You are just like me

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.

I thought we were over that issue.

I thought so, too. I had even reached the conclusion that we all are the same at the very core.

Hmmm, may I ask what the similarities could be between my next door neighbor and Johnny Hallyday?

They're both persons.

Comrade...

At the precocious age of nine, I wondered why factories that pollute air and water remained in operation, knowing that they were destroying the environment and harming people's health and lives. I couldn't understand why the polluters were not willing to stop even after learning about the deaths that they caused.

I don't think Johnny was there to give a charity concert on behalf of the victims.

I kept thinking hard and realized that it was just fate that some happened to be owners and others workers and residents. It could have been the other way around.

By a slight of hand of Fortuna, or her wink, tick, nod, snort, cough, sneeze...

It occurred to me that all involved were fighting for the same thing, but that without realizing.

How so?

The factory owners needed to support their families and so did the residents. Closing down the factories would help the locals, but not the owners. Allowing them open would help the owners, but not the people who live in the area. I thought they ought to have a frank talk. "Look, we wish to stay healthy and buy nice gifts for our children, and so do you. All of us desire the same. We should work together."

Instead of recognizing their commonality, they were driven by their own immediate needs.

Later, I learned that the people in capitalist countries thought that the communist regimes must be doing a better job in protecting the environment, while the people in communist countries thought that capitalism must be superior.

In both systems, people in power are driven more by personal interest than by common good; neither has a clearly better record than the other.

I went as far as to say that the amount of evilness we carry in ourselves are more or less the same.

Obviously, you can't say we are all Hitler or all Mother Teresa, and in fact, they are no different from each other!

I do not disagree with that. Apart from personal variations, we have about the same amount of tendency to be mean and cruel.

And how big the variations are! Your statements are meaningless, I'm afraid.

My claim is that we grossly differ in how we are trained to suppress and conceal them. Some of such tricks we learn as part of our culture, and some others we pick up based on our individual experiences.

So your conclusion is that we are the same, and yet different in exhibiting that sameness.

You can say that. Nastiness can be hidden somewhere. For example, Culture Cherry may inculcate politeness. Suppose Cherry People happen to have little contact with the outside world. When they encounter Apple People, some would extend the politeness, but others could be outright impolite.

Doesn't it depend on whether Apple People are considered on par with Cherry People?

It is dependent on each Cherry person, whether s/he thinks politeness is a virtue with or without conditional clauses. Especially, if Culture Apple does not discipline its people to conceal nastiness as much, it encourages Cherry People to show their meanness as they come to contact with it.

We often mistake that Cherry People will be polite whatever the circumstances, but that is not true.

Cherry People may retain their politeness because they are inflexible and cannot change their behavior, or because they examine the situation and conclude that the same principle should be applied to Apple People. Politeness could be either unconscious or conscious.

Put differently, some Cherry People may unknowingly extrapolate their rule on politeness to Apple People, but they may also abandon it without knowing if Apple People are impolite.

We cannot avoid being influenced by our surroundings, and that especially if we have not thought about that possibility. In any case, the point was that I thought I could say that we are the same if we are to abandon our conventions.

That's a big 'if,' isn't it?

It is... And I already know that it is not true, because conventions have the power to become our true intentions if practiced for a long time.

You mean, we can become genuine devils by vigorous training which aims for that? Or saints through appropriate training?

Yes, I am quite certain that some cultures are adept at suppressing certain negative emotions and that for good.

But you have been telling me that people cannot fundamentally change!

I realize that the statement needs some qualifications. Cultures shape us while growing up.

In other words, some Cherry kids become genuinely polite and some Apple kids truly impolite?

Yes. I think we are born with about the same amount of evilness, but that can be suppressed, even eliminated, depending on the way we are brought up to see human relationships and the world. Once we reach that critical age of eighteen, most of us become set in that aspect. Either as children or adults, we can only imagine that others would be like us, but when very young, we still have the flexibility to understand and incorporate ways that are totally different from ours.

I thought we all wanted to think that others are inferior to us in one way or another, not exactly like us.

We harbor the contradictory idea that we are all alike and yet we are the best among them. It is fascinating that the contradiction is so common.

What about young children who think that their parents are the best people in the world?

That is an important exception, and so are the lovers who are in adoration of each other.

Those cases aside, we think that we are at least in one aspect better than the people whom we know. At the same time, we think that they are just like us?

Just like us in the sense that we are constrained in imagining the motivations that drive behavior. Lately, I have been witnessing exasperation among people who wish to understand me.

... Who can blame them?

Themselves, because I am consistent.

In your own wicked way...

It is interesting to observe people trying little gimmicks to get my attention and failing. They keep on going in circles as if blinded by a blizzard.

You are wicked!

Well, the insults and lies meant to discredit and hurt me cannot be made up by telling me that the bread that I brought---it was a cake, mind you---was delicious, or by smiling emphatically and being chummy with me more than usual.

Sounds like you are back in elementary school.

Doesn't it? I was wondering why they resort to such means and why they are surprised that those fall flat.

Isn't it because they think that you are at that level?

That did pass my mind, but I came to the conclusion that it is not the case. I am certain that they themselves are at that very level and cannot think of other levels or types of motivation and behavior.

Don't we all suffer from that problem, though? Suppose I come across a person who is addicted to drugs. If I learn her/his background, I would probably understand how s/he came to be an addict, but not how s/he has failed to kick the habit.

You are right. There are many cases for which we would say, "Yes, yes, yes, I understand. But, why doesn't he go for the Obvious Solution?" "Well, that's not what he wants." "But, he wants to get out of the current state, right?" "Yes, but the Obvious Solution is not the one for him, apparently..."

Hence, your withdrawal of the statement that we are all the same at the core.

We are very much limited by who we are in understanding others. People who expect to have official rules bent for themselves would do so for you in return. Many do not understand that I am against such actions, even after hundreds of my refusal to take part in them.

I know that you are not talking about some country at the bottom of the list composed by Transparency International...

It can get pretty explicit, too. Once I found out what Monsieur Untel planned to do to Madame Unetelle, and I could not hide my astonishment. Monsieur Untel assured me not to worry, because he did not plan to do the same to me.

You'd start wondering about Monsieur Untel's definition of justice and fairness.

Precisely. He does not seem to be aware of his own criterion, or at least that is the impression that he wants to give to others. Anything is permissible if it does not happen to him. He was puzzled when I remained appalled after his reassurance. He is in the dark about one important principle. That is, if one takes a certain action against someone, there is a very good chance that s/he would do the same to some other.

We'd better stay away from anyone who gossips badly, because most likely, s/he would be gossiping about us as badly to other people.

These happenings have led me to suspect that we more often fail than succeed in understanding each other, because we are limited by our own thinking circuits. If we want to please others, we do to them what we would like them to do to us. If it doesn't, we are often at a loss. A person, who thinks everybody is out to get him, believes that I, too, think that everybody is out to get me.

Ah, I know which one you are talking about... So Comrade, are we the same, or are we not?

We are so similar that we easily agree on the importance of concepts such as: love, charity, kindness, honor, respect, friendship, kinship, knowledge, and so on. What they mean in practice is a totally different story.

For some, love would mean love for and of God, and then, it gets even worse as we cannot agree on who that is.

It is nothing but irony that people hate each other over love. Some people love their own god so much that they do not hesitate to kill others who love some other gods.

Something similar happens on an individual basis, too. You remember the days of duels over love?

That was before my time... By the way, have you noticed that we try extremely hard to understand another person when we are in love with her/him? I can't think of any other occasion that matches in its intensity.

Considering the human nature that we seek confirmation of who we are and what we think, it's quite remarkable.

Or, we can say that it is why it becomes difficult to fall in love as we age and become set in our ways.

Comrade, we have to start calling you an ageist...

Do you remember our discussion that the desire for diversity, change, or control makes us want to have multiple partners, either successively or simultaneously, with benefits in the bedroom? I am beginning to realize that artists have an additional incentive to fulfill that desire: to take their artistic endeavors to another domain.

They want sensuous experiences that would inspire them, and that is possible by being in love.

Pablo has left wonderful art for which his lover at the time served as a model and/or muse, as well as a number of profound remarks about art.

He has also left a trail of family members who were extremely unhappy and depressed.

What are we to think about someone who sent the people around him to hell, but continues to save thousands of other souls?

Know your reality, and forget it

You will be greatly distressed upon hearing this, I know, but as a friend of yours and a project partner to boot, I feel very much obliged to tell you... I was approached by the café owner the other day who commented that we had been occupying a table for an increasingly long time with only a couple of glasses of wine.

Is that a complaint that we are undesirable customers?

Well, the suggestion was that we make each talk short and come more frequently.

So that we would be ordering more per hour?

It's a natural desire for a owner, isn't it?

But we are here to save the world and that single-handedly. It's a motivation much more sublime and worthy than profit making!

I am fully aware that you don't like talking about money, but even you can't deny that it is what allows us to live.

I thought it was food.

Unless you are a versatile farmer, you need money to purchase foodstuff.

To tell you the truth, I have been getting rather scared by the mightiness of it.

Shall we call money 'It,' if you feel more comfortable that way?

Recently, I have come to the conclusion that to live a full life is to seek maximum sensuous stimulus.

How could I have guessed that you would turn into a hedonist?

In what I call sensuous stimulus, I am including acquisition of intellectual insights and knowledge. You must know those 'Aha!' moments that give us great pleasure.

It could be instances of 'What the hell is this?'

Or, 'There is a unifying force behind all these seemingly unrelated phenomena...'

That must be why so many people love mystery/detective novels and conspiracy theories.

I agree. It's a pity, because the folks who restrict their reading to such material are diverting their energy that could be used to learn and understand mysteries in real life as well as true conspiracies.

Come on, we all need diversions!

Think about it. Isn't it rather irresponsible to be intensely interested in Miss Marple's adventures, but not at all in the mysteries of hedge funds, hoping your money will forever enjoy an above-the-average return, and complain about the financial regulators when it doesn't?

We neither have the time or the capacity to understand everything that goes on in this world.

True, but that is not a license for staying ignorant. As I claimed last time, in order to manage a complex world in the way we see fit, we need to be sophisticated enough to face the complexity. To me, the mechanism is the same as with the politicians. If the voters are sophisticated enough, so would be the politicians. If the private investors are vigilant enough, so would be the brokers.

On average and in the long run, you mean...

How else could you change their behavior?

Strikes and protests are certainly attention grabbing, but most likely for a short time and for the addressed issues only.

Getting back to the issue of sensuous stimuli, they do not need to be pleasure deriving.

So you are a masochist?

Not exactly. What we truly value about sensuous stimuli is that they make us forget everything else.

We are constantly in search of an escape from reality, then?

I would say that the feeling of being mesmerized and captivated is the best experience that life has to offer. We all seek it, although many are unconscious about their search. We would be mistaken to think that there is more to life.

I thought it was all about status, fame and money!

It would be awfully nice to have those, but only if they are associated with stimuli of the senses. Besides, we can acquire them even after we are dead, but not sensuous experiences.

Shall I ring up Hugh and ask him to organize a party in your honor?

Remember the stories of kings and queens, emperors and empresses, sultans and their wives, who were always on the look for something that would get them out of their boredom? The most famous example may be the preamble to 'One Thousand and One Nights.'

Their wealth and power would make life enjoyable only if they lead to interest-piquing ideas, objects and physical activities...

Wealth and power are useful in the sense that they enable you to meet celebrity people, see celebrity objects, and engage in very expensive activities, like going to the moon for fun. Such opportunities by themselves are excellent gossip fodder, but there is no guarantee that they would be anything meaningful. By the way, I was at the Palace of Versailles a while ago.

Cursing about all the bloody tourists who marred your view, right?

At first, I thought how nice it would be to turn into Louis XIV and have the entire place to myself. Then, I realized that I would quickly get used to it---having at my disposal the huge palace, gardens and hunting grounds. Looking outside the window from that vast residence, I would be clicking my tongue for want of something that I did not know before and turns out to be amusing.

I'm glad that you are of a budget-type. You could experience being a Louis XIV without building another palace for yourself.

I also realized that I need what we decided to call 'It' in order to obtain stimuli on a regular basis.

Getting to and entering natural parks, attending concerts, exhibitions, film shows and lectures, purchasing books, supplies, equipment, gear and instruments, taking lessons and courses, having a drink at a café, dining at a restaurant---all these activities require money.

My argument further implies that the poor people should not be deprived of such opportunities just because they happen not to have enough funds. They, too, should be allowed to indulge in what life can offer, through subsidies.

I can already hear objections to that. Some will say that the poor do not deserve it, because it is their laziness and/or lack of planning that led them to poverty.

I would like to emphasize here once again that it is human nature to downplay the roles of chance and luck in our lives and worldly events. Some are simply unlucky to be poor, and their children even more so. A humane society is to shoulder the burden of misfortune that is beyond anybody's control.

The poor may have bigger reasons to momentarily put the reality aside...

The trick is not to forget the reality altogether.

You said that life's joy is in moments that make us oblivious of everything but what is in front of us!

Yes, but we will be unhappy if we have a poor grasp of the reality.

You mean a misconception, such as your money manager cannot make mistakes.

Or, justice prevails.

Or, good work will be recognized as such against any odds.

It is tragicomic to go from one society to another and see what is common wisdom in one is not so in the other, and due to lack of such wisdom people suffer throughout their lives. It depends on the culture how much people attribute certain outcomes to chance and luck. So are the expectations that men and women have about each other. Even how much people take advertisements as impartial facts is culture dependent.

In sum, it is best to look at the reality straight in its face...

And seek as many opportunities as possible to turn your eyes away from it.

Isn't that the reason why some of us are addicted to traveling? We manage to forget about big issues in our lives by swapping them with the problem of how to get from Point Here to Point There when we have little idea about the local transportation system.


I wouldn't say 'the reason,' but one of the reasons for sure. But what's wrong with that? It poses an intellectual challenge in an unfamiliar milieu, and yet, we usually manage to accomplish our tasks.

It gives us a great sense of achievement, plus some funny stories to share later.

The best part is that we can laugh about ourselves in the end, which may not be true with respect to life.

... Comrade, the next round is on me... What would you like?

I'm an accomplice in the crime (and so are you)

Comrade... turn around! ... Stay still.

...

Hey, I just plucked this out of your back. Hmmm... doesn't it look like an ostrich feather?

It's a bad joke, comrade... The issue is still tormenting me, but I have drummed up enough courage to talk about something else.

You didn't want to harp on it?

If I don't talk about my problems, people think they have been resolved, or worse, I have accepted to live with them. If I talk about it more than once, people get tired of me.

Don't worry, everyone can tell that you look more like a ghost than an ostrich with its head buried in a hole. You're so pale, almost transparent...

You know, I think all of us wish others to be ostriches. We know that problems in life are difficult to solve, and we are too powerless, lazy, or self-centered to provide help until they are happily resolved.

Plus, we'd rather hear good stories, not the same, old, gloomy ones.

In other words, we give each other tremendous pressure to focus on obligations, duties and fun at the moment, or short-term at best... Incidentally, I was thinking whatever is good about me owes to my own efforts.

I'm relieved. You sound more like yourself now.

Many of us think that we are doing extremely well, given the traits and the personalities of our parents. Have you ever thought how suspiciously universal the idea is? We didn't even need figures like J.C., M.A., or S.G. to spread the word.

Don't they tell you instead to respect your parents?

That is precisely because we are biologically wired to think that we are much better than our parents. Without that wiring, most will never become independent from them and take on the task of changing the world for the better.

To view the elders unfavorably has a positive side to it, you mean.

The willingness to change is useful, because adaptation to different circumstances necessarily requires change. As we know well, nothing is static in this world.

The ability to change allows you to stay put, too, if necessary.

Think about various societies around the world. The ones that are further away from the Plastic Age tend to have more rigid hierarchies based on age and less impetus to change on their own.

Although they face enormous force to do so from outside, mainly from the people of the Plastic Age...

Respect for the seniors means respect for their contribution to the society. The problem is that most of us become less creative over age.

That is, they become averse to change while the rest of the world is changing.

At least two factors contribute to that aversion. One is the vested interest that we develop over the years. We naturally position ourselves so as to derive the maximum possible benefit from the world as we find it.

We need some time to develop attitude, thoughts, and life style that are suited for the societies that we live in. By the time we have managed to optimize them given the constraints, we no longer wish to change the constraints.

The second is biological. Our brain can get cluttered with all the conventions set up by the previous generation, through our efforts to learn and live with them. It may prevent us from being different from the older generations, despite our wish to be so.

That's why we are told that we are unrealistic when we are young.

Sois jeune et tais toi !

Be young and shut up! So said the General...

When we read the slogans from that time, it is evident that the young pushed for changes and accused the not-so-old, the old and the very old for their complacency and lack of imagination. You know this one? Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible.

Be realistic, ask the impossible.

Prenez vos désirs pour la réalité.

Take your desires for reality.

Le patron a besoin de toi, tu n'as pas besoin de lui.

The boss needs you, you don't need him. ... Comrade, your breathing has gotten audibly heavy.

Anyway, we haven't heard of the older generation revolting against the younger.

Well, they don't need to. They are the ones with power, so when they don't like how things are, they can punish whom they think are culprits.

You know, it is not only our ability and willingness to question the status quo that decline with age, but also politeness.

What about kids who throw tantrums at the toy department? Surely, they don't do the same when they are older.

As children, we are taught to be polite and considerate toward others, and it takes time before we become capable of practicing it. I'd say we reach our peak when we are around eighteen with respect to politeness and consideration.

Do you want to tell me that a thirty-six-year old is rude compared to an eighteen-year old?

Of course, there is variation among individuals and that gets greater as we age. But, I do not hesitate to say that an average eighteen-year old tends to take more of her/his environment into account than an average thirty-six-year old from the same society.

I am not sure about that. When I think how I was at that age...

You are blushing.

Some things I did and thought were quite immature, embarrassing, and stupid, but I did not think so at all. The word, immature, was not in my dictionary to begin with.

You are right, an eighteen-year old would most likely do not have the ability to judge his own action, but when s/he is told that it is stupid, s/he tends to listen. Whereas a thirty-six-year old has a better idea of what s/he should be doing, s/he tends to go with whatever suits her/him. The former has less experience, but also less shrewdness.

Your theory must be strictly about averages, because I can think of thousands of counterexamples.

The world population is soon to pass the 7 billion mark, so thousands is nothing... Has it never struck you that we seem to regress over time?

I don't think I have become increasingly ruder after my eighteenth birthday.

Remember, we are talking in the aggregate. I think honesty is another good example.

We have touched on that subject, and I agreed with you that honesty is promoted by grown-ups because it gives them a means to control children.

What do you think will happen when the children become grown-ups?

They will teach their kids to be honest, because they will want to control their own kids.

You are almost there, comrade. The grown-ups who were once children...

We all were, ahem.

Once the children grow up and are freed from their guardians who could punish you for lying, they have little incentive to stay honest, besides their moral belief in honesty.

We discard all the virtues that we were taught to strive for, because being bad has different consequences now.

I wouldn't say 'all,' but we certainly gain the freedom to pick and choose as we please. Naturally, it means that almost everyone would become more self-centered than s/he has been. In other words, we begin switching our identity from the intimidated to the intimidating.

Isn't it manifested in the revolutionary spirits among the youth?

Yes. The transition period is very fertile, because the sentiments of the intimidated are still fresh in our memory, but we have just gained the mental and the physical strengths to be the intimidating. I think that is why movements or protests that are started by the youth have wide appeal.

For their earnestness, compassion, passion... and naïvité. We can't deny that they are more inspiring, identifiable and photogenic, compared to retirees who take to the streets to protest cuts in pensions.

May of 1968, the Velvet Revolution, the Tiananmen Square...

Are you shivering?

We talked how we are influenced by the people around us, especially our seniors, but we tend to forget that it means that we influence the people around us in turn.

I am 'I' for myself, but I am 'you' for you.

I continue to be bothered by people who adjust their attitude depending on whom they face. It looks awfully absurd when you see it happening in a split second with the subjects within their earshot.

Obsequious to the one who can wield power over you, and oppressive to the other over whom you can wield power. Isn't this one of the typical patterns?

Some minor changes are natural and even required, but the change that you described comes from the desire to be favored by the powerful. Put differently, this person is hoping that fairness be misinterpreted to her/his advantage.

How is this related to our influencing the people around us?

Our attitude and reactions vary depending on whom we are with. The converse is also true. How we are perceived is a factor in how a person behaves toward us, or we are determinants in who they are.

But it doesn't mean that we can remake any person.

The irony is that, while we cannot escape changes in us caused by our environment, we cannot change our very personality however hard we or others may try.

Excepting unusually traumatic experiences...

I have seen many persons change their attitude toward me after having learned how I am, but they revert to their old attitude when they are not paying enough attention. Certainly, they exhibit their original self as much as it is allowed by the occasion and by the person that they interact with.

We can't help being changed on the surface, but we can't change the core. Well, it can be both good and bad.

True, although we often focus on our powerlessness to change the bad traits of others... Anyway, we forget that much of our feedback is of the kind that enhances what we find unattractive.

Are we so perverse?

Take an example of a dog. Effective training would mean: to be very affectionate toward her and reward with treats when she does something good, and to ignore her call for attention when she does something bad or wrong.

Instead, we tend to scold her severely for misbehaving. It may well result in fear, anger, or resentment.

We are stingy on words of encouragement and rewards, too. The same principle applies to human beings. We complain about the stupidity, the ineffectiveness, and the destructiveness of politicians, but lately, I have come to think that it is our fault to a great extent.

Comrade, I have had nothing to do with the quality of brains possessed by Sarko, Silvio, Jong-Il, Robert...

Politicians, if they are chosen through elections, would do anything to be elected. If elected, they would do anything to be re-elected. If there is no prospect for re-election, they would do anything to leave their legacy.

That is when they start thinking what they can do so that the later generations would recognize them as great politicians.

Before then, they are at the mercy of the electorate.

We as voters are supposed to have enormous power, but it doesn't feel that way.

My theory is that we have allowed the incompetent ones to flourish by electing them.

But what if I did not vote for that particular dumbo?

They are smart at least when it comes to election. If we bought their rhetoric, it's our fault.

I told you, I did not write that name on the ballot paper! It must have been my next door neighbor...

I acknowledge that there is difficulty here. You may be well educated and well informed, but if the rest is ill educated and ill informed, the manipulative one would be chosen.

It happens in many countries around the world, from developing to developed. For example, in order to attract the rural votes, politicians distribute food and cash, and promise pork barrel projects, agricultural subsidies, and so on.

I maintain, however, that if the electorate is sophisticated, so would be the politicians and their politics. In fact, I believe that it is the only way to improve the way the world is governed.

Tell me, when was the last time you attended the town meeting.

... I had hopes in direct democracy, but I am no longer certain. I read that five cantons in Switzerland have a female majority among the legislators.

Considering the fact that women were granted suffrage in 1971, isn't that great news?

One canton's self-analysis is that people are so disillusioned by politics that there is no more prestige in becoming a legislator with low pay at the canton level. Men with ambition have fled to other professions. Most locals don't even know that they have more female legislators than male ones.

I just hope that we do not have to wait for another worldwide calamity before we effectively re-engage ourselves in politics.

I hope so, too, but nothing is more effective than a war to make us realize that politics matters to our lives.

Not just any war, but ones that seriously interrupt our daily lives. Bombs, utility disruption, food and material shortage, and you, your family members or friends sent to the front...

Global warming wouldn't do. It is a slower process and its causes and effects can be disputed more easily.

I have an idea! Let's secretly call the Martians and ask them to threaten us with imminent attacks.

The Insidious timelessness of the pee-word

I shouldn't have waited this long. It's inexusable...

I'm only three minutes and twenty seconds late and you're complaining?

According to my watch, it's four minutes or more.

You should get a watch that comes with a second hand, and be a bit more patient.

I bet your mother told you to be patient when you were growing up. But hasn't her advice led you to calamities?

Let me see... Once I had been too patient and found myself standing in a puddle of slightly colored and faintly steaming water. First it was nice and warm, but quickly turned soggy and cold. It's a bad idea to delay going to the toilet anyway. Your logic is a fallacy of accident.

Did your father ever tell you that the last piece of a cake is the biggest?

If it is a proverb, I've never heard of it. Besides, it sounds so untrue. If the biggest is left, it is most likely because nobody really wanted the cake to start with.

You see, we all think patience is a virtue, but it has an insidious side. Many people could not quite see what was to take place when Adolf Hitler came into power. Those who exercised patience and stayed put, especially the Jewish, suffered the most.

Patience is inappropriate in certain situations. Is this your point?

Not only that, but it is also used as a trick to raise false hope.

Comrade, your language reeks of perniciousness today.

Well, that is what patience is mostly about.

There are many satirical works about penny-pinching---"The Miser/L'Avare" by Molière comes to my mind first---but not about patience.

"Waiting for Godot/En attendant Godot" by Samuel Beckett is open to various interpretations, but as far as I am concerned, it is not about patience paving the path to the desired state in life.

Are you sure that patience is so bad? If you are facing a child, aged six, who is frustrated that he cannot swim as far as he wishes to, isn't it good to tell him to be patient?

When he turns eighteen or so, he would be able to swim as far as he could in his life. But that is based on a relatively safe assumption that he would grow up normally.

If it were an eighty-six year old, it would indeed be inappropriate to suggest patience. In fact, there wouldn't be anything you can say to or do for him, but to share the sadness that the stretch that he covered today will be the best ever compared to what he would be able to do in the future.

Patience is not for all ages. It makes most sense when you know that external factors are evolving in your favor and that they are beyond your control.

Like physiological maturity in the case of six-year old swimmer.

Unfortunately, the world is replete with cases of other types.

Tell me what they are.

We have already discussed one type in which external factors are beyond your control and they become less favorable over time.

The old man and the sea...

Another type is that the normal set of external factors become unfavorable over time, but they could be overcome.

I suppose that is not by simple waiting.

It requires a set of abnormal external factors---called luck---and/or hard work during an extended period of time.

Luck is beyond our control by definition, so it may not be out of line to exercise patience and wait for the Goddess of Destiny to turn to you and smile.

Yes and no. Sometimes you can sniff where luck could be found and deliberately place yourself there. Some other times, you have to be able to recognize luck as such when it comes around.

The problem with patience stems from our equating it to picking our nose and waiting, then?

Or, to simple repetition of our routine. For example, strengthening of certain muscles would be most effective with a changing menu of workouts. Plus, it is usually beneficial to try something that is slightly beyond your capability. The same applies for anything mental, too.

When we train on a higher level, we can be confident about one level lower to ourselves and about two levels lower to others.

In short, when the normal set of external factors become unfavorable over time, they could be overcome with luck and/or effective activities.

Put differently, the identification of those 'effective activities' is the crux of the problem.

Bravo, comrade. Even the six-year old must keep on swimming regularly and try his best all the time to be able to cover a long stretch in the future. If he doesn't and gets up on his eighteenth birthday thinking that he can cross the Strait of Dover in the afternoon, he would be in for a major disappointment.

I have been taught to be patient, as you guessed correctly, but not what I should be doing in the meantime.

Waiting would be a good idea when we are stranded in the middle of nowhere and we know that the next available transportation will be arriving in three hours and eighteen minutes. However, it is not the best idea.

What about reading a book or listening to music for three hours and seventeen minutes, and reserving the last minute for packing up and getting ready for boarding a rickshaw, sleigh, motor bike, bus, jeep, canoe, 470, submarine, airplane, helicopter, balloon, zeppelin, or space shuttle?

No, still not the best strategy.

Should we hatch a plot against the cause which made us stranded?

Not exactly. We should seriously think what we could do in case the expected transportation does not appear in three hours and eighteen minutes.

We tend to think that patience is to wait, and hence, to let time pass by. But that interpretation may turn out not to be helpful even in the simplest case as transportation.

Yet, people who advise you to be patient usually do not tell you that you should continue to strive for obtaining a better grasp of the situation that you are in and be on the lookout for its actual and possible changes.

After all, if circumstances change, staying put is seldom wise.

A person who is unhappy because of unfulfilled goals and wishes is often counseled to be patient. But if it is not accompanied by what s/he should be doing in the meantime, it is equivalent to advising her/him to accept things as they are. One of its hideous effects is to raise hope in the person that s/he would attain her/his goal without doing anything in particular.

"Be patient, and you will get there."

Which is nonsense in most instances. You should not be repeating what you have been doing, because it has not led to achievement of your goal, and that is why you are unhappy. In most cases, you have to change your strategy, or at least you need to become more vigilant about monitoring the state of parameters that are important in attaining your goal.

But they never tell you such things...

I think talking about patience is a convenient way to make a whining person shut up.

I'm afraid many people resort to what you call a trick.

Patience is insidious because it makes us hopeful when there is no concrete reason to be.

We are happier, because we have become hopeful without realizing that it is unwarranted, and the person who told us about patience is also happier, because we stopped complaining...

Persistence is almost as bad, but marginally better for not urging passivity as much.

Comrade, I think that's simply your personal preference of words, just as you prefer 'perceptive' over 'sensitive.'

It could be even more damaging when we are patient without being told to be so.

More?

Any belief can be quite tenacious.

What is wrong with that?

I am disappointed that you haven't see through, comrade... Because patience is plain passiveness in most cases, we are exposed to great danger of becoming comfortable with the situation that we earlier wished to escape from.

Patience tells us to close our eyes half way to weather out the storm.

The key is to keep our eyes half open, but we can get too good at not seeing the brutal reality.

Ah, it's the ostrich in us...

If we manage to maintain dignity in a wretched environment, naturally our desire to flee from it is tamed. That is the hidden, but huge, cost of successfully living through the undesirable circumstances.

We become so good at handling them that they are elevated from the status of undesirable.

That happens without our knowing and remains so for some of us for the rest of our lives.

Doesn't it mean that they find contentment in life and come to terms with what they are given?

We could say that they have turned into true ostriches, and eventually forgot that they were something else earlier in their lives with their heads out of the hole in the ground.

Well, they're lucky that nobody has poked their butt.

Some do get that poking one day, forced to take their heads out of the hole, and experience the horrible realization that the time spent with patience was not time spent to achieve their goals.

It's not after a week or a month that happens. It can take years, right?

Half past twelve. How the time has gone by.

Half past twelve. How the years have gone by. Constantine Cavafy's "Since Nine O'Clock"...

People with belief in plain patience have nobody to turn to, but themselves to blame for their unhappiness.

It's because they don't examine their plight carefully, never give serious thoughts to what could be the best possible action for fulfilling their goals or utilizing their precious time... They fall asleep, in a way.

As I told you, some never wake up but others do. Patience is hideous---first, it gives us false hope, and then, it gradually makes us forget what we aimed for. If we happen to be jolted out of that lukewarm water slowly reaching the boiling point to kill us, we face the terrible fact that an enormous amount of time has passed, with little action on our part to obtain what we wanted in our lives. And during that time, the external factors have turned even less conducive for reaching our goals.

Comrade... you look awfully pale... I'd say like a ghost.

It can well happen to those who think they know very well that they can get used to almost anything and must guard themselves against that process, who think they know the finiteness of their existence...

... Let me treat you to a glass of Médoc.

Isn't it one of the tricks to avert our eyes from what is in front of us?

It's not la Baie des Anges that we are overlooking, but you shouldn't spoil my gesture which is meant to help ease your self-reproach, you know...

Signs of maturity (or lack thereof)

It's that time of the year, the school has started again.

New encounters, new subjects, new classrooms... always a mixture of excitement and anxiety.

I happened to read a piece of advice for teachers the other day. It said that if you are a teacher, you should never talk negatively about your predecessor.

Such as, "No? You guys didn't cover the nine essential nutrients for Martians last year? That can't be! ... All right, I will prepare an extra handout on that subject and distribute it next time. It's very, very important."

With eyebrow knitted and eyes squinted... The article said that from then on the students would start making claims that the previous instructor skipped the topic whatever it may be.

Including the ones that they had been taught.

I hereby confess that I committed a crime that is similar in nature in the past.

I am shocked!

It is again to my disadvantage to be endowed with good memory and a strong will to be impartial... Almost all of us are guilty of the same, but many conveniently are unconscious or forget about it.

So much for excuses. Let's hear what you have done.

When the school year started, we had a new teacher. She was a substitute until the regular hire came back from her maternity leave.

That's not unusual.

We knew neither instructor before. When the term was over for the fill-in and we got to know the regular instructor, we found out that we liked the substitute much better. We talked nostalgically how nice and good she was. One day, I showed my exam to my parents and said that I would have gotten a perfect grade had it been the former teacher.

It's a very flimsy excuse, comrade.

The scary thing is that I believed in it. All of my classmates were of the same opinion. So, when my parents told me that my explanation for the grade was not a good one, I told them that everyone in the class thought the same.

Yes, yes, that familiar "everyone," which can mean a handful of persons.

They replied that we would be saying the same had the regular been the substitute, and the substitute the regular.

It was not about their teaching methods or even personality, but about the role that they assumed.

I was very much surprised by their take on the event, of course.

Did you believe it?

I didn't dismiss it. I remembered it and wondered how that could be. Although I do not recall whether we claimed we had not been taught something we should have, I have a vague feeling that I participated in that kind of collective rewriting of history with my classmates. I think we knew that our claim might not have been true, but after some time, we simply believed in the revised "facts."

Hmmm... we as adults engage in acts of the same genre to more disastrous results.

People who deny all sorts of atrocities, such as genocides, fit that description.

They must have started their training early in their lives.

My recent discovery is that it happens on a smaller scale, too. Some people truly believe in what I think is grossly distorted versions of events. When I confront them, they are adamant that their version is true.

They must be thinking the same about you.

How come that they always come out unambiguously favorable in their stories?

Whereas you do not in your versions?

I know that it's not quite tight, but I claim that it is a proof that I am less biased than they are.

If your argument holds, some people may make themselves appear only partially guilty when they are wholly so, and claim that their take on the event is the true one.

The lack of impartiality in this world is mind boggling. What is even more flabbergasting is that the ones who genuinely believe in their distorted, self-serving history more than often win in the end. At least, they never lose thanks to their single-minded tenacity.

Blessed are the believers...

Back to my memories from school years, we once had a teacher trainee whom we liked very much because she was a lot closer in age. She had big sunglasses and boyfriend sweaters on. Her hair was adult and feminine. She radiated youthful confidence. In sum, she was awfully cool.

Everybody liked her, I bet.

Yes, until I was told to stop chitchatting and pay attention to her lecture.

Aha...

When some students got together and talked about how cool and effective in teaching she was, I snorted and said I wasn't sure. Then one in the circle said, "You changed your mind, because you were told to be quiet.''

There's no denying that it's a very good point.

I was shocked, because I realized then that it was true. The teacher trainee was no different before and after her telling me to be quiet, but I allowed myself to be biased against her in aspects that had little to do with her telling me so.

Don't you think maturity is founded on the separation of our private impressions of and feelings about persons from our judgments of their attributes?

You certainly can say that again. Professionalism is a kind of maturity that pertains to a subset of our activities. What puzzles me is that there seems to be little recognition of that very important principle.

You shouldn't make such a universal statement. It's your little living and working environment that you are talking about.

There is basic courtesy that should be observed regardless of our feelings toward that person.

We talked along this line some time ago.

I recently discovered that for people...

In your little environment, ahem.

All right, in my teeny-weeny environment, enforcement of rules are subject to how much positive feelings the enforcer has about the subjects.

"According to the official schedule, it is your turn to do this not-so-fun job, but okay, I know you are busy, so I will do it for you." That kind of a thing?

I would say so if the person is under pressure, although s/he has not been slacking off, and that to every such person.

People around you are totally confused because you help whom you like and don't like in the same way.

There are times when I want the people that I like to be strictly rule-abiding with me, although there are not many who defy rules and whom I like.

If I recall well, the willingness to be considerate and courteous is not only related to the feelings that we have for the persons involved, but also how repairable the relationships are with those people.

For some, the desire to go by the accepted rules is proportional to the fragility of relationships that they have with the parties involved. In extreme cases, they would go along with anything if they see that the person who is in front needs to be made happy.

Comrade, your hands are trembling with anger...

I tell you, it's total breakdown of communication! You would think that you have gotten an okay to something, only to learn later that it was a no, for example. It creates an anarchic and chaotic world. We have rules and laws precisely so as to be fair and predictable when we make important judgments.

You would doubt whether such persons have any principle.

It's balls that they don't have.

Hush, comrade.

Should I say instead that the ones that they have are shriveled up and about to fall off? They fail to understand that liking a person should neither be necessary nor sufficient to be ethical with her/him. Similarly, we do not have to pretend that we like someone in order to act ethically toward that person. If we do, it would be...

Comes your favorite word of the season, right? The one that starts with an 'h' and ends with a 'y'? There's a 'p' in it, a 'c' in it...

When people turn chummy because they want me to do something for them, I feel as if they were trying a cheap trick on me. If it is in my power to do it and if I see it necessary and reasonable, I would. It has no relation with whether I like her/him or not!

They are again totally confused, because they were nice to you and you agreed to carry out the task, but you look as if you were about to blow fire out of your mouth to scorch them.

The same people think that if they shower me with praises I would become fond of them.

Of course, they shouldn't lie.

They have absolutely no idea that they are showing the ends of their diapers as they walk around...

Anything and anybody interesting

All of us are forever in search of something interesting.

Are you sure? I know some people who are content that today is almost exactly the same as yesterday. They will be unhappy if tomorrow turns out to be dramatically different from today. They are satisfied with little variation in the people that they see, the food that they eat, the clothes that they wear, the work and the entertainment that they engage in.

They do allow well-scripted blips in life. In fact, they need them, because they have an idea of normal course of events and wish to follow it: schooling, employment, marriage, children---and their schooling, employment and marriage. And finally, retirement.

They know the major events, and accept them as they are. Those aside, life is a quiet, long river.

Don't you think they make great monogamists?

They ought to, but even they are sometimes overtaken by the biological urge to let their own genes dominate over others'.

Aha, so that is why Mr. Nextdoor who looks so sedate and boring one day runs away with his secretary who is half his age, abandoning his wife of twenty years, children and an Alaskan Husky...

Let's say that many of Mr. Nextdoor toy with a similar idea and are ready to take off as soon as they find a willing accomplice.

Most simply cannot fulfill the crucial requirement of finding that mate for lack of what they can offer. That is, the privilege is available almost exclusively to the rich and the powerful. Conveniently, they are the ones who have stronger desire to have more mates. Their main motive in life is to control as much as possible.

In other words, there are several reasons why people want different partners. One is purely biological. Some others are psychological: the need to have diversity in life and the desire to conquer.

Many also want to prove to the world that they can attract people, and for some, that desire becomes stronger as they age. Of course, the younger the partner, the better. I understand the mechanism behind, but I can't say that it's fun to watch the process or the result.

Politicians are characterized by their excessive wish to be in charge of the world; they are endowed with above-the-norm desire to control people, including those who could be their sexual mates.

It is ironic, because their lives are more in the public domain than others', and they risk losing the very source of their power by fulfilling the urge to attract and conquer mates.

It looks like the stacks are squarely against monogamy, both biologically and psychologically.

An agreed and fixed partnership is indispensable for child rearing, but that only says anything long-term would suffice and does not exclude polygamy and polyandry.

Is there any reason why we should adhere to monogamy?

If the parties involved had made an agreement to a monogamous relationship, they are morally obliged to remain committed to each other. The question is: what are the grounds for agreeing to such a relationship in the first place.

Especially if you declare not to conceive and/or rear children...

The only reason that I can think of is to avoid chaos in this world. People may make such declarations, but they may well change their minds once in a relationship.

The problem then would be if one wants a monogamous union for the child and the other doesn't.

Keeping partnerships monogamous means keeping it simple, and it helps when it comes to dissolution. Usually partnerships entail division in labor, and the fruits of that labor must be divided in a fair manner. If there are many people involved and if it is unclear who they are, we would be spending quite a bit of resources on this issue. Termination of partnerships are usually unhappy moments and people become quite passionate about obtaining their fair share.

So, the argument for monogamy is minimization of chaos and bickering... It's a rather weak one, isn't it?

We started our conversation today about amusing ourselves. Can you describe what is interesting to you, by the way?

Anything that stimulates my mind and senses.

Do you know what does so?

Anything that is beyond what I have experienced so far.

We know that we don't appreciate just about anything. We also like to be surprised by being pushed beyond our boundaries, and if you have not been aware of where the boundaries lie, all the better.

Not all, but many of us, you mean.

Enlarging your territory of appreciation happens easily when you are not conscious of your limits. You are presented by something that you have never experienced, and only when you begin to appreciate it, you realize that your sense of appreciation had been more limited earlier.

Because you are unaware of your limits, you don't reject outright what is in front of you.

Precisely. The rewards are larger when you do not know at first how the new experience fits in your world.

Which further means that we cannot describe what would greatly pique our interest.

Brilliant, comrade.

It's just that I happened to say what you had in mind, I know...

It's the same with attractiveness of a person. If you meet someone whom you know you wouldn't like, you would not make attempts to see her/him again, unless, of course, it is under some unavoidable circumstances.

Such as when s/he happens to be your boss, right?

If the person is different from those that you have known, but if you do not know how to place her/him in your world, you would not avoid her/him. And if you come to appreciate that person, you like her/him more than you would a person who belongs to your group.

Let's say that it is a possibility. The attraction may become strong, but it can wane quickly, too. After all, s/he is from a different universe.

If we succeed in making that other universe ours, we feel the relationship is rewarding. If that universe happens to be something that contributes to your positive image, the attraction can be quite strong.

A person who did not know anything about opera learns to appreciate it and acquires knowledge in that domain, for example.

Many of us are in need of being exposed to something new, and one person cannot be the gateway to a new territory all the time.

Just as one author cannot provide a reader with all the variety s/he needs in reading?

I have a wonderful cookbook that contains hundreds of recipes from all over the world. Anything from the book comes out great, but I get bored if I cook from it all the time. I get the urge to try something else, something seen through a different pair of eyes.

Isn't that another thumb down for monogamy as you implied last time?

Alas, you are right. And you know, after a period of infidelity, so to speak, I go back to that reliable cookbook.

Almost everything we considered seems to point in the direction of the graveyard for monogamous relationships, but I feel we should try our best to sustain it.

Why?

In order to avoid chaos and to use our resources for something more productive than finding an acceptable separation scheme for partners, as you said.

Well done, comrade. In my opinion, staying attractive is an important everyday goal, in particular vis-à-vis people whom we spend a bulk of our time with. The more often we see a person, the more likely that we bore her/him and vice versa. And, the more important that we do not do so, because we have to see her/him anyway.

What can I say... The most important turns out to be the most difficult.

If we are to keep the monogamous system, we need to constantly renew ourselves. We have to evolve.

But you said there are some people who like to have the same food every single day.

Yes, so here is already a source of friction for a couple. It sometimes happens that one is an evolving type and the other is not. Even if both are evolving types, it could be that their interests and outlooks on life diverge. I know a person who had been very much into opera, but it gradually ceased to move him. He now listens only to bluegrass music and let go of his massive opera recording collection.

You have been living with Plácido Domingo, and one day you realize you want to live with Bill Monroe instead? It's... it's scandalous!

That can happen, you know. We all need to evolve to keep the attention of others, especially the attention of those who are important to you, while retaining the aspects that make you likable and attractive to them.

I'd say it's like a store. In order to have customers visit and spend some money at regular and frequent intervals, you need a set of staples that make you reliable as well as something new for a nice surprise.

That is true if there are more stores than necessary for biological survival. We talked about our desire to have both the familiar and the unfamiliar some time ago. The problem here is how to change yourself in a way that is interesting to your partner and preferably to other friends and family members as well.

Obviously, you can't be a Kiri Te Kanawa married to a Plácido Domingo and change your career into one of a country singer's.

Unless he decides to be a Del McCoury at the same time...

Didn't you say that when you are forced to change in the most unexpected direction, your attraction to that person is the biggest?

I did imply so. But for that, you have to perceive that change as positive or interesting. Otherwise, it would not work. So, our question is again: what do we mean by interesting?

Didn't we agree that it is beyond description by definition? But some idea about it is necessary so that we know how to be interesting or find what is interesting.

Therefore, there is nothing but serendipity that we can rely on for this matter.

What about recommendations by others?

I'm sure you have experienced disappointments when you read books recommended by friends, although they also liked the books that you liked.

That's more of a rule than an exception, I'm afraid.

Or, a friend of a friend for some reason does not become your friend.

That happens, too.

Think about the effectiveness of the algorithms that churn out recommended items based on your previous purchases.

Once I ordered on behalf of a friend a black cape with special pockets which double as sleeping bags for bats, and ever since I have been receiving promotional messages for coffin openers, garlic detectors and so on.

And remember, the bigger the surprise of the good kind, the bigger the attraction.

What is your concluding message for monogamists?

Stay vigilantly hopeful! Boredom kills you, your mate and the relationship! Surprise is a double-edged sword, but...

I don't know if it is necessary to raise your fist, comrade... But hey, shall we make socialist-art posters with those slogans? I have a good example. Look, "Hasta la victoria siempre."

To victory, always!