Musings

Looking back on history as we know it, the collective 'memory' of it all when it came to living within society is that of being shackled to rigid rules, with more or less of a weight on one's shoulders depending on their rank in terms of social obligations and duties. Everyone knew their place, it was clearer than clear. That is not to say that one of the most powerful momentums for some people was not to actually fight against the place within society they were confined in.

From the meagre knowledge I have of history as we are made to know it, Love rarely had a place within society, for society was always about making the whole function according to whatever ideology was being followed at any given time, and ideologies in themselves are emotionless - they are ideas fuelled by human emotions, perhaps, but they are intrinsically emotionless in themselves since they are but mere ideas.

Society isn't about love, or wants, let alone desires and wishful thinking - for the idea itself of 'society' is that of a collective putting the whole before the individual. The reason human beings found themselves writing mostly about love, passion and happy endings in general that invariably give the characters what they wished for in the end appears to be a direct response to the fact that we could never have it in reality.

I find it most fascinating that throughout history love and passion were rarely found within the confines of social norms, but outside of them. People made alliances through marriage, and most alliances such as marriage were either needed to have a better chance of survival or simply in a bid to preserve one's footing within society. Love and passion, on the other hand, were always relegated to the realm of rule transgression and secrecy. It was something one was most likely to fall into as they were already chained to their own conditions, and as such it was often unlikely to ever be 'recognised' by society as anything but taboo and 'wrong'. The few examples that transgressed the rules of society and 'followed' their hearts were usually the losers in reality, even though their stories could persist through time for having chosen the heart over society. In the world of fiction, some of the most famous illustrations of that would have to be stories such as Romeo and Juliet or Tristan and Iseult. There are others real-life examples of such occurrences, too. One such example that happens to come to mind would be the account of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire - but really, history seems full of doomed love stories behind the 'curtains' where rules of convenance and social dictat mostly prevailed.

Fast-forward to our present day and it would seem that we've finally broken free of the yoke of social norms where the ideal of love - in particular, but not exclusively - is concerned. But I wonder - does love remain an attainable ideal when it becomes freely available? Do we even remain capable of recognising love and passion when we are no longer subjected to contrary rules forcing us to behave in accordance with the whole (society)? If our present society had been just as it is for the past 1000 years, would we have had people dreaming and writing about such intense love stories as, say, Romeo and Juliet, and other accounts full of intense idealism? Probably not. It would have been replaced with today's idea of what love is supposed to be all about - some insipid and blind 'search for love' in a world of plenty and loose social norms.

Isn't that the way love ended up being portrayed - some sort of elusive notion to be sought and found? Well, that would at least seem to be the case in terms of romantic love.

Looking into it, though, it seems we haven't changed so much from the past. Sure, social norms have loosened up enough to at least allow some liberties as to whom we wish to marry, etc, but still more and more people find themselves needing the help of yet new forms of 'matchmaking' to help them fit in and 'find' that love. And what are those matchmaking ploys if not a mere modern variant of how it always was in the past? Matchmaking, be it done by a family or via a computer, utilises the same process - that of matching one with another based on social rules. Even though one may think that he or she is being 'freer' to choose a mate by requesting a match in terms of hobbies and interests, the bottom line is that he or she is still defining her partner according to his or her own optimal vision of a good social match that could lead to a successful alliance/marriage.

However today's social rules have been so eroded and blurred that I personally have a hard time making sense of the need for alliances anymore. We've reached or are reaching the point where it's more about picking a mate on a shelf, as one would pick a chicken on a supermarket's shelf. There is 'so much' choice out there, with none of the past rules that worked to restrict us from simply discarding our obligations or duties. And then we find ourselves surprised at the high rate of divorce and separation in general. Since it's now all about individual 'happiness', I guess it should be no surprise.

Sometimes I really think that if I'd had more social constraints in life, I'd have achieved far more in concrete terms - I would have been fuelled with a stronger incentive to put my passion and thoughts to work. As for love, I don't believe it can be truly appreciated in a loose social environment. And since there are no more strong social restraints on anything except for the rule of Law, I see no point in alliances of any sort, especially that of marriage. Some people like to say that such conventions as marriage are now obsolete, and though they are most probably right, I suspect their reasons for deriving that conclusion are mostly flawed.

You'd think that by killing religion and social obligations/norms you'd get to a more evolved type of society... It could only ever work if you have something to replace the old with. As it stands, we've moved on by simply getting rid of what hindered the individual, without bothering to update social norms and obligations - the script, if you like - and this is why I suspect we are now living in a world that feels more like unrestrained chaos and confusion.

We've reached a point where the word 'society' no longer has much substance to it. It's the equivalent of calling a hollow jar a jar full of water when in reality it has been emptied of its content. You can still call the jar a 'jar', but the fact remain that it is now a hollow one with no real substance inside it.

Ancient Reality

I've started reading some Ancient Greek literature all over again, starting with plays. Tonight was a short, tragic one called Medea by Euripides. It's interesting how lucid these ancient ones were when it came to portray their reality, even as they immersed the latter in a flurry of fantasy adventures. The bottom line was always tinged with the painful aspects of reality humans must bear... society's weight and duty.

Back then, they were already asking all the questions we still ask ourselves today. That, too, I find fascinating. Perhaps they didn't have 'psychology' or more technical sciences to play with, but still even the words we use today are living remnants of theirs.

A couple of examples: psukhē (mind or soul) + logia (study or research) = study of the soul/mind

philos (love) + sophos (wisdom) = love of wisdom

It makes one wonder whether we're truly any more advanced than they were back then, or if it isn't all just simply a trick of the light, whereby only the settings and landscapes have changed. More generally, perhaps it is only the detail that invariably changes, whereas the foundations remain still and unmoving. But what foundations exactly? Perhaps if we could take a bird's eye view beyond the detail, we 'd see the equivalent of the vastest, flattest clearing that stretches to infinity - one that never moves nor changes. Zooming in on that field, we'd notice the blades of grass in their billions, waving in the wind - the detail, the only one actually moving or changing at the mercy of seasons. Underneath it all, though, the constant of the earth (reality) giving birth to the grass would never change. It would always be there as the fixed base on which to allow for the grass to keep dying and growing back again.

But what can the blade of grass really perceive? It will perceive the sun moving up and down the sky, the wind grow colder and harsher upon winter's approach... its own strength diminishing after a while, until time dictates the blade of grass is bound to wither to nothingness - until spring waltzes in and a garrison of fresh greenery sprouts to the surface again. Never quite the same blades of grass, yet being just that at the same time - blades of grass just like the previous ones.

All the blade of grass can see is movement. A seemingly endless and fluid movement, a sense of time passing... yet underneath it all nothing varies, nothing changes. The base remains as fixed as ever.

Terre à terre observations

I wake up in the morning a couple of hours before I really need to get up for work. Thinking about it, it makes me feel like I'm not just waking up because I have work. Some days are easier than others, but more often than not I'll spend some time hitting the snooze button until the clock reaches around 6am. I then emerge from the comfort of my bed - I do it fast, as one would rip out a band aid so as to only feel a brief moment of pain - and stumble my way to the kitchen to switch the kettle on for some coffee. I grab the steaming mug and sit at my desk, listening to the wheezing sound of the computer switching back on to life. Outside, the darkness is fading swiftly with each minute ticking by and I look up often to watch from the window in front of me the skies awaken to a new day I already know will unfold almost just the same as the previous one.

Before I know it, it's time to get dressed - in a hurry, as always, because I never think to plan my outfit beforehand (or rather I just don't care enough to ever allocate that process the extra time I don't feel it deserves... which is what I seem to do with most 'concrete' matters, as I call them). One quick cursory glance lets me know what doesn't look too creased and I select what I'll be wearing based mostly on the clean pile of clothes not requiring any last minute ironing.

And then I'm out the door, on my way to the tube station, high heels stumping the ground in hollow thumps, hair floating free in the wind. The pavement beneath my feet is uneven and littered with tiny potholes, so there I am stumbling forward often, the expression on my face made of stone as my footsteps lose none of their assertive vigour and sense of direction for my footsteps know well where they're heading regardless of my my own mind's sighing.

At that precise moment, I look like any other 20-something 'working' woman heading to work, her handbag firmly stuck on her shoulder over a black coat tightly tied at the waist as her heels thump the ground almost in rhythm with her own heartbeat.

Then I reach the tube station, and often find myself fighting my way inside the carriage of a train. The 'learned' ones and those pressed by time know well where the doors will open exactly so that they can come stand and wait for the train exactly at that precise spot and be the first ones in - an almost sure way to get into the first incoming train. Conversely, the less busy, the less pressed by time and the clueless wait randomly across the platform and rarely get into the first incoming train. I often watch them watch us as our train leaves the platform, all of our faces made of stone.

And then, whether I find a seat or have to stand crushed by other passengers, my eyes invariably wander up towards the adverts placarded on the sides of the compartment in which I find myself.

It's always the same adverts. My God those advertising people are good. If it's not an advert asking you to ask yourself whether you have some kind of incontinence problem, it's all about far-away 'adventurous' travels to Kenya, or Egypt (but who wants to go there right now anyway), or some more exotic destination promising you the time of your life as you stand stuck between a fat, sweaty man and a coughing student. If you tell them you saw the advert on the tube, they apparently even give you a £50 discount on a travelling price-tag likely to set you back £1,000. Wow, amazing discount.

If it's not about travelling to far-away, exotic destinations, it's about... dating websites. One of those always has me in giggles because the advert is invariably located right above seats and it reads: "Mr Right could be sitting right under this advert", and then I look down and I see some 80 year-old with his trolley stuck between his legs, or a row of women sitting there. So I look up again to read the rest of the advert, and it tells me how it knows I'm a busy, trendy man or woman who's doing so well at work that I haven't got the time to find 'love' so that website is there to help me out. It promises to match me to another Londoner whose lifestyle is just as 'successful' as mine, and that I, too, can fit in 'love' in my busy schedule. My GOD. If I wanted someone who's just as stuck and sucked into that daily busyness I'd just buy myself a dildo and be done with it. As for my male equivalent, they might as well invest in some inflatable doll. In all seriousness.

Remember how back in the days parents and family used to choose who we'd get married to, etc? Well... I have to say I fail to see the difference when it comes to these dating websites. Except that people today believe they are 'freer' in their so-called choice of a mate or partner when really, nothing has changed. At least when family is choosing, they might know you a little bit better than a website automatically matching you to others based on some dubious psychometric test. When these people using websites to find dates or 'THE' one hear of arranged marriage, for example, their eyes will almost come out of their head in horror, and yet they cannot see that they are no better - because getting together in this life is rarely about this 'love' affair (not on a long-term basis anyway), it's about practicalities, hence why both arranged marriages AS WELL AS dating sites manage to pair people off so well. It's not about 'love'. It's about finding the first match that comes along that happens to have the right combination of likes, dislikes and interests, the differences that we can put up with, a hint of physical attraction and the rest is down to... HABIT. Stick around long enough and you'll find yourself in a long-term relationship before you know it, finding it hard to break away because of the habit that builds up. I'm not saying it's bad at all, it may well be the most realistic version of 'love' that actually exists, and I just wish society would stop confusing people with fantasies.

You may look at an old couple and think:"Wow, these two must have really loved each other, they look so in love after all the years together," and yet that's mostly habit's doing, here. You weren't there at the beginning when they simply paired up at random and then got used to each other so much that in the end yes, it looks a lot like this fantasy we call 'love'. The fact remains that what we fantasise about, this 'love' delusion as is portrayed in society through movies and books, for instance, is nothing but the works of someone sticking around long enough - and sharing the same interests and goals in life, plus a hint of initial attraction, is ALL it took.

Beside the dating adverts, one can also find adverts on fertility treatments. It makes sense since most of the women I see with infants on the tube are often well over 30. The fertility treatment adverts picture a beautiful toddler smiling at you, and then in the small prints it even promises you 'free' treatment if you agree to donate your eggs so you can end up with 10 other unknown kids somewhere in England. It doesn't matter though, because you're unlikely to ever know about those kids that are yours biologically - yet you should keep in mind that a kid always feels the basic need to know where they come from. I know this from personal experience.

How crafty those adverts are. They really seem to target the 'right' crowds, don't they?

My over-zealous analytical mind will be my downfall, it seems. It renders me unable to just gobble up whatever nonsense is spurted out at me. I have to analyse it all inside my head. And then I see it for what it is, I make the connections, and though I may laugh out loud at the utter nonsense at first, it never fails to remind me that I could never fit in.

Maybe people like me exist randomly across the world for a purpose. We may look like freaks or behave like weirdos because we never blend in, but we're only here to force a kick back in the right direction... or just express some truth over the vomit of lies. Either way, I don't really care so long as I'm not part of or immersed in that vomit.

The choice is really yours.

Letting go

Saying good bye to things we never thought would be so hard to leave... That process seems to occur every time our ego construct no longer wins over Reality, or when it suddenly ceases to be possible to cover Reality under a veil of self-deception, or illusions. It's the exact same process, it seems, as that of children who suddenly realise they'll never get to fly like Superman, and as their grasp of Reality sets in versus imagination, they accept that flying like Superman in fact pertained to the realm of dreams. Yet before that realisation or grasp of Reality set in, the idea of flying like Superman was just as real to them as the simple ability to walk and speak.

Once the Reality switch is 'on', there's no going back, and each of us drifts farther and farther away from that original base where, as children, anything was possible beyond any Reality-bound rule. We call that process 'growing up', but in a way it may be misleading in the sense that the process never stops, not even, or perhaps especially not as we start to grow older as adults.

Why am I writing this? Because I seem to have no more veils of illusions to hide under, and it feels just like being left naked in the cold. Exactly like that.

I know what I can and cannot do, I know that all that I wished or believed in as a small child was never real, I know that many things I took for granted will have to be lost, and I know that many things I would like to have, I can never have. In many ways, I am made to fully realise my place in the world, its limitations as much as the possibilities it offers.

I am made to face my role, the character that is I among billions of others - and not one character is allowed to play the exact same role as another. Isn't that one of the hardest lessons for a species which, as a whole, strives on imitation from the start? To accept that you cannot - ever- be the same as another, or have exactly what another have, etc even though we spend our existence evolving, being influenced and adapting based on mimicking these very others.

One of the most painful self-inflicted scars we inflict on ourselves is the senseless lack of realisation of what I've just described. On the one hand, we live immersed in a society that encourages sameness at least in terms of social circumstances; for instance, there would be the encouragement to strive for the best jobs, the highest status possible, the so-called pursuit of happiness under a certain model one ought to follow (owning a house, a car, getting married, having children etc). On the other hand, there is this non-existence of sameness. We strive to have the 'same' and yet it is impossible. Then we invent the concept of fairness to make ourselves feel better. The neighbour can have kids, but you can't - surely that must be a matter of unfairness, right? Why can she have children and I can't, etc, etc? Or how about all those who seem to have it all from birth, while you constantly struggle to make ends meet from the start, no matter how hard you try? Surely it must again be a matter of fairness, here.

Well, no. The concept of fairness is just an excuse born out of the inability to see that sameness is an illusion and that the only reason it is sought after by so many, whether they realise it or not, is based on thousands of years of re-enforcement.

So if there is no sameness in the detail, what does it leave us with? It leaves us with the most wonderful, yet scariest gift or ability of all - complete freedom to be anything we want.

But here's the irony: most of us will shun that complete freedom out of fear. Why? Because it might just feel easier and less scary to be told what to do and who to be rather than take true responsibility of our own self.

Osmosis

There is a saying in French that goes: 'Etre en osmose avec quelque chose', which really means 'to be in sync with something', except the French use the word osmosis in a figurative context here, and I'm not sure that's the case in English, but there you go. That word 'osmosis' came to mind earlier as I looked back in time briefly through my mind's eye.

I wondered why that word came to mind as I was reminiscing the old days, and then suddenly it struck me. Now that I no longer feel so much sorrow looking back in time, now that the past can safely be looked at without regret and sighs of 'what-if', now that I realise I am better now than I was before... This feeling of being in sync within myself is almost in my reach. And thus came that word, osmosis, to symbolise the fusion of the old and new all at once - of who was, is and will be.

I can look back in time, and though I am no longer able to relate much to my younger 'versions', those younger versions needed to be in order to give rise to the one that is now. When you can turn around and no longer get stuck on the particular pains and hiccups along the way, that's when it feels like some sort of osmosis within. Of course, it's only a matter of time before what happens now ends up taking time for my future versions to be able to feel in 'sync' again with this unfolding now... an endless process from birth till death do us part.

But for now, let's enjoy that feeling in time when everything that was is finally in sync with what is.

Endless Permutations

A couple of weeks ago I saw a strange man sitting on the train looking like he was trying to meditate. As the train filled up with more and more people, the man's attempts at deep concentration went up a notch, too. The crowds forced me to stand right in front of him, so I started glancing down at him discreetly to observe what he was doing. In my head, I was almost talking to him, thinking: "Well, let's see if you can meditate in the middle of so much noise, eh."

Between the train's loud screeching motions and the loud chatter in various languages floating in the suffocating air of our compartment, it would have seemed like quite a feat to manage meditation in there. As I kept watching the man, I saw him open his eyes often to glance around with a frown before squeezing his eyes shut again stubbornly. Before long, he was drawing his hands onto his lap, with fingers held together directed upwards just like one would do when meditating cross-legged on the floor. But even that wasn't helping as he kept being distracted by the surrounding noise. After a while, I wondered why he was trying so hard in the middle of chaos, and what was it that he was trying to achieve.

I have a friend who was brought up in the Hindu tradition, and whenever in pain, she is apparently able to make it go away by meditating. She says that focusing on an image of Buddha in her mind helps her get into a deep meditative state. Last year, I started asking her more questions about these more esoteric affairs, and she ended up offering me Tarot cards for Christmas, complete with some guide on 'how to read Tarot cards". It wasn't long before I felt the need to put those cards to the test, so to speak. A year on and I'm less keen to use them, mainly because they frustrate me when I keep drawing the same old cards against the odds. I mean... if I asked a question about work, I'd invariably get cards from the 'pentacle' family, with mostly the idea of me being in the process of learning, culminating in something good or positive. So far, so good. Work-related questions were always the clearest when it came to 'asking' those cards. But whenever I've asked about love matters, I would invariably get a mass of court cards - Kings and Queens, over and over again. Regardless of the type of spread I tried, those cards would come up all the time no matter how much I shuffled the deck. This always occurs, to the point of making laugh now. I could take the cards now, ask about my 'love' outlook, and I know these court cards will show up, and always in the same sort of position. A King showing up as the basis for my question, followed by a Queen, who often happens to be a Queen of Swords while the King himself varies more often. Mind you, the few times I tried a reading with my now ex-boyfriend, although a King would always show up as the base of my question, the outcome was always negative, culminating to my drawing of the Devil card along with a Knight of Swords shortly before we broke up; and the question had been about whether he loved me or not. Overall, I find the whole thing rather frustrating because court cards, in particular, are hard to draw any meaning from.

It's rather uncanny how these cards keep showing up, presenting far more of an apparent constant than the randomness you'd expect to witness when playing mere cards. Whatever though, it's all always down to interpretation in the end.

It's like this idea of 'synchronicity'... does it actually exist? Well, that's already a flawed question to ask oneself. It's not about whether something exists or not, it's about the interpretation or meaning we give or rather lend to everything. Even our take or experience of other people doesn't escape the fact that we merely experience or understand them through the lens of our interpretations... When we meet people face to face, for instance, our brains start taking in a huge flow of minute detail we're often not aware of as our conscious side seems to only consider the more obvious manifestations emanating from the other person (such as, overall face expression, posture, clothes, tone of voice etc).

Yet the brain will take in that flurry of 'invisible' detail that will then be assembled inside the mind and translated into an overall sense of the other person, thus deciding whether we like them or not, for instance. Sometimes what the conscious side is able to observe clashes with what the brain was able to pick up on a more subconscious level - leading us to situations where we end up being put off by someone for reasons we don't seem able to explain even to ourselves, and then we tend to ignore that strange sense of not liking someone for no 'obvious' reasons. Some time down the line, the person shows us more concretely (or more obviously) something that really doesn't agree with us, and suddenly we realise that it must have been what put us off in the first place - that gut feeling warning we didn't 'listen' to, so to speak.

The idea of 'synchronicity' pertains to the same rules, where our perception or way of seeing it is utterly dependent on our own interpretations, or the meaning we choose to lend to the notion. It makes me want to conclude that everything in reality is actually relative, but the cloak of our own subjectivity thwarts that relativity by imposing layers of extra, personal interpretations taking us far away from the root fact that everything is actually relative in essence. If we could remove the lens of interpretations and meanings - the cloak of subjectivity -, we'd be able to see that.

In the case of synchronicity, some argue that it hints at a glimpse into something far deeper than what we usually are able to discern through our limited construct of reality… a glimpse into the greater flow and workings of the universe… others say that it is merely the result of selective attention - we basically make ourselves pay attention to certain things or patterns more than others. Which is true? I don’t know, perhaps a mix of both arguments. Does it matter? probably not, because even if synchronicity does exist, we forever get the meaning or the significance wrong, perhaps because we fail to see it on a wider level than our own subjective fancy or interpretation. In other words, it seems to invariably go wrong on a level of personal interpretation of such occurrences.

More esoteric affairs are seemingly perfect to try and discern better how central a role subjectivity plays in our ability to experience reality as we know it.

Endless combinations or endless permutations? I'd say when it comes to Reality itself, it's all about an endless flow of permutations, even though we may only be able to discern what looks like random combinations.