Primeiro artigo no geek cloud!

O google latitude vem deixando muitas pessoas na dúvida e preocupadas com a real utilidade deste serviço. Enquanto a maioria das pessoas com quem falei está horrorizada pelas imensas possibilidades stalker do produto, eu não consigo parar de refletir sobre qual foi a parte que eles não entenderam. Se você ainda não sabe o que é, o conceito é bem simples. Você adiciona pessoas na sua lista de amigos e então através da triangulação das antenas de celular ou do GPS do aparelho você pode ver a localização deles por um um pin com o avatar no google maps. Pro tip: Se você não quer que alguém saiba da sua localização, não adicione esta pessoa na sua lista.

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Para ler o resto do artigo clique aqui: Geek Cloud - Blog de tecnologia e assuntos geek

She loves you yeah, yeah yeah! Oh wait...

Some people say there are different types of love. Friendly, romantic, sexual, etc. Yesterday when having a brief conversation about this with a friend I must say that this isn't true. Love is love. There's just one type of it. It can be more or less intense, but it's still one same thing. Another thing I must agree with is that sexual attraction is NOT love. It's something totally different. whenever you have sexual attraction and love someone at the same time and it's reciprocal, then it's awesome, but it's not strictly necessary. You may as well love a girl with the very bottom of your heart but you aknowledge she doesn't "inspire" you. And extreme opposite may also happen: that extremely hot girl is so annoying and you feel nothing for her but sexual attraction.

In the world we are today, where having friends with benefits is absolutely normal, how would this fit? Normally people would say, but friendship love and romantic love are two different things. You could have that awesome friend you spent the night with once in a while, but it's not the same with your current boyfriend which is way more intense. But here is the thing, it's not. And this is why people often say "You can't be truly friends with a person of the oposite sex (or the same sex if you're gay)". It's absolutely true at one point. You can't do that without loving the other person. If you have deep true friends, you know you love them from the bottom of your heart. But as people confuse love with sexual attraction they use to throw this altogether and imply that simply love is enough to develop a romantic relationship. And it's not. Neither just sexual attraction is. If you try to deny this you'll end up saying the same as stating that bisexual people have intercourse with 100% of their friends. Even if they wanted to, it's absurd to imply that all other factors necessary are present. And yes, there are many and many factors to take into consideration!

So here is the mindfuck of the week: Both reciprocal love and sexual atraction are still not enough to develop a romantic relationship.

This is probably the part where you stop and say "wait, what?".

Ok... Here I go.


Before I start on conditions and surviving the other, let me give one obvious example of why loving and feeling sexual atraction for someone and this one for you doesnt not necessarily mean anything: You might love someone else ~more~. The same for sexual attraction. So this is already motive enough for rejecting the second option. If you are a logic person like I am, you may very well just separate everything and want follow a strong choice rather than a small feeling. Of course sometimes your choice happens to be the same of your feelings.

Apart from the obvious, considering there isn't anyone else, there could also be practical reasons: you live too far from each other, you are in the same company and it's risky for your job and etc.

But still considering that all is fine, there is what I finally call "conditions on surviving the other". And that's where compatibility and social skills come in. First of all, I have to make a comment on the popular saying "opposites attract": Bullshit, biggest bullshit ever! I have an older bro and we don't talk much, but once he gave me this awesome advice that sais "You don't stay with someone for their qualities, but for their flaws". This is so insanely true that you can keep hours thinking on it and if by the end of it you still don't agree then you gotta be the most stupid person ever. When there's that little thing you really hate in someone at first it might not bother you but one day it will pull your feet during the night. If both of you are the type of person that are fine with "Let's agree on disagreeing", then great! Maybe you have a chance to work out and you fall into the % divorce rate lucky roulette and may the force be with you. But if you demand to be right or if you simply are usually right, having someone that thinks quite like you is not only extremely important but strictly necessary. Sometimes you are just intolerant on a specific subject, like religion or politics. So you gotta be compatible on at least these. Sometimes you are intolerant on specific attitudes or personality traits such as being closed minded, not being very higienic, being too negative about everything. So you gotta check if the other certainly does not have the flaws you truly despise. But hey, it's not only about important things, but unimportant too! Disagreements on movies, books, music, places to have fun may seem stupid at first but a company is nothing without the 1st level of workers in the same way a relationship is nothing if you have problems finding common stuff to do together you'll both appreciate. I won't go into more details, but there are dozens of things you must check the compatibility level depending on the importance it has for both of you. Knowing yourself is very important at this moment! And so is the "gettting to know each other" period.

By the way, THIS is biggest reason why some friends of the opposite sex will always be friends. Not for lack of love, not for lack of physical interest. But because you only get along so well when your life together is at a superficial point and if you try to go deeper you find out it doesn't work out. Mainly if you are very close friends you'll know this in advance and will see on beforehand how initiating a romantic relationship together is a mistake.

If you try to ignore these aspects because you love the other, or because you are very good on bed, you have a 100% of not working out. Simple as that. When you have a great incompatibility level you usually try to:

1. Accept things as they are
This is noble but will eventually fail because there will be a point where you will get tired of everything that annoys you and won't be able to handle it anymore.

2. Work on yourself
This is noble but will eventually fail because you'll be frustrated for everything you're missing and sacrificing for the other person. And 100% of the time, any good things you receive in return in a relationship does not compensate being unhappy.

3. Talk to the other one and ask him to work it out
This is egoistic and will lead the other to be unhappy.

4. Talk to the other and work on it together
From any option considering still being together this is the only one that could have a chance to work out, but only if the incompatibility level is not very big and you are absolutely 0% demanding (most people are at some level, even if low). So, considering it is big, most likely you'll talk, talk, talk and never really sort it out. Then you'll get to the point you get tired of discussing your relationship all the time and would like to have some peace.

5. Leave the relationship.
Which most of the times means you would be better off if you never had started it.

For the people that fear being alone, and I include myself in one of them, I feel it's very important to understand this simple logic. And also that being single is not the end of the world. There are millions of better people to know, and if perhaps you haven't wasted your time initiating relationships deemed to fail (even for ingenuity, like I have done before) you'd probably have more time available for meeting different people and raising your chances to find someone you can not only enjoy but feel secure by stablishing a real bond with.


Etiene Dalcol

Fifrilim (dont ask)

I think I'm gonna develop this writing a book idea and just ignore my English issues. As long as I have the ideas and write them, I'm sure people reading can help me correcting problems. So I had this crazy idea I could just write it up here, part by part. And to avoid theft problems I'll just register the whole blog on copyright and email everything I post to back up how I was the one creating it. Now that I have an iPad there might actually be great chances I can enjoy doing this and finish it. Tomorrow I'm gonna pay my parents a visit and pick up some of my old notes. Google Docs, here I go!

And some more

Putting more thought into that, perhaps being isolated forever is not necessary. But one year or two would certainly be great. And perhaps instead of reading books, I could try writing one. Which puts me in a delicate situation. If I write them in portuguese I doubt anyone would read it. And my English is certainly not the best...

Few pillow thoughts

I'm aware that nobody even reads blogs nowadays and that it's been over an year since my last post, so mostly likely I'm writing thins to no one. But I'm having trouble sleeping. I've been having trouble sleeping quite often lately. There's just so much going on all the time that it feels like I never rest, at most get a relief. I'm talking about mental tiredness of course, not physical. I wish I just could clear off my mind and sink my head in the pillow like I used to. I had this awesome ability to sleep while on the most adverse situations as long as I felt reasonably sleepy and felt like doing so. Believe me, I have slept standing on a crowded bus, I have slept in the middle of a party supporting my head on a giant speaker, I have slept in a park bench, I can eat and sleep at the same time, I could trick teachers to think I was copying the class when I was in fact sleeping sitting on a perfect writing position. But now it seems like I have lost my powers. I feel you, spiderman. It's almost 5am now, I'm sleepy as hell, I'm tired, I took this awesome hot shower, the weather is great, the silences perfect,I lie on my comfy bed, rest my head on my favorite pillow. Nothing. Nothing but this weird feeling on my stomach, my hard breathing, and this sensation that it's hard to stay still for over 5 seconds. And everything that's still in my head. Few days ago I decided to test if distracting myself would work. It seemed like it would, it was a good plan. All I need to do was to get a book and read a bit before sleeping, so at most I'd have silly love stories in mind rather than corrosive thinking, and then I'd sleep easier. It has worked before, it was all great. Until I reached page 200 and was still completely alert. Whats worse is that now I'm wondering about that after I finally get to sleep what will happen if I wake up late for uni. And now this is corrupting my thoughts as well. Damn. I hoped I could have at least a month without problems ya know? Do you think it is too much to ask? I honestly don't know how much longer I'll be able to hold myself together. I even already feel sort of broken. And it's like all the time there's more and more for me to handle from all aspects of my life: study, relationship, family, house, work, etc. Everywhere people are dissatisfied with me. And on all aspects it's exactly like every time I work my ass to fix one shit up, 2 new problems appear from nowhere. And people always remember only what I haven't done, and never what I've done. All of this makes me wonder. What if I just stopped fixing shit altogether? What if I just god rid of everything at once? And by that i mean rally getting rid of it all, like going alone to some isolated area like Tibet for never to come back. Do I have the nerve to even think about this? Well, it seems like this should be my long living pillow thoughts today, and unfortunately seems like they will be for also many other days still to come.

The guy up there?

Religion, surely a delicate subject. Fulfills a lot of people but makes most of them intolerant. Over the history has done more harm than good. Today, we have access to information easier. We know all the horror that religion has caused in past and the wars it causes until now. We have acquired the scientific rationale that demands that everything should be proved. We know books are written by men. And along with all these facts comes a difficult question. To believe or not to believe in God? Please understand that I'm referring to God in a wider way, not the judeo-christian. Why so? Because there are thousands of religions and thousands^thousands ways of defining God, since even when people are in the same religion sometimes they think differently. So I'd rather not take sides of anyone and when I say God please read any kind of deity you wish.

Starting off with the why not, there are several reasons. Sometimes life sucks, a 9 year old sweet little girl was raped and murdered, where was God when that happened? Men are killing each other for 5 bucks and other idiotic reasons. The other day one guy shoot the other 5 times because he refused to open the window of the bus. Where was Him? Was that meant to be? If so, why? It's unknown. There are also so many different Gods according to a lot of religions that all can't be true but it's possible that all are wrong. There is no direct evidence of the existance of God. Any evidence gathered until now fails by using circular logic, like people that use the bible to prove the bible itself. Even though, suposing we believe in Him, how could we define God? And if our definition is wrong and the right one got lost over time? Even if we are really opened to accept something we can never be certain. So how can we believe in something that we are not even sure of what it's about?

On the other hand, observing exactly how mysterious life is, we actually figure that is so unlikely that there is nothing out there. How can one give birth, or receive your son on your arms after your wife gave birth and not think life is so miraculous? Look at a non-animated object. It's there, it exists, yet the list stops here. Now look at an animal, a dog for example. It has options, it can go right or left, it can interact with other dogs and other animals, its decisions affect its life, it has feelings and countless other items could be added to this. I don't see how that could not be considered wonderful. Another thing that could make us figure this out is how some strange "coincidences" happen and how some stuff on nature seem oddly precise. Have you ever met a friend you didn't see for ages by accident exactly you really needed someone? Have you ever watched a sunset on the beach? Or smelled the wet grass or earth after rain? Heard a joke on the right time? Got a ride when you were late? All those things seem small and we don't usually pay attention to it. But when we do it makes all the difference, not only on our beliefs but also on our mood. We usually complain about the stuff we lose but do not pay attention to what we gain. Try dedicating 5 minutes every night to analyze what happened on your day. In short-term that could make the difference between being happy or unhappy. In long term it maybe could lead to your answer to the first question I made here.

Althea

I didn't use to have this nickname. For about 8 years I've called myself of Adhelle because that was the name of my first RPG character. Now I'm willing for a drastic change, so the first thing to be done was changing the nickname. It needed to have some meaning to me, not just a name I liked.

I started wondering what was the name for, and I decided the name wasn't only for myself, but for everyone reading this, for the world. Secondly, what does the world need? I started searching names by its meanings. Found many nice names meaning beauty, intelligence, goddess of something. But the world doesn't need that. Then I stepped into Althaea and its variant Althea, greek origin, means healing, and it's also the name of a healing herb. That was definately what was needed - healing. And so, the one that writes to you now started to be known as Althea. I don't hope to heal anyone's body though, but I hope to bring healing thoughts for your mind.