I have no memory of how this woman's blog got into my list of RSS feeds, but it is certainly an interesting read on one view of infidelity. I haven't had the time to read through all that many of her posts or comments, but I've got my own opinions as it is.

A dear friend of mine had the misfortune to have been a newly wed who had to suffer through the trauma of learning that her husband cheated on her. The details are irrelevant (to this piece at least). I am more interested in discussing the role of "the other woman". The question I'm contemplating is whether or not the mate poacher is the enemy.

For the sake of discussion, let us say that a woman (the "other woman") named Sophie seduces a married man named Kevin. Kevin is married to Lisa, and they have two young children, Monica and Nick.

Is Sophie the enemy? In some ways, yes, she is. If Sophie is aware of the Kevin's marriage, then she must enter into (or continue) the relationship with the Kevin knowing full well that her actions could result in the breaking down of Kevin's family. To come to any different conclusion would be simply an exercise in mincing words and twisting logic in order to mitigate the consequences of such a relationship. Anyone who doesn't consider the risk of a family breaking up over infidelity is being unrealistic.

So if Sophie is awful for getting involved with a married man, what about Kevin? Kevin is to be held accountable just as well. In fact, he is at greater fault. For a relationship to exist, both parties involved must give their consent. It's not like Kevin is going to forget that he has a wife and child at home. His consent to the relationship is a decision that he must be accountable for. The fact is that Kevin is the one who holds the responsibility to remain loyal. He cannot claim to be a victim. His infidelity is one which he must take an active role

One could argue that Kevin's wife Lisa could be cold and withholding, that she is a neglectful partner, hence driving Kevin to engage in extramarital activities. Perhaps she is herself having an affair. I don't consider this a valid excuse for infidelity (there are no valid ones in my book). For one, fidelity should be considered more than just a promise to another person. It should be considered a moral value. When one takes on the vows of marriage, they should consider it a promise to the institution of marriage as well. If you are religious, it becomes a promise to God as well. And if one has children, the promise of fidelity is a promise to the children as well, the promise to provide a stable and loving home life. Besides, as the adage goes, two wrongs don't make a right.

Three months ago, I was having dinner with my friend Luanne and her friends. In conversation, I accidentally and tangentially brought up the topic of marital infidelity. Needless to say, I opened a big can of worms. I was actually quite shocked at the opinions that were offered around the table. I of course, keeping in line with my observer status, kept my mouth shut as I knew that I would not rest should I engage in such a discussion. Besides, in all honesty most people have very poor debating skills and a 'debate' would only serve to exasperate me when people flounder with flimsy premises and poorly constructed arguments.

More importantly, I observed adults often find the need to play around with the circumstances surrounding morality when facing moral dilemmas. When someone offers an opposing view, a person often offers a different set of circumstances that would seemingly make their own moral stance valid.

I say that adults often do this because it is something that children do not. Viewing things through a child's eyes can be rather insightful. Adults often lose their clarity of vision, the truth obscured in layers of winding self-soothing logic and justification. Why is it that children of divorce wish that their parents would get back together, even twenty years later when they are full grown adults? Why is it that children often have problems accepting and integrating a step-parent into their lives? Why is it that children feel bad when mommy and daddy are fighting, or when someone puts the moves on their parents?

The answer is simple. Children, at their age, have yet to be tainted by the complexities of adult life. They have yet to engage in self-deception and justification as ways to deal with cognitive dissonance. Although children can at times be reductionistic, they are undoubtedly more likely to see the truth of matters. Their observations at times exceed an adult's vision obfuscated by ego defense mechanism.. Children are the ones who make obtuse observations.

In Spielberg's Hook, there is a scene where Captain Hook's trying to seduce and win the loyalty of Peter Banning's children, Jack and Maggie. Maggie is a little girl, no more than six years old. Hook antagonizes the parents by explaining to the children that their parents tell them stories in order to shut them up so that they can have time for themselves. He says that before the children were born, the parents were happier and freer. Young little Maggie knows that this isn't true. She looks at him with a fearful disbelief and says, "You're a bad man." Jack, perhaps ten years of age, is not as disbelieving. Captain Hook's words have a clear effect on Jack. Why? Because Jack is more grown up. His mind, being more mature than Maggie's, can be engaged and therefore tricked by various forms of logic and debate. But Maggie knows only to believe what's in her heart, and in her heart is the truth: that her parents love her.

Infidelity is wrong. A child's sense of right and wrong is a simple measure. If you asked a five year old girl if it would be okay with her that Daddy hug and kiss a woman other than Mommy, I feel comfortable saying that she is more than likely to be a little uneasy with that idea. It's why when little Jane catches Mommy kissing the postman, she feels something is wrong with that picture. When Daddy takes an hour to go get some milk and eggs, Jane knows something isn't right about that. Perhaps she feels uneasy or a little upset, and she probably doesn't know why. This is cognitive dissonance, evidenced even in children as young as five years old. And it's a simple measure of morality.

People can dress up infidelity all they want. Adults are more than capable of silencing the internal voices that cry out when they do something wrong or witness a wrong being committed. Children, though, are far more truthful. Perhaps that is the ugliness of adulthood...deception, a loss of innocence and truth, and the disappearance of a simple and pure love.

Thanks to Katie Tegtmeyer for the photo.

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Just thought I'd post my paper on the Bible's method's of social control. I wrote it last semester, got an A on it, though I have to admit that it could use a lotta polish. I have a bad habit of waiting until the last minute and skating by. Not my best work, and I actually intend to improve the paper when I've got some time. I also intend to actually read through Friedman's The Hidden Face of God.

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I was reading The Frisky (Dear Wendy: “The Only Guys I Attract Are My Best Friends’ Boyfriends”) out of random boredom. Just look at those comments.

I know that Internet trolling is probably as old as ARPANET (I kid, but you never know...), but these people sure have a lot of gall...it's intensely irritating to me whenever people rail on someone asking for advice. These commenters are just absurdly rude. Self-absorbed? Telling someone to "chill the fuck out"? This is not constructive criticism. It's called "just shitting on someone".

Then there's this: "Psych studies have been performed (I will post later) that suggest most men (>90%) seek out a partner less intelligent than them..." Well, "psych studies" don't mean diddly. There's been that "study" going around that say that most successful marriages show that the woman is smarter than the man. There's always going to be some bullshit study that says one thing or another. Most of the time, these studies have such a small sample size that it's statistically insignificant when you try to apply it to an entire population.

It's also annoying to me how everybody likes to think that they are qualified to give advice. To be honest, most people are simply not. They can have all the experience in the world, but it takes a specific type of mind to dispense advice in a useful way. Amongst many other things, one must have the discipline to understand someone's situation thoroughly before attempting to provide a solution. People are so quick to offer their two bits, especially when it's unsolicited. Boy do I find unsolicited advice irksome. It's insulting and forces the person receiving the advice into the difficult position of having to be polite. I find that those who perform society this unjustice are people who just like the sound of their own self-proclaimed wisdom. The saying goes, "Never give advice: fools don't heed it, and the wise don't need it," and I think it's served me quite well.

Then there's the armchair psychologists who like to dissect the letter's wording and come to the conclusion that she is conceited or a narcissist. I wish people would just stop. Please, you are telling all of this from one letter? Judging one's personality from a single letter, probably written in a state of discontent, is going to result in a flawed profile. There's no two ways about it.

On another note, it's a coincidence that I came across this article since I get lots of hits on my article about how a woman can move things along with a shy man. I also had an honest and realistic look at the circumstances factoring into my own singlehood. Perhaps the Shy One should spend some time introspecting: I don't imagine it's too difficult what with being shy.

Anyway, on the topic of asexuality. Being asexual is not exactly "anti-sex". Of course, the term itself isn't even all that well defined just yet. But to my understanding, being asexual is, at its most basic, simply having the lack of sexual desire or not acting on sexual impulses. Asexual people are not necessarily against sex. It's just that sex is either the last thing they think about or something they don't think about at all. Sexual desires may motivate others to chase the object of their desire, but not for an asexual person.

I personally am borderline asexual. If I never had sex again, it wouldn't bother me in the least (hence making the possible decision to become a clergyman much easier). Sex is not what motivates me. Sex is like a luxury to me. I can do without it. And if I don't ever have it again, I wouldn't care. Whether this is a product of my self-induced transcendentalism or some other weirdness, I'm not sure, but I suspect it has to a lot to do with my refusal to become a slave to the basic instincts of the animalistic drives of humans.

I value and am attracted to intelligence and artistic qualities in women. And while I believe extroversion would balance out my own introversion, I have always been more attracted to quieter and more reserved women. Hmmm....does anyone have The Shy One's number?

Thanks to Scott Snyde for the image.

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In the interest of following blogging trends, I thought I'd write up something more...contentious. Anyway, for some reason, a lot of the classes I take consist mainly of females. Why I'm still single is beyond me (as well as the scope of this article). Well, actually, I already know the factors contributing to my unattached state. But I digress.

A couple of weeks ago, my professor (a vibrant and youthful 41 year old woman) started a tangential conversation about how hard it was for women and how unfair things were for women. One of her examples included how all the men on The Sopranos are "fat pigs", yet their wives are with them. According to her (and the ladies in the class agreed wholeheartedly), weight gain is much more a woman's issue than a man's: "If we gain like, five pounds, the guys go, 'Whoa, what's going on there?'!!!". This tall Jewish fellow jokingly balked, "Five pounds?", implying that a five pound weight gain was rather significant and worthy of breaking up over. The guys in the class (myself included) chuckled heartily while the ladies gasped and chastised him for his insensitive comment. You could tell it was funny because my very quiet and serious visage actually cracked a grin.

While I would contend that women should simply leave men who are that superficial, it brought to mind these so-called inequalities women face. Today, I challenge that idea.

Before I get started, let's just get some things out of the way. Firstly, I'm going to disregard anything related to physical aspects (i.e. hormones and that time of the month). There's absolutely nothing we can do about this short of pumping men full of estrogen and giving women birth control pills and anabolic steroids. Secondly, I am, for the record, very respectful of women and do not mean in any way to denigrate females. The point of this piece is to simply offer a different perspective.

Now let's get to the good stuff.

1) Mate retention
I haven't done the research, but I don't think it's unheard of for a woman to divorce her husband because he lost his job and couldn't get another one. I wouldn't be surprised if "He just couldn't provide anymore" is a common reason women divorce.

For women, mate retention behaviors involve maintaining a healthy and youthful appearance. Her ability to do so lies solely within herself. Staying young and healthy is in her control. She can make the decision to not eat fatty foods and to go to the gym for an hour every day. Am I saying it's easy? No, but just bear with me.

Male mate retention behaviors involve resource display. This means a man must show that he can provide for his family. Men buy their wives expensive diamond bracelets and a new sports car to get her to stick around. They shower their wives with flowers and take them out to expensive restaurants when they are in trouble. When things get rocky, he'll probably try to bust out first-class tickets to some far-off tropical destination.

If he loses his job, he risks losing his family. When you work a job, you are working with other people. You have to deal with a boss who could have it in for you. Your livelihood depends on pleasing your boss. This means that your ability to retain your mate is tied in to the will and whimsy of others. A man cannot make his boss like him. He can bribe him, beg him, pray to God Almighty, but at the end of the day, if his boss is a prick and just doesn't like him, there is not one goddamned thing he can do about it. For women, it becomes a simple matter of self-discipline.

2) Creative careers
Like I said, men are expected to provide. To do this they must have resources. In today's day and age, this means money. That money in this day and age comes in the form of a paycheck. The best paycheck is a steady one, and if it's big and fat, all the better.

Us creative folks are passionate people. We all believe we are artists and that we should be able to express our artistic genius. In fact, if we don't get to express ourselves, we feel as though we are being stifled and oppressed. To the most hardcore of the creative, the artist who chases a paycheck is a sell out. The artist who becomes a slave to some sort of normal career is chastised and spat upon, his black beret taken away and his goatee shaved off. But being an artist means not having a steady paycheck. The starving artist may be a stereotype, but it is also a serious reality a man must must consider if he is to pursue his art.

Those who consider academia their calling also seem to have this issue. So far, the majority of the young male adjunct professors I have met joked about having to marry a rich woman in order to pursue their goal of becoming a tenured professor. It isn't too far from the truth: adjuncting doesn't pay diddly. To be frank, I want to learn these guys' secret: all of the were neither lookers (though some women might find them cute) nor Casanova's. A couple of them were downright goofballs. Yet they were able to marry rich women. But, as usual, I digress.

For men who are creative or scholarly, life can be difficult if you intend to raise a family. You don't get paid an annual salary for peddling your screenplay to Hollywood executives or passing your manuscript around to all the big publishing houses. There is no steady paycheck. Starving artists can't afford to have a family, so a creative man who wants a family must make that decision: do I want to make art or make babies?

3) Freedom of choice: children, career, or both?
Women have more freedom of choice than they may believe. If she wants to get married and be a stay-at-home mom and make a career out of raising her children, she can. Yet today, she also has the choice to join the workforce and to pursue her career in the workplace instead of the home. Yes, it will be difficult, but hey, at least she can try.

Men on the other hand, don't really have the choice to be a stay-at-home dad. Even without any hard data, I am damned sure that the percentage of married women in the workplace easily outnumber the percentage of married men guarding the home and hearth. I'd also like to know what percentage of women would actually be comfortable with their husband staying home to take care of the kids.

4) Psychological health
Women who are emotionally expressive or vulnerable are more desirable than women who are cold and stoic. Women are free to express their feelings. Tears are acceptable, whether they are from joy or sorrow. "Women are emotional creatures," goes the common saying.

Men on the other hand are expected to be forever strong and vigilant. Weakness is not an option. I'm not talking about that intimate vulnerability that may win the hearts of women. I'm talking about a hard case of complete decompensation. A man who has a nervous breakdown is less a man than the one who takes all the hardships of life in stride. For a woman, people may look at her funny, but she isn't really any less of a woman for it.

The expression of one's emotional state is important to mental health. I'm not suggesting that we all become emotionally transparent to each other, but let's face it: an emotional man is considered by many to be less masculine, and by extension, less desirable.

5) Sexual selection
This one is simple. The role of women in sexual selection is to choose her mate. The men come to them, they do not go to the men. Unless a woman is unusually ugly, I can say with great certainty that all she has to do is exist and she will be propositioned.

From an evolutionary standpoint, it sure looks like the males of the human species are the ones that have their work cut out for them. A man's got to do the chasing. This requires considerable amount of resources, both emotional and material. A man is forever a slave to the evolutionary instinct to pass on his genetic material to the next generation. He must always strive to be better than the men around him, lest he suffer the fate of the dodo. For men, life is a struggle to reproduce. Women are the gatekeepers. They can just sit back and let the action unfold in front of them. Put quite factually, even a woman with just average looks will be asked out if she just sits around long enough. Men on the other hand, will decompose into a narcissistic state of delusion and loneliness if they think they can expect women to just come to him. I would know.

And there you go folks. There are five reasons women have it easier in some ways. When you think about it, women hold plenty of power. It's just a matter of recognizing it and knowing how to use it.

Of course, before all the feminists start bashing me, let me just say that my personal opinion of how difficult it can be to be a man or woman in this world can be best summed up in this classic addage: "Them's the breaks." Men have got it tough in some ways, and women in others. Life's not fair to either sex.

Now, off to write an "angry young man" screenplay...

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Download here on DeviantArt

Instructions to set up Rainmeter configs here.

Well, here's a little preview of what I've been working on for the past two days. My own Portal desktop theme.

I actually started off with just a wallpaper: this guy's Portal wallpaper. Then I started looking for themes and couldn't find any. So then I started crafting icons for ObjectDock. And well, things just started getting crazy after I decided to delve into Rainlendar. I quickly discovered that Rainlendar wasn't flexible enough for me and moved on to Rainmeter.
The central piece (at least for me) is the massive date sign. It's based off of the signs you see at the beginning of every level. It took me a hell of a long time to figure out how to make an image based clock in Rainmeter. I took the numbers from a texture I extracted from the game's data files and stitched them together into my own little array of numbers for Rainmeter to slice up. The images were a little rough around the edges though, so I had to blur them just a touch. That resulted in a little artifacting near the edges, which I had to clean up if I didn't want stray pixels lining the bottoms of all my numbers.

Then come the icons. I spent a good amount of time creating them, especially the folder icons. At first they were just folders sitting in my dock, and then had a great idea to create a floating tabbed dock. There weren't any blank/transparent docks that came with ObjectDock, so I made my own. The little black square is the "custom tab" that I actually have to keep there if I want to be able to drag the dock around. I also had to make little boxed variants of the folders.

There's this nifty little "serial number" thingamabob that I created too.  It's basically a random three digit number plus the date and time mushed together into one string.  It updates every minute.  Presto, you have a custom serial number for your desktop!

I'm still trying to figure out how to create a RAM meter that looks like that sectional bar underneath the week counter. But I might just give up on that because I've got better things to worry about.

ADDENDUM: I completed the theme to my satisfaction, including the meter. Actually, the meter has been set to reflect the progress through the year. You can download all of the wallpapers and icons here: http://wistfulwriter.deviantart.com/gallery/

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I want to share with you my fantasy. In this little idealized version of my future, I've written my masterpiece. I have a decent amount of money, just enough so that I don't have to worry about how I will live very modestly for the rest of my life so long as I work a little bit here and there. I live in a very small split-level house with lots of sunshine in a place that is usually moderately cool but never bitterly cold. It rains on occasion, usually a gentle drizzle and maybe a nice thunderstorm or two in the summertime. The supermarket (which has a very decent butcher and delicatessen counter) is a short walk away, there is a little green park nearby where children play. The neighbors are warm and congenial, quiet and respectful. And most importantly, I am detached from the world I live in. I have become, for the most part, a recluse observing suburban tranquility at arm's length.

Mr. J.D. Salinger died a recluse. Only God knows why he decided to exclude himself from society: the rest of us can only guess. But I know why I would want to.

You see, I've just about had enough of people and society. Everything just feels wrong. The rich get richer, and we have this condition called middle-class poverty. The educational system has become a travesty, no longer even worthy of being called a system in which one becomes educated. Ignorance and hate pervade society. People turn their backs on each other in times of need. Dishonesty, infidelity, debauchery, and selfishness is no longer a shock; in fact, one should expect as such. People are slaves to the dollar. Men abandon their bastard children, women cuckold their husbands, children lose their innocence before they should... And don't even get me started on the realm of dating and marriage.

The world no longer has any love or romance. It has become (or perhaps always was) a cold and impersonal place, a system where the ruthless succeed through rampant self-promotion and selfish acts. As far as mankind seems to have advanced, we seem to have lost touch with what it means to be human. What good is it that we can live until we are 90 if we must spend that time on this earth? Why would I want to spend my entire life in a world where the good and just are punished and the dastardly reign freely? Where is the pleasure in living in a place where instead of love and happiness illuminates all, darkness prevails with only brief punctuations of light?

I cannot create my own nation. And I cannot wipe the slate clean with a flood of the earth. Nor can I cure the maladies of society. I do not wish to be a participant in this sort of world. And though I have strong desires to have children, to believe that I could raise them to be strong enough to resist the influence of this world that I so desperately despise would be entirely foolish. As out of touch with reality as I may be, as disillusioned as I certainly am, a fool I am not. The only course of action left to me would be to remove myself from society; to take solace in what little pleasures I can still find while surrounded by the dreariness of a hopeless humanity.

Alas, this is but a mere flight of fancy...unless it becomes reality, I will have no choice but to continue to participate as a member of society. I will have to, until my very last breath, suffer the idiocy of the insipid and the folly of fools. Perhaps I will have to simply turn my despair into an amusement of the dismal destinies that people carve out for themselves. All I know is that I had better get to work on my novel if I wish to stand a chance against all that ails me.

Thanks to Eastop for his photo: I used it as the thumbnail for the featured gallery.

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According to OKCupid, I should move to Iceland if I wanna find love. Or Massachusetts.

And apparently I should steer clear of Ukrainian and Egyptian women. Haha, I take this all with a grain of salt, but still.

Time to give some consideration to moving the hell out of New York. I never really did feel like I belonged, despite my efforts to plant some roots here. I grew up in New York City and have never lived anywhere else, and I'm the nesting type. Moving around doesn't feel very much like my style, but hey, if something's not working, why not try something else? I don't know...something to think about.

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This entry's been long overdue, so excuse me if it feels a little out of context. I only just finished it.

This blog is clearly a reflection of my loneliness.  It is an expression of my angst, disappointment, frustration, and disillusionment with the world.  If you walk up to me on any given day and asked me how I felt, I'd bullshit you and tell you I feel great.  But dig even a little deeper and you'll quickly see that am a lonely man.

With all my idealism and my unwillingness to bend to the will and ways of the world, it would seem that my loneliness is an inherently lifelong affliction.

It was Luanne's birthday, and I was one of the few to attend her dinner at Holy Basil.  Always the quiet one at social gatherings, I planted myself in the corner seat.  Her husband Dmitri sat across from me, with his close friend (a French fellow) seated to his left.  As the night went on, we got around to talking about my writing.  I revealed that I was working on a novel.  Naturally, they asked about it.

My novel is a portrait of loneliness.  In it, I want to explore the nature of loneliness: is it a self-imposed burden, or is it a product of our environment and experiences?  Is loneliness something you create from within, or is it something that finds you and follows you?  The problem is that there is no answer.

I explained this to them. Dmitri and the Frenchman asked what type of book it was.  My novel is largely autobiographical, and I said as such.  The Frenchman made some very interesting points about how the novel could get a little too self-indulgent.  Of course I had considered this from the beginning, but this reminder would help in my decision on how to shape the voice of my novel.

After a few moments and sidebars later, Dmitri returned to my rhetorical question: does loneliness come from within or without?.  He said, "It's self-imposed.  You do it to yourself.  You're lonely by choice."  I was curious as to his answer.  "How so?" I inquired.  Dmitri explained.

And oh what an explanation it was.  It was one of those moments you expect to have in a therapist's chair.  Insightfully, Dmitri said that I hold on to my loneliness to write.  Because of the autobiographical nature of my novel, because I am practically living the novel, I force myself to be lonely.

I spent the rest of the night in deep thought.  I am always quiet, but the profundity of this observation essentially silenced me. I became rapidly absorbed in my own thoughts.  As socially ungraceful as it was, I stared off into nothingness, examining my life and my writing.  I could not help it.  I had just heard an insightful and frankly mindblowing observation.  It was so true.  The simplicity and truth behind my loneliness had been exposed.  He answered the question to my loneliness.

I realized that in the same way that I became a method actor whenever I lied, whenever I was in the sales mentality, I was a method writer. The fate of my novel's protagonist could not be written because his fate was intertwined with mine. I was living the life I wanted my character to have so that I could write about it. I needed to experience his emotions so that I could write with authenticity. I needed to be as lonely as he was.

The questions is, will I leave my state of loneliness once my novel is complete? Or can my novel ever be complete? Previously, I had written a screenplay with characters who weren't quite based on myself. I was able to finish that screenplay because I could see them move forward in their lives. I simply needed to write what happened in that world. But with my novel, I cannot do the same. I cannot write the story of my character because I do not know how my own life will turn out.

I am not sure if the loneliness will persist, but one thing is certain: I need to step back in order to work on my novel. Considering the somewhat autobiographical nature of the novel, and considering how close it is to me, it will not be easy. But if I am to indeed create this "portrait of loneliness" (as I like to call it), I will have to start distancing myself from the protagonist so that I don't get in my own way.

May we suggest you have a gander at these?

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The gentle comfort of a lover's embrace... The way your heart blossoms when you feel your lover's warm breath softly on your skin... The sweet touch of a her lips pressed against yours... The familiarity of his nose nuzzled against yours... The bliss of all the sensations of an impassioned kiss, the way your he holds you, the way she touches you... Is this not enough?

I have no statistics about young people (and by young people I mean anyone under the age of 25) and their smooching habits. So I could very well be wrong and disillusioned in my assumptions. But from what I can tell, a little necking nowadays probably entails some "heavy petting". By heavy petting I mean the touching of each other's privates.

I also have no clue what kids did "back then" either, so I'll not make any references to what it was like back then. But whatever happened to just some good old making out? I believe there is much to be enjoyed in simply smooching. Why all the hurry to get to the "good part"? The good part isn't getting a girl to put her hand on your junk, and it's not "scoring" when a girl lets you feel up her breasts or allow for some digital play in her nether regions.

The good part starts when you're sitting together, bodies pressed against each other. It starts when you lean in and look into her eyes. The good parts are when you feel her breathing, when you feel her press herself closer to you...it's everything that happens from the moment you sit together, through the kiss itself, and the little afterglow afterwards.

In our MTV age, in an age of precocious sexual activity that starts at a young age, I think we've got to learn how to slow things down. Stop and smell the roses. I mean, what's left to be exciting about a kiss if all you're thinking about is getting your rocks off?

Thanks to mikelawrey for the image!

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There's a reason I like Holden Caulfield. There's a reason I absolutely love The Catcher in the Rye. It's because I identify with Holden on so many levels. And just like Holden, in the midst of my loneliness and the sentiment of preserving innocence, I too find myself toying with the idea devoting myself to a religion and becoming a clergy member of some sort.

Most recently, I got myself into a job I thought I would enjoy. I was hired as a security officer at a very upscale retail location. Everyone, including my employers and veteran co-workers told me I should be proud that I got the position: considering the economy where it is now, and how selective the company is with their employees, my successful hire was considered quite a feat. It wasn't anything to me because I have an extremely high success rate when it comes to passing interviews.

Everyone I spoke to seemed to like their jobs. The work is easy, the environment is clean, mostly quiet, and void of riff raff. Most of the employees are friendly and enjoy their work. My co-workers exalted the way the company takes care of its employees. The job pays well, and there is no work to take home.

On paper, it's a very good job. But three days into my new job, I was already crying and sobbing. I was depressed at the long hours. Imagine going in to work when the sun is high and bright. The day is full of promise. Imagine leaving work with tired feet, walking out of the building onto the bustling night streets of New York City. The entire day just passed you by, and in that day, you have achieved nothing. Your work produces nothing, and you have nothing to show for ten hours of work. By the time you get home and finish dinner, you're already trying to ready yourself for the next day.

It reminds me of this Russian coworker at my old place of employment. I remember walking to the train station with him one evening after work. He walked fast, and the length of his legs made it harder for me to keep up with him. I asked him how he liked it here in America. "American way is bullshit. Every day is another day of eating shit. You wake up, go to work, come home, sleep, and repeat cycle. I eat shit today. Tomorrow I eat shit again." He observed how incredibly money-centric it was here. He recalled how it was easier to relax and have time for leisure. And it didn't cost an arm and a leg to have a good time back in Russia.

What he said rang so true to me...although I haven't lived anywhere but New York City, I felt the same way he did about "the American way". And it was how I felt when my workday ended. I hated the fact that my job was mind-numbingly boring, and that it really amounted to nothing at the end of the day. I didn't feel like I was making a difference at all: I wasn't contributing anything or producing anything. The fact that a well-programmed robot could do my job was even more demoralizing.

I realized that I was in the wrong line of work. My various skills were not being put to use. There were no challenges for me, and I was not being mentally engaged. With such an enormous aversion towards my current line of work, I decided to do something about it.

Over the course of a week or so, my mind wandered, trying to find a job that would be suited to me. I wondered about my qualities: my penchant for writing, my flair for the dramatic, my ability to motivate people, my desire to inspire and help others, and my intellectual interest in religion. Thinking back to a conversation I had with my professor this one day from a chance meeting in the train station, I realized that perhaps his suggestion to become a minister was a good one.

And so I toyed with the idea. I imagined that it would incredibly rewarding. And though every job has its moments of boredom, I didn't suppose that being a minister would be boring on a day to day basis. As much of a lone wolf as I believe myself to be, I do crave face to face interaction with people as a part of my job: it helps break up the monotony of the daily grind. Considering that I seem to draw people in need of advice, I would also be in a very good position to help people.

The only problem is whether or not I can bring myself to settle down with the concept of faith. Do I believe in God? Do I believe that He is there? That He has a plan for all of us? And all of that other mumble jumble? I have no doubt that I can fake it...I fairly certain that should my morals fall by the wayside, I could "infiltrate" the ranks of the clergy (let's not get into a debate about how God wouldn't let that happen).

Considering that I don't want to go to hell (or wake up with an awful feeling every morning knowing that I'm just a big phony for that matter), I do believe I should continue my job hunt. Finding my way will be difficult, and I can only hope that I can do so with celerity and grace.

May we suggest you have a gander at these?

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