Passion fruit, gender wise

A passion is like first love, undeniable and unexplainable. It is something whose mere mention lights up the eyes and ignites a wide smile. A child without a passion is emotionally unhealthy while an unhealthy adult needs to find one. Objects of passion can be largely gender driven, for whatever reason, in the sense that 950 out of a thousand people of that gender and 50 people of the opposite gender share it, more or less. Clearly, there are special items of passion, small in numbers of passionatos but great in terms of their intensively, like those who love restoring windmills (yes, such groups exist) and collectors of specific animal figurines.  At the same time, there are universal items that mainly light up either men or women.

For example, most women love desserts with cream.  Men do enjoy such desserts but they don’t go starry eyed. It appears that women get adrenalin rushes just from seeing them. Whether a mille feuilles or cheese cake, the more cream, whipped or not, the better. Big boned or petite, there is always room in the heart of a woman, not to mention her stomach, for a tasty creamy patisserie. It is unclear why a dainty slice of cake is irresistible but a no less creamy ice cream is not but the latter can be ignored while for the former must be worshipped, at least as far as I have observed. Call it hypnotic or whatever you like.

The male equivalent of love at first sight is the simple ball.  Even before there is peer or parental example or pressure, upon seeing a ball of any size, 98% of boys react by wanting to interact with it in some way, kicking, holding or hitting it to the best of their ability. Tellingly, this instinct never dies.  80-year-old men, encountering a stray ball rolling in their direction, immediately line by their body for a proper corner kick even if, alas, the body (and kick) are suffering from not a little rust. No matter, no male can ignore a ball even if the fact that he is wearing a suit and tie prevents him from acting on the urge. I can’t think of any evolutionary benefit to this instinct but not everything has to have a purpose, right?

In terms of transportation or fascination, shoes seem to have a hypnotic effect on women.  Regardless of the number of shoes they may or may not have, almost no woman can resist looking at the shoes displayed in a store window. Since I cannot read minds especially those of the opposite sex, I have no idea what exactly they are thinking as they examine the pairs.  However, it cannot be denied Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Johnny Debb together on their best days are no competition for a pair of leather boots. I imagine that there are women that are apathic to footwear, but I have not met any.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT4jGJdAf6s

By contrast, men, especially American men, have had a long romance with cars. I don’t know how they reacted to their horses before automobiles were invented but I do know how most men (not me in this case) relate to their car: they anthropophyte it. Specifically, they select their vehicle with great care, comparing all relevant and irrelevant features. This is contrast with most women, who primarily care about its color, safety and gas efficiency. They maintain, clean and protect it religiously and are personally wounded if the love of their life is scratched at a parking lot. In secret, they look at advertisements and videos of coming models and dream of owning a Ferrari or Lamborghini. That such diamonds are far beyond their means does not reduce their pleasure as the mere thought of driving one is a high while an actual chance to drive one of those gods is better than sex. This love of cars, the more powerful the better (it takes a bit of effort to get excited by a Fiat Uno), could be just part of a power addiction but what difference does it make.

Please do not misunderstand me.  I am not mocking the human species. As I wrote above, it is far better to have a passion, no matter how ridiculous, than to lead a humdrum life without sparkle.  My personal passion, I confess, is Balkan dancing. The sound of a triti piti or kopenica make me forget any worry that I have. However, I also admit to enjoy playing tennis maybe because there is, yes, a ball involved and trying to sound more knowledgeable about cars than I really am because I am supposed to be. However, cakes and shoes are fine but no more than that. In any case, vive la passion.

The sound of silence

The volume of poems, songs, books and research on the subject of love is almost deafening.  From beginning to end, from the boundless extasy of falling in love to the seemingly bottomless pit of pain of breaking up, human beings are well prepared, at least theoretically, for anything that can happen in this process.

Unfortunately, there is one aspect of love that very few people mention but is becoming ever more common. Admittedly, it is hard to imagine and unpleasant to contemplate. Still, with life span increasing, it is something that many will experience. Specifically, I am referring to the challenge of loving people that, due to chronic pain, mental deterioration or medical problems, have changed so much that they have become completely different people. Kind, patient and generous partners turn into mean, impatient and self-centered individuals. Warm, loving homes turn into battlegrounds. Heaven turns into hell.

I have seen that various degrees of this transformation with friends and family. My father has not adjusted well to being handicapped and getting old as he approaches the age of 94. One of my friends told me how difficult it was to recognize the woman he married in his bed-ridden, grumpy wife. I do not judge these people because I cannot say how I will be if and when I reach that state.

Making that situation worse, there are no words of wisdom, magic formula, rosy outlooks or even lights at the end of the tunnel to this martyrdom. We are all left alone, trying to remember our loved one as they were once upon a time, a bit like looking an old smelly dog and remember the wild puppy of yesteryear. Memory and fortitude are the only tools in this truly final chapter of love.

In praise of the human species, the vast majority of people stand by their partners and take care of them despite their extreme emotional suffering. Caught unprepared in all ways for the challenge, they cope as best as they can in the same silence they previously encountered regarding this transformation. These people have my sympathy and admiration. As the French say, chapeau. As the Jews say, may you never know.

Les Misérables of the 21st century

Human life has always involved a certain degree of suffering.  There are even those who would claim it brings you closer to God. Clearly, it is certainly heart wrenching to see destitute people on the street or pictures of starving people in Africa. Yet, our level of actual commissary varies, depending on the circumstances.  Growing up in the United States whose underlying ethos is Protestant self-responsibility, there is always a feeling, not always justified, that alcoholics or drug addicts, not to mention people those with mental illnesses, can and should turn their lives around.  In other words, we share a mixed feeling of sympathy and distain.  By contrast, those individuals whose fate has been determined by factors outside their control elicit much more sympathy. It is easier to give a donation to causes helping hurricane victims and abused dogs.

I am fortunate and clearly appreciate that I work from home.  My getting to work involves five steps from bedroom, with only an occasional traffic jam caused by two cats running in front of me. The college where I work is a 10-minute drive or 20-minute walk away. However, for the vast majority of working Americans, Europeans and Asians, getting to work involves hours of travels and constant traffic jams. For example, in Los Angeles, a half hour drive is considered close with many commuters stuck on the road for almost two hours each way. Cities with good public transportation systems provide slightly more friendly environments but all cities and their peripheral road networks suffer from heavy traffic jams.

The costs of this long commute go beyond gas and wasted time. The drivers themselves suffer whether or not they are aware of it. People day in and day out get up knowing that, if everything goes right, they may only have an hour moving at a snail’s pace. Even worse, after a long day’s work, it takes great effort to maintain the patience and attention required to get home safely. All this stressful time in the car, even if slightly mitigated by music or good company, leaves people exhausted. Overtime, most commuters become numb, fortunately, but the stress remains with its accompanying fatigue. Just like a homeless that have lived many years in the street, commuters don’t know any other way of life.

Clearly, they did not create the situation nor do they have any significant ability to improve the situation. Still, as a non-commuter that occasionally has to join the crawling masses, I am moved to pity when I realize that people do this every day. Like Jean Valjean persecuted to the end of his life, working people in the West will suffer until they retire. It may be not at the level of the starving in Africa but they are still les Misérables of our time.

Base instinct

Reading Nien’s Cheng’s Life and Death in Shanghai, an account by a Chinese woman arrested during the Culture Revolution in the 1960’s, I am disturbingly reminded of an oppressive book I read as part of my Russian Studies program, namely Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago.  Curiously it is not the cruelty of the regimes depicted in this book that is so disturbing but instead their callousness. To paraphrase Hannah Arendt, while the Nazi regime wanted people, mainly non-Germans, to die, Stalin and Mao simply did not care if you died, whether you were of the same nationality or not.  Tens of millions of Russians and Chinese perished, with the exact toll impossible to determine. In any case, the numbers are numbing to the mind and ultimately impossible to comprehend.

Regardless of the political background of the individual killing waves, including collectivization, the Great Purge, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, to name a few, one of the most puzzling aspects is the genuine public support or at least acceptance of these extreme measures. To a large degree, many of the citizens of these country had no problem as their fellow farmers, professionals and closest friends were cruelly punished for nothing. Clearly, in the pre-Internet years, most did not have access to any other information aside from the official channels. Also, by nature, many peasants and workers did not actively seek the “truth’ or think it was wise to do so. Yet, beyond the impact of behaving politically correct, I sense the cynical use of one of the basic instincts of human nature, envy.

Max Weber describes peasant thinking in terms of a zero-sum world. The term refers to the concept that everything, both material and spiritual, is limited in quantity and cannot be expanded.  Therefore, if someone receives more food or love, their extra is ultimately at my expense. In the context of Russia and China, both of which were very peasant before and during the revolution, a kulak, technically a rich peasant, had one more cow than you while a bourgeois had a slightly bigger house or a better job. Stalin and Mao exploited this natural joy in seeing someone get his/her comeuppance and were able to perpetrate the greatest massacres of their own populations that history has recorded. This mass murder was not committed with viciousness but instead, and maybe even worse, with apathy.

There is a Russian proverb recounting that a peasant, offered anything that he wanted on condition that his neighbor received twice of it, requested to have one of his eyes removed. If the horrors of the Russian and Chinese revolution as described in the books mentioned above were aberrations, I would be less disturbed. However, today’s politicians have more tools than ever to exploit the basest instincts of the public to their own good and no less inclination. That is what is so scary.