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Coffee says "post something"
Jul. 3rd, 2010 06:31 pmWhat is the difference between pleasure and the cessation of pain?
I think when I have a partner, even a p/t one, I'm almost dangerously aloof. I am more comfortable, more likely to want and appreciate time by myself when it doesn't feel like a failure or a punishment (when it feels like a choice), far more confident, happier...
but when I'm not partnered, even p/t, I get bitter, angry, morose (ok okay, more so)
It makes me wonder which feeling is real. Which me is me?
It also makes a difficult problem in understanding how much pleasure comes from the relationship I am in vs. the fact I'm happier when I'm with someone than when I am not. That's a really tough one - a situation that makes me especially happy when my friends approve, endorse, and like my partner and situation. I trust a validated opinion but not my own without some sort of external review process. I don't _feel_ like a desperate codependent, but how would I know? If so, what would the solution be?
Oh I know - a power-imbalanced poly relationship... zing!
Investing success is failure?
Someone explain to me again why I'm supposed to be more wealthy by investing my money in equities instead of paying off my mortgage - when the interest I spend only is returned to me in the ratio of about 30% when I itemize my taxes?
I know I'm supposed to be making bank in the stock market, but since my 25% gain has sunk to about 8-10% in the recent free-market debacle, paying off that 4.5% loan doesn't look insane. I read some articles recently that re-affirmed that I'm still on-target for my retirement amounts, but then called into question all the other financial dealings I have in addition...so wouldn't I be better off spending this money now instead of always saving it? This leads me to "what is money."
What is money?
I watched that Paris Hilton "porn." What I walked away with was "frat boys and the skanks they bang are no different than the football-cheerleader crew in my middle-school," and an interesting comparison of my life to theirs. Paris darling gives the dudemeister head while SNL plays in the background. For the cars, the clothes, the clubs, VIP lifestyle...the only difference seems to be when they drink the same things middle-class do, then go to a club drinking-smoking-snorting the same chemicals we do, listen to the popular music of the masses, then hop in their (nicer) cars to go back to wherever and sex each other up in groups while the same network shows play in the background as any trailer USA...what good is the money?
I've blown money going to the Bahamas and Jamaica - and found in each case I have far more fun in the average week in clubland DC. I got a huge tv, like everyone else, and it shows the same shows I'd watch if I had the 19" of my childhood years (and it never struck me as too small - neither did the orgy lighting 13" of college).
I can only think of two things that money garners: time and security.
Time. When you have enough money, working is an optional activity. On the other hand, if you don't care about how much you make them time is more abundant though money is not. I could live on a p/t job, but I work relatively full time hours (though it is government, so not as full time as the private sector with its 2 weeks of annual vacation). I've struck my balance, and when it feels out of whack I wind up scrubbing the tiles of the bathroom. If I was Paris-rich, I could lounge around the home every day only to hit the clubs at midnight well-rested and with no burdens expected the next day - magnifying the pleasurable experience. However, pleasure is greatly muted when there is no shortage of it. Often the value of time is taking it when you find it scarce.
Security. That's me - money isn't fun, it's not louder bigger stronger screens to watch the same movies people on the dole watch, it's fuckyoumoney - it's how long can I survive without having to work again. Money is how many unforeseen accidents, medical problems, legal issues, robberies, fights, or other predictable unpredictables could I weather in the next 2-20 years. Money is "can I retire" or "who cares about social security?"
Today I read the Economist. This magazine drives me nuts.
I got a year-long subscription for $12 and love the magazine. At least 3 articles send me into spirals of thought and analysis. The problem is, the 100 pages of complex text also discuss every country on the planet - some of which have names I don't even recognize. I do not know about the prime minister of banking for Uzbekistan and now that I've read an in-depth analysis of his history, I find I don't actually care.
The Economist fills me with guilt.
I feel guilty that I don't know all the countries, players, and situations they discuss as though I were a world leader planning contingencies for the following years exports. I feel silly that I skim the articles that are so well written and dive so quickly into analyses. I makes me feel uninvolved and dumb every time I flip through the thing.
Lucky for me a real subscription, worth every penny I'm sure for each and every leader of the new euro-nation, is $150 (about 100 pounds). That will wean me of this catholic-guilt ridden reading mission.
I do have one criticism of the magazine - for it's me-approved center-right economics perspective, it speaks of many disputed economic theories and applications/analyses in the form of conclusory statements rather than with cited explanations of why the preceding statement is true. I want to take the whole thing, put it online, and make footnotes everywhere to show the source of their conclusory statement, a supporting source, and a contrasting perspective from a respectable mainstream source with a different conclusion.
Joss Whedon is a KGB agent?
Anyone else notice the (ineffective) femme fatale of the busted up Russian (bride) spy ring looks like Kaylee from firefly? Was Buffy an attempt to warm up a USian audience for some other as-of-yet unidentified infiltrators?
I can read the economist but even were I the wisest of it's pundits (what's a pundit?) I lack the power to affect the world. How worth is wisdom when I use it to pontificate from the chairs of a coffee shoppe with no possibility of affecting world change?
Anna Chapman vs. 
Firefly's Kaylee Frye
Somewhere there is an undiscovered girl who looks like Buffy who is wreaking havoc amongst the international security sect?
I think when I have a partner, even a p/t one, I'm almost dangerously aloof. I am more comfortable, more likely to want and appreciate time by myself when it doesn't feel like a failure or a punishment (when it feels like a choice), far more confident, happier...
but when I'm not partnered, even p/t, I get bitter, angry, morose (ok okay, more so)
It makes me wonder which feeling is real. Which me is me?
It also makes a difficult problem in understanding how much pleasure comes from the relationship I am in vs. the fact I'm happier when I'm with someone than when I am not. That's a really tough one - a situation that makes me especially happy when my friends approve, endorse, and like my partner and situation. I trust a validated opinion but not my own without some sort of external review process. I don't _feel_ like a desperate codependent, but how would I know? If so, what would the solution be?
Oh I know - a power-imbalanced poly relationship... zing!
Investing success is failure?
Someone explain to me again why I'm supposed to be more wealthy by investing my money in equities instead of paying off my mortgage - when the interest I spend only is returned to me in the ratio of about 30% when I itemize my taxes?
I know I'm supposed to be making bank in the stock market, but since my 25% gain has sunk to about 8-10% in the recent free-market debacle, paying off that 4.5% loan doesn't look insane. I read some articles recently that re-affirmed that I'm still on-target for my retirement amounts, but then called into question all the other financial dealings I have in addition...so wouldn't I be better off spending this money now instead of always saving it? This leads me to "what is money."
What is money?
I watched that Paris Hilton "porn." What I walked away with was "frat boys and the skanks they bang are no different than the football-cheerleader crew in my middle-school," and an interesting comparison of my life to theirs. Paris darling gives the dudemeister head while SNL plays in the background. For the cars, the clothes, the clubs, VIP lifestyle...the only difference seems to be when they drink the same things middle-class do, then go to a club drinking-smoking-snorting the same chemicals we do, listen to the popular music of the masses, then hop in their (nicer) cars to go back to wherever and sex each other up in groups while the same network shows play in the background as any trailer USA...what good is the money?
I've blown money going to the Bahamas and Jamaica - and found in each case I have far more fun in the average week in clubland DC. I got a huge tv, like everyone else, and it shows the same shows I'd watch if I had the 19" of my childhood years (and it never struck me as too small - neither did the orgy lighting 13" of college).
I can only think of two things that money garners: time and security.
Time. When you have enough money, working is an optional activity. On the other hand, if you don't care about how much you make them time is more abundant though money is not. I could live on a p/t job, but I work relatively full time hours (though it is government, so not as full time as the private sector with its 2 weeks of annual vacation). I've struck my balance, and when it feels out of whack I wind up scrubbing the tiles of the bathroom. If I was Paris-rich, I could lounge around the home every day only to hit the clubs at midnight well-rested and with no burdens expected the next day - magnifying the pleasurable experience. However, pleasure is greatly muted when there is no shortage of it. Often the value of time is taking it when you find it scarce.
Security. That's me - money isn't fun, it's not louder bigger stronger screens to watch the same movies people on the dole watch, it's fuckyoumoney - it's how long can I survive without having to work again. Money is how many unforeseen accidents, medical problems, legal issues, robberies, fights, or other predictable unpredictables could I weather in the next 2-20 years. Money is "can I retire" or "who cares about social security?"
Today I read the Economist. This magazine drives me nuts.
I got a year-long subscription for $12 and love the magazine. At least 3 articles send me into spirals of thought and analysis. The problem is, the 100 pages of complex text also discuss every country on the planet - some of which have names I don't even recognize. I do not know about the prime minister of banking for Uzbekistan and now that I've read an in-depth analysis of his history, I find I don't actually care.
The Economist fills me with guilt.
I feel guilty that I don't know all the countries, players, and situations they discuss as though I were a world leader planning contingencies for the following years exports. I feel silly that I skim the articles that are so well written and dive so quickly into analyses. I makes me feel uninvolved and dumb every time I flip through the thing.
Lucky for me a real subscription, worth every penny I'm sure for each and every leader of the new euro-nation, is $150 (about 100 pounds). That will wean me of this catholic-guilt ridden reading mission.
I do have one criticism of the magazine - for it's me-approved center-right economics perspective, it speaks of many disputed economic theories and applications/analyses in the form of conclusory statements rather than with cited explanations of why the preceding statement is true. I want to take the whole thing, put it online, and make footnotes everywhere to show the source of their conclusory statement, a supporting source, and a contrasting perspective from a respectable mainstream source with a different conclusion.
Joss Whedon is a KGB agent?
Anyone else notice the (ineffective) femme fatale of the busted up Russian (bride) spy ring looks like Kaylee from firefly? Was Buffy an attempt to warm up a USian audience for some other as-of-yet unidentified infiltrators?
I can read the economist but even were I the wisest of it's pundits (what's a pundit?) I lack the power to affect the world. How worth is wisdom when I use it to pontificate from the chairs of a coffee shoppe with no possibility of affecting world change?
Anna Chapman vs. Firefly's Kaylee FryeSomewhere there is an undiscovered girl who looks like Buffy who is wreaking havoc amongst the international security sect?
