Gym Jesus

As you all know, I'm a fitness freak...

I have  helped my colleagues on the ship wherever they have required it.Many are thankful.

A funny thing happened on this ship.

I would work out quietly without disturbing or socializing with anyone.But then I noticed that all the other guys are following my exercise regime, studying and copying my moves!

Even without preaching , I had converted them.

I was Gym Jesus!

 

I have in the past written about fitness or weightloss.There I have written from an exclusively male perspective.

Finally I have come up with a broader perspective.

Simplest thing about fitness is :Most Men want big muscles.Most Women don't.

All the other goals are the same.Lesser body fat, more lean muscle,better body strength and coordination, enhanced immunity,better cognition skills, overall mental improvement etc.

After extensive research of some really big fat boring books (I even read the Merck Manual and several physiology textbooks that I borrowed from my cousin), I have developed a sureproof fitness program.

The only problem is that it canot be put down in a book.

Well, It can be, but then it will lose its efficacy.

So no dvds or infomercials either.(Thank god for that!)

This will be something like a intense five day course.

It will be one person at a time.(So at this point it is not a business model that will generate money.But it is a model geared for effectiveness)

In this five day course, you will have to spend an hour every day with me in my gym.My gym is just a room upstairs.It has one stationary cycle (which I don't use), one treadmill (which I don't use), one swiss ball, a few dumbbells,a punching bag (which I recommend that you don't use) and a pull up bar.

My gym is not the expensive kind that has an exorbitant yearly fee or lots of useless exercise equipment(some of which are downright damaging to your body.For example ; the smith machine, or the leg extension which will damage your knees more than high heels).

We will meet everyday for an hour in which I will come to know more about your fitness goals, your history, diet and body structure etc. 

You will exercise for roughly 20-25 mins and spend  the rest of the time interacting with me and learning a few cutting edge facts about exercise and nutrition.You will also unlearn many harmful beliefs that the general population harbours.As an added bonus, if requested, you will be taught holistic methods of fitness- which include subconscious activation of positive habits,deep relaxation techniques and meditation.Relax.The holistic methods are non-denominational.Keep your gods to yourself.

You will also learn a few boring things like how RMR is affected by aerobics and how to optimise your TDEE, which can be supplemented with actual proof.(charges apply)

Your exercise will be customised heavily based on your lifestyle,body composition,history and diet.You might be asked to  modify your diet based on your goals.

After five days, you no longer are required to come to my gym.You can do all the exercises in a regular gym or at home.I prefer you did them at home.

If required , you can visit after a month and review progress and fine tune the practices.

Now, you might want references.

I have none.

But I have experimented (I agree...it is a poor choice of words) with a few people and have had great success.

I've successfully helped two cousins lose weight with roughly 20 minutes of instruction.But that was possible because I  already knew to some extent all their history.

My mom has a problem of maintaining weight.She's been rapidly losing weight.You might think that is good, but she is distressed that none of clothes fit her now.

Well, I changed her fitness regime and now she finds her daily exercise more exciting than her old yoga routine, and she's maintained her weight for the past  year.

My dad has a weak back.So my primary goal was to strengthen his back, build lean muscle and lose fat.So far, he too has noted improvements in his back.Let me remind you.He is in his late fifties.His results will not be dramatic or quick.

Finally, I extensively experiment and keep tabs on myself.I like to safely change my body status.One month it is bulkier, the next month it is low fat.I keep tabs on what I eat and when and how.I recently discovered that my sugar cravings correspond to the days that I've worked out.On other days, I don't even feel like I want to eat that chocolate bar or drink that cola.

I never have had a craving for fast food.Truth be told, eating fast food makes me feel sick and sluggish that entire day.

I have a star on the mound of Luna on my right palm(I've studied Palmistry).

It is supposed to be a sign that I often punish myself. As far as exercising goes, I feel it is true.

Sometimes because I'm too overenthusuastic, I overexercise to the point I get sick for the next two days.

The U.S.Marines call it Over Traning Syndrome.It is a bodily reaction when the body goes into shock because it is overwhelmed by too my stress.

I do that sometimes - without realising it.For the next two days, I usually have a mild fever that goes away with simple rest.

I was briefly interested in Palmistry - until I read several books on it and realised that it was full of crap.

One ground rule is : No drugs.I've never studied drugs, legal or otherwise and using them without a professional's supervision is not something I'd recommend.

Apart from that I try every thing that I deem to be safe for me.I've even tried Brainwave entrainment technology.(results so far are inconclusive)

Well, I invite anyone interested to my "Gym Jesus Program of getting the fitness that you want". (Kinda corny name isn't it?)

As I want to test my theories and my accumulated knowledge on a wide variety of people, it will be complimentary to anyone willing to participate.

I'm promising results with twenty minutes or less of daily exercise that will leave you fresher than a daisy by the end of it.

And this is not an infomercial.

p.s. To all my detractors who tell me that I don't look like a bodybuilder.

Yes, you are right.I don't look like a classic bodybuilder.I don't strut around with a chest that can balance a glass of water or biceps that can be compared to pythons,boa constrictors or any other snakes.My thighs don't chafe and neither do my armpits.

When I'm fully clothed, I look like any regular garden variety Joe.

Three reasons:

1)I've deliberately under worked my pectorals,biceps,quadriceps and latissmus dorsii.I avoid all kinds of muscular hypertrophy in general.I don't want to end up looking like a collection of body parts pieced together.That being said, all bets are off once I take off my clothes. I do have definition and low body fat that other bodybuilders achieve by short term semi-starvation diets,intentional dehydration and abuse of metabolism catalysts like fat burners.Mine is a result of my exercise,diet and genetics.

2)I take no supplements, vitamin pills,no protein shakes,creatine powder,nitro kicks,fat burners,steroids and all other crap.I eat a regular low fat,moderate carbs and proteins and high fibre diet with lots of veggies and fruits.Salad is actually my favourite dish.My diet is actually very boring, because I'm one of those people who actually find eating a chore.The quicker and more efficient my meal is the better.

3)I don't want to look like the traditional body builder.

It is overkill.

That particular look is not how I define fitness.

Crappy Poet, Crappy Love (And an interview with Dr.Freud)

I'm going through that phase again.

That Crappy Poetry phase.

I'm not a poet , I constantly remind myself, lest I make a mockery of the art and myself.

But in going through the phase an urge develops much like an itch in the crotch, to fill up scraps of paper with alliterative analogies and rhyming sonnets and rhythmic couplets and unintelligible haiku.

Here is my latest debacle...

Oh Heart! Do not misbehave

as you reminisce once again,

Do not flutter,do not falter

But remember 

for it once lingered on my skin,

a touch so precious like warm glowing embers

that smoldered deep within

The memory of her face, 

of that sweet secret place,

it's warmth kept many winters at bay   (sigh audibly for effect)

TA-DAAAAA!

Hey, did you know that I wrote songs as a kid ?

Yeah...All I needed was a tune...I'd make the rest up myself, lyrics and all.

Wanna hear the cockroach song? 

I made it up after hearing a jingle on Tv.

Arrrggghhhh !

I need to stop this madness...

I need a distraction that will stop me from thinking.I'm addicted to reading because it stops me from thinking...thinking all those thoughts that have no use and cause too much grief.

Here we go again...(oh No ! Not again!)

I was lost.

I used to think she'd save me.

But she confessed that she too needed saving.

She was lost too.

I told her about the famous myth from Plato's Symposium;that People were hermaphrodites until God split them in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. 

Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.

We were but lost in this vast sea of chaos , searching for our other halves...

But we would not enmesh perfectly with each other.

We weren't meant to.

But this was as close as I could get to perfection.

So would she consider my unworthy self to be worthy enough ? I enquired meekly...

 

In reply ,She confessed that she too needed saving...But not by me, but rather she needed to be saved from me.

By Me.

From Me.

Big difference.

Ah...the stabbing pain of semantics! The grief that then lingers like the scent of a loved one, now long gone.

Grief is addictive, they say. 

What's going on in the grief stricken person is this: we are seeing ourselves with the loved ones who are now gone, and unavailable somehow.

Our  response called"grief or "sense of loss" is a complex response to being dissociated from those memories. 

It's when we reminisce about our ninth birthday...when we blew all the candles and wished for something petty- a toy, and not for love, comfort or happiness.

It's when we see our loved ones and ourselves having a good time, and  feel empty because we are not there in the picture.

And we do it over and over again, till it becomes second nature.

Grief is a form of practised suffering.

She confessed that she needed to be saved from me.

Not by me.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but semantics...sweet Stabbing Semantics.

Your words,  their agony and antics ...You've got me on my scabby knees.

I was disgusted at my own weakness and decided to let her live in peace and without fear.

But she was addicted to me, as I was to grief.

We both wouldn't let go.

(Shut Up.

 Stop it.

 Stop what you're doing to yourself.

 No good can ever come of it.

 If you don't stop it, I'm gonna beat the pulp outta you till you promise to stop for good)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Interview)

Dr.Freud, can you tell us why this young man, your patient, is obsessed with writing such posts?

Dr Freud: As far as I can see, it is not oedipus complex.In fact it is not related to sex at all.

The patient has confessed that he has a very asexual notion of love...i.e love without any lust or sin.

He believes that love and sex are entirely independent of each other.

A peculiar notion for such a young man and not a particularly a useful one in case he ever wants to start a family, or a rather good excuse to start an extramarital affair.(I just slept with her honey, but I'll always love you and no one else)

So since there is no sex involved,my particular brand of psychotherapy is not very helpful here.I would have suggested that he resolve his issues with his mother, but having met both of them on several occasions, I have to conclude that on the surface they don't seem to have any major issues.

But if you dig deep enough , you'll always unearth some issues.If not, I can create some now and resolve them later.

In my opinion,the patient has schizoid tendencies.My student Wilhelm...I mean Dr.Reich is an expert in that field.You should be talking to him , not me.

Let me explain.

                       The patient tells me that he hears these stories in his head.That alone should make him a prime candidate for a full frontal lobotomy.Other symptoms are that he constantly merges truth with fiction and constantly blurs the borders between what is real and what is unreal.For example, for anyone who knew him as a kid, it would be apparent that he's telling the truth about writing songs.He has sung a few of his childhood compositions to me.These songs employ childish humour,double entendres and other simplistic wordplay while retaining the general melodic structure of the original song.

But the next part is entirely a piece of fiction.

For one, the patient has confessed that he has never read Plato's Symposium, much less having told it to his unrequited love.

He simply found the quote somewhere and decided to use it in this particular context.But since he merges truth with fiction so frequently, it is almost impossible for a casual reader to make that fine distinction between fact and fiction.

He uses de-individuation constantly.He writes in first person and never names all the other characters in his stories.By not naming anyone,including himself, he creates  blank template personalities for the readers to fill in.In this way, the reader is invited to imagine himself or herself as one of the characters of his stories.

I'm told that seance mediums and other charlatans employ the same trick among others, to fleece the gullible.

It is said that every artist, writer, poet writes about himself, because he is limited to that point of view forever.So you see recurring themes & motifs in various authors, poets , musicians- and with time and enough sensitivity and with enough familiarity, you can recognise the signature piece of every artist.

Haruki Murakami's stories of unrequited love,being a third wheel, an empty life, an indescribable longing for something more, and the sudden denouement are his signature styles.

Similarly, this is this young man's signature style.He has taken a single memory of something that has never occurred and wrung it out again and again over time to produce what you see in front of you now.Most of his stories have never happened, but he is delusional because he believes that if they were to happen, this would be the only way it would happen.

One of his most strongly held beliefs is that no matter how good he becomes, eventually he will be rejected, but that does not stop him from improving himself.In fact, this belief only makes himself propel harder at excelling himself.He does not fear rejection...he expects it every time and if not he engineers rejection in some way so that he can still hold on to his belief.

Thus he too is stuck with being somewhat repetitive, but at the same time safely familiar and oddly endearing.

His is a story that is so unremarkable that it is all too real and all too possible.

It could have happened with anyone, especially with young men with no particular success with women.It could also have happened with any beautiful girl who has faced a host of such luckless and pathetic men.

The structure is ingenious that it would apply to both genders-masculine and feminine equally.I'm not calling him a genius though.I think it's just beginner's luck.

The patients story would also appeal to a casual reader because of one particular reason which I'd like to elaborate.

The patient makes a remarkably insightful comment that he is addicted to grief.In my knowledge, a cigar can be a penis,and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but almost everyone is drawn to grief like a moth to a flame.

The casual reader,whose life, the patients story does not echo, can also benefit from the brief and impersonal catharsis that he or she undergoes along with the protagonist of the brief story.I would say that it is almost like having a small cry just to feel lighter inside.

The patient confessed to me that he didn't actually want to post this as he had written it over two years ago because he fears that it can hurt some of his readers.But he wants his crappy poem, pardon my scatological reference, to see the light of day.He claims that he wrestles with his literary desires and moral obligations constantly.

I  assume that anyone who thinks these stories echo their own lives are going to endlessly torture themselves.

I hope god be with their tormented souls.

If not, I can always talk to them about penis envy and oedipus complex.

Uh...Thank you Dr.Freud for such an illuminating insight on your patient.

Dr.Freud:Please call me Sigmund...Doctor Freud sounds so stuffy.

Tell me one thing though doctor...er, Sigmund...Have you ever met a blonde kid with blue eyes who says "I see dead people"?

Ode to a Petty Man

Ode to a petty man

------------------

He said, I still love her,

but I can't stand her anymore.

That was the saddest thing 

I'd ever heard.

He was a petty man

making molehills as big as can be

Forgiveness was not his strongest suit (neither was forgetfulness)

and he was a petty man, petty as can be

He was a selfish man,

He wanted what he could not have.

Broken Expectations! he muttered out loud, 

were mothers to all shattered trusts and broken hearts

He was a stubborn man

he demanded what he could not get

And off he went sulking now,

imagining past deeds of largesse

He was a passive aggressive man

violent anger not his calling card

instead inside his shell he went

and slammed it shut very hard

He was a foolish man

a fool blinded by sweet lies

Have I always been  such a fool?

or blind from birth? he pondered,he wondered.

Flashbacks of a near past

confirmed his worst suspicions

A foolish blind man he was

and a stubborn selfish petty one too

So he wrote an ode to himself

berating his old petty ways

and all those wasted days 

spent in vain and futile pain

Now that he wrote an ode to himself

he felt so light and he felt so free

So although he wrote it,instead he gave it to me

Because I was a petty man, a petty man just like he.

-VeeKayArr
(Hey that's my pseudonym...well not exactly...it is my initials spelled
out.Not very smart am I?)
-----------------------------------------------------------

Bonus
------

Crappy Poet
-----------
I may rhyme after every line
but it's no crime and I'll do no time
rhymo-mania is a crappy word, and
I'm a crappy poet, but I'll do fine

Thank you for tolerating such bad poetry...(which I'm not gonna rhyme
with 'refinery')
Your support is appreciated.

To tell you the truth, poetry bores me.(gasp!)
Yup, I'm a Grade-A philistine.

I don't write poetry, as you can very well see,
these words,terms and turns of phrases
float around in my head and torment me.

I haven't slept today.
The phrase 'Ode to a Petty man' kept ringing in my head.
CLANG CLANG ! (A loud church bell)

These things cannot be ignored,swept away
or there'll be hell to pay
they clamour my attention
seeking a resolution
and until they find it
I'll not be able to sleep.

But now I'm done
and the dawn breaks over the horizon
Kiss your sleep goodnight
and say sweet dreams

Disclaimer

I've never told you this, but all my stuff is based on the events and
happenings of Planet Xoorplagg.

Planet Xoorplagg is one of the planets of the Sourcream Path
galaxy(take the second left from the Milky way).
Xoorplagg is the third planet that revolves around a medium sized star
called Heliobacter.

Planet Xoorplagg has life on it.
Strangely they are not called Xoorplaggians.It is too difficult to
pronounce to the Xoorplaggian tongue.
So they call themselves Earthlings.(Don't ask me why.Ask those crazy
Xoorplaggians)

They look like earthlings too.The only difference is that
Xoorplaggians (I mean earthlings) dont have tonsils.They prefer
tonsillectomies to circumcision or baptism.

It is rumored that Xoorplaggians roam this earth in secret.
The only way to identify a Xoorplaggian is to open his mouth and shine
a flashlight inside.

By the way, I have my tonsils intact, just in case you wondered.But my
mom...she doesn't have her tonsils.So I think I'm a half xoorplaggian
and half earthling.
But in Xoorplagg , I'd be half earthling and half earthling.But never
whole of anything.
Do you see how confusing this is?

But I have visions of Xoorplagg now an then.Waking dreams about life
and stories in planet Xoorplagg.
Their life is remarkably similar to us.Sometimes I get confused
whether I'm in Xoorplagg or earth.

Therefore I need to insert a disclaimer here.
The Xoorplagg disclaimer.

This blog is a work of an alternate reality,from a planet called
Xoorplagg, and that the characters,incidents, and dialogue are drawn
from the authors visions of Xoorplagg and are not to be construed as
anything happening on earth.
Any resemblance to actual events
or persons,living or dead ,
is entirely coincidental.

And I'm a little mental.

Hey buddy.Can you open your mouth for a moment please.
Relax dude.It's just a flashlight.Today is 'Get your tonsils checked
for free day'
Honest.

--
<

Curiosity and the Cat

I've never contemplated ending my life.Or by any other name; suicide.
For some reason it has never crossed my mind.

This is not a reply to any post.But reading those posts made me wonder.
Wonder why?
And Why not?

I don't think of suicide as sin.
I don't believe in the concept of sin.

To believe in 'sin', one has to believe in a cosmic scorecard and also
a cosmic scorekeeper.

God! What is an athiest supposed to believe in ?
(that was a joke)

Do you think Jesus really cares if I lusted after a woman?
Aren't all men supposed to think about sex every seven seconds.
If that's the case, how many men do you think there are in
heaven?(Apart from the pope and Micheal Jackson)
And finally, wasn't Jesus a man? (was he an exception to the 7 second
rule, or was he exempt because of his influential dad?)

Goddamit Dad! Just tell St.Peter to open the Pearly Gates and let me in.

I don't really love Mary Magdalene.
She's is just a girl.
We're just friends.
We didn't do nothing.
Honest!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



The closest I've come to suicide is in my dreams of flying.
And falling.
A recurrent childhood dream of mine was that I am riding my bicycle on a cliff.
In my dreams,I rapidly pedal towards the edge of the cliff.
And I don't stop.
I never stopped.
Instead I soar over the cliff and I see down below me, the landscape
that is afar,all the things tiny and insignificant and slowly growing
bigger.
The air rushes past me, as I fall down still clutching on to the
handlebars of my bicycle.
No fear.
I rush towards oblivion with a growing sense of excitement.
And I wake up before I hit the ground.

In my more recent recurring tamer version of the former dream,
as I go down a flight of stairs, I miss a step and fall.
It is a very visceral dream, in which I'm jerked awake before I hit
the ground.A book on astral projection tells me that the above dream
is a sign that the etheric body is partially leaving the physical
body.But fear makes it come back into the physical body which causes
the violent jerking that wakes me up.
I'm not making this up.

But I would love to be able to leave myself behind and go someplace new.
No baggage.
No body.


Then there is the vicarious death that I go through.

I'm obsessed with death.I know my own mortality.

But I'm going to die anyway.So why hasten it with suicide.
I don't believe in reincarnation.I think it is a horrible concept.I
don't want to believe in it.
I think this is the only life I'll ever have.That's reassuring.

I'm not afraid of death.It's pain that I'm more afraid of.
Life is fragile.I can die any moment.
While tying my shoelaces,when taking a shit,in my sleep,while walking
on the street.
I know I can die just like that.
Or maybe live a long and fruitful life brimming with stories.
There is absolutely no certainity in life.

With no certainity, how can one expect hope?
Hope is a belief of a better tomorrow.It's a wish.
And hope at best is a glorious lie.
At any moment, all your hopes can be dashed, smashed into smithereens,
or all that you've ever dreamt of can come true.
There is no certainity here either.

I was disgusted at myself because I always killed my male
protagonists.To me Death, seems to be the only natural end to a
story.I've even written a story about Death (personnified); an aging
cowboy who longs to die.Death meets his end by his protege, someone
who he killed a few years ago and feels guilty about it.
Death is killed by Death.She lops of his head with a scythe while
riding her hog(her bike).He drops down from his horse and dies.I wrote
this before I saw the Movie'Ghostrider'.
I never showed that story to anyone.I don't plan to.

I wanted my stories to be uplifting and not end with 'and they all
died in the end'.
So I started writing with female protagonists in mind.
I cannot inflict harm to a woman even in fiction.I can never kill a
female protagonist.But there lies a strange discontent when I let the
protagonist live at the end of the story.The story seems strangely
unfinished.
If I cannot find closure in my stories,to me they are unfinished.
I cannot show them to anybody.

But in killing my male protagonists, have I satisfied my morbid
curiosity of my own death?
Is this a vicarious version of suicide?

I've always felt worthless in the face the world.That has been my
biggest crippling dysfunction.
It makes me very uneasy to face the world.
How in the grander schema am I worth anything?

A dangerous self belief is that I don't deserve anything in life.
The world owes me nothing and I owe it nothing either.
I didn't ask to be here.I don't know how I got here.I didn't want to
be here anyway.
And I don't know when I'll be leaving.


Also I see the pointlessness of everything.It is pointless to convince
you that these are my beliefs.It is pointless to hurt somebody.It is
pointless to reminisce over past wounds.It is pointless and absurd.
People being blind to absurdity.That's the funniest thing I keep seeing.
I take it a notch higher.Absurdity is my calling card, my one way
ticket to...wherever absurdity leads me.
My words are empty and filled with vague generalizations.

And tommorrow might not be a better day.
Even that is a lie.

The truth is tomorrow is tomorrow.

But what keeps me alive is something else.
It is curiosity.

I'm hooked on to life because I'm curious to know what happens in the
next episode, or even the next season.
I'm curious to know how many encores I have left in me.
I'm curious to know how much influence I can exert to influence in
shaping my life and pushing it forward.
I'm curious to know how many farewell tours I will host.
I think I'm done with bad metaphors for now.

More than happiness,fear,hope or the stinking sweet smell of future
success - I'm banking heavily on my curiosity to go through my life.
One step at a time.

One page at a time.

One day at a time.

I want to know how much I can know.

I want to know how much I can push my limits.

There is no precautionary tale here.
Curiosity never killed the cat.

For better or worse,
'Curiosity kept the cat alive and kicking',
and off the ledge to oblivion.

I wish you could step back from that ledge my friend.

--
<

Devdas Syndrome

Devdas Syndrome (Or the kind of man you must avoid)

Always trust in a woman's intuition to know about your intentions.

Ok let's go by that one more time.This time slo-oo-wly.

Always -trust -in a -woman's intuition -to know -about your -intentions.

You are led to believe that a woman's intuition is infallible.It is not.
Problem is we men are so transparent, we might as well not be wearing
any clothes.

But without pandering to women, it is safe to say that they can sniff
out your intentions a good mile away.
Especially when you're out of deodorant.

They might not know that you have already named the kids after your
grandparents or you have planned what college these kids will attend
to, but they know what you are upto.

Intuition is much more primal and non-specific than that.
Intuition is simple.It gives signals- much like a traffic signal.

Red means - call the police and get a restraining order.

Orange means- He are a pesky creep who will ask her out every chance he gets.

Green means -take a shot at it.He's probably a good guy.

But the problem is most men are also colour blind.You have no idea
what aquamarine or rouge or oxblood mean.
Yes, women's intuition signals cover the entire colour palette/Their
intuition is constantly flashing colours that you have no idea
exist.Peach,teal & butterscotch to name a few.
That's what makes the woman's intuition so darn hard to understand.

Most women know that I suffer from the Devdas syndrome.
It is the inability to fall in love with any other woman but the one
that he is already in love with.
It is also known as 'One-itis', where the idea of that 'One' girl is
cemented so hard that all other women become inconsequential.Sure he
may be a success with other women, but that is because he truly
doesn't care about what they think.At the end of the day, all these
successes feel hollow and empty and pale in comparision to what the
'One' could have given him.

Other symptoms of the Devdas syndrome include:An artistic bent in
seeing the world, widespread cynicism,constant bipolar behaviour -
sometimes he is praising his love, raising her to the heavens, and
sometimes condemning her to the deepest hells possible.
Misery is a constant companion.So is anger.

His love may very well destroy his life, but he does not care.After
all, what is life without the 'One' ?

There is a notion of perverted nobility.He truly believes that he must
suffer for his sins.He does not expect salvation.
But he prays for eternal happiness of his 'One'.Even if he's not the
one to give it.

For example...

I loved you even
now I may confess
Some embers of my love their fire retain
But do not let it cause you more distress-
I do not want to sadden you again.
Hopeless and tongue-tied, yet, I loved you dearly
With pangs the jealous the timid know
So tenderly I loved you, so sincerely,
I pray God grant another love you so

-Alexander Pushkin

But it is reading the history of Soren Kierkegaard, 'The father of
Existentialism' that is more enlightening.

Kierkegaard was in love with Regine Olsen (of no relation to the Olsen
twins),a pretty and intelligent girl whom he also admired.He proposed
to her and was accepted. They were soon engaged.But the day after the
engagement was announced, he knew that he had made a dreadful
mistake.He suspected that Regine had accepted him out of pity.Doubts
and anxieties flooded into his mind.He was not husband material.His
habit of deep thought had made him 'lover with a wooden leg'

Kierkegaard panicked ,and soon broke the engagement and returned Regine's ring.

He writes"Forgive a man, who, even if he was able to achieve
something,yet was unable to make a girl happy"

But Regine was reluctant to let him go.

So Søren Kierkegaard set about humiliating her in public in the hope
that she would then break off the relationship.



Regine finally gave him up and eventually became engaged to
his rival, Johan Frederik Schlegel.

Although, Kierkegaard loved her very much, he did it because he
thought it was the best he could do for her.

With that he escaped to Berlin.
He wrote"I journeyed to Berlin.I suffered a
great deal.I was so profoundly shaken that I understood perfectly well
that I could not possibly succeed in taking the comfortable and secure
middle way in which most people pass their lives.
But it was she who made me a poet."

For the rest of his life, Kierkegaard remained a bachelor, forever in
love with Regine, who now had become his fictionalised and
unattainable muse.

Existentialists say that it is our decisions that
define and create individuals,because the person who takes them does
not exist until after he or she has chosen.Thus they are beyond the
rational judgment of others. Søren applied this approach to Regine,
creating what everyone else perceived as an elaborate series of public
humiliations for the young woman, in order to‘provoke’ her into ending
their engagement. But, for Søren, he was creating the next
Kierkegaard. (But at whose cost, might I ask?)

So the whole sorry episode had helped him into becoming one of the
most remarkable writers and philosophers of the 19th century.

The sufferer of 'Devdas syndrome' is almost always helpless to get out
of his predicament.He can never find another love.He can never find
happiness again.He is never strong enough to let her go completely.
Although Kierkegaard physically distanced himself from Regine, his
soul was never free from her.As a consequence both suffered
immeasurably.

But if the luckless lady detects 'Devdas syndrome' in a man, she
should end it completely and permanently for her own good.
There is no point in suffering as Regine did.

But you , as a woman have to be swift and merciless about it.
Men are dense creatures.Subtelity is a lost art to them.

If she must end it, she has to do it brutally and mercilessly.That's
the only language those savages understand.

But if she is like most women, she will be too nice, too kind, too
compassionate.
Most of the time, like Regine, she will be confused at the
actions,constantly hurt and humiliated.

She does not want to break a heart.
But here, the situation is of self preservation.

She should remember that if she does not do anything, he will
definitely destroy her along with himself.

She should take a stand for herself, and do the right thing.

Am I writing about Devdas Syndrome or about myself or about Soren
Kierkegaard? At this point, it's no longer clear.

I guess I'm writing about what I should never become.

What is the cure for Devdas Syndrome?
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's the quickest way to lose a girl.Trust me on this one.
I've tried it.

You tell her that she's too good for you and that you don't deserve
her.She'll actually believe you!
She'll believe you and treat you like a porcupine that has lost a
battle to a skunk.
Ha ha!
Imagine that!A porcupine and a skunk fighting.
Oh boy, that brings back those old memories!(In my last reincarnation
I was a porcupine who lost to a skunk.Later that day, a truck ran over
me making me the worlds first and only stinky porcupine pancake.Yum !)

But let me tell you the surprising thing.
The converse isn't true.
You won't get a girl by telling her that she doesn't deserve you.
She'll find it amusing.
She'll never believe you, and think that you're an asshole and leave you anyway.






--
<

How to ruin a joke

My showerhead is blessed by 'Our Lady of Perpetual Pressure Fluctuation'

With soap suds on my eyes,wet and naked, I keep having to follow the
variable and fluctuating parabola of my shower jet.

Twice.
That's how many times I banged my head trying to catch the water jet.
That was just today morning.

Well...I've really got nothing else to say.
But I thought it was incredibly smart of me to come up with 'Our Lady
of Perpetual Fluctuation'

'Our lady of Perpetual Pressure Fluctuation' causes 'Our Bather the
constant Sucker'

I guess the second one is not that funny.

Well, you win some,you lose some.

How to spoil a joke: A mini tutorial
------------------------------------

A couple just got married and on the night of their honeymoon before
the passionate love, the wife tells the husband"Please be gentle, I'm
still a virgin."
The husband being shocked
(Spoiler 1 :I'd be shocked too!)
replied, "How's this possible?You've been married thrice
before."(Spoiler 2 :This woman is a serial wedder.The man is crazy to
have married her after 3 men)
The wife responds,"Well, my first husband was a gynecologist and all
he wanted to do was look at it(Spoiler 3: Was the gyno a
workoholic?).My second husband was a psychiatrist and all he wanted to
do was talk about it.Finally, my third husband was a stamp collector
and all he wanted to do was...oh, I do miss him!"

(Spoiler 3:Gee...what do stamp collectors do?They seem to be more
popular than postmen and milkmen these days.)




A frog joke:

A magical frog was trapped in thornbush.A passing woman noticed his
cries for help.The frog said,"If you help me, I have power to grant
you 3 wishes. (spoiler 1:Couldn't the magical frog wish itself out of
the thornbush?)

The woman freed the frog, and the frog said,"Thank you, but I failed
to mention that there was a condition to your wishes.Whatever you wish
for , your husband will get times ten!"
(Spoiler 2 & 3:The woman should have said "Fuck the wishes.I'm taking
you to the news.A talking frog is worth 15 min of free airtime!
How did the frog know the marital status of the woman.Suppose she was
a widower.Then what?)

For her 1st wish, the woman wanted to be the most beautiful woman in
the world.(any comments here and I'll be branded a misogynist.Oh
wait.I already am one)
Her husband was instantly the most handsome man in the world.(Spoiler
4:How did the frog evaluate beauty? Was it 'Beauty by a frogs
standards...you know warts and all, judged by a jury of his amphibious
peers or beauty as judged by people?)

For her second wish, she wanted to be the richest woman in the
world.Instantly her husband became the richest man in the world by a
factor of ten.
(Spoiler 5:Now since the husband and wife had most of the world's
money, did that create a global economic instability? Is the magical
frog the reason why the current global economic recession is so bad?
Wouldn't rich fat bankers and greedy politicians be happy to blame the
magical frog and wash their hands off?)

For her last wish, she wished for a mild heart attack.

Moral of the story:Women are clever.Don't MESS WITH THEM.

Spoiler 6:However, the man had a heart attack ten times milder than his wife!

Moral of the story:Women think they are smart.Let them continue to
think that way and just enjoy the show.

Epilogue spoiler : Now that both the husband and wife had changed. i.e
were handsome and rich,they didn't recognise their own spouses.They
did not even recognise themselves in the mirror anymore.They were all
alone.(maybe not...all that money and good looks must have gotten them
some company)
They had serious life long identity crisis issues to deal with and
both their psychiatrists got rich by just' Talking about it'


HUMOR AND GENDER
A number of studies were conducted over the past four decades to
investigate gender differences in various aspects of humor. Many
additional studies, although not specifically focusing on gender,
reported comparisons of the responses of male and female participants.
Consequently, there is a large amount of data on gender differences in
humor (see Lampert and Ervin-Tripp, 1998, for a review of this
literature).
Much of the early theory and research, prior to the emergence of the
women’s movement,suggested that, “when it comes to humor, men are more
likely to joke, tease,and kid, whereas women are more likely to act as
an appreciative audience than to produce humor of their own” (Lampert
and Ervin-Tripp, 1998, p. 235). Studies of humor appreciation
generally also indicated that men were more likely than women
to enjoy humor containing aggressive and sexual themes, whereas women
were more likely to enjoy “nonsense” (i.e., nontendentious) humor
(Groch, 1974; Terry and Ertel, 1974; W. Wilson, 1975). In addition,
there was some evidence that both men and women tended to enjoy jokes
making fun of women more than jokes targeting men (Cantor, 1976; Losco
and Epstein, 1975).

But when Mary Crawford and Diane Gressley (1991) administered a
68-item questionnaire to men and women, asking them about their
typical appreciation and creation of humor involving a broad range of
topics, styles, and types of humor. Overall, men and women showed more
similarities than differences in their responses.
No gender differences were found, for example, for creativity in humor
production, tendency to laugh at oneself, enjoyment of cartoons and
comic strips in newspapers and magazines, and enjoyment of sexual
humor. However, men reported greater enjoyment and creation of hostile
humor, a greater tendency to tell canned jokes, and greater enjoyment
of slapstick comedy. On the other hand, women reported greater use of
anecdotal humor, such as recounting funny stories about things that
happen to themselves or others.

These gender differences in humorous discourse may be understood in
terms of the way gender is expressed in social interactions more
generally (Crawford, 1992; 2003). According to Deborah Tannen (1986;
1990), men and women have somewhat different conversational goals: for
women, the primary goal of friendly conversation is intimacy, whereas
for men the goal is positive self-presentation. These different goals
are also reflected in the ways men and women use humor. Women more
often use humor to enhance group solidarity and intimacy through
self-disclosure and mild self-deprecation, whereas men more often use
humor for the purpose of impressing others, appearing funny, and
creating a positive personal identity. Thus, humor is a mode of
communication that, along with more serious communication, is used to
achieve gender-relevant social goals.

-Source:An Integrative approach to Psychology of Humour

(Reading this book will tell you exactly how to spoil a joke.They even
have flowcharts explaining the inner workings of a joke.
The setup, story and the punchlines are routinely hacked and dissected
and then dumped away in the annals of academia such as this book.These
books are usually reserved for annals rap.(Sorry Bad joke)

I bet you thought computers had no sense of humour.
Turns out you're wrong as usual.
A software called JAPE(Joke Analysis & Production Engine) produces
punning riddles like this one :What do you call a ferocious nude? A
grissly bare!

The joke is generated using a large dictionary which has the following
data: phonetic pronunciation, lexical usage, and syntactic meaning and
other semantic rules that usually look for synonymy and suitable word
pairs for puns)

--
<