opportunity cost

we have the austrian school to thank for the seemingly irrefutable reductiveness of the alternative cost theory. at least marshall and his ilk pointed out that the opportunity cost argument works only if resources are fixed, ceterus paribus, so to speak. (see opportunity cost doctrine)

what this means for our dilemma of choice is circularity and oversimplification, for our own sanity or selfishness. we make and fix our own choices as black and white, cost and worth, so that we can conveniently avoid thinking about the possibilities we cannot easily account for, or the other responsibilities we might otherwise have to take.

in other words, when we simplify into pragmatics, we don't have to feel bad justifying our clearly 'sensible' choices. sensible to us and to all others who buy into the alienating postmodern outlook.

unable to choose

one: who decided that cost and worth was the best way to make choices? and by that we mean with respect to self-interest. as opposed to morality, or greater good, or some other ideal (oscaraustin suggests responsibility). no one advocates making an ethical pros and cons list, ever.

two: some have argued that choice disempowers, not simply because of the paradox of having many options, or the flux of changing circumstances, but that the existence of various valid options diminishes the soundness of each individual one. compellingly and truly, the grass is always validly greener. how does one handle asking whether one can ever afford to forego the roads not taken?

cost and choice

the problem with seeing every possibility as choice is that it all boils down to cost and worth. if one chooses to quit one's job, one foregoes x thousand a month, but gains peace of self or sanity of mind; if one gives up a relationship for another, it becomes almost a compare/contrast list to weigh and measure.

firstly, it's all reductive (i suspect somewhere in our life management approach this theory seems to have insidiously snuck in as sensible decision-making strategy, being able to weigh the pros and cons).

secondly, it seems to empower the self in availing the choice, makes one feel in control of the situation if one can lay out both sides of the issue.

there's a catch. still more on this.

choice

one's belief in the opportunity to choose seems fundamental, even if one is unlikely to ever choose such an option due to constraints of whatever sort. choosing a shampoo, a car, a job, a partner, to break a promise, to break a heart, to be happy, to poke one's eyes out - apparently for some the belief that these are all available options seems to give assurance that they are in control of their own situation.

even if the reality of their choice is patently untrue.

more on this.

mainstream lifestyles

apart from alternative lifestyles, even mainstream choices suffer from self-centred or worse, self-righteous positioning: older singles amongst married friends or vice versa, the lone committer in a world of happy swinging singles; dinkies pooh-poohing the tied-down pace of new mums and dads versus the childless couple at kiddie birthday parties, and other polarities.

again what i object to is the, and i repeat, self-righteous, prejudice, the need to either tyrannise a majority position as rightful status quo, or defend a minority position as non-conformist independence.

it's all perspective and timing.

la la land

it seems to be that alternative lifestyle people, perhaps by virtue of the fact that they have chosen the alternative, behave in life and love as if all common rules of sensibility, thought, decency and rationality does not apply to them. with hazardous consequences for those they come in contact with.

while i appreciate the beauty of anarchy, alienation and alternative, such behaviour smacks of mere selfishness in a different guise.

oscaraustin will know what i mean.

term end?

apparently it's the last day of term. with the inundation it doesn't feel like it. an average of thirty to forty messages a day from people waiting to see me, including their assortment of scripts, two hundred unvetted testimonials, at least three more whole days of seminars, an organisation-wide appraisal to write, and a brand new subject to prep for next year, not yet started.

(retail therapy is spending obscene amounts of money on games)

stalker

they used to be prettier, or at least more kawaii. not that it's expected, but teenage hormones need fixations of whatever sort, random targeting and laws of probability dictate my unfortunate involvement.

this one turns up at my bus stop some mornings. why can't they stick to leaving cutesy notes like they used to? but i suppose that's so done.

what really bothers me is the presumption of familiarity.

jump

man died. standard issue mall perspex parapet - so not an accidental fall. four storeys. tiles. a loud whomp.

i believe it was the barricaded congealed dark red remnant an hour later that got to me.

and other hate

left out women from the list.

top guy from top ad agency resigned for calling all women underlings crap. apparently the shock was due to his refreshing brutal honesty.

repressed or otherwise, everybody hates?

flaming

race is out, seditiously. religion too i suppose. and politics. and strangely, teachers. aircrew too apparently, thanks to flightplan. by the same token any profession. thin skins, all.

only fat, stupid and ugly people left to hate. and this is less slanderous, less personal how?

bestman

for some reason i've been landed with the task (not that i really know the man - more like a return favour) and queen jue's been laughing at my current dread from the foreboding. can't bring myself to accoutre and perform the entire circus, especially since i'd hardly do it for myself.

l'enfer, cest les autres.

voluntary celibacy

cluelessly then, i wonder what choosing a celibate life entails. does one suppress one's desires constantly, such struggling representative of one's moral strength? or perhaps the feelings go away, like when one fasts from food or some activity, the lack of which reinforces further estrangement from said activity? or perhaps one begins without these compulsions at all, emotionally spayed from the start?

or does one develop a fetish for young boys in white frocks?

involuntary celibacy

admittedly a selfish chauvinist, i remember a rationalised bout of self-pity during a half year's lack some years back of what is arguably mankind's most essential social activity, feeling deprived of an entitlement rightfully earned through and immediately embraced on advent of statutory legality - too old not to be getting any, so to speak.

celibacy

because the appropriate finger didn't display a relevant relationship accountrement, and because my marital status is often ambiguous, a pious colleague asked if i had the gift of celibacy - a term well understood by the right circles as fulfilling a higher calling.

i can't think of a gift i'm less likely to have from the bounteous list in the holy book.

personality testing 2

banal truth-seeking of the lowest denominator, when all we want is a reduction to cliche and type, in order to give us a context to communicate and to relate, in neat polarities and congruences. the same is true of star signs, body types, humours. we am, therefore i am.

personality testing

we like personality tests. self-affirmation by ritualising our most familiar choices in a mechanism designed to re-state our identity, or more accurately, what we'd like our identity to be. That's why everyone always affirms the veracity of the results after being plesantly surprised by them. Why shouldn't we affirm? Why surprise? It's a closed system of questions, answers and feedback. A foregone conclusion.

personality

just got an interpretive report from the Institute for Personality and Ability Testing - part of employee analysis fully paid for and subscribed to by the company.

my highest, most extreme scores should be cause for their concern: 10 (of 1-10) for self-reliant (as opposed to group-oriented), and 2 for rule-conscious (as opposed to expedient). exactly what they want - the only maverick in their demographic.

yet another cliche to have fallen into, even when different.

the grind

back to the grind today. never gets easier. not after 10 years, not after 30. this must disprove the theory that all human beings need some sort of work to give meaning and purpose to life. at least for me anyway.

a hard personal question, that.

commentary

ironic that in terms of volume and output i've had more words about other people's words than my own (privileges of the profession). no art there, just commentary, but my god, that's a hell of a lot of commentary. worth?

navel gazing

so, without controvesy, prurience, social commentary, or contribution to the web body politic, are blog words not worth the webspace they occupy, lint pickings in other words? can we at least pretend that the only real opinions are good ones, and the rest just so much fluff?

frequency

cokeguzzler has accused oscaraustin and myself for being two of the least consistent bloggers bar none.

guilty as charged. a multitude of thoughts to opine, but insufficient impetus to actually sustain expression. i suppose talk is still more immediate. but just in case this is mistaken for reticience, or worse, incapacity of response, here's something that was sparked off about a week back. Or at least half of it.

(0035 23072005) I’ve always thought what makes a writer who he is isn’t about having things to say, but having the words to say them. Of course as soon as I thought that, I immediately decided it was a terrible cliché, but then again, it is this very moment that I’m having trouble saying the exact thing I want to say, and therefore it is easy to conclude the questionability of my writing prowess (something I fancied myself able to do).

You see, I’m a little taken aback by the accelerative spawning and geometrically expansive verbosity of the blogs I see. I mean, like wow, I couldn’t write that much about the thoughts and feelings I have, even if I tried. Well, at least not anymore. Having used to keep a diary, copiously, and recording all the things that happened each day, was only sometimes a chore, and other times, I suppose, an outlet, a voice or a rant, or any combination of the aforesaid. Is it possible then, to have said or written all I wanted to already? Do we run out of words?

Or worse, do we run out of those feelings that engender or inspirit those words somewhere along the way? Because sometimes I wonder if I used to write better, or at least more successfully, in the past, having written so much, even if it were so much drivel, and at other times I wonder if I might write better in the future, because if I keep trying and working at it, it’s bound to improve. In any case, it is always the present which presents a problem in writing. I can’t write now. Whatever it is I want to write.

The reason this question came up is because at this very moment, I am indeed having some inexpressible fullness I am dying to put to word or fact, trying to give anchor or ballast to current sentiment, because it seems that all I can do is sit here and think reminiscently, attempting to locate this gut response in something I have experienced before, trying to specify this train in words I have at my disposal, and not succeeding very well, both in terms of centering, and expression.

And the thing is, it’s always about women. Love, lust, tenderness, longing, wanting to be half of a whole, wanting to be more than a half of a whole, seeking completion. That’s as much as I can describe it. And already it feels inaccurate.

length

and not just consistency, but length as well. copious and verbose.

quantity is taken to be stridency, magnification, substance, and passion of voice. fundamental flaw of all who first put thoughts into words - the need to articulate, explain, reason, justify, defend, prove.

the habit 2

still wondering how it was possible to keep a faithful diary then. better able to maintain consistency of habit? more pressing a need to espouse and verbalise? less time of space or worse, space of mind to spare now?

i had hoped to be regular about this. might have to rely on either momentum or stubborn pride just to keep at it.

i take comfort that oscaraustin isn't doing that much better either.

the habit

toying with the idea of sustaining a daily blog entry.

the diary used to be unfailing, desired, necessary - whether narcissistic, meditative or rigorous. anal persistence. a psychoanalytic attempt to impose a sense of structure or bring to closure a day's events. such questionable motivation surely.

am completely convinced that i don't have such current perseverance.

diary

used to keep a diary once, for the longest time. significantly during the stretches when i had no permanent committments. more of those years than those with. so, volumes.

it had all the basics - an event chronicle, annotated with authorial intrusion, usually feelings. some wallowing. some soul-searching. took up at least half an hour a day. do the maths.

that's a lot of life spent writing it all down.

starting up

i've succumbed. so here we go...