Book Day

Among the many "International Day of Something" (because it's like everyday is the International Day of Something, like "Today is the International Day of BLT Sandwiches"), and sometime this week (probably yesterday) was the Book Day. I was informed of this day through copious e-mails from some of the bookstores I belong to (as others rather want to flood me with Mom&Motherhood&Mother's Day books. Will they ever learn!), as well as some sort of flyers distributed at the office by some department that calls itself "Direction" and allegedly has to do with "Communication", with some "activities" that were so anemic, you couldn't really noticed as they literally (literally-book day, hehehehe! ^_^) developed before you. They had these activities like... um... I've no idea, but they were held at different locations, and then there was a "book fair" at the work diner of the building I work at. Dude, they held like 20-30 books, which held a compilation of commercial encyclopedias (I call "commercial encyclopedias" those books that are filled with pictures and advertisement, but the information on each topic is dry and very basic and even wrong) and self-help books. So, a little pile of crap.

A more substantial fair was the one of my favorite bookstore, where they gave discounts on all books, based on the amount you spent on books. This bookstore is like a chain, so you can visit several stores, and though they have the same prices, and often the same titles, some are bigger, some are smaller, and some hold more books in foreing language, which is my little warm, comfy pool, as I get to revel in books in French ^_^. I wanted to go looting to the biggest store, but due to other errands my lovely boyfriend and I had to run, I ended up at a smaller shop, but nonetheless productive spring. With a tequila shot to start the shopping spree, and a calm environment, I roamed the shelves and picked up a hefty armful of books. I looooooooove these promos! ^_^ I love them particularly because otherwise this particular batch of goodies would have costed me and eye and an ear.

Book Day, like other "International Days of Something" seems to be a day created mainly to sell something (books in this case) rather than celebrating something. Books are indeed a thing to celebrate, but celebrate only as mean, a tool to access to the contents poured in them. Book reading isn't simply about reading books, but it's about reading what was put in the book. It's not the mean, it's the content. Not like many mind that, as all they want is to sell books or pretend they are so intellectual because they have books and they read books. It's not the same to read Books for Dummies, as to read philosophy, serious literature and other serious topics. On this line, the other day I was zapping and found by chance that reality show of Kimora Lee - who seems to love being called KLS - and there she was, being Kimora, and behind her there was a bookshelve FULL of Books for Dummies! Hahahaha! It certainly put things in proportion. (I do have one to those books for dummies, but I don't have loads of it, and display them as part of my famelic library, so... top model, right? Figures. Hihihi!)

Anyway, back to books and their content and so on, it is interesting the way books are related to in these days. Though there are a lot of people who like to read, really like to read and will do it anywhere they can (like when I lock myself in the bathroom, or sit aside at lunch, or escape to a park to read and not be disturbed by other people), but then a lot of people just don't read, not because they can't read, but because they don't read and consider reading a tedious chore rather than a hobby. There's also people who buy books but only buy them, but don't read them, and display them, treating them as decoration or an accesory to pretend to be something they are not. There's also people who "read anything that fall in their hands". Undiscriminative readers, so to say. As I've voiced it before, I don't think particularly highly of them, as I believe someone with no discriminative system or taste in reading is like people with no personality. It's not absolute tolerance or absolute acceptance or open to learn everything, as though this might be right the first time, as you read more and more you should be forming, shaping your tastes and interests and so start casting out the titles that do not suit you and prefering those that do. The titles you pick make a picture of you, your soul, your heart, your believes. They can go all over the place, with some kiddy books of bedtime tales and teenie novels, some fact books about the planet, sci-fi, and then several books of Idealist Philosophy and some on accounting.

I wrote last time about people having several sides or faces, and the books you pick tell you about those faces, so it's okay to have an eclectic library, but not a personality-less, shapeless, hoard-in-everything, or bestsellers-only-no-matter-what-they-are. It's not just the book, it's the content. ^_^

If, by the way, you do know when is really the Book Day, please drop me an e-mail or something. 

Flaws And Then Some

Time and again something happens that makes me look at people- I mean, at mankind and shake my head slowly while thinking "You really are something". And this happens EVERYWHERE, in EVERY sphere of life. Like when your folks tell you you should never, ever lie and little after you catch them on a lie SO BIG you don't even have time to be outraged, but you feel like suddenly stepping into the Twilight Zone. Often also at the office - I can see my dear friend Dragonfly nodding here! - with the boss-person who's BIG, really BIG on berating everybody and telling the team that they should really learn to do "team work", that the office isn't a competition field, but a place where we should all work together for the good of the company, and THEN this boss-person neglects to INFORM their colaborators (colaborators when they are preaching about team work and less individuality, less selfishness and work for the greater good, but subordinates when it said subordinates demand explanations on their actions. Sound familiar?) about matters that affect the projects they are involved in, they pick all the "good" meetings, workshops and seminars, AND present the work of the team as THEIR own work, as if they all by themselves did it, with nobody's help. Or the case of certain people who makes a scene and writes TONS of e-mails, and tell on people for being late ONE MINUTE, or leaving ONE MINUTE earlier, and set all kinds of control systems (digital card punching, like Oh My Hyne, We Work at GM doing Car Parts!, or singing on a daily sheet, or punching on a digital fingerprint reader or iris reader), BUT they themselves are late EVERYDAY, leave anytime they want, take looooong lunches, are never in their place and patronize their friends and the people they are sucking up to in completely disregarding the schedule.

This also happens with friends. Oh yes. Or "so called friends". Often you can hear someone passing judgement over others, condemning them for doing this or doing that, but then they themselves do it and act as if it were okay. The typical case, is when they constantly bitch about people who are late and then THEY make you wait an hour or so and don't even send you a message to tell you they are running late. Or have all these demands from others to qualify them as friends or people to be trusted, but actually they don't hit the measure on any of them. Sounds familiar? From personal experience, I've learned that whenever you are meeting someone new, or running into them again after ages of not seeing each other, and soon they mention these "rules" they have, like "friends should call each other often, otherwise they are not friends", or "I demand from my friends to be loyal, otherwise I can't see them as anything but acquintances and I have no time for acquintances", or "I expect my friends to visit me often/invite me often", or "I have a blog/Facebook account/Hi5 account and I consider that friends should always comment on each other",  you gara run, and I mean, ruuuuuuuun for your life and don't stop until you are two states away and hit a wall. Funny thing here is that this people don't actually stick to their exhausting rules - though there was this person, I believe in the lj universe, because this blog of mine is rather underground, and few people who know me knows about it, anyway, this person who had this "you gara comment every one of my posts and comments" did initially commented EVERYTHING I posted and commented, though usually on a spammy way, with "I agree with you" or smiley faces or so, but never something substantial. Then as I didn't comment on their comments or one time I made a comment disagreeing, they stopped commenting.

Recently, as I started trying out the world of podcast listening, I came across many podcasters, some of them I love (and my ultimate favorite is always iPod Witch. Please give her a minute of your time and listen to her. She's a Pagan witch from the South of the United States, very nice and gentle, kind soul that makes you feel welcome and at home. I wholeheartedly recommend her to anyone, Pagan or not. She's worth your time), some of them make me laugh (so sad the Valley Witches are no longer podcasting. They were so awesome! They had one of the best promos or bumpers I've ever heard), and then some didn't chick well with me. (For your general information, I listen also to podcasts that are not Pagan or Wiccan or Witchy, such as The Critical Thinker - AWESOME!!! -, Planet Money, Greenpeace, Discovery and so on...) Among them there are some that, for instance insist on how close to their listeners they are and how much they want to involve them in the podcasting, but then go and brag about some "podcaster-only" matter, leaking the message of "oh, you are JUST a listener and couldn't PROBABLY understand what's podcasting about...". Others go on and rant against their fellow podcasters and lable them, say that podcasters are only the ones that do this and this and that - often in the lines of "if you do not put out a podcast regularly, regularly meaning within 30 days, if you don't have a regular segments in your podcasts, if you don't have a script and notes for your podcasts, if you admit that you don't know about something, if all you do is read listener feedback, if all you do is ramble... then you are not a podcaster, only a moron with a mic and a podcast account" -, and then they go and do all these things they criticize, and act as if nothing happened and YET they keep outcasting and pointing fingers at those poor podcasters cutting them out of their "elite circle of true podcasters" because they do not stick to the rules they have come up with and to which they themselves don't stick up to.

As human beings, we are multifaced, to say it somehow. Every person is kind of like a crystal, if you like, with many faces, many sides, and usually none of them are flat and straight, but textured, curved here and there as your ideas and ideals are shaped by the nooks and bumps of your soul, which isn't bad but instead make that side richer and unique. So, when you try to draw a straight line to describe that side, it won't cover it, and from time to time, as you hit a curve on the side, you'll seem like you walk off the line you've drawn. Also, you can't pretend to describe a person or yourself with a flat line, a straight picture, because you and everybody are composed of many pictures. As result, when you find people pushing others to stick to a rule and that rule only, they are bound to break the rule themselves, and make the whole thing fall appart.

So why people keep doing this? Well, for once I believe that the point of setting guidelines (guidelines, not rules, as I believe guidelines are not as constricting or vinculating) is to order the world around you, place a sort of guide or beacon to keep your North. For instance, in religion - whatever religion you choose to practice or not - there are a set of guidelines about how you should lead your actions in order to have a happy, better, harmonious life; or in philosophy, when you "subscribe" to a certain school of thought, I set a series of guidelines to analyze and understand the world around you, freeing you from having to create a new frame each time you come across a topic or problem. However there are always people who create these rules with another purpose, an unterior motive such as getting attention or having a point of leverage to raise over others, lord over others and minimize them.

Lets be honest: all of us have our little personal Book of Rules & Guidelines that frame our opinions, decisions and ideas, and this little book is fantastic. Our little books are dynamic - dynamic, not wobbly and shapeless!! - as whenever we come across a lesson that changes our view on something, our fabulous little book assimilates the lesson and adjusts to it. However our books are personal and for ourselves. It's the little book we apply to ourselves, the one we use to determinate if someone is worthy of our trust, if someone is a good friend or not, if we should take a given risk or not and so. It's not a book that we impose on others to fulfill the rules in them and satisfy us. Still there are people who love to preach and make others run in the circles of their own little "Pete's BFF" reality show, with tasks and tests and games and enslaving others to stupidities that would "prove their worth" and so on. Have you ever thought, for instance, in these stupid shows that if the "prize person" would be submitted to those demeaning, debasing test, would that person pass the test? 

I often wonder if people who set all sorts of rules on others do it because they can't set rules on themselves, or maybe because they hate themselves so much, consider themselves so unworthy, that they need to make all others worse, so they don't feel like the bottom of the garbage can. Be it what it may, my recomendations on this matter are as follow:

1. Remember that Your Rules are always to be applied to Yourself.

2. It's okay to judge (judge, but not condemn!) others, based on your previous experiences, and act according to your appreciations (again, APRECIATIONS, not sentencing).

3. Whatever you decide, should mean to you and only to you. You don't need to go and read your conclusions about someone to that person. Usually, if you reject someone for whatever reason, that person can give a rat's ass about what you think of them.

4. When someone comes out with a rulebook about what you should do to be "good" or "accepted", stare deeply into that person's eyes and judge: is that person able to abide to that rulebook? In a meaningful way?

5. Remember that you don't have to abide to the rulebook of someone else. If someone won't accept you if you don't call the everyday and suck up to them, then that person don't really want you, they want a slave. Are you a slave?

Now, I want to state right here something: I said the "Rulebook of Someone". There are generally accepted rulebooks we abide to, and it's good that we do. Courtesy norms, decency norms, respect, empathy... rules we are taught to follow and which make our life in society better for all of us. A basic sense of good and bad, right and wrong would tell you about these. Also, if you are a wholesome, decent person, these are part of your little personal Rulebook. But when you are faced with a person that want you to stir away from who you are and what's natural to you simply to be accepted as a friend, or a group demands you ridiculous things that go against your believes or bump here and there with your believes, I'd strongly suggest you smile, raise your hand slowly, wave it side to side and slowly pedal back and keep doing it until said person or group is out of your sight.

It's important to accept yourself as you are, with your flaws and your virtues - I call them all characteristics, as you might thing something about you is bad, and someone else thinks it's good, or viceversa - and remember that all of them have a function, a meaning in your life, a lesson to teach you, a tool God (or your prefered Deity or Supreme Being) has given you to forge your path in life, so embrace them, and after you've done this, you will be more prepared to accept others as they are. This doesn't mean by any means that you will accept and endure the flaws and features of others that you dislike. This mean you'll accept that people are the way they are, and will be able to then decide if they can have a place in your life or not. It won't keep you from bitching, it won't keep you from being intolerant of certain things, reject certain things or people, won't make you inmune to hurt, BUT it will make you wiser, will make your little personal Rulebook more complete, and will help you to choose the people around you better. :-)

Driving Lessons

I've a driving licence seven years already... or so. I finally have a car too, an adorable, tiny, beanie little thing I affectionately call "Little bean" or Sookie. So okay, what's the deal? The deal is that I haven't driven in such a freaking long time I'm all rusted. Not exactly my fault as basically non of the cars in the family were ever really made available for me to drive, so it had to pass seven year (or so) and some things (like me seriously making plans to move to Hungary for good, and never again see my close family on daily basis), to get things on the move and get my own car. Why didn't I buy one for myself, you ask? Well, so far, with the lifestyle I had, it didn't seem like the smartest thing to do. Up to a few years buying fab clothes and traveling as often as possible was far more important, and the maintenance costs of a car didn't really fit in my budget, so even if I could have bought myself a car, I didn't want to have all my goodies shackled down and limited because I had to pay for gas, parking, taxes, circulation rights, insurance and all accompanying annoyances.  Every once in a while I've got to drive some, take the car for a ride, do a certain distance when we were on the road towards the beach, and so I was confident of my habilities, but never got to steadily test them, hone them, work them. Then, lets be honest, up to a few years ago I used to go out drinking with my friends a lot - not enough to get drunk! but on occasion I did got warm and fuzzy - so how could I drive responsably in that state? Not a chance. I believe I did thought that driving was like biking: you can't just forget it, no matter what.

Now that I've focused on obtaining a particular goal, it happens that a car - and driving a car - is a rather important matter that means shifting around certain things. The Life on the Fab Line is basically over, like many other things in my life, that was also a phase that came and went - but certain things still stay, such as Benetton, Swatch and NafNaf. MNG has been outcasted inspite of giving me some of my favorite clothes - so now that the foccus came towards lowering and hatching the hefty loans I've accumulated (and doing awesome!), I did my math, spread my Excel sheets and determinated that at this point of my life a car could fit my budget. Also, the practice here with the car would certainly be a great help once I'm in Hungary. It also bothered me to have a licence, to have learned to drive and not do it, so it was about time to put my skills to use.

Well, as it happened, the first time I tried to drive Sookie I could hardly remember how to ingnite the car!!! Oh the horror!! I was thinking, "what the fuck? I've already parked my dad's other car!". The shock didn't end there as I realized I was having difficulties feeling the clutch. It was like being back to zero again. :-(

So there I was, with a lovely car, and no skills to use it. I had to repractice myself into driving. As expected, Dad was less than amenable towards practicing with me, and his step-by-step practices at starting the car were driving me up the wall. Sorry, I don't work on that system, I need to work on my own system. Dad even mentioned hiring again my old instructor, but I wasn't going to have that. That dude does drive me crazy worse than dad (he has all this slang words like "opening" and "closing" I never figured out. Why couldn't he say I'm too much on the left or the right?), and so it happened that the first day I was going to practice on myself I drove into the gate. Ooops. I've got panicky, so it wasn't until recently that I started practicing again, with one of the most devoted, wonderful instructors I've ever met: my boyfriend.

On this note Kari and I have been practicing, which is a real blessing. It's actually nice to have someone in your life that won't shun away from practicing, but egging you to do so. I'm - on the other hand - really hard for this, as it depends on the mood I am, and I don't like practicing for given amounts of time (that stresses me), but rather by distance. This is how today I drove twice as much as usual and the car didn't turn off even once! That's a usual problem I have with cars: getting the start out, but once I get it, I'm good to go. Now I feel more confident, though I know I still have a lot to practice, since starting the car or getting it moving on a hill is a pain in the ass for me, but I'll get there, you'll see. So watch it out, because soon I'll be on the road! (Only not doing stupid stunts like putting on make up and talking on the phone while driving...)

Kick Back and Think It Over

This has been one of the most anticipated weeks of the whole year for many who work: the Holy Week. Peppered with "holy movies" such as you usual batch of Ben Hur, Qvo Vadis, Ten Commandments and the minisiries Jesus of Nazareth, among others that have something to do with the Ancient Times (including Spartacus, with Kirk Douglas, if I recall correctly), the Holy Week is also about going out somewhere, taking on the chance of four days off the job (from Thursday to Sunday), or the whole week for others, thus that one chance you surely get a year to leave the city and kick it back. The whole religious theme of the week has long been left behind with only a handful of people aproaching the church or even going to watch the different processions that snake up the streets with quite interesting interpretations of the Passion of Jesus.

Considered part of the high season, hotels and other such amenities in the country go up in price to levels you would never dream possible. Doubled rates are among those, so often the possibility to spend these days abroad is actually the most affordable and easiest choice. Partly this was also the reason why my boyfriend and I decided to take our vacations in Panama. ^_^ However there's more to this week than kicking back and toasting your skin under the sun, clicking away pictures to upload on your facebook account and adding up enough debt on all your available cards to remind you for months to come about the fun you had. It's also more than a diet rich on seafood and wine.

As you kick back in these days, even if you don't have the whole week, even if you have only the Monday after (Easter), it's a wonderful time a year to take a step back from your daily life, from your job, the pressure about that particular project you have to get going, or the tension you get from trying to fight your way out of the freezer where your annoying coworkers or your incompetent boss have cornered you, take a step back from your problems with those people who really seem to be out there to expressly make your life more complicated or miserable (oh yes, I know it's not paranoia as some say, I've been there and I know those crappy, low life motherfuckers exist), on all the family drama, the parent, sibling or child that does everything in their power to make you go up the wall, and think a little bit about your life and where it's going. 

This week, as the population leaves the city, your siblings take their families and go to the beach, the neighbour leaves to visit family far, far away at I-would-never-go-there-for-I-thought-the-world-ended-40-miles-before, and you don't have to wake up early and travel every day to the office, take a moment to spend some time with yourself, in the sweet peacefullness of your own solitude. Do something unusual, like walk barefoot on the grass that grows in your yard, or simply on the cold tiles of the floor (or the parket! Wood is wonderfully soothing!), sit on the floor, maybe, with a big glass of your favorite beverage, and turn on the radio on that wonderful station you hardly listen but you love like hell, or maybe that station that's on in your car as you drive to the office or commute to the office, but never really pay as much attention as you would love to, and listen, let your favorite songs envelop you.

Take time to breathe - you know, deep in, deep out - and savour that lively, that natural, that honest air going into your lungs and filling you with each gout with life, pure, unadulterated life. Enjoy breathing, allow yourself to smile, relax, let your hair down, mind not your hairdo, dress in your comfiest clothes, have your favotire snack if that makes you happy - no guilt, because there's no time for guilt here, only joy, meditation and pleasure - and take happiness with air.

Watch the sun, the sky, the nature around you or the city around you, the night, the moon, whatever you rather watch, whatever is out there, and take your sweet time to rediscover the whole thing. Those lights you haven't seen before, those sounds you haven't heard before, that scent you haven't smelled before... or look at that thing you watch everyday and concentrate on it, see if you can see something different, get to know it better, discover more of it just by paying absolute, dedicated attention to it. Let this whole world sink inside you, and as it does, look inside and look at yourself with this new, calm contemplation. Look at yourself, and don't condemn anything, don't pre-lable it, but let it unfold. Don't feel bad about your weaknesses or flaws, but be happy for all your virtues and strenghts. Imagine them all - flaws and virtues -  as part of a big team - and play with the idea of some virtues helping your flaws become virtues as well. They are all part of you, so if all of them are as good as you, none of them will fail you, right? Remember also that weakness and flaws are extremely important because they are those sensible agents that allow you to understand the shortcomings of those around you.

Flaws and weaknesses can be beautiful if we accept them, but that doesn't mean we can't help them grow up to strenghts and virtues, as long as we never forget what we've learned from their previous state, right? ^_^ Smile a lot, and take a small inventory of the main aspects of your life, those you are happy about and those you would like to see solved or would like to work on. Make plans, design all sorts of ideas, but above all relax, be happy, contemplate the world and yourself taking advantage of this very time of reflection and peace. Take the core of the message - contemplation, peace, redemption, hope - and make it yours.

Make it yours and be happy.

Child Noise and Joy

My boyfriend and I spent three nights at Panama. We are actually on our last night tonight, and well, in a way I'm happy we are getting the heck out of here. Don't get me wrong, I like Panama really much, and the city is adorable, but the hotel, well, It wasn't the best decision I've made. Now, let's not go over the fact that this site that I made the reservation on (a certain "Despegar.com", much advertized in Latin America, seems quite shady as a lot of things included in the description of the hotel proved not to be right - such as the safe included, or airport shuffle included, or the checking hours, not to mention the difficulty the hotel seems to have with finding our reservation...), now shall we go on the matter of the multiple inefficiencies of the hotel - that I'm reserving for the evaluation of the place - but the families lodged at the hotel.

I read a time ago - in one of those childfree, pro-child arguments - how some people talked about the sound of children as a "source of joy". If I recall correctly, it was a matter of having children at a wedding, and how they playing and laugher made the whole event much more enjoyable. Yep, sure. When I read the article I imagined that person lived in a Jane Austen world with melodic laugher, or a "Little House in the Praire", surrounded by Ingalls or something of the sort. Certainly, if you like children, the idea of children sounds and laugher may appear - theoretically - as something heartwarming. (If you've recently seen the movie "The Orphanage", it does not!), but still, for me it's like people saying that music from the 80's makes them happier: yes, it does the trick for them, but it doesn't do it for me.

I'm honestly happier with peace and quiet, or certain selected noises, such as a techno party, a sports bar in the middle of a Superbowl game, or the noise of trains. Some noisy movies also get to me, such as Fast and Furious, but kids are not my favored flavor in noises. A party is far more enjoyable with soothing jazz music and good conversation, than with children running around while you are looking out to make sure one of them are not distroying your property (car, coat, purse, home), or with your interlocutor paying you only half attention because they are looking our for the kids. Now, of course, it's always better a parent that keeps an eye on the kids, that one that detaches from it and leave the mess to the rest of the crew, but still, when kids are around adults are always somewhat in the edge. It's even worse than having an uncomfortable veggan friend in the party for whom you gara get out of the way to keep pleased and not "hurt sensitivities" - like not serving a big, juicy BBQ baby ribs because the scent of meat offends them.

Anyway, theoretically might be nice and romantic, but in the real life, in the practice, it's UNBEARABLE! Sure, I guess people who really want children find it lovely, just like hard metal rock lovers awe at the regurgitating and vomiting sounds of their singers, but for the regular folk, the sond of children may not be so pleasant. At the hotel a family was lodged, and whenever they were in the diner, you couldn't wait to bust the joint. The children weren't even running around and annoying directly the rest of the customers, but their shrieking voices, their demanding, their dumb playing were everywhere. It was so harsh, so high pitched, it worked like a poisoned needle piercing into your brain and interrupting your thoughts. Holding a conversation over their whining was just as hard.

The kids played even in the pool - a shallow, small, unsuitable pool - and the sight was disgusting. Maybe it was only those children, but there was a boy around 7 or 8 constantly trying to hump a 2-3 year old girl's butt, while the parents watched unfazed, and a 1-2 year old tried to mount the 8 year old. Their playing sounds weren't any more pleasing, with lots of "now me" and "lets do this" all over the place. No volume control. As I watched them rather disgusted (my boyfriend noticed I was looking at them as if I were staring at crap in a box), I wondered who would want those noises or maybe similar scenes anywhere else? Nowadays you can't count on parents to control their kids, because they don't, but rather expect all others to endure their trespassing. For instance, how many times have you actually heard of parents paying for the damage their kids do on someone else's property? Mostly they expect to be let off the hook because "they are kids". At a mass, if kids are allowed in, you are expected to endure their loud shrieking and crying, even at movies (I have been at movies where the irresponsable parents wouldn't leave the theatre when their children cried because "they payed the movie and have the right to be there"). 

An acquintance of mine, who has a child - a real monster - once told us about the time the kid made a scene at a public place, and they were so out of it, so fed up with the kid's temper tantrum, that they decided not to do a thing as the kid rolled on the floor and kicked and bothered other people, even when requested by others to control the child. That's modern parenting to you. Often parents also decide to let the kid throw temper tantrums and not attend them, since "paying attention and reacting to them will only make things worse", but then the rest of the people suffer from the teaching. Do those of us who haven't had a say on the birth of that particular child should suffer it? I'd say no. So joyful? Ummm... not.

Yes, children are the future and we've all been children, but please, don't come up with shit like "children bring joy" and that their sounds make everything "happier". No, it doesn't. It might work for you, but not for all of us, and yes, some of us actually like to hear what we have to think. Some of us do like to relax and have people around us who are relaxed, doing what they like, and not getting in the way with us.

Live and let live, or rather "live and let enjoy".

Get Out of the Toychest

Listening to different witchy podcasts, I found out that they talk about "comming out of the broomcloset". The first time it was funny, because it's like when people talk about gay people "coming out of the closet", as in meaning they stop hiding who they are and let it out to the world, whether their surroundings like it or not. Well, in our current society, sadly a lot of people is locked in different closets. Gay people have their own closet, pagans of all sorts have their own closet (called "broomcloset", by those who are on the Path), so then reading an article by Stefanie Iris Weiss, I realized that the childfree are also in a closet. A broomcloset? Well, no, being childfree isn't the same as being Pagan. A plain closet? So we like share it with the gay people because our condition is the same? So I was looking for the closet we were hiding in - I wasn't going to poke Harry Potter's cupboard - when it came to me, that we are hiding in the toychest. Yes we are.

You see, when childfree and hiding it, we actually bow to childish things. We come up with excuses about why "we still have no children", or lie about "why are we waiting for" and make all these faces when people come up with their moronic lines like "well, you ain't getting younger! You gara hurry!" and say stuff like "yeah, I better do! hahahaha!" but we are like "yeah, I better stay clear away from you and your imp-breeding ideas". Then, sadly, whenever we try to give a reply that stirs off the unwanted question, people actually think we are immature. Well, we are when we are not assuming who we are and make up excuses for others. Or plain when we make up excuses to explain out behavior to others in ways that clearly seek their approval. Often our wish to hide our perceived "abnormality" leads us to really awkward situations like being left with kids so that our "parental self stirs up". Dude, you know what that does? I mean, I'm fairly resolute in not having children, but anytime the "bug" gets to me - so to say - and I think about reproducing my kind (specially when looking at Matt Bomer, yes), and breed evil little economists that will walk the Earth with Karl Marx under their arm, and Keynes in their hearts, I come across children, and the thought is spirited away. Children are not mini-you's, they are not pet-projects, they are people and they have their things.

Deal with their shrieking, try to keep up with their endless energy, their constant demand for attention, talk them into eating, into washing their teeth, into going to bed... And this is the good part! It never fails to amuse me - and sure one day if rubbed the wrong way I'll bring it up - how the very people who go around telling you "ah, you are gonna change your mind", or "children are a great blessing" and stuff like that are the one's that ACTUALLY plan to take vacations AWAY FROM THEIR KIDS! They try to look all cool when they go to the movies to watch some kiddy flick like Cars, and pretend not to mind they haven't seen Black Swan, or any of the last 10 movies you've seen, because "you know, I have kids, and really, I don't have time for such things, but I don't mind because kids make me happy". Sure, that's why they want vacations away from them. They scream at their children, get more grey hair than people of their same age with no kids, and suddenly say things like "when are they going to grow up and leave the house" or "when's summer vacations ending" or "I just can't stand them anymore!". As a childfree, when you witness something like that, your head reels back and say "wait, but aren't these your... blessings?".

As a childfree, you know that the "threats" thrown you way are mostly bogus. No, it's not true you are going to regret not having children, because you know yourself, you don't need someone of your own flesh and blood to scream at and emotionally scar with your bullshit. No, your financial future do not depend on whether you have kids or not. Dude, that was like in the medieval ages, when the only way you could access some sort of fortune was by having your kids marrying well. In these days we work for it, and there's a thing called "retirement pension" or "retirement nest" and you can invest and plan for your elderly days. Now you have other choices than becoming the elderly leech your kids have to keep, whom they can't wait to get rid off, by sending to an elderly home, or murdering in any unsustitious way. The speech of "well, that depends of how you raise them" does give me the giggles. Dude, are you serious? Here you are complaining to me about your children, how much you have to struggle to keep them behaved and you talk about raising them to take care of you? You can't make them eat their diner but you will teach them to pay for yours? You yell at them, punish them, and you will teach them to respect you when you are older, vulnerable and clumsy? Okay, let me sit well, calm my giggling down, and can you tell me all that again? Please, from the begining. Can I record it? I so love live comedy stand ups!

The other day in yet another article I don't precise right now, read about how "Proud Moms" (you know, the "Yes! I'm so fulfilled being a mom" types that can say "fulfilled" with so much anger, almost hatred, it really makes you want to never feel that fulfilled in your life) were pissed because 45% of their female friends couldn't stand their continual babbling about their kids, and their practical spamming about their children and their improper behavior all covered up "because they are moms". There was a quoting of the sort, like "don't hate me because I'm a mom", which I felt kinda out of place. We - whether childfree or not - don't hate them because they are moms, we don't hate them: we find them either boring or annoying, and well, who wouldn't? They are like a one track tune: all the time the same. No imput of their own thing, their own lives, it's all about the motherhood. Really, as if the moment they became parents, their whole personhood would have been transfered to the child and they are nothing but a carcass, an empty shell, the shell being parenthood. There's absolutely nothing there, nothing, only parenthood and the matters of the child. Once you get over the boredom or the annoyance, you realize how sad the situation is. However, be calm, be glad, there are well balanced parents too, who keep their personhood inspite of the offspring. There is hope. (Encountered the case in a Pagan household and a Dutch household, so maybe the Bible Belt is hopeless, no-man land, but we can always hope against hope.)

Anyway, on the same arwhole icle - the one I can't recall - a mom tried to explain herself saying that, well, her whole life was now about their kids. Take them to school, pick them up, do homework with them, play with them, cook for them, dress them, go to Parent Meetings, go to their games... so yes, when she was posting about her life, her life was that she had with her kids. Oh man, and she didn't really see it! Let me put it this way. You have a friend who's deep, and I mean deeeeeeeeeeep in Internet. Speaks of nothing but the internet, is all day sitting on the internet, goes to sleep next to the computer, wakes up and goes up to the Internet. A month into this and you pull your friend aside and tell them: "Dude, you should really get a life. Would you like to go out with me for the movies?". So, why is it ok with children to lose even your identity, lose your whole life, but it's not with anything else?

I never get tired of reminding parents that kids are people, not pets, not toys, not blessings, not badges of success, not trophees, but people. That's one advantage us childfree have: we are not hazed, we have not come across a threshold such where the parent-person separates themselves from the child-person and entirely forgets what it was like to be a child. (Could this be also part of the personhood transfer some do?)

As childfree, we have a different look at children. We don't hate them like a lot of people say - people who are not childfree, but have children and often hate their children, or other people's children and find it so easy to transfer their feelings to us and say we hate children -, but relate to them as what they are: people who are younger. We don't give them special concessions, like think it's okay for them to throw temper tantrums or break things, but we don't expect them either to sit down with us and discuss the Stoic philosophy from Seneca's point of view. Ironically, a lot of kids actually love us more, like us more and relate to us more, because we actually treat them as equals, not because we are "so immature", but because we don't think ourselves their superiors and we respect them as people, and demand respect the same way.

The childfree would hardly ever reply to a child's question by saying "because I say so", or "I'll tell you when you are older". Okay, we do say "go ask your parents" or sometimes "ask your folks if it's okay I tell you about this". Yeah, yeah, it's "easy for us to say so" because we "don't have to deal with their questions all the time". Oh, okay, let me go back a tad here: didn't you say that kids were a blessing? The joy of your life? Because if that's the case, what's so bad about dealing with their questions all the time? Honestly, how many of you, my fellow childfree, have conspired with the child of a friend or family member, or acquintance and answered a question they really wanted answered and you told them "but you promise not to say a word about this and specially not to tell mom and dad I told you?". And the sad thing is that they often ask things they should be allowed to know, such as were babies come from, are people from other religions bad, or is it true that the world is going to end, or what is "conservative" and are "democrats" bad, or why you don't have kids (this is a bad one for some parents because they are genuinely afraid we will turn their kids!).

I explained Halloween to the children of an outrageously religious couple, who wouldn't let their children read Harry Potter, because that was evil. Of course I made them swear not to breath a word of it, mainly for their safety. As a childfree, you can always fend the angry parent by saying: "they asked I answered, I don't see anything wrong in it", or "like they wouldn't google it eventually". So yes, we are cool. Damned, imagine that. Which, well, could also leave the impression on kids that we are cool, they wanna be like us, and so they end up childfree like us. It happens, trust me.

The childfree, when by choice, hardly has any regrets. The one or twice "the bug" may come around - if ever - goes away rather fast, compared with the regrets parents often have, which you can hear of. Didn't go to this place, didn't do this, didn't finish that, never got the business they wanted, couldn't work on that dream... Often that brings parents to put everything into their kids, kinda like the alcoholic drinks to forget, which then is bad to the children, who has to grow up as a host body for the old, feeding demands and expectations of the "fulfilled" parents. The childfree has all the oportunities and can takes those they choose to take, discard those they choose to discard. I don't say all of us are balanced, but often we are more prepared to shoulder the responsability of our decisions, than parents, who always have that wildcard, that get-out-of-jail card and say "they didn't have a choice, they had to do it for the children".

Do we mind mind being alone? Well, are we? We have our friends, we have our family, we can have our partners, and yes, we can enjoy the blessed solitude when we can be alone with ourselves and enjoy the full extent of ourselves without being interrupted. It might be offensive for some, to witness in us all they gave up for diapers and rebel teenagers, but it's their choice, not ours. 

Perhaps for us getting out of the toychest is harder than for others to get out of their closets, but we should consider doing so wisely. Often we are of a mainstream religion, straight, so we should be joining the ranks of the pro-family people, but we derail, and that brings the heat. It's not that we are seen as "weird", but often as "traitors", particularly women. Oh dude! Like it doesn't matter what we think, we MUST give our womb for child making. Oh, and if we don't, we are selfish because we are denying so many men in the world, and the society in general, of children. Riiiiiiiight, wanna accuse me and all my female coworkers also of being selfish for not being at home cooking, cleaning and bearing children, but out working and earning money? 

You don't need to broadcast your Childfreedom, but you can assume it, stop feeling ashamed of it, and stop defending your choice in front of people hell bent on changing you. I blog, but I hardly get into discussions on the matter. I don't need tales about the matter of children, and honestly I'm not afraid to leave the person alone talking. No need to rub it under their noses, but no need to take their bile for it either. Like one of my fave podcasters said: just because you are no longer in the (closet) it doesn't mean you can't be private about it. Think about it, you have sex, but you don't go telling everybody you had some and you did this and that. So, it's okay to be private, and it's okay to be Proud of being Childfree too.

So really, next time someone brings the matter up, you smile and change the conversation or say "It's my personal decision. I don't see how's that of your concern". ^_^

Judge

Often you may hear, or even say, stuff like you don't want to be "judged" by others, or how unsuitable, unappealing "judgemental" people are, or that or that sounds judgemental, or how some people are so fast to "pass judgement" on others and don't even take time to know them first. Though the general notion of "judging" is negative, and usually you assume that "passing judgment" on something is a negative thing, I started thinking about the judging itself and whether it was really such a bad thing.

The first thing I realized was that judging is a human trait, a natural way for us to learn and understand our surroundings. No one can really say that they don't judge, for if they don't judge, they don't form an opinion about anything, and someone who doesn't have an opinion about anything is, well, empty. Perhaps from our early days we start judging, by basically coming around something and filing it away in our heads as usefull or useless, or interesting or uninteresting, toy or no-no, and as we grow older we are taught about other ways of filing information from the world in our heads, with labels as "good", "bad", "moral", "immoral", "ethical", "unethical", "honest", "dishonest", "efficient", "wasteful", "easy", "difficult" and so on. We pass judgment when reading the program of a physics class we decide that's going to be hard, or when we think about a spinning class and thing "that's gonna push up my energy levels". In both cases we make a judgement of something we haven't known yet, as you haven't finished yet the physics class, nor the spinning class, but you have a perception of the class and form an idea of it.

Now, unlike in the case of court of law judgments, these judgments we pass obey to no rules and no laws, but those we have formed for ourselves. The same object can be judged over and over, and every judgment to pass can change, like you find out the physics class is really not so hard, but kinda fun - this might be hard to picture, but imagine you are learning about friction, vectors, the movement of bodies and how the colliding of bodies, whether one resting and one moving, or both of them moving affect the motion in both and the energy that's given out - and the spinning class is torture and drains you instead of invigorating you. And you can rejudge and rejudge as often as you like, as often as anything happens to make you change your mind or your perception.

The thing with judgment and judging things as you know them, from the begining on, is that it helps your relate to them, ease the process of knowing them, pre-filing them, if you wish, in your head, so that not everything stands in a jumble in your head, waiting until you've get enough information to formally label it and relate to it. Judging helps you get around the world, and make some order in your head, with all that information that daily pours into you through all your senses. The good thing is that the older you get, the more you experience, the more elements you have to make more and more accurate on your judging. 

Imagine your head like a big library, or a computer's hard drive. In the begining the first files or books you get are placed in the nearest shelves or on C:\ , but as more and more books, magazines, pictures or files arrive, you realize you need to start sorting them, arranging them in a way that makes them easier for your to keep them tagged, having those most important or most often used at hand and those that are not, somewhere else, but still easy to find. So you start labeling them, placing them in particular places. In the computer analogy, you create dossiers and sub-dossiers, and put your files in them, and in the library analogy, you create your little lables and tags and put certain books on certain shelves and so on. Experience makes you also kinda like a physician, so when you see a new piece of information coming your way, you look for the tell-tale signs to come up with a diagnosis to catalogue the given object within the most fitting label you have at that moment. You don't make new labels at the begining of the contact with the object (this object is anything outside you, so it can be another person, but it can be also something in you, like an illness or a weird feeling... anything you can form thoughts about). When none of your current labels seem to fit, you always have handy a label known as "weird".

You can imagine "weird" like being "judgment purgatory". It the library analogy, "weird" is the counter or the bin of "to be filed", in the computer analogy is the desktop or the "Received files" dossier. It doesn't mean that things that go under weird are bad, but for instance, if you had a lot of experience pulling things from weird and ending up filing them under bad, immoral, unethical, dishonest, etc, then you tend to consider weird as bad, but technically, even if you have the object filed still on weird, it can go either way, when the weird stops being weird and fits another label or gets a label of its own.

In this sense judging isn't wrong or an impolite thing to do, something that turns you into a moron, but rather something that helps you deal with the world around you.

The thing about "judging" that often comes out as bad is not so much the judging, but rather the condemning some people do. So, there were the judging that goes inside us is much like an eternally open case (seldom or only in very qualifies cases we close the case), some have the tendency to pass an initial judgment, close the case and condemn without giving chance to any further rejudging. Such cases we can see in racism, male chauvinism, manhating, xenophobia, just to mention some. In this case the object has been judged often before coming in contact with the particular object. A male chauvinist do not need to know a particular woman in order to judge her as inferior and a sexual object submited to his service. A manhater do not need to know any particular man to judge him as a pig that's good for nothing but to move furniture and spend money on her.

You judge when you determinate a person is a nice person or a bad person. You condemn when you decide that no one who is gay has the right to marry, or simply when you think that your gay cousin doesn't have the right to marry like you, or the nice girl from the shop, who is lesbian, shouldn't be allowed to wear a wedding dress and marry her sweetheart.

So, don't worry about judging, go and judge, that's fine, just be careful about the condemnings and absolutions you pass.

Reincident

The next time I decide to click on the "Next Blog" button, could someone smack me on the head? It is letal, I tell you, LETHAL! No matter what your prepare yourself to, it will always, ALWAYS give you a long sequence of blogs that will send you screaming. What the fuck si wrong with Blogger? Why can't they either list completely random things or list things that match to your liking. That's why they gather all that info about us, right? Now, before you ask, no, I wasn't plunged into yet another mom-rampage of evil, as this time Blogger kept me from the obnoxious mom-blogs and proud-mom crap. (I still find it quite weird to be a "proud mom". For once, you are proud a whole human being popped out of your vagina? And second, dude, isn't being a "proud mom" - particularly if being proud of being a mom - kinda like objectifying the child? Parents hardly realize children are people, but let's not go there right now.) This time around Blogger sent me on a whirlpool of Christian blogs. Oh man!!!

These horrid creations have all sorts of names, some even pick a chapter and verse as name "John One 13" and things like that. (Have no idea if there's a John 1:13...) The tone is always the same: the "I'm so blessed and I have overcome so much thanks to the lord/faith/church and is so filled with..." crap. You roll down, because you know, sometimes people have the urge to write about something, but some other day they write about something else. Nope, not these ones! It's like mom-blogs, I swear. Entry after entry it's all the same. Amazing Grace, graceless version. And as you roll down hoping for some goodie, for something of a regular nature, all you read is how blessed they are, and how miserable they were in the past, but now they are so well... and there are things, affirmations that do sound - it really does -  like someone is trying to convince themselves about something. Writing it down makes it so?

Somewhere someone said their family "served the Lord" and the blog was about that. Sometimes I wonder what church-going Christians consider "serving the Lord". Going to church, giving a tenth or a symbolic amount of money to the church, being part of the choir, or the Bible studies, baking cupcakes for charities, teaching children about the bible, about sexual abstinence, dressing in boring pastel colors, long clothes and voting against abortion and gay marriage? Or is it feeding the poor, clothing the naked, taking care of the elderly and frown at the Wiccan neighbour who sings weird songs while watering the plants, and casts demonic rituals according to their "mistaken beliefs". The other day I read through Human Rights in Facebook, that a certain Christian Sheppard said something like "gay marriage was inevitable"  - you know, like chaos after a catastrophe - that Christians had to brace it with the trademark "Christian kindness", and they would support any scientifical project that could detect homosexuality before birth and treat it.

I would smack my head into the desk, except that I want to smack HIS head into the desk. Repeatedly.

He's a Sheppard in a Christian church. Is that bullshit considered "serving the Lord"? Question, and have they asked God what does He think about it? Perhaps I could aid a little bit there. You know, when God says that your fellow gay person is just like you, He means - no pun intended, my interpretation - that gay people are just as people like you, feel the same, suffer the same and deserve the same respectful treatment you do. Well, not you, but any other person. He doesn't mean "make the gay to be exactly like you". Of course, this is me and my primitive interpretation.

The Bible says? Yeah, about that, have you considered that maybe people tampered with it? We all know it was assembled at the First Council of Nicea, and if so, what would keep people from penning a line here, a chapter there, a book over there to fit it to their convenience? So why don't you open your heart and ask the source? Oh, and before you come with the "The Bible is the Word of God" thing, where does it say so? In the  Bible, right? Uhum. Not very scientific there.

Somewhere I read someone being thankful about how their marriage have been "saved" as it was going through a rough time, really, really bad, and now was coming back to normal. Sure, I don't know the person, hell, I didn't even finish reading the entry (it was way too uninteresting for me), but I tried to imagine what would a fucked up relationship feel like and how could that be mended. I mean, scars remain and people will continue picking at them. I believe that what broke once remains broken forever. Glue it all you want, it's not going to ever be the same. So there I kinda felt sad for that person, because they seemed to desperate to believe everything was solved - still leaving a little linger that it might not be so - and I wondered what would it feel if the relationship cracks again. Would they put it on God's tab and say He didn't save their marriage?

Anyway, after some many blogs on this line, I stoped and came back to the normal. There was an entry I read at Childfree about blogging-moms uniting into bitching because in a recent survey it came up that they are considered the most annoying thing on the social networks and blogs. Yes, you know, people hate how they post picks of their dirty children covered in food, because it's "so funny", or breastfeeding because it's "such a love connection", and 24/7 posting about kids and kid stuff and schools and clothes and all that crap... Well, the proud mommies say they are being hated "but they don't give a damn, and if people don't like them they can always unfollow them". Sure, we'll do that, but then don't come asking why we unfollowed you - personally I'll have to problem telling one of these mommies that I'm sick and tired of reading them, that their postings are as uninteresting as and introductory speech to an annual gathering of morons - and furthermore, don't request us to follow your or friend you again. Get the hint! Have dignity!

Anyway I was thinking what did Christians and moms have in common, that makes them so annyoing, and I've got to the conclusion that it was their one sided, monothematic speech. Blogging-moms come up with excuses like "well, I spend all my time with my children, so yes, they are my life". Okay, once upon a time I worked as a teller at a bank. Monday to Saturday, all my waking hours were spent - literally - at the bank. Sure, I had a lot to tell about the bank and the people I worked with, but my talking range was still broad, just like that of all my coworkers. We didn't speak only about the loans paid, the number of clients, the funny things that happened (and some of those are hilarious), but we also talked about a new café, our family, our friends, our hobbies, and though time-tight, we had a life that wasn't all about the job. I simply can't believe that having a children would keep you from reading good books - that have nothing to do with raising kids - watch a good movie, take interest in local politics, express your opinion about the latest raise in taxes and so on.

Christians, on the other hand, say they are entirely dedicated to God, consumed by it, overtaken by the "calling". Yeah, about calling, I've one, my career, and it really, really obssesses me. I'm on the point where I can't imagine my life without it. I love it, love to do it and process the whole universe around me in relationship to my calling - I'm an economist, as you know. I see every relationship as a balance of investments, expenses, externalities, and keeping a good scorecard. I see trust as a credit score card. Do I write about economics all the time? No, I don't. I have other things in my life, and though economics are fundamental, vital and the core of my being, I actually am capable of thinking about other things, and speaking about other things.

What makes someone or something - like a blog - annoying is that onesidedness, that flat topic that yields no richness, no real analysis. Do you know what journals are so fabulous? Because someone can gave a blog about complaining about their job, and yet as their daily life mingles into it, it makes it fantastic. Yes, blogs are outlets to many things, but the good side is that they can tackle a whole lot of topics and perspectives. But when a blog is flat and always the same, it doesn't matter if it's deving into the most exciting topic of all, it becomes boooring!

I've a penpal who's a mom, and she's quite a cool one. She mentions her child here and there, but she speaks about herself, her plans, her dreams... about the person I know and I write to. There was another, quite the opposite, who sent me letters detailing the day of her child. The kid did this, got into that school, got that grade... Where's the thought? Where's the delving into the human impression? Geez, get a life of your own!

Knowing myself, eventually I'll push the "next button" again, it's kinda like a self-destructive impulse, like people picking stories or pictures that gross them, but can't keep looking at them - though not a guilty pleasure, as there is no pleasure, only hoping to find something worth reading. I guess I'll keep going to this until I find a new way to mine for personal journals online.