A Minor Conflict

Monday, September, 1st 2008

I was on IM, and I was feeling that need to express myself, and I admitted to Chris; “Well, I am a little conflicted.”
He seemed interested; “On what? Do tell.”
I wanted to explain, but for a moment it seemed like a bother. I said, “But explaining it would be very complex... I can try to shorten it I guess...”
He chuckled and waited for me to continue.
“I have a boyfriend,” I began. “I love him and want things to work out with him and if we can work everything out he's the guy I want. Keeping this in mind, I've never really had friends, just boyfriends. So I've never been sure how to act around friends. And for the first time I have a friend. And it's difficult sometimes because when I feel compassionate towards him I want to curl up in his lap, or when he says things that bother me I want to kiss him to make him shut up or when he says things that I find attractive I think about having sex with him. But I don't really want him. I mean, it would be nice probably for less time than it would take to get our clothes off...”
He laughed again.
“But I can't stop thinking about it, and I keep leaning towards him to kiss him and catching myself and such. I haven’t actually done anything, but just thinking about it is making me feel guilty.”
“Well i wish i was him,” Chris said.
I pretty much rolled my eyes and continued, “He's really not my type in a zillion different ways, but since we're real friends, and I've never been close to someone without being sexual with them, I don't know what to do. I'm not sure what friends do when they have that same moment that a couple does that causes cuddling. I don't know what friends do when they have that same sort of moment that causes a couple to kiss.”
Chris answers, “they don’t kiss, they lol, then take a breath.”
I giggle to myself and then sigh, “I know that, but what to do to keep themselves in line? No body even seems to have trouble with it. Especially not this guy. I think part of the problem is that he's just not interested in sex at all. And I've always loved a challenge. I like making a guy fall for me when he has no intentions of doing so. I find that really fun. So this guy would be so fun to make him fall for me, even though I don't want to fall for him. You see my conflict?”
I sent that IM message to that very friend on Aug 30, 2008 at 11:01 PM. He e-mailed me back saying;
“Ahoy, was this the entire message by the way? I couldn't tell if it was cut off because it read really strangely on g-mail. Btw, I wondered if you caught the whole idea behind the end there. You laughed because it seemed like the defense mechanism we talked so much about, but that was way off. I want to hear your take on it before I tell you the right answer like always. How are you feelin anyways?”
I wrote back;
“It was all of the relevant IM, after that we drifted off into talking about other things. I kinda lied in a couple places, or at least, stretched the truth. I felt like I was being very truthful and opening up when I wrote it, but now that I read it again I know a little better about myself. The truth is that I'm scared things won't work out with Crusipher, and I'm scared of being alone, and I'm scared of not having anybody who wants me.
I hate admitting that I'd ever think like this, but I’ve thought to myself that all I needed to do was set things up so that years from now, if I was alone, you'd feel close enough and comfortable enough around me for me to have a chance. My morals and instincts tell me that it's not right to have any sort of "back up" in a relationship, that you should put 100% of your faith into it if you want it to work, but even though I believe that and try my best to act on it, I still fear being alone.
I'd hate to think I've wasted all this time. Not that I've really wasted it. I've learned from it, and I've grown and changed and I like myself much better than I did before I met Crusipher. In fact, I've become the person I've always wanted to be in around 70% of ways, whereas I didn't like myself at all before I met Crusipher. But like I said, I have a tilted uterus, and if I don't have my first baby before I'm twenty-five, with my health history, I'm likely to not be able to make it. And even if I did make it, it could have very severe repercussions. I know a girl who had a epidermal during her first pregnancy and as a result has permanent damage to her back. Because of my history with how I react to drugs (even aspirin), I know that I have to make it through without taking any.
That's a lot of pressure. Just over six years from now and I know that having a baby is risking my life. And if I don't have a suitable husband by then, then having the child would be selfish and not considerate of the child at all. So I have my eyes pealed for all the possibilities of the next six years of my life, and one of those possibilities is that Crusipher never really quits drinking, and never takes that step to behave like a husband. If that happens, then I'll be forced to try and find someone better, someone who will be a good father, or just give up everything I've ever wanted and build new dreams for myself.”
Just like me to write something like that, forward and stumbling... Now I have to figure out how to deal with this. I know why I’m inclined to feel close to him, and I know all the reasons why it would be a bad idea for me to act on my impulses. In the past I’ve given in, but I’m better than that now. Or is even thinking about it still bad? This would have never happened if it weren’t for all the doubt that was stirred up between Crusipher and I, but then again, as I’ve written, I still don’t know how two real friends are supposed to behave. All my behavior patterns are based on romantic relationships.
I’m tempted to be all depressed about my own thoughts, but that’s just useless guilt as Isadora would say. Ah, Isadora, you’re my hero sometimes. (Isadora is the main character in a three-book series by Erica Jong.) I’d rather pat myself on the back for not actually acting on my impulses, and for being honest with myself, and for keeping level head and being strong enough to admit I have so much to learn about friendship and for being brave enough to stick everything out even when I get as confused as I have been getting.
I’m sure this will come to pass as I become more relaxed with what a friendship is like.

Mott writes me:
“This is a novel, get ready to read....
That was probably the most ignorant thing I’ve heard you say in a quite a while. In Germany, we killed millions of people for their religion, color, language, culture, and sexual preference. In Russia, we killed millions of people for their religion, color, language, culture, and sexual preference. In the Balkans, we killed millions of people for their religion, color, language, culture, and sexual preference. In Spain, we killed millions of people for their religion, color, language, culture, and sexual preference. In Spain, Italy, modern day Greece, and to a lesser extent all other areas of Europe, lesser atrocities have been committed. In the Americas, we killed millions of people for their religion, color, language, culture, and sexual preference. In the Americas, we killed millions of other white people for defending other people' religion, color, language, culture, and sexual preference. In the Americas, we enslaved millions of people for their religion, color, language, and culture.
However...
Europe overall has one of the highest standards of living in human history. Europe overall is one of the most technologically advanced regions in human history. From European and American efforts alone, the lives of billions and billions of people have been improved in some way. Modernization is often equated with the destruction of culture, but is it ever equated with running water? higher life expectancy? plumbing? What about a constant source of food? Shelter that does more than shelter in the winter? What about clothing that can be made in such quantities and in such quality through industry that it is no longer a Motter of function, but style as well in every article we wear? What about fire departments? Ambulances? And how about habitat for humanity? Save the Children? the Peace Corps? I could do on like this. I don’t think I even mentioned the eradication of countless diseases that plagued humanity since its inception as a species and the quick availability of treatment of countless more world wide though INGOs, QUANGO's, and the combined efforts of many white dominated nations worldwide. Have you looked into the whole "Nike in Vietnam" scandal? I'm going to assume you haven't (although you very well may have) for the purpose of not leaving out anything. People in America and Europe are protesting Nike going into countries in Africa and Asia that are undeveloped or developing because they claim they take advantage of the poor people their and are able to essentially have free, legal, slave labor. Did you also know that is some of the most ignorant bullshit any human rights activist has ever pressed? And I am all in support of human rights, but these people are actually hurting the freedom of the people they want to protect. Lets go through this Vietnam example:
1. Nike decided to build a plant near a village in Vietnam.
2. Nike brings in a few ten professional engineers and technicians from America to oversee its construction and processing.
3. Nike hires local workers who have been pining for higher paying jobs for generations to build the plant. This bring American money into their economy, stimulating it. It increases spending since people have money to buy things with, increasing liquidity and making a sustainable economy assuming people continue to have jobs.
4. Nike finishes the plant and hires hundred of workers from near by farms and villages. Hundreds of people, ages 10-30 go to work everyday, separated by age and sex in order to make sure the wrong jobs don’t get the wrong people. (dangerous jobs are reserved for men, simple jobs for children, etc).
5. Hundreds of families have much higher income than before the plant arrived.
Now lets consider a typical family.
A) before the plant: Lived in a thatched roof house and worked in muddy rice pattys for generations before the plant. Children were only educated on what they needed to know to farm. (grandma and grandpa generation in 2008). Life is subsistence farming for the most part. Without growing their food they wouldn't get any.
B) after the plant: Live in brick houses at the very least. There is electricity running to the house that allows them limited television, radio, telephone, and lighting. Food is easy to come by. (here's the kicker, get ready) Once they earn enough money, the kids are sent to go to school. Many of these children who have been growing up over the past 20-30 years are in college or have graduated from college. (this era is the mom and dad generation)
C) (this is the child's generation which has only just begun recently) The white, American technicians in the plant have been replaced with native Vietnamese technicians and professionals. In fact, the only American employees of the plant is the representatives and inspectors for the company (only a handful of people).
Now what happens after these white people move in to a country, "enslave" them, and then give them control over the economy and technology the white people gave them? We actually know what happens! because its happened before, and only a short swim away from Vietnam in Taiwan! Taiwan went through the same basic changes years before Vietnam did (there wasn't a war in Taiwan). Taiwan started off by making the boxes that American companies would package electronics in. Now they are producing the electronics that American's package them in. In no time, once given the chance to become educated and manage their own technology, allowed to them by the "invading whites," they excelled exponentially. From farms, to factories, to office buildings in only a few decades.
I can do you even one better, and this is where I hit back on your own argument. You may have seen this coming. So we Americans and Brits, we corrupted an entire culture, eh? We ruined Japan.... really? Really? Japan has the second highest GDP in the WORLD second only to the US. Japan has an amazingly high standard of living. On the '07/'08 Human Development Index Rankings by the UN, Japan placed 9th and the US 12th. The United Kingdom sat at a measly 16th (For the record, the best countries in the world overall are by most scales Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, and Switzerland. Have you ever heard of any of those counties invading others or being accused of human rights violations? And they've been dominated by white people since the Neanderthals. Also high on the lists are Canada and Australia.) Japan's culture is EXTREMELY evident in their country. Japan wasn't poisoned by western thought. In fact, Japan never had a thought of its own. Its always adapted to and adopted from the thoughts of the cultures its interacted with, while constantly forming its own identity. their writing the originally stole from China. They've developed their government by basing it off of the Germans, and developed their economy by fallowing an American example. They've proven very good at taking what’s good or has potential from other cultures and applying them and altering them to a better end. Japan is a great example of what happens when western creativity and ingenuity meets eastern work ethic and competence. They would never have gotten there however, if America hadn't forced them to open up Nagasaki inthe 1800s, or if America hadn't forced them to be a satellite state for much of the 20th century after WWII.
This brings me to my next point. You seem to have a special place in your heart for the hatred of white people. Excuse me, but in WWII, Japan tried to conquer the world just as Germany did. They killed and tortured not quite as many people, but then again they were having too hard of a time at the home front because they were starving their entire populations of food, oil, and money. The Japanese were just as cruel in many respects as the German. They were just as misguided by a few charismatic figures. In Germany, you know, many Germans, even high ranking officials, had been plotting the death of Hitler for some time, and in fact tried and failed during the war, including Germany's arguably best general. In Japan, many people opposed the war including the Emperor eventually and he had to be shut up after the bomb on Hiroshima. It wasn't until Nagasaki that the Generals finally paid any attention to the Emperor's pleas. Just because Tojo and Hitler were terribly misguided individuals who happened to be in the right place at the right time to make everything wrong, doesn't mean that white people are inherently evil, nor are the Japanese blood thirsty and power hungry. Did you know that white people didn't enslave Africans and bring them to America for manual labor? 99% of all slaves were in fact African slaves, enslaved by other Africans as had been the custom for thousands upon thousands of years. The Africans in power on the coasts had simply traded their own slaves for western technology. Whites didn't enslave Africans, Africans did. Of course I’m not condoning the Americans for holding these men in slavery at all. You know how much I am an advocate of freedom. But I am saying that African's were worse than the whites in terms of violating freedom. They didn't even have color to fall back on. They simply hated each other. I don't even think I need to argue about the inhumanity of the Asian races. They have a caste system in India, end of story.
But the fact that all of these races as a whole more often come together and form great things is what is even more prevalent in human history. IF the net effect of these races is as negative as you make out to be, how would you explain the immensely positive progress the human race has made in the past 2 thousand years?! clearly we're doing more right than we're doing wrong, and by the looks of things, a LOT more right than wrong.
Get ready for Part II... its going to come in the form of another e-mail but likely wont be as long. By the way, I’m considering revising this entire thing and sending it to a newspaper or news website for publishing. This is a first draft I suppose.”