1 Adar II 5771
No embarrassment can compare with the shame and degradation of being praised for that which ought to be expected of you.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Imaginary Convo 3
17 Adar 5773
Boy: What did I do wrong?
*but in his eyes he says, 'why don't you love me?', 'why don't you want to love me?'*
Girl: You did nothing wrong. I like and respect you.
I respect everyone.
I like almost everyone.
There are very few people whom I admire.
I would like my husband to be one of them.
B: And you don't admire me?
G: I do not.
B: Why?
G: Admiration is an emotion, boy. It is its presence not its absence that must be justified.
You inspire other emotions in me to be sure; compassion, empathy, concern.
But not admiration.
B: Are there any men you do admire?
G: Yes.
B: Would you marry any of them?
G: I don't know, boy. I don't know.
Admiration is not a sufficient condition for love.
B: What else is necessary?
G: I don't know. Longing, maybe. Joy, commitment, trust.
B: And you don't feel any of those for me:
G: I might have once, but not anymore.
Boy: What did I do wrong?
*but in his eyes he says, 'why don't you love me?', 'why don't you want to love me?'*
Girl: You did nothing wrong. I like and respect you.
I respect everyone.
I like almost everyone.
There are very few people whom I admire.
I would like my husband to be one of them.
B: And you don't admire me?
G: I do not.
B: Why?
G: Admiration is an emotion, boy. It is its presence not its absence that must be justified.
You inspire other emotions in me to be sure; compassion, empathy, concern.
But not admiration.
B: Are there any men you do admire?
G: Yes.
B: Would you marry any of them?
G: I don't know, boy. I don't know.
Admiration is not a sufficient condition for love.
B: What else is necessary?
G: I don't know. Longing, maybe. Joy, commitment, trust.
B: And you don't feel any of those for me:
G: I might have once, but not anymore.
Imaginary Conversations
16 Adar 5773
I often find myself thinking in dialogues, often with specific people. It seems easier to express an idea in the context of a conversation or relationship, for after all, it is usually a conversation or experience within a relationship that produces formulation of a heretofore tacit idea or provokes thought regarding a matter heretofore unconsidered, at least consciously. Therefore, it is most naturally expressed in that context.
Als,o a conversation prompts response. Even though it takes place only in my head, it allows a certain exchange of ideas to flow, promoting further exploration of the idea.
It also returns the drama and ethos to philosophizing, a highly human, and therefore emotional, endeavor.
I often find myself thinking in dialogues, often with specific people. It seems easier to express an idea in the context of a conversation or relationship, for after all, it is usually a conversation or experience within a relationship that produces formulation of a heretofore tacit idea or provokes thought regarding a matter heretofore unconsidered, at least consciously. Therefore, it is most naturally expressed in that context.
Als,o a conversation prompts response. Even though it takes place only in my head, it allows a certain exchange of ideas to flow, promoting further exploration of the idea.
It also returns the drama and ethos to philosophizing, a highly human, and therefore emotional, endeavor.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Fanatics
5 Shevat 5771
One is a fanatic not whose beliefs are radical, but who imposes his beliefs upon others be they radical or not.
One is a fanatic not whose beliefs are radical, but who imposes his beliefs upon others be they radical or not.
Youth is Wasted
16 Marcheshvan 5773
Sometimes I wonder why I bother going to college.
It's such a waste of fertility.
Truly it is. I'll only be able to bear children for so long. By the time I graduate from college I'll have wasted a full decade of prime child-bearing potential. By the time I have my first child I'll be halfway through my fertile years. However many children I have I'll know I could have had twice as many, or at least increased the chances of the same number of children being healthier by birthing them in my youth. School, on the other hand is something I can do at any time. I could always just marry and have children now and go to school later. Rabbi Akiva didn't start until he was forty, so what if I do the same? I have a serious and real time limit on the fertility of my womb, but the fertility of my mind knows no such bounds.
But every time I think of this I realize why it's foolish. That's just my biological clock thinking for me. How would I now be feeding the children I should have had when I was fourteen? Could I have provided a means of support without an education? And suppose my husband would support us: who would this husband of mine be who would be capable of supporting a fourteen year old wife and her children? How would I have selected such a man? Who would I even be without the expansion of my mind which education and experience has brought? Certainly noone capable of participating in a healthy sexual relationship, or of fitting my children with the skills and values they would need when they grow up.
Yet, my great-grandmother married when she was fourteen! Am I any better than my great-grandmother, or hers? They just lived in a different world. Marriage and child-rearing was a different game back then. Then it was about living, and continuing. In some cases it was about not getting kidnapped lest you become too old a virgin for someone not to notice and steal you from your father's house before he loses the chance to monopolize your otherwise wasted youth and reproductivity. In a way he would be doing you a great favor, that man. He would be preventing your fertility from being lost. Besides, he would feed and clothe you after your father died.
So the girls married young then so that they, or at least their fathers, could choose their husbands.
That's a model in which women are property.
In many places it is a model that persists.
Today, though, marriage is supposed to be all about love. You have to love a man before marrying him, you can't marry him otherwise. If you do, your life will be miserable and unfulfilled because you've missed the chance to spend eternity with your one true love who will now forever be pining away in sorrow.
What folly! To imagine love as the sole foundation of any relationship.
Love is the product of a relationship not a catalyst for it.
That is why in describing the marriage between Yizchak and Rivka the Torah says "He wed her and he loved her." A marriage is not built upon love. Love is the product of the marriage. Love comes after commitment because commitment is an act of love.
So still we seek a healthy model for relationships, and try to figure out what this thing is we call love.
I don't know that we can figure out. It's different every time.
I'll just have to keep living with my eyes open and trust that Gd will put the right one in front of me.
And that I see him when He does.
Sometimes I wonder why I bother going to college.
It's such a waste of fertility.
Truly it is. I'll only be able to bear children for so long. By the time I graduate from college I'll have wasted a full decade of prime child-bearing potential. By the time I have my first child I'll be halfway through my fertile years. However many children I have I'll know I could have had twice as many, or at least increased the chances of the same number of children being healthier by birthing them in my youth. School, on the other hand is something I can do at any time. I could always just marry and have children now and go to school later. Rabbi Akiva didn't start until he was forty, so what if I do the same? I have a serious and real time limit on the fertility of my womb, but the fertility of my mind knows no such bounds.
But every time I think of this I realize why it's foolish. That's just my biological clock thinking for me. How would I now be feeding the children I should have had when I was fourteen? Could I have provided a means of support without an education? And suppose my husband would support us: who would this husband of mine be who would be capable of supporting a fourteen year old wife and her children? How would I have selected such a man? Who would I even be without the expansion of my mind which education and experience has brought? Certainly noone capable of participating in a healthy sexual relationship, or of fitting my children with the skills and values they would need when they grow up.
Yet, my great-grandmother married when she was fourteen! Am I any better than my great-grandmother, or hers? They just lived in a different world. Marriage and child-rearing was a different game back then. Then it was about living, and continuing. In some cases it was about not getting kidnapped lest you become too old a virgin for someone not to notice and steal you from your father's house before he loses the chance to monopolize your otherwise wasted youth and reproductivity. In a way he would be doing you a great favor, that man. He would be preventing your fertility from being lost. Besides, he would feed and clothe you after your father died.
So the girls married young then so that they, or at least their fathers, could choose their husbands.
That's a model in which women are property.
In many places it is a model that persists.
Today, though, marriage is supposed to be all about love. You have to love a man before marrying him, you can't marry him otherwise. If you do, your life will be miserable and unfulfilled because you've missed the chance to spend eternity with your one true love who will now forever be pining away in sorrow.
What folly! To imagine love as the sole foundation of any relationship.
Love is the product of a relationship not a catalyst for it.
That is why in describing the marriage between Yizchak and Rivka the Torah says "He wed her and he loved her." A marriage is not built upon love. Love is the product of the marriage. Love comes after commitment because commitment is an act of love.
So still we seek a healthy model for relationships, and try to figure out what this thing is we call love.
I don't know that we can figure out. It's different every time.
I'll just have to keep living with my eyes open and trust that Gd will put the right one in front of me.
And that I see him when He does.
I Feel Pretty
26 Shevat 5773
I've always been rather fascinated by my own beauty.
I used to look at myself in the mirror, and lean closer and closer to see the smooth curves of my face or each colored muscle in my eye. Then I'd notice that I was watching myself, and I'd back away. The first time I left quickly, I was so ashamed. After that I began to wonder why it is that I find my own beauty so captivating. I'm not the best looking woman who ever lived; shouldn't I have been more mesmerized by Julia Roberts' face?
So whenever I found myself distracted by my own face, I would then turn to be fascinated with my own fascination with myself.
Ironic, isn't it?
Of course, I've always been told that I'm beautiful. My mother and father and grandparents would say it all the time. Some of my teachers did too. But I was an awkward fat kid and I didn't see it.
Until I turned about thirteen. Then things started changing. It was the shape of my face, I noticed. Something about its contours were beginning to look appealing, and standing for minutes in front of the bathroom mirror I realized one day that I actually liked the way I looked. I actually considered myself pretty; not just pretty- gorgeous, and moreover, desirable. I still do.
I just didn't realize that other people would see me in that way too.
It's a strange and uncomfortable moment for a girl who never thought anyone would see her suddenly realizes that the boy who's sitting with her is really glad that they're alone.
It gets confusing when he isn't the only one.
And rather abruptly my life is different, because for the first time a man told me that my eyes are pretty, and another one looked at me just because he liked looking, and another one wouldn't go away, and they all keep telling me what a shame it is that we don't see each other more often.
I guess I'm lucky, not just because people seem to like me, but because the men I attract are the sort of people I like and want to spend time with. I think we should be friends, but for the first time I find myself wondering if that's really what they're thinking too.
It's even stranger to realize that I'm not bothered by it. It's gratifying.
And as cliche as it sounds, despite all my past insecurities, I really do feel pretty.
I've always been rather fascinated by my own beauty.
I used to look at myself in the mirror, and lean closer and closer to see the smooth curves of my face or each colored muscle in my eye. Then I'd notice that I was watching myself, and I'd back away. The first time I left quickly, I was so ashamed. After that I began to wonder why it is that I find my own beauty so captivating. I'm not the best looking woman who ever lived; shouldn't I have been more mesmerized by Julia Roberts' face?
So whenever I found myself distracted by my own face, I would then turn to be fascinated with my own fascination with myself.
Ironic, isn't it?
Of course, I've always been told that I'm beautiful. My mother and father and grandparents would say it all the time. Some of my teachers did too. But I was an awkward fat kid and I didn't see it.
Until I turned about thirteen. Then things started changing. It was the shape of my face, I noticed. Something about its contours were beginning to look appealing, and standing for minutes in front of the bathroom mirror I realized one day that I actually liked the way I looked. I actually considered myself pretty; not just pretty- gorgeous, and moreover, desirable. I still do.
I just didn't realize that other people would see me in that way too.
It's a strange and uncomfortable moment for a girl who never thought anyone would see her suddenly realizes that the boy who's sitting with her is really glad that they're alone.
It gets confusing when he isn't the only one.
And rather abruptly my life is different, because for the first time a man told me that my eyes are pretty, and another one looked at me just because he liked looking, and another one wouldn't go away, and they all keep telling me what a shame it is that we don't see each other more often.
I guess I'm lucky, not just because people seem to like me, but because the men I attract are the sort of people I like and want to spend time with. I think we should be friends, but for the first time I find myself wondering if that's really what they're thinking too.
It's even stranger to realize that I'm not bothered by it. It's gratifying.
And as cliche as it sounds, despite all my past insecurities, I really do feel pretty.
Filling the Void
I didn't write down a date for this one, but based on it's placement in my journal, it must have been written around Elul 5772.
This entry comes with the following note I wrote in the margin just above it:
"Upon completing my reading of the final installment of the Artemis Fowl series at half past midnight...*some sentimental junk about my location, which does not interest you at all*...after loyally following the series for I don't even know how many years."
I was really disappointed with the last book. In fact I was disappointed with every book afer The Lost Colony. What happened to Minerva? Where did your writing skills go, Eoin? Why did you abandon the world of classic Irish lore for a technologically advanced society? And when did you sell your soul to marketability, casting away your characters personalities to make them more entertaining? Artemis and Holly? Seriously? Eoin, you're supposed to be the author, not a fanfiction writer.
As you can see, after reading this book I was frustrated with the author. Anyway, here's the poem I wrote about it at the time. It reads a little stream-of-consciousness-y, and it's really more about growing up than it is about Artemis Fowl.
_________________
Life is like a book.
It begins fresh and exhilirating
and the pages of your childhood
fly by with nothing
particularly exciting happening,
but that nothing
sets up the rest
of the book, and the rest
of that book
is based on it so that when it ends
(for it will end)
it is perfect.
It is consistent and whole
with plenty of room left
outside it for the imagination
to fill.
Then comes the sequel.
New foundations emerge,
new characters appear
and old characters
slowly change,
shaped by the events
they helped shape
through the third,
fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh
eigth and ninth books
until you realize at the end
that the same characters
are not the same
anymore.
Their circumstances are different
and all the void around
is filled
by their awareness of it.
Omnicient, they are no longer innocent.
Well-lived past, uncertain future.
The absence of friends
and aquaintances outside themselves
now filled with knowledge
of history,
of people, places,
experiences.
Was Gd different
at the beginning?
Did the introduction
of my character change Him?
I wish sometimes that
I could go back to the pages
of my childhood
as easily as
I can turn back the pages
of a real book.
All voids must fill
or the Earth will stand still
My void is filling.
Is it against my will?
This entry comes with the following note I wrote in the margin just above it:
"Upon completing my reading of the final installment of the Artemis Fowl series at half past midnight...*some sentimental junk about my location, which does not interest you at all*...after loyally following the series for I don't even know how many years."
I was really disappointed with the last book. In fact I was disappointed with every book afer The Lost Colony. What happened to Minerva? Where did your writing skills go, Eoin? Why did you abandon the world of classic Irish lore for a technologically advanced society? And when did you sell your soul to marketability, casting away your characters personalities to make them more entertaining? Artemis and Holly? Seriously? Eoin, you're supposed to be the author, not a fanfiction writer.
As you can see, after reading this book I was frustrated with the author. Anyway, here's the poem I wrote about it at the time. It reads a little stream-of-consciousness-y, and it's really more about growing up than it is about Artemis Fowl.
_________________
Life is like a book.
It begins fresh and exhilirating
and the pages of your childhood
fly by with nothing
particularly exciting happening,
but that nothing
sets up the rest
of the book, and the rest
of that book
is based on it so that when it ends
(for it will end)
it is perfect.
It is consistent and whole
with plenty of room left
outside it for the imagination
to fill.
Then comes the sequel.
New foundations emerge,
new characters appear
and old characters
slowly change,
shaped by the events
they helped shape
through the third,
fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh
eigth and ninth books
until you realize at the end
that the same characters
are not the same
anymore.
Their circumstances are different
and all the void around
is filled
by their awareness of it.
Omnicient, they are no longer innocent.
Well-lived past, uncertain future.
The absence of friends
and aquaintances outside themselves
now filled with knowledge
of history,
of people, places,
experiences.
Was Gd different
at the beginning?
Did the introduction
of my character change Him?
I wish sometimes that
I could go back to the pages
of my childhood
as easily as
I can turn back the pages
of a real book.
All voids must fill
or the Earth will stand still
My void is filling.
Is it against my will?
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Tears
I was flipping through my journal and found this entry from 18 Av 5772. At first I didn't remember what I had written it about, but after reading it I remember the feeling. It's interesting to see how much has changed in eight months, and how much has stayed the same.
__________
What is this feeling of displacement?
I never belong in a place
I just move through
keeping it
for the next person
who will also move through
and give it to the next.
Something tugs at my heart;
I don't know what it is
and I want to ignore it.
Part of it has a face and a name,
but for now I will keep that name
in my heart.
What is it about that name
that every time I hear it
I want to cry?
I am somewhere in it too.
It is the deepest, strongest and
most persistent part
and it does not let go,
but pulls me, pulls me, pulls me
and my heart
to return to myself.
Myself and my God.
Sometimes I have trouble
telling which is which
and I do not know which
one is closer.
Tears, tears...
They never come when you need them,
only when you don't
know why they do.
__________
What is this feeling of displacement?
I never belong in a place
I just move through
keeping it
for the next person
who will also move through
and give it to the next.
Something tugs at my heart;
I don't know what it is
and I want to ignore it.
Part of it has a face and a name,
but for now I will keep that name
in my heart.
What is it about that name
that every time I hear it
I want to cry?
I am somewhere in it too.
It is the deepest, strongest and
most persistent part
and it does not let go,
but pulls me, pulls me, pulls me
and my heart
to return to myself.
Myself and my God.
Sometimes I have trouble
telling which is which
and I do not know which
one is closer.
Tears, tears...
They never come when you need them,
only when you don't
know why they do.
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