It's Not that Complicated

Some say love, among other things, has a lot to do with geography. It turns out, location is key. As to which location is disease-free, no one knows but we should be heading there. You know, in the opposite direction.

Now why should I sound so cynical about an emotion most people see as positive? Because of the pain such illusion inflicts into our daily lives. Just as it is with food, we are all somewhat addicted to the elated feelings associated with romantic love. Not that a little adventure, a brush with madness on an otherwise placid horizon would spell doom. At festive times, we ought to welcome shady elements into the mix, it spices things up. But just like condiments, a dash much of it would spoil the whole dish. 

It's boring to always play it safe. It's risky business to want to live on the edge, however. Buddhism speaks of a Middle Path when Siddhartha observes that too much of anything (except meditation) is bad, but a little bit of it, even madness, is a welcome sight. 

It's an expensive habit to date, especially if you're a man. Eliminating the need for a romantic attachment does not rid of the wanting a partner/lover with whom to journey. Rare are those who adhere to a life of abnegation and solitude but that's what ironically awaits us in the end if we fail to see that at its core we are born and die alone. Therefore, we ought to welcome times of abstinence, temperance and penance; times of fasting though there might be plenty of food, moments of quietude when the impetuous crowds dance and drink; time alone when there are no welcoming arms to embrace. You ought to go without if you seek to find solace within. Nothing rules over you except the inner wisdom that serves as a compass to guide your deeply rooted steps.

It strikes us as somewhat nihistic insanity to hear from Buddhism that attachment is the root of all suffering. After all, if it's not because how much we cherish our lives, why bother at all fearing death? It even goes as far as suggesting to kill your desire.

It's so anti-establishment, such a radical way of thinking. Nothing more than a mere ascetic eccentricity.

There are some contrasts, of course, with the Buddhist way and our way of life. We grew up in obnoxious luxury in comparison to our ancestors who not so long ago, say about a hundred years ago or so, were dying half our age. Things will probably continue to get better, and we live in a culture that promotes selfish behavior by praising individualism as a tenet.  Old sages all across a vast scope of millennials knew of wisdom in frugality, abstinence, temperance, self-control. We lack some of that wisdom nowadays. The greatest spiritual leaders of all time, such as Siddhartha, the Buddha; Jesus of Jerusalem; Lao Tzu; among others… did not tell us to go out there and be all that we could be. People were instructed to be pious, to seek spiritual guidance, to spend time alone, to commulgate or meditate. Theological doctrine gravitated towards centeredness. We may see it suspect that religion forbids so much and allows for so little, but true spirituality doesn’t suggest we find someone and perpetuate the gruesome cultural phenomenon of marriage. Think of it as two animals put in a box, never to see the light again. That we have such a high rate of divorce says a lot about the state of affairs in modern relationships. In a hunter-gatherer tribe, much like is the case with bononos, the chimpanzee specie closest to human sapiens DNA, our closest living relatives, use sex as means to create social bonds; in other words, anything goes. With the advent of agriculture, we left the nomad life for good and traded a substantial part of our leisure to working even more than we did when roaming the savanna as hunter-gatherers. In such primitive cultures, it was common to see members engage in sex for all sorts of things. I may be wrong, but it was a time when money did not yet exist and so it makes sense that paying for things with sex was a common practice. Sex may have been the first monetary system. Unlike gorillas who are ruled by an alpha male who has unique access to all the females, bonobos share theirs. Sex among bonobos isn’t a privilege of the most dominant male.

Another modern setback is monogamy. Major human societies such as the Roman did not advocate for it. Out of the 500 species of mammals left on earth, about less than 5 percent are monogamous, forming  lifelong bonds among which, interesting enough, is the wolf. Arguably, about the same percentage may be true for us humans, too. In other words, a tiny percentage of us does want to be in sexually exclusive relationships. Some of us find predictability kind of sexy. Human beings are complex creatures, who say one thing and do the exact opposite. We find appalling that the adult Roman men had sexual relationships with young boys. The God of the Old Testament committed infanticide. The freedoms and ideals we hold today may seem the right ones, but everyone who ever lived was subject to the era and bounded by the ironclad of its rituals. No one can completely escape this predicament, otherwise we are called sociopaths, etc. But is there anything more psychopathic than individualism. It reeks of narcissistic viscosity. It is what caused the modern calamity of fatherless homes. Children raised by children who wanted to live their childhood all over again, never to be seen as a parental figure, often bitter and down with the feeling that we were cheated out of this hand life dealt us. We feel as if there ought to be a way to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.

Truly, religions weren’t interested in the individual experience, one may argue. Life was way too much a serious matter, and so individualism was reserved for those at the top of the food chain, the kings and rulers, the masters, the bishops, the Pope. The treatment saved for the very elite. Interestingly, in adopting this lavish style of living, we do not find ourselves any less insignificant. Here, too, a bit of Taoism can be applied: we thrive in life so that we can show off to others just how much of it we’ve amassed. If we must point at a thing we own in order to validate our existence, there is an inner lack exposed.

At its core, Buddhism and many other ancient philosophy, most notably that of Taoism, spoke of empathy and a pious life. These doctrines were about the liberation of our souls which may sound a bit sketchy for us all now but back then it meant that there simply can't be any peace of mind or greater self-fulfilment than in the dissolution of the ego. These doctrines did not speak of self-expression but more like a denial of such self. In Taoism, for instance, just getting excited to see something as “beautiful” implied that there is also a polarity of ugliness thrown into the equation.

How can I translate that? Every time you see a beautiful girl, your response is primal. You look at her, you give off micro expressions that tell unequivocally that you're seeing something you like. Your heart races. Your pupils dilate. How many times a day you'd put yourself through misery this way? You know you won't say anything so why not shut up that whole nonsensical animalistic reaction to a beautiful woman? Now, you may have an edge over the rest of those around, if you instead focus your energy and strength for more personally-oriented fruitful tasks.  

You're better off going about your business without such internal turmoil. You wouldn't respond that way if you had been married to that beautiful stranger for a year. In such heightened state of mind, you rarely have 20/20 vision. If you were to buy shoes that'd fit your heart, chances are you'll go for two sizes smaller when it comes to lizard-brain love. Do you really want the hippocampus cerebral district in charge of your destiny? You should know, it is here within this nutty-nutshell one-dimensional-size fits all running the show? Might as well hire a fat New York native subway rat to play the flute while your larger mammal brain is on hold.

We make more mistakes and spend more lavishly when in love. And the madness doesn't seem to end there. Somehow they make us want what can't have 24/7. We're constantly assailed by waves of commercials that show us the fanciest new toy, the best cars, the most beautiful women. All these superstars.

It's kind of depressing if we do not measure up.

If we don't have the same income as our peers, if we don't do at least better than our parents did. Everything in modern life revolves around a static wheel in a laboratory and we're the rat in the cage racing madly. Of course, wisdom in antiquity can resonate with our modern ways and we can integrate some off its most fundamental aspects into our lives without the necessity to become a celibate monk. But one thing is to go out there and enjoy yourself All the way and another thinking that you need a lot of money to do so. Love is a business, just think how expensive a wedding is. How much is a drink at a bar? Why are the lights dimmed and the music so loud in places where you’re supposedly meeting people up. What of all the dates we go on and the gifts, it all adds up to no point. Of course, generosity is a virtue. But it is a virtue that stems from piety, as in giving to those in need and serving the ones we love. You need not spend too much to show appreciation, to pay attention to detail, to give of yourself. That is the true testament of wealth. Instead, we spend too much because we cannot give much else. We’re what we have and it leaves us feeling empty at times. Look, don’t get me wrong. It’s great to enjoy the luxuries of our time, but it’s even greater to untangle ourselves from it all and see that we already have far greater riches within reach. All we need to do is seize the right moment. Not perfect, just right.

It may feel so wrong, because it is wrong, because we do not deserve to be loved the way we are. Because we want to love what we cannot have. Because we have more than we need and want more than should, and should more than would, and would not in the end. What cowards are we. After all, drinking is for drunks and shy people. We function better in bed and elsewhere when we abstain from alcoholic beverages. We’re sold into the idea that it takes money to love. And, in a way, it does. Love can be expensive when you don’t want it. I didn’t want to have a child but for religious beliefs, my girlfriend at the time did, and so I found just how expensive a baby can be. Before having my first son, I’d buy me new shoes every other week. Why did I need that many shoes? As you see, sometimes love can save you from a life gone astray.

Whenever I spoke to my cousin Alan about cutting down on drinking and quitting smoking for a few days, along the same lines the subject of having kids came up. He’d spend a few nights a week or so in local bars, and it is not that the bar scene doesn’t have its fine hour. But if you’re in your mid thirties, still hanging out at the same pace you did when you were in your twenties, you’ve been had. Why not settle down? I’d ask him. Not so much so that he’d suddenly listen to me and do as told, but more because I wanted to see what was on his mind.
“I don’t want to lose my freedom” he’d say.

“What freedom? “The freedom to get drunk four nights a week? That’s not freedom.”

“It is to me” he’d say.

I wouldn’t know if it were all that much in the end. He’d confess being sick of the place, the booze, the cigarettes. But he still went and sat there and drank and smoke. Not that he had, to my knowledge, a drinking problem and not that it was my problem. But I’ve always been who I am and the way that part of that deal is letting those I care for, just a handful of them, what I think of them. If it’s good, too. And, of course, do so in a light manner, no judgmentality.

We should probably turn off our cell phones at night. We do not need to be connected all the time. There ought to be a time for us to be spent in quietude, alone, doing absolutely nothing more than being. We should get away from it all from time to time. Get off at a different train station, visit another country, spice things up. Lovers come and go; friends are forever. We ought to find a better way to go about it. This way of doing things, all vamped up and wired, can’t be good for us. It gets in the way we should ideally bond and connect to one another. No offense, but we can do better than just getting numbers and asking people we don’t know out in the hopes that some sex might lift the heavy feelings and make us yet again kings of the world.

We won’t if we keep staring at our phones, seeing if there’s any updates, who posted what and how it compares to my own posts? We ought to lift our head from our lap and see each other as we are, here and now.

You know, face to face… kind of the way you're doing now staring at your phone.

Now, where were we? Ah yes, geography.

You know, the fact that you may end up loving someone you're close to, as in someone nearby.

Either someone who is a friend of your family or lives in the same neighborhood or is in the same line of work.

In essence, love has to always be geographical unless, of course, is of the platonic kind. Why does the platonic kind get a bad rap? We all live in our heads. And platonic can be the start of something or an ideal plateau or climax from which you can turn back or somehow exorcise. The demon of love knows no boundaries, it knows no common ground; it's downright despicable. Garcia Marquez was right to sum it all up in his novel on the subject, Love in the Time of Cholera with the opening line: “It was inevitable.”

Much more than mere geography is needed for this to work. After all, we end up sometimes with people who end up living not just in a different zip code but an altogether country. Nonetheless, it's an illusion.

We'll never be closer than we are right now because no matter the distance we can hop on a plane and be down with sickness. Love, that is.

We're ill -equipped when it comes down just about most things but specially if it involves that class we all had Emotions 101. Remember? With friends who knew just as little as we did and parents who knew a whole lot less than their soon-to-be-teenagers, temperamental boys.

Adolescence is not easy. Growing up requires certain rite of passage at almost every turn. We don't master the game of life -or love, for that matter- with gimmicks; instead we master a single move that gives us an edge over our unforeseen opportunities. There are tons of machinations and lavish iterations we've undergone so far, and no one is as good in everything as someone is good with something, something.

You only one of three elements to give a rough meaning to life and in order to thrive and build as you walk upon the uncarved stony road: the enlightened path is cemented in the collective shadow that once proceeded it.

So that not all of us are good at most things. Which is why it only makes sense to do what's most important to us. Which is usually the most challenging one. What matters is, the time we spend at work with familiar strangers or on our way to work with unknown strangers.

Not all strangers are created equal. We're all strangers to ourselves and to others. Who knows what kind of stranger I'll be when we meet again? We've been nothing but strangers so far. But of all these strangers that I unrecognised myself in, none of them is as precious as the stranger I become each time our eyes met around.  

We all come with an expiration date and everyone should know their number could be up any moment. To know when and where would only adrenalize the way we approach life.  Taoism speaks of nature not rushing, not eager at the seams, but that it eventually takes shape and form. It is a gradual but certain shift, like that of the stone cutter.

We should all live as if we had been declared with an incurable disease --for what is the human condition if not sickness? We are like the demon nature has summoned to do it's biding and end the ecological equilibrium. Like most monsters in a film, we are unaware of our condition; other conscious monsters, an elite minority, machinate the existential grinder.

nd so when we find ourselves in the midst of warm, cozy feelings, we forget as men that evolution never meant for us to sit idly and let emotions run its course. We rebel against this idea of giving up, of utter surrender. We deny our own vulnerability. And it causes us pain. And when we hurt, we may get used to it and go about our business and not shout out loud that something is amiss. All that awaits us in just the next two hours before I head off to work:

Relax. Sit back, tiger. Do a set of pull-,ups, go for a run, meditate half hour, get to work on time, sit nearby to a beautiful stranger and calmly breath in her aesthetic bliss. Let that world that surrounds us engulf the two of us in its embrace. It's just a taste but it's there, you're never as alive as when you can no longer make sense. We get there way of extasis or way of contemplative ritual. Either way, it's the way in which we lose ourselves.

What we have until then is containment. We await as hunters for the right moment. It can't take forever. It must begin now.

It rubs us off with a streak of madness, this love issue. How fast are we willing to move on if the object of our affection doesn't justify our yearning? What we want is oftentimes so much greater than we need. What needs are met and how often? See, it's complicated. Some may be inclined to believe that it is the very satisfaction of need that gives rise to addiction overtime. Few are willing to withstand the withdrawal symptoms. Moodiness, restlessness, a bit of misery to be left alone to ourselves. It's the same with people. We love each other because it makes less lonely, more sexy, less obtuse, more shiny. It's feels good to be wanted and loved and praised. But should we live only for the  chemistry aesthetics and the cool crowd brings in? It may sound astounding, but living long periods as a celibate and not having too much human contact can be good for your health.

What's so good about alienation? First it isn't for everyone as most people desire to be with someone, be it family or friend. What we need most are friends but the way things are set, of which we'll deal with later here, we tend to focus on other frivolous routines. People is horrified to open up to one another. That's what social media is for. Right?

Well, no. Most of our lives have been ruled by idiocy. It takes us long enough to realize, and some may never come such realization, that those who were in charge of imparting the know-hows in life, rarely had time for emotional input. There was no 101 Human Emotions. There ought to be. And while we're at it, let's scratch romance right off the board. Well, maybe not just yet. We still need to debunk some of these myths.

It goes beyond geography.

Someone you can bring home to your folks wouldn't fall under the category of geography. It's simple, really, if you match your illusion with some balls. When we guys tease one another, we may denounce behaviors less in accord with our masculine identity as “file-like", in a derogatory, non-sexist way. Why is it that we lack the resolve to bring things to fruition? It takes far less energy to take life as one would a bull by the thorns, but unwise. We need to be assertive in our quest, neither passive nor aggressive. In a decisive swing of the cut-right-thru the bullshit sword, you can slay one giant juicy dragon. Make your pick and stick to your guns. If a girl slaps you, turn the other chick.

But that person would still need to be within the geographical sphere of proximity for something to happen. We may therefore argue that geography rules the day because two people cannot for a relationship unless there is physical component that can bring these two (or more) into a cohesive bond. Even in the realm of long-distance partnerships, ties of all kinds may be formed thanks to the advent of wireless technologies. It may not convey the same level of intimacy and connection that a one-on-one, but it works and seems to be enough for some.

It's all complicated business, as most of us tend to form mixed-feelings when it comes down to romance. In the modern application of the word, romance is all about power. Everything, more or less, is. It varies according to the land and its culture, but everywhere there's a wicked interpretation of what it constitutes. It's all about getting the girl as the hero in the story sets off to save the day. We can be interstellar conquerors on our days off.

Romance is not the sole property of modernity. It started with the Age of Romanticism. And we had to name a culprit, it'd have to be thanks to one of Enlightenment's very best mind: Rousseau. Every age that succeeded it and reincarnated it made it user-friendly. Each subsequent cultural stepping stone have rise to  a system more and more apt for general consumption. As it often happens with anything that strikes humanity's fancy, it was gradually turned into a business.

Not just love but everything else, since society's elitists figured that being now the most present time ever, who is to say we are not better than we were before? It's not like people in the Middle Ages were aware of the dark times that had befallen them.  We sleepwalk through these times of colossal prosperity, unrivaled wealth, but if we do not tighten our ecological whip, we may very well be living our last days as a specie here on earth.

Except ages do not always move forward and we may ourselves be in the midst of a new dark age. Agriculture two one evolutionary step ahead, two steps back for mankind. The solution is perhaps in the very word but instead of its individual stance, divide it, as in mankind. It doesn't get any simpler than that. Kindness, to one another. Selflessness. Empathy with our fellow organisms trapped in slaughterhouses.

Those at the heap of the hierarchy were not very much “progressive.” It was in the interest of a sovereign land to keep their populace in doubt, if not frightened, but most definitely “in the dark.” We, too, live in the dark and one ought to just consider our situation here.  The little we do know is that up until now we were wrong about all our presumptions. What we do, the way of doing it, tells a story about ourselves. We're not who we think we are. Not the ones we thought ourselves to be either. Our minds are hardwired on denial and biases.

Since early in our formation, the concept of romance is instilled. At home and in school, through dogma at the hand of our educators who foment a governmental agenda and under the roof we grow, the people we meet along the way, the books we read, the music we listen to. It all shows a fierce anecdote of love and courage, but movies are theatrical masturbation: we get our fix of adrenaline in a rather conformist and passive way, deluding ourselves in the projection of a pixelated reality with bombastic rhetoric and sound-effects. It all leaves a footprint in the trajectory flux of a reality that is, if we are to be honest, ever-present, always evolving and never at once. So is love.

Just a few decades back, look and it’ll be easily found. In the early nineties, without smartphones, it was common to use a beeper. It wasn’t until the latter half of that decade people began to really unravel and create in the process the demand that Apple started with the iPhone. The smartphone has redefined, if not transformed, the way we relate to one another. And to think that this an industry that made it big only a decade ago. It continues to grow, but those of us born in the early seventies see things no different. We wouldn’t go back to the way things were and things were good, not great but consistently more so. No one wants to go to last year flagship. And today’s flagships will be primitive artifacts in just a few years from now.

We can only imagine what great things will come in a few months from now. Tomorrow is here and if we take good care of the primal casing in which we carry ourselves, exercise some, eat right, meditate and avoid stress, we may end up hooking ourselves to a higher state of consciousness. Be one with the machine. It may be a matter of sticking around for the next decade or so.

Every movie we see, every sitcom we watch, every book we read.. offers familiar dynamics that imprint our observant and constantly upgrading self, every action and reaction, every thought, is being recorded in the subconscious with thoughts as to what is considered the norm: Instagram pics with your romantic partner, or most significant other whomever that might be, doing whatever it is that will foment the notion that both of you are living it up in this life. But, are we? Really?

Are we really as alive behind the scenes? Do we really face life with a smile or is that just for the flash? Aren’t we just uploading miniature digital replicas of ourselves as we were moments ago? And doesn't that flashy misrepresentation of aesthetics make us feel a little less ugly?

In Taoism, yeah, sure. No such a thing as “ugly” or “pretty”, as these are one and the same, ying yang. So, each complements the other, sponsoring empathy, forming bonds, so long as no one’s entity separates the two from their intrinsic knot, until someone casts light on the less aesthetically, saying: “There’s ugly!” it is thereof implied that there might be a beautiful counterpart, a parallel dimension in which such condition has been remedied. All of these are just illusions that work well in keeping life as is.

We’ve done so effectively in the past: come up with solutions to what would have constituted a physical handicap, a cognitive decline, there’s nothing that modern science and its army of neuroscientific bees always buzzing around and stinging, noisily as it’s inherent of our specie and gossip cannot wait until the erudite acknowledgment of things to come, discoveries found, it is nowadays a science of a moment to moment. If something doesn’t have a solution yet, give it a few days and google it again.

I learnt so with my firstborn son’s diagnosis of autism. Little things depress as much, it felt as if the world had finally passed me the bill for having had oh so much fun up until that point. Now I know better. His diagnosys changed me fundamentally.

I resolved to be around longer and so I gave up on certain bad habits immediately and I aimed at finding the answer to the riddle of the autistic syndrome. Having read very little, I knew it was a haunting prognosis. I immediately broke down and did so without much reserve, holding him in my arms and already mapping the way out of this freak of nature, son of a gun dilemma. I knew there was no how and even less than a way, but in searching for an answer, I stumbled upon something far greater. Let’s skip ahead the anecdotes and say with good confidence that nothing has changed me more for the better than wanting to stick around not just longer but healthier than ever before. Because of the simple premise that my son help would need me around in order to father him for all the time my father wasn’t around and all the time I will be. Yes, being around when they grow old and see our children have children of their own and see these children grow and still be around, healthy and strong.

Progress has been the motto of our existential thrive. We’ve been arrogant in our quest, rarely looking back at flawed things and moving on with the best product. Sometimes, it’s best to know that the rat-race makes no one genuinely fulfilled. Or as others might call it, “happy.” Here’s the problem: happiness isn’t compatible with progress, since we want things to be better, finding ourselves at ease with the way things are may shatter that notion. We no longer find the need to propel ourselves into the very next big thing in the evolving laboratory wheel that we call life and put on our dopamine engines and fly the ethereal, proverbial heaven of things to come. We enjoy our way of life, the way we’re all wired and interconnected. But we miss the privacy and lonesomeness of our craft, the need to retreat and not to be found, to go back to the inner cave from which we’ve never emerged. Our inner lives are at stake, whenever we find outer expectations of us by close ones who sit at the sidelines, tilting the balance of our lives with their weight and opinions. We want to make progress, yes, but what kid of progress will do us more good? The kind that not only is good for us as individuals but as a collective entity. Whether we like it or not, and certainly I do not like nor dislike it one way or another, we belong to a group, a pack. The more your pack has your back, the better off you’ll fair.

It’s imperative that we polish our social skills, serve others well without an agenda in mind. When we do things in expectation of others, we fall under the same trap of taking other people’s opinions of us into regard. Pay no mind to any voice that dwells within you, wrestling against it is futile. It’s best to analyze ourselves first before passing judgment on others. Everyone notices the soulful step that tracks back its form and presses forward regardless, but after countless steps there’s a stop on the way there to anywhere, making a pause, pacing ourselves, too, counts as part of the journey. It is then that we find ourselves midway of the chosen path. Sweat dripping down your face, you breathe in deep and hold your breath until it leaves you breathless: each moment affords us with an indefinite amount of choices that could better our actual condition.

We can always find a way to feel better if we are willing to take action and make the right choices. Being always busy and having little time for leisure is just as bad as having nothing better to do, but oftentimes extremes make us who we are and no one should dissuade you from your aim, whatever that may be. Similarly, we should decide for ourselves what it is that makes us feel more at home and “happy”.

I don’t know that happiness is the right choice of word. Some would call it “fulfillment”, but still: what are you as you await to fulfill a wish or a goal of yours? Fulfillment may err closer home, but what we may be looking for is “contentment”. Somewhere along the way between the outwardly hedonic preposition of “happiness”and its polar iteration “negation” lies that middle path the Buddha spoke of: equilibrium.

We do not want extreme “happiness” or, as its passive counterpart would have it, being actively engaged in fruitless tasks. Some of us search for broader existential meaning than just the right snapshot to post on a media outlet. More than a title, a relationship status, or a brand new toy, what a sensible individual most wants is a human connection. Isn't that what we're all after posting a pic of ours?

What we get are superlatives. Look at our anatomy: we aren't much and we demand so much. We got enough goods but it is never good enough. Our discontentment is not as a result of lacking. Something else is amiss.

In order to compensate, we overeat. We use porn, to satisfy our sexual drive. We watch movies to get the chemistry of action mimicking. We drink coffee to get there -somewhere fast. We masturbate to spare our ego.

It's not that we should all ascribe to celibacy. It's not as bad as it sounds. I think you're happier when you give up the illusion. It is ironic nonetheless that the minute you give up trying to get something, the more it comes your way. Say you worry about money, then you shall never have more than you fear you should. The same is true of all these intricacies we denominate as falling in love. Love is nothing short of a business. First off, you gotta go out and find it, and in the process spend a good penny doing so. They may induce you to drink or eat lavishly, and if it is a proper romantic holiday such as Valentine's or mom's day, it may demand more of you, offer expensive gifts per say.

Think of dating. The idea is pretty simple. You call and ask a girl out. You take this girl out. You spend some money.  Talk about yourselves. Or at the very least the selves worth recalling. We all want to paint a flattering rendition of ourselves to a potential mate.

Now, I ask, is it really pertinent to take a girl out of her element and woo her unto the wild outdoors in order to have a good time, especially when you go out and find that there are a constellation of girls out there already ready to party the night away.

Next, you gotta be up at a time designed to be tucked in bed. Look, I know many of you youngsters consider the nightlife a coming of age staple in maturity. Fine, but no one's mature at 21 and it'd take me no less than a decade of boozing every other day to find out. I won't be hypocritical: it was fun. But it wasn't all that is cut out to be and most party-hard souls are terribly lonesome. We pay dearly for a neurotoxic agent that literally wipes out brain cells and destroys the kidneys. Ten percent of the alcohol we digest crosses the threshold into the mind.

We're only given that which is effective at killing us: alcohol, cigarettes, and a sickening diet. I understand someone may enjoy a drink every now and then, but having multiple platforms of self-destruction at our disposal and enacting one or more of these at any given conjunction, it can backfire. Our bodies and minds are well-equipped to rid of toxins. But what good is a cleaning device if you just keep shitting on it?

Look closer and you'll see it materialize out of thick air, those who push forth and are quite satisfied with never being satisfied often prevail. But at what cost? Those whose satisfaction is in the lack thereof are the richest souls.

Take what you'd consider a “happy” dog. Such dog would run about freely and pee all over the furniture or lick the faces of its human companions with the same tongue that it used to lick another dog’s butt. Say the dog would happily disregard any commands by its human leader.

The dog, of course, is unbalanced. Similarly it happens with people that if they lack, as the dog in the analogy, discipline and purpose, they are rendered useless beasts. What made the dog the most successful non-verbal, non-human creature was, for sure, its unique social abilities and its sound loyalty. We can trust a loyal dog as the most loyal of friends because. It is humans, and more appropriately so sapiens, our very own specie, the monster nature cooked up in seeking its own destruction. In the brief history of humankind, we've wiped out the vast majority of species.

What's left are billions of animals in slaughterhouses and the other billion or so we've domesticated in the form of personal companions, aka pets. It seems that whatever it is of no use for consumption or amusement has really no place therein.

We know what little we know from those who came before us. Advances in technology allow us to outlive our ancestors in any periodic timetable. When we could in the past relegate the responsibility on a divine and whimsical force, unknown to our condition, we now know there's a method to apply that will confer better results. We know what it needs to be done, steps that will lead us out of the mess that we're in.

But how do we know if this is the right path forward? Who am I to say that snubbism and having an intellectual knack are the foolproof ways to a higher state of consciousness? Who says we need such a state of affairs?

Romance, that is, can only complicate things. It's overrated. No one has time for jealousy, anger, but we hang on to the notion that we belong to one another.

I'm sure it's worked for others. And if that works for you, as well, and you happen to find someone willing to go along with it, the more power to you.

No one's saying you should change the way you are. Why should I press on what may be in your interest of doing. To each its own.

It's hard enough to be ourselves that we now have to bring someone else's randomness into the equation. And the worst part is that we follow these rituals, modeled after people who sucked at it, our parents did their best and in some cases not nearly enough but we don't have to do parenting the archaic way of theirs. We have more efficient techniques and coping mechanisms. We can adopt the right course of action and see it through. It can be a little thing long forgotten and then one day taken upon and you get to be more yourself by yourself. Our misery stems from not loving ourselves enough to know that we really need no one. It's a hassle to deal with romantic rituals such as dating. Everything is turned into a business. Even love.

There's a disconnect here. We go out and ingest a fair amount of alcohol at a time way past our bedtime. Is that what is fun? What a ripoff.

You go and drink and do so but not because you'll find the love of your life. Or who knows? Maybe so. But what are the odds that life, hard as it already is, would turn out the way you want it to. If anything, the present moment teaches us how different things turn out. It will require effort and effortlessness.

Why is it that we must get tipsy in order to get to talk to someone we may not find as amusing once the night ends. No need to be saying that you want to be just friends. You can enjoy life more when you don't owe any of your time to a second party. No matter how good a person, things turn sour sooner or later. Is it worth it? Well, yeah and no. It's worth the pain to know that I try to fend off that route and climb instead mountains of countless possibilities. We no longer see others as potential anythings.

It all started with not wanting to date in the sense that we go on dates and eat ice cream or that sort of thing.  Then it turned into not wanting to date period. I know, at this pace I'd end up being a monk. But you know what? It's peace of mind and freedom over which you can put a price on.

Love is complicated as it is, best to keep it out of the workplace. You can't help but feel attracted to one another. That's fine. How you deal with that tension determines your success. It's a rule I never broke: I kept romance out all along.

I may have fallen madly in love a couple of times. It happens to everyone and the more you fight how you feel, the worse it gets.

But I'm a big boy and I kept things casual. Then it turned out I didn't want to date anyone outside either. It's just a boring game. Read Games We Play.

If you're not man enough to be without her, then you're not man enough for her.

I gave up the myth of love eons ago. But I'd still go out and mingle. It's easier not to seek out adventure once the thrill of the unknown gets all too familiar. You know where it ends. Out in the cold of night, downing shots… it's not that there's no fun. There is. But at what cost?  If you drink, you can't drive, and if you drink, you'll end up eating. Overeating and bad stuff for sure and at that time. Working nights take years off your life. No one will you back the sleep you miss.

I fell in love with good sleep habits and I go to bed early and I rise early. A little before dawn, Awake and meditate your way into the dawning day, write for one hour and meditate afterwards for another twenty or thirty minutes. Not a single hangover in over a year and I have a very low tolerance for it. In Miami, I had water because the couple of times I tried some vodka, I fell asleep. The thing is, I did enjoy myself or whatever self I was back then. And I didn't need alcohol to do so. It was a lot more fun. I'm six feet one inch tall, and in the best shape of my life. All I had to do was to exercise more often and eat right. I had to get nutrition right. I let go of that which is non-essential. It has to have a purpose or else it is not a service I'd pay for.

I don't date. I don't go out. I don't drink alcohol. I don't even have a cellular connection. I do carry my smartphone and keep offline content like digital music, YouTube Red videos, ebooks, etc. I eat only food I've prepared. I don't take showers everyday but I keep hygienic. We're mostly composed of germs and the bugs that make us up are mean enough to fend off disease. We need them.

Root out the most vicious habits and there still are plenty of ill-fated decisions made on a regular basis. I'm far from perfect but I am a little better each day, somehow, some way.