Rationality:Love - 1:0

[greatmib]

On October 3, 2005 I wrote an entry where I spoke of taking risks and following one's heart rather than pure cold logic. Yet we all know that life has a fetish for irony and in my case this ultimate irony was that the very person who once had motivated me to make illogical, wonderfuly risky choices was the same person who two days ago told me that

Comments

[shaydlip]

You are making this matter entirely too simple, despite the length of the post.

This entire matter would be different were the man you love different. I think the problem here is that you are looking at everyone as though they are the same, when in actuality they are dynamic individuals.

The whole idea of "helping people" has become a bit odd to me. What does it mean? How are you going to help them? Do they need/want your help? They are individuals and will ask what they need/want from you if they need something. I don't know- I really don't see your two paths here as the "rational" one versus the "irrational" one. I see your two paths as what is best for Marina. When it's right for you to be irrational- i.e. the time you spent in England then go for it. But sometimes it's right for you to be rational.
Does that make sense?

[greatmib]

No, I'm not looking at everyone as though they are the same. I realize that we are different, but we all also part of a structural society and in order to survive in this society, we often act according to society's norms or conventions. True, if my feelings were recipricated things would be very different. I don't know, however, whether they are recipricated or not has anything to do with his personality. I may just be that by the same random chance that Eric fell in love with me and that I feel in love with the person in question is the same chance that he does not seem to feel that toward me

[shaydlip]

Your feelings are not reciprocated anymore?? That's new...

In terms of helping people, that's cool & I respect it. And I have to say I disagree about us forgetting the poor. It's discriminating who is feeding off the government's teat and who actually needs the help that is the difficult part.

And even if you make the "wrong" choice, it will always come out right in the end because you are doing what you feel like will fulfill yourself at the time, and as long as you're comfortable with whatever decision you make you cannot beat yourself up in the future and things that end up seeming like they're going to such turn out all right in the end. Look at me- Suppoed to go to south africa this summer but it works out well in the end so I can finish my thesis.
You're the type of person to make an opportunity of whatever choice you make. I have complete faith that you will do what you need and it will turn out all right in the end.

[smileygenie]

Call me naive, but I just think you should do what makes you happy. It seems to me like there are a lot of smart people in the world, but not that many who truly enjoy their lives.

I will overlook the "rural boredom of suburban Davis" comment in favor of the larger picture here. I feel like I'll be typing the same thing in a year. We don't live in a word where life is clearly defined for us (liberating, yes, but scary as hell too). But I have no doubt you will figure it out.

Good chatting with you today, however briefly!

[greatmib]

Haha...sorry about that comment. I was writing that part more from my freind's point of view that my own. He finds Davis to be a boring place because he has alwyas lived in big cities. Me, I find it quite and comforting, which is why I have often used it as an escape from Berkeley.

As for the rest, I'm honestly not sure what will make me happy. Because graduation and leaving so fast has thrown my life into a bit of a turmoil, I feel that I'm overwhelmed by emotions and may not be able to think clearly as to what is rational. In the past, emotional connections and seeing actual people benefit from something I do has made me happier than pure ambitios career building. But to be happy from emotional connections, the other party must feel the same. As for using my skills to help others, I wonder if I may just be idealistic and naive in my goals. I will certainly try, but I wonder how much I can really do.

[olego]

That's the lesson I also learned recently:

I'm always striving for some goal: to be in a good relationship, to be in a good graduate school, to write a good piece of software.

But it's all in the future. What about right now? You're alive - the longer you wait for your goals to realise, the less life you'll have to live.

[greatmib]

Yes, but if what makes you happy is being with another person, who all of a sudden decided that it's not good for you to be with him. He wouldn't tell u that he doesnt want to be with you, but rather that he thinks you shouldn't make the decision to be with him (being with him involves an actual geographic move for you)...in this case being happy is a little more difficult than just deciding to de something because if certain feelings aren't recipricated, you have no choice but to do the thing that makes u less happy...This, of course, is the problem with my situation.

[juhi]

Two weeks ago, I walked accross the stage in the Greek Theater as rain soaked my robe and my family watched from the stands. Those few hundred feet were the easy part about graduating college...now comes the hard part - what next? I've always known that I'm inteligent and, in fear of sounding full of myself, that as long as I applied my mind I would never starve (this doesn't mean being passionate about my job, but I knew that I would always have one). I know how to work hard, I'm ambitious, and if I don't know something I have full confidence that I can learn it. The rational choice has always been to apply to graduate school, do a post-doc, and then either enter the rat-pack of accedemic life or sell my considerable skills to the highest bidder in the pharmaceutical market. Unfortunately I'm not an emotionless machine. I hate the pettiness of the acedimic world,I feel exactly the same way

[greatmib]

Ya...we do these logical things, putting our training to use and come out "on top" money and career wise, but the whole time we're dying slowly inside. Like you there are things I want to work on, but unless I want to live in a small apt, pay check to pay chgeck I wil have to sell my skills to the highest bidder and that bidder is usually both unethical and monotonous. At least you're keeping yourself sane someway...I hope to do the same when the time comes...