. When applying a rule to a collectivity, what happens is that you apply that rule to all the individuals, and the structures of power within the collectivity would swift and shift and distor the effect of the rule passing it from individuals with more power to those with less power leaving the benefits up for those who have more power and all the shortcomings for the ones with less power. A rule applied to individuals where each is responsible for itself, can't be applied like that to a collectivity, where then it will translate as a carte blanche for the more powerful to do as they will and feel free to pass on the negative effects on the rest. Shall it bother them, they would do something about it.

Social Sciences are full of a lot of nice theories about how a collectivity can or cannot rule itself, and ste up a lot of suppositions, which are good and nice in theory, but hold no water in real life. Struggles of power between the classes are not as common as the theory say, and societies are not on equilibrium points, but most of the time they are outside this point because the individuals or micro-groups holding up the power within the collectivity push against the boundaries to take more for themselves in detriment of the rest of the collectivity. Big companies push for tax breaks and they have the means to lobby for them. They push for flexible labor rules that allow them to cut on wages and warranties, even ban unions. The rest of the colelctivity is usually held hostage by their means of living, posing threats to their livelyhood by menacing their jobs or social securities, and often buying them off with false information.

Social Sciencies seldom consider corruption and under-the-table managing in their throries, which happen often in real life. Services purposefully let to be ruined only to push forward a privatizing agenda. Lobbying to tip the scale in a decision and set in motion conditions that strenghten the position of those in power against those who are not. Lobbying that's basically giving gifts to a few people to buy the favors away from a large portion of the collectivity that would only receive the short end of the deal.

As an individual, you normally wouldn't plot against yourself, nor would be your happiness fully pursued by such behavior. Yes, there is people out there who does that, but in their case we all agree to call them "sick". As a collectivity, however, it is posible and quite normal to have a part of it to plot against the other part, and just as some wills composing the collectivity which to bend other wills to them, and have them aid them in their own pursue of happiness and abandon their own, a different set of rules and a different philosophy is required in order to regulate the collectivity, make sure it works for everybody and it gives each and everyone of them and honest, fair shot at being happy and independent and responsible for their own lives without having to pay for the excesses of others.