Personalities: Old, lonley eccentric men AKA Cafe ghosts

On a college campus, this man is a familiar stranger. His faux professor attire is your cue that you're done for once you've caught his eye. And unless you can employ either guiltless rudeness or a tactful refusal, you best pack up your book, your laptop, and head somewhere else.


Who is he?
This man is retired, didn't make waves with his career, missed getting the girl, and is probably "writing a book," which together all free him up to desperately seek praise for his intellect (which is sometimes very modest).
And he won't leave you the fuck alone.


What does he do?

He spends all day in coffee shops trapping passersby with conversation on literature or philosophy or politics. He remembers everything--names, dates, historical facts--and he wants to talk--not with you, but at you. So anyone will do, but because you're politely silent, don't share all you know and maybe have a cute face, you've won his heart. He keeps you for hours. Rather than deter him, his lifelong loneliness has made his trap deceptively sticky. You're somewhat intrigued, but you know you're totally wasting time.

So what do you do?

I listen almost every time because I don't know how to get away. But now I have another reason to listen: because he's lonely.

I got trapped by one of these guys yesterday and it took me a while to figure out that he was suffering from classic Hemingway loneliness. I flattered myself and first ran through all the other possibilities he'd want to monopolize my attention for three hours--arrogance about his intellect, wonder at my intellect, horniness (he called me pretty several times), even charity (he tried to help me job search and offered to buy me coffee), but after re-reading Hemingway's A Clean, Well-Lighted Place I finally figured out that it was the kind of loneliness that comes from being close to death. He seeks the vitality and youthful faces of a college campus because everywhere else reminds him of how his life is no longer just beginning.

It's hard for me to have compassion for someone who obnoxiously steals my time and attention. But no one deserves it more. My friends just want people to party with and an audience for their unimpressive sexual exploits. These coffee-shop ghosts need company to stay alive.

Obviously, this isn't how I want to grow old. I want to grow old being a listener not just because I want to stay relevant to the world but also because there's too much to learn to keep my conversation partner silent.

The Ex Spector

From time to time I find myself drifting into comparing the people I date with my exes. I think about how much better my new guy is for me than the last one was, how I wish new guy would have such-and-such quality that the ex had etc. It gets me stuck in a rut and I miss out on enjoying the person for who they are.

It's hard to escape it, especially if my date and I are with a group of friends who knew my ex and harp on how much they miss him. Yes, that happened, and I'm ashamed that I started it. But this is something I can fix quickly since I never had strong feelings for my ex.

According to this article the remedy is to live in the present instead of the past. The article outlines three "personalities" --Ladies X, Y and Z--who bring up their exes in various capacities; they either talk about his charms, his flaws, or just mindlessly allude to their moments together to fill gaps in the conversation. At different moments I have committed all three errors. Thinking about my ex and constantly comparing--even trying to become--my date's ex are products of not living in the present; they are attempts to live through the lens of my past

Living in the NOW is an integral part of getting through a quarter life crisis. It's a way of life that can give me direction professionally and personally. For an example:

He told me that he loves my passion for what I am studying. The truth is that while I'm passionate about Marxism and equality I'm also going through a phase where I'm finding out that I haven't been working very hard or productively for these causes, and I may not want to. I guess it is important for him to believe that no matter what I do, I'll be passionate and feel good about doing it. I no longer need to find myself, but I need to blaze my trail bit by bit every day. And I'm struggling very much with getting started. I don't think good intentions are enough to keep a guy as great as he is.

My solution is to live in the present moment, figure out the experiences I need right now and start blazing that trail. I'll have to work my ass off to make sure everything will come together. But if I do it right...hey, maybe it will.

Bloggerstock: Stop the world--I want to get on/off

But first, a message from Dapper Daisy:
It's bloggerstock--where bloggers respond to a bloggerstock prompt and have their posts hosted on another blogger's site. Big thanks to Tazim for the following post. You can check out my post on Booya's wall at www.booyabobby.com. Enjoy!
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Hello Dapper Daisy readers! This is Tazim from the Being Tazim blog - about art, home décor, and handmade products. I am here today to share with you my Bloggerstock post.

"Stop the world, I want to get on/off"



Have you ever had a moment where you realized that you just want the world to stop? Maybe it was because you realized you were missing something, or maybe it was because you just wanted a minute to breathe. Tell us about a moment like this that you had.

What would this be like - Quantum Leap, where the 'real' person Sam leaps into is transported elsewhere for a certain amount of time - their world, essentially stopping momentarily? Or like the holodeck on Star Trek - where one goes inside to escape their real life and can easily step back in to it again, when they're done adventuring?

Leaving Canada for a year exchange in New Zealand felt a bit like being transported to a whole different world. If only the exploration could have lasted longer without taking out any more time from my life. Think about the possibilities = what would YOU do if you could make things stop for a moment?

While in New Zealand I lived differently because of financial barriers - but this wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I spent a lot of time catching up on old tv shows and movies that I'd missed in the last 5 years of not having a tv/cable. University life had been so hectic, coupled with having to work part time as well - but in New Zealand I couldn't work (legally) and classes were much more laid-back. Was this what I needed? Was I missing peace and relaxation? Maybe I needed to step away from My Home and Native Land to really appreciate it, too. Being in New Zealand made me realize how much I want to just travel in my life, and explore, and try new things. It made me realise that university life/ academia just isn't for me.

 
You can read the guest post on my own blog, written by Anna from http://aheartforall.blogspot.com/, right here.

Productivity: My life.

It's funny when one little image makes you realize how lame you are.

Experiment Results: Friends with jobs make you spend more money

I'm usually a rather spendthrift sort of person; I don't blow cash on clothes, make-up, coffee or any other such indulgences. As a vegetarian who likes to cook, I've also come to see myself as pretty free from the vices of junk food.

To track just how saintly my spending is, I made a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and since February 16th have been recording every single purchase I make.

The results were shocking.

By the end of two weeks, I had spent over $90 on junk food, pizza, alcohol and other empty calories. That's one-and-a-half times more than my grocery bill. How the hell did this happen? Perhaps unsurprisingly, I had a little help from my friends; half of those expenses were on the weekends.

I know the internet just erupted in a resounding, "DUH YOU IGNORAMUS! NO WONDER THE WORLD'S GOING TO PIECES--KIDS HAVE NO FORESIGHT!". But this is a revelation for me because my life before I turned 21 was nothing like this. Weekend fun used to be free movies on campus and a burrito. Now that everyone in our group is gainfully employed, they can live it up. Except me.

I love my friends and not for a moment do I want to feel left out, but I simply cannot afford to keep up with their partying lifestyles. I'm not earning any money right now and most worrying of all is that I don't have any plans to make money after I graduate in a few months. I've never felt more "behind" in my life.

One of my resolutions this year is to stay positive and to only dwell on depressing thoughts when they can lead to a productive outcome. So it seems to me that I need to decide right now how important making and spending money is going to be to me now and in the next few years when I have virtually no career path ahead of me at the moment. Now, I realize that having enough money to get me though the giddy party stage of my early 20's is not a worthwhile financial goal. But I'm asking myself with more urgency than ever before, "But then, what is?"

I think the main thing to keep in mind is that I need to be thinking about couple things right now; what I want to do to earn money after this semester, what career I want that job to help propel me toward, and what difference I want to make over the course of my lifetime. There are certain comforts of bourgeois life that I want both now and in the future. I just need to be careful and mindful to not turn those comforts into trappings. Comforts become trappings when you need them for status, friends and happiness. I'll need them as tools to move forward with my ideals.

Have you done similar experiments with expenses? What are your financial goals anyhow? Are there any that would be particularly helpful to have as a 20-something?

Humanity

I consider this post a pretty unsound piece of writing, but it reflects the world as I see it in the most general terms. This is part of why I'm starting to lose faith in activism. We have to burn this mother down. The only way to move forward is via destruction.

Due to it's ubiquity in the news, the BP oil rig explosion and recent developments in the Bhopal Disaster set me off to thinking about doomsday scenarios and the value of mankind. I know meditations on karma are cliche, but I really have to sort this out for myself.

Karma makes sense on a large-scale level. Everything that has ever been said or done has extremely far-reaching effects, and there have been enough books and movies made (Butterfly Effect...and others) to illustrate this. But our impact on the environment--which has been summarily awful--is pinching us in the butt. Birth defects, cancer and obesity are all making our brains and/or bodies slower, simpler. Diseases are killing us off in huge numbers.

Earth pushing back. Nature's tendency for equilibrium. Homeostasis. Whatever you want to call it, you know it's happening.

Development is a fucking disease so humans (rather, we. I keep forgetting to include myself in this) have to be wiped out or slowed down. We have caused most of the shit that's killing us and the rest of the planet. We need to reduce consumption, and the only way that will ever happen is if we reduce our numbers. The only thing that is being rewarded in the dominant culture is maximization of profits.

I don't want to fight against cancer. I don't want to fight against anything that slows the 'developed' world down. This "fight" --this battle against the plagues of humanity--is not equal. The people least damaging to the world are being killed off at a greater rate than those who should be stopped. It's a disgusting but true fact.

Activists and Marxists understand that a lot is at stake, and with each political defeat of the left the world is moving faster to a globalized, capitalist disaster. Humanity will forever change the face of the earth.

Rather than work to reverse or slow down this trend, I see myself working to make amends with the world. I see myself working to humanize capitalism, help people whenever I can, and raise a family. Working for the private sector is okay if I don't compromise on my morals. Right now, the only thing I refuse to do in my corporate career is directly stand in the way of unions and their bargaining rights and be complicit with unethical decisions.

I can no longer refuse to be a cog in the machine. But I can still refuse to be an unthinking, depoliticized cog in the machine.