Reading Love and Lifesense

sometimes i feel quite harmonic and satisfied with my life. sometimes that is. on a day when the sun in shining, i'm on the road heading for a new adventure and all worries are left at home. unfortunately most days aren't like that. why is that so one might wonder? i who have nothing to really complain about is perhaps wining the most. the problem is my view on the world and our, according to me quite meaningless lifes. i mean, we live just once and what do we do with our lifes? first yo go to school and waste your childhood and years as a teenager. i don't know how children abroad have it but here in sweden more and more children collapse due to all the preassure. kids spend their whole days at school and... (don't know the englis word but the place i mean is where the kids stay when the parents work). the teenagers need to study harder than ever to become something in life because you do need to become something. when you're an adult perhpas you study some more and then you work, work and work. go on, waste your whole life on routines to get more and more money. then when you're old you can begin to live, travel and do all the things you when you where young didn't have time to do. i'm not stupid, i know this way of life is simply for surviving but i often i ask myself why. do you really need a big house to be happy? do you need all that money, the routine and the fancy cars? do that make you happy? i don't have any ideas of how to change peoples view on quality of life but i hope at least i won't end up like that. i want some more out of my life than wasting it on something i really don't like. i don't want a big house, much money or a respected job. i want some adventures, beauty and things making each day worth remebering.

carpe diem.

I can really understand u and i think i'm not the only one... If i am "stressed" (in the moment, stress means: standing up and don't have any coffee :-P) i'm dreaming of a nice and lonely carribean island where i can sleep all the day in a hammock... But after at least a week i'd be so bored that i'd talk to "Paolo the palm".
You asked why life is as it is now. I think it is religion: every community has something the members believe in. This religion gives them a sense and it structures the way peaople live.
Today's people don't have "common" religions anymore. But they found a new God: Money. And in my oppinion we're on the way to make this religion absolute: Be a paladin or get prosecuted. Perhaps my point of view is a bit to negative, but that's the way i think of it. Everyone has to draw his own conlusions (Btw. all this reminds me to the "Free will" discussion we had in the beginning of the year)

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

Alekseji is right, you might find this thread quite interesting, its long, but worth a read!

Btw, welcome to NAO! :-)

After decades of construction my website is finally up an running: www.kkds.de

It's up to you to create your life.
A big house and a nice car doesn't make you happy? Don't buy it!

My neighbour seems also to be fed up with so much work and no fun of it. She's thinking about moving to Canada for a while (or forever), working at a farm for no money but a little accomodation, nature and freedom. Why not?
If you're not obliged to anybody, won't miss a thing, just do it!

"Sie wollen nichts anderes. Sie wollen kämpfen! Sie sind Soldaten! Fucking Wahnsinnige!" - Noel G.

There was once a part of me that desired adventure and to do something different with my life. I was in high school, and I was thinking about what this education would do for me. This train of thought led me to think of my life being destined to be the classic wife and kids with a mediocre job scenario. Everyone does that when they grow up. Why do they do that? Didn't they want adventure and excitement as I did?

Since then, I met Elena (andromacha as you all know her). I'm crazy about her, and the only thing I want to do is spend the rest of my life with her. Then it hit me, the adventure is being with the ones you love. I'm not getting an education/getting a good job because it is what everyone has always done. I'm doing this to support Elena, and I'm really okay with that. Slaying the dragons and saving the world can wait another day.

I'm not speaking for anyone by any means, but I can live without the big house and big screen tv. Family is what is really important to me. No material possession can replace that. I could never be happy if I always searched for something I can't have. Now I'm finding what I never expected to find that makes me happy, and I think I will stick around for a while. :)

"If I die of a heart attack eating bacon, I'll be a happy man." -My father

Isn't he sweet? I think that everyone would deserve something like this in their life. As long as I have the one I love beside me, then I need nothing else.

There are people whose only goal in life is working hard, being satisfied with their job and spend the rest of their life surrounded by every kind of commodities.

I won't tell you that money is important nowadays, because you surely don't need me to remind you that you can't really go without money in your life. That would be the biggest utopy of this world. So, I won't even lie and tell you I don't care at all about that. Though, the only thing I really care is to have a work which allows me to earn enough for my family.
My parents are like that either. They both work, and what I really admire is that their work is also their passion. It is true that they have their bad days, but they gladly do their job, and this is what I wish both for me and Neil.

As for the ones who are still so convinced they can make of the world a better place on their own... Well, I've got to learn very quickly that things are always different from what you expected, and that there is no way you can defeat and change the way things are if you are struggling alone. This isn't a pessimistic vision of life, guys, but extremely realistic.

I am 19 (20 in March), and for the first 18 years of my life the only persons I met where jerks. The only ones I could really count on were my parents and the members of my family. During high school, I've had my good share of bad experiences with guys as well as girls (guys were jerks, girls were bi**). Their policy were "either you are like us (that means really a MF) or we'll tease you as long as we can catch our breath" , and I don't know how but I lost my personality completely.

That's how Neil and I got to know each other. I had lost my trust in whatever was able to make a 1 word sentence, and I lived my life in a horrible way. Well, when I got to know him I found out that we were so similar and we had so much in common too, and look at me now... I am totally happy and satisfied with his love that I wouldn't want nothing more than that :-)

So, what I really think about all this story is that no matter what you do, or where you live, or how much you earn per month. What really matters is that you have the right person to spend your life with beside you. Love is powerful and a true and sincere love can rescue every soul from sadness and perdition.

*Oh darn... is it so evident that I am studying romanticism at university?* :P

Though, I really mean what I said. I actually think that love is the most powerful thing on this Earth, because it can make you do things you doubt you are able to do.

So, if I am asked what I think about quality of life, I'd answer that the quality of my life would be 0 if I didn't have Neil.

Un bacio è un'apostrofo rosa scritto tra le parole "ti amo".

This post was edited by andromacha on Oct 11, 2002.

So it's the others that decide our happiness in life?

Oh my, this topic is so old. It has been discussed through so often though the truth is we'll never find an answer to these questions.

Happiness can flow away so fast and so many years can pass aside of us till we're happy for just one moment because of a little thing. Like a temporary enlightenment... :-)

We are just too human to make our lifes worth living.
90% of our live is not happy, is screaming and shouting, crying and hating, envying and mourning.
We all know it, actually, but our feelings are too strong to let us stay calm so we always get upset. This can destroy so much but few men succeed in staying calm. And men is a good word here. They're having an advantage compared to us women. But maybe it comes back to them in another way.

What makes the quality of life?
Love. No love.
Luxury. Poverty.

Both things can be regarded as positive or negative.
Only when I get to know the heights of being and feeling I also got to know the real depths. Nothing shoots you up like love and nothing else can pull you down to the darkest angles of your soul. Love is the mirror of truth. Only she can show you who you really are.

Same with luxury and poverty.
Yes, rich people can buy themselves almost everything they desire. But if they're lacking in other things, money does never help. And for them it's much easier to ruin themselves faster. Take drugs, games, parties and all these things. A poor man doesn't have these "opportunities". He might have never had the chance to just watch tv or cook something warm but he's still happier then some big fish. He doesn't know what luxury is. We do and this is dangerous. We know we could get a little bit more. A little bit more for the more expensive but totally sophisticated couch, a little bit more for the Audi of or neighbour. We got up with luxury, luxury is so present all the day. All these ads and people persuade us of just one thing: Want more, more and MORE now.
Day by day it gets worse, faster, sicker.
It is so difficult to escape. But we can all make it.
And is it the moments we spend in a cold winternight in the arms of our beloved one, laying side by side and once in our life appreciating and prefering the shlight shine of a simple candlelight or is it the laughter of children playing football outside on a big green ground: We can make it. For a while.

"Sie wollen nichts anderes. Sie wollen kämpfen! Sie sind Soldaten! Fucking Wahnsinnige!" - Noel G.

This post was edited by Orchid on Oct 08, 2002.

Wonderful post, Orchid! Print it and pin it to your mirror in the bathroom where you can easily find it every now and then...
;-)

After decades of construction my website is finally up an running: www.kkds.de

Martin have I already praised your amazing charme today? ;-)

"Sie wollen nichts anderes. Sie wollen kämpfen! Sie sind Soldaten! Fucking Wahnsinnige!" - Noel G.

Real peace will arise spontaneously
When your mind becomes free
Of attachments,
When you know that the objects of the world
Can never give you what you really want

I belive we analyze our happiness a little too much. We analyze what might make us happy and try our hardest to acheive whatever that may be. But when we reach that goal, and still thrive for this "happiness", we become even more confused.

This is the andromacha and hawkeye....
Sure, you may have a great love in your life, that makes you happy, but are you able to be happy without that love? You cannot depend on someone else for something as precious as your happiness, because that person could be gone in an instance. Then what will you do? If you were happy on your own, like a base, another person love is only enhancing your happiness, not making it. If you belive that someone else can bring you complete happiness, then you better open your eyes and start rebuilding yourself.

We should of brought a bag of rocks....

We never said that our love for each other is the only one thing that makes us happy. There are other things which make our everyday life happy aside from knowing that we have our love which helps us going on with our lives.

I don't think I wouldn't be happy if I didn't have Neil. I mean, before having him I found happiness in other things. Being with him makes me even happier though. Let's say that I touched cloud number nine with him.

As you probably read, my previous life wasn't so beautiful, but still I had some nice things to live for. Having him is just a gift that life reserved for me, but my happiness doesn't depend totally on him.

Though, I know for sure that everytime I am sad for some reason, he is right there for me and in no time he can get my smile back on my face. From what he says, I can do the same thing for him.

I do think that happiness brought by the person you are in love with is very different from any other kind of happiness you can find somewhere else.
You see, now I have a couple of good friends and I do like going out with them and hanging around in general. Though, if I had to choose between spending a night with them or with Neil, well.. I would surely choose Neil, because he is the one who makes me happier, who makes me feel always at home :)

*If you are reading this, Neil, well.. I mean every single word. There is no one else which can be compared to you*

Well, I hope I clarified things a bit now. Anyhow, maybe I am one of those lucky people who can get both a great boyfriend and good education/job. What I know for sure is that before having him, I had to suffer my good share of pain.

Have you ever read "Pamela, or the virtue rewarded" by Richardson? Well the only common thing Pamela and I have is that we both suffered a lot during part of our life. And, very boldly, I can say that I have many virtues in me. Who knows me (and I don't mean only Neil, but also my friends) knows that. My virtues have finally come to find a reward in Neil, and believe me, I wouldn't change a comma in my life if that meant not meeting and loving him.

[Neil: you know why I always thank you everyday of my life. Well, today I have 2 things to thank you for. I guess you have a clue of what I am talking about. Hope you'll appreciate this post as I put my heart into it. Let's forget about our pointwise divergency, 'kay? :)]

Un bacio è un'apostrofo rosa scritto tra le parole "ti amo".

It is such a complex thing to explain 'happiness and quality of life' in words... those feelings can only be so much described in words...

Again I am questioning why does an career success not bring happiness? Sometime I wonder, "am I working too hard and spending little time to smell the roses...".

I think creating an environment so that love, romance, and happiness to flourish itself is a skill. When we say a couple is living a higher 'quality of life', don't we that mean they have more amenities and have place/time for romance to flourish? How can we develop such an environment?

Or is it that 'our definition' of happiness change over time? Does man's priority change over time? Initially young poeple are more concerned for success; as you approach middle ages you realize that $$ alone cannot bring you happiness.

For many of you this might be such a trivial exercise, but I think I am kind of stucked here!! I think many of us need to learn more on how to balance our life with work, friends and family better. Thanks to all of you for your insight...

So, if I am asked what I think about quality of life, I'd answer that the quality of my life would be 0 if I didn't have Neil.

We never said that our love for eachother is the only one thing that makes us happy...

It sounds as though you are contradicting yourself, but that is besides the point. As long as you take into consideration that just because you are in love with someone, doesnt make everything OK.

Alot of people when they are in love seem to build this little world around themselves, blocking out alot of important things that they should be dealing with. You are both so young, and if you build this dependency on eachother that you both obvioulsy have, how on earth will you ever grow?

My point is that you need to know who you are before you can commit completly to anyone else. How can you give another person your all when you dont even know what your all is?

I dont know either of you, maybe you have already acheived what I speak about....If you have, then I respect you, because there are 40 year olds out there who havent even begun on the road of being able to be happy all by themselves.

This post isnt just for andromacha/hawkeye...its for anyone out there who has built a wall around themselves (including myself)...not only with another person, but with anything. Objects/people cannot give you happiness in this world, only you yourself can.

Pure Happiness the hardest thing ever to achieve in life.

We should of brought a bag of rocks....

Maybe someone should add that Andromacha and Neil never saw each other. They'll first meet in December. So it's just not possible not to be happy without the other one: They just phone and email sometimes but in fact they have to lead their life alone, no going out together, no meals together, not even a touch. I think the danger to be addicted to the other is very very little compared to couples who are living together. But they also have to deal with un/happiness without the partner. I think it's a question of self-conciousness and strenght of personality.

"Sie wollen nichts anderes. Sie wollen kämpfen! Sie sind Soldaten! Fucking Wahnsinnige!" - Noel G.

Maybe someone should add that Andromacha and Neil never saw each other. They'll first meet in December. So it's just not possible not to be happy without the other one: They just phone and email sometimes but in fact they have to lead their life alone, no going out together, no meals together, not even a touch

Thanks, Orchid... I wonder what I would do if I didn't have you to remind me what Neil and I use to do. I think that no one should make what Neil and I do in our private life as his/her business.
Oh and, how do you know that it is not possible not to be happy without the other one? What makes you so sure that you know what you are talking about? This might be true for you, but not for me, nor for Neil.
Nice try, but no cigar!

Un bacio è un'apostrofo rosa scritto tra le parole "ti amo".

This post was edited by andromacha on Oct 14, 2002.

So, if I am asked what I think about quality of life, I'd answer that the quality of my life would be 0 if I didn't have Neil.

We never said that our love for eachother is the only one thing that makes us happy...

It sounds as though you are contradicting yourself, but that is besides the point.

You are right. But I wasn't contradicting myself. I just wasn't clear enough. What I actually meant by those words is that I can be happy without Neil, because now I have my friends, my cousins and people I love to spend my time with.
Though, having Neil makes things just that more special. This is the thing that makes the difference.

I hope I've been clearer this time :)

Un bacio è un'apostrofo rosa scritto tra le parole "ti amo".

Things became a tad misconstrued, I am glad that Neil is enhancing your happiness and not acting as the bases of it, I belive that is what I have been trying to point out the last couple of posts (plus a couple of other things):) congrats....and to Orchid, this battle of happiness is DEFINETLY a questions of one's "strenth of personality"

We should of brought a bag of rocks....

Life is strange after all! When I was young, I wanted to be rich, successful, and live with the highest quality of life. Today, I have big-house, sports-car, college education, and nice kids but still lonely and bored.

What I thought I needed the most is secondary now. It took me 15 years after college to reach this stage. But to-day, I am looking for the love of my life. The luxuries of life, and freedom can only take you so far! To enjoy the quality of life, you also need a life partner who is excited to spend time - every moment - with you.

I guess I started with luxury, hoping the love would follow through. But I was wrong. Earning someone's love require more effort than earning money.

Seems like you are wondering where to spend your time first - finding the love or finding the luxury. There are few lucky ones in this world who can manage to get both!!

FUCK, I clicked on that "Pocket HTML"-Link and lost all my content, when I got back to this page (e.g. Reply-Form).

Well what I said was (in short):
"You create sense!" - I do too, and I say: "NONSENSE"

Neaty Startingpoint:

Paul Watzlawick:"Sense and Nonsense"

resp: "Vom Unsinn des Sinns und vom Sinn des Unsinns"
(Original Caption)
ISBN:3-492-21824-5
About 8€

N8 - Damn am I sleepy... :-/

P!=NP

Elena and I are very happy for no other reason other than the fact that the temptation to seek other companionship simply isn't there. I would like it if we were together of course, but just because we aren't, it doesn't make me unhappy as it would other people. Physical love doesn't make up a relationship. Sex between two people and nothing more is no way to sustain a long-lasting relationship. Physical love is the only thing Elena and I don't have together (as of yet), so if we have everything else, why shouldn't we stay together?

For the record, I don't particularly appreciate our relationship being discussed as some quest for happiness to be disputed. Most of you probably didn't realize that, and I'm not blaming you for that. However, I would appreciate it if we were discussing a long distance relationship in the most general of cases.

"If I die of a heart attack eating bacon, I'll be a happy man." -My father

You have completly missed my point. If you notice, I did'nt even know that you both were in this long distance relationship. My post wasnt about love and your relationship. It was simply referring to your posts in order to make a point. You both posted your relationship on this site, so what did you expect to happen? It was not a direct attack on either of you and I am sorry if it came out like that.

Physical love is the only thing Elena and I dont have together, so if we have everything else, why shouldnt we stay together?

Never did I once tell either of you to end what you have...and I dont think any other post mentioned anything of the sort.

What I wanted to get through to people when I replied to this string was that humans cannot depend on other people,objects,feelings or any other sort of entity to bring them happiness. But in trying to get my point through, it became extreamly skewed with misunderstandings on both ends....

Hope this calms your nerves

We should of brought a bag of rocks....

POWF, well first of all, telling everyone about our relationship wasn't our first choice. People were asking about us, because we might have said some things to indicate that we knew each other well. In the end, we just admitted we were together. I thought it was amusing that nobody knew, but that's just me. :)

Second of all, I didn't take what you had said as a personal attack. It was meant towards Orchid more than anything else. I certainly don't want to start a big argument. In fact, that is why I'm saying not to discuss our relationship like it were some experiment. It might cause one of us to take it personally when it wasn't meant to be.

"If I die of a heart attack eating bacon, I'll be a happy man." -My father

I certainly don't want to start a big argument. In fact, that is why I'm saying not to discuss our relationship like it were some experiment.

That's exactly what I meant to say. Don't pick our relationship as example of long-distance relationship. The only thing you are supposed to be informed about is that Neil and I are a good team, and we love each other very much. The why and the how is none of your business. Let's just say that we are happily in love, and there isn't actually a good way to gossip on us :)
That's all, folks.

Un bacio è un'apostrofo rosa scritto tra le parole "ti amo".

Lets just say that we are happily in love and there isnt acually a good way to gossip about us...

I hope this isnt directed at me, because never did I once intend to "gossip" about your relationship. Hell, I did'nt even know it was a long distance relationship. Point is, its not JUST about your relationship. Its about relationships, feelings, random people, objects and any other sort of entity that humans may belive brings them happiness. Lets not forget the subject here. HAPPINESS. I dont know how many times I need to point this out. Do you understand what I am trying to say? This is the last time I am reiterating this...for some reason my point keeps getting lost in your ramblings of "we are in love leave us alone" Thats great, really, Im glad for you...but you (andromacha in case your confused) do not seem to be understanding me.

I dont mean to sound like an asshole, but everytime I post something, you respond back with something that makes no sence...like people gossiping about you. Is that what you truley think is happening here? If so, explain why you think this so maybe I can see your point of veiw. But before you do that, print out all my posts, read them back to yourself in order and then ask yourself "Is this gossip, Is this all about me and my boyfreind?"

Then answer back intelligently.

We should of brought a bag of rocks....

I just read your post and saw you were calling my name.
Could you please be so kind and execute what you were pointing out to? You can write an email to me if you want because I don't know how I offended you. Maybe we can clarify...

"Sie wollen nichts anderes. Sie wollen kämpfen! Sie sind Soldaten! Fucking Wahnsinnige!" - Noel G.