Love and Other Stuff

From up to big corporations and down to each individual, how people look at issues vary. What's fun if not talk about perspectives from genders?

This "war" has been going on endlessly and it has even entered our lives before we know it. It's an art how people all have different opinions on the same things. It's a beauty but also a curse. On the one hand, we're supposed to be distinctive. It's how technology blooms, how we progress but also how we polarize. If we were all just one species, one ideology, perhaps there's no point of living at all. That's another topic though.

Let's talk about something "smaller", men and women. Since childhood, boys and girls like different things and they form themselves cliques though they are instructed to have the same activities. Through time, boys become more prone to go out running, chasing, climbing up stuff that doesn't make sense and girls may do the same but are more sensitive. Boys see challenges and try to finish it but girls would see if it is a challenge at all or even change it. Overgeneralizing, yes.

Then came adolescence, with the push of the internet, whatever they perceive the trend may alter their characters. Teenage guys like rap and teenage gals like boy bands. It is usually at this time they disgust one another because now the two groups both mistakenly think they overpower the rival when in reality they barely have power at all.

During college, let's call them... preadults, is the time when the two genders come together and try to bring out the best of one another but not necessarily reveal their true nature. The reason? Romance! This is merely the first time they're the closest though. As mandatory and expected education finishes, young couples meet one of the most challenging levels in relationships, being in two systems, i.e. one goes to work/military and the other stays and pursue advanced research. It is then, the two usually realize how weak or strong the bond is.

Fast forward some years, through marriage men and women are the closest in one system again and came the second revaluation of each other. It isn't quite the same this time though. As the two grow and stand as more or less independent and critical thinkers, being close with each other with no turning back could be very undesirable. Every detail of how one lives is put to the test. On the surface, it's your jobs, income, properties, and prosperity; underneath and few would share is compromises, making decisions you dislike, choosing words carefully and time. In the end, the tiniest issue can light a spark and burn.

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In the past couple of weeks, a boring epiphany rose and suddenly things became somewhat clearer. We're not supposed to forcefully apply reason and everything learned in relationships because they are substantially different. If we look at both men and women individually, the former are "finishers" and culturally designed to be while the latter are generally raised to be "thinkers". One is a front line soldier and the other is a connector; one takes reason and experience and the other reflects on memories and uses emotions. The reveal here is that if you intend to solve a problem that doesn't exist, you're destined to fail. Men do not know what they have done wrong trying to help their better half because women here, may have simply wanted to engage a conversation.

Sometimes... (ahem), more often than not, what sabotages relationships is the silence. When there are words to be spoken but are kept quiet, arguments to be made but skipped and moments needed but missed, catastrophe awaits. The more sophisticated the couples are, the more foolish they are in love. Even knowing so, heartbreaks and excruciating pain are still inevitable. That is why people try stay away from this universal force of nature but also fall in it regardless. You can postpone but not escape it.

Back to something more relaxing here, what's at stake is that gender issues, relationship problems and all those regarding humanism, anthropology and philosophy deserve a special and higher place respectively apart from society. OK, this doesn't look relaxing but the point is that they may not help us make any money or look promising of any benefit at first glance, they are indeed the most valuable aspects that are underrated and the things that keep the world out of total collapse. Too serious? Wait till you're married.

#selfreflect