Archive for September, 2007

Attraction, a first look

{ September 30, 2007 @ 4:44 pm } · { Attraction }
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Attraction, a thought which keeps baffling me day in and day out. what it about attraction which makes it hard to define?, why is it that we get attracted to few people and not to others, what makes them stand out in crowd to us. Something which might be as subjective as it can get.

I have always stood by my belief that I get attracted to personalities rather then people. I think its true to very large extent, When you talk to a person, there are so many things that talk to you, so many things in you develop conversations of their own sub consciously, and that’s where the attraction begins for me. But this is something which is when you are mind is thinking, when you are making a conscious decision, you are always in control of what you want, and begin to see if its present, so get drawn to it.

Some people really can come across and talk what they have in mind, some don’t, for example when I hear Lara Dutta, the ex miss world, I just listen, she has some poise and makes sense, I still remember the miss world pageant and the way she answered, I have never seen some one so bold, and level headed as her, its a shame that she chose a career like bollywood, to waste her talents on.

So you might say she is extremely beautiful, so its obvious that I got attracted and then found a way to defend my attraction. Then the same should go with people like Aishwarya Rai, Jeniffer Anniston, Angelina Jolie, Pamela Anderson and so on, all of them very beautiful, many of them have hardly left any beauty left to be imagined. But no, they don’t strike a chord with me, may be with someone else they do.

Again, keeping all these intellectual attraction aside, there must be still something which I am missing out here. When you are at a mall, or a movie theatre, or even when you are at work, amidst crowd there is always someone or the other which makes your heads turn, I would be lying if I say they don’t. What about these, you haven’t spoken to them, no you haven’t even heard them, so what attracted you to them?

Obvious reason which comes to my mind, or anybody other’s for that matter, is of course their body, the physical attraction, the lust. But again I have been proven wrong here many times. Its age old belief, that men get drawn to the big sizes, the swaying hips and what not, and women on the other hand have always known to fantasize tall, dark, handsome, bulging muscles and so on.
Honestly guys try to remember, how many times you have turned your heads for such features,
and how many times you have just smitten by people who are not many of those, no I am not talking about plane jane fantasy, somebody who is perfectly normal, not even wearing something provocative, just plain attraction.

There is always something that stands out, in my case in most of the cases its their choice of clothes and colors, whites and peaches are always in, blacks and greys are okay if they really chose the right things to wear. One other thing is smell, I have an acute sense of smell, so anybody who has put on the right perfume, I get easily drawn. I am generally very happy to see smiling people, even though I not always in good mood, it kind of puts me into it, so there you go another attraction, happy smiling people.

Once I asked someone do people really notice/care about what one wears, and I am shocked to find the answer in myself, people do, may not be directly the personal style one carries forms a big part of the person’s aura.

The next thing I notice is public behavior, if you really out spoken, or extremely friendly with people, I am a big admirer, but would never get attracted, the person should, I guess, leave a nice spell of curiosity, and want to hear more kind of impression, shyness, the tone, the voice, and of course a little secrecy all adds to the attraction.

But all said and done, this is just to turn people’s heads, but the real attraction again I would like to argue does not come bodily, it has to be the mind.

Planning to continue this soon, next stop attraction and age..

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P.S Guys I am hoping to get more of you to write on this topic “Attraction”, let me know if any of you want to share your opinion on this.
please send me a mail at rambler1981@gmail.com

Care to know me a little more…

{ September 22, 2007 @ 7:11 pm } · { Moi }
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My blogger friend paisley who writes had put up this post some days back about her interview,
as per the meme she asked people if they were interested she would interview them with a set of 5 questions. Just knowing how good she writes, I was sure she would come up with awesome questions, so just left a comment saying I would be interested.

so here it goes instructions what to do next
1. Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the
questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the
questions. And a link to my profile or blog as your interviewer.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone
else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five
questions.

So anybody interested guys?
please leave me a comment .

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Paisley sent me a set of questions couple of days back, I couldn’t answer them right away, they needed a little bit of thinking before I answer them. So here it goes her set of questions and my attempts at answering them

1. due to the fact that we exist on two different continents,, and our cultural differences are vast,, i feel compelled to first ask you a question or two about your culture… i was first really “introduced” to you, when you asked me if i would submit a guest post to your series on body and soul….it was there i first became impressed with the extreme differences in the societal norms in India and here in the states… if you had your choice,, abounding freedom,, or cultural constraints,, which would you choose??? and why?? and no,, your parents aren’t going to read this so please be frank……

This question kind of puts the whole “body or soul” series on a point blank question, so what do I choose. I have thought long and hard on this, its been a lot of confusion and I think I would have to go with the soul. Knowing Indian culture and my conservative upbringing, this may look an easy and obvious choice, but, to be honest it was not, my view on this had drifted far away from the soul, and very much towards the body. I guess the hormones, the temptation and the natural attraction was something which I was accepting with both arms.

The series that I hosted changed my views drastically, seeing many people opting for body and many others for soul, the kind of reasons that came out, especially the kind of myths it broke about women and sensuality and their mindset made me realize there is nothing wrong about accepting the body and its needs, that made me think beyond just the body and when would my body get the maximum pleasure, and I had to deduce it has to be soul, without which body alone can never attain the level of pleasure. So I am sure it would have to be soul for me, body would just blend in.

so to answer this question in short, I chose soul, because I think without that I would never be able to satisfy the body fully.
[Again having no experience with body nor soul, the decision is purely based on things that went inside my head, it may become stronger or change later as I experience new stuff.]

2. you mentioned to me on more than one occasion,, that sex is, in your opinion, reserved for married people,, and you maintain that belief in your own life… tell me,, as a young man in your prime,, what keeps you celibate,,, really,, i mean what force from inside yourself dictates your celibacy until you are forever betrothed????

Actually I may have not put it across properly before, but its not marriage but the total commitment which is must for a bodily relationship, and In most cultures marriage is that commitment so I guess sex should be something which needs to be limited to marriage.

Seeing the rate at which the marriages are being broken, I don’t think this alone will really serve the purpose, it has to be a mixture of a good marriage, total commitment, understanding, sacrifices which is a must before you enter into something involving so much of emotional intimacy as sex. I am not leaving the physical pleasure out of it, but thats something which you may enjoy for minutes, to make it last for a long long time, you got to be enjoying every moment of the togetherness, not just those eleven minutes.

In short, what keeps me celibate, I guess my extreme confidence in my belief that you can really achieve satisfaction mentally and physically, its just that extra wait, which is totally worth.

May be lack of choice is the reason for celibacy in India in most cases, but in most cases now-a-days its definitely by choice.

3. i would assume,, although you have never stated this,, that as a young celibate male,, you are in the market for a wife,, if for no other reason that to get to have sex sometime in the near future,, tell me… what qualities do you feel you are looking for in a wife??? and are these qualities things you genuinely feel are of high importance or are they culturally stipulated???

Actually you are not right on this one, I am not in market for a wife, at least not yet. I would some day may be for for a lot of other reasons than sex.
What would I look for in a wife, as my friend calls it, my view of a my perfect women.
I think I summed that up in my post sometime back titled “she“

One thing which I wont expect out of the relationship though would be perfection, I like the relationship to be very natural, and something which will grow along the way, one of my another stupid theories that any relationship needs space to grow, not good if it starts at a very high point, it always has only one direction to go thats downwards.

I don’t think they are culturally stipulated, in fact so many ideas of mine wrt a relationship is totally against norm. probably you may have not noticed because they are not that big of a deal in the states.

4. where do you see yourself in 20 years?? do you have a built in set of goals and guidelines that you follow in your life… and if so ,, what are they???

This is a really interesting question, 20 years is too big a long time, I have this problem with expectations, that may be too much evident in the personal posts I write, so actually working hard to get rid of it. So I would like to keep this simple and not expect many things.
May be a decent family, with whom I can share and pass down the immensely treasured values which I got from my parents and society,
A decent job, which pays for a good life of us.
Developing at least one very good and passionate hobby that lasts the life time.
Keeping in touch with some extremely important people in life, and may be the same level of closeness and support to each other.
Guidelines, may be form them as I go along, and hopefully not hurt people around.

5. when you first became active in the cyber world,, i would imagine a whole new world opened up to you,, as you were exposed to many people,, much like myself,, that have openly engaged in and feel free sharing things that are far deviant from the ideals with which you have been raised… do you think it heightened your curiosities??? or were your beliefs strengthened when you looked on candidly at our more open attitudes toward, love, sex, drugs, passion etc?????

They didn’t heighten my curiosities, instead they broke my myths, and gave me a lot of knowledge and new perspective, increased my tolerance levels. And I loved all of it.
I have always loved discussions and arguments, and my belief that there is no right or wrong, and everything is right in its own view, makes it easier to accept new things.
To tell you the truth I haven’t come across any of those topics wide in the open, may be a blog here or there, may be someone could help me with the links here.
Some how I have been more curious about people than anything else.

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An afterthought

{ September 8, 2007 @ 8:54 am } · { "Body or Soul" }
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Last time I thought about this, I ended up all in questions and confusions. This does happen in most of the other topics too, but this time I had something deep up my mind, the result being, me still thinking about it, and these afterthoughts I have had had.

The last question I asked myself, in the post was should we talk about it, I have for years and years believed, no, we should not. There are things meant to be private and this topped the list. I think one of the changes I went through, changed this as well, I felt there is nothing to be ashamed in telling people what you think, I know what should be my limitation, and what I should be telling people, and this did not find a place in the list anymore.
People who visit my blog thought otherwise I guess, not many wanted to say what they feel about this, I know the mental block and I totally respect that. I would just like to remind, that if identity is the issue here, then we do allow anonymous comments, even if you don’t want to say, just think about the topic, I am sure you will surprise yourself with a thought or two.

The relationship between body and soul in intriguing, as much you think about the topic, you tend to discover newer aspects about this relationship. I started with a theory, a very idealistic one, body being a slave of the soul. I have had so many days, when I am down with a bad fever, or even a severe cold with nose blocks, still have concentrated like never before on my work, or something as silly as an episode of my favorite TV show, or even a sporting event. My will power, or my mind or the soul, whatever you want to call it it, had been such a powerful master that my body had to become its slave. There has been many a days when your body wanted something very much like rest due to tiredness and you just dismiss its request, it has to do what your mind wants it to do. I am sure you can relate the same to other bodily needs. I might be with no experience in this matter, but I can bet that there would have been days when your body was in no mood for it, but the emotions ran so strong that, your body ended being a slave for it. A great gesture by your mate, a deep moment between the two, a mere act of understanding or the ever illusionary love, anything might have slaved your body, in dire situations to respond to your mind.

Just this idealistic thought about the relationship, and my mind begins to wonder, how converse of this is as much true. There have been days when I have not be able to concentrate even a bit on what I am doing, because of a tiny prick in my feet, or a little nail that has come out, or even as simple as bad smell my nose is picking up. I would be honest to admit, cases when an attractive female who passes by has made me lose concentration, now in most cases I do have weird rules of attraction, like what she says, what she thinks and whats her opinion, but then there have been occasions where it is none of those, its just the sight, the look and body, body does find a natural attraction to the other. How cheap it might sound, but it is true and lust I think is as natural as love. So is not my mind slave of my body here?, aren’t we ignoring the logic in our mind, our principles in life, and even our thought process, for something as trivial as bodily lust?.

So I decide, they must be having a discrete relationship, totally disjoint from one another. No one is slave of the other, each work on their own. They just co exist. Like the time someone experiences acute pain in their stomach, for a second all they can think is the body and its pain, just a minute later, you tend to worry about what happened to the score in the game last night. At a point when you know that you have a body and it has its needs and problems, you just accept its existence, and get on with your life. Let the body take care of itself, and the soul take care of itself. It reminds me of a scene from the movie The Notebook, where the lead actor, as he waits for his love to come back just spends his nights with a widow, knowing purely it is his body which she is servicing not his mind. He wants the both to coexist with his love, without the two getting in way of the other. Personally I feel this is most difficult to achieve, and still I have a lot of doubt if this is indeed correct. But none the less, this still is a relationship between the two.

So If I don’t want them to be that way, the only left relationship is when both the mind and the body both are masters, both have their interests vested, they both want the same thing, body
aiding the mind, and the mind taking care of the body. This sounds so ideal right?, I mean no separate existence for any one of them. As ideal it may sound, I think it’s not. There is something missing in this too, say you are throughly depressed due to something that happened at work, or may be suffered a big loss, your mind is all over the place, may be at this point, you need something totally disconnected from your mind to give you a breather, something which gives you immense pleasure and takes your mind away from worldly matters, and makes you feel a little out of world, isn’t this where a body could help?

Moving on to the next question, do men and women think differently about this, I liked the way Jason said, he questions back, “don’t two women think differently?”. Exactly this is such a personal thought, and feelings can vary from individual. I think the myth that men are for body and women are for soul, was totally busted with the more I read. The more I know the world I feel, its just about what gives you pleasure, some find immense pleasure in following their soul, and if body becomes a part of it so be it, some on the other hand, find immense pleasure in listening to their body, and if soul does not want it, so let it be. And some find immense pleasure in challenges, so if body throws a big challenge to them, curbing the body gives them immense pleasure, on the other hand, if people are sick of the logic, and they don’t want it to dictate what they enjoy, they find immense pleasure in being rebel.

It just keeps me on and on, I cant seem to decide what my philosophy is in this regard.
Guys do let me know what you think.


 You can read the rest of the series here “Body or Soul” or Pure Pursuits

Bubbles up the vents of my mind – by Jason

{ September 1, 2007 @ 10:07 am } · { "Body or Soul" }
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Jason write at Jason’s space. I have not known him for long, to be honest have not read much of his work, [Jason I am sorry, I was being totally honest here]. From what I have read so far, he appears to me as a person who has lot of, ideas, waiting to be told, thoughts waiting to be expressed and discussed. Hoping to know more about his ideas, and his thoughts over this series and posts on his blog. Jason writes at http://jasonmonserrate.blogspot.com/
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At the outset, i would like to stay away from generalization or inductive reasoning based on a few examples. Also, every question i have touched upon opens a larger set of questions. Pages and pages could be written about the topic.

You have got me thinking on a lot of areas. I sincerely believe that the mind tends to specialise in an area or areas of importance at any particular point of time. Its specialisation tends to vary with time. What may be important to you as a 18 year old does not hold the same significance in your life when you are 35 or 70. The topics of interest do not always evolve from the more inane to the more focussed, from the general to the precise. It could also degenerate into some entirely insignificant. This is broadly unconnected to your post. So let me leave this out.

The body and the soul – Its hard to separate. Both are controlled by the mind. Which is the control tower. Nothing can be done exclusive of the other. I do believe it is the complete package.

Societal taboos – In a society, just like in a group of people, you exercise a choice. Lets consider a party. It is a group of people. You have a choice to go up to join the conversation, or to start one. You can choose what you will say, and whom you will say it to. Similarly, in the society, you cab choose the way you will act. The consequences of each action will be spelt loud and clear and will be obvious to you.

Religious taboos – Religion is private. Since i am a Christian, i can say that the body is not given secondary treatment in the Bible. This is a much larger debate.

Women and men think differently? I have never been a woman. So i guess i will not be the best person to answer this. But then, don’t two men (or two women) think differently from each other?

Should the body and the soul stuff not be talked about? Well… I wonder what the taboo is. Why is it so hard to talk about? Why do you think satisfying the body is sinful? Also, what exactly does ’sinful’ imply, is it religiously sinful or just plain bad?

I would like this to proceed in a more specific direction. The more i think about it, the more matter bubbles up in the vents of the mind.