The world does not live by your rules
nor does it ask your permission or acceptance
Dear June,
Yeah, so many dead at the Russian school was terrible, especially with so many of them being children. It’s so easy to sit back in a nice comfortable house (or office, in my case) and condemn those who did it. Make love, not war; in a war, everyone loses; violence only begets violence. Appealing thoughts … until you think about it more.
The culture you are living in is mostly Aryan. That was not originally native to that area: They came as conquerors. Successful ones. The country I am living in doesn’t have a lot of Native American’s left … it’s mostly populated by Europeans, plus some Africans and a few Asians. Again, successful conquerors. History is full of examples of violence spreading a culture.
Think of it as part of evolution. In nature, creatures battle each other all the time. Don’t have to look to lions and tigers … within yourself there’s a constant battle going between you and bacteria. At this microscopic scale, if you become non-violent, i.e. stopped fighting the bacteria, your “enemies” – the bacteria – would kill you. Similarly for societies. Suppose you start with countries that never fight. If any one of them built up an army, it would quickly take over the others. That violent country would be able to take any resources it wanted from the others, until some other countries built up armies too. Many of the advances of civilization come from warfare as well. Iron and steel were first used for swords and armor. Pythagoras was designing catapults for attacking cities when he came up with his famous theorem. Aircraft were developed for bombing, rockets for making missiles, computers for calculating trajectories of artillery, transistors to make portable radios for the army, integrated circuits for control systems on missiles … it’s a LONG list.
Of course I also feel sad that so many innocent people died. Especially children. But it also bothers me that countries with large armies, and huge military budgets, insist that smaller and poorer people fight only these armies. Of course the Chechnyans would lose such a war. This new form of fighting I think is going to be normal in the future. A few hundred years ago armies would line up on a battlefield and march at each other. Hiding and ambushing were considered uncivilized. Whereas now marching your army right into the enemy would be considered just plain stupid. Similarly, I expect a time will come when wearing a uniform, like a “kill me” sign, will be considered absurd. The concept of a “civilian” will disappear.
*****
Dreams can set goals, inspire you to work harder. Or they an distract you and make you fail. You have to choose which dreams to pursue, which to give up or compromise on … mold your life, your reality, to the dream, but also the dream to reality. In choosing a career you should find out the job prospects, pay scale, work conditions. Your mother should not be able to laugh at your choice because when she criticizes it, you should have the facts to say why you disagree. You may not convince her, or anyone else, that your choice is good. But they should never the less take you seriously. That’s true for more than just your career. It’s also true for dreams of travel. And it’s true of relationships, like you and Arjyo.
You say you believe Arjyo completely … it’s a nice dream, a bf who tells you the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But that is not reality. Love means many things, but being completely truthful is not one of them. Arjyo loves his parents, right? So if they ask him about how intimate he’s been with you … what do you suppose he’d say? He’d lie. And I’ve pointed out he’s lied to you too.
More often, it’s not a matter of lying, but of looking at the facts a particular way. He has a great deal of control over you, and indeed you act like his puppet, not the other way around. I’m sure there are things in which he’s done as you insisted; but for the most part, that isn’t the case. Oh, there is the one issue of sex, where no doubt he wanted to move even faster than you have … but that you have to think about much more carefully. As I’ve pointed out many times, nothing he does with you will do him much harm, even if the whole world came to know of it. Whereas it will do you a lot of harm. And, he’s getting far more pleasure out of it than you do. “u just cant always decide each and every thing about this relationship” … the statement itself is not a lie, but not correct either. You are not deciding very much … the correct statement is he would like you to decide even less, and obey him even more.
I am not saying Arjyo is a bad person. This is just reality. A certain amount of lying is normal. A large amount of bias, seeing only your own side, is normal. A battle for control is normal. The only thing NOT normal is you don’t recognize all this. Your dreams about the perfect boyfriend (lover, husband) needs to be adjusted to match reality.
*****
I read the story you put in jc127_18, called “My Daughter” … finally, a happy story! Where did the inspiration for that come from? Is that what you wish your father was like?
For myself … I don’t think I’d ever have quite that dilemma. My kids are at least as close to me as to their mom.
The bit about being distracted by a bf, and doing worse in school, is interesting. Clearly Arjyo is not a bizarre rebellious sort, yet he HAS been the cause of your grades dropping. Was the strange character in the story your way of saying you think that happens only for a “bad” bf? That’s not true … it has nothing to do with the choice of bf, it has everything to do with YOU and what you choose to do.
Oops … getting late! Hope we can talk soon. Or let me know when I can call you.
Love,
...............
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