Take me to the river

There is an idea in the mainstream mind of an average/typical person, and that person is a particular age. But it doesn't make sense for the person to be a particular age because it's not like there are a huge number more people that age than any other age. I have also noticed that age goes along with particular outlooks on life.

So I have a picture of life as a flow, and each "stage" being itself, as opposed to picture of life being a hill where you are too young and then just right and then too old, where you are incomplete and then successful and then atrophying (implying that the people at the top of the hill -- average/typical people in their 30s or whatever -- are "best" somehow). Each "stage" (I don't think there really are stages, that is, not fixed ones, but I do think a bunch of people have certain tendencies at certain ages or with certain life experiences) has aspects that it's best at and that are more difficult at other stages, and each stage has aspects that it's bad at and that are easier to avoid at other stages. For example, adolescents think intensely and feel intensely and it's hard to recapture the intensity of this at later stages, but it can also lead to narrow-mindedness and destructive behavior. It's easier to be more easy-going as an adult but adults tend to worry about things a lot and have a hard time playing the way children do. Also, they often aren't necessarily searching. They're kind of in a rut of day to day living. I thought I would avoid this since I have chosen not to have children but I feel myself in a rut anyway, almost as if I am designed to be that at this age. Older people seem happier with simple things, but they also have a tendency to dismiss everyone else. Actually, I guess people in every stage have that tendency.

Take me to the river

There is an idea in the mainstream mind of an average/typical person, and that person is a particular age. But it doesn't make sense for the person to be a particular age because it's not like there are a huge number more people that age than any other age. I have also noticed that age goes along with particular outlooks on life.

So I have a picture of life as a flow, and each "stage" being itself, as opposed to picture of life being a hill where you are too young and then just right and then too old, where you are incomplete and then successful and then atrophying (implying that the people at the top of the hill -- average/typical people in their 30s or whatever -- are "best" somehow). Each "stage" (I don't think there really are stages, that is, not fixed ones, but I do think a bunch of people have certain tendencies at certain ages or with certain life experiences) has aspects that it's best at and that are more difficult at other stages, and each stage has aspects that it's bad at and that are easier to avoid at other stages. For example, adolescents think intensely and feel intensely and it's hard to recapture the intensity of this at later stages, but it can also lead to narrow-mindedness and destructive behavior. It's easier to be more easy-going as an adult but adults tend to worry about things a lot and have a hard time playing the way children do. Also, they often aren't necessarily searching. They're kind of in a rut of day to day living. I thought I would avoid this since I have chosen not to have children but I feel myself in a rut anyway, almost as if I am designed to be that at this age. Older people seem happier with simple things, but they also have a tendency to dismiss everyone else. Actually, I guess people in every stage have that tendency.

Updating my slang database

In some people's Livejournal entries I saw the word "roll" used in a recreational drug context. I didn't think it was in reference to marijuana. I wonder what drug is referred to by rolling.

[pause to check Google]

I love Google.

www.addictions.org/slang.htm :
Roll - MDMA
Roller - to inject a drug
Rollers - police
Rolling - MDMA

http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/concern/mdma/mdma.htm :
MDMA 'Ecstasy'
MDMA possesses chemical variations of the stimulant amphetamine or methamphetamine and a hallucinogen, most often mescaline. MDMA was first synthesized in 1912 by a German company possibly to be used as an appetite suppressant.

HA! an appetite suppressant.

I feel very hip now.

Updating my slang database

In some people's Livejournal entries I saw the word "roll" used in a recreational drug context. I didn't think it was in reference to marijuana. I wonder what drug is referred to by rolling.

[pause to check Google]

I love Google.

www.addictions.org/slang.htm :
Roll - MDMA
Roller - to inject a drug
Rollers - police
Rolling - MDMA

http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/concern/mdma/mdma.htm :
MDMA 'Ecstasy'
MDMA possesses chemical variations of the stimulant amphetamine or methamphetamine and a hallucinogen, most often mescaline. MDMA was first synthesized in 1912 by a German company possibly to be used as an appetite suppressant.

HA! an appetite suppressant.

I feel very hip now.

Do looks matter?

I've been thinking about this "do you pick a mate based on looks" thing and feeling like there's something about the question that makes assumptions about what it means to pick someone based on looks. Perhaps they're just my assumptions. But the assumptions seem to be that if you pick based on looks, that means you are picking based on whether the person's looks makes your hormones behave like hungry puppies.

I feel that a person's "looks" make a difference in my interest, but it's not about begging hormones. It's got more to do with a gestalt impression I get of someone based on visual data in real-time[1]. I can read a lot of information that way and it can make a difference in the depth of my interest in someone. I don't privilege it over other information (how a person communicates in the long run matters more than the visual data) but it's pretty important to me, to the extent that if I have not met someone f2f, even if I have a lot of communication with them, they don't seem entirely real to me yet.

[1]I say real-time because photos don't give me nearly as much data.

Do looks matter?

I've been thinking about this "do you pick a mate based on looks" thing and feeling like there's something about the question that makes assumptions about what it means to pick someone based on looks. Perhaps they're just my assumptions. But the assumptions seem to be that if you pick based on looks, that means you are picking based on whether the person's looks makes your hormones behave like hungry puppies.

I feel that a person's "looks" make a difference in my interest, but it's not about begging hormones. It's got more to do with a gestalt impression I get of someone based on visual data in real-time[1]. I can read a lot of information that way and it can make a difference in the depth of my interest in someone. I don't privilege it over other information (how a person communicates in the long run matters more than the visual data) but it's pretty important to me, to the extent that if I have not met someone f2f, even if I have a lot of communication with them, they don't seem entirely real to me yet.

[1]I say real-time because photos don't give me nearly as much data.