Monday Musing

Patterson Maker

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Monday Musing

Oh So Lovely Obsessions

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Impulsive Compulsive

observando

Fuckits, n.: the rush of yielding to temptation, esp. to behave in a compulsive manner; the flood of relief that occurs after permitting oneself to indulge (see: Case of the Fuckits).

Several years ago, a recovering bulimic taught me this word. She was describing the cycle of her disorder: the days of starvation and white-knuckled control; the inevitable momentary weakness; the first few bites of  cookie or pie, eaten in the certainty that moderation would be possible this time; and then finally, inevitably, the tipping point when her willpower gave way and a binge began (“OH FUCK IT!"). 

Recovery, she told me, was about never giving in to the Fuckits.

As it so happens, the Fuckits are mutual friends of ours. Like those "networkers" who talk to you for five minutes at a cocktail party and then immediately friend you on Facebook, they've managed to connect at one time or another not only with me and her, but pretty much everyone I know. 

They have a knack for appearing at the worst times in my life: after a stressful day at work, as I open a bag of candy corn; when I'm already 2 white wines in, contemplating a third; or when I'm staring at Burberry skirts on eBay, biting my cuticles. 

They can be lots of fun, but they can also be overbearing, controlling, profligate assholes. No matter how often you spend time with them or what you do when they're there, you always feel a little dirtier in the morning.

In recent years, some of my friends have stopped speaking to the Fuckits. Their lives are better for it. These are the addicts, the Fuckits' favored few. At one time or another, they have each faced a stark choice: stay away from these guys, or die prematurely.  

My relationship with the Fuckits is less dire. I am what you would call one of their subclinical friends. They come around fairly often, but not so much that they're ruining my life. My impression is that they're at about the same friendship level with the majority of women I know.

Wouldn't it make sense for EVERYONE to defriend the Fuckits? Even if they haven't ruined our lives, why do we want to keep such an unpredictable, irritating, unbalanced company? Is there any reason we're still listening to their crazy schemes after all these years?

For me, yes, there is a reason. They might be full of crap most of the time, but the Fuckits are kind of my heroes.

When someone I know -- or something I read in a magazine -- tells me to be more patient, submissive, practical, or pleasing, the Fuckits know just the right response. When tonight was supposed to be the night of a thousand laundry loads, but I'm just too interested in writing this article, they smile and tap me on the shoulder. If I hear again that no one could possibly procrastinate as much as me and succeed, they make like a Roman emperor in the arena and do a haughty thumbs-down.

The instincts that tell me to go ahead and eat the whole sundae, to drink until I'm drunk, to stay up all night and ruin tomorrow reading random articles on Wikipedia -- they are instincts of surrender, of desire, of just-because-I-want-to. They are hungry, ugly, primal. They would rather expose themselves to embarrassment and criticism than miss out on something delicious. 

These instincts, these desires for something more, are amoral. They run strong and quick, right past eddies of worry, in search of satisfaction. Like water, they will flow forward by any means we allow:  wide, shallow floodplains of cheesecake; deeper, more frightening rapids of change. 

I'm scared of the rapids. It's convenient to let my life clog them with inertia and self-loathing, or to build dams in advance by internalizing society's opinions about who I should be.

How often my desires have run toward a big dream, a needed breakup, a lavish and impractical adventure that sounds worthwhile only to me, only to hit an inner Hoover and divert for something shallower. And how wonderful it's been the few times the Fuckits happened onto the scene, drunk as usual, dressed for some reason like Venetian gondoliers, singing in jaunty straw hats as they hand me sticks of dynamite: fuck it, fuuuuuck that shit, dooo it anyway, fuuuuuck that shit.

The Fuckits are irritating. They are insane. The stakes of hanging out with them are high, and I need to start inviting them to better parties.

Article by Anna Laimer, xoJane

Happy Weekend Friends

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Fall In Love Today

chanel bags and cigarette drags

Falling in love is the ultimate act of revolution, of resistance to today's tedious, socially restrictive, culturally constrictive, humanly meaningless world.

Love transforms the world. Where the lover formerly felt boredom, he now feels passion. Where she once was complacent, she now is excited and compelled to self-asserting action. The world which once seemed empty and tiresome becomes filled with meaning, filled with risks and rewards, with majesty and danger. Life for the lover is a gift, an adventure with the highest possible stakes; every moment is memorable, heartbreaking in its fleeting beauty. When he falls in love, a man who once felt disoriented, alienated, and confused will know exactly what he wants. Suddenly his existence will make sense to him; suddenly it becomes valuable, even glorious and noble, to him. Burning passion is an antidote that will cure the worst cases of despair and resigned obedience.

Love makes it possible for individuals to connect to others in a meaningful way—it impels them to leave their shells and risk being honest and spontaneous together, to come to know each other in profound ways. Thus love makes it possible for them to care about each other genuinely, rather than at the end of the gun of Christian doctrine. But at the same time, it plucks the lover out of the routines of everyday life and separates her from other human beings. She will feel a million miles away from the herd of humanity, living as she is in a world entirely different from theirs.

In this sense love is subversive, because it poses a threat to the established order of our modern lives. The boring rituals of workday productivity and socialized etiquette will no longer mean anything to a man who has fallen in love, for there are more important forces guiding him than mere inertia and deference to tradition. Marketing strategies that depend upon apathy or insecurity to sell the products that keep the economy running as it does will have no effect upon him. Entertainment designed for passive consumption, which depends upon exhaustion or cynicism in the viewer, will not interest him.

There is no place for the passionate, romantic lover in today's world, business or private. For he can see that it might be more worthwhile to hitchhike to Alaska (or to sit in the park and watch the clouds sail by) with his sweetheart than to study for his calculus exam or sell real estate, and if he decides that it is, he will have the courage to do it rather than be tormented by unsatisfied longing. He knows that breaking into a cemetery and making love under the stars will make for a much more memorable night than watching television ever could. So love poses a threat to our consumer-driven economy, which depends upon consumption of (largely useless) products and the labor that this consumption necessitates to perpetuate itself.

Similarly, love poses a threat to our political system, for it is difficult to convince a man who has a lot to live for in his personal relationships to be willing to fight and die for an abstraction such as the state; for that matter, it may be difficult to convince him to even pay taxes. It poses a threat to cultures of all kinds, for when human beings are given wisdom and valor by true love they will not be held back by traditions or customs which are irrelevant to the feelings that guide them.

Love even poses a threat to our society itself. Passionate love is ignored and feared by the bourgeoisie, for it poses a great danger to the stability and pretense they covet. Love permits no lies, no falsehoods, not even any polite half-truths, but lays all emotions bare and reveals secrets which domesticated men and women cannot bear. You cannot lie with your emotional and sexual response; situations or ideas will excite or repel you whether you like it or not, whether it is polite or not, whether it is advisable or not. One cannot be a lover and a (dreadfully) responsible, (dreadfully) respectable member of today's society at the same time; for love will impel you to do things which are not "responsible" or "respectable." True love is irresponsible, irrepressible, rebellious, scornful of cowardice, dangerous to the lover and everyone around her, for it serves one master alone: the passion that makes the human heart beat faster. It disdains anything else, be it self-preservation, obedience, or shame. Love urges men and women to heroism, and to antiheroism—to indefensible acts that need no defense for the one who loves.

For the lover speaks a different moral and emotional language than the typical bourgeois man does. The average bourgeois man has no overwhelming, smoldering desires. Sadly, all he knows is the silent despair that comes of spending his life pursuing goals set for him by his family, his educators, his employers, his nation, and his culture, without ever being able to even consider what needs and wants he might have of his own. Without the burning fire of desire to guide him, he has no criteria upon which to choose what is right and wrong for himself. Consequently he is forced to adopt some dogma or doctrine to direct him through his life. There are a wide variety of moralities to choose from in the marketplace of ideas, but which morality a man buys into is immaterial so long as he chooses one because he is at a loss otherwise as to what he should do with himself and his life. How many men and women, having never realized that they had the option to choose their own destinies, wander through life in a dull haze thinking and acting in accordance with the laws that have been taught to them, merely because they no longer have any other idea of what to do? But the lover needs no prefabricated principles to direct her; her desires identify what is right and wrong for her, for her heart guides her through life. She sees beauty and meaning in the world, because her desires paint the world in these colors. She has no need for dogmas, for moral systems, for commandments and imperatives, for she knows what to do without instructions.

Thus she does indeed pose quite a threat to our society. What if everyone decided right and wrong for themselves, without any regard for conventional morality? What if everyone did whatever they wanted to, with the courage to face any consequences? What if everyone feared loveless, lifeless monotony more than they fear taking risks, more than they fear being hungry or cold or in danger? What if everyone set down their "responsibilities" and "common sense," and dared to pursue their wildest dreams, to set the stakes high and live each day as if it were the last? Think what a place the world would be! Certainly it would be different than it is now—and it is quite a truism that people from the "mainstream," the simultaneous keepers and victims of the status quo, fear change.

And so, despite the stereotyped images used in the media to sell toothpaste and honeymoon suites, genuine passionate love is discouraged in our culture. Being "carried away by your emotions" is frowned upon; instead we are raised to always be on our guard lest our hearts lead us astray. Rather than being encouraged to have the courage to face the consequences of risks taken in pursuit of our hearts' desires, we are counseled not to take risks at all, to be "responsible." And love itself is regulated. Men must not fall in love with other men, nor women with other women, nor individuals from different ethnic backgrounds with each other, or else the usual bigots who form the front-line offensive in the assault of modern Western culture upon the individual will step in. Men and women who have already entered into a legal/religious contract with each other are not to fall in love with anyone else, even if they no longer feel any passion for their marital partner. Love as most of us know it today is a carefully prescribed and preordained ritual, something that happens on Friday nights in expensive movie theaters and restaurants, something that fills the pockets of the shareholders in the entertainment industries without preventing workers from showing up to the office on time and ready to reroute phone calls all day long. This regulated, commercial "love" is nothing like the passionate, burning love that consumes the genuine lover. These restrictions, expectations, and regulations smother true love; for love is a wild flower that can never grow within the confines prepared for it but only appears where it is least expected.

We must fight against these cultural restraints that would cripple and smother our desires. For it is love that gives meaning to life, desire that makes it possible for us to make sense of our existence and find purpose in our lives. Without these, there is no way for us to determine how to live our lives, except to submit to some authority, to some god, master or doctrine that will tell us what to do and how to do it without ever giving us the satisfaction that self-determination does. So fall in love today, with men, with women, with music, with ambition, with yourself. . . with life!

Excerpt sent to me by my Josh, originally from CrimethInc, from the book Days of War, Nights of Love (you can get it on Kalahari).

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Sonder

*wit +delight

sonder

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk

Dictionary of Obscure Sadness

What a beautiful thought!

Have a wonderful weekend friends 

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Right Mind

Doodle Everyday

The right side of the brain is the bit that seems to be especially important for our emotions. Language, on the other hand, gets done almost completely in the left side of the brain. And this is one reason why we find it so difficult to talk about our feelings and emotions: the language areas on the left side can’t send messages to the emotional areas on the right side very well. So we get stuck for words, unable to describe our feelings

— Robin Dunbar

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Asking Too Much

I am in love with Andrea Gibson...

Asking Too Much

- Andrea Gibson

I want you to tell me about every person you've ever been in love with. Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you. Tell me about a day in your life you didn't think you’d live through. Tell me what the word “home” means to you and tell me in a way that I’ll know your mothers name just by the way you describe your bed room when you were 8. See, I wanna know the first time you felt the weight of hate and if that day still trembles beneath your bones. Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain or bounce in the bellies of snow? And if you were to build a snowman, would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms? Or would you leave the snowman armless for the sake of being harmless to the tree? And if you would, would you notice how that tree weeps for you because your snowman has no arms to hug you every time you kiss him on the cheek? Do you kiss your friends on the cheek? Do you sleep beside them when they’re sad, even if it makes your lover mad? Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain? See, I wanna know what you think of your first name. And if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mothers joy when she spoke it for the very first time. I want you tell me all the ways you've been unkind. Tell me all the ways you've been cruel. Tell me—knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old beating up little boys at school. If you were walking by a chemical plant, where smoke stacks were filling the sky with dark, black clouds, would you holler, “Poison! Poison! Poison!” really loud or would whisper, “That cloud looks like a fish, and that cloud looks like a fairy”? Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin? Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea? And if you don’t believe in miracles, tell me, how would you explain the miracle of my life to me? See, I wanna know if you believe in any god, or if you believe in many gods. Or better yet, what gods believe in you. And for all the times you've knelt before the temple of yourself, have the prayers you've asked come true? And if they didn't did you feel denied? And if you felt denied, denied by who? I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling good. I wanna know what you see in the mirror on a day a day you’re feeling bad. I wanna know the first person who ever taught you your beauty could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass. If you ever reach enlightenment, will you remember how to laugh? Have you ever been a song? Would you think less of me if I told you I have lived my entire life a little off key and I’m not nearly as smart as my poetry I just plagiarized the thoughts of the people around me who have learned the wisdom of silence. Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence? And if you do I want you to tell me of a meadow where my skateboard will soar. See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living. I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving. And if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes. I wanna know if you bleed sometimes from other people’s wounds. And if you dream sometimes that this life is just a balloon that if you wanted to you could pop—but you never would because you’d never want it to stop. If a tree fell in the forest, and you were the only one there to hear, if its fall to the ground didn't make a sound, would you panic in fear that you didn't exist or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness? And lastly, let me ask you this: if you and I went for a walk, and the entire walk we didn't talk, do you think eventually we’d kiss? No way. That’s askin’ too much—after all, this is only our first date.

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Dear Future Lover

vivI Iviv

Marianna Paige

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What if?

observando

This Life Is Bliss

Wisuella

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Monday Musing

Riches for Rags

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Le Rêve

The Glitter Guide

A day in the land of nobody

Pretty Peach Peonies

You told me that I had watched too many movies, and that it would never be real. You said I was living in a fantasy. Now I know that it is possible, and that make believe can exist...

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Honest Moments

Wisuella

"I love unmade beds. I love when people are drunk and crying and cannot be anything but honest in that moment. I love the look in people’s eyes when they realize they’re in love. I love the way people look when they first wake up and they’ve forgotten their surroundings. I love the gasp people take when their favorite character dies. I love when people close their eyes and drift to somewhere in the clouds. I fall in love with people and their honest moments all the time. I fall in love with their breakdowns and their smeared makeup and their daydreams. Honesty is just too beautiful to ever put into words."

- Unknown

Pretty Peach Peonies

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My Monday Musing

Image *wit + delight

Have you ever noticed how the older you get the faster time goes by. Apparently this is all relative to how long we have been alive. To a one year old, one year is a lifetime, but to a 50 year old, a year is a 1/50 of their life. I am not sure if this really is why time seems to fly, but I am certain that each year of my life passes quicker than the year before.

A lot has happened this year, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about life.

The sudden popularity of the acronym “yolo” (You only live once)is mocked by many, including myself – But there is really a lot of truth in it, and I believe we need to apply it to our lives.

A friend of mine lost her father shortly after discovering he had an inoperable brain tumor. The sad realisation that tomorrow is not promised to any of us encouraged her and her husband to take a year to travel the world together.

Situations like this are common and I am sure you are able to think of one that has happened in your own life, or at least to someone close to you.

Every day we are alive is a special occasion.

Why waste your time on things and people that make you unhappy. Each day should be lived without regrets. Don’t regret things you have said and done that cannot be changed – Apologise if necessary, and let it go. Don’t allow for regrets of things you should have said or done either.

This is most certainly not a reason to become reckless – For goodness sake, you don’t want to shorten your precious life – But do take risks.

Be kind to yourself and others. Accept and give compliments. Share.

Don’t waste too much time worrying about what other people will say and think – Those thoughts are theirs to own, not yours.

Try the things you have always wanted to try. Experience different things. Appreciate special moments. Say the things you want to say to people – don’t be afraid. Tell the people you love and care about how much they mean to you. Do all you do with great enthusiasm and passion – If you can’t ask yourself why – and make a change.

Most importantly, live.

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Monday Musing

Riches for Rags

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Monday Musing

Thought provoking...

Pretty Peach Peonies

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