For years I felt limited, unable to do all the things I wanted, unable to be the person I wanted to be. I don't know why I thought at the time that the relationship I was limited by offered more good stuff than bad, but at least I saw the light at some point.
Ever since I have fiercely been safeguarding my independence. It has become my most valued possession, not to be taken away by anyone. Relationships I have been in over the past fifteen months have allowed me a great degree of independence (while being monogomous, of course), and I would not have it any other way. The moment I feel unable to do the things I want to do, the things that make me happy, and which make me who I am, that's the end of it. Fortunately there are girls who understand this. As it stands, I am very happy in my current relationship, and I've got the best of both worlds: a great girlfriend (who also values her independence), and independence and freedom at the same time.
Even so, one part of being in a happy relationship scares me: the more you love someone, the more difficult it is for you if you lose that person. And being afraid of losing someone makes you vulnerable. Of course, when you're young there is a far greater chance of losing a girlfriend (or boyfriend) because she breaks up with you than losing her because she dies of disease or gets killed in an accident, but it is losing your partner, nonetheless, possibly a great shock.
Last year, my aunt died of cancer. She had been married to my uncle for decades and the man was devastated by her death. Losing her sort of meant his world ended, I guess. I don't know for sure because I haven't even spoken to him since then. However, I hear he spends a lot of time alone and hardly wants to see any people now, so I think it a safe bet that he is truly devastated by the loss. The idea that my life would be 'ruined' by losing one person makes me extremely anxious. It means I would be incredibly vulnerable, and I don't want to be dependent on anyone.
This got me thinking: will I ever settle down with a woman, buy a house together and have kids and all that, or will I be too scared of my resulting vulnerability and dependence? Suppose I had two children and a wife: I would then have tripled the chances of becoming an emotional wreck if some drunken asswipe killed one of them with his car. I am not one to be guided by fear, as that normally takes away a lot of fun from your life, but being dependant on (the well-being of) one person is something that does scare me.
It is like I need to know for myself that I could do without my chosen partner if I had to, for whatever reason, as a means of self-protection or something. Sure, I am able to be in a loving relationship, but it is like I am always prepared for it to end, so I will not be devastated by it if it suddenly does, like my uncle was.
In other words: investing too much in one person out of all the billions of people in this world seems like too great a risk. Just like investing all your money in the stock of only one company is: if that one company suddenly goes bankrupt, you are done for.
Am I seriously comparing women to stocks here? That is not the image I was aiming for ;) but being a careful investor seems to have common ground with being a careful lover, nevertheless. Not too romantic, indeed, but perhaps it is better to aim wide, instead of focusing on this narrow corridor with closed door upon closed door mocking your chosen route in life, even though you may be walking on red carpet for a while?
Friday 28 January 2011
Thursday 20 January 2011
Dying young
As I have mentioned several times before on this blog, my lifestyle has changed quite a bit since my relationship of almost seven years ended. More than a year has passed since then and in that time I have felt more and more that I have to follow my urges and do the things I crave, and not postpone them any longer than necessary (e.g. to save money, or to wait for good weather).
Most of the time I used to focus on what was best for the future, so I was usually thinking long term, not indulging as much as I would have liked. My ex constantly discouraged me of doing things that could have been risky. I think in part as a result of restraining myself and not undertaking the activities I would have liked to, I sometimes got depressed. In retrospect I am not very amazed by this, as not indulging yourself every once in a while will make your life as stale as a forgotten glass of coke.
So this summer I am going parachuting and sometime this week I am going to eat a monster load of eggs, just because I want to. Obviously, the latter isn't all that exciting or dangerous, whereas the former is a huge thrill and something that could kill me if something went terribly wrong. However, immediately after announcing to someone I was going to boil and eat lots of eggs I was warned that my gall bladder would not like that. And when telling someone I was going parachuting, I was told of something that was in the news about a parachute being sabotaged and a girl dying. Warnings, and more warnings. Much more rarely do people say "Oh cool, enjoy!" or "Wow, can I join you?"
This tells me that people have a tendency to think long term and not take too many risks or do things that could have adverse consequences in the short term. Sure, overindulging, like eating at McDonalds five days a week just because you like it so much, is not good for you. And taking immense risks like some thrill-seekers do, striving to climb the highest peaks and bungee jumping off towers, is extreme and is almost completely focused on the short term, as it provides a huge thrill but is dangerous and in some cases even illegal. But occasonally giving in to your cravings, be it risky or bad for your health, will make you feel alive.
Undertaking more risky activities got me thinking about death. In another blog I mentioned that I didn't want to die in bed, as coughing my emaciated, frail form to death and being pathetic doesn't appeal to me at all. Instead, I would want to die parachuting, "forgetting" to open my chute. But in this scenario I am old. What if I get cancer or something in a few years? Suppose doctors tell me I have only three months to live and I will perhaps even be too weak during those three months to do many exciting things in that time? In that case I want to be able to say to myself that I have done everything in my power to have lived my life to the full, even if it ends prematurely.
Therefore I am now living every year of my life as if it is my last. The summers especially will be as full of cool activities as possible, taking into account monetary restrictions and people's desire to come with me. In the relatively boring winters I will save up as much money as possible to get the excitement going in summers.
This lifestyle acts a comfort to me as well. I have never been particularly afraid to die, but I do realise that even if I grow to be eighty years old, I will not have done everything I would have liked in life, as I have too many interests, wishes and dreams. As such, dying young should be terrible, inevitably missing out on a lot of cool things. The thought of dying before I can write a masterpiece book, for instance, is not a pleasant one. But doing everything I can to live my life to the full, year in, year out, makes me unafraid to die. If my parachute doesn't open this summer... so be it.
Most of the time I used to focus on what was best for the future, so I was usually thinking long term, not indulging as much as I would have liked. My ex constantly discouraged me of doing things that could have been risky. I think in part as a result of restraining myself and not undertaking the activities I would have liked to, I sometimes got depressed. In retrospect I am not very amazed by this, as not indulging yourself every once in a while will make your life as stale as a forgotten glass of coke.
So this summer I am going parachuting and sometime this week I am going to eat a monster load of eggs, just because I want to. Obviously, the latter isn't all that exciting or dangerous, whereas the former is a huge thrill and something that could kill me if something went terribly wrong. However, immediately after announcing to someone I was going to boil and eat lots of eggs I was warned that my gall bladder would not like that. And when telling someone I was going parachuting, I was told of something that was in the news about a parachute being sabotaged and a girl dying. Warnings, and more warnings. Much more rarely do people say "Oh cool, enjoy!" or "Wow, can I join you?"
This tells me that people have a tendency to think long term and not take too many risks or do things that could have adverse consequences in the short term. Sure, overindulging, like eating at McDonalds five days a week just because you like it so much, is not good for you. And taking immense risks like some thrill-seekers do, striving to climb the highest peaks and bungee jumping off towers, is extreme and is almost completely focused on the short term, as it provides a huge thrill but is dangerous and in some cases even illegal. But occasonally giving in to your cravings, be it risky or bad for your health, will make you feel alive.
Undertaking more risky activities got me thinking about death. In another blog I mentioned that I didn't want to die in bed, as coughing my emaciated, frail form to death and being pathetic doesn't appeal to me at all. Instead, I would want to die parachuting, "forgetting" to open my chute. But in this scenario I am old. What if I get cancer or something in a few years? Suppose doctors tell me I have only three months to live and I will perhaps even be too weak during those three months to do many exciting things in that time? In that case I want to be able to say to myself that I have done everything in my power to have lived my life to the full, even if it ends prematurely.
Therefore I am now living every year of my life as if it is my last. The summers especially will be as full of cool activities as possible, taking into account monetary restrictions and people's desire to come with me. In the relatively boring winters I will save up as much money as possible to get the excitement going in summers.
This lifestyle acts a comfort to me as well. I have never been particularly afraid to die, but I do realise that even if I grow to be eighty years old, I will not have done everything I would have liked in life, as I have too many interests, wishes and dreams. As such, dying young should be terrible, inevitably missing out on a lot of cool things. The thought of dying before I can write a masterpiece book, for instance, is not a pleasant one. But doing everything I can to live my life to the full, year in, year out, makes me unafraid to die. If my parachute doesn't open this summer... so be it.
Saturday 8 January 2011
Not trusting your own body
I'm not the greatest fan of my own body. For about a decade now, my back has been giving me (a lot of) problems, some days more than others. A few years ago, when the pain got so severe I could hardly function properly (not being able to sit or concentrate), I went to see a number of doctors, but their 'guesswork treatment' (as the causes for back pain are often very difficult to determine) only made things worse. And I mean this literally: some electric shock machine gave me a 'permanent electric twitch' (for lack of a better description) by my left shoulder blade, which comes and goes, but which has been there for over 2 years now; and some treatment which passed radio waves through my back muscles made the pain a lot worse. (And when I told the doctors they dismissed this and even refused to see me about it, so I switched hospitals.) The other attempted treatments 'just' failed, at least not providing side effects.
Finally I just gave up (after the electric shock thing failed) and set my mind to accepting my back pains as an inevitable and uncurable part of my life. At the time I had already been doing exercises to strengthen my back and make/keep it flexible - the only thing that has helped me get through the day, since painkillers don't work at all - so I just started each day by doing these exercises for half an hour and tried to accept my predicament. After a while I managed to accept this, and it didn't limit me that much, as I could still do almost anything, physically, including all kinds of sports, so it could have been worse.
However, a few months ago I incurred a severe knee injury playing football, and I needed an operation to even be able to stretch my leg. After that was done, I started rebuilding my leg muscles and all that, but now, two and a half months later, my knee is still giving me problems. It is supporting my weight again, and I can even run once more, which feels great after being as good as immobile for two months. However, turning (quickly) often sends a shooting pain up my leg, and I cannot trust it to support me when jumping off a ledge or something, or making any 'uncommon' movements for that matter. This makes me feel like a grandpa who has to be careful doing all kinds of stuff in order not to hurt himself, instead of like a 25-year-old guy in his prime.
I love action: I delight in running and climbing onto and jumping off of things, and I'm going to go parachuting this summer, regardless of my knee. Therefore not being as mobile or flexible as I used to be is a nightmare for me. I think that if my knee doesn't get a lot stronger in the coming months, I will even call this injury the worst thing that ever happened to me, as becoming 'crippled' or physically limited is truly my nightmare.
In addition to my back and knee problems, there are some other physical unpleasantries, most likely related to my back problems. In short, however undiagnosed, it is probably a mild form of hypermobility syndrome, allowing joints to stretch farther than normal and such. Example: when doing archery, when I pull back the string to its full extent, my shoulder gives me some problems, like it is almost unable to handle the pressure on it. Things like that. A current concern is my neck, which seems to crack more severely by the day (and when I twist it, it sounds like there is sand in it). I wonder if I should stop headbanging at concerts. I thought about seeing a doctor about it, but as he will not understand why headbanging is so awesome, and dear to me, he will undoubtedly advise against continuing to do so, 'just to be safe', so why even bother going? (Safety isn't everything, as it makes your life dull and stagnant as shit.) Anyway, most likely my physical problems will get (much?) worse as I grow older. Which sucks.
So, you will understand I am definitely not the greatest fan of my body. I feel like I cannot trust it, that it will fail me; I feel it is getting worse in various places, like my neck, at the moment; I feel I need to do cool, active things right now instead of postponing them for various reasons, before my body fails me and I cannot undertake such things anymore. It makes me live in the now all the more, without as much regard for the future as I used to. So if I take risks now, resulting in fun or even incredible experiences, but running the risk or hurting myself (even more), I consider this worth it. If I played the part of the wounded animal just waiting for things to get better, not taking any chances, and thus not further damaging my body, but not going through wonderful experiences either, I may get to lead a 'normal' life longer, but I would feel like a scared little girl, living in fear. I would rather feel alive for a relatively short time than like a zombie not going out and doing cool things but staying at home and watching TV or something. (I would watch Night of the Living Dead.)
What I will do is train my injured leg and hope for the best, but I will not cower from potential harm to come to me. Perhaps playing football will be out of the question for the rest of my life, I don't know, but I will be damned if I just throw in the towel. So I will go parachuting, and do tons of other cool stuff in the coming years, before my rotten body decides it will disallow me to continue doing what I love. After that, if my body indeed fails me, I guess I will have plenty of time for the other things I have always wanted to do but never have time for, like writing a book or something. But I suppose that will have to wait as long as my body will still work with me.
And when I am old and I can't do active stuff worth shit, I will go parachuting again, but just fail to open the damn thing. Go out with a bang instead of coughing my sick ass to death in a bed with grieving family and friends next to me. No, I will not be pathetic and let my body rule over me. Life should be fun, and if it is no longer, with no hope of recovery any time soon, it should be terminated in the coolest way possible. At least then I will show my body it will never take my balls!
Finally I just gave up (after the electric shock thing failed) and set my mind to accepting my back pains as an inevitable and uncurable part of my life. At the time I had already been doing exercises to strengthen my back and make/keep it flexible - the only thing that has helped me get through the day, since painkillers don't work at all - so I just started each day by doing these exercises for half an hour and tried to accept my predicament. After a while I managed to accept this, and it didn't limit me that much, as I could still do almost anything, physically, including all kinds of sports, so it could have been worse.
However, a few months ago I incurred a severe knee injury playing football, and I needed an operation to even be able to stretch my leg. After that was done, I started rebuilding my leg muscles and all that, but now, two and a half months later, my knee is still giving me problems. It is supporting my weight again, and I can even run once more, which feels great after being as good as immobile for two months. However, turning (quickly) often sends a shooting pain up my leg, and I cannot trust it to support me when jumping off a ledge or something, or making any 'uncommon' movements for that matter. This makes me feel like a grandpa who has to be careful doing all kinds of stuff in order not to hurt himself, instead of like a 25-year-old guy in his prime.
I love action: I delight in running and climbing onto and jumping off of things, and I'm going to go parachuting this summer, regardless of my knee. Therefore not being as mobile or flexible as I used to be is a nightmare for me. I think that if my knee doesn't get a lot stronger in the coming months, I will even call this injury the worst thing that ever happened to me, as becoming 'crippled' or physically limited is truly my nightmare.
In addition to my back and knee problems, there are some other physical unpleasantries, most likely related to my back problems. In short, however undiagnosed, it is probably a mild form of hypermobility syndrome, allowing joints to stretch farther than normal and such. Example: when doing archery, when I pull back the string to its full extent, my shoulder gives me some problems, like it is almost unable to handle the pressure on it. Things like that. A current concern is my neck, which seems to crack more severely by the day (and when I twist it, it sounds like there is sand in it). I wonder if I should stop headbanging at concerts. I thought about seeing a doctor about it, but as he will not understand why headbanging is so awesome, and dear to me, he will undoubtedly advise against continuing to do so, 'just to be safe', so why even bother going? (Safety isn't everything, as it makes your life dull and stagnant as shit.) Anyway, most likely my physical problems will get (much?) worse as I grow older. Which sucks.
So, you will understand I am definitely not the greatest fan of my body. I feel like I cannot trust it, that it will fail me; I feel it is getting worse in various places, like my neck, at the moment; I feel I need to do cool, active things right now instead of postponing them for various reasons, before my body fails me and I cannot undertake such things anymore. It makes me live in the now all the more, without as much regard for the future as I used to. So if I take risks now, resulting in fun or even incredible experiences, but running the risk or hurting myself (even more), I consider this worth it. If I played the part of the wounded animal just waiting for things to get better, not taking any chances, and thus not further damaging my body, but not going through wonderful experiences either, I may get to lead a 'normal' life longer, but I would feel like a scared little girl, living in fear. I would rather feel alive for a relatively short time than like a zombie not going out and doing cool things but staying at home and watching TV or something. (I would watch Night of the Living Dead.)
What I will do is train my injured leg and hope for the best, but I will not cower from potential harm to come to me. Perhaps playing football will be out of the question for the rest of my life, I don't know, but I will be damned if I just throw in the towel. So I will go parachuting, and do tons of other cool stuff in the coming years, before my rotten body decides it will disallow me to continue doing what I love. After that, if my body indeed fails me, I guess I will have plenty of time for the other things I have always wanted to do but never have time for, like writing a book or something. But I suppose that will have to wait as long as my body will still work with me.
And when I am old and I can't do active stuff worth shit, I will go parachuting again, but just fail to open the damn thing. Go out with a bang instead of coughing my sick ass to death in a bed with grieving family and friends next to me. No, I will not be pathetic and let my body rule over me. Life should be fun, and if it is no longer, with no hope of recovery any time soon, it should be terminated in the coolest way possible. At least then I will show my body it will never take my balls!
Monday 3 January 2011
Staying put
There are a lot of people who seem to be content just staying in one place their entire life. I see it happening all around me, and if so many people seem to find this pleasant, it must be 'normal'. I am interested to know the reasons behind this desire, because personally I don't feel a close bond with my home town at all, and frankly the thought of living there my entire life repulses me, assaults my sensibilities as wrong, even. The world is so incredibly big, and these days it is so easy to go practically anywhere you want, that it seems ridiculous to stay in one place with so much to see and so many different places to experience. I understand moving to a different country - even for a few years - would be a bridge too far for most people, and I'm not sure I would want that myself (though I like to keep my options open), but moving to a different town in your home country, at least, should not pose too much of a barrier, I think. In a different country you would (in most cases) have to speak a different language (which may unable you to do your work properly, for instance) and your friends and family would not be there, except if you took your wife or something. These obstacles do not exist (or only to a far lesser degree) if you don't move too far away from your home town. But still most people stay put, and seem to like, or even revel in, their staying in one place. Is it because they feel comforted by the familiarity of their environment? Would a new environment (even if it is just 70 km away, which is 'far' by Dutch standards) be scary somehow? Or is it that it is mainly a matter of convenience: having your work place, tennis club, library, optician, etc. near you, as well as (probably) most of your friends and family?
But I think that even though this is convenient, it is boring. And boredom has become one of my greatest enemies. That is why living in the area I was born repulses me so; it is more of the same, and even more of the same. There are hardly any alleys in my home town I don't yet know, and the salespeople in the shops there all have faces familiar to me. I recognise people in the streets and some recognise me. But I don't want to be recognised and perhaps forced into mundane conversation ("How are you? Good. You? I'm good too. How is work? Fine, been busy, you? Yeah me too. You know, same old..." AAAARGH!!). I like it better when no one I see in the streets knows me, and I can just go about my way without having to pay attention to other people (because if you know one but don't say hi because you didn't notice them, they will resent it) or running into people I knew when I was a kid, stirring up memories from what feels like 8 lifetimes ago.
One of the reasons my ex and I split up was that I went crazy seeing the very same environment each day while she felt comforted by its familiary. More than a year later, she is now looking to buy a house in the neighbourhood she grew up in. She is even looking at houses a few streets removed from her parents' house. Because that is convenient when you have babies and you can drop them off with grandma in a flash. But doesn't this convenience have the down side of being boring as hell?
When I moved away from my home town, I enjoyed finding out where the post office and supermarket were, among other things. Finally there were things I didn't know, and it wasn't all predictable and boring! That was quite a relief. I can't explain how good it felt to do something as simple as asking 'the locals' where the town hall was, since before, in my home town, it was practically inconceivable to not know where something was. But discovering new things only takes so long, of course, as after a while I knew where to find most places, and if I had lived there for years and years, the same problem as before would have arisen: everything would be familiar and dull. So, as long as I feel this way, I will continue to move around and discover new places, fleeing boredom, I guess. Which brings me back to my initial question: why are people content just staying in one place all their lives? Don't they find that boring? Don't they have a sense of adventure, of discovering new things and new places?
Well, I can't figure it out. My guess it they value convenience more than adventure, and somehow don't feel the boredom I do (or not as much). But if so many people prefer to live this way, apparently it is me who is 'strange'. Otherwise the majority of people would be moving around all the time, instead of choosing one place and improving it bit by bit until they have the 'perfect' garden and the 'perfect' .....ah, who am I fooling... they are never satisfied with the material things they accumulate. Just as it seems I will never be satisfied with the place I live. But fortunately, life will always hold surprises. If I knew the future as well as I do my home town, the world would be so boring that life would be futile. So I say: let fate hit me with a few surprises to keep life interesting!
It didn't necessarily have to be a busted knee though ;).
"Is convenience loved more than boredom is hated?"
But I think that even though this is convenient, it is boring. And boredom has become one of my greatest enemies. That is why living in the area I was born repulses me so; it is more of the same, and even more of the same. There are hardly any alleys in my home town I don't yet know, and the salespeople in the shops there all have faces familiar to me. I recognise people in the streets and some recognise me. But I don't want to be recognised and perhaps forced into mundane conversation ("How are you? Good. You? I'm good too. How is work? Fine, been busy, you? Yeah me too. You know, same old..." AAAARGH!!). I like it better when no one I see in the streets knows me, and I can just go about my way without having to pay attention to other people (because if you know one but don't say hi because you didn't notice them, they will resent it) or running into people I knew when I was a kid, stirring up memories from what feels like 8 lifetimes ago.
One of the reasons my ex and I split up was that I went crazy seeing the very same environment each day while she felt comforted by its familiary. More than a year later, she is now looking to buy a house in the neighbourhood she grew up in. She is even looking at houses a few streets removed from her parents' house. Because that is convenient when you have babies and you can drop them off with grandma in a flash. But doesn't this convenience have the down side of being boring as hell?
When I moved away from my home town, I enjoyed finding out where the post office and supermarket were, among other things. Finally there were things I didn't know, and it wasn't all predictable and boring! That was quite a relief. I can't explain how good it felt to do something as simple as asking 'the locals' where the town hall was, since before, in my home town, it was practically inconceivable to not know where something was. But discovering new things only takes so long, of course, as after a while I knew where to find most places, and if I had lived there for years and years, the same problem as before would have arisen: everything would be familiar and dull. So, as long as I feel this way, I will continue to move around and discover new places, fleeing boredom, I guess. Which brings me back to my initial question: why are people content just staying in one place all their lives? Don't they find that boring? Don't they have a sense of adventure, of discovering new things and new places?
Well, I can't figure it out. My guess it they value convenience more than adventure, and somehow don't feel the boredom I do (or not as much). But if so many people prefer to live this way, apparently it is me who is 'strange'. Otherwise the majority of people would be moving around all the time, instead of choosing one place and improving it bit by bit until they have the 'perfect' garden and the 'perfect' .....ah, who am I fooling... they are never satisfied with the material things they accumulate. Just as it seems I will never be satisfied with the place I live. But fortunately, life will always hold surprises. If I knew the future as well as I do my home town, the world would be so boring that life would be futile. So I say: let fate hit me with a few surprises to keep life interesting!
It didn't necessarily have to be a busted knee though ;).
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