July 2010
7 posts
“He is the longed-for, and the one who longs; he is the arsonist — and he...”
– Ovid
The Wager
I have staked my body and mind
To play dice on wager with my Love.
If I lose, my Love wins me
If I win, He becomes mine.
— Kabir (1440-1518) (via Solid Ground of Being)
“People want to know how much you care before they care about how much you know.”
– James F. Hind (via @DrGaryChapman)
“Love is something you do for someone else, not something you do for yourself.”
– Gary Chapman
June 2010
1 post
What Is a Romantic?
Romanticism is just another pattern. What is that pattern? It occurred to me to try to write it down. This is not perfect, but I’m erring on the side of something over nothing.
Necessary traits of a Romantic
Unattainable Object of love
Willingness to do anything to attain object of love, even destroy oneself
Persistence in the face of certain failure
Oftentimes associated
...
May 2010
14 posts
“Memories are interpreted like dreams.”
– Leo Longanesi, journalist and editor (1905-1957)
No more searching, no more waiting.
That’s what co-blogger Jon commented after I briefly updated him on my current love/relationship status. And he completely hit the nail on the head. Though I’ve been busy, certain recent posts were inspired by real feelings, a recognition of truth in those words, rather than just conjecture.
Here’s an abridged version of our story.
He and I met in Hong Kong during our Study...
“When you know what you want more than anything else, life is simple.”
Dear 12-year-old Self,
I wish I could show you all the things I’ve learned through blood and sweat and pain and tears. One thing I always wanted but never knew how to do was to be close with other people. It turns out, it’s quite simple. But it’s the exact opposite of what you might think.
I spent most of my life trying to protect myself from pain. Trying to hold up a self-image of being smart...
Documentary
Suppose you were going to make a movie, whose subtitle would be “The Life and Death of [your name goes here].” And suppose there were three possible choices for the title itself:
Pride
Fear
Surrender
What are your feeling-reactions to each possible title? How well does each one, when you consider it, describe your experience? And what is the relation of surrender to pride and...
compassion
noun. Deep awareness of the suffering of another, coupled with the wish to relieve it.
“Perhaps love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself.”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“If you ask people what they’ve always wanted to do, most people haven’t done it....”
– Angelina Jolie (via inmyskin)
Being a romantic is about two things.
Being in touch with your feelings.
Being honest with yourself.
If you’re doing these two things, you can’t help but be a romantic.
How do you get in touch with your feelings? Just feel them. Don’t act on them; just feel them. Feeling feelings is just like any other thing. The more you practice it, the easier and more effortless...
“To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.”
– someone
April 2010
12 posts
The Quiet World, by Jeffrey McDaniel
In an effort to get people to look into each other’s eyes more, and also to appease the mutes, the government has decided to allot each person exactly one hundred and sixty-seven words, per day. When the phone rings, I put it to my ear without saying hello. In the restaurant I point at chicken noodle soup. I am adjusting well to the new way. Late at night, I call my long distance lover,...
“The deepest feeling of what’s lacking is the feeling of being incomplete,...”
– Art Ticknor, Solid Ground of Being
Thank you for the rain. No one can tell I’ve been crying.
After Tomas had returned to Prague from Zurich, he began to feel uneasy at the thought that his acquaintance with Tereza was the result of six improbable fortuities.
But is not an event in fact more significant and noteworthy the greater the number of fortuities necessary to bring it about?
Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything...
“As lonely as I find single life, I obviously prefer, on some level, the notion...”
– Jennifer Senior (from the Harrad Experiment)
“All days are nights to see till I see thee, and nights bright days when dreams...”
– Shakespeare (via pneuma)
“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems...”
– Gilda Radner, actress and comedian (1946-1989)
I just enabled showing avatars of who posted what in your Tumblr Dashboard for this blog. Now you followers can also follow our disagreement. Instead of this blog seeming bipolar, now you can see that each of us is insane in a consistent way — i.e. consistently insane.
Sharing is caring, kisses don't deplete
In Europe, people, no strangers, are just more.. como se dice cariñoso.. affectionate I believe. In Spain you give 2 kisses, one on each cheek, any/every girl to girl and girl to guy. In Holland they give 3 as the greeting. When I met up with some American friends in Rome I felt the urge to lean in to give the habitual pecks and then awkwardly backed off, remembering that the cold handshake or...
Does a hug mean nothing to you?
People seem to give away hugs left and right. Peace. Love. More hugs. Great, right?
But when something is common, it means less. Any one hug isn’t that special if I’m hugging every person I know every chance there is.
An embrace can be very intimate. Especially when it’s the closest you can physically come to a person. With many people, a kiss for example, is simply...
If you have a burning desire, you've found...
Why? When you satisfy a desire, it goes away. But answering a question only leads to more questions.
March 2010
15 posts
“I want a man who’s kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a...”
– Zsa Zsa Gabor (via Jena Pincott, Why Women Don’t Want Macho Men)
What a bad book.
“He suddenly recalled from Plato’s Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split then in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.”
“Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of ...
howtobearomantic:
For the record, she is the perverted one who posted that last one. Not me.
Hey, we embrace all sorts of love, don’t we? Including perverted ones. They can be one of the most intense hee hee.
Newlyweds
These people are amazing. I call them my left and right brains personified.
Wife: I never win. He beats me at everything...
Husband: What are you talking about? You're on my team for life.
For the record, she is the perverted one who posted that last one. Not me.
Could it be, that one ninth of all people are...
Fours are the deep-sea divers of the psyche: they delve into the inner world of the human soul and return to the surface, reporting on what they found. They are able to communicate subtle truths about the human condition in ways that are profound, beautiful, and affecting. In a fundamental way, Fours remind us of our deepest humanity—that which is most personal, hidden, and precious...
I have a crush on Murakami
"So what's wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?"
"Kind of like a hobby?" she said, amused.
"Yeah I guess you could call it a hobby. Most normal people would call it friendship or love or something, but if you want to call it a hobby, that's OK, too."
'There's always complications.' He walked on steadily in the dark.
'And are you sorry?' she said.
'In a way!' he replied, looking up at the sky. 'I thought I'd done with it all. Now I've begun again.'
'Begun what?'
'Life.'
'Life!' she re-echoed, with a queer thrill.
'It's life,' he said. 'There's no keeping clear. And if you do keep clear you might almost as well die. So if I've got to be broken open again, I have.'
She did not quite see it that way, but still . . .
'It's just love, she said cheerfully.
'Whatever that may be,' he replied.
“But if she kept herself for herself, it was nothing. She was old; millions of...”
– D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover
“You are not a dress shirt that needs every wrinkle ruthlessly ironed out. You...”
– Ali Hale from Aliventures
“Love is about destruction. Destruction of our selves.”
February 2010
16 posts
Hope there’s someone Who’ll take care...