Monday, January 6, 2014
ARTICLE: NY POST>>Tiger Mom: Some cultural groups are superior By Maureen Callahan
Tiger Mom" Amy Chua is known for claiming that Chinese women make the best mothers, but now she and her husband say that some groups are just plain better than others. Photo: ZUMAPRESS.com
She’s doubling down.
Amy Chua, the self-proclaimed “Tiger Mom” who, in 2011, published a book arguing that Chinese women are superior mothers — thus their offspring superior children — has even more to say.
In “The Triple Package,” Chua and her husband, co-author Jed Rubenfeld, gather some specious stats and anecdotal evidence to argue that some groups are just superior to others and everyone else is contributing to the downfall of America.
Unsurprisingly, the Chinese Chua and the Jewish Rubenfeld belong to two of the eight groups they deem exceptional. In no seeming order of importance, they are:
Jewish
Indian
Chinese
Iranian
Lebanese-Americans
Nigerians
Cuban exiles
Mormons
These groups — “cultural,” mind you, never “ethnic” or “racial” or “religious” — all possess, in the authors’ estimation, three qualities that they’ve identified as guarantors of wealth and power: superiority, insecurity and impulse control.
“That certain groups do much better in America than others — as measured by income, occupational status, test scores and so on — is difficult to talk about,” the authors write. “In large part, this is because the topic feels so racially charged.”
And so begins their cat-and-mouse polemic, in which they claim they’re courageously agitating for a greater good: the revival of America itself as a “Triple Package Culture.” It’s a series of shock-arguments wrapped in self-help tropes, and it’s meant to do what racist arguments do: scare people.
Chua, a law professor at Yale, became a media sensation in 2011, when The Wall Street Journal published an extract from her book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” She herself is an American, raised in the Midwest, but she used her heritage and all the worst stereotypes of Chinese women — cold, rigid Dragon Ladies, hostile towards their own children — to criticize the Western way of parenting, which she also said would be the downfall of America.
Chua made waves with “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” but she makes even more outrageous claims in her new book.
Chua wrote about calling one of her two daughters “garbage” for being rude, dismissing a homemade birthday card as subpar (“I don’t want this — I want another one”), refusing to let her girls watch TV or participate in school plays or have sleepovers, of threatening to give away a beloved dollhouse if her daughter couldn’t master a complicated classical composition within days.
Her book really can be reduced to a simple argument: Chinese mothers are better than those of any other race, and these parenting methods are going to result in the West’s big fear — the continued rise and ultimate supremacy of China. Chua’s book was a best-seller, so it’s little surprise she’s back with an even more incendiary thesis, one so well timed to deep economic anxiety, to the collective fear that the American middle class is about to disappear, for good, and the misguided belief that immigration reform will result in even less opportunity for Americans than there is now.
She and Rubenfeld stoke those fears. “Although rarely mentioned in media reports,” they write, “the studies said to show the demise in upward mobility largely exclude immigrants and their children.”
Chua with her husband and co-author Jed Rubenfeld pose with their two daughters.Photo: Peter Z. Mahakian
Yet the authors do not mention whether these immigrants are low-wage workers who have a greater chance at upward mobility, and the Pew study they cite is from 2007 — one year before the global financial collapse, resulting in an American economy that may be structurally altered for decades to come.
All of the groups profiled by Chua and Rubenfeld are done so only as American immigrants, with the exceptions of Mormons and Jews, who are superior to Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, atheists and Muslims — the latter group, it seems, too controversial to warrant a mention.
On to the distinguishing factors that make these eight groups the best in America:
1. A superiority complex
Any group that collectively believes they are inherently better than any other, say the authors, has an advantage. They do not note that this is perhaps humanity’s oldest and ugliest flaw, the bottom-line cause of wars and genocide. In their estimation, it’s not nearly common enough in America, where “the Superiority Complex . . . is antithetical to mainstream liberal thinking . . . the stuff of racism, colonialism, imperialism, Nazism.” This way of thinking, they write, has been a big boon to Mormons and Jews, though they also fail to note that believing in the superiority of a belief system is the driving force behind almost all organized religion. (Except the Amish. The authors freely note that the Amish are losers for this very reason.)
2. Insecurity
Here are the authors sounding most like Malcolm Gladwell: Posit something, make a solid case for it, then immediately refute it with equal fervor. The result: Readers are so confused that they can only conclude that this book is so much smarter than they are.
The authors are very impressed with their boldness in juxtaposing insecurity with superiority. “That insecurity should be a critical lever of success is another anathema, flouting the entire orthodoxy of contemporary popular and therapeutic psychology,” they write. In fact, insecurity has long been known as a prime motivator among actors, artists, CEOs, despots. “Imposter syndrome,” the term used to describe highly successful individuals who believe, deep down, they are frauds, was identified back in 1978.
“Note that there’s a deep tension between insecurity and a superiority complex,” the authors continue. “It’s odd to think of people being simultaneously insecure but also convinced of their divine election or superiority.” Really? Just ask anyone who’s ever met a narcissist, or read a profile of A-Rod.
3. Impulse Control
Yet another hallmark of self-help, impulse control is considered to be a key factor in personal success — the ability to delay instant gratification in the service of a greater goal. But this isn’t really what the authors have in mind: “As we’ll use the term,” they write, “impulse control refers to the ability to resist temptation, especially the temptation to give up in the face of hardship or quit instead of persevering at a difficult task.”
You know who’s bad at this? Americans not among their eight groups. “Because all three elements of the Triple Package run so counter to modern American culture, it makes sense that America’s successful groups are all outsiders in one way or another,” they write. “Paradoxically, in modern America, a group has an edge if it doesn’t buy into — or hasn’t yet bought into — mainstream, post-1960s, liberal American principles.”
As curious as the groups that Chua and Rubenfeld elevate are the absence of ones they denigrate. Aside from the Amish (not big book-buyers), the only other group the authors take aim at are the Appalachian poor, noting, without irony, that “it’s far more socially acceptable today to insult and look down on ‘white trash’ than the poor of any other racial group.’”
Even though he lost the election to Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and his family somehow prove the superiority of Mormons.Photo: Getty Images
As for why African-Americans don’t make the list, the authors believe that the Civil Rights Movement took away any hope for a superiority narrative, and so the black community is screwed — even as they cite Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama as evidence of Mormon ascendancy.
“In this paradoxical sense, equality isn’t fair to African-Americans,” they write. “Superiority is the one narrative that America has relentlessly denied or ground out of its black population.”
Nigerian immigrants, they argue, are bolstered by the belief that they are better than other West Africans — much as the Lebanese believe, as descendants of Phoenicians, that they are superior, or that the Chinese believe that their 5,000-year-old civilization makes them superior. But feeling superior to other nations, races or religions is nothing more than that — a feeling.
The authors have such dubious data — “getting a statistical fix on Mormon income and wealth is notoriously difficult”; “hard numbers, however, are surprisingly hard to come by” — that they undermine every assertion of so-called “cultural” supremacy.
hua and her co-author husband Jed Rubenfeld rely on flimsy evidence to make their argument in “The Triple Package.”
The real story here — the less controversial one, the more interesting and possibly instructive one — is that historically, immigrant groups tend to experience upward mobility in America until the third generation, and then, for reasons unknown, tend to level off. It’s interesting, too, that the authors either dismiss or outright ignore the large swaths of immigrant groups who built up this country — the English, Irish, Italians, Germans, Eastern Europeans. They ignore two very basic explanations for the success of immigrant groups in America: Anyone who leaves their homeland for parts unknown, no matter how desperate, is, by definition, bold; America’s uniqueness as a nation founded by immigrants.
Once we were a Triple Package nation, say the authors, but no more. We have been done in by our superiority complex, our poor, Western-style “self-esteem parenting” and lack of impulse control.
The question they finally pose — Should America be a Triple Package country again? Can it? — is followed by a paragraph-long, yes-no-maybe answer that will give you whiplash.
“The real promise of a Triple Package America,” they conclude, “is the promise of a day when there are no longer any successful groups in the United States — only successful individuals.”
Today, the demographic predicted to have the greatest impact economically, politically and culturally, by the year 2042, are Hispanics. Just don’t tell the Mormons or the Jews.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
PERSONAL: YOU SING MY SONG
Everyone in the world has a different song in their heart,except the only person God laid out for them to love. Sometimes people think they find their match though they think their hearts may sing harmoniously and perfect with this person when there are a few notes out of tune. But finally God lets them find the person with the same heart's song as theirs. God lays out a path for everyone, To find the one with the same heart's song sung. You go through life finding plenty of people's hearts songs sung. Finally you find the path of that heart's song sung as yours hath. God wills your paths to meet, And love to come on soft whispering feet.
Like a beautiful dove flys,Your heart's songs will soar through the skies. I watch our love, And thank the holy one above for letting me find, The only one in the world with the same heart's song sung as mine.
Like a beautiful dove flys,Your heart's songs will soar through the skies. I watch our love, And thank the holy one above for letting me find, The only one in the world with the same heart's song sung as mine.
LOVE LETTER: DEAR SOULMATE
Dear Soulmate
With eyes as inviting as sea, I invoke thee. I wait for her scent to send me adrift on the Sea of Tranquillity. From the moon, I reach down and grab her hand leading her into the stars. A journey of incomparable miles and philandering peaks. We float in the absence of gravity but soar in the presence of love. I cannot see her nor can I hear her, I can only feel her. On a clear night, we can see the moon in its sheer wonder. We have a common bond among the satellite heart shaping a comfort of hope. To be with you. I would do the impossible.Change the world and make sure it never rains.Just to be with you. I would move a mountain as far as the eye could see. Just to be with you.I would conquer the moon and stars to see your face shine shine like the sparkling sea.Just to be a part of you.
With eyes as inviting as sea, I invoke thee. I wait for her scent to send me adrift on the Sea of Tranquillity. From the moon, I reach down and grab her hand leading her into the stars. A journey of incomparable miles and philandering peaks. We float in the absence of gravity but soar in the presence of love. I cannot see her nor can I hear her, I can only feel her. On a clear night, we can see the moon in its sheer wonder. We have a common bond among the satellite heart shaping a comfort of hope. To be with you. I would do the impossible.Change the world and make sure it never rains.Just to be with you. I would move a mountain as far as the eye could see. Just to be with you.I would conquer the moon and stars to see your face shine shine like the sparkling sea.Just to be a part of you.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
ISLAM....THE GREETING WORD
Do you know how Islam was spread? Islam is the best religion chosen by Allah for Muslims. Starting from the greeting words to the miraculous talk with a Muslim, he represents the love of Allah in each and every word. Is it only the words or is it glory of the religion Islam. Well its complexities may not be the first thing that you glance at, but you surly would want to smile back at a Muslim smiling at you with a peace and tranquil gesture of greeting. Quran tells a Muslim to be kind while talking to a person. Following are the words used by the Muslims in everyday life:
The first thing that a muslim doest is greet a person by the beautiful words Assalaamu Alaykum. This means Peace be upon you. It’s a wonderful way of greeting.
If someone has greeted you with the words of salaam Muslim send the peace back on the person greeting by saying Wa alaykumus salaam. The meaning of it is too peace be upon you.
Muslims start every work by the name of Allah. They say Bismillah which means in the name of Allah.
Muslims thank in a beautiful way by saying Jazakallah. This means that a person is saying that may Allah reward you.
Muslims have a beautiful word for good bye i.e. Fi Amanullah which means may Allah protect you.
Everything in this world is created by Allah therefore the Muslims when praise someone their praise is actually of the creation of Allah. The word Subhaanallah is used by them for this purpose. The translation of this Arabic word is “glory be to Allah”.
· When a Muslim desires he expresses his feelings by saying Insha Allah. Muslim is confident that until Allah grants him something one cannot get it. Therefore while making a desire he says if Allah wishes.
Allah is pleased by the way man repents on his mistakes and forgives him for his sins. For the sake of forgiveness Astaghfirullah is said. This means “I beg Allah for forgiveness”.
When a muslim wants to appreciate something he says Maa shaa Allah (as Allah has willed).
After something is completed Alhamdulillahis said which means (praise be to Allah). This is a gesture of showing that the success he has was by the help of Allah.
Muslims always call Allah when in pain or distress by saying Yaa Allah which means” oh Allah”.
While leaving everything to the will of Allah in a dua muslims use the word Aameen which means “may it be so”
Last but not the least “Innaa lillaahi wa innaa ilayhi raaji’oon” which means “to Allah we belong and to Him is our return”. These words are said as a gesture of grief when you hear about the death of a person.
The first thing that a muslim doest is greet a person by the beautiful words Assalaamu Alaykum. This means Peace be upon you. It’s a wonderful way of greeting.
If someone has greeted you with the words of salaam Muslim send the peace back on the person greeting by saying Wa alaykumus salaam. The meaning of it is too peace be upon you.
Muslims start every work by the name of Allah. They say Bismillah which means in the name of Allah.
Muslims thank in a beautiful way by saying Jazakallah. This means that a person is saying that may Allah reward you.
Muslims have a beautiful word for good bye i.e. Fi Amanullah which means may Allah protect you.
Everything in this world is created by Allah therefore the Muslims when praise someone their praise is actually of the creation of Allah. The word Subhaanallah is used by them for this purpose. The translation of this Arabic word is “glory be to Allah”.
· When a Muslim desires he expresses his feelings by saying Insha Allah. Muslim is confident that until Allah grants him something one cannot get it. Therefore while making a desire he says if Allah wishes.
Allah is pleased by the way man repents on his mistakes and forgives him for his sins. For the sake of forgiveness Astaghfirullah is said. This means “I beg Allah for forgiveness”.
When a muslim wants to appreciate something he says Maa shaa Allah (as Allah has willed).
After something is completed Alhamdulillahis said which means (praise be to Allah). This is a gesture of showing that the success he has was by the help of Allah.
Muslims always call Allah when in pain or distress by saying Yaa Allah which means” oh Allah”.
While leaving everything to the will of Allah in a dua muslims use the word Aameen which means “may it be so”
Last but not the least “Innaa lillaahi wa innaa ilayhi raaji’oon” which means “to Allah we belong and to Him is our return”. These words are said as a gesture of grief when you hear about the death of a person.
PERSONAL/SPIRITUAL/ THOUGHTS: THIS INVISIBLE THREAD
I believe there is an invisible thread connects those destined to meet, despite the time, the place, and despite the circumstances. The thread can be tightened or tangle, but will never be broken. Call it a soul contract. Call it destiny, kismet, karma, fortune or fate. Call it whatever you want to call it. The more I live, the more I meet people in supposed “random” ways, the more I know: we meet the people we need to meet at the exact moments we’re meant to. And each and every one of them offers us a lesson. Some experiences are painful. Some are blissful. Most are intertwined with both. There is an invisible thread between me and you...
If you’re feeling lonely or lost, take comfort. That person you need is out there. S/he can feel you somehow, too. But remember: that thread won’t lead you to what’s on the other side if you’re stuck in your day-to-day routine or on your couch. Take a new route home from work. Go on vacation somewhere – by yourself. Go to the grocery store at an hour you normally wouldn’t. Just do something different. And you’ll see.
If you’re feeling lonely or lost, take comfort. That person you need is out there. S/he can feel you somehow, too. But remember: that thread won’t lead you to what’s on the other side if you’re stuck in your day-to-day routine or on your couch. Take a new route home from work. Go on vacation somewhere – by yourself. Go to the grocery store at an hour you normally wouldn’t. Just do something different. And you’ll see.
Friday, January 3, 2014
PERSONAL: RANDOMNESS AND LOVE IN TRYING TO FIND A GENUINE PERSON
No one knows the life-changing power of luck better than couples.Just the sheer odds of standing out among thousands of bright-faced, oh-so-impossibly attractive individual could test the stamina of a Zen master. Add to this the randomness of what a person might be looking for at any given period of time for the person they want to spend their life with. Fortunately, luck does exist. Its glittery fingerprints are all over the place. Call it happenstance, coincidence or even fate, but there's a match to your hold card somewhere in that deck and if you're lucky, it'll be the next card you turn up. Usually people look back and celebrate the first date, the first kiss, the first holiday together, but what really counts is what happened before this public story: that moment, more of pulse than of thought, which goes, Yes, perhaps her, and Yes, perhaps him
I think one of most endearing qualities a person can possess is genuiness. When you meet a genuine person they tend to look you directly in the eye and many times they touch you in order to connect.
They don't have the average walls up that many people have in life. They seem to touch you in a way where you immediately connect and they have no false pretenses. I am sure if you think of all the people you have met in life; you will remember many people you felt were genuine. This type of person crosses all barriers and has the ability to connect with others and radiates great empathy to others. It's almost like they have an additional sense. They don't pretend to be perfect or know all the answers but one thing is for sure anything they tell you is coming straight from the heart.
I think one of most endearing qualities a person can possess is genuiness. When you meet a genuine person they tend to look you directly in the eye and many times they touch you in order to connect.
They don't have the average walls up that many people have in life. They seem to touch you in a way where you immediately connect and they have no false pretenses. I am sure if you think of all the people you have met in life; you will remember many people you felt were genuine. This type of person crosses all barriers and has the ability to connect with others and radiates great empathy to others. It's almost like they have an additional sense. They don't pretend to be perfect or know all the answers but one thing is for sure anything they tell you is coming straight from the heart.
VIDEO: BROTHERLY LOVE HEROES TV SERIES (HOW TO STOP AN EXPLODING MAN AND STAGE 5)
You rarely hear two brother tell each other they love each other....but it's so beautiful. Please watch and enjoy...
Watch Heroes stages by doc39
Watch Heroes stages by doc39
DEAR SOULMATE
Dear Soulmate
I would give anything to have my 1 dream come true.
That dream is us, us being together forever. Spending my entire life with you, waking up next to your beautiful face every morning.
Please promise me, that you will never give up on us. No matter what obstacles we’ll face in this life that’s ahead of us cause I know we will.
You need to know that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I know I don’t always show it but the moment you came into my life it changed, for the better. I have this amazing person, my soulmate who I care for even more than myself, who I would do anything in the world for in my life, I will never let you go for you’ve become my life.
You’ve taught me how to love, shown me what a bestfriend is, and how lucky I am to have such a special person.
Some say first love never lasts, but it never dies. I want you to be my only love, to always have this fire that burns brighter throughout the years to come.
I love you to the sun and back, forever.
I would give anything to have my 1 dream come true.
That dream is us, us being together forever. Spending my entire life with you, waking up next to your beautiful face every morning.
Please promise me, that you will never give up on us. No matter what obstacles we’ll face in this life that’s ahead of us cause I know we will.
You need to know that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I know I don’t always show it but the moment you came into my life it changed, for the better. I have this amazing person, my soulmate who I care for even more than myself, who I would do anything in the world for in my life, I will never let you go for you’ve become my life.
You’ve taught me how to love, shown me what a bestfriend is, and how lucky I am to have such a special person.
Some say first love never lasts, but it never dies. I want you to be my only love, to always have this fire that burns brighter throughout the years to come.
I love you to the sun and back, forever.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
LOVE LETTER: I AM ADDICTED TO YOU
I'm addicted to the way you kiss me. The way you hug me. To sum it all up, the way you love me. Your sweet smell. Your unique sense of style everything about you drives me wild!. I'm totally addicted to your smile and the time we spend is all worth while.You're like a drug; i can't get enough of you. I find myself thinking about you. What else could I say to make you get it?I'm head over heels and I'm surely ADDICTED!
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
SPIRITUALITY: WHAT IS THE POINT?
What's the point?
We all get up in the morning, go to bed in the evening, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, and work, day after day after day, but . . .
What's it all about? Why? Where is this all leading?
t may well be a fact that life, at least at is is usually lived, actually is absurd when seen from a certain perspective.
"Ivan Ilych's life
had been most simple and most ordinary
and therefore most terrible."
- Leo Tolstoy
There is ample evidence for this - as found, for example, by simply reading a few history books, or even just a copy of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. While Frankl's book may not provide the solution to the experience of meaninglessness, it presents an almost perfect case study in how absurd, cruel, unjust, pointless, and simply insane life can sometimes (er, often) be.
And those who are not in denial of these facts or experiences, and have the capacity and willingness to face these fairly unpleasant realities, tend to be, naturally, a little bugged by them.
This includes many intelligent and perceptive individuals throughout history. Such as, for example . . .
Leo Tolstoy
describes the experience:
"But five years ago
something very strange began to happen to me. At first I began having moments of bewilderment, when my life would come to a halt, as if I did not know how to live or what to do; I would lose my presence of mind and fall into a state of depression. But this passed, and I continued to live as before. Then the moments of bewilderment recurred more frequently, and they always took the same form. Whenever my life came to a halt, the questions would arise: Why? And what next?
At first I thought these were pointless and irrelevant questions. I thought that the answers to them were well known and that if I should ever want to resolve them, it would not be too hard for me; it was just that I could not be bothered with it now, but if I should take it upon myself, then I would find the answers. But the questions began to come up more and more frequently, and their demands to be answered became more and more urgent . . .
The questions seemed to be such foolish, simple, childish questions. But as soon as I laid my hands on them and tried to resolve them, I was immediately convinced, first of all, that they were not childish and foolish questions but the most vital and profound questions in life, and, secondly, that no matter how much I pondered them there was no way I could resolve them. Before I could be occupied with my Samara estate, with the education of my son, or with the writing of books, I had to know why I was doing these things. As long as I do not know the reason why, I cannot do anything. In the middle of my concern with the household, which at the time kept me quite busy, a questions would suddenly come into my head: "Very well, you will have 16,200 acres in the Samara province, as well as 300 horses; what then?" And I was completely taken aback and did not know what else to think. As soon as I started to think about the education of my children, I would ask myself, "Why?" Or I would reflect on how the people might attain prosperity, and I would suddenly ask myself, "What concern is it of mine?" Or in the middle of thinking about the fame that my works were bringing me I would say to myself, "Very well, you will be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespeare, Moliere, more famous than all the writers in the world - so what?
And I could find absolutely no reply.
My life came to a stop. I could breathe, eat, drink, and sleep; indeed, I could not help but breathe, eat, drink, and sleep. But there was no life in me because I had no desires whose satisfaction I would have found reasonable. If I wanted something, I knew beforehand that it did not matter whether or not I got it.
If a fairy had come and offered to fulfill my every wish, I would not have known what to wish for. If in moments of intoxication I should have not desires but the habits of old desires, in moments of sobriety I knew that it was all a delusion, that I really desired nothing. I did not even want to discover truth anymore because I had guessed what it was. The truth was that life is meaningless . . .
The only thing that amazed me was how I had failed to realize this in the very beginning. All this had been common knowledge for so long. If not today, then tomorrow sickness and death will come (indeed, they were already approaching) to everyone, to me, and nothing will remain except the stench and the worms. My deeds, whatever they may be, will be forgotten sooner or later, and I myself will be no more. Why, then, do anything? How can anyone fail to see this and live? That's what is amazing! It is possible to live only as long as life intoxicates us; once we are sober we cannot help seeing that it is all a delusion, a stupid delusion! Nor is there anything funny or witty about it; it is only cruel and stupid.
- excerpt from Confession
- and Herman Melville . . .
". . . take high abstracted man along;
and he seems a wonder, a grandeur and a woe.
But from the same point,
Take mankind in the mass,
and for the most part,
they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates . . ."
- Herman Melville, Moby Dick
- and William Shakespeare . . .
"O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world . . .
This goodly frame, the earth,
seems to me a sterile promontory;
this most excellent canopy, the air, look you,
this brave o'erhanging firmament,
this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,
why,
it appears no other thing to me
but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
What a piece of work is a man!
How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty!
in form, in moving, how express an admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god!
And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
man delights not me; no, nor woman neither . . .
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life . . . "
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet
- and the author(s) of a 2,500 year-old Sanskrit tale . . .
". . . Because I have no wish for victory, Krishna,
nor for a kingdom, nor for its pleasures.
How can we want a kingdom, Govinda, or its pleasures or even life,
When those for whom we want a kingdom,
and its pleasures, and the joys of life,
are here in this field of battle about to give up their wealth and their life?
Facing us in the field of battle are teachers, fathers and sons;
grandsons, grandfathers, wives' brothers; mothers' brothers and fathers of wives.
These I do not wish to slay, even if I myself am slain.
Not even for the kingdom of the three worlds:
how much less for a kingdom of the earth!"
- The Bhagavad Gita
- and King Solomon . . .
"I have seen all the works that are done under the sun;
and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
That which is crooked cannot be made straight;
and that which is wanting cannot be numbered . . .
Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought,
and on the labor that I had labored to do:
and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit,
and there was no profit under the sun . . ."
- Ecclesiastes
Some individuals - but only a few who possess a certain measure of intelligence - see life in a certain way that it appears meaningless. After all, we live for several years, then die. We work and work, but eventually everything we are working on crumbles to dust. What, then, is the point?
"She's polishing the brass on the Titanic, man.
It's all going down."
- Tyler Durden, Fight Club
Why, since life is inevitably full of suffering, do we go through it?
Or in a sense, this is another way of asking "Why Are We Here?"
"The truth is that your daily life is but a thin strip of experience
barely seeming in the profundity of who you are at depth.
Your activities and relationships never capture the grandeur
that wants to unfold from your heart into the world.
There may be moments of palpable glory,
brief openings through which magnificence effulgence without curtail,
but mainly your life is a tragic almost-there
of unfulfilled longing and partial gestures of tense effort."
- David Deida
So what can we do about it?
"It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere
that it begins to have meaning."
- P.D. Ouspensky
Many individuals might experience meaninglessness as a kind of depression after experiencing a loss.
For example, suppose a person loses a house, a car, a job, a relationship, or a person who meant a great deal to them. After this loss happens, the individual can experience a painful "emptiness," an absence, something like a newly-lost tooth of the soul, which feels extremely uncomfortable.
The process of healing from this loss lies in grieving and eventually accepting the loss, and allowing oneself to move on, honoring what has been lost while continuing to live.
And since, in the way life is built, loss is an inevitable part of things, a large part of this aspect lies in preparing oneself . .
Preventing Meaninglessness from Attachments
In a way, some unnecessary suffering can be avoided through not getting wrongfully and improportionately "attached" to certain things, whether they be houses, cars, jobs, relationships, ideas, theories, or even people.
There is a phrase "All is change," pointing to the truth that everything changes (except possibly for change itself) - which is a short version of the Buddhist teaching on "Impermanence." When we truly understand "impermanence," then we can also understand that becoming too attached to anything - because any "thing" is, given a long enough time span, necessarily impermanent - then suffering, when that change comes, is inevitable.
This is why many spiritual teachers speak of an attitude of "detachment" - which is not coldly keeping oneself removed and distant from life, but maintaining a proper perspective in things, and not making them the ground and nature of one's own purpose of life. In a way, ignoring impermanence is like looking for "IT" in all the wrong places, or searching for something permanent in the impermanent, for God in places or things where God will not be found.
"It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in, God.
He only has to refuse his ultimate love to everything that is not God.
This refusal does not presuppose any belief.
It is enough to recognize what is obvious to any mind:
that all the goods of this world,
past, present, and future, real or imaginary,
are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying
the desire that perpetually burns within us
for an infinite and perfect good."
- Simone Weil
Meaningless as No "Games Worth Playing"
"Seek,
above all,
for a game
worth playing."
- Robert S. de Ropp
Meaninglessness can arrive for a person who sees life as more or less a series of "games" - and none of those games are worth playing.
This can be viewed as spending one's entire life working one's way to the "top of the ladder, only to find that there is nothing there, slaving away at a disagreeable job for one's entire life, only to be rewarded with a demotion, mandatory retirement, or a cheap gold watch; giving one's life to a business, a relationship, a family, a work of art, only to come in the end to see that all the work, sweat, and pain involved is essentially for nothing.
This is the situation for many sensitive and perceptive individuals, who see through many of the games, and so, don't see them as worth getting involved in.
The "solution," in this case, lies in finding "a game worth playing." How does one do this? Well, every individual finds the way for themselves . . . but many alternate option are available, such as, for example, the search for God, the search for Love, or one suggestion proposed by a guy named Robert de Ropp is something called "The Master Game" . . .
"The fact is that this is what society is and always has been:
A symbolic action system,
a structure of statuses and roles, customs and rules for behavior,
designed to serve as a vehicle for earthly heroism . . .
It doesn't matter whether the cultural hero-system
is frankly magical, religious, and primitive or secular, scientific, and civilized.
It is still a mythical hero-system in which people serve in order to earn a feeling of primary value, of cosmic specialness, of ultimate usefulness to creation, of unshakable meaning."
- Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
Meaninglessness as Created by Wrong Meditation
"There are many pitfalls along the path of meditation,
but there are two principal ones:
the first in which the meditator seeks to be pure observer
by suppressing the (identity of being a) participator (in life),
the other in which the meditator seeks to be pure participant.
In both there is the search for the One at the expense of two . . .
Both extremes, observing and participating, simply "get rid of" ego by a trick.
Both, if used as a form of meditation, lead students
to resent the "interference" of life with their "practice":
on the one hand, seeing life more and more
as a meaningless parade,
scorning people who participate and get involved;
and on the other hand, feeling more and more put upon by things,
feeling increasing self-pity and seeking quiet
- or paradoxically, seeking intense orgiastic situations
such as acid rock, strobe lights, drugs, or the rallies of demagogues and faith healers."
- from The Iron Cow of Zen by Albert Low
Human beings, whoever they may be,
consciously or unconsciously look for a meaning to their lives.
They need a reason to live and, each day, try to find it
through all that their domestic, social and professional life give them.
But in reality no success, no material possession can give them the meaning of life,
precisely because it is a matter of 'meaning',
and meaning is not a material reality;
it can only be found up above on the subtle planes.
In the lower regions, we can find only forms.
Of course we can fill up the form with content,
which is in the feeling, the sensation we experience
when we truly love an object, a person or an activity.
But feeling is often temporary,
and when we lose it, we are left with a sense of emptiness and pain.
So we must look beyond the content for the meaning.
When we reach the meaning, we are fulfilled."
- Mikhaël Omraam Aïvanhov
We all get up in the morning, go to bed in the evening, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, and work, day after day after day, but . . .
What's it all about? Why? Where is this all leading?
t may well be a fact that life, at least at is is usually lived, actually is absurd when seen from a certain perspective.
"Ivan Ilych's life
had been most simple and most ordinary
and therefore most terrible."
- Leo Tolstoy
There is ample evidence for this - as found, for example, by simply reading a few history books, or even just a copy of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. While Frankl's book may not provide the solution to the experience of meaninglessness, it presents an almost perfect case study in how absurd, cruel, unjust, pointless, and simply insane life can sometimes (er, often) be.
And those who are not in denial of these facts or experiences, and have the capacity and willingness to face these fairly unpleasant realities, tend to be, naturally, a little bugged by them.
This includes many intelligent and perceptive individuals throughout history. Such as, for example . . .
Leo Tolstoy
describes the experience:
"But five years ago
something very strange began to happen to me. At first I began having moments of bewilderment, when my life would come to a halt, as if I did not know how to live or what to do; I would lose my presence of mind and fall into a state of depression. But this passed, and I continued to live as before. Then the moments of bewilderment recurred more frequently, and they always took the same form. Whenever my life came to a halt, the questions would arise: Why? And what next?
At first I thought these were pointless and irrelevant questions. I thought that the answers to them were well known and that if I should ever want to resolve them, it would not be too hard for me; it was just that I could not be bothered with it now, but if I should take it upon myself, then I would find the answers. But the questions began to come up more and more frequently, and their demands to be answered became more and more urgent . . .
The questions seemed to be such foolish, simple, childish questions. But as soon as I laid my hands on them and tried to resolve them, I was immediately convinced, first of all, that they were not childish and foolish questions but the most vital and profound questions in life, and, secondly, that no matter how much I pondered them there was no way I could resolve them. Before I could be occupied with my Samara estate, with the education of my son, or with the writing of books, I had to know why I was doing these things. As long as I do not know the reason why, I cannot do anything. In the middle of my concern with the household, which at the time kept me quite busy, a questions would suddenly come into my head: "Very well, you will have 16,200 acres in the Samara province, as well as 300 horses; what then?" And I was completely taken aback and did not know what else to think. As soon as I started to think about the education of my children, I would ask myself, "Why?" Or I would reflect on how the people might attain prosperity, and I would suddenly ask myself, "What concern is it of mine?" Or in the middle of thinking about the fame that my works were bringing me I would say to myself, "Very well, you will be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespeare, Moliere, more famous than all the writers in the world - so what?
And I could find absolutely no reply.
My life came to a stop. I could breathe, eat, drink, and sleep; indeed, I could not help but breathe, eat, drink, and sleep. But there was no life in me because I had no desires whose satisfaction I would have found reasonable. If I wanted something, I knew beforehand that it did not matter whether or not I got it.
If a fairy had come and offered to fulfill my every wish, I would not have known what to wish for. If in moments of intoxication I should have not desires but the habits of old desires, in moments of sobriety I knew that it was all a delusion, that I really desired nothing. I did not even want to discover truth anymore because I had guessed what it was. The truth was that life is meaningless . . .
The only thing that amazed me was how I had failed to realize this in the very beginning. All this had been common knowledge for so long. If not today, then tomorrow sickness and death will come (indeed, they were already approaching) to everyone, to me, and nothing will remain except the stench and the worms. My deeds, whatever they may be, will be forgotten sooner or later, and I myself will be no more. Why, then, do anything? How can anyone fail to see this and live? That's what is amazing! It is possible to live only as long as life intoxicates us; once we are sober we cannot help seeing that it is all a delusion, a stupid delusion! Nor is there anything funny or witty about it; it is only cruel and stupid.
- excerpt from Confession
- and Herman Melville . . .
". . . take high abstracted man along;
and he seems a wonder, a grandeur and a woe.
But from the same point,
Take mankind in the mass,
and for the most part,
they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates . . ."
- Herman Melville, Moby Dick
- and William Shakespeare . . .
"O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world . . .
This goodly frame, the earth,
seems to me a sterile promontory;
this most excellent canopy, the air, look you,
this brave o'erhanging firmament,
this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,
why,
it appears no other thing to me
but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
What a piece of work is a man!
How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty!
in form, in moving, how express an admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god!
And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
man delights not me; no, nor woman neither . . .
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life . . . "
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet
- and the author(s) of a 2,500 year-old Sanskrit tale . . .
". . . Because I have no wish for victory, Krishna,
nor for a kingdom, nor for its pleasures.
How can we want a kingdom, Govinda, or its pleasures or even life,
When those for whom we want a kingdom,
and its pleasures, and the joys of life,
are here in this field of battle about to give up their wealth and their life?
Facing us in the field of battle are teachers, fathers and sons;
grandsons, grandfathers, wives' brothers; mothers' brothers and fathers of wives.
These I do not wish to slay, even if I myself am slain.
Not even for the kingdom of the three worlds:
how much less for a kingdom of the earth!"
- The Bhagavad Gita
- and King Solomon . . .
"I have seen all the works that are done under the sun;
and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
That which is crooked cannot be made straight;
and that which is wanting cannot be numbered . . .
Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought,
and on the labor that I had labored to do:
and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit,
and there was no profit under the sun . . ."
- Ecclesiastes
Some individuals - but only a few who possess a certain measure of intelligence - see life in a certain way that it appears meaningless. After all, we live for several years, then die. We work and work, but eventually everything we are working on crumbles to dust. What, then, is the point?
"She's polishing the brass on the Titanic, man.
It's all going down."
- Tyler Durden, Fight Club
Why, since life is inevitably full of suffering, do we go through it?
Or in a sense, this is another way of asking "Why Are We Here?"
"The truth is that your daily life is but a thin strip of experience
barely seeming in the profundity of who you are at depth.
Your activities and relationships never capture the grandeur
that wants to unfold from your heart into the world.
There may be moments of palpable glory,
brief openings through which magnificence effulgence without curtail,
but mainly your life is a tragic almost-there
of unfulfilled longing and partial gestures of tense effort."
- David Deida
So what can we do about it?
"It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere
that it begins to have meaning."
- P.D. Ouspensky
Many individuals might experience meaninglessness as a kind of depression after experiencing a loss.
For example, suppose a person loses a house, a car, a job, a relationship, or a person who meant a great deal to them. After this loss happens, the individual can experience a painful "emptiness," an absence, something like a newly-lost tooth of the soul, which feels extremely uncomfortable.
The process of healing from this loss lies in grieving and eventually accepting the loss, and allowing oneself to move on, honoring what has been lost while continuing to live.
And since, in the way life is built, loss is an inevitable part of things, a large part of this aspect lies in preparing oneself . .
Preventing Meaninglessness from Attachments
In a way, some unnecessary suffering can be avoided through not getting wrongfully and improportionately "attached" to certain things, whether they be houses, cars, jobs, relationships, ideas, theories, or even people.
There is a phrase "All is change," pointing to the truth that everything changes (except possibly for change itself) - which is a short version of the Buddhist teaching on "Impermanence." When we truly understand "impermanence," then we can also understand that becoming too attached to anything - because any "thing" is, given a long enough time span, necessarily impermanent - then suffering, when that change comes, is inevitable.
This is why many spiritual teachers speak of an attitude of "detachment" - which is not coldly keeping oneself removed and distant from life, but maintaining a proper perspective in things, and not making them the ground and nature of one's own purpose of life. In a way, ignoring impermanence is like looking for "IT" in all the wrong places, or searching for something permanent in the impermanent, for God in places or things where God will not be found.
"It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in, God.
He only has to refuse his ultimate love to everything that is not God.
This refusal does not presuppose any belief.
It is enough to recognize what is obvious to any mind:
that all the goods of this world,
past, present, and future, real or imaginary,
are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying
the desire that perpetually burns within us
for an infinite and perfect good."
- Simone Weil
Meaningless as No "Games Worth Playing"
"Seek,
above all,
for a game
worth playing."
- Robert S. de Ropp
Meaninglessness can arrive for a person who sees life as more or less a series of "games" - and none of those games are worth playing.
This can be viewed as spending one's entire life working one's way to the "top of the ladder, only to find that there is nothing there, slaving away at a disagreeable job for one's entire life, only to be rewarded with a demotion, mandatory retirement, or a cheap gold watch; giving one's life to a business, a relationship, a family, a work of art, only to come in the end to see that all the work, sweat, and pain involved is essentially for nothing.
This is the situation for many sensitive and perceptive individuals, who see through many of the games, and so, don't see them as worth getting involved in.
The "solution," in this case, lies in finding "a game worth playing." How does one do this? Well, every individual finds the way for themselves . . . but many alternate option are available, such as, for example, the search for God, the search for Love, or one suggestion proposed by a guy named Robert de Ropp is something called "The Master Game" . . .
"The fact is that this is what society is and always has been:
A symbolic action system,
a structure of statuses and roles, customs and rules for behavior,
designed to serve as a vehicle for earthly heroism . . .
It doesn't matter whether the cultural hero-system
is frankly magical, religious, and primitive or secular, scientific, and civilized.
It is still a mythical hero-system in which people serve in order to earn a feeling of primary value, of cosmic specialness, of ultimate usefulness to creation, of unshakable meaning."
- Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
Meaninglessness as Created by Wrong Meditation
"There are many pitfalls along the path of meditation,
but there are two principal ones:
the first in which the meditator seeks to be pure observer
by suppressing the (identity of being a) participator (in life),
the other in which the meditator seeks to be pure participant.
In both there is the search for the One at the expense of two . . .
Both extremes, observing and participating, simply "get rid of" ego by a trick.
Both, if used as a form of meditation, lead students
to resent the "interference" of life with their "practice":
on the one hand, seeing life more and more
as a meaningless parade,
scorning people who participate and get involved;
and on the other hand, feeling more and more put upon by things,
feeling increasing self-pity and seeking quiet
- or paradoxically, seeking intense orgiastic situations
such as acid rock, strobe lights, drugs, or the rallies of demagogues and faith healers."
- from The Iron Cow of Zen by Albert Low
Human beings, whoever they may be,
consciously or unconsciously look for a meaning to their lives.
They need a reason to live and, each day, try to find it
through all that their domestic, social and professional life give them.
But in reality no success, no material possession can give them the meaning of life,
precisely because it is a matter of 'meaning',
and meaning is not a material reality;
it can only be found up above on the subtle planes.
In the lower regions, we can find only forms.
Of course we can fill up the form with content,
which is in the feeling, the sensation we experience
when we truly love an object, a person or an activity.
But feeling is often temporary,
and when we lose it, we are left with a sense of emptiness and pain.
So we must look beyond the content for the meaning.
When we reach the meaning, we are fulfilled."
- Mikhaël Omraam Aïvanhov
DATING: BEHIND HAVING SEX..OTHER IDEAS FOR A FIRST DATE
Go to a major chain bookstore, and leave notes to future readers in copies of your favorite books
Build forts out of furniture and blankets, and wage war with paper aeroplanes.
Try and visit as many people as you can in one night, and turn as many things inside their apartment upside down as you can, without them noticing.
Write a piece of fiction together. Outside at a cafe. Ask strangers when you get stuck.
Dress to the nines, pretend to be married, and test drive very expensive vehicles at an auto dealership.
In the middle of the night, drive to the beach, so you arrive just as the sun is rising. Have a breakfast picnic, then fall asleep together. Bring a sun umbrella.
Drive somewhere unknown and have dinner in a city you’ve never been to. With fake names.
Walk around the city all night and find a place to eat breakfast at dawn
Rent a movie you’ve never seen before. Set on mute and improvise dialogue
Build forts out of furniture and blankets, and wage war with paper aeroplanes.
Try and visit as many people as you can in one night, and turn as many things inside their apartment upside down as you can, without them noticing.
Write a piece of fiction together. Outside at a cafe. Ask strangers when you get stuck.
Dress to the nines, pretend to be married, and test drive very expensive vehicles at an auto dealership.
In the middle of the night, drive to the beach, so you arrive just as the sun is rising. Have a breakfast picnic, then fall asleep together. Bring a sun umbrella.
Drive somewhere unknown and have dinner in a city you’ve never been to. With fake names.
Walk around the city all night and find a place to eat breakfast at dawn
Rent a movie you’ve never seen before. Set on mute and improvise dialogue
DATING/THOUGHTS: HOW DID I KNOW THEY LOVED ME
When I was dating Joanne, Melissa, Maria..and my ex wife ...how did i know they loved me...there was some signs
1-You're willing to explain why you don't want to date others
Willingness to forgo all others gives power to the partner. But when you're willing to admit that you're willing to share the power and admit your vulnerability (I really like you and hope you like me as much), not only are you in love, but you sound like a rational, fairly adult soul in the bargain.
2-Grow up: If you're old enough to be taken seriously by someone you like, you're old enough to take yourself seriously. Committed adult relationships don't have room for manipulative games.
3-You're willing to go somewhere you hate
The willingness to go someplace you actually hate with someone you actually love — and not be a pain in the neck about it — is one of the hallmarks of love.
When you first start to date, you're tempted to do whatever it takes to get the date off the ground because you're blinded by the possibilities. During the next phase of dating, you stand up for yourself and don't do the activity you hate.
This is a necessary evolution because if there is to be true love, it has to be based on who you are, not who you think your beginning-to-be-significant other will like. But once you actually get to love, your need to constantly assert yourself is softened by your beloved's influence and the sense that you can give because your love will reciprocate your generosity.
You don't need to keep track on a day-to-day basis to make sure everything is 50-50. But the sense that there is fairness and equality and appreciation and respect means that your reluctance to do something you're not crazy about gets overwhelmed by your desire to do something with the person you love. In other words, the person becomes more important than the event.
4-You're willing to save if you're a spend-thrift and spend if you're frugal
The point isn't really about money at all, but a willingness to examine fundamental beliefs as a direct result of valuing another person and his or her perspective and opinion. (Yeah, the same phenomenon can happen with friends, but because friends generally tolerate and celebrate differences, there's less motive or incentive for change.)
Any good relationship changes us. If being around your beloved makes you examine or change some fundamental part of yourself, it may not be love in and of itself, but it does indicate respect, a willingness to learn from another, and a relationship in which you feel safe enough to try something foreign and scary.
Forget about flattery or hypocrisy. Rather, you have the courage, strength, and energy to examine and experiment with a fundamental belief system, be it religion, politics, gun control, abortion, Chinese food, travel, having children, gardening, money, or any other position you used to consider inviolate.
(Money? you say. Yep. It's hard to think of any one commodity that is more basic than money. If you think money is just green stuff that just sits there, you're wrong; it can represent power, lifestyle, control, options, freedom, interaction, and a whole lot more.)
5-The idea of doing nothing together sounds terrific
In the early stages of dating, there is a hunger to discover who the other person is, but this time also feels scary because he or she may not be what you thought or — even worse — you may not be what they're looking for.
Even though the stakes aren't very high at the beginning, you might feel that they are, so you play at dating, and one of the easiest ways to play is to do something at all times — either publicly or privately. The dating ritual is about finding places to go and things to do.
Once a couple is sexual, the thing to do is sexual, and everything else seems just a holding action until the couple can hit the sheets. Then when the initial flurry of sexual activity is over, there is a tendency to want to show each other off because you're feeling connected and proud.
When the idea of doing nothing together is the coolest thing either of you can come up with, you're very likely in love, because you've gone through the other stages of terror, sex, and showing off.
Now, the relationship is just about the two of you, not to the exclusion of everyone or anything else. In fact, your "normal" life has expanded to include each other, but the idea of simply being together is the most wonderful thing either of you can figure out to do — even out of bed.
6-You're willing to risk being yourself
Being yourself is really the big enchilada. Everything else on the How-You-Know-You're-in-Love list hints at being yourself, but when you truly love someone, you want them to know who you are and love you for all that you are, not just for who you pretend to be. When you're in a truly loving relationship, you can be honest and direct and take chances.
The tricky part of being in love is that it can encourage you to be yourself but ups the ante that you might make someone whom you really want to stay change their mind and leave if you show the real you. You want your beloved to be happy now and forever, and the only way to do that is to be who you really are.
It's almost impossible to sustain an illusion over time, and because you are now truly in love, you wouldn't want to hurt your beloved by living a lie. But you also need to be a bit careful of what you confess. Remember that between honesty and duplicity is silence. If you're old enough to be in love, you're old enough to understand the occasional use of silence.
1-You're willing to explain why you don't want to date others
Willingness to forgo all others gives power to the partner. But when you're willing to admit that you're willing to share the power and admit your vulnerability (I really like you and hope you like me as much), not only are you in love, but you sound like a rational, fairly adult soul in the bargain.
2-Grow up: If you're old enough to be taken seriously by someone you like, you're old enough to take yourself seriously. Committed adult relationships don't have room for manipulative games.
3-You're willing to go somewhere you hate
The willingness to go someplace you actually hate with someone you actually love — and not be a pain in the neck about it — is one of the hallmarks of love.
When you first start to date, you're tempted to do whatever it takes to get the date off the ground because you're blinded by the possibilities. During the next phase of dating, you stand up for yourself and don't do the activity you hate.
This is a necessary evolution because if there is to be true love, it has to be based on who you are, not who you think your beginning-to-be-significant other will like. But once you actually get to love, your need to constantly assert yourself is softened by your beloved's influence and the sense that you can give because your love will reciprocate your generosity.
You don't need to keep track on a day-to-day basis to make sure everything is 50-50. But the sense that there is fairness and equality and appreciation and respect means that your reluctance to do something you're not crazy about gets overwhelmed by your desire to do something with the person you love. In other words, the person becomes more important than the event.
4-You're willing to save if you're a spend-thrift and spend if you're frugal
The point isn't really about money at all, but a willingness to examine fundamental beliefs as a direct result of valuing another person and his or her perspective and opinion. (Yeah, the same phenomenon can happen with friends, but because friends generally tolerate and celebrate differences, there's less motive or incentive for change.)
Any good relationship changes us. If being around your beloved makes you examine or change some fundamental part of yourself, it may not be love in and of itself, but it does indicate respect, a willingness to learn from another, and a relationship in which you feel safe enough to try something foreign and scary.
Forget about flattery or hypocrisy. Rather, you have the courage, strength, and energy to examine and experiment with a fundamental belief system, be it religion, politics, gun control, abortion, Chinese food, travel, having children, gardening, money, or any other position you used to consider inviolate.
(Money? you say. Yep. It's hard to think of any one commodity that is more basic than money. If you think money is just green stuff that just sits there, you're wrong; it can represent power, lifestyle, control, options, freedom, interaction, and a whole lot more.)
5-The idea of doing nothing together sounds terrific
In the early stages of dating, there is a hunger to discover who the other person is, but this time also feels scary because he or she may not be what you thought or — even worse — you may not be what they're looking for.
Even though the stakes aren't very high at the beginning, you might feel that they are, so you play at dating, and one of the easiest ways to play is to do something at all times — either publicly or privately. The dating ritual is about finding places to go and things to do.
Once a couple is sexual, the thing to do is sexual, and everything else seems just a holding action until the couple can hit the sheets. Then when the initial flurry of sexual activity is over, there is a tendency to want to show each other off because you're feeling connected and proud.
When the idea of doing nothing together is the coolest thing either of you can come up with, you're very likely in love, because you've gone through the other stages of terror, sex, and showing off.
Now, the relationship is just about the two of you, not to the exclusion of everyone or anything else. In fact, your "normal" life has expanded to include each other, but the idea of simply being together is the most wonderful thing either of you can figure out to do — even out of bed.
6-You're willing to risk being yourself
Being yourself is really the big enchilada. Everything else on the How-You-Know-You're-in-Love list hints at being yourself, but when you truly love someone, you want them to know who you are and love you for all that you are, not just for who you pretend to be. When you're in a truly loving relationship, you can be honest and direct and take chances.
The tricky part of being in love is that it can encourage you to be yourself but ups the ante that you might make someone whom you really want to stay change their mind and leave if you show the real you. You want your beloved to be happy now and forever, and the only way to do that is to be who you really are.
It's almost impossible to sustain an illusion over time, and because you are now truly in love, you wouldn't want to hurt your beloved by living a lie. But you also need to be a bit careful of what you confess. Remember that between honesty and duplicity is silence. If you're old enough to be in love, you're old enough to understand the occasional use of silence.
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