A Party of One, Please

    So, I posted this article on FB about 5 scientific reasons why it's better to be single. My aunt wrote, "Lonely has its perks, but." Are we still in an age when just because someone isn't in a relationship automatically means they're lonely? And that they should be looking for a mate? When I lived by myself and in no relationship, I loved it. I felt free. In a relationship I felt trapped. There is nothing wrong with enjoying being single and not wanting a relationship, maybe ever. If that is what you want, then you will be seen as a freak of nature, in denial, and unnatural. My cousin said that people were made for relationships. It would be like him to say something like that, based on his Christian belief I assume. Maybe I'm taking this the wrong way, but I felt like he was saying that I'm unnatural. I'm by no means religious whatsoever. However, by saying humans are made for relationships, I'm human as far as I know, and I don't want a relationship, so I'm...well...unnatural.
     I'm not alone in wanting to be single. I saw a report and read some articles on how more and more people are choosing to be single. One of those scientific reasons was that it's less stressful. That is completely true for me. Being single allows people to do whatever they want to do whenever they want. It frees up time. Although, if all of your friends are in relationships and especially are parents, you don't really have anyone to do anything with. I have that problem. You also don't have to share your space with anyone, it's all to yourself. Unless you have roommates of course. And you have alone time. You don't have that if you live with somebody.
     All animals must procreate for the survival of the species. Some animals couple and mate for life, like penguins, and humans sometimes. Since humans have a developed emotional level of consciousness, unlike most animals, does that make us hardwired for committing to a relationship? Want a relationship? I think it's taught, engrained, into people. To get married is like proof you're a grown-up, a right of passage. You're officially an adult. I think that's true for men and women, and holds true still today. Why does being married make you more of an adult than someone of the same age who hasn't been married? Or is it my own perception of this? I see my married friends and then myself this way. If I had my own place, making money, lost weight, would I want a relationship? Or am I just shielding myself that I don't want a relationship because I don't think anyone would want a relationship with me anyway? I can confidently say no.
     Girls aren't taught to be good little wives anymore. They are taught to have higher aspirations, given confidence, just like boys have been for so many centuries. They were never taught to be a husband and father, that that's their goal in life. An evolving society has broken down many timeworn ideologies. Society is always evolving, thank god.

"I don't need a man to rectify my existence. The most profound relationship we'll ever have is the one with ourselves." Shirley MacLaine

Time After Time

     Time travel. Something humans have dreamed about and tried to accomplish for centuries (I think). Everyone has a different idea of what they want to do if they could travel back in time. Meet pivotal people from our past. Change something from the past. Maybe prevent an assassination, or commit one. Be there for the writing of the Constitution. Change something in the Constitution. If I could change something, I would try to prevent the invention of firearms. The Japanese discovered gun powder (or was it the Chinese?). That would obviously lead to guns. If I could show them in a vision of what guns would do, maybe they would ditch the whole idea. Maybe it's inevitable. What would changing one thing mean? People have said it would have a ripple effect; even jus the smallest thing. If guns were never invented, that would be something huge. Would something worse than firearms be invented? Or would we just have bombs? Something we don't have now? It's hard to imagine something else. Imagine what the world would be like with no guns. Ever. What a thought. Imagine. Best song ever.

    Or go into the future. Why would a person want to go into the future? To just see what happens in the world? In his or her life? To see the effect of what happens today has on the future? To check out the cool toys? I guess I'm not anxious to see the future.

    If I could meet one person from the past, it would probably be Janis Joplin. I know, why meet Janis Joplin when I could meet Lincoln, or Washington, or da Vinci? She seems like someone who would be really awesome to meet. Someone real. Someone to connect with. Plus she's a kick-ass singer. Would I prevent her death? I don't know. I think she would be a legend no matter when she died. There's something about musicians and 27. What would she be like if she lived? Would she still be out there belting it out, or become a hermit and never come out of her apartment like Mae West? She'd turn 72 in 4 days. Her age inverted.

     Or would a person change something in their personal life? There are so many things I would change, that I just want to start from the age of about 5, and tell myself the right decision to make. Yes, even at 5. To do or not do something. I think I would be in a very different place, a better place. But I can't change the past, now can I? I can only move forward, change my future. If one dwells too much on what could have been, then you lose sight of what can be. This is what I think I no.

"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." -Albert Einstein

Mom

     My mother fell, again, a few days ago. She said that she somehow twisted her foot, she thinks. Or twisted it when she fell. A few weeks ago she fell off the step stool. She doesn't know why that time either. She really hurt herself, and just yesterday she re-hurt herself. She refuses to see a doctor. She said that a few times when in the bathroom, she's almost fallen into the tub. Not in the tub, not taking a shower, but falling into it. Luckily, there's a bar we put outside of the tub for my grandmother when she lost her balance, so that saved her. Of course she didn't tell us when it happened. I knew she got dizzy every once in a while, but she was usually able to keep her balance. She just seems so fragile, walking around all hunched over, in obvious pain. If she can get up at all. She already takes oxycodone for her back. Bad days and good days seem to even out. Right now the bad weigh out the good. When she coughs, her whole body looks like it would shake apart. I'm not ready for my mother to be old and feeble, not that 70 is old, but she sometimes seems old. I'm only 31. Her mother was so strong at 70, and well into her 80s. Gramma met with friends at least once a week, wrote, went on trips, cleaned the house, went on walks, and read the paper from front to back every day. Healthy as a horse as the saying goes. Mom has so many health problems. More than I want to list. They prevent her from doing lots of things. She wasn't always like this. I actually envy her somewhat, of having a mother so strong and healthy at the same age, and she often seems, or is, weak and sick. Maybe I'm over exaggerating. It also makes a difference that her mother was 25 when she had her and my mother was 39 when she had me. When Gramma became really sick, mom was in her 60s. I don't want to feel like I have to take care of her, but sometimes I don't know what she would do if I wasn't here. She has dad of course. Mom thinks she's going to be around for a long time. I honestly don't know.

     I guess I've always been used to her taking care of me. Even taking care of me when I don't want to be taken care of. All children feel this way. I don't want the responsibility yet. Asking why children feel this way, not ready to take care of parents, is self-explanatory. The answer is in the question. It's because it's their parents. Maybe some kids feel like when their parents reach a certain age, they feel they have to take care of them. I remember this episode of "Golden Girls" when Rose's mother came to visit, and Rose treated her like she was a 5-year-old. Her mother was perfectly healthy with all of her mental and physical functions. So what makes children feel differently towards their parents? All people are different. That's the plainest answer. I suppose in a way, it makes me feel older. Older than 31. Perhaps it makes me feel my own mortality. This is what I think I no.
 

   

I Hear Voices

A long time ago, I wrote (by that I mean typed) down some ideas for my blog. I typed them up on a whim, whenever an idea entered my head to explore more later. It may be quite a bit later, but I thought I'd look them up again. This is one idea I wrote down. I don't know what sparked the idea, but thought I'd share it:

You can't let society's voices dominate your life; tell you what to do, how you should feel, how you should be, and especially in order to find happiness. Those who constantly seek happiness in other places outside themselves rarely happens, and usually becomes depressing and demeaning. You can't worry about what other people think about you. "When you try to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody." Especially yourself. You have to do what makes you happy, not what makes other people happy. I'm not saying to become a total hedonist, although is it really so bad? As long as you do nothing immoral? I think you need to put yourself and your needs, wants, happiness first before anyone else, including a significant other. 

Not that you should discount your lover's happiness, and try to make them happy. As long as you're happy doing it. You can't make them happy if you're not happy. If you're not happy being with them, then you need to let that person go, because it's only fair to yourself and to that person. It may break the other's heart, but you can't do it to them. Hopefully they'll find happiness with someone who is in love with them back. I am speaking partially on personal experience. But those men were not good to me, and I knew I couldn't live that way for the rest of my life. Or theirs, whichever came first. I wasted too much time on each of them. We only get one life, as far as I know, and not long at that. Life is too short to spend years in a loveless relationship, whether on one side or both. I rarely got to do anything I wanted, too busy doing what they wanted. So off with them. I enjoy being single. No one making any demands on my time, dragging me to things I don't want to do, but I try to make them happy. And spend so much time trying to make them happy even if it made me unhappy, and then resenting them for it. I really didn't mean to go off on this tangent. 

What I wanted to talk about was society, and its pressure, and the pressure we put on ourselves. Whether personal, or because it's expected. Are our wants truly our wants, or because it's been ingrained into us, and because it's what we've seen since the day we were born. We're supposed to go to college, find a lucrative job in the field you studied for, get a nice car, get married (preferably to someone from college - your college sweetheart), get a nice house, have children, and it's better if you're a good Christian. Each is an accomplishment of attaining adulthood. If you don't accomplish these things, then it's like you're not quite an adult. I had a lot of these things at one time in my life. A  good job, a nice car, a nice house, some money put away. A couple of fiancés. But then the recession happened and I lost it all. It was also the job I was in. That was after the fiancés. Here no there, I often wonder how much society motivates our goals. Do we purely want them without motivation from outside sources, or because it's, well, like what we're supposed to do? Nature vs. nurture. The everlasting question. This is what I think I no. 

Who Do You Think They Are?

     I thought I would pick up where I left off yesterday. Workers of society, who contribute their part to the economy, often look upon non-workers who receive benefits through the state, with their money, as lazy, immoral, incompetent individuals who live off the backs of others. It sounds harsh, but many people feel that way, or at least partly. Perhaps not all the adjectives. It's not an assumption, but what I've heard and read. I'm one of those people. I almost didn't qualify for DSHS because I wanted to attend school. They saw that if I could attend school, I could work, and if I could work, even part-time, then I wasn't eligible for benefits. I wouldn't get any benefits through part-time work and then would have to pay full price for health insurance, which, especially with my health problems, would cost more than what I would make. This is before the ACA went into effect. I couldn't work full-time, and I wanted to attend school. I told the powers that be that I couldn't even attend school full-time and my doctor wrote a letter that I was unable to work. Yes, some people choose to live off the system when they're quite capable of working and could possibly find a job if they applied themselves. Those are very few. Still, many reasons stand why a person is unable to work. A single mother who has few resources. She can't find, or isn't qualified, for a job that pays enough to cover childcare and all other expenses. On the news an anchor said that childcare can cost more than a mortgage payment. She can't attend school, because she runs into the same problem and can't afford it. She finds herself stuck in this limbo of wanting to work, but has no options. A person gets severely injured and can't go back to his or her job, ever. I know someone like that. That is what she went to school for, trained for, knows. She doesn't qualify for other work. Right now, going to school isn't an option for her, and she couldn't afford it. There are parts of the system that people who haven't experienced it could possibly know. A company closes and they're employees simply can't find work. It may take months, even years. Working people may find that hard to believe, but it's true. I also know someone in that situation. He tried to start his own business, but it was unsuccessful, like thousands of small businesses.

     Is it human nature to want to feel superior to another? To feel like they're better than another one? Or do they simply see, without searching, a perceived default in another human being, and it makes them better? Like people who don't work and they do. When people have talked about those who receive government benefits, I feel like they think they're better than me. Although they don't always know I'm one of them. They think they're a valuable asset to society, and those who don't work are insignificant. I don't think all people feel that way. It is impossible to put myself in the position of how I would feel if I never used benefits provided by the government. I'd think I wasn't better than them at all, but I'm biased. Maybe I'd feel that way anyway. Maybe it's just in some people's nature to feel that they're better than others. Or they think they're better off, and that very well may be true, or not. If they think they're better off, does that mean they think they're better than the other person? They feel they're more fortunate. If they feel more fortunate, then do they pity those less fortunate? If they pity someone, does that mean they think they're better? I'm glad I'm not paralyzed, missing an arm, or have Down syndrome. I don't feel sorry for the people who have a physical disability. I haven't decided how I feel about people with a mental disability, such Down, or more severe mental disabilities. I'm glad when I see people with Down working. Not so much that they're doing their part for society, but that they're able to hold down a job that may be harder for them than others. It gives them confidence. You can see it in their face. But more severe disabilities...I would be sad to not be able to do the things I can, like write this blog. If the disabled never had it, then they don't miss it. But that's not the question I'm asking myself. Do I pity them? I pity the person who once had normal mental ability, and lost it. It really depends on the situation. I saw a documentary on a child, about seven, who would never have the mental capability beyond that of a three-month-old. I pitied her. That she would never have experiences that most of us do. She would simply subsist until the end of her days. I'm more fortunate than her, but not more valuable to society or the human race. Not because I don't work, but that she's still my equal as a human. This is what I think I no.

The Time of Our Lives

     A new year began today. I thought I would begin again on my blog that I stopped writing over two years ago. A new beginning. Isn't every beginning new? If a beginning is new, then can you begin again? Isn't it just continuing with a pause? A pause over two years. My aunt asked if I have end-of-year blues. I told her I don't care about that, the end of the year that is. That years come and go, like men. She said, "Yeah, you're not depressed." Maybe it does have something to do with "end-of-year blues." I look back on 2014 and see I accomplished pretty much none of my resolutions. Does anybody? Just "resolving" to do something on Jan. 1st doesn't mean that we're going to do it, since we haven't done it as of yet. And waiting to start something until the new year is just procrastination because we don't want to start today. Is anyone really more encouraged to start something, and stick with it, because a new year began? A new year is built up to be this new beginning, a clean slate, a new lease on life. It's just passage of time. A measurement we use to organize time into something comprehensible, rather than the open infinity that lies ahead and the infinity that lies behind.

     That's a question I often ponder, who decided, and how did they decide, to measure time? A year I can understand, it takes the earth 365 days to go around the sun. A day, obviously. A month depends on the position of the moon. But what about a second? A minute? An hour? And how many seconds go into a minute, minutes into an hour? How many days a week should be? It was necessary to do, I think; as the human life became more complicated. Developed from hunting and gathering all day to what we know as the work day and work week to manage how long an employee can work, instead of from sunup to sundown. Our lives really revolve around time. How long we work, what time someone starts and stops, when we go to yoga, how long a football game is, when our favorite show is. We celebrate occasions and events on the same day every year. Actually, measurement of time can make life sort of exciting. By measuring time, we look forward to our show, the end of the work day, when yoga instructor counts down to end the plank position. When Christmas is coming, graduation, a wedding day, when to expect a baby. However, there is always the flip side. A dental appointment, a test, a review at work, birthdays for some, Monday.

     It is often talked about what people do with their time. Albert Einstein said, "The only reason for time is so everything doesn't happen at once." The more we do with our time, the more valuable we are. I think of the song "Flowers on the Wall" by The Statler Brothers. "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" waisting time... We are pushed and pushed to always be doing, working. If you're not working, you're worthless. You contribute nothing to society, just the opposite. You're sucking up resources while others work hard. That's a whole other post. This is what I think I no.

Bubbles

Why are we so afraid to be physically close to other people? I see the same thing over and over wherever I am that people make an effort, I included, to maintain our "personal space." When you're on a bus, there is no personal space. Are we afraid that they're carrying some dire infection, or they'll grab us, or they stink? I have come across that on more than one occasion on a bus. Maybe it is the reasons I listed, but I think people also separate themselves subconsciously. It's clearly a social habitude in our society. Perhaps the strongly individualistic society that we live an learn in affects this? No real feeling of community on a large scale has existed for some time. We're indifferent to each other. I'm interested in why this phenomenon occurs. I've heard that other countries, mostly Latin, are quite the opposite. There is no such thing as personal space. Instead, they're very up close and personal. They're not afraid to be in the same bubble, so to speak, with another individual. I try to open up more to others, and not afraid to stand close to them or sit next to them on the bus. However, if only one other person is on the bus, I won't sit next to him or her. I don't think this is really a problem. I just wonder why. Maybe it's not all that different in other countries. I wouldn't know. Would a stronger feeling of community exist? Would it be freakish to say hello to everyone you come in contact with, whether in the store or on the street? If so, why? Would it be different at all? Maybe not.