Every now and again I see something that relates the need for love to that of our most basic drives. In Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory, it'd be located on the bottom of the pyramid an it includes; sex, food, air, shelter, water. The basic needs.
Now, looking back on my quest for love it was very time consuming. The idea ate away at me, and even though I was in college, I was finding being alone to prove quite formidable. At school, at work, when I was to be studying.. the distraction was there. Like a pesky itch in the part of your back you can't reach I was determined to get it. That's how you end up dedicating a year and a half of your life to it without realizing how much time has passed.
I try to make my job hunt a similar situation. Like searching for love beat me down, so too does the search for a job. I try to motivate myself and strangely enough. lately, in order to do anything I have to get off.
You could say that being alone during the day and the monotony of a job search switches on the part of the brain that craves the sweet release of those frisky little "feel good" hormones. Scientists have said that sex and orgasm activate the same part of the brain that is associated with drug addiction. It makes us feel good, and so like a crack whore, we keep chasing that high.
I will say that in my adolescence I was a late bloomer. The self exploration of myself as well as the connection process with my body was at a much later age for me than most. That, however, is what I see masturbation to be. The connection with yourself. I love myself. I know that if I couldn't get off then I'd have some real concerns in regards to how I saw myself, not only physically, but psychologically as well. Being a late bloomer I have only shared in the love making act with my fiance. I was what you'd call old fashioned. I am very glad that I decided to wait, but I am sure that I may not have been so sexual had I not known who I was.
All this talk about love and sex will bring me to another topic as well. The one about abstinence and the government in it's funding. Not too long ago a woman named Liza Long wrote a blog about her mentally ill son Michael. She instantly got news coverage on her out cry for better mental health treatment for the psychologically ill. Like her out cry, I will make a similar case, but not one so rash as to offend most people by assimilating my opinions with a tragic event. Documentaries cover this issue as well. Most schools won't teach safe sex in order to get Health education funding. There is a requirement that in order to get government assistance you much scare the absolute shit out of children. tell them it's wrong and then at the end have them sign a pledge vowing abstinence forever more. In an idealistic world this would work. But instead we have a mass of people who believe "Our kids aren't having sex." Then turn the other cheek and life goes on. Want to know something? They are having sex. Unfortunately now, it's in our parks where I took my little, now 4 year old sister, to. This teen couple was doing it under a pavilion on a bench. There's condemnation for pornography, sexting, teen nudity, and sex before marriage, but with the avocation of abstinence comes a higher percentage of teen pregnancies. Did you know that I didn't know what a condom looked like until I was about 18? I didn't know how to properly use a tampon, or where one even went until, again, I was almost 18? All the research on sex I did on my own accord. It's only because I was sensible enough to worry about my safety that I looked into it at all. With all my preparation I still ended up getting a UTI within a few days after, evidently spermicide lubricated condoms have this effect. I wasn't told you have to urinate after having sex either. But at least I had common sense to use protection.
Imagine the countless number of children who are having sex without protection, but now we glorify this on shows like 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom.
Television is the glorification of risks without repercussions, but in real life, there are consequences to our actions; good and bad.
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Thursday, December 20, 2012
All Great Empires Fall
We connect to larger masses through media, but what would we be without the instant access to information? Has the power ever gone out and you lost the internet for a few hours? It evokes a small stroke of fear. Our whole lives are on the internet, powered by this mighty machine- but what would we do without it? We have out whole lives on the internet. From banking to digitally documenting our lives for future generations.
Now there was actually some things quite similar in history I will highlight to make my point. There once was a Chinese emperor who unified China in early 200BC. After building the Great Wall at the expense of many lives Qin Shi Huang had to ensure the stability of his empire. Doing so resulted in the order of not only outlawing paper documents, but also the burning of books and burying of live scholars. Essentially this burning was to create a power over illiterates. They had to rely on him for information, but if you look into it now you'll realize he destroyed a lot of documented history during that time period.
My theory about the internet disappearing, satirically addressed in the South Park episode "Over Logging", has a lot to do with the loss of information about our time as well as the riddling effects on those people who are afflicted by internet addiction.
Now there was actually some things quite similar in history I will highlight to make my point. There once was a Chinese emperor who unified China in early 200BC. After building the Great Wall at the expense of many lives Qin Shi Huang had to ensure the stability of his empire. Doing so resulted in the order of not only outlawing paper documents, but also the burning of books and burying of live scholars. Essentially this burning was to create a power over illiterates. They had to rely on him for information, but if you look into it now you'll realize he destroyed a lot of documented history during that time period.
My theory about the internet disappearing, satirically addressed in the South Park episode "Over Logging", has a lot to do with the loss of information about our time as well as the riddling effects on those people who are afflicted by internet addiction.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
My Strange Relationship With Myself: Self Recognition
One of the most important relationships in your life is with yourself. We find this growing up through the adolescent years that we are the most intelligent, interesting, scary, reliable person that there is. We are our number one fan and enemy.
This discovery of yourself usually begins around the age of two or so when we develop the ability of self recognition. Scientists and psychologists have tested this by putting a mark on the forehead of a baby and then having the child look at itself in the mirror. This is why we don't have dreams about ourselves as infants. Existence is a strange thing, probably too much for a newly developing brain anyways. The point I am making here is that this idea of self recognition isn't gender based. However, we do tend to hear that little boys become aware of their bodies at a young age, but this is besides the point.
Adolescence is where I will start. Hormones are raging, attitudes are sharp and the need to become an autonomous individual is a constant struggle. I have learned a lot about myself in these years. Things like, what you meant to say and how it sounded are two different things. Simply put, experiences are strictly at the mercy of being subjective. This is the time where your body is changing and you like the opposite sex. You explore your body in a new and exciting way and for some reason you develop quite an adversary; yourself.
I tend to have conversations with myself when I'm alone. Being unemployed, this is often times most of how I spend my day. When I was younger however, and even now, I would sit in the bathroom and think. I wasn't waiting for anything to happen. Technically I was "done" doing my business, but I would just sit. A lot of the time I would talk to myself, have little hypothetical stand up comedy shows or just simply a great new and inventive idea. Of course all my good ideas were in places I had no access to a piece of paper or anything to write with. Needless to say they must have been strictly for self amusement purposes. But I found myself asking questions; strange ones at that.
First they would be about random things. Things I would have thought about as they came to mind. Other times, I would think about something that was bothering me. I have a hard time letting certain things go, I often times over analyzed situations and had a habit of replaying life's events in my head. It got to the point where it was annoying and I thought that this part of me had settled down over the years. Only recently have I realized that it really hasn't. Now these thoughts go from fears and anxieties about future events, to my opinionated beliefs, but almost always turn up becoming taken into a sexual context. Which only turns out to make me panic more. I tend to over hypothesize how an event will occur, usually the worst things weigh heavier in my probable scenarios. The good thing, most times than not, the situation goes better than expected. So when you expect the worst and it turns out completely fine, you can breathe that huge sigh of relief after you catch your breath from the way Anxiety sought fit to constrict your airways the past few weeks.
This discovery of yourself usually begins around the age of two or so when we develop the ability of self recognition. Scientists and psychologists have tested this by putting a mark on the forehead of a baby and then having the child look at itself in the mirror. This is why we don't have dreams about ourselves as infants. Existence is a strange thing, probably too much for a newly developing brain anyways. The point I am making here is that this idea of self recognition isn't gender based. However, we do tend to hear that little boys become aware of their bodies at a young age, but this is besides the point.
Adolescence is where I will start. Hormones are raging, attitudes are sharp and the need to become an autonomous individual is a constant struggle. I have learned a lot about myself in these years. Things like, what you meant to say and how it sounded are two different things. Simply put, experiences are strictly at the mercy of being subjective. This is the time where your body is changing and you like the opposite sex. You explore your body in a new and exciting way and for some reason you develop quite an adversary; yourself.
I tend to have conversations with myself when I'm alone. Being unemployed, this is often times most of how I spend my day. When I was younger however, and even now, I would sit in the bathroom and think. I wasn't waiting for anything to happen. Technically I was "done" doing my business, but I would just sit. A lot of the time I would talk to myself, have little hypothetical stand up comedy shows or just simply a great new and inventive idea. Of course all my good ideas were in places I had no access to a piece of paper or anything to write with. Needless to say they must have been strictly for self amusement purposes. But I found myself asking questions; strange ones at that.
First they would be about random things. Things I would have thought about as they came to mind. Other times, I would think about something that was bothering me. I have a hard time letting certain things go, I often times over analyzed situations and had a habit of replaying life's events in my head. It got to the point where it was annoying and I thought that this part of me had settled down over the years. Only recently have I realized that it really hasn't. Now these thoughts go from fears and anxieties about future events, to my opinionated beliefs, but almost always turn up becoming taken into a sexual context. Which only turns out to make me panic more. I tend to over hypothesize how an event will occur, usually the worst things weigh heavier in my probable scenarios. The good thing, most times than not, the situation goes better than expected. So when you expect the worst and it turns out completely fine, you can breathe that huge sigh of relief after you catch your breath from the way Anxiety sought fit to constrict your airways the past few weeks.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Introduction
If you are unfamiliar with my writings (which is very possible) let me introduce myself, as well as my line of writing intended for this blog specifically.
Life is full of relationships; romantic, platonic, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, bosses, every day people you run into on the street. You may never know every one you had the chance of walking past, but let me tell you, there are definitely patterns, or certain types of people.
Since this is a newer blog line, as of today, there is no guarantee I will stay on topic. I am more than open to giving my advice. There's a lot of people on this earth and I've had the chance to meet a lot of them. My purpose of writing this is not to pass time, but to pass on some ideas since everything is clearer when someone from the outside puts it in perspective versus the subjective view so many of us have. So let's start with just a few to get some ideas flowing, shall we?
1. Being single and looking for the one meaningful relationship we all want; The Hopeless Romantic
2. The Job Hunter; overqualified for high schooler's jobs, and under-qualified for all the rest
3. The Peter Pan; the one who should act like an adult, but rather, still acts like a child
4. The Parents; sure, they care, but sometimes it's a little too much, and other times it's not enough
5. The Coveter; the person who picks favorites
6. The Teenager; this person generally likes to text A LOT, they never seem to enjoy being where they are at the time and seek refuge talking to others via text or on twitter.
7. The Deal Hunter; this person loves a good deal, could also be frugal, cheap or actually think there's value in collecting and recycling aluminum cans
8. The Attention Seeker; this person generally seeks validation from others, and while this is usually normal, this type of person does it to excess
9. The Troll; this person likes to annoy people, often times angering others for amusement purposes
10. The Slob; this type of person lives in a habitat where the floors are actually just made of dirty clothes
11. The Athlete; could have been active at one point in their lives and always act over competitively
While these are just a few to get started on, I can assure that there will definitely be more along the way, and I am sure that Hopeless Romantic will be a long series.
Life is full of relationships; romantic, platonic, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, bosses, every day people you run into on the street. You may never know every one you had the chance of walking past, but let me tell you, there are definitely patterns, or certain types of people.
Since this is a newer blog line, as of today, there is no guarantee I will stay on topic. I am more than open to giving my advice. There's a lot of people on this earth and I've had the chance to meet a lot of them. My purpose of writing this is not to pass time, but to pass on some ideas since everything is clearer when someone from the outside puts it in perspective versus the subjective view so many of us have. So let's start with just a few to get some ideas flowing, shall we?
1. Being single and looking for the one meaningful relationship we all want; The Hopeless Romantic
2. The Job Hunter; overqualified for high schooler's jobs, and under-qualified for all the rest
3. The Peter Pan; the one who should act like an adult, but rather, still acts like a child
4. The Parents; sure, they care, but sometimes it's a little too much, and other times it's not enough
5. The Coveter; the person who picks favorites
6. The Teenager; this person generally likes to text A LOT, they never seem to enjoy being where they are at the time and seek refuge talking to others via text or on twitter.
7. The Deal Hunter; this person loves a good deal, could also be frugal, cheap or actually think there's value in collecting and recycling aluminum cans
8. The Attention Seeker; this person generally seeks validation from others, and while this is usually normal, this type of person does it to excess
9. The Troll; this person likes to annoy people, often times angering others for amusement purposes
10. The Slob; this type of person lives in a habitat where the floors are actually just made of dirty clothes
11. The Athlete; could have been active at one point in their lives and always act over competitively
While these are just a few to get started on, I can assure that there will definitely be more along the way, and I am sure that Hopeless Romantic will be a long series.
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