animals are wonderful

The disillusionment of coming to terms with the true nature of relationships can be one's greatest lament. 

Great minds have tried for centuries to define relationships and what they psychologically represent for the development of the self. Melanie Klein proposed the object relations theory and outlined human infancy in terms of how the ego unravels as it draws associations with the outside world and everything it encounters; hence object relations. 

It is not until when things got a little bit more complicated and more complicated things such as emotions and cognitions started to play a part in how people position themselves. The truth is, no one can truly fathom what their relationships mean because over time relationships fade and strengthen due to a myriad of variables. Each object is subjected to the manipulation of multiple variables thus to account for and understand every object and how they can potentially influence you over time is impossible. 

What is truer and triter than anything is the fact that we are a product of biology and evolution (depending on your beliefs) and that in itself exists in a vacuum. Very little argument can be made about the animalism in every human. In the end, we can only hope to measure ourselves, albeit incompletely, based on instincts. 

Movies

I work with kids. Kids sometimes ask questions that catch you off guard. This is what one of the kids at my work asked me today about my outfit. I gotta say, the conversation really had me thinking about what fashion means to me.

L: "Hey Xu, why is your shirt tucked into your pants?"

X: "Ummm...why is your shirt not tucked into your pants?"

L: " (Laughs) Seriously,  I'm just curious about your style."

X: "Well, it's the vintage look...styles that were popular in the past."

L: "Oh. But why do you want to dress like people in the past?"

X: "I guess it's kind of like commemorating them. Do you know who Coco Channel is?"

L: "I've heard of that name."

X: "She was a fashion designer that kind of revolutionized the way women dress. She sort of popularized pants and suits for women because that's what she liked to wear herself."

L: "So you want to be like Coco Chanel?"

X: "In a way, yeah. I want to be inspired and she inspires me to dress how I want to."

L: "I think I understand now."

Bungle Love

How come I never talk about what I wear. I do, sometimes. The thing is I find it really weird to talk about clothes. Most of the time I really don't know what to say about what I'm wearing beyond the redundancy of describing them in words when the photos do a much better job.

As per usual, I'm going to blog about something else completely separate from fashion and style. I'm going to talk about music and how much I appreciate the fact that I'm somewhat musical. 

Lunch today was curry and Bob Dylan as the background "noise". The thing about folk music is that they are very loud, both in the sheer volume of the instrumentations as well as their content. It was hard to digest curry with Bob's quick-fingers and harmonica bursts interrupting each bite but I didn't care because the music inspires me.  Another thing about music is that it has to inspire me to want to be creative in order for me to fully understand it. I love all types of music but some form more than others because of that ability alone. When the inspiration comes, it comes in waves. You get that lump in your throat (the very same kind you get when you get the uncontrollable urge to scream something very important and/or spiteful) and you just start...writing.

Ombre

I'm sore all over from working out like a mad-woman! 

It's a good feeling because it makes me aware of my body.

The best part about having painful limbs and joints is that it gives you a chance to contemplate about all the micro tears in your muscles and how they are slowly being repaired on a molecular level. This metabolic process is like hitting the "refresh" button on your internet browser. Cellular renewal!

The green in my hair has almost completely faded out. I think I'm going pink after all the colours disappear.

Doublethink

Cognitive dissonance is experienced when a person become aware of his/her own hypocrisy. In most cases, people will either try to justify the behaviour to match the thinking or vise-versa, depending on what the path of least resistance is.

I have no qualms with cognitive dissonance because I often know how to resolve it. Justification takes effort, yes, but it's easy. Just think about it. The last time you did something against your morals, you felt horrible right? How long did that uneasy feeling last? I'm sure whatever guilt or shame you experienced was diminished quickly, either by behavioural compensation or a set of self-affirming thought procedures. Either way, cognitive dissonance didn't plague you for long because in reality we hate the identity of being a hypocrite.

What's scary about cognitive dissonance is that it can potentially develop into doublethink if one does not arrive at an adequate justification for their incongruent beliefs and actions or willingly accepts the hypocrisy for the sake of easiness. If you've read 1984, you're familiar with that term. The very idea of doublethink sparks in me another explanation for contemporary "social malaise" - the breakdown of moral codes and the alienation of people from each other. Doublethink is partially responsible for a wide range of antisocial behaviours observed in individuals as well as conglomerate groups (ie. corporations). It also accounts for the mind-boggling inhumane acts performed by otherwise an average person (bounded by the basic moral codes). It has the potential to infiltrate even the most just individual but it can be made aware to the person and devolve back into cognitive dissonance. This would be ideal, though uncomfortable, but at least you'd still be able to something about it. And that to me is more important than anything else - being able to still do something.