Wow! Back then we used to blog like crazy! What happened to us people? I doubt any of my readers are still around. It's not that I don't have things I'd like to share anymore....and the urge to write remains strong in me it's just that...I never take the time to think and type.

Sadly as it sounds I have grown apart from my friends. Everyday life has kept me distracted way too long and when I most needed to cling to my close ones I decided to go astray and deal with life by myself. I don't blame it all on me. I've been learning to take it easy. And everyone knows how hard it is to reach out for help when feeling down. Our tendency is to shut our hearts up, put on the happy face and keep moving. At least, that's MY tendency.

But I've discovered that life was never meant to be a solo journey. I believe the authors of the Bible had really good reasons to add so strong an emphasis to the concept and development of community. Jesus' last prayers were that we were ONE as He was one with the Father. No wonder our natural tendencies and lifestyles drag us away from each other. Living life together is indeed a secret to figuring out how to live in this world. Our life's heavy loads could be shared were we open to each other.

I realized that most times, when it comes to my personal relationships, I am always waiting on the other person. I am not willing to accept them as they are and do not want to take the first step..or any step for that matter. I want to be pursued. Period. Fortunatelly, I am begining to understand that love is an act of the will. It requires that I move. Love is other-centered and divine.

Step by step I am recollecting the pieces of my heart that got lost in the way and am working on the creation of a better me. And I can only be better around the people I love. Wherever life takes me, I will choose to love. Will you?

So I decided to bring my xanga back to life...

But not quite yet hehe

But stay tuned!

 - You see nowadays marriages are arranged that way - like traps. What is the natural way? The lass is ripe, she must be given in marriage. It seems very simple if the girl is not a fright and there are men wanting to marry. That is how it was done in olden times. The lass was grown up and her parents arranged the marriage. So it was done, and is done, among all mankind - Chinese, Hindus, Mohammedans, and among our own working classes; so it is done among at least 99% of the human race. Only among 1% or less, among us libertines, has it been discovered that that is not right, and something new has been invented. And what is this novelty? It is that the maidens sit round, and the men walk about, as at a bazaar, choosing. And the maidens wait and think, but dare not to say: "me, please!" "No, me!" "not her, but me!" "Look what shoulders and other things I have!" And we men stroll around and look, and are very pleased. "Yes, I know! I won't be caught!" They stroll about and look, and are very pleased that everything is arranged like that for them. And then in an unguarded moment - snap! He is caught!

- Then how ought it to be done? - I asked - Should the women propose?

- Oh, I don't know how; only if there's to be equality, let it be equality. If they have discovered that prearrenged matches are degrading, why this is a thousand times worse! Then the rights and chances were equal, but here the woman is a slave in a bazaar or the bait in a trap. Tell any mother, or the girl herself, the truth, that she is only occupied in catching a husband... oh dear! what an insult! Yet they all do it and have nothing else to do. What is so terrible is to see sometimes quite innocent poor young girls engaged on it.

 

TOLSTOI, Leon - The Kreutzer Sonata

I don't think I have anything left to say.