Prevaricating

As time goes by, I find it pointless to deny certain truths about myself. I am what I am, and although sometimes I forget about it a little bit, I find that revealing some things are just ... well... a huge relief. Sometimes, the truths are there but it takes someone else, someone new to force you to realize them.

So there, I am what I am: a dark chocolate eater, a non-smoker (here that Heliodore? my high is natural!), a non-fighter, an Aikido student, a movie watcher, a pastry-maker, a lover, a cat fiend, an avid reader, a game enthusiast, a friend, a pragmatist, an eternal learner, a devil worshipper (just kidding... making sure you were still reading :)), but also an existentialist... I am a person who wants to just be, enjoys the occasional twix (thanks! You know who you are), loves pasta, relishes a pointless debate about anything, a seeker of truth, and did I say I loved chocolate?

Anyways... The point is: know thyself.

And for those lazy asses who are just going to wonder why prevaricating is without looking it up:
From Merriam-Webster: Etymology: Latin praevaricatus, past participle of praevaricari to act in collusion, literally, to straddle, from prae- + varicare to straddle, from varus bowlegged: to deviate from the truth : EQUIVOCATE, synonym see LIE

Fight or flight

It's interesting how we all behave differently. Some of us will take a stand, while others will just go away and avoid some situations. Some will stand ground, and some will leave the dust behind them. I've not written in the past couple of weeks because there's nothing particularly exciting going on...

However! Last saturday, I witnessed for the first time in my life a proper fight. Fists and all. Kicks and all. Bites too. I admit that I was totally in chock. I shan't go into the details of what happened, but let's say that someone with guts intervened when everybody else kept staring... Anyways... The person who intervened, let's call him Pinkie, took it upon himself to stand up for someone else. Pinkie got hit bad, and frankly, initially, I could not move, I could not do anything because (like I said) I had never seen a fight before. Pinkie was on the floor and there were punches and kicks, and hair being pulled. All of this, of course, could have been resolved if the Asshole (the aggressor) listened. If he as much as talked, he would have calmed down...

This is not about the fight though... Or Pinkie who got bit on the leg (can you imagine? Someone biting you in a fight?)... Or even about how some guys have absolutely no balls... This is about how I just froze... Despite the fact that I've been doing Aikido (on and off, but hopefully on for good), I just froze. After 1 mn, I snapped back to reality, pulled some ears and tried calming down some of the people involved in the fight. I was talking and grabbed the hands of one of them, pressed gently and made him stop and relax... Did the same with another person, and that seemed to work too...

But I hate fighting. I hate violence. I hate conflict. I wondered then if the 4 hours I have were enough, if they are actually worth it (am I going anywhere with this? Can I help someone else?). Should I be doing another form of martial arts, something that is a bit more aggressive? More importantly, what makes some people involved and not others? Were the guys more aggressive because of alochol? Was a macho thing? I've been really thinking about all of this and I can't seem to be able to sort it out...

Thoughts?

Temptation

The definition itself of temptation is (according to Merriam-Webster) something tempting... a cause or occasion of enticement. To entice means to attract artfully or adroitly or by arousing hope or desire... To entice is to tempt. The other aspect of this is of course resisting temptation... Resisting the desire or the hope...

We are tempted every day to do different things:

• go through the red light at 4 am when there is no one,
• have dessert every day,
• eat chocolate every day and in the quantities we want (you know eat so much chocolate that you feel sick? i love that feeling...),
• to be rude to a friend or a co-worker,
• to eat or not to eat,
• to have sex or not,
• to cheat or not,
• to be truthful or not,
• to speed or not,
• to be charmed by someone that you just met,
• etc. etc..

Every day we are faced with these decisions... I am a huge believer in cause and consequence. Whatever we do has always an impact, be it on other people or on ourselves. If I were to eat and drink whatever I wanted all the time, I would most definitely gain weight. I need to resist the temptation to eat chocolate every time I see it. The trouble is that sometimes we can succumb to a particular temptation because there would be little consequences for our acti0ns. Or perhaps that is what we tell ourselves to justify what we want to do, what we desire to do... We tell ourselves that we only live once and f*ck it, so what if x or y? So what after all? We could be crushed in a car accident or trapped in a cave or whatever...

Why should we resist temptation? Should we resist temptation? Difficult questions... difficult answers...

Tick tock...

It's the same bloody problem every night... I start looking at the clock, I start stressing about time... It's already 23:00 and I don't feel like sleeping... It's 00:35, and I still can't sleep... Time goes by and I need to fill it... DO something... This sleeplessness is driving me crazy these days... I can't sleep, and I can't wake up in the morning.

The worst thing about this (well, one of the worst at least) is that as time goes by, I start feeling hungry. That's ok you say, grab something to eat, make something to eat... But consider this: the contents of my fridge are : beer, juice, sparkling water, coke, milk, white wine, and oh yeah, eggs, cheese, and whipping cream... Somewhere in the kitchen, there are some potatoes that are suspiciously changing colors...They still have the ... shape...of a potato, but the color, well... Let's say that soon, I can make beer out of the potato.

So imagine the dilemma, and this is the bloody issue every night...stay hungry or make something to eat... The "thing" to eat of course is either something with eggs and the dodgy potatoes, or pasta.... or rice (I think I have some). Often, I choose hunger. Think about it... Hunger is good. Hunger does not make you gain weight. Hunger does not leave dirty dishes. Hunger is therefore your friend... But hunger is really a bitch because it keeps you from sleeping. So I end up making something... It varies (ooh la la, the choices, the choices!!!).

Tonight, I combined potatoes, eggs, cheese, and whipping cream... My thighs hate me right now, but screw them. At least my belly is full... and frankly, I'd rather have it satisfied. As for the dishes... well, there's always tomorrow. It's now 1 am, and I still can't sleep. I've gone through a crazy number of movies in the past couple of days... I read, I try counting sheep... Nothing. I've even started knitting... still not boring enough...

I am neither stressed nor fatigued. I've tried sleeping aids, warm milk, carbohydrates, meditation... I have these bouts of insomnia once in a while, and it's just a pain.

Perhaps I should harass the cat.

Decisions, decisions

I guess most of us go through times in our lives where it's difficult to make a decision. Some decisions do change our lives, ones like which university to go to, getting married (or not), having a kid (or not), starting a job, quitting a job, etc. Some of these decisions are so huge, that they totally impact and change our lives. The decisions are sometimes irreversible and put us on a particular path...

The part that makes most people scared shitless is that some of these paths are just traced out in front of you... These paths are so clear it's scary. Knowing what's up ahead is very scary. Seeing so clearly up ahead is actually a bit creepy...

These decisions... this path that sort of seems traced for us, well, it's scary... And sometimes we are tempted to change roads, just to see what it would be like, if we chose a different partner, not getting married, or choosing not to have a kid. But... but there is always a danger in choosing a path. Wether we try to force ourselves out of the road, or stick to it, the choices are always difficult.

I guess, life can just be scary sometimes, and the knowledge that there are particular stages/steps in our life to take... well, that is just the hardest thing to manage.