Tag Archives: Relationships

Love

ClearView

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ClearView
Virtues: Relationships, peace, understanding, compromise  

Relationships can be a tumultuous affair; confusing and frustrating, noisy and unrestrained – yielding excitement and great happiness to emotional agitation. I’m in a committed relationship with this woman, lets call her Melissa (lol). Ambitious, loving, caring, at times stubborn & selfish, sexy, and very perceptive. I am also very perceptive, and too much perceptiveness, in my case, leads to heightened paranoia. I’m sure that many can relate, and many take proactive measures to muffle their paranoia from increasing; Alicia may snoop in Mike’s phone, Robert may randomly check out Erica’s workplace to make sure she is there, and such. All of those/these types of behavior may quell your suspicion, but if the suspicion is so strong that you are willing to do extreme behavior, then you got to ask yourself if you got a ClearView?

What is a ClearView, if you’ve been reading my literary masterpieces, then you know that I like creating new terms and/or applying old terms to different/left-park concepts. A ClearView is a state of accepting the relationship as it is, as it could be, and what it might be.

As it is (AIS)
As it is (What it is), is pretty self-explanatory in abstract, but in practicality, there are usually two different current states. Having a ClearView is understanding the two different states, and understanding that those two different states may never merge as one; and really, I don’t think that it ever has to merge as one – that isn’t as important as understanding than more than one exists.

As it could be (ACIB )
As it could be (AICB), is the vision that each one has – of themselves, together, and of the other one. AICB almost works like ecological optics and the concept flow information; to move through the environment, the brain uses information from the eye, previous experiences, and ‘feeds forward’ the information to predict future actions. Thus, AICB is really based upon understanding how it is, and if how it is can be changed. Can you & your partner change? Are you willing? Stubbornness can be an obstacle to this, as one has to have a ClearView that each party has to compromise and change in order to get to that state to where they want to be – as long as it is not at the expense of their own personal beliefs and values, but with that said, that is a problem, with each party, and each party must understand that that problem will exist – and may never go away.

As it might be? (AIMB)
Having a ClearView of ‘as it might be’ is very scary. Growing up, I had many girls tell me all sorts of stories where they slept around on their b/f, disrespected the b/f, and used the b/f for monetary/status gains. This world is nasty. So having a ClearView is understanding that you are ready to accept ‘what it might be’; I’m not saying to condone AIMB, but to be strong and confident that you are at peace with yourself. That you have tried to be honest, respectful, loving, and real. And having such a ClearView, I think, would subdue paranoia to a manageable extent so that you won’t be snooping around, spying, and things of that nature.

Do I have this ClearView?

I think I do, and at times my vision is clouded, but for my sanity sake, I subscribe to the notion that being at peace at yourself of what it is, what it could be, and what it might be is a viable path to constant sanity. I have definitely been tested though, as most relationships have. One time Melissa acted irresponsibly around one of my close friends; to make a long story short (because that is a blog in itself), when I heard of the irresponsible behavior from my friend, I was emotionally agitated. Upon confrontation, Melissa told me that wasn’t the case, even though both parties had similar stories (regarding chain of events), but the motivation for Melissa behaving as she did was different than he thought.  

Regardless, my ClearView was developed during that difficult time – as I wasn’t going to let my paranoia consume me; because I can control and influence ‘as it is’ & ‘as it could be’, but ‘as it might be’ is out of MY hands … and that is a succinct ClearView.

Ya Digg? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

 

 

.:: d.b
Love

-, +, *, but never /

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-, +, *, but never /
Virtues: poetic, feelings, compromising, love, affection

Math is not one of my favourite subjects, but I’ll learn it for you;

I’ve subtracted many of the girls in my life because they would just be trouble – and try to reduce our love from multiplying;

I’ve taking away some lessons from them and added it to our equation;

As I learned that being too impersonal isn’t adding as much objectification as much as it multiplies the distance between you & I;

So I learned to be more direct and crass, even though you say it subtracts from my being ‘sensitive’, but I say it adds to the facts that you know where my true feelings is, are;

I also learned to be more understanding – as women are from Venus and men are from Mars, and fighting over our differences doesn’t add to any productivity, but takes away from relationship efficiency – so trying to understand YOU subtracts any tension and any incrementing space between you and me;

So I try to be understanding and compromising if it multiplies your happiness, but as long as it doesn’t subtract any of the pillars, rocks, and foundations that I stand with (read pussification pt. 0);

I’ve learned a lot about myself and I add my best qualities, I try to take away my imperfections, as I learn to multiply what makes you happy so that our love will never divide.

~ fini

.:: d.b

Family, Love, Social

Black Like Me

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Black Like Me
Virtues: race, distinction, etiology

Black like me, like who? Whether your background is Caribbean, American, or African, if you are black you share traits – people look at you with common expectations. However, amongst black people, we like to distinguish ourselves from each other, even though we essentially come from the same place – Africa. My background is Caribbean, but now I reside in North America (Toronto to be specific), and I once talked to this African woman; I thought that it would be just as usual if I was talking to a Jamaican or Trini, but I soon realized that I felt that our cultures were so different; I almost thought that I was dating a white girl. I was learning about different foods, traditions, heritage, attitudes that I thought that I should know (because we share the same race), but I was grossly mistaken.

Historical Sense
In North America, you generally have two classes of black people: domesticated/westernized blacks & Africans. The former group comes from a diverse background; they have either migrated from the Caribbean islands and/or are the offspring of slavery. From the shores of Halifax Nova Scotia which was Canada’s first black population settlement, to the deep south of Mississippi, there is similarity of a shared struggle throughout history that exists even to this day; their heritage only spans from somewhere in the 1800’s – anytime before that, and the details of their heritage gets sketchy, fuzzy, like channel ‘01’. Similarly, the Caribbean people that have migrated to Canada & the U.S. for better prosperity share a similar heritage-like progression as they too have lost details about their history from around the 1800’s and even early 1900’s. This is significant to the domesticated/westernized blacks because they have a loss of culture; a loss of roots.

I know the enlightened person is like, ‘you shouldn’t group Caribbean’s with domesticated westernized blacks because their culture is different’, such a person would be right; but they share the same etiology – the etiology they share is different from African blacks.

Noticeable Differences
It is the etiology that essentially creates the distinction and divide that exists amongst blacks – so much so that both groups are prejudice to each other. And with all types of prejudice behavior – it is a result of a lack of knowledge and respect for others. Meaning, that the Westernized blacks may know about the history of Africa (i.e. slavery), but currently, the Westernized blacks do not know much about the current state of their brethren across the Atlantic. According to the media, Africa is still full of savages, AIDS, poverty, and tribes.

In my experiences, both groups have an inherent bias towards themselves. The domesticated/westernized blacks believe that they are better than the Africans because they have been in the West longer, understand the western culture & ideals better, and have better language skills. Whereas, the Africans believe that they are better than the domesticated/westernized blacks because they believe that they have more heritage, know their roots, and are more ‘black’ (pure) than their brethren. So basically, this correlates into a subdued (or at times overt) attitude that people develop of ‘frowning’ and/or ‘looking down’ on others. Which really shouldn’t be the case, because in the end, while we battle ‘looking down’ at each other, the ‘man’ is looking down at us – laughing, exploiting as usual.

Think about that!

.:: d.b

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Life in B Major

Relationships

Violators

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Violators
Virtues: objectification, respect, ‘mack status’, inequality

First off, you must admit that the picture above is hot.

And to get in to this piece, I know you all have seen it before: you’re in the club with the music jumping, alcohol bubbling, and ladies bumping to the vibes. What I find interesting are the violators – those that take free liberty in gratifying themselves by molesting others. I never could muster the courage/efforts to run my hands all-over a woman while I dance with her. Even if I know her very well, or if we had a personal relationship in the past, I can’t ‘disrespect’ a woman like that in-front of others. So when I see this happening in the club, its kinda disgusting — even if the woman is fine.

So progressing, I experienced a strange event one day in class; I was chilling beside two of my female classmates that I was cool with. I was in the middle of the two, and I noticed that they were mouth-whispering to each other about something; probably about me – but I didn’t really care too much even though they had mischievous & devious looks. Then out of nowhere, I felt a soft hand quickly caress my man chest – I looked to the girl on my right as she giggled. And as my attention was preoccupied, the girl on my left carried out the same action as her accomplice. So I turned my attention to the opposite side & she also giggled too. Not like this was in an isolated room, at least 50 of us were in a lecture hall as this happened. I asked ‘what are you doing? She replied ‘just checking out the merchandise‘, I was taken aback. On the one side I felt like a mack as I had two moderately hot girls groping me, also, I felt like a piece of meat; a random object that these girls felt that they could just violate & objectify – that is a horrid thought, but on the flipside if I wanted to reciprocate the gesture it wouldn’t be acceptable – I would probably be charged &/or accused of something.

I guess that’s equality for you – different codes of conduct are ‘suitable’, depending on the environment.

So ladies, if you go to the local night club, expect to be violated.
And fellas, if ladies are violating you OUTSIDE of a club setting, hey, take solace in the fact that you ‘got it’ & the ladies can’t control their behavior in your presence … that’s what I did.

.:: d.b

http://desieb.blogspot.com
Life in B Major

Love

Venus and its attempt to engulf Mars

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Stop saying ‘mines’ and start saying ‘ours’
Virtues: Venus vs. Mars, relationships, comprimise

This is actually a line from a Lil’ Kim song back in the day. The line surfaced in my head after a discussion with my girlfriend when she said, you need to stop thinking “I”, and start thinking “WE”. I had to stop & think about this for a sec as maybe she was inferencing that I am selfish, self-centered, and other ‘self’ absorbed attributes (of course she is wrong about that).
But on a larger scale, I think that when women say such things like ‘think WE’ it is more so a code for ‘think like me’, assimilate to my ideology.

Mars & Venus
It is true that men are from Mars & women are from Venus, and when the two planets meet, the goal of Venus is to engulf Mars, change its gravitational force, modify its outer appearance, and change its atmospheric behavior. More times than not, Mars is content with Venus & all of her many flaws, but Mars rarely tries to change them to assimilate to Mars’ world; Mars has a better ability to understand that our differences make us unique & tolerance is easier than cohesion.
But enough of inter-planetary dynamics, women are very meticulous & calculated creatures. ‘We’ & ‘ours’ is the logical progression for any relationship as feelings of love & affection grows, BUT be cautious just as an amber light. Because ‘WE’ should not have to mean the end of YOU, and your mind, body, & soul.

Be careful of those bodysnatchers …

— d.b
http://www.vacantlot.org/

Logic, Love

Procrastinating Nature & inaction

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Procrastinating Nature & Inaction
An account of reciprocal effects (questionnable) for inaction

 

 

Many times I have heard that procrastination is the ‘thief of time’, but more so I was thought that too procrastinate was to waste an opportunity. However, there is one incident that happened which I learned that procrastination, which is ‘inaction’ can cause an undesired ‘action. 

I had a good girl friend named Samantha, we had just recently met through an acquaintance, and we vibed well with each other, cracked jokes, chilled, you know how it starts. However, I was attached to someone else, but that relationship was on the rocks, and was on & off as she had ‘issues’, again, you know how ‘that’ is. Anyhow, Samantha was also seeing someone else, but she told me about him and she had concerns about him. For example, she was much older than her, and felt that his intentions were suspicious. So thus, it was kind a like, she was talking to me about her problems, I was talking to her about my problems – a sort of double counselling interaction.

Moving forward to a warm August evening where my so-called girlfriend had run-off to Jamaica with her ex (whole another blog, would probably be a series) and as I was coming home, I got a call from Samantha. She was calling me from her guy’s place (mentioned above, let’s call him ‘Bob’). I was kinda thrown-aback as to why she was calling me; Bob was in the vicinity of her, she sounded very distant and peculiar. I was kinda jealous in a sense that she was calling me from his place, because I had grown feelings for Samantha, but I never could muster the words to tell her how I feel; regardless if she would have accepted or rejected it, the days leading up to that, I wanted to tell her that I grown an affinity to her. Thus, this phone call could have been the prime opportunity to do such a task – especially when it felt that she was calling not to say ‘I’m with Bob’, but calling for me to convince her about something. You ever get that feeling? When someone calls you, expecting you to say something, hoping that you will say something?

It got to the point that she was purposely dragging on the conversation, after a considerable amount of time, I ended the conversation, but she quickly told me, numerious times to call her back in like 1 hour. I told her that I would. However, I didn’t, I don’t recall if it was deliberate or I just plain forgot.

I come to find out that Samantha called me after Bob made some advances that she wasn’t ‘totally’ comfortable with; I’ll use the word ‘totally’ as she was borderline engaged with Bob’s pressing behavior. When she called moi, it was her trying to convince herself to leave – thus, she wanted me to say something to make her leave. Maybe if I had said what was truly on my mind, that would have given her the strength & rationale to leave Bob’s place, but she didn’t leave, and further she did not receive my phone call that I had promised – which may have intervened in an inevitable event because ultimately, Bob sexually assaulted her.

Now, I know that I am not responsible for this; so this piece is not a guilt trip or I am not placing blame on myself for the horrific act. However, I will say that my inaction may have caused Samantha not to follow her intuitions, I think that I could have said something that would have made her do something – would have made her not to endure such a life-altering event.

I know it is very speculative in nature, and from time to time it bothers me, but I have learned that procrastination/inaction is truly an action – thus, it does have reciprocal effects.

Think about it, the next time you want to say something, but you stop yourself.

Peace,
D.B

 

Love

Yes, I’m wrong, but i’m justified, wtf?

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Yes I’m WRONG, but I’m justified
Virtues: meism, biased, playground mentality

 

I’m sure that you have heard it all before; it something that we used to do habitually as a kid. You know, “I took Tommy’s toy because he was mean to me“, and so on. We did it then because there was a sense of justification – somebody did me wrong, so it must only be natural to return the favor, right? Well, our teachers and parents sharply criticized for such behavior, I know I’ve heard it before “Two wrongs don’t make a right”, “you should know better than that”, “don’t stoop to their level”, and so on. But as we grow and evolve into the person we are destined to be, naturally it would be wise to think that we abandon such behavior, but I think it only gets worse and complex – complex in the sense that we will justify our ‘wrongs’ based on the situation, and will try to justify our ‘wrong’ actions as a measured response to something completely unrelated.

 

 

For example, my good friend borrowed my classic Nintendo system a couple of years ago and never gave it back, and claims that his nephew has it – which I know is false. My measured response to this is that sometimes he will ask for a ride to go somewhere, I will agree, but I will show up late on purpose … I don’t know why I do this, but I get some sort of satisfaction out of it, even though I know it is wrong. Or, I’m sure that we have all done this at some point, a boss has pissed us off, thus we take solace in taking office supplies or other company items – of course, I have never done this ….. shame on y’all that have!

 

 

Its all good when you are the culprit or the person being ‘wrong’, but when someone is ‘wronging’ (is that a word?) you, and when they get caught red-handed, it is interesting how deflections start coming up like a blocked shot. For instance, my girl was very rude and feisty in a telephone exchange, when confronted later on about the situation, she knew that she was wrong, but attempted to justify her actions as a response to how I was rude to her, in the past though. I laughed, chuckled, and realized that our playground mentality will always be with us, its really a part of who we are – the only thing that will change, if anything, is that we will find more eloquent ways to justify our behaviors, and provide more psychological/social context to a simple principle:

 

“Nah nah boo boo, I’m going to get you!”
(to get the pronunciation, say it like you would have said it when you were 7), lol.

 

 

Peace,
check out http://qod.vacantlot.org/ – get your daily dose of hip-hop wisdom & now a Facebook app

 

Love

Lingering Effect

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Image from: http://www.neoabstracts.com/

Lingering Effect

Virtues: closure, disclosure, stay ‘true’, instinct, intuition, relationships

 

Overview, this piece deals with the concept of closure in relationships, don’t know what closure is? Wiki it. 



The lingering effect, in my opinion, occurs well after closure – which begs the question if closure CAN and IS ever really achieved. The lingering effect is more of an after-thought which asks the question: what could of been done different? Almost like reminiscing of what one could of done to produce a better situation. You don’t think about it constantly – for if you did, you would have closure issues, but every once in awhile a stimulus (song, conversation, etc.) will send you aboard a cruise ship back in time for a bit. An impression has definitely been made; and this impression has definitely sculpted who YOU are. But is it wise to try to make lingering effects a more meaningful effect? Meaning, trying to get in contact with someone, or trying to get back to that emotion that the lingering effect brings?

Sometimes I battle with these thoughts – i’m sure i’m not the only one. But dealing with lingering effects means going back to a past that you may have already outgrown – or that she has outgrown. Maybe she has moved on, got married, is living the good life, nice career, or, she is an abusive situation, gets treated badly — and desperately needs someone to ‘bail’ her out. Not financially, physically, or sexually (maybe sexually), but mentally. You see, not confronting or dealing with the lingering effects may indirectly lead her to continue dealing with that destructive boyfriend who pushes, or deal with that dude because of his money — all for security reasons I guess, we all need it. However, an intervention or confronting the lingering effect by even reaching out via phone/txt/email may do some good, may reconnect the tracks, may power the lines of your past communications.

Or it could not.

But they say inaction is worse than no action, but sometimes its better to remember a point in time that was genuine & real, and make that chick relish that moment that she missed out on – while she is with her pusha, do you feel me?

Funny how this relates all back to the concept of ‘closure’, do we ever have any?

I probably don’t!

Let me know what y’all think.

.:: Peace ::.
http://www.vacantlot.org/

Love

The Wrong Valentine

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I’ve had messed up Valentine’s Day’s in the past, most notably getting dumped (however, she came back several weeks later ), but this year may have been my worse; not because of what happened to me, but because of what I may have caused, indirectly.

The night before the Valentine’s, I called up my ex-girl and told her that I would take her out out on Valentine’s Day; she did not have any boyfriend so I thought everything was cool. However, she was acting all stupid, saying ‘maybe’, giving me the runaround. So I say cool, and I keep it moving.

Valentine Day rolls around, and in the morning, my friend Joanne calls me up to tell me she got a link at a fancy restaurant and invited me to come – naturally, I agree. Couple hours pass, and the ex calls up and wants to know when I am coming by to pick her up …. , I’m like, you punked me last night, so I found alternate plans. She did not believe me at first, but when it finally sunk in, she began to get really mad. But I told her that you had your chance, you were being foolish, so I moved on. Conversation ended, I didnt really think anything of it.

Anyways, I go on the date to the classy restaurant with Joanne (oh yeah, who is the ‘Limited Dosage‘, check for the blog I wrote on ‘Limited Dosage’), and then the ex starts calling, texting, trying to interrupt my night. I ignore it. Realistically, I would have preferred to be with the ex, because I can really, really, really only handle Joanne in Limited Dosages. The following day rolls around, and I call the ex to see how she is, and I never really thought I had a strong affect on her anymore, but she was extremely hurt and saddened by my actions; she truly expected me to break off my plans for her, which I could of very easily, but chose not to. The ex was very irate and mad, and I began to understand that she had deeper feelings for me than she lead on.

However, if she wasn’t ‘playing around’ and acting foolish (which she claims that I should have known that she was acting that way) then things would have transpired differently. I kinda wish they had transpired differently because even though I was eating like a King, dining on savory food, and enjoying a rich ambient atmosphere … I wasn’t with my TRUE Valentine.

A Lesson Learned.

Peace.

Love, Relationships

Limited Dosage

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LIMITED DOSAGE
Tolerating the intolerable, but you still like her …

 

 

Ever encountered this ….

 

I have this lady friend; an attraction exists between both of us. Known each other for several months now, went out a couple of times, talk on the phone regularly (at times). Now, everything is cool about her, except that at times I can’t stand her; not in the aspect that we argue and/or bicker towards each other, but its just that at times her behavior and interests seem to be so distant from mines. Talking only about the latest fashions, desiring to only role in the flyest cars, aspiring to hang around celebrities, seem to be the depth of her intelligence at times (coincidentally, especially in public). And on a one-on-one, its like a completely different chick emerges; one who is knowledgeable, educated, introspective.

So I guess the problem exists in a public setting – once that is removed, I guess I should have no issues right? However, she always wants to go out here and there; especially because she inhabits the urban downtown core where she is accessible to everything. And I at times, like to go out and would like a fly chick by my side.

To move closer, would mean spending more time with her doing the things that ‘couples do’, but I don’t think I can tolerate her in a high dosage (talking everyday, seeing each other frequently, etc.). And I feel that she wants to move closer, however, I can only stomach her in limited dosages; dosages that satisfy my needs …

 

Is this wrong?

Relationships

Collateral Hating

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A thought in the arts of Hating ….

Now, hating is nothing new – its a part of daily life, as people say and/or do certain things to try to undermine and/or impede your progress; growing up in a major city, i’ve grown to accept that.

When the hate is directed to me, I can handle it – dish it back, package it properly right back to the sender. However, this new ‘hate by association’ thing is perplexing.

An ex-girl of a colleague of mines is deciding (against better judgment) to spread hate on him, and myself to people that are in our circle. Now, go ahead girl, do your thing and hate on your ex-man that may have done a, b, and c, to you (or, what you perceive), but don’t include me; that is wreckless hating (new word) and can have some adverse consequences – kind of like pain medication.

I’m sure ‘Collateral Hating’ is a common occurrence, but what it should do the victims involved (i.e. being ME) is that it should propel the energy in one’s self to over-achieve above the hater’s limited expectations of you. Yes, I could get mad, angry, and spew about it, but i’d rather manifest that energy into trying to triumphant the feat that the hater thinks I can’t do.

Also, it is comforting to know that most haters are not a ‘stand-up’ species; rather in the face of adversity or confrontation they swelter … saying “Nah, I didn’t say that, she said that”, hmmm, that reminds of some type of species … on all fours though …

Peace Haters

—
Lemme know what y’all think … peace.