About being Good or Evil...

Salut,

It's been a while, I know, but I'm back... For how long? How often? How good? How bad?Dunno... We'll see... No excuses, no promises, just the plain old fun of writing, and hoping to provide you with some... fun... while reading... Enjoy!

And this come back is not a light one... I'll try to share my opinions with you about being good or evil... Working for Google means I do no evil, right? Well... That's not quite what I want to talk about...

Actually, what got me thinking about this is a reflection I had while trying to teach my kids how to be good, and I got an interesting idea on this subject... So I thought I would share it with you here...

Everybody has its own idea about what's good and what's evil. The good of some is the evil of others, so its hard to come up with objective absolute definitions of good or evil. I personally came up with three laws of living that I apply to my own life and try to teach my kids about it. I came up with these laws while writing an essay on the meaning of life (the typical subject for young authors wannabes ;-), I actually blogged about those laws in the past.

So I think that obeying these laws (i.e., try to help improve the quality of life of upcoming generations, of people around us and then of ourselves) makes us good, and the opposite makes us evil. So being good to yourself could actually be evil if it makes others suffer from it, and being good to others but the detriment of yourself (or other others) would also be evil.

So anyway, this is just my own opinion of good VS evil, but the point I would like to make is that I don't think there are absolutes in being good or evil either. There are people that are more "good" than other, and people that are more "evil" than others, but as much as we say that there is still at least a little bit of good in everyone, there is at least a little bit of evil in everyone too.

So, the thing to remember here, is that we are ALL good and evil, yet some of us strives more for goodness while others will simply let their evil side free... Like Jekyll and Hyde together again... So I tried to teach my kids about the fact that even the nicest people can have evil thoughts. The difference between the people that act good and the ones that act evil is the way they control these thoughts and whether they turn them into actions or not.

The reason that I think this is important to teach this to our kids is that, if they notice that nice people never do anything evil, that maybe good people never think evil or never have ANY evil intent. So when kids grow with this belief that nice people never have evil intent, as soon these growing kids start having evil intents themselves, they will think that they are evil people, and may simply accept it as a fact and act evil.

So I hope my kids (and ideally, everyone on earth) could understand that it is natural for us, human animals, to have evil thoughts like selfish wishes, hatred, and things of the like seeding within our inner self... We need to accept it at the source, but learn to control it and just don't let it out... Let the intent to be good as a whole win over all our evil intents from within...

BYE

MAD

Dating Detox

Salut,

sitting in a crowded bus, was reading my job emails with one hand and drinking a coffee with the other, while sitting on only half a seat because the big guy sitting besides me is taking one and a half... Ho well... at least he was there before me and didn't just sit on me as some people do sometimes when you're sitting on a small two places seat before they come invade your bubble...

Talking about invading other people's bubble, I have been looking for new friends on Facebook recently... Like I didn't have enough already... So I realized that it is probably a way for me to compensate for the urge I sometimes feel to go back on the Internet Dating scene when I feel too lonely... But I don't want to go back there... I need to find myself first, before I could find someone else to share with... I had someone very special available for me recently, and I couldn't feel it as I should have... As I wanted... As I once did... And it is not the first time it happens... So I need to fix this...

So I decided to invest more in friendships instead... Reconnect with my long time friends that I have neglected for the past few years, because I was too busy either trying to save my marriage, or looking for a new one... And recently... I realized... That I kind of lost myself in there... somewhere....

So I decided to stop dating... But I know myself... I have lived through this before... I remember when I broke up with a girlfriend, thinking that I would be better off alone for a while... and I got back on the Internet dating scene, as soon as I got a kids free weekend after the split...

But not this time... I'm not going back there... And it's funny, because my friend GG (also known as Lili on my French blog) decided that she would try it (Internet Dating), and she's asking me for advice... Interesting twist... the table keeps on turning... :-)

To help myself go through the severance of not browsing Internet Dating sites, looking for the love of my life, I go through Facebook instead, and look for new friends, (e.g., in my existing friends' friends lists). It's kind of like nicotine patches :-)... But, as I was saying, I want to invest more in friendships anyway... And I'm starting to believe that love at first sight is just one way of falling in love. It can also start through a friendship that slowly morphs into love... But in our quick paced modern life, we want it to go quicker, we don't want to wait, we prefer to zap and see what's playing on the other channels... But as was sang before... You can't hurry love... no you just have to wait... :-)

BYE
MAD

Sex-Evolution

Salut,

it's been a while... I know... I also neglected my French blog for a while, but I started being more regular there recently, so I thought I'd ping this one today... Don't know why but, sitting in the train this morning, trying to rest with my head against the wall besides the side seat where I dropped off my body less then 20 minutes after I dragged it out of bed, about seven hours after it finally fell asleep last night, I was thinking about sex... Maybe because I'm not getting much of it these days (if you read my French blog, you know that I decided to take a break from my eternal quest for love)... Or maybe because we had an interesting discussion about it with friends last night...

I was at a couple of friends place and we were playing boardgames... It was a lot of fun by the way. We don't do it enough, friends getting together, and also play board games.... So I'm trying to remember now, how I got to think about this sex-evolution thingy a few minutes ago... Was it while I was thinking about the conversation we had last night, or was it that woman sitting in front of me that is really not attracting for my own taste... I don't know... But I got into thinking about how men evolve sexually with age by getting to think more and more about the women's pleasure and often put it in front of their own... And how women often go the other around... They finally start thinking more about their own pleasure(s)... :-)

Yesterday, while talking about this with my friends, I was telling them how being faithful with the same woman for over 16 years (from the age of 22 to 39), I could see a big change in the women I was with (and also a change in my own self) from my early twenties to my early forties...

Women in their forties are much more open with sexuality, and especially with « their own » sexuality (at least the ones I've been close enough to)... Whereas in their early « twenties » it seemed to be more about giving sex to men as opposed to getting sex from them (or I should say “with” them)... And I had an interesting thought about “why this is”... while my head was resting against the wall besides me... :-)

Younger men have a tendency to only think about their own pleasure, and think that women will simply have pleasure just... just... just because... you know... Man is pleased... so... woman should be pleased too right? So all in all, most young men don't know much about women's pleasure(s)... right? But women don't need to know much about men's pleasure to satisfy them... At least not the basic stuff... Men are easy... and lazy... :-)

I get the feeling that younger women take a little while before noticing that most young men are clumsy in bed... Most of them will be too shy to help them (some lucky guys, like I was, will meet women early on that will have the guts to let them know how it all works ;-)... So I'm guessing that younger women are not looking as much for men that are good in bed, because they don't know yet that most of them are not, they put more emphasis on properly satisfying the men that they are very attracted to, but this attraction comes from outside of the bed...

With time, they start getting bored in bed with those clumsy men that they don't dare educate, and they get to a point where they think they don't need sex that much... And their men start being frustrated, because they're not getting enough, and thus they either start cheating, or start getting more and more interested in their woman's pleasure... Maybe if she starts having more fun in bed, she'll want to have more sex... And that's all that “us stupid men” want, right? More sex... And with age... We also want... Better sex... Because we know that it will hep us get more sex... But we eventually get to learn that we can also have stronger pleasures ourselves, if we pay more attention to women's pleasures... Of course... :-)

So with time, and age, sex gets better, for both men and women. Because the aging younger woman that starts being bored with her clumsy boyfriend, will either quit him, and start going out with other men, now being more picky with their abilities in bed... or cheat on them just to see if the problem is on their side... You know... Just to check.. try it out... Just in case...

And some women, will soon realize that men get better in bed as they age, like good wine... ;-)... So they will start dating older men... But if women are also getting better in bed as they age, why would older men date younger women??? Ho... Yeah... I forgot... Men are stupid... They just want more sex... :-)

So... This is my morning train ride reflexion... And don't ask me why I decided to write it in English... I have no clue... The friends I was with last night are not even Anglophones (and no, we didn't have a “ménage a trois”, we were really playing « board » games, at it was a lot of fun!!! :-)... Actually, I think it is because of the title... When I had this thought about the evolution of our sex abilities as we age, the term « Sex-evolution » came to mind, and I pronounced it in English in my head... And... I have been toying with the idea of writing an English blog post recently...

And no, they weren't sexually oriented board games we played last night, it was the Québec French version of Trivial Pursuit, and a robot programming game that I forgot the name of (some sort of robot catch the flag battle kind of thingy, and yes, there was an 'L' in the word fLag... ;-)...

Train is reaching destination, I'm getting to the bottom of the second page, so I will soon reach a conclusion... I don't know what it will be, since most of what I write here, I think about it as I write it, with no preparation whatsoever (except for a theme and a few catchy lines that may have popped out of my crazy brain earlier)...

So I will simply say goodbye and wish that whatever your age is, you have a healthy and enjoyable sex life that will only get better as you get older... At least, I wish it for myself :-)...

Have Fun!!!

:-P

BYE
MAD
P.S.: I made a conscious decision, not to add any photos or even links to this blog post... I was afraid to get too far on the subject of... you know... sssseeeexxxxxx.... :-)

One in a million

Salut,

sitting in the bus, first morning of my regular schedule where I dropped the kids to school... Well one kid at school and the other one at her moms place from where she'll take a bus in about 45 minutes...

Today's subject, « one in a million » could have been about my chances of becoming a rock star when I'm actually more suited to be a rocket scientists with another type of stars. No, no, I'm taking about the probabilities of finding Mr Right (or Mrs Right in my case of course)... The one where all three levels of compatibility will be fully reciprocal. The one with a perfect 10 at each level. And the one for which we are the perfect 10.

It's easy... to compute... If we agree that there are three levels of compatibility (that I like to call, again, the 3C when I describe them in French), physical, rational and emotional... Let's say that there is one out of 10 people that you find attractive, and out of all those that you find attractive, there is only one out of ten that you would find interesting, at least at a friendly level... That would make only one out of 100... And since falling in love is not that easy, even with our best friends, how ever good they look, let's say, again, that only one out of 10 would trigger a strong enough emotion s that you would be willing to share your whole life them... We get to one out of 1000... Not bad... But then... Comes reciprocity...

For that person to what to share their life with you, you must be one out of 1000 for them... So the compounded probabilities of Mr and Mrs Right to find each other, is.... 1... out of.... 1 000 000!!! So this is where the expression “she's one in a million” starts making more sense...

But in a small town like Montreal, where we are about 3 millions inhabitant (if you count the close enough suburbs), this would be that there are only 3 that would be perfect for me... Ho... But since I didn't resort to homosexuality yet, and let's say that there is about the same amount of woman as there are men, then there is only one and a half...

And if that 1 accepted less than perfection and is already with someone else... Then I'm left with the other half... And who would want just half a lover?

But this is just numbers... If you cut your expectations in half, the combined probabilities, don't just cut in half the result... Let's say you find one person out of 5 attractive enough, and 1 out of five witty enough, and 1 out of 5 emotionally fulfilling... And expect the same expectations from the other, then you are now at 1 out of 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 which is roughly 15 000... So in the 1.5 million people of the proper gender for you, there is at least 100 to choose from... A little better than 1.5... ;-)

This is all fun and games (until someone loses his heart :-), but there is not magic formula, the magic is there... or not.. And you can't force it... And it has to be reciprocal... But you should never stop trying to find it... It may be hiding somewhere... Because if you stop believing in it, if you stop dreaming... For sure... Your dreams won't come true... You will never find the magic if you don't look for it...

So I made may decision... I want to dream with my eyes wide open, looking for magic... How about you?

BYE
MAD

I feel boring...

sitting in the 9:32 bus... I have a hard time getting up these days... I don't sleep well, so I don't feel rested when I wake up... well... I should say... the last time I wake up... Cause I wake up a lot during the night... Sleep like a baby... Wake up every hour... almost... :-)

Those who also read my French blog already know a bit more about how I feel these days, but for the others, let's just say that I'm still a bit shaken by my last failure at a relationship attempt with that nice woman I was portraying as a new book here and then as a boat... Well... It didn't float... The book sank... :-/

I also spent a lot of time with my kids this summer, cause their mom went to Europe with her boyfriend... which is fine, I'm happy for them, and I'm glad to take care of my kids... but I find it tiring... Especially when my two weeks of summer vacations are usually dedicated to my kids... We do stuff for them... And I'm very happy to make them happy...

But did I mention I feel tired... ??? :-)

The funny thing is... I seem unable to say I'm bored... Instead... I feel boring... Because I can't blame anybody but me for the way I feel (and I actually believe that very strongly)... I was always like that... But more recently, I seem to have more trouble with it... Most probably because I now allow myself to FEEL more... And thus, from time to time, I must pay the price of giving more room to my feelings, and experience the negative ones... It's part of the game.

But back to my subject, this little turmoil of emotions that I let loose these days... makes me feel uninteresting... This is a bit weird, because my brain tells me that I'm a very interesting guy, far from being boring... And I have a few good friends (and family) to conform it...

It's a bit like when I feel I'm not good enough as a dad for my kids, and, of course... They think I'm the greatest (and again, friends and family also praise my dad skills)... So why do I feel like I'm not good enough?

Why do I feel boring? Am I asking too much of myself? How do I stop?

I have not clue... So these days... And just let it flow... Let's see where the sea will take me this time...

to be continued...

BYE
MAD

Something's missing...

Sitting in the bus... on a rainy day... it is true that "weather changes mood" as Kurt Cobain was singing in the hit "In bloom" from Nirvana's first successful album Nevermind (and now part of Rock Band). And as I said in a previous post, music is a very good way to express, repress, depress and compress feelings :-)...

Just before I got out of the car which I left in the parking lot at the bus stop (yeah, I know, I'm only half green), Chad Kroeger and his Nickelback crew was singing that "There's gotta be Somebody for me out there", and I want to keep on believing it, but it is not always easy... Especially when the rest of my life is going so damn well, that it's kind of scary...

It's true... It seems to scare away some women that feels my life has been way to easy and I won't be able to cope with theirs. And I don't argue, I have had quite an easy life so far (if we forget about the lack of true love, which I have felt just enough to know it's there, but not quite enough for it to stick around). I was telling a friend over lunch this week that I think I have reached a level of general happiness that is quite satisfying for my needs... I realized that with age, we get to reach more and more happiness, and I think that we also learn to need (or maybe expect) less (at least, some of us are able to)... And so my friend said: "Great you should be proud and feel lucky!"...

Yet, still... I feel that something is missing... Is it just love? But then, when I find it, will I be done? It always amazed me that so many things can not just reach a level of "good enough" and stay there. Companies need to make more profit every year, otherwise they sink... How come? We also seem to need to continuously grow, otherwise we shrink... somehow... Can't we just plainly benefit from what we have done so far and enjoy it at the present tense?

Everybody says "live in the present", but it is so much easier said than done. How many of us are able to do it? Of course, for the ones like me who have kids and put their kids lives ahead of their own (at least until they can take care of it on their own, and even then), we do have something to live for, and work for and look after... and even look for... If we don't grow as much as we used to, we can help them grow (and it actually makes us grow by rebound of course). But we are not just parents, we are also individuals... We also need to grow on our own... Like we hope our kids will when they reach our age.

There is a song I really like from John Mayer which is called "Something's missing" and it expresses very well what I'm trying to say here:

I'm not alone.
I wish I was.
'Cause then I'd know.
I was down because.
I couldn't find.
A friend around.
To love me like.
They do right now...

That's the first verse of the song... really powerful to me... How about you?

There's also an interesting line in the middle (that I really hope doesn't apply to me):

I can't be sure that this state of mind
Is not of my own design

And then the Chorus and the ending are also very good... I would even say... Clever... ;-)

Somethings's missing
And I don't know how to fix it.
Somethings's missing
And I don't know what it is.
No I don't know what it is... at all...

Friends - Check
Money - Check
Well slept - Check
Opposite Sex - Check
Guitar - Check
Microphone - Check
Messages waiting on when I come home - Check

Of course... Love isn't.... Check...

BYE
MAD

Passing ships

Unless we live secluded from the rest of the world... We keep meeting new people... Some of them become close friends, others are just acquaintance, and many many more just pass us by... Like passing ships in the night... Sometimes not even noticing each other... Yet sometimes, we catch a glimpse of light in their eye, a slight interest, but it unfortunately fades away... As both ships sail their own way...

I sometimes live these little moments, not on ships, but in trivial places like a sidewalk, a bus or a train... Or in weirder places like a sugar shack... even at the grocery... Yet... our shopping carts... just like passing ships... just stroll through their own separate aisles...

And in our modern days of connection technologies, we can meet great people via the Internet, even if we live all the way across a metropolitan area and would never get to walk on the same sidewalk, or take the same train nor bus, and would unlikely go to the same sugar shack at the same time, and definitely not shop at the same grocery...

And we can get to know more about each other, using words and images... And fuel the need to see each other in real life... Spend some time together... To touch each other... And enjoy it... Yet still... As those strangers that exchange a glimpse... our ships just pass by each other... may sail for a while side by side... and eventually drift away... not completely sure why... It just happens...

Whether love or friendship grow from these encounters... or not... We are still transformed by them... They leave a long lasting trace in our mind and in our heart... That make us who we are... now... and for the rest of our lives...

BYE
MAD