This is kind of long...
I think people here might be interested in Elizabeth Cady Stanton's article "The Solitude of Self"
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/dubois/classes/995/98F/doc43.htmlMy opinion is that gender differences are mostly constructed through what society nurtured into our minds. I really think that the human experience is a common one and that men and women really do deal with most of the same problems.
I didn't really feel that lonely until this semester. As a college student at UMBC, which is one of the most peaceful campuses around here, I find that there is a certain peace in loneliness, kind of like living in a temple as a monk. On that note, becoming a Shaolin monk is one of my zany dreams. As a guy, I have my own share of problems. Two of which have been lust and violence. I don't consider myself violent, but I'll admit that I've had bad thoughts before about the boyfriend of a girl who I thought was the one. Thank god, I never had a clear mental memory of the face of her boyfriend though, because if that were the case, I would be harassed by bad thoughts day in and day night. As far as my view on ether, my theory is that it is much of the same concept as the Buddhist concept of Tathata or "suchness".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tath%C4%81t%C4%81/Dharmat%C4%81To quote the wikipedia article: "In Zen stories, Tathata is often best revealed in the seemingly mundane or meaningless, such as noticing the way the wind blows through a field of grass, or watching someone's face light up as they smile."
The Buddhist Monk who wrote "Living Buddha, Living Christ" said that "suchness" or "thusness" is (roughly, I don't remember the exact words) like that intangible substance out of which the true nature of things or ultimate reality is grounded. It's a very ethereal concept, but I also think that "ether" is akin to the Chinese chi concept, with chi being life energy. I've personally practiced chi meditation before, and it got me into a lot of trouble once because once I did go crazy. I went to this acupuncturist for help, because I was afraid I might relapse into insanity due to emotional issues which started from being crazily obsessed with so many crushes on so many girls in both fiction and reality. So, I went to an acupuncturist for help, and she taught me a new chi meditation technique, where one imagines that one's favorite color light is circulating one's body in a particular way. I remember that summer when I went crazy, I was crazily obsessed with Utada Hikaru's (Hikki). At the time, I thought me and Hikki were soul-mates, and the whole feeling of erotic elation Yuichi got out of doing sensual activities while listening to Lily's music really related to me since I was like "wow! I was there before, but with a different singer". I dunno, obsession over girl fantasy has been one of the things that drove me crazy. Like that quote in AALCC movie about how "The ether is "The Matrix"". I can definitely relate, because in the summer I became crazy, I thought that I was in the movie "The Matrix", and then I started thinking that I was living in a Digimon fantasy, and that Hikki was in the fantasy with me as the fictional character Kairi. That weird noise that Yuichi hears, I can relate to too. Because I very often times here this ringing in my head (it might be Tinnitus), and when I get lonely, versus of music from a random song(s) race through my mind nonstop. I believe that colors color my mood, colors my emotion, so does the music I'm listening to (which do not need headphones or actual sound to play). But more often than not, I still feel like I'm living in a movie, sometimes movie after movie. And which movie or story my mind tunes into has a HUGE impact on how I'm feeling. Tuning into a depressing movie with my mind can make me feel almost like ending my life, and tuning into a happy one can make me elated towards the skies above. My mind is practically never silent, and my friends and I make movies and short films together. One was (my initial idea) about a guy crazy over the picture of a girl, and the movie had this surreal concept of this guy living in movie after movie, constantly switching between fantasy and reality and sleepwalking. When he sleepwalks, he would constantly end up at the same spot on the UMBC campus, there would be a a close-up of his eyes, the screen would cut to white static, and he would be back in the same study lounge room again in my dormitory, asleep, then the sound of the static on the screen would wake him back to reality again. I dunno, I sleepwalk, and part of this story is about me, 'cause I've also been known to type in my sleep. My friends have called me a narcoleptic, and I fall asleep in random places. Chi meditation can be dangerous though, it spurs on the "Manic Depressive" and the totally crazy in me. Right now, I'm only partially crazy, but still imperfectly sane. Yet, I'm happy about that. I could definitely relate with the movie, blue is "Breathe, red is "Erotic". Heck, I assign my crushes to different colored chi energies. Some of the more liberal and free-thinking ones I assign to red, the more conservative and goodie two-shoes ones I assign to blue. Some are in between I assign them to orange. I once had a absolutely crazy fan-boy crush on Hikki, and I'm just SO girl crazy... It's like what Ron Weasley said in Harry Potter, "All these girls, they're killing me, Harry"... lol I also love to analyze song lyrics, and relate them back to my life and the human experience, 'cause I believe everything is connected and inter-related, and that there is really no separate self or existence (which is a Buddhist concept). I also believe that I am living in a movie, and God was the director. God formed a concept of this movie and man are actors in his movie that has no beginning and no end, but instead extends into the infinite in both present and the future. That's just my opinion. And I believe that the God and devil are both part of reality, it just makes sense to me to not drop into the dark side too much, else I'll go completely crazy again, and never pull out of my eternal night, and give my parents another fright to sight my mania in eternal night. It could be day outside, but my mind is at night, it could be night outside, yet my mind still has sight, that there is light in the world on the other side, and my mind has no place to hide, but in the deep recesses of my mind, that does little more than kind, to my conscience that subdues my mind, or my sub-conscience locked up in the basement, of my mind that flits through time, those imaginations that make up my temperamental mind, flitting through time of my own memories, imagining the scenes of other people's memories, sometimes these images can border on obscene, but I don't want to cause a scene, before I exit UMBC, my university, my Alma Mater, that makes nothing else seem to matter, but to realize that I am at this wonderful school, and nothing else seems to matter. What will I do after I exit this college i don't know, but to be happy in the present moment, is all I pretend to know. Make believe as you will what my true personality is, even I don't really know, but let God direct so I'll be more in the know. Yet, sometimes... Ignorance is bliss... Quote from the matrix that you cannot miss, else you'd be in remiss, negligent of the joys of life in poetry and art, which most people miss.
