I'd say it's that time again; and it sort of is. Only this time it isn't tinged with depression. This time it's simply apathy. I literally can't care. I try to be annoyed; I try to be amused; I try to be concerned. I can't. And it's pretty cool. I do everything I'm meant to do and stay aloof. Untouched by life.  and Apparently this is a deadly sin. I was reading about the seven-cum-fourteen deadly sins decided upon by the catholic church. Apathy is one of them. I can see why it could be sinful to not care about a thing but it doesn't feel that way. Hell, it doesn't feel; period. It could be sad, I suppose. Maybe it'll be sad when I'm thirty and still apathetic. But for now, it is good. It is no headaches, no heartaches, no fatigue from involving yourself in problems that are not your own especially when the other party couldn't care about your reaction. And if they do; it would have nothing to do with you; it would be about themselves. How it all applies to them. I appreciate this state of apathy I am in and I will savor it for its run; whether sinful or not.

Marriage. Don't some of us just wish to have never heard of that word? I'm not one of them. I happen to like that word. How else would I know how to address the institution that has been fucked up of its original intent by...shall we say well meaning assholes?

As I know it, marriage started off as a commitment between two people for the purpose of progressing a family's stand in the society. Imagine that; society came before marriage. So apparently the guys in society who had more than average wealth and wanted to keep it that way invented the legal version of marriage. Of course this is in the Euro-asian sense. Us here in Africa married for the sake of love, life and every reason to do with wealth as well.
Somehow, as the centuries went by and all the average guys wanted to be more than average, the average guys went and started mainstreaming marriage which meant giving it rules and boundaries and mixing it up with the natural marriage that had been experienced before. A natural marriage being the kind where people are drawn to each other to be together for life. Yeah, I believe marriage in its original state was a lifelong relationship. And it was until those ambitious average people went and messed it up.
So, now marriage is just a contract; a paper; a game to some people; a phase of life to most. It's something average people do even if they are well off or heirs to thrones.
But that's modern marriage. Thanks to La Vie Boheme (LVB) philosophy, original marriage does exist. LVB is generally meant to be a life lived without attachment to world's materialism. Yeah, bullshit mostly if you aspire to own stuff; but some people really don't want to own a lot of stuff. Personally, two formal seats for when the parents visit, a bed for sleeping; TV cause I'm a TV-head; a freezer cause I love ice and a shelf cause I love books. And a rack for the clothes. Because LVB is more about doing things that fulfil ones life than filling up the spaces around your life.
Marriage in LVB is about souls and personalities than names and bank accounts. Sure one's name is important; let's not go get married to people you can't even identify from afar by name. The essence however is attraction, emotion and consideration of someone(s) to other people. So it's not surprising to find a Bohemian married to three people who are married to other people.; homosexuals on the same level as heterosexuals and a/non-sexuals left to be because they can simply be. Neither is it surprising to find two people married to each other exclusively. As long as it makes you happy; it's awesome. Which is then the reason why it's not mainstream.
If mainstream becomes happy, then capitalism would fall and we all know how the self-appointed world superpowers would just love that--not. And frankly, it shouldn't be mainstream. Then all the negative, soul-draining demons known as normalcy would be the underdogs and far more appealing and just disdainful.
LVB marriage accepts everyone ready too be in a lifelong relationship; no matter the creed, sex, race, religion and mental state. It's about the love and if concentrated upon enough, love is really all one needs. For motivation that is. Love motivates one to invention, innovation and success. I imagine Thomas Edison and Benjamin Franklin did not merely admire their inventions and discoveries. No one stands in the rain and lightning storm with a kite! because they like it.

That's why I like the word marriage. If it hadn't been for researching this word I would never have known some world history and I would never have come to the knowledge that doing so in a modern 'normal' average setting is a serious case of fuck. Translation; frustratingly hard, disappointing and depressing. By the time someone's done ten months of modern marriage, they are emotionally ravaged and barely alive. Hence, adultery and divorce and messed up kids and in effect, a messed up world.

Dear Some-men

I know it's hard; especially in this day and age when women aren't your mother or cool aunt. When women don't want you to be outright manly but despise you if you are sensitive. I know. That said, there's a reason you're some-men and not the men (in this case, them men being gentlemen with the women they want in their lives). Following rules set up in a time when hard-headed women were punished by being confined in convents and being declared unmarriageable when marriage was all the rage is a dead and gone mentality. You should keep up with the times. Be firm but not condescending and how pray tell do you do that? Well, thank you for not asking.
The reason this comes up is simple: I was having an in depth meet of my mind. Some-men of my age-set are really lousy at the whole wooing game and instead of admitting that they are playing baseball on a tennis court, they blame the tennis court for disallowing baseball bats. Admittedly most girls my age don't know half of what they want in a guy but some of them do and they unfortunately end up with the Losers. Losers because these guys clearly know they have diamonds in their hands but treat their ladies like crystal. They don't keep their promises, they don't keep time, they don't believe in verbal expressions of the sensations their partners evoke in them and they certainly believe as long as they take the girl out for a drink once in a full moon, then it's a date. Even a stray dog can woo better than my peers. What's their excuse? Simple; it's how they were raised. (cue roll of the eyes)
Pardon the digression. Dear some-men, as I was saying; the ladies in your lives may be independent and self-sufficient but your involvement in their lives also calls for effort on your part to stay relevant in their lives and useful. Provide support even when they seem not to want it; compliment randomly and don't hesitate to show affection even if it's not your style. Why are you human if not using the natural instinct to seek out another human's companionship?
Leaving a woman to her own devices usually leads to you being out in the cold...or against alleyway walls having one-night stands at forty. Be firm in your presence in her life but don't railroad her i.e. set dates without the option of having them broken but don't drag her out of a meeting to sit her down at a table and scowl at each other. When walking down a street, have your hand on her back or around her hand firmly but not shoving or cutting off circulation. Hold her like you want her to be with you and you like her being with you. Some-men hold their women like it's a chore. If it's a burden to hold her then let her go. Even if she be a psycho. Save yourself and your well-being the trouble.
Dear Some-men, I understand that having not been raised to be one way makes it hard to be such a way but as long as you can think; you can most definitely change your habits.

Keeping Up with the Slackers

I am a writer by nature and so when I'm not looking for a paying job or signing up for Grad school; I usually am telling myself stories and writing them on my sister's laptop. I didn't have a place to put these stories until a couple of years ago when I found Wattpad. They defined it as the myspace of authors back then. Now it's apparently the youtube for authors. You get the gist. Now; unlike Myspace, Wattpad doesn't really bring much quality to its competition. Yeah, it's not objective for a writer to judge other writers but it's true.
The popular stories are not all well written and prove that the people popularising the stories don't know grammar and thus we'll have a bunch of 23 year olds in ten year's time who have no idea what good written language is. We have a bunch now but not so many that it'll be like finding a 30 year old virgin in this day and age.
The popular stories all have one thing in common; thrills. The people with the capacity of a laptop and internet connection (from here henceforth referred to as faurthors (TM)) don't have plot or growth in mind when they start. Most stories start off as one-shot thrills that turn into more-shot thrills thanks to horny teens and kids who think sub-par angst is awe-MGFRISKTGIF-some. They talk that way too.  The fauthors go so far as to ask for plot development from their readers like it's not their responsibility as a self-proclaimed author. Laziness at its height is my opinion.
My problem? Wattpad is supposed to help nurture authors like Myspace nurtures musicians. Provide a platform for them to publish their works because they are too young or too out of physical reach of publishing houses. How is a publishing house meant to take the players of the site seriously when fauthors dominate the standings? And if they happen to court the fauthors for publishing because of their popular standings, will I as an avid reader be then subjected to reading crap in my thirties? (ie in ten years) I'm seeing opening up an old books bookstore will be quite the hit at this rate with the products being touted currently as the next big thing being utter insults to the vocation of authoring fictional stories which has faced enough bashing over the centuries and only in the last hundred and fifty years become respectable in general.
The solution? Well, so far none. I am looking at other online-blog-type sites which cater to authors in hopes of finding one with a category that separates cheap-thrillers from authors.