Monday, February 23, 2009

The Circus is coming to Town!

The circus has always been acclaimed for its simple, yet effective ways of entertaining people from all ages. Hundreds of people are involved in the preparation of a single performance through the many hours, which are necessary for the planning. In the same way, the amount of money that is invested in a circus is plenty. The presentations are planed with meticulous details. However, the circus has a rival for the best show in town: a wedding ceremony. One only needs to consider the time and money required to plan a wedding along with the people who take part on the wedding, and the details of the reception in order for one to realize the kind of show a wedding is. The only difficulty is that on a wedding the star of the show is not the lion trainer nor the trapezists, but those who steal the show are the clowns.
It is not clear why there is a need to publicly display the meaning two people have for each other. Nevertheless, however difficult to grasp many people find it necessary to sign a legal document, and in many cases have a religious celebration, as well as offer a reception for people to be witnesses of the affection they privately proclaim for each other. This need seems to arise from a desire to ensure that said affection will endure.
The beginning of it all is the socially constructed idea of the glamorous wedding reception that many people learn to desire. The characteristics of what a wedding reception should be like have been molded into acquiring alluring motifs. The engagement is a parallel to the opening act of the show. It is a common practice for the man to make a wedding proposal to the woman, which is symbolized by the gifting of a ring. In the circus the master of ceremony introduces what is to come. In the case of the proposal, the ring and the way in which the proposal is made is a sort of way to forecast what can be expected at the wedding.
After the engagement has been made official, the planning begins. This is obviously a stage that in the circus performance occurs prior to the opening act, yet the planning is still arduous. A color scheme must be chosen for the flowers, table settings, and bridesmaids’ dresses, among other things. The circus also has a sort of theme to be followed at every presentation. Then, invitations must be sent to family and friends through a cautious selection in order to ensure that only those people that one truly wants in attendance are invited and not those whom one would not wish to see at the reception. At the same time, one should also carefully choose those who will participate in the wedding itself. Such selection is also done in the circus when those who will participate in the performance are selected in order to ensure it will be flawless.
Then, the ceremony takes places in most cases beginning with a religious celebration. If any, after the religious celebration, the wedding guests arrive at the reception where the wedding party greets them. Then, they are offered dinner. The maid of honor and the best man toast the newly weds. Shortly after, the cake is cut, and the throwing of the flower bouquet by the bride, which is falling out of practice, also occurs. If a dance has been provided, the groom and the bride dance with their parents, then with the maid of honor and the best man. After such dance, they rejoin to dance together. There is a hierarchy of who is allowed to follow in the dance floor until everyone in attendance is permitted to do so. In the circus, there is also a hierarchy of acts to be followed.
Although weddings and circus shows are different in kind, both have a carefully devised protocol. The reasons for a circus performance to be meticulously prepared become clear with the response of the public to the different parts of the presentation. As for a wedding, however, those in attendance will never be pleased. At the end of the reception, it will be drastically criticized. There is, precisely for that reason, a difficulty in understanding why is there a public showcase of what two people say to feel for each other. But rather easy to be aware why the clowns are the monarchs of the show.

xoxo,
Poison Drops


©Copyrighted 2009

Monday, February 16, 2009

A Criminal Affair

There are some people who thoroughly enjoy surprises to the point that makes their bones shiver. They live for the surprises they receive while many other people detest surprises with the same passion of those who enjoy them. Nevertheless, a surprise is a detail in everyone’s existence that is supposed to make life more enjoyable due to its precisely self-explanatory nature. It is an opportunity to showcase one’s creativity. But it only functions when the receiver does not expect it. It is important to point out the different between detesting surprises and expecting surprises. The former do not like to receive them, the latter enjoy knowing in advance that there will be one. Then, there are those other people who expect surprises. Of course, at that point the surprise loses its magic even though it remains a surprise. Relationships are a special case of this phenomenon. Many people reach the point in their relationships at which they expect the object of their affection to do something for them as a form of showing their proclaimed affection in special occasions such as birthdays, anniversary, Valentine’s day, Christmas and any other day that has a special significance for both even though more than likely only one of them remembers. There is a widely spread trend that has sent the element of surprise in a journey from which it seems to have vowed for never returning.
Surprise has left, but its destination is unknown. How such event took place remains a mystery. It is difficult to deduce after how long of being in a relationship do people arrive at the conclusion that they have the right to expect certain things from their partners. Especially difficult is then the task of reconstructing a series of events that would lead those people to said conclusion. Such event is an act of murder against romance. Surprises make a relationship sparkle. When a surprise is receive, one is strangely reminded of the reason why one has chosen that person to be part of one’s life, even if such is temporary. It is a challenge to discover why some people would want to destroy that spark. Yet, there are many, who believe that after having been in a relationship for a certain amount of time, which varies according to who is asked, one has the right to expectation. There are still many who do not question the idea that there must exist that element of surprise in a relationship in order to make it enduring because they understand the deeply embedded role creativity plays.
Romance is abstract and subjective, but it implies an artistic expression of one’s fascination for the object of one’s affection in the case of a relationship. Otherwise it simply is an artistic expression of one’s creativity. As such it implies the freedom to be creative when the choice of showing said affection in especial occasions presents itself. Although the element of surprise does not seem as important part of a relationship as one might at first think, it actually has an important purpose. However, if one cannot longer rely on the element of surprise for such events, romance has failed to play a role in the relationship. Thus, people who believe they have the right to expectation have killed romance. They have extinguished the spark that kept the relationship alive.
It is only too late that one realizes that spark has stopped burning. By that time, expectation has eradicated any trace of the so-called uniqueness of a relationship and makes the romance that still remains ironic. Surprises do not matter anymore. At this point, surprises become optional and, as such, not essential as nurture to the relationship. The main problem raised by this situation is that the relationship becomes a routine because creativity is not allowed to work its magic. Incredibly enough, some people are perfectly satisfied with such situation because custom has become stronger than love.
There are those people who prefer to refrain from expectation because they deem such practice as a waste of time and energy that might be used for more important tasks. Views change with the person expressing them, but at the end most agree that a surprise is not a surprise if one already knows what it will be. In the same way, most people do not consider the fact that expecting something also nullifies the surprise. Yet, the most important detail to remember is that those who do not expect anything are fortunate because they will never be disappointed.


xoxo,
Poison Drops


©Copyrighted 2009

Monday, February 9, 2009

Illegal Results of Education

Segregation is an illegal practice throughout most of the world; and, as such, there are many laws that protect people from suffering said fate. However, the segregation that seems to be the subject of those laws is of racial nature even though such segregation is not the only one people experience. The most notorious one being that caused by the difference in education attainment levels. Education, as a system, does not only educate people, as one would tautologically claim, rather its effects are far more complicated and appalling. Education segregates people in the most unrecognized, yet definite way.
The first stage of the problem begins with the fact that not everyone has the opportunity to attain a college level education. Attending a university is not an opportunity everyone enjoys. Then, the problem is exacerbated by the lack of ambition from many of those who have the opportunity to attend such institutions. However, the problem feeds off of the changes education brings about. Education changes the way people appreciate and observe the world through simply changing the way they think.
The world is such a plain place without the benefit or detriment of education. After one has experience higher education, however, the world becomes a completely different place. It is not longer simple rather it becomes very complicated. Every observation becomes detailed and is meticulously analyzed because there is an urge to discover a meaning beyond what the senses provide. This challenge is first experienced during college, any education before is of a more general sense such that the puzzles there observed do not have many consequences due to the simplicity of the courses.
Elementary education is precisely of such basic nature that the children are at that time much more interested in the time they are given as recess than they are on what they learned in the classroom. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. There are those children who at an early age learn the importance education has in their lives and they strive to acquire the knowledge their teachers offer them. As children progress through the education system, their mentality changes. But as a result of the many physical and psychological changes they experience, most fail to realize the intellectual change that is also taking place. Unfortunately, if not recognized, such important change is not fed and it eventually perishes. It abandons its objective of creating a well-rounded individual who can face the twisted world one inhabits.
University education, nevertheless, has the biggest impact on this modification to human knowledge. If the transformation experience in the early years of one’s life is properly attended to, one will, first, find a way in which to attend an institution that will provide a higher level of education despite the superficial impossibility of doing so. In this way, education becomes an issue of a certain choice. If one truly desires such learning experience and what it brings about, one will procure it. The wisdom then obtained is not necessarily the wisdom one had expected to come across when one first walked through campus. Conversely, one learns that the world is a cruel place and that one will struggle unless one is at the top position in whatever one decides to do after one has received a diploma. In the mean time, this new education alters not only physical appearance since one struggles to be more of a college student, to leave behind the rich past from which one emerged in order to be accepted in the academic sphere, but it also revolutionizes one’s views and thoughts about the world and the people who inhabit it. It becomes so deeply embedded that one’s vocabulary learns to accommodate itself according to the occasion and the people one interacts with. Those who are college educated then become a segregated group with visions of what the world should be like. They criticize the world’s every detail, but fail to admire and complete a project, which would allow for real change. Through them, the problem they attempted to solve roots itself more deeply as they find themselves benefited by the system they once wished to dismantle.
Education creates an invisible barrier between those who know and those who do not even without a definition of such knowledge. It creates a new form of segregation, which it encourages and propagates. As such, education is useless because it bends itself into becoming one more tool of oppression even if liberation remains undefined.

xoxo,
Poison Drops


©Copyrighted 2009

Monday, February 2, 2009

Disguised Lion

It is widely said that the lion is not as painted which seems to complicate identifying them in a metaphorical sense. Such distinction becomes more difficult when the lion exists in disguise as a lamb. There are many people who fit said description. In fact, there are too many that they blend with the rest of the human population such that their wrongdoings become more easily ignored. The case in point is whether cheating and lying are ever acceptable in a romantic relationship (since the other types of relationships and life in general, seem to require at times a so called white lie for better results so long as these are positive).
From the perspective of the cheater, it seems to be the case that cheating should be, if not acceptable, at least excusable. In this theory it is believed that lying is more difficult than cheating as a result of the measured effort one places on either activity. There is a well-known argument for cheating that rests on the assumption that the flesh is weak. However, it also seems to be the case, when one accepts such assertion, that the mind is then not strong enough to control the misguided desires of the flesh. If the mind knows the flesh’s actions will be unjustifiable, and, as a result, unacceptable, then it should not refrain from acting in such a way that would prevent the latter’s weaknesses from materializing. Thus, the flesh appears to be stronger than the mind judging from who has the upper hand when making such decisions as cheating and lying which is supported by the fact that it is harder to lie. The mind is faced with the problem of devising a lie that would be believable to itself first in order to make the person to whom it will be told believe it as well. This is required in order to make the lie real so as to prevent the other person from suspecting it a lie. The cheater is then faced with the problem of how to conceal the action committed. The mind has to suppress the past up to the point where it accepts that it never happened so as to create an acceptable excuse for cheating in order to make the other person believe that it truly never happened as well.
Although nearly innumerable, boredom along with the lack of something that seemed to have been there before are the most broadly quoted as reasons why people cheat. But if that is the case, then why do cheaters remain in a relationship of which they are bored and which lacks something that is obviously important to them. The answer: custom is stronger than love. Most importantly, however, people want security and stability, which are more easily measured and observed than the idea of love that is used as reason to cheat rather than being accepted as an excuse. Hence, the unwillingness cheaters exhibit to relinquish it, and subsequent reason for the return to the boring relationship.
On the other hand, there is the victim, otherwise known as real lamb, who laments the way the situation occurred, but does not necessarily attempt to change it. Perhaps this is due to the different reactions people have as far as coping with the truth. However, it seems more plausible to think that the reason many accept what has happened is because they believe that cheating is emotional and not physical. Hence, the would-be victim dismisses it. Since lying and cheating cover a wide range of actions, everyone becomes a hypocritical victim. Then, everyone cheats or lies whether physically or emotionally. The reason for a victim to remain with the victimizer is perhaps due to hope that the other person would be as forgiving as they are when the truth about them is known as well. But there is also the factor that some people have such low self-esteem that they believe there would not be anyone else who would want them.
The infamous second chance, nevertheless, is what every actor in the play wants to achieve. There is the hope from both parties that if the first attempt was ruined by some mistake, then the second time something would be learned from said mistake and the performance would be impeccable. The truth is that people know the lamb might be a lion in disguise hence the flawed performance, but they are afraid of loneliness so they ignore the disguise and continue to hope.

xoxo,
Poison Drops


©Copyrighted 2009