I got a REAL eye-opener...

[whaywardj]

If you mean me, Misombra, my ellipsis was directed to Lloyd...I was waiting to see if he had any other jabs at Independent to offer...Independent is FAR too demur and too much a lady to ever answer a question like mine directly. Not in public anyway.

[misombra]

what if you're just not that into him and you don't have to kid yourself into anything?

[misombra]

If you mean me, Misombra, my ellipsis was directed to Lloyd...I was waiting to see if he had any other jabs at Independent to offer...Independent is FAR too demur and too much a lady to ever answer a question like mine directly. Not in public anyway.

oh.

_________

[independent]

what if you're just not that into him and you don't have to kid yourself into anything?

Then you're in damn good shape, I'd say

The book is more about standards - why women lower them, why women should raise them, etc.

(Oh geez, I'm going to get flamed by TAVs again for talking about a damn book. I'm blaming this one on you Misombra LOL LOL)

[misombra]

i wish somebody would write a book called "how to get your boyfriend to clean the house."

[whaywardj]

Then you're in damn good shape, I'd say

The book is more about standards - why women lower them, why women should raise them, etc.

Good shape? I agree 1000% percent. Would that it were the case ALL people could state their emotional positions to each other clearly and without hesitation.

As to standards women generally set for themselves, as usual, I take a long view and point to acculturation as the culprit for snafus in that regard. It eliminates the need for a lot of soul-searching or nit-picking of whys or wherefores on the subject. Basically, IMO, for all our lives, both women and men struggle to learn, how to fit in, and to how succeed in performing the roles society informs us we should be playing at any given time in our lives. If an individual dis-connects his or herself from the dictates of their respective status quo, the need to meet the standards of these other-directed self-identifications vanishes.

The downside of this, of course, is that the struggle to identify one's self thereafter WITHOUT the aid of societally defined clues only just begins. Then comes the matter sucessfully fitting that self-defined identity into the prevailing social fabric.

I think, since we have no other way to pigeon-hole them into an identity we can recognize, we call people who succeed in this effort "artists." When they don't succeed at the effort, we label them with less appealling terms.

[whaywardj]

Short version of the above (quoting Grace Slick): "Artists peer over the edge of the abyss and do things they don't even have names for yet."

Or, more formally, quoting Martin Heidegger (I believe): "Art is the language whereby we speak of our most remote realities." (Or our future, in other words. Heidegger's position was that Being "is perpetually underway to language.")

Interesting for me to note around that thought is that the Cubist movement in art -- the exploded view of a subject from all perspectives at once -- shortly pre-dated the splitting the atom and the creation of the atomic bomb, which are among the practical applications of relativity theory. As if one presaged the other. Film art is a perfect of expression of relativity. Multiple perspectives PLUS multiple times may be conveyed in film. There are other examples. The re-discovery of single-point perseptive in painting during the Renaissance followed by the scientific method, for example.

[independent]

Basically, IMO, for all our lives, both women and men struggle to learn, how to fit in, and to how succeed in performing the roles society informs us we should be playing at any given time in our lives. If an individual dis-connects his or herself from the dictates of their respective status quo, the need to meet the standards of these other-directed self-identifications vanishes.

Interesting stuff, Hayward. I think a lot of my "bad choices" stem from the way that I was raised... or views I took on so early on in life that I just accepted them without question.

My mother was a single mom of 2, working and going to college at the same time, having a difficult time of it but a very strong woman (almost defiant, a martyr).

I was young when she stepped out and our father stepped in. I dont recall seeing her much again until I was a teenager. My father was quite opposite: a lazy self-absorbed "mamas boy" who let his wife (my stepmother) run the show. He was a decent man, mind you - worked, and all - but he was very passive and basically was raised by a successful independent woman who did *everything* for him (this would be my grandmother, the one that I took care of for the last 2 years before she passed away).

When the stepmothers dreams were shattered (10 yrs into it she realized he'd never change)... My sister and I were the only "women" in the house. My father fell ill (heart trouble) and I can remember cooking his meals. Special things for his condition - such as making sausage for breakfast out of ground turkey and sage, etc. Doing the laundry, cooking, housekeep...

I can see every one of their roles within me. I can see where I have picked up tips and clues from each of those people who played a part in my raising. I can see where I have tried so hard not to become one of them, that I became the other. If I take a step back, it is like they are all characters in some mad staged play...

They all lived their own lives to the best of their ability. I'm not trying to lay blame. I'm just seeing now that I am a 32 year old woman - an individual - and it's high time I figure out who ME is... and go with that.

[whaywardj]

I await your becoming with bated breath.

[independent]

My "becoming" LOL - well okay then, if that's what it's called :-p

I think it's high time I get on with my life. What the hell I've been doing up to this point, I have no clue. A big part of it seems like such a waste, looking back.

[whaywardj]

Yeah, maybe. But then again, you'd not've got where you are WITHOUT having gone where you've been. You'd've got somewhere else and someone else would be standing in your boots now, not you.

[independent]

That's true... experience is invaluable.

The comment was made in haste, of course. I do like where I am, generally speaking, so I will just have to appreciate the 'where I've been'.

[Rosebud]

Indepedent you don't have to appreciate where you've been, you have to appreciate who you are BECAUSE of where you've been. If that makes sense. You can frown upon your past and what you've done but you wouldn't be reading these books, talking to the great people on LF if you would have taken a differnet road....

[bluesummer]

i wish somebody would write a book called "how to get your boyfriend to clean the house."

It's called 'break up with him and tell him part of the reason is that he doesn't do shit around the house'.

I haven't lifted a finger in a week. Too bad his ass is outta here.

[independent]

That's true, Rose

I'm feeling particularly positive - kinda found my motivation again too! (smile) I miss my classes (cardio kick boxing) and I miss (scratch that: DID miss) reading and all that other stuff I used to do before a boyfriend was my central focus. I'm finding that I still love all of those things... and enjoy the hell out of my life (when I'm actually living it!!).