On the “Ghosting” Phenomenon

Those who are close to me already knew my deep penchant of suddenly disappear out of the face of the earth. Apparently in today’s digital world, where connectivity seems to be an all-time necessity, evaporating yourself out of the realm has become more and more of a phenomenon known as “ghosting”.  I exactly understand this kind of behavior, because I’ve done it a couple of times in the past. And if someone should asked me what makes me pull the ghosting act, I honestly couldn’t find a direct answer. Maybe because I am too much of a coward to admit my cowardice to face every troubles (I’ve been fleeing about); or maybe because I have a multi-layered psychological problems which I cannot pin-pointed what exactly they are; or maybe because  I actually realize all the reasons behind it, but just too ashamed to even speak it out.

And now I guess I’m getting a taste of my own medicine, by ghosted out by a guy I’ve been in ldr with for more than a year now. Experiencing being ghosted out from the perspective of a person who has been ghosting off herself is truly insightful. It made me a bit more self-aware, and in contrast to some of my female friends who’d been ghosted out by guys too, I can be calmer on approaching the problem. And in the spirit of being the object of this phenomenon, I reflected upon my flaws years ago.

Once, I had this huge crush over a girl (yes in my youth I fell for a female friend) which I kept by myself for years—resulting in a numbers of cheesy-silly poems. During my attraction to her, we kept being good friends even after she moved out of town following her husband’s workplace. But in the sixth year of our friendship, I pull out my ghosting act. No, not because I wanted to put a distance from her, or to be in a healthier mental state—because I cannot have her. It’s just something I do frequently: having my routine crumbled because of my moody tendency, and when I faced off with a dead end concerning an issue (could be work-related, family troubles, romance or friendship, hell even an internal conflict), I’ll shut myself out, and just ignore my social sphere for quite some times; and on this occasion, her included.

I remember, she  sent me an imported copy of one of Jostein Gaarder’s book (my favorite writer at the time), perhaps hoping to finally reached out to me and finding out why am I avoiding her. But… I kept ghosting her out. My, how I feel so so bad now, remembering it. It is not her fault that I was depressed at the time, but during this phase, I tend to just ignored everyone out, including her, someone whom I placed in a highest regard at that time. And this has done a permanent damage now. Even though still civil to each other, we’re not buddies anymore L.

I’m still doing this ghosting act even today. But lesser and lesser in scale and intensity over the year. A numbers of effort had been made, including consulted to a psychiatrist (which I skeptically distrusted) and  ended in a deduction that I might suffer from bipolar. I hated the medication, I hated the consultations, and I felt that they might made a false diagnosis. I tried to self-researched hoping to finally overcome this habit of mine. And to avoid denials and over-analysis, I tried to be blunt and completely honest with myself, it ended up in a very simple keywords: impulsiveness and chronic procrastination, coupled with a sense of self-worth and ego. Keywords I am now openly trying to have grasp upon and overcome with.

I believe in Occam’s razor adage: “among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.” I’ve opt for the simplest answer to my own trouble, for I believe I’ve sorted out all the far-fetched probabilities and assumptions.  Yet in the multitude elements involved in another person’s psycho-socio-cultural maps, there are countless numbers of problems that could be happened; and in the sea of multiple assumptions, one is best to not assume at all.

And so, instead of thinking of the myriad probabilities about why this guy ghosting out on me, I shan’t draw any conclusion at all. And in the spirit of being self-reflected and insightful, I need to realize that all the icky feeling of being ignored, disregarded etc. has somehow befell upon those whom I’ve been ghosting off too all those years behind J. Yep “you shouldn’t  judge a man until you’ve walked two moons in in his moccasins.” And the proverb should be applicable for the people I've disregard and also to this guy who've been ghosting me out.

Bewbies

One single outing to a public event, and I can count more than enough  male's gazes went south to the tender area of my chest. Perhaps it was my tight t-shirt that came into their attention, or perhaps it was just my new-found observance upon this matter, because apparently all men's gaze will naturally shifted to that area of our body. Be it those superior to us or an office boy at work; be it those old geezers or a hormonal teenagers; be it a goody two shoes and pious gentleman or an openly witty perverts. Valar boobsulis, all men must adore breast.

It is said that human male are the only mammal who fixated on two bulges of fat drooping on their counterpart-gender’s chest. Why are they so mesmerized by female breasts? I suspected an evolutionary reasons are behind this. But what caused it, really?

From the view of evolutionary biology, it has something to do with male selection of a healthier mate to bear their progeny. Women store fat in their breast, and fat is an indication of a healthy mammal, so men's penchant for breasts is an implication of a mechanical pull for something fertile and healthy. But it's only logical to see the matter in this reasoning: if men want a higher probability to get a healthy offspring, why not procreate with as much as a female there is, because let's face it, mother nature had meticulously build our body to enjoy the procreation process, and sperm is relatively unlimited. So it would only logical for males to procreate with as much females--to make sure the extension of his offspring--without having to be picky of what would his mate be like.

Well let's see this from another perspective, this time from the neuro-biology point of view. Deep inside your ancient memories as an infant, your penchant for breasts has already been shaped as early as your first bonding with your mom's boobies. In order to make a strong bond and give a necessary nutrition for her baby, a hormone called oxytocin was released when baby first consume her mother's milk. Oxytocin is a substance responsible in social situations, such as in pair bonding, sex, and those situations incorporating warm feelings we frequently identifies as love. According to Wikipedia, oxytocin evokes feelings of contentment, reductions in anxiety, and feelings of calmness and security in the company of our mate.

It is said that first-primal experiences has a powerful implication physically and psychologically. So in the matter of maternal bonding between a mother and her baby, this memory must be rooted strongly in our psyche. I believe this has a lot to do with men fascination to women breasts. They are a reminder of the first happy-drug they consume in their first infant days; a memory of the strongest pair-bond ever: a bond between a mother  and her progeny. Women won't have the same magnitude of fascination, because those two bulges stuck on our chest ever since we reach puberty. 

Understanding this would give a different light to a stereo typical sneers about men's fondness to female breasts. Not that women should fling their boobs freely to relief male's perverted thirst, but at least we can understand that the biological reason behind the profanity is really not as profane as we generally thought. Quoting an article over the net: it (men penchant's for women breasts) is an unconscious evolutionary drive prompting men to activate powerful bonding circuits that help create a loving, nurturing bond. 

Hedonism & Fatalism: a mere stupid assessment of my life and some of those around me.

Everybody suffered from their own demon I supposed. But to simplify, everyone’s biggest demon is actually just  “a lack of judgment”, and it applies to any circumstances. In my case it's the disproportional view between past,  present, and future, which manifests in a chronic procrastination. Which I recently suspected, stems from hedonism and fatalism.

The bounded definition of hedonism and fatalism, here, is a simplified one—and I supposed a personally-made one too. Hedonism, I defined as a pursue of immediate pleasure and an avoidance of pain or displeasure.  While fatalism, I abridged as a tenet of “what will be, will be”, that human are helpless at the whims of fate. Both are superficially antagonize each other, but when applied to the practical-everyday life, I find they tend to be complimentary to each other. Both  work as a cycle, one that sometimes traps a person in an addictive sense, and render it’s “victim” in it's powerlessness.

We all pursue happiness in life, and happiness often associated with pleasure.  We might even  define pleasure as a short-term happiness. This habit of seeking pleasure is what gave birth to a hedonistic lifestyle. But after a quick browsing through the Wikipedia and a few articles, it appears that hedonism has paradox on withholding it’s value; that pleasure and happiness are strange phenomena that do not obey normal principles. In that, they cannot be acquired directly, and we often fail to attain pleasures if we deliberately seek them.

I’ll make my own demon as an example: procrastination. When I procrastinate, I avoid pain and displeasure by not doing something unpleasant. But in a long term this will lead me to a bigger and more permanent displeasure: guilt, irresponsible image in front of my peers, and a pressure to get the job done in a relative short of time. So in short, while I busily seek pleasures, I also caused displeasure in the future. Erm, I just realize, I don’t know which came first; the hedonistic-lifestyle that cause my procrastinating-way; or the habit of procrastinate that build an attitude of hedonism. Hmmm.. both might be true.

On the other hand there is this fatalism; the appealing charm of Murphy’s law; the axiom of pre-determination; the one that put fate as the scapegoat instead our bad judgment. Fatalism is the stepping stone towards depression--and in some cases a blind-delusional optimism--, because it offers you nothing but a dead end. On the other hand, I think it is also fair to say that fatalism is a lazy way to draw conclusions. I mean, come on; blame it all to the fate and destiny?

From what I assessed, a habit to seek pleasure, in the end, often coupled with a fatalistic point of view in life. When you approach something in life hedonistically, it will definitely lead you to a chaotic outcome. And when the chaos is in front of you, the quick defend mechanism is to be fatalistic over it. I found this cycle almost everywhere; in many cases and a variety of manifestations. So, to a degree, hedonism and fatalism is what caused a crazy-twirling vortex of life.

What to do about it? Well, many find that a motivational books and spiritual guidance will help you back in track. But basically, one need to realize and analyze the working machine of hedonism and fatalism in order to overcome it. If simple-secondary motivational words or a rigid outline of religious script could help, then it's fine. But when the problem rooted deep inside you, and you are a kind who like to reverse-engineered things and be analytic about it, maybe an existentialist approach toward life will help. Because it offers you a basic notion of responsibility and how to get real. And It will give you a primary understanding of how every person is individually responsible for themselves, for their action, and for their decisions in life. And I'd like to argue, that these are the building block of human happiness as a homo-social. 

I have to admit that I learn this in a hard way at a late age of my life. I grew up in an environment that value vague concepts, such as being compassionate and generous instead of being responsible and honest. I’m not saying that to be compassion and generous is a bad thing, but if you vaguely trying to build life base on compassion and generosity, without putting responsibility and honesty before it, well I guessed it will pull you deeply in a vortex of unhappiness. I assumed it relate--relatively--with the lifestyle of hedonism and fatalism, because both are trying to avoid displeasure, and what is the basic displeasure if not responsibility and honesty. Hmm, I need to point out that I just realize, that a façade of compassion and generosity couldn’t mask your irresponsabilities and bad judgments, no matter how hard you try to screamed it at the world.

It's painful to realize of who you really are, because often time we see our reflection not in glory and beauty, but in ugliness and humility. When the truth is laid bare in front of you, for the sake of permanent happiness, and for the sake of clarity of your life, isn't it better to embrace it fully and make it the first stepping stone toward a better self. 

--after an unpleasant argument with one of the closest and dearest person in my life--

after browsing through the technology and science news over the net

"The absence of any noticeable life may be an argument in favour of us being in a simulation.... Like when you're playing an adventure game, and you can see the stars in the background, but you can't ever get there. If it's not a simulation, then maybe we're in a lab and there's some advanced alien civilization that's just watching how we develop, out of curiosity, like mould in a petri dish.... If you look at our current technology level, something strange has to happen to civilizations, and I mean strange in a bad way. ... And it could be that there are a whole lot of dead, one-planet civilizations." -Elon Musk-

On answering our curiosity of whether are we alone in the universe or are we not, I guess at some point we might find our self in doubt: could we be in some short of a simulation in which we could never reach the existence so far away it become mere illusion. But learning from our recent history, human are capable to generate an impressive progression of civilization by proving out this so called illusion into reality, and made it reachable and testable. I supposed being in the optimistic spectrum will be more rewarding, but of course with a healthy portion of skepticism along the way. And after scanning through (fun-browsing) the internet, there are a lot of connective invention that might someday brings human to an unpredictable new level. 
Personally I feel ashamed and humbled that I am not part of those human beings who brings a lot to the progression of civilization, and to the amazing probability of our species' evolution. But to merely anticipate the probability really takes you into a new philosophical areas. It makes the personal troubles of our life seems so much more insignificant and trivial. And in a brighter perspective, it brings a sort of empowerment in thinking that we are worth more than we are today; that perhaps someday we will be liberated into a new developed being, far more advance than our current being. Meh or I supposed I am just a hopeful geek trying to navigate my confidence in a hustle and bustle of contemporary competition :D.

being an existentialist-procrastinator

link to an awesome TEDtalk

I've been struggling heavily with this crippling bad habit. As evidenced by the fact that I'm writing this, instead of keep working on a task with a very tight deadline. Just this morning I got the email with that link to Tim Urban's TED talk, and well, can't help but intensely relate to it. Tim points out a very interesting statement, that all of us are basically procrastinators. At some degree, I agree. But there are some critical differences between us the very chronic procrastinators and those of normal spectrum of the human population. And he is right, the most significant is the presence of that abominable creature, namely the instant gratification monkey. We the chronic procrastinators gave up far too easily and too often to that damnable abstract primate. I guess it has something to do with the way we evolved. As simple animals, we used to fulfill our current needs, the necessity in the present, and doesn't take precaution to whatever would happen in the future or learn from whatever happened in the past. The urgently to do is the easiest, pleasurable thing we could do now, at this very moment. Just like a lion would hunt when hungry, sleep when sleepy, mate when the urge happens to come by; we the chronic procrastinators would procrastinate when the urge to delay come by. And the urge come by each and every time...

But you know, I've met a fellow chronic procrastinators in the past. And some of them are quite successful. I guess we need a thorough scrutiny to determine what went wrong. Even if I may succeeded to pinpoint that the main culprit for the failing of my life is procrastination, I gotta realize that a mishap always occurs not because of one single reason. One element that cause a series of unfortunate events, always had helps from other factors too. Erm, let's see, perhaps the specific architecture of my life (culturally,financially, psychologically), which resulted in a Me who's having a serious case of insecurities and self confidence, when coupled with a bad habit of crazy-procrastination, would resulted in a destructive-detrimental chaos which is my life :P

I've given up the idea of brilliance as an alpha part of myself. Because, one, who need a self aware-self proclaimed genius in the age of many "genius" such as today; and two, this illusion of having a good image of yourself is mostly delusional and will only get you lost in seeing the reality (the true and genuine one); and third, it only give me a temporal confidence, so it's practically useless; and fourth, it just won't take me anywhere.

I gotta say Gary Cox  is right. Being an existentialist is important nowadays. And being one is not a matter of encompassing yourself in the work of Sartre, Nietzsche, Heidegger, or any of their likes. It's about getting real, get a grip, and stop making excuses.

Eheh, I guess it's time for me to get some drawing done....

wth

Just got off the phone with a long time friend. I guess you couldn't take things for granted after being in a friendship for 15 years :p. We chat a lot about the meaning of being successful and of boys (childish men) and other stuff I couldn't recall now. I called her after finding out that I was treated quite unfairly by a guy I dated a few weeks a go. It's funny how things could escalated from a friendly banter between a patient and a doctor to a case of emasculating someone's self esteem. Erm, emasculating one's self esteem seems too much as a statement actually, but the thing is, it's really depressing to find how people could change facades just to get what they want. Here how the story goes...I met this doctor a few months a go. He is cute enough and I feel like: what the hell if you somehow have hots for me, let's just try and do this. After only a few harmless session of flirty texting and one date, he asked me to spend the night with him. I don't get queasy hearing this, but what the hell... can you at least had the courtesy to woo me a bit longer, or just tell me your true intention from the beginning. And then he completely stopped texting me after I declined, which is okay, since I really don't value this thing as something worth thinking of or spend energy for... Then I just founds out this morning, he got married to a very conservative looking woman, in a conservative marriage, along with their conservative-looking family, and exhibits photos full of religious captions.

what. the. hell...

I could be a bit hypocrite, mind you, but the scale of this hypocrisy is really something... but yeah, it's not a life changing experience whatsoever, just something worth giggling over. 

Blue...

You are the brightest sky I have ever encountered

The lapis lazuli of my life…

Rare and luxurious,

Sacred yet flirtatious…

I would gluttonously drink your very being,

but the fright of having over-consumed,

had always been sturdily terrorizing…

I’d sip you bit by bit..

but the dread of having you hazing away,

had always been unsettlingly settled…

While I was with another,

you are the vestiges that always manage to be present,

blocking my view to be impressed by others..

It is troubling,

That in the rarity of our crossroads,

you still creeping around my existence..

giving me doubts to depart and move ahead…

Perhaps…

You just simply enthralled me,

harder than I thought I was…