Chris has worked all his life to build up a good gene-investment portfolio. He has six well-made children (healthy, good looking, intelligent) by three different, quality women (healthy, good looking, hard working, filial) of every different genetic stock (some European, some Asian). Should a disaster -- a flu epidemic, say -- strike the general population, at least some of his genes should survive while mine are headed directly for extinction.
Chris feels defensive about it, explaining why his women left him, and how he is not to blame. But one wonders: is there something going on here even Chris does not realize?
It's been 9 months since his last wife left him, and 7 since he's picked up a new girlfriend. She's much like his last wife: good looking, decent, hard working, and filial. Because she is filial, she won't move in with him, which is what he's complaining about. Chris is 60, but, if the girl were to move in with him, I think he'd reproduce again, diversifying even further his gene portfolior. I want to share my life with someone, he says. He means: I want to keep diversifying my gene portfolio.
His advice for me is to stay away from whores. There are so many nice girls around, he says.
There are.
The problem with the nice girls is that they all want ""relationship": they want someone to spend inordinate amounts of time with them, holding their hands, and talking to them, and this I cannot do. These girls are simply too boring -- all conversations with them are for me one way -- me talking, them listening because I know that nothing new can ever emerge out of their mouths.
This bores me; but, well, I am a generous fellow and, I suppose, could put up with boredom if the sex were great. But -- worse -- this situation irritates them. You are so intelligent, they say at first, full of amazement at my brains, but then, gradually, but not all too slowly, they begin to resent the fact that all the talking is one way, as if it were my fault that they had nothing original to say. They don't only want someone to hold their hand, they also want someone to listen to their drivel.
God.
It gets worse, of course. Few people are naturally happy and free of personality foibles; these last often emerge only in the close proximity of cohabitation; getting used to them, or "ironing things out", as people say, takes a long time and requires hard work. So, for me, any relationship is bound not only to be boring but also require hard work. Then the sex peters out. What could possibly be the point? Why not just pay for the sex instead and be done with it?
Chris's way to deal with the problem is to engage in serial monogamy: marry a girl for 10 years, play at mom and dad, and then, when he gets bored and the sex peters out, quit and move on. I wish I had his patience for personal foibles; and I wish I were not so well read and so easily bored with the untutored opinions of the uninformed. I wish girls didn't bore me to tears.
Jan 5, 2010
Some thoughts on filial piety
My aunt came and stayed for four days around new year's.
I had invited her because the new year's is the anniversary of her son's death and she said she didn't want to be alone during that time. Out of desperation, and acting on past experience, I refused to put her up at home and instead arranged for her to stay in a hut next door: that way at least at night -- and in the morning, until, driven out by hunger I emerged from my bedroom -- I could be left in peace. Even so, she came over at daybreak and laid a siege to me till late at night, talking at me incessantly.
Most of the talk may have seemed harmless enough: she mainly repeated old jokes and anecdotes (all of which I had heard countless times already) or recounted to me major news events she heard on the radio or read in the press (which, of course, by then I had heard or read myself); but she disturbed my work -- she'd talk to me even though she could see I was doing something; and, worse, disturbed my peace -- those moments when I sat outside to enjoy the balmy weather and the peace and quiet of my garden.
It would have been alright, I suppose, if I had been allowed to ignore her words -- tune them out, somehow; but my aunt expected me to hear her words, process them, and make a reply, doing which placed on me a tremendous amount of pressure. I had spent years of sacrifice and hard work to cut myself off from people who bore me. Why must it be my duty now to be bored by my own aunt?
It is a truth generally held that it is my filial duty to help my aunt; the logic of this argument says that I owe her, in her gradually more and more helpless old age, the care she'd given me when I was a helpless child. Very well, then: I am happy to help her financially; and, further, I am prepared to sacrifice a great amount of my time in just helping her accomplishing ordinary life tasks -- drive her places, help her shop and move things, arrange her drivers, show her how to pay her bills, etc. But does it really need to be my duty to suffer her incessant talking?
Can there really be such a thing as right to be entertained? Or the corresponding duty to entertain?
More importantly: why does my aunt need somebody to talk at in order to feel better?
It's worse of course when she offers life advice: it is she who needs my help, not I who needs hers; what makes her think that I am remotely interested in her advice? Or wish to explain anything about my personal life?
I had invited her because the new year's is the anniversary of her son's death and she said she didn't want to be alone during that time. Out of desperation, and acting on past experience, I refused to put her up at home and instead arranged for her to stay in a hut next door: that way at least at night -- and in the morning, until, driven out by hunger I emerged from my bedroom -- I could be left in peace. Even so, she came over at daybreak and laid a siege to me till late at night, talking at me incessantly.
Most of the talk may have seemed harmless enough: she mainly repeated old jokes and anecdotes (all of which I had heard countless times already) or recounted to me major news events she heard on the radio or read in the press (which, of course, by then I had heard or read myself); but she disturbed my work -- she'd talk to me even though she could see I was doing something; and, worse, disturbed my peace -- those moments when I sat outside to enjoy the balmy weather and the peace and quiet of my garden.
It would have been alright, I suppose, if I had been allowed to ignore her words -- tune them out, somehow; but my aunt expected me to hear her words, process them, and make a reply, doing which placed on me a tremendous amount of pressure. I had spent years of sacrifice and hard work to cut myself off from people who bore me. Why must it be my duty now to be bored by my own aunt?
It is a truth generally held that it is my filial duty to help my aunt; the logic of this argument says that I owe her, in her gradually more and more helpless old age, the care she'd given me when I was a helpless child. Very well, then: I am happy to help her financially; and, further, I am prepared to sacrifice a great amount of my time in just helping her accomplishing ordinary life tasks -- drive her places, help her shop and move things, arrange her drivers, show her how to pay her bills, etc. But does it really need to be my duty to suffer her incessant talking?
Can there really be such a thing as right to be entertained? Or the corresponding duty to entertain?
More importantly: why does my aunt need somebody to talk at in order to feel better?
It's worse of course when she offers life advice: it is she who needs my help, not I who needs hers; what makes her think that I am remotely interested in her advice? Or wish to explain anything about my personal life?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)