1. Yesterday I had to pay two dollars for a pound of rhubarb at a farmer's market. This is bullshit. Rhubarb is a weed; organic or not, it's worth its weight in piss, no more. That sort of egregious overcharging is what's letting supermarket chains take over the organics market. Remember, it's not just what the market will bear; it's what the market thinks isn't fucking pseudo-hippie bullshit.
2. There is a cost-benefit analysis involved in the choice between friendship or walking away at the end of an affair. The friendship of ex . . . uhm . . . whatevers can be beautiful, but walking away lets a person deal with any issues arising from the affair alone. Choosing friendship means dealing with these issues together, which may well be impossible unless friendship was the strongest feeling throughout the affair. Because the end an affair, however inevitable, is a disappointing admission that a special brand of intimacy won’t happen in the case, and it takes understanding and respect for people to help each other get beyond that that.
Sometimes it’s MANIFEST that it’s not worth dealing with that disappointment à deux. For example: people who fuck through their inability to understand or respect each other. When the fucking ends, they must face the fact that the other person is a tedious choice to spend time with compared to all the other people available. That realization may be a reason one realizes the above-mentioned special brand of intimacy isn’t worth it and ends the affair. In such a case, the other person may feel shame - not only over repeated coitus and the hope for a special brand of intimacy with someone they can’t understand or respect, but also over rejection by someone they thought they were slumming with, and shame over the ignobility of thoughts about ‘slumming’ . . . eesh. Issues best dealt with alone, in short, or possibly with a Jungian analyst.
So one runs a cost/benefit analysis:
Cost: Accepting disappointment attendant on seeing putative friend without fucking/wanting to fuck them - and leave us not forget explaining the ongoing presence of putative friend who has made you come to one's present lover
Benefit: The continued presence of putative friend’s good qualities in one’s life - conversation, cooking, grossly intimate/hilarious flirtation, et cetera
Analysis: If you’re a twitchy prat who bored me when we weren’t fucking and then rejected me, we won't be friends no matter how much I get over it or how many times you request me to get over it. It isn’t rocket science, so please leave me be. It's been more than a year now that I've been acting as politely as possible like you should fuck off and die, and now you've made me be rude on a semi-public forum. Kudos.
3. Advertising is fucked and soul-destroying - here's interesting evidence to that effect - and writing about it pays shit. I need a new job that pays much, much better. If anyone knows of one - anywhere, especially somewhere my sweetheart and I are both legally entitled to live, tell me, like, yesterday, please.
* The rhubarb, obviously.
8 commenti:
Point Two is so painfully and obviously On The Money. Sometimes I think that "let's be friends" is this ploy that boys use in order to absolve themselves of the heartbreak and pain that they know they caused. It's just not worth the annoyance of continuing.
Point Three... I meant to comment on your other piece, but got caught up in something else.
Advertising and Marketing is soul destroying in more ways than one can really ennumerate. I worked for an Ad Agency for several years, and even though I was well paid, there came a point where I just couldn't face myself in the mirror every morning, knowing that I was wasting so much of my time and life and effort destroying people's esteems in order to hawk insurance or broadband or what the f*ck ever - just to make the ego ridden cnuts of the clients more money.
In the end, I quit, after a serious illness which made me re-examine my priorities in life.
I freelanced in the public sector for a while, and though the money wasn't as good, it certainly was easier to get out of bed when I thought "if I do my job properly, dyslexic kids learn how to read, doctors see their patients, etc."
I mean, sure, my job now is not exactly... morally sound. The banking industry is nearly as morally corrupt as Advertising, but 1) there are things in place to stop people getting too screwed over and 2) as an IFA, we are actually here to help the clients rather than the banks. If I do my job properly here, then I help people own their first house. (This may or may not be an admirable goal, depending on your political belief system, but I'm not a communist, and I believe that it is an important thing to be doing.)
Blimey, that's long. Sorry.
Long comments are nice.
Point Two did give me some trouble, in the sense that lately it's been rather dramatic what good relationships I've been having with former lovers, and the 'let's be friends' line that I used with them (girls do it too) is probably what let that happen.
I think you're right, though, in the sense that sometimes it's soooo obvious that no, indeed, you *shouldn't* be friends, and that was never even sorta the point, and it's making me uncomfortable that you're trying so hard to insist on it because it obviously has nothing to do with the boring way we interacted when we weren't naked - which leads to the question, do you think the abstract concept of your friendship is such an almightily great prize it's going to make up for the rejection? Which can lead to getting pissed off.
And not being a communist either, I think helping people get thier first house is nicely morally sound.
Yeah, there is no "rule" that says that you have to be friends with an ex lover.
I mean, myself, I generally don't stay friends, it's too complicated, and am pleasantly surprised... nay, STARTLED, when I actually do.
Especially if there was no actual intellectual connection to start with - what would be the point of friendship in that case?
To me, it says more about the mentality of the person trying to force maintain a friendship where there's no point. Like, what, did I ruin your perfect batting average or something?
i had something to say and then i had to read through all that commenting.
i can't remember.
so....
HERE! HERE!
3) BRAZIL. doing... something. fuck - speaking English alone must be worth GOLD in Brazil... maybe. or not. weeeeee!
Yeah, maybe that's it, simply thinking friendship is what's done and an ex-whatever who doesn't want to do it is being wilfully contrary to some sort of rule.
This is a bit abstract for my present case though, as I think the man in question just doesn't have anyone to go to classical music recitals with and figures since I like classical music I'd go with him. I think he might not have breathed enough when he was a baby, if you know what I mean.
Lady, you are a walking bag of good ideas, except you're prettier than a bag. You're like a Hermés bag full of good ideas.
I think that advertising doesn't have to be soul destroying. It's the way it's done that is soul destroying.
I agree in the sense that advertising that helps you satisfy a need is good and advertising that *creates* a 'need' isn't. But I think that the second kind is pervasive to the degree that it will take generations to root out of our global economic system. So I say something as general as 'advertising is soul-destroying' with no qualms.
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