Hats and eyeliner

I had this whole post written about a totally legit and serious topic but I don’t feel like preaching some higher truth to you right now.

I want to tell you about how eyeliner and a hat can make every good-looking guy even hotter. 

Oh, you want evidence you say? 

 

Cam Gigandet

 

Jared Leto

 

I know there's no hat, but it's Kurt Cobain and I couldn't help myself

You're welcome.

Doors.

Whether they’re open or closed, there is always something intriguing about them. Especially the ones that you aren’t supposed to open. The dangerous ones.

Your eye catches one of these forbidden doors. You find it oddly fascinating.

You take a step forward. Then another. You can’t take your eyes of the door as you slowly get closer

You begin to anticipate the moment where you will open it and see what it hides. You can feel the air of excitement that seems to arise as you get closer.

You feel a soft wind blowing in your hair as you stand before the forbidden door. Endless possibilities lie behind that door.

The wind tussle your hair and make your thoughts dance.

You turn the knob and push the door open, but the door is caught by the wind. It is torn out of your hands.

The door swings towards you and slams into you with incredible force.

You fall backwards.

As you lie on your back, catching your breath you see blue sky above you and will yourself to get up again.

The first thing you notice is that the door is no longer there.

That’s okay.

The sky is blue and there’s a soft wind blowing.

Do you want to play a game?

You already are...

I love playing Cluedo, cards, Munchin, etc. I like these games because they have a clearly defined start and end, and when it’s over and somebody is declared a winner, you can start all over again, clean slate, and see who wins the next round.

But these are just one type of games. There are others.

There are those mind games you play with others, when you want to manipulate them. I don’t like those.

Then there are the games you play romantically. Boy, they are exhausting. And have a lot of rules.

And then there is the actual Game of Life.

This game also have a lot of rules. Some of them are written down as laws, others as guidelines, but most exist solely as tacit knowledge, as a sort of Code of Conduct in whatever society you live in.

This Code of Conduct has many, many facets and it is constantly changing.Nobody knows exactly what it contains.

I don’t particularly like this Game of Life. Games are by nature often won by chance - by getting that ace or rolling that six.

In the Game of Life, you’re playing a game, where you don’t know the rules because they keep on changing, and where your level of success is largely decided by chance.

I don’t want my life to be decided by chance and ruled by uncertainty. Because if you don’t know the rules, how do you decide who wins? You can’t. Which means that in a way no one wins. We all lose.*

If it’s all a game of chance, and we all eventually lose, what’s the point of it all? Why even bother following the rules?

Because we humans are made of awesome and dipped in hope. We believe against all odds, that we will the ones to succeed. That happiness does lie before us.

It’s this undying optimism that I find inspiring.

Also, it’s an unspoken rule that all rules that aren’t written, are allowed to be broken. So go ahead and break a few of those unspoken rules.

Also, don't focus on winning the game. Focus on playing the right game.


* I’ve written about that before.

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“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." - Aristoteles

We are what we repeatably do.

It's both a comforting and a scary thought.

What? Were you expecting something clever here?

I have no inspiring thoughts for you today. I could blame it on too much work and too much homework, but truth is … yeah. I don’t know. My brain = mush.

I tried to write a blogpost with actual content. I really did. It was about what defines an adult and where the lines between adult/young adult/teenager/child are drawn.  In my head it sounded amusing and curiously funny, but when it got down on paper the words ... They sucked.

So. No more words from me today. Instead I’ll give you a song I’ve been listening to alot lately.





Our hopes and expectations? They're black holes and revelations. Pretty, pretty black holes.

Invisible emotional damage

I saw the movie Friends with Benefits last night, the one with Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. The set-up was that he was emotional unavailable and she was emotionally damaged. Instead of trying to have a relationship, they would just be friends with benefits.

 

The movie was entertaining enough, sprinkled with good jokes. It was a bit predictable, but you know, it’s a romantic comedy. It kind of has to be predictable.

All in all I liked it.

But. I don’t quite see what emotional damage Mila Kunis’ character had.

The only reason I know she supposedly has this emotional damage, is because I was told so by herself and almost every other character in the movie. I didn’t see any actual damage. This evidently invisible emotional damage didn’t affect her life or the choices she made in any capacity, at least as far as I could discern. The way she was portrayed in the movie, she seemed like a perfectly normal late 20-something woman.

Apart from developing feelings for the guy she was supposed to only have a sexual relationship with, and then being terrible at being honest with him, she acted like a responsible adult.

What annoys me is that it really wouldn’t have been that difficult to show that she had some issues or emotional scars.*

It’s not that Kunis’ character is perfect. She has flaws like any other person. But she isn’t emotionally damaged (unless it’s a sign of emotional damage to believe in true love and that there is a right guy for you out there - which apparently is the case in this movie).

I mean, if she’s emotionally damaged, then I belong in the freaking mental institution (and maybe I do, but shhh, don’t tell anyone).

This movie was a nice reminder of the age-old adage: Show, don’t tell.

*If you want to see a female character with emotional damage in a romantic comedy, check out Cameron Diaz in The Holiday (a great movie, by the way).