J9

I’ve been told that, prior to 1648 there was no concept of political autonomy. There were no accepted laws protecting any geographical land area, but rather a widespread abundance of weaponry that deemed property to be of a certain individual. The “civilized” world was divided into kingdoms and the size of said kingdoms was protected by as many half wits as could be gathered together on this land. Understandably, the larger the kingdom, the larger the number of half wits… or was it the other way around?

You may call it “sovereignty” with an ironically proud South African accent, but I merely see it as a disassociation with the surrounding world. When we start claiming things with ownership and support a system of selfishness and greed, we coincidentally start loosing our sense of that which is important. Etymologically speaking, sovereignty is not all that tangible. Having supreme and independent governing power over an area of land or group of people turns out to be rather hard to hold in your hands. Power is not something that can be literally thrown in the direction of those who are perceived to be weaker. What is it exactly that forces us to do anything?

I suppose on a seemingly primal level, the need to survive is the strongest of all motivators, as Maslow tells us so in his description of physiological needs. After putting some more thought into it, this need to survive is the motivator for more of our actions than we realize. Personally I have come to notice that underneath the material coat that is our society, my actions are purely motivated by the need to survive. When in the company of certain individuals I find myself motivated to be better. Acting in a manner in which they would deem acceptable or admirable, I monitor my actions much more closely when around those I am trying to impress. More often than not, I am trying to impress for the innate and primitive instincts I have to “find a mate” which we lovingly call a relationship. Whether this relationship is on a friendship level or any variation of that, it is important and undeniably necessary for survival.

When placed in a setting in which the simplest of needs are scarce and hard to come by, we regress even further as our survival needs hold a stronger power over us. We seem to loose insight of the social structures by which we typically live as well as the norms and morals we hold to be social law. When it comes down to it, we focus on our selves and disregard any others. When given the opportunity we reach out to our families and other close loved ones, but the thought of helping out another with whom we are not acquainted is unthinkable.

And to think, all of this would be our reality if it wasn’t for Westphalia. I’m not saying that I support a system of this so called “sovereignty”, but then again I’m not saying that I don’t.

Aside from the noises I make, the only sound I hear is the world. While that may seem intimidating it is merely a few birds, the rustling of the leaves and silence. I watch the water in front of me and each molecule seems to be going in a different direction, which is rather bold considering the population. Some of the water runs to the east, other to the west, while others still seem to travel in a circular motion. That is, until I realize that I am deceived. The water that I believed to be so intrepid in its travels is merely moving in reaction to the reverberations of an insect on its surface. I had such high respect for that water, only to find out that it wasn’t as I thought it to be. Turns out, we aren’t so different from pond water.

In a world where so much as a glance can keep me, an avid anti-coffee proponent, buying iced espressos until your shift ends; I find it hard to believe when people say there is not much hope for love. I’m pretty hopeful. People tell me that they have given up on falling in love. Their heart has been broken and they have no desire to properly put it back together, let alone allow anybody else to do so much as try. As much as we may cringe when I say it, I’m a lover at heart and in this an optimist. I’d like to believe that there is hope for harmony and a sense of unity in this world, despite your attempts to influence me otherwise.

I believe that despite our differences, we are all born the same. We are made out of love, or in the very least lust (which I’d prefer to quixotically call passion), with the only innate goal to follow in the footsteps of those before us and produce more out of love. Mr. Ben Lee has been quoting saying “we are all in this together.” I don’t know of a better way to possibly put my thoughts on this issue. We are all here together, so why not make the best of the time? People we may call “strangers” prior to meeting them very well may soon become “friends” after a few short lines of pleasant communication. Why then do we allow ourselves to be rude to people we call “strangers” and excuse our actions merely because of their label? I consider all strangers to be on some level or another, an extension of a friend. Perhaps my downfall, I think this quality is worth the pain it will one day surely deliver. If trusting people too easily is a flaw, I am more than fine with being flawed.

I feel badly, but with each passing day I am loosing more and more faith in us. I have this friend who thoroughly believes that everybody, yes everybody, cheats. At one point in our lives or another we find ourselves in situations where we cheat on a significant other. She has a pretty good case. I may be slightly ashamed to say it, but I am one of the many who have proved her to be true and it seems to be getting harder and harder to find people who are able to disprove her. Night after night of working in a place where “happily married men” and “really good guys” end up being cheaters and scumbags after a few drinks, I hate to say it, but I am really losing belief in commitment.

One way or another, by the grace of those open enough not to have private profiles, I found myself on the Myspace page of a girl who recently was cheated on. She doesn’t know it, but one of my friends slept with her boyfriend in a drunken stupor. Pathetically, or not, I came to realize I was literally crying looking at the comments that her boyfriend, the infidel, was saying to her. A creepy lurker perhaps, I imagined myself in her place, under the assumption that he was true to her, that every word he said meant something real, and to do so simply broke my heart. I couldn’t quite tell if I was crying because I felt badly for the girl, or because I felt badly for every girl and every guy and every person who has ever been in a relationship that actually meant something.

I don’t mean to make it sound as if I am merely blaming men for all of the cheating that is going on here. After all, none of my girl friends can honestly say that they have never cheated. Perhaps they are not a representative sample, considering they are friends with me… but the point is it most certainly is not just men doing the cheating.

It seems to me that believably the most important of relationships we can have is indeed the relationship we have with ourselves. If you cannot stay committed to yourself, how can you ever expect to commit to anybody else? I think we are pushed into romantic relationships too quickly, without ever properly exploring the relationships that we have with ourselves, our peers, our elders. We need to learn to respect ourselves and the world around us before we can ever imagine properly respecting a significant other. Horribly, we do not have one tenth of the respect that we should have for ourselves and others, or in the very least, we do not show this respect.

The second most important of relationships we could have is that of our friends and synonymously (or at least it should be) our family. Often I find myself in a situation where I feel like I am being cheated on by my friends. We always ditch our friends to go out with a significant other. Hell, I’ve done it, I’ve had it done to me and I’m certain that I am not merely speaking in the past tense. Should fidelity apply to relationships that are only on the friendship level? Is it possible that we cheat on our friends with the person we are dating? We frequently take for granted the existence of our friends in abandoning them to spent time with “that special someone”. We know that they will be there when that “special someone” isn’t all that special anymore. We know this and we use this.

Why?

No answers, just questions and observations. Thanks.

I hate having secrets.

I feel as though secrets are dishonest, rude, as well as disrespectful. It is as if I don’t deem you important enough in my life to be honest with you and tell the truth. At the same time I hate making people unnecessarily uncomfortable, thus my rational for having certain secrets is the aversion I have to making other uncomfortable. This leaves me with a huge judgment call that I seem to be making more and more every day.

Additionally, I feel pretty self-centered when telling people my secrets if I am unsure of their reaction. It is as if I am saying the guilt I feel from being dishonest is more important than the discomfort you may feel from my exposure.

Basically my secret is I hate having secrets.

Get in where you fit in. That is the problem. It seems to me that I, quite frankly, don’t fit in anywhere around here. Too young to hang around those I’d wish to, yet too old to hang around those I’m supposed to. Those seem to be my only options these days and honestly neither of them really fit. I am a fine combination of a 60-year-old woman and a 13-year-old-boy. This unlikely blend of characteristics makes social interaction difficult at best. Strategy and a lightning quick plan subconsciously enter my brain upon meeting someone. Do I play the laid-back, intelligently witty, powerful yet quiet J9, or rather the giggly, sexually witty, naive yet surprisingly not Jeanine? The 60-year-old woman battles the 13-year-old boy within me, until, in true American Gladiators form, one pushes the other off a platform with a giant Q-tip. No matter the outcome, the victor is me and the other falls into oblivion.

Those who actually know something about me are aware that I truly am the mixture of the 60-year-old woman and the 13-year-old boy (which I suppose in this case is an androgynous 36-year-old perhaps explaining my various so-called “sick” sexual attractions(old men anybody?)). Upon changing someone from a stranger to an acquaintance, I merely downplay some of my characteristics and am more obvious about others. Never dishonest, just fluid. So where does this get me? Well, I suppose it gets me identified. Confused is how they will disparagingly call me, when in all actuality confused is one of the very few things I am not. I guess I am not so simple to define. I am the unnecessarily long answer to a question nobody was asking just to be polite.