When it rains …

(I wrote this entry yesterday – and to confuse things more, it will appear under the right date too – but couldn’t post it due to problems with BlogMan testing)
Jen’s having a real tough time at the moment, first she and Hunter were sick, then her tire had to be replaced, then Hunter got the croup and now her car has been vandalized and her CD player stolen. You sometimes begin to wonder why so many bad things should happen to the same person. It would make sense if it was a bad person but when it happens to somebody who believes in helping others and goes out of their way to do so, you really begin to wonder whether there is any justice in the world.

I will not even get into the whole justice thing because that’s another rant altogether :p But what do you do when you somebody you love for and care for has problems and you are too far away to do anything except pray for them and hope that things turn out right? I am the kind of person who wants to be on hand to help when somebody has problems – especially someone I love – and I feel so helpless when I can’t do anything at all! This is one of the reasons I returned to Sri Lanka – because my parents were over here and I knew I could never be on hand to help them or support them if they had a problem. (Of course, I feel completely useless now that I am here but that’s a different story :p) And now, I feel the same way as regards Jen – I want to be there at least to hug her and to tell her that it’ll be OK but I can’t because I am here. It’s frustrating … Of course, in the meantime, none of this is going to help Jen any …

What is love part deux :p

Hmm … looks as if the timing of yesterday’s post was kind of unfortunate – though I had planned to write that since the day before and it was basically meant to be about what *I* thought about love and what *I* thought it had to be. There are no rules of conduct in this world – each one of us does as our conscience (or whimsy) dictates. As somebody pointed out to me in the GrooupHug mailing list when I said something to the effect "that I always have tried to do what I thought was right", that I would do what *I* think is *right*. Of course, that is basically what I said but I think the other person meant that what I think is right might not be thought of as right by others. I see his point in certain instances but I also know that there are specific things which are thought to be right by everybody in general. Anyway, I digress – as usual :p
Something I had had in mind to mention when I started the whole "What is love" entry was Haddaway and the significance/memories that the song has for me.

Unfortunately, I got caught up in the entry itself and it got a bit emotional for me to actually think about the lighter side of the entry : So here goes the rest of it today … I know that it wasn’t that memorable a movie and that some people said at the time it was released that it should have remained an SNL skit and never made into a movie at all but I still remember that particular scene and the song though I don’t remember much else about the movie at all :p Of course, there are other songs like that that I associate with a movies – for instance there is Gloria Gaynor’s "I will survive" which will always remind me of Keanu and his team of "scabs" mincing around on the football field :p There are other songs like that that I associate with either a movie or a certain situation or moment in my life but I can’t recall all of them or write about all of them here – I’m too busy listening to "What is love?" :p

To me Haddaway’s song will always bring up visions of Will Ferrell and Chris Katan doing there manic dance in front of the bar in "Night at the Roxbury" :p

What is love?

Haddaway seems kinda appropriate at the moment … Ah well … I am being sad, dejected, introspective again – it’s all in those cycles I talk about. I often wonder what the word love means to people because it doesn’t seem to mean the same to everybody. When I say love, I mean an emotion which is wonderful and glorious, sometimes warm, sometimes exciting, sometimes tender. When I feel love for somebody, I want to do everything in my power to see them happy, to do whatever I can to make their life easier, to be there to offer a helping hand, to share their joys but also their sorrows. To me love is unselfish – putting your loved ones before yourself sometimes even at some personal inconvenience to yourself – just because you love them.

But I get the feeling that at lest to a part of the world, love seems to be just an excuse to have sex or to get to know somebody and to be with them and get them to do whatever you want them to do. It seems to be just take, take and take, no give. There is no concern for the other person, no eagerness to see them to, to talk to them or to just get a glimpse of them because your heart longs for the one you love. It seems to be all about what can they do for me rather than how can I make them happy or at the least, how can we be happy together? Why is it always me, me, me? Or am I just expecting too much in this day and age? Isn’t romantic love – the pure kind of love which just wants the best for your love there anymore? That can’t be the case since I know of people who do share that kind of love but maybe it’s not as prevalent as we are led to believe … Who knows indeed since I am just one person and you can never know how it looks from the other side …

What dreams may come …

I dreamt again today and I think I have started dreaming again … OK, that’s not accurate – I have again become aware of the fact that I dream. I think we always (or almost always) dream when we sleep but don’t always remember that we had dreamt. I have always been fascinated by my dreams – in fact, that was one of the reasons that I wrote "The Mind of Morpheus Mentor" – which of course is still unfinished :p That started originally as a different story, a story which tried to describe how I saw dreams, or rather, a story that described what I thought dreams were – another life that we lived when we slept.

It might sound crazy but I used to wonder if we really rested when we slept or if we just lived another life. Maybe it’s like that old Chinese paradox which goes "I slept and dreamt I was a butterfly and then I woke up and wasn’t sure whether I was a man who’d dreamt he was a butterfly or a butterfly who was dreaming that he was a man" :p Actually no, I didn’t think that my waking life was a dream – I just thought that both my waking life and my dream life were both separate lives. I would wake up after a full night’s sleep and feel not a bit rested, feel so very tired and lethargic and I’d have had all these dreams of strenuous action. So I used to think that maybe I did do all those things while I slept …

Of course, dream life being usually much more interesting than real life, it is probably just a dream to wish that dreams were real :p

Money, money, money …

I guess money *does* rule the world and makes it go round and not love. I sometimes feel that I am very naive about the world and my expectations about people because I expect everybody to think the way I do and think that people, their feelings and especially those you love, are important. But I constantly find myself rudely shocked to find that everybody does not think this way. (Yes, I know, another one of my cryptic statements/comments :p) Oh well, I guess I can’t change the people around me and I certainly will not change the way I think either just because everybody else is cynical.

But it does bring up the interesting question as to what I should put first when another person who seems to think money is more important is involved. Do I still deal with them with my principles intact or do I deal with them on their terms? I’m beginning to think maybe I should simply deal with them as they would deal with me – probably pragmatically from their point of view but coldly from my POV. Interesting … Oh well, I just started on the first step to be a coldly cynical person I guess. Heck, we all have to grow up sometime – or that’s what I’m told by others who think I am totally out of touch with reality and the world.

Movies about children …

I watched "Legend of the Red Dragon" with Jet Li in it. Lots of martial arts action, cute kids playing at Shaolin fighting and some pretty funny moments thrown in for good measure. One thing that sticks in my mind is the mother of the female protagonist (Jet Li’s character’s love interest) saying "If you’re going to court my daughter, you need to have money!" and Jet Li says "I respect her, isn’t that enough?" and she responds "Not in this day and age!" :p I might be being very cynical but while that was supposed to be ancient China, I don’t think that has really changed at all at any time or in any place in the world – not really. A lot of people seem to put money before love and happiness. Maybe they are realists and I’m just an idealist but I can’t but feel that love and happiness should come first. Oh well …
All the movies today seem to be about kids :p I also watched a Tamil movie about a guy who adopts a child after he loses his own wife and child and about their relationship. The child’s father comes in to the picture later on and wants the child back but the child considers the guy to be his father and doesn’t want to go to his real father. While it was drenched in emotion, I still loved the movie and the fact that a person can love somebody else’s child as their own. Some people seem to think this is impossible but I don’t – I think you should love any child irregardless of whether they are your own or not. Children are perhaps the best part of humanity and it’s sad that children are not treated that way instead of being subjected to the whims and fancies of adults – who really aren’t adult at all in some cases.