Line

It 's so hard to make a connection, even if we were to be speaking the same language
It's just such an effort to find meaning,
To find that chord of harmony among strands of discord,
To be able to say things that mean something more,
when the fact is that it's so hard,
No?
To find that little stream of comfort, where awkward pauses become nothing more than brief interludes into sparkling conversation, nurturing bliss and excitement, not discontent...
It is hard to find that connection, no? And it rarely persists,
it rarely lasts beyond those moments that we choose to sustain it,
then we're left only with memories... "It's better to have memories if we don't have to deal with the past," she says... and inside, we want to relive it, rekindle the spark of connection, and experience it every moment of our lives, but that would cheapen it, no?
Trying to find something that otherwise might have been treasured forever?
It's hard to find that connection and harder still to find it again when it's no more,
and life seems a lot less meaningful without it.
What do we do then?
It's hard, yes... we make a new one

Contemplate

Whenever we have a good thing in our lives, it is probably a good idea to try and hold on to it. A bad idea would be to fuck it up. But, we are who we are, and for some reason, we love to screw things up in our lives… even though it was the best thing that happened to us. We fall in love, discover that we have found the perfect person to be with, and then a couple of months later we decide for some petty, minuscule reason that we are angry at them. Then we do what we do best; fuck things up. Really bad.

We love chaos, we love living a mess… dysfunctional is the normal state of human life, it seems. If we had one good thing, we would probably be too blind to notice it anyway. We would just fuck it up.

Maybe that is just the price of the so called freedom that we so treasure… maybe it is just the result of our precious individual rights…

“It is my life, so I can fuck it up however the fuck I want, so what the hell are you looking at, asshole?”

“It would be incredibly stupid for me not to see a good thing for what it is and learn to not ask stupid questions. Being as selfish as I am, though, I need to know if this thing will last, I need to know everything about it; I need to know that it will be loyal, and that my trust will not be messed with. I need to know, without compromise, that I am the centre of attention and my feelings come first. I have expectations, and needs, and those come first. If you are not able to fulfill these, then please, I don’t want you”.

“Or so I think.”

"What if you are the only thing that can make me whole, for once, and not this mess of emotions, confusions, and mixed-up priorities? If I can’t even recognize you for being the one possible thing that might be able to fix me, do I even deserve you? Do I deserve to be fixed, when all I do is ignore everything except my own self-gratification? Do I deserve a chance to be saved?"

"Probably not… bottom-line, I’m a fucking idiot, and I can’t tell something good when it’s thrown right in front of me. I am dysfunctional. I’m a fucking mess. I don’t want to ‘work’ on anything… relationships either work or they don’t… I don’t bother with fucking building and working through relationships… that’s for losers. I deserve my right to be happy… I want a relationship with someone compatible… we should click from the start, there should be chemistry, intimacy… well, fuck that, I’m never going to have THAT."

"Truth is, I am like you, like every one of you… just fucked up… all I’m ever good at is fucking up the few good things that I have in my life because I just can’t fucking help it. I like it that way. Instant gratification. I don’t care if it’s material or superficial, or sexual, I want it now, I expect it, and if you can’t give it to me, then fuck you."

"You want to laugh at me? You want to fucking judge me? Call me a moron? A loser of epic proportions?"

You any different?

Ah, To Be Gay Again!

The word gay has been so corrupted and abused that it probably has more rights to go for a discrimination claim than any living being on earth. It is the perfect example of a word that had nothing but entirely positive and innocent connotations but has somehow become the label of despair, anguish, bitterness and insult.

Something came to me the other day. It had a lot to do with this weird way that we look at human relationships, and it made me a little bit upset. It began with a thought that I had, about how it would be if a supposedly homosexual person were to find themselves falling in love with a member of the opposite sex. Then I started to think about what homosexuality means, and this was followed by me thinking about what being in love with another person means.

There it was, then; there was no real connection between the two.

The weird thing is, many gay couples are making a huge effort of fighting for equal opportunities and privileges as so-called straight couples. You know... right to marry, right to have equal legal representation, etc... Do NOT misunderstand, I am not opposed in any way to homosexuality. This is NOT an anti-homosexuality rant. My support is fully behind their cause and choice of lifestyle.

This is not really about that, though. What has been on my mind is this idea and perception. In a nutshell, this is the problem; I think that we have put way too much effort into creating boundaries and labels on relationships that they have lost their integrity- lost in translation, if you will. These things no longer mean what they were supposed to mean, just like the word 'gay'.

Maybe an example of this might be clearer. If two people were to claim that they love each other, and happen to be of the same gender, does this make them gay? Simple, rather seemingly stupid question, right? Obviously the answer is no. Best friends can love each other, siblings can love each other, family can love each other. A person's sex has really nothing to do with their capacity to love... right? Now, what is the difference between a gay couple and a straight couple? Assuming both are loving, caring relationships, the only difference would be the sex of the individuals, obviously. What is the difference between two men who call themselves best friends and two men who call themselves lovers?

This second question is not as easy to answer as it might seem. What defines being gay and what defines love? Is my love for a best friend who is of the same sex different from the love between a gay couple? How is this love different?

I am sure there are plenty of people who would jump up to respond to those questions, but before that, I think we should be aware that we cannot, by any means, actually measure such things. We definitely cannot sub-divide or categorize love and somehow try to rank it by value. A gay couple, straight couple or a couple of close friends certainly cannot argue that their love for each other is stronger or better than the others. More to the point, none can really argue that their love is even DIFFERENT, because we cannot possibly know what that difference is in the first place. We just give them names and labels and suddenly it is fine.

Seriously, the only difference between one type of love and another is the weird definitions and labels we give them to validate our own needs to make sense of things. I realize that there are many boundaries and rules to the relationship that I have with my best friend that are in place simply because of taboo and stigma... there are restrictions and rules that cannot be crossed or two guys are suddenly deemed to be gay (it's the whole Frodo and Sam thing). We put these rules in place just so we can sate our own need to create a box for such things.

Truly, what sets a gay couple apart from a couple of best friends? I would love to have a valid answer to this, but I cannot seem to find one beyond sex. This is a very demeaning way of describing a relationship between people.

Basically, the only definition for a gay couple is two people of the same sex having sex.

This troubles me, but not because of the 'same sex having sex' thing. It troubles me because there are people who are fighting for the sake of something that can only be defined by bringing 'sex' into the picture (sex as in the verb, not the noun). To be fair, it applies to straight couples as well... what's different about two members of the opposite sex who are 'best friends' and 'lovers'? Assuming, of course, there is love involved in both relationships.

I am guessing there will be a fair number of people out there who will respond to this very angrily by saying "love is not something you should try and define... gay people are just as loving as straight couples, and that love is something that is to be respected, not defined and labelled"... . Before you do decide to blast me with that, please do note that I do not believe that love holds to any definition, and I strongly believe that love is love regardless of how one chooses to look at it. I also believe we should not try and separate and categorize love. This is why this issue is so confusing.

If love is something that cannot be defined and measured, then why is it that some relationships are given more value than others? Why do straight couples have all these benefits and privileges given to them, but not gay couples? On the other hand, what right do either of these groups have in claiming ANY type of privilege or benefit? What makes them so different from anyone who is in love? SEX? Just because I choose to have sex with somebody, I have special rights? Even more so if that person is of the opposite sex?

Whichever way we look at it, somebody ends up getting hurt because their relationship becomes devalued and demeaned. If love is really something that should never be defined and measured, then what is gay, what is straight, and what is friendship? If we do try to categorize love, then these relationships will always be unequal and someone will always end up getting hurt and discriminated against, whether it is the gay couple who are trying to buy a house in a community that refuses them, a straight couple who are trying to figure out who gets the kids after the divorce, or the two best friends who struggle to come to grips with societies rules.

There is a question that I hope someone might be able to answer:

Is it possible for a person to fall in love with anyone regardless of their sexual orientation? (I mean, no holds barred love..none of that chicken-crap dawdling type)

GO... and a Happy New Year!

To The Wicked

The Main Hall of the Library at this university of mine is a creepy place. As you enters the area, the first thing that you are bound to notice is a number of large paintings of the 'famous' fathers of the University; you know, men who did something at some point in time which happened to earn the University a new building or a new faculty or what-not. These paintings are pretty large and they cover the walls on three sides. They cannot be missed.

The thing is, when I walked into this hallway and saw these paintings of great men, I was surprised to note that instead of being impressed or awed, I was a little bit appalled and disgusted. My honest reaction that was.

These were pictures of elderly, scholarly looking white men, who I am sure did something really good for the university or perhaps their faculties. For some reason I could not see them as symbols of achievement, success and prestige. I knew that it was unfair and that I knew nothing about what these men might have done, yet I could not shake off the feelings I had.

The thing is, I knew the reason as to why I was feeling the way I did. It had little to do with the individuals themselves. To really get the meaning out of this, I probably need to take a totally different approach and start from a different point.

I love women. I cannot deny that. Not every single female member of the species that walks in front of me, but the idea. I have a tendency to idealize women, which often sets me up for a car-crash, but that is the truth of it. Having spent most of my life with women of great charisma, fortitude and strength, I know better than to ever consider them as inferior. They are as enigmatic as they are impervious.

On a daily basis, I get to see women who are forced to overcome double or triple the obstacles that any men has to overcome just to get to the same level or destination. A man who seeks to get to the top simply has to climb the ladder already in place, while a woman who desires the same thing would have to build the ladder, run circles around it and climb it backwards. That is the sad reality of the world we live in, where there is only an illusion of equality to those who choose to see it that way.

However, as hard as this seems, it has never stopped women from struggling and persisting. It is extremely difficult to earn respect from a world that continuously sees you as an object and nothing more, even when you have done so much more than your peers to prove that you are so much more. Even when you are forced to bear the stigma of something completely ridiculous and irrational as gender. That is a battle that has no place in a supposedly civilized society but continues to exist.

I can easily make the claim that as a member of a minority, I have felt the brunt of oppression and discrimination as much as anybody, but the truth is far from it. Whatever discrimination I might have encountered, or any other male for that matter, does not even come close to those suffered by our female counter-parts. There will always be oppression in our lives, as long as power is seen as a resource and division is seen among humanity. Gender happens to be the greatest divide, and power as a gender-based resource is therefore a very strong temptation. Discrimination and oppression is magnified several times for women, which is why they always seem to have to try SO much harder at everything, for they are not working against so much more than men ever have to.

Hundreds of under-aged girls in many parts of Asia are taken away from their homes everyday to be forced into prostitution run by syndicates and traffickers. Girls from China are dragged to countries such as Malaysia and Thailand with the promise of jobs and education only to end up being abandoned in the hands of brothels. These girls end up working in the worst conditions imaginable; they have very little choice and almost zero avenues to escape due to poor policies and laws that punish them (the VICTIMS) instead of the real criminals.

I have seen women in these situations, have met them, spoken to them and heard their stories. Many end up having to work relentlessly just to survive, and more often than not, they have other mouths to feed; children, parents, family. They hide behind smiles and looks of blank ignorance for fear of courting too much attention. We look at them as cowards, criminals, scum, but the truth is so much more interesting. Stripped of choice, with no education in most cases, no way of seeking a way out, the fact that they still manage to make a life for themselves and their families, that they are still able to hold on to a shred of dignity and face the day with a smile... that speaks of a very real strength, something most of us will probably never understand. The human spirit can be found in the most bizarre places sometimes, but this, more than anything else, makes perfect sense.

Which is probably why, upon walking into that hall at the library, I felt revolted at the paintings that had been hung. My thoughts had drifted to this idea of what greatness and strength really means. I did not see a bunch of elderly white men as having any right to claim glory or greatness, for I doubt they had ever had to face any obstacle even remotely as difficult or impossible as I am sure the women of their time had to face. These were not great men who made something out of nothing and should serve as symbols of inspiration; these are the symbols of so much that is wrong with this society we live in; in their faces I see generations of privilege, discrimination, bias and exploitation. I see opportunities unfairly given, unfairly taken away. These men never had anything more than a bunch of entrance examinations to worry about, they never had their integrities questioned because of their gender, they never had to suffer from lack of attention from teachers and mentors, they probably got the best benefits and advantages from being the male heirs of their families. The hardest obstacle they probably ever had to face was leaving their homes to go study at a university. How could this even remotely be considered as great achievements. I am certain that whatever they did for the university itself, whatever invention or discovery they made, serve some truly significant purpose, but one should NEVER forget the true cost paid in blood, dignity, and injustice to put these men upon the pedestals upon which they stand. We all know too well who had to pay that price.

This has not been the most clear of writings, and it seems a little disjointed, but the reason for this is that this is not an issue that can be talked about with any kind of clear precision in anything short of a full-blown epic documentary; there is simply too much to talk about and discuss, and we have hardly even touched the surface of such issues. Two questions are in my mind, thinking about this:

What is it this idea of greatness that we hold in our thoughts?
Who really deserves to be given that place in our hearts?