The last unicorn

I like fish tanks. I like staring at them and just thinking of nothing - watching how the fish smoothly move back and forth and up and down and back and forth again. There is such a randomness and yet such a smoothness in what they do over there. Plus, what I like the most is their lack of emotions. Or I don't know, maybe they do have some emotions, but I've never seen a fish expressing anything else but... its own fishiness (is there such a word, I wonder).

I am away from home again. New city and new people - I love change but I get so easily bored. Still, I'm not going to complain about the city (yet) since I haven't explored too much of it. So far, it seems pretty decent, particularly thanks to the vast green spaces it exhibits. Other than this... Lithuanian is not a language I am planning to learn (although it might be a good investment, since there are like 3million speakers in the entire world) so I'm staying as a tourist - partly in and partly out, always able to block the surrounding world through the simple act of not listening.

What's been on my mind lately is my own emotional desert. No, I don't want to say that I am not loved or that I don't feel warmth around and stuff like this. But what horrified me lately is my utter inability to miss. I don't miss home, I don't miss the people from there. I don't miss my dogs or anything or anybody. I know they are there and they are fine and I'm happy about it. But I don't miss them.

Out of sight, out of mind seems to be the guiding principle of my emotions. As paradoxical as it might sound, it doesn't mean that I stop loving what is far away. But I simply can't live my today sunk into missing. Somehow, my universe is fractured into the 'here and now' and the rest. I don't think I am too lazy to go the extra mile, emotionally speaking, and miss those who are away or far from me... I just think I can't give more than this.

Moreover, I start to feel slightly irritated when somebody tells me "I miss you". OK, I believe you, I know, you said it yesterday as well. Lacking any declared change in the state of the universe, it means you miss me today as well.... and my yesterday's statement that "I miss you" is still valid. Why do we need to get through the same things all over again? I talk to my mother through the messenger - 3 lines every second day or more (in which she says the usual crap, that she is fine and that my grandma is fine) and it's more than enough, as far as I'm concerned. But I am being given the entire ordeal that I am a too cold person and that I should (jeez, I hate this word) show more affection. WHY?

OK, I understand that people have emotional needs. I can fully sympathize with this, rationally speaking. I mean, I have my own emotional needs (pretty straightforward, imo - pay attention to me, ask me how I am and whether I am OK, talk to me about what bothers me and fulfill my sexual needs) but it seems I am not aware of even a small fraction the universe of things called 'emotional needs'. Why is the humankind so emotionally starved that it takes a lot of reassuring to make them understand even the most elementary truths?

Why is it that we pay so much attention to the words and not to the facts? Why do we tend to act like facts are interpretable but words are not, when I believe exactly the opposite? Why do we tend to place an emotional burden on the ones we love, under the name of "emotional obligations" and give them an entire guilt trip through the simple act of loving them?

On the other hand, why do we connect facts with emotions so much? I have to admit, I am myself fascinated with emotions, but I find them appealing as a six-legged four-headed creature - great to look at from behind a safety glass, but pointless to come too close. Looking around and being reproached for too many times that I am ... let's say emotionless (in various ways, from a sad "you are too cold" to a yelled "heartless bitch"), I started to doubt the social basis of my own construction and wonder whether I am or not a 'freak'.

My first thought was to go see a psychiatrist. A friend of mine explained me, in a highly elevated language, that my 'problem' might be rooted in my childhood and that a shrink might help. Absolutely - I mean, a psychologist helped, when I had a mild depression and I managed to understand the underlying mechanism of help.... so why not a shrink. Well, since this would have to wait till I get home, I decided to play on the net and get myself some personality tests. And I was happy to know that there is a name for people like me, according to the MBT (Myers Briggs Test) - they are called INTPs
(http://www.intp.org/intprofile.html and more specifically http://www.personalitypage.com/INTP_rel.html).

I happily put a badge on my blog - I mean, I am not the only one like this. Apparently, there are more 'emotional monsters' in this tiny universe, who appeal to reason and logic and not to emotions and are, in various degrees, 'insensitive'. I am perfectly aware that this will not excuse me in any ways from now on from my 'emotional duties', but at least I am in peace. I'm not the last unicorn....

Il Nome della Rosa

The other day I was trying to choose a bottle of soda from the shelves of the supermarket when an old lady asked me to give her a jar of honey from the upper shelf and to read her the price. Of course it was too expensive for her to buy it before the pension day and of course I couldn't resist her attempt to comfort her crave for sweet honey with some cheap salty black olives, so I bought the honey jar for her. No, I'm not saying this to point out what a generous great creature I am, but for two other reasons.

First, I hesitated a lot. I didn't want to offend her, I didn't want to make her feel that this is pity and that she is somehow disabled. I never thought of how delicate one should be in order to make his charity not to look like an insult. Sometimes we give from the bottom of our heart to the ones we love, but we do not know how to do it. Giving is an art and the one who does not possess it turns giving into humiliation.

Second, I was surprised by what she asked me - she wanted to know my name and she introduced herself to me. Her name is Gabriela and she is 83 years old. No, she didn't ask me for my name to mention me in her prayers - this would be nice but oh, so mushy. But she gave me a memory and she wanted to know my name, to individualize me... If I were to be cynical, I would say that one jar of honey bought me individuality. But I can't be cynical. Quite the opposite, I am sad. This is all I could do, and there is nothing else. One act made me feel like I am giving with all my heart, and this is how compassion should look like. Make this a habit and it's gonna become a pain in the ass, a burden, and all the meanings in a gesture of compassion would be forever lost.

In the end, I am who I am - not God, but Irina. My name defines me just as much as the colour of my eyes; I can always wear lenses, but my eyes are forever green. And my name is Irina, this is who I am... that Irina who writes a blog and bought a honey jar for the 83 yo Gabriela, in one supermarket from Bucharest, Romania, Europe, Earth. In AD 2009...