There's no time like right now...

I like to think everything happens for a reason.
It's not always the reason we want it to be, but it's always the reason it's supposed to be.

I met a guy a few months ago. I knew we had a connection. I just didn't know what that connection meant. Plus, I was at a weird place in my singleness. I like to call it the "So bored with life even rejection is more entertaining" phase. In any case, I knew that this "boy meets girl" story was destined to be short-lived.

A couple of weeks into it, a good friend of mine suggested that I tell this guy exactly what I wanted from him. I told her that I didn't know what I wanted from him. And that was the truth. I knew more or less what I wanted out of a relationship. But I honestly was not looking for a relationship, especially not from him. But that can't be right, can it? I mean, what else could possibly result from the boy meets girl story?

Boy + Girl = Relationship. Duh! It's elementary, my dear Watson!

We live in a "means to an end" society that depends on equations like this to keep the system in place. It's so embedded in our minds that even I was starting to think I wanted a relationship out of it. When I didn't even want a relationship PERIOD.

I think that sometimes we're so busy trying to make things happen in our lives that we miss out on the things already happening.

The truth is, this guy and I have a lot in common. We have the potential to help each other grow as friends, as fellow human beings trying to figure out this life. To place him in the role of boy and me in the role of girl without consideration of who we are, where we are in our lives, etc. would be to completely impersonalize our experience. This is of course advantageous to the system we live in. As it depends on us to fill the equation, get married, buy a home, get a mortgage out, have children, focus on paving the way for them to live the American Dream, get stuck in the struggles of capitalism and do our part in keeping the game going.

Think about all of the things, people, experiences we miss out on because they don't fit the equations, because they are not the means to the end we think we want or need. Wants and needs that probably aren't ours to begin with. Wants and needs imposed by society to keep the game going.

Separate situation, yet somewhat related...

I was sitting in the car with my brother. He was criticizing me for only working part-time, as if working full-time and being miserable is the only thing that gives my life value. He kept saying that he just doesn't want me to lose sight of the future and get stuck in complacency or go insane with so much time on my hands (interestingly enough, this is a serious concern of many of my loved ones; i'll have to address it in another blog). This is how our conversation went after that:

"Omar, I feel like I've spent my entire life dwelling over the past or fantasizing about the future that I've never lived in the here and now." I said.

"That's because right now doesn't matter." He said.

"Right now is the only time that matters. It is the only time that exists." I said.

The present is the only time that exists. The past is simply the way our brain chronicles present moments that have already passed. The future is simply present moments we have yet to process and experience. So when someone says, "Now is the time to do something." Now is literally the only time we can do anything. That's not to say that it is not important to remember and learn from the past or to plan for the future, but only as it relates to the right now. How does what I'm doing right now relate to what I've done or learned from in the past? How does what I'm doing now relate to getting me where I want to be in the future?

I like to think about that every time I tell myself something doesn't matter because it does not play into the future I have mentally created for myself or because it doesn't fit the equations society has drilled into my unconscious. ...

You're not alone; I'm alone, too...

I am single which means more often than not, I am alone.

I am alone, but I don't feel lonely. And there is a big difference. You can be alone and not feel lonely, and you can feel lonely and not be alone.

I think a lot of people are afraid to be alone because they are afraid of being lonely. But I can be in a room with a thousand other people and still feel lonely. Being alone is something I am, not something I feel. And loneliness is something I feel, not something I am.

Truth be told I don't have that much experience being alone. I wasn't even born alone. I was born with a twin sister. And I've filled my life with boyfriends and substitute boyfriends when she wasn't around. It's only the past few months that I've experienced what it's like to truly be alone. I'm struck by the little things that change when a duo goes solo.

Eating can be painful. I love to eat, but sometimes the act of consuming food by myself makes me feel like an animal at feeding time.

It's a lot quieter being alone. Sometimes the silence makes me feel like walking into oncoming traffic. So I turn on the television. I don't watch it. I mute it. Something about the low buzz of the television makes me feel less alone.

I read a lot more. I'm even reading novels. Something I was vehemently opposed to before.

I listen to much more music. My music and I have a very strong bond. I remember I used to meet guys, and one of the first things they wanted to share with me was their music. I used to think it was some kind of test to see if we like the same music, but now I realize they were introducing me to a part of them, a part of their identity, and in a strange way, one of their closest friends.

There's always the treacherous and oh so misleading computer that I am currently using to type this blog. Sure it's a lone (wo)man's companion. But it is a deceiving device, as are the virtual social networks I am ashamed to claim membership (namely Facebook and Myspace). It allows us to feel less alone. But alone is a state of being not feeling. Me hanging out with a computer cannot change the fact that I am not in the company of other human life forms. It may assuage a feeling of loneliness, but it is only temporary if that feeling is derived from my state of being alone.

And I talk to myself. Not out loud. Well, sometimes out loud, but not often.

So what is it about being alone that would send me into oncoming traffic before I listen to the silence. What am I afraid I will hear in the silence? What thoughts long to be heard that I'd rather lolly-gag on Facebook and Myspace than listen to them. What am I trying to tell myself that I don't want to hear?

I feel sick...

Am I the only one that felt sick after watching Michael Moore's Sicko? For those of you who have not seen it yet, it is a documentary that exploits the privatized health care system in the United States by exploring universal health care systems in Canada, England, France and Cuba. The atrocities that running health care like a business have allowed evokes the question, "How and why did we get to this point?'

Michael Moore answers that question by playing recorded conversations between President Nixon and Henry Kaiser. Nixon basically says he's not too keen on medical programs and Kaiser says there is a way to privatize insurance so that less people are treated and more profit is made. The idea that profit is more important to this country than human lives is so fucked up and backwards it makes me wonder whether I am living in the right country. ...

It's like the U.S. is so far in shit that we don't even know what it looks like, smells like or how we got in it to begin with. We have a history yet most of us don't know it. We're like a country run by children, fascinated by toys and games; we want all our wants and needs to be satiated here and now with complete disregard for consequences. We don't think. We don't even know how to think and therefore can't possibly think to think.

Thinking in this country is only used as a means to an end. But with thinking there is no end. So we create ends, false ends, wrong ends, regrettable ends.

So who is the big culprit? Capitalism. As Americans we live in one big Monopoly game. We are a country run by children, raising more children to stay children so that we can all keep playing this little game. But the game runs us in circles, and confines our lives and minds only to the game board. EVERYTHING is a means to an end in the game or it has no value. EVERYTHING must be a means to keep the game going. The winners need the game to keep going or everything they have loses value. The pastel colored currency means nothing. And the losers, well they need the game to keep going because according to the rules of the game their lives have no value without the pastel colored currency. So they cling onto the hope of one day becoming one of the winners. And they keep rolling the dice. And they keep waiting their turn.

But it's all just an elaborate game. A game for children. Children who will stay children their entire lives as long as they keep playing. It's like Never Never Land. Once you're in, you stay young forever.

So a part of me wants to leave and move to another country. A country of adults. A country of my peers. After all, neither of my parents are even from America. It was simply their hedonism that brought them here. And their hedonism that has prevented them from growing up. Deep down inside my mother is still the 14 year old girl who left Mexico for the "freedom" to do as she pleased. And my father is still the egotistical, power-hungry 17 year old he was when he left Pakistan.

But then I think maybe I'm here for a reason. If everyone like me left America then I am quite certain the children would start playing with explosives again and kill us all.

Choices, choices, choices.

We can play the game, win it and bask in our pastel-colored prizes.

We can play it, lose it and contribute to the miserable masses.

We can overturn it, start a revolution and create international chaos.

Or we can play it, transform it and make it a game for adults.

What to do, what to do...

So I was thinking...

I think a lot. Some would say too much. But to say too much is to imply there is a set amount of thinking one should do, and to surpass it is excessive. Both of which I take offense to. Thinking is not something one should put a cap on or limit. Nor should one be criticized for indulging in it. Any democratic society that encourages this sort of limitation is not democratic at all.

I like to think that all this thinking is just my brain making up for the six years in which all my cognitive processes ceased--the six years I spent in a mind-numbing, life-sucking relationship. Whether I embarked on the relationship to keep from thinking or the cessation of my thoughts was a result of the relationship is something I'd have to think about. ...

But now that I'm thinking again, I'd like to share some of my thoughts with you. They will be random. They will be thought out beyond necessity and perhaps beyond practicality. And I can almost guarantee that I will just end up with more to think about. ...

Most recent, random thought. I have a friend. I don't want to mention any names, but let's just say his name is Naive, minus the "i", spelled backwards. This friend may possibly be the worst speller I've ever called a friend. He spells hilarious, hallarious. He spells steel, steal. Brawn, braun. Righteous, richeous. Every time! Those aren't just typos people! And the worst part is he prides himself on being smarter than most people. So you're probably thinking, "Wow, spelling? Really Jasmine?" And I would say: Yes! Really!

Let's think about this for a second...

He is misspelling words.

What are words? Words are symbols of meaning.

You change the symbol, you change the meaning.

Let's say I am writing an email to my father and I write:
It's not that I don't want you to be happy. I wish you were dead.

But what I mean to say is:
It's not that I don't want you to be happy. I wish you were dad.

Totally different meaning, right? One wishes death upon my father, the other happiness. To have such blatant disregard for the English language is not only reckless (and unattractive) it's irresponsible, because it shows a lack of desire to communicate clearly. And with communication becoming increasingly impersonal with email and text messaging, it's even more essential that we communicate clearly.

Our ability to communicate things is what makes our species as advanced as it is. Thanks to language we can communicate our histories, our lives, our successes and our mistakes from generation to generation. And our technological advances would not be where they are today without our ability to communicate with mathematical and scientific symbols.

The ability to communicate can be the difference between being imprisoned in a cage and being freed from it.

So if I sound condescending for criticizing someone's inability to spell, it's only because I understand the value of our ability to communicate.