Do I believe in „the one“?

When I was 16, there was no doubt about it, I would find someone, fall in love and spend the rest of my life with that person. But what has happened since then? I have had some relationships, some hook-ups and I am not really sure anymore if I should, if it is reasonable to keep up the hope of finding someone. I see many people who get disappointed over and over again by failed relationships and yet they keep trying, but is giving up on that really the answer? After all there are people who found someone to love for a lifetime, even though it has become more exceptional than the norm. In Germany there is the new expression “Lebensabschnittspartner” (something like “life period partner”) that describes the new idea of having a partner for a distinct period of time, being aware that the relationship is likely to end at one point with both people going their own ways. It is no secret that the success of a long-term relationship lives or dies with the wish to commit on both sides. There is a certain number of humans that would be suitable to any one person, the big question is if both are willing to commit at the same level.

Mutual affection is definitely a requirement for a working relationship, but to keep it going, mutual interests and time apart, as all the psychologists give couples as advice is just as important as the willingness to commit. For most people there is a time in their lives when they start to settle down. For some, who then tend to live a more conservative lifestyle, this occurs very early in their 20s and some people still have boyfriends when they are 60 and feel good about it. We all have that wish to find “the one”, some people feel about that stronger than others and yet when we really are ready, we definitely will find that one person out of the people that are compatible with us that is willing to commit to the same extent.

Our ancestors lived in a society where early marriage was necessary for our well-being as the partition of roles was very clear and life was hard. Now that we are living in a world where the essentials of life are handed to us, where we can buy food and commodities, we are safe in a society protected by laws and rather just jurisdiction, we have won the freedom to live other models than that of man and wife each dedicated to the tasks they were born into by definition of gender and social status roles. We still inherited the sociocultural roles from our parents and until about 50 years ago when life started to become easier due to new technologies, this was a justified social construct, but is it not time to overthink our social roles and the sense they make in the world we are living in today?

Maybe we just need to take off the pressure and value the moment. We might find someone to spend the rest of our lives with at any point along the way, the question people should ask is whether they are ready to commit. Many people today are running around with the thought of immediate commitment in their head, placed there by an old cultural status quo. Yet most of them deep inside know that they are not ready and want to gather some more experience, and many  of them are torn between those to concepts too much to actual enjoy the ride. To use the much quoted notion of ice cream: How do you know if you don’t like vanilla if you have only had chocolate? And what sensations do all the other flavors hold?

Enjoy!

Choices

Today, I read an article about a convicted murderer who supposedly was mentally ill because he witnessed his brother being killed by two cruel teenagers over nothing when he was a kid. Their victim was a 5 year-old boy who refused to steal for the two thugs. But is it not more complicated than that? The author of the article suggests that this story alone and the survivor him being left alone with this experience was the trigger for his later conviction. But where does it start? 

The two thugs supposedly had an IQ significantly below average, which is stated to be an important fact, but how do you measure a person’s intelligence? What did they experience in their early life to become selfish and cruel? They probably grew up in the street and who tells their story?  

In life, we are faced with choices every day, choices between good and bad. What makes the 8-year-old who when he was 24 tried to murder a human being the victim and the two thugs who killed a boy when they were 11 and 12, kids, half as old as the recently convicted murderer, the criminals?

What gives the author the right to select this person as good and others as bad? Are some people born bad and some good? Are some people drawn to crime whereas others are good from the beginning? The author suggests that by telling us the story of the good 5-year-olf that dies and his by relation also good brother. But if this was true, how could this one act make that boy bad? Why where there no relatives that took care of him so that this incident could be processed? 

Are we born to be good or bad?

Genetics can determine our characteristics to an extent, e.g. perseverance, intelligence, drive and what our prominent senses are, but it comes down to the relations we have, this is what determines if we are good or bad, the first 6-8 years of our life are when our brain grows most. Permanent structures and behavioral patterns also form during this period. This article suggests that those two pre-teenage thugs are bad because they are homeless ghetto kids, but what happened to them during their first years? The most unstable financial and social situations are found with single mothers in ethnic areas. Yet those single mothers are the main source for new lives in this country where those kids grow up unsupported, on the street with their mothers incapable of providing financial and emotional support. Now when we read that article we identify with the 5-year old victim and say that those are bad people but what did we do to prevent any of this? What do we do to prevent things like this from happening in the future?

We read this article, shake our heads and move on, but then what did this young boy die for? He lived in the same neighborhood as those thugs and his brother, he was five years old and when he was threatened and had to be scared for his life he refused to give in. Was this boy better than most of us, was he better than you at five years of age and being raised in a poor area? What does that tell you about yourself?

Every day we are faced with choices and most of the time we chose to look away or do what we are told. Maybe this would have been the right thing to do for the kid, maybe it would have kept him alive and his brother sane.

But what kind of world does that define?

How does this picture reflect on yourself?

Read it. Make up your mind: http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/03/13/greene.boy.murder/index.html

Hi, Internet!

On this random blog, I will post my thoughts about a matter at hand, something that occupies me or something I just got stuck on when walking by.

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