It really is an annoying discovery. Because I want to think they’re deep and complex and convoluted like the men I see on TV, the men I write into my stories. But they’re not. They’re basic. Give them food, money, sex, and sleep. Throw in a random passion like sports or speed, and that’s it. The man is happy.

I want to think they have complex inner monologues and deeply involving thought processes. They don’t. Their basic reasoning is, ‘Do I want this? Can I have it?’ They don’t go into whys and wherefores like women do. To them, stuff is yes, no, and how. And for some reason, that makes me immensely sad.

I want to think that when a man meets a beautiful woman, he sinks into deep philosophy about her, the morality of her existence, the beautiful interaction of the cosmos that created her, the fascinating series of events that brought her into his line of view. But mostly he looks at her, thinks she’s hot/smart/pretty/*insert-any-attribute-that-he-finds-attractive*, asks himself if he can have her. Then  he either walks away or does whatever he needs to do to get her. Simple.

Of course if he doesn’t really want her – or if he can’t really have her, he can play with her. Why, because he wants to, and he can. There’s no complex war strategy behind it. Guys often do stuff simply because they want to. Even Einstein, the smartest man on earth, was basic. He had a choice between the pretty Marie and the plain Maric, and he chose Maric. Why? Not because they were soul mates, or because she wooed him better. Nope. He chose her because she could talk science, period. And the second she got all girly and emotional and Marie-like, he lost interest. See, simple.

That’s why stuff like this can happen. The average man will not sit down and have an earnest mental monologue about what kind of tea he should drink. He’ll be like, “I want tea. Hell no, I want beer.’ Then he’ll go get beer. or find someone to get him beer. Simple. And so all the years of my life that I’ve spent analysing men have completely wasted. And yet because I’m a woman, I can’t really switch myself off, even though my life would be infinitely easier that way. Yeah, sucks to be me right now.

♫ I see fire ♫ Ed Sheeran ♫

Disclaimer: This is me thinking out loud, and may serve no purpose other than to clear my head. #KthxBye.

These thoughts have been going on for two weeks. I’m sitting at my desk, with lots of not-so-random thoughts drifting by. I was once asked what a writer is. I said you’re a writer as long as you write. Which makes me sad because I see myself as a writer before all else, and I haven’t written in months. Does that mean I’ve lost myself somehow?

In some ways, it feels like I have. I’ve sunk into the drudgery of everyday life. Wake up. Prepare the baby for school. Go to the office. Come back home. Check homework. Prepare the baby for bed. Sleep. Repeat. It’s like there’s no soul in my life anymore, like I’m drowning in the mundane.

I’ve often said I envy people who don’t think. Because what I’ve just described is everybody’s life. The difference is … not everybody considers it a national disaster. To most people, this is just life. But to the overthinkers among us, the ordinariness of existence is something to … well … THINK about. Because for us, life should be anything but ordinary. It should be full and vibrant and meaningful. It should have a purpose that is higher, broader, and deeper than commutes and sex and chores.

I’m thinking about this now because in the past few months, I’ve thrown myself into a project that brought me large amounts of joy, pain, stress, pleasure, and music. I thought it was my way out, my ticket beyond the ordinary life I had slipped into. Now that project is gone, largely because of my *principles* and I’m feeling rather lost.

I’m wondering what the point of these morals is, if they only stop me from doing something profitable. I’m wondering what the past four months were about, and what it was all for. Was it just another round of random ordinariness? And yet, without these morals that are peeving me so badly, I wouldn’t be me, and I wouldn’t have the skills and constitution to do what I did.

That’s what makes it almost a conundrum. I joined the project for the same reason I left it. Vicious circle I suppose. It’s a bit like struggling to get to the top of a mountain, then beating yourself up for having the determination to get there, because now you have to go back down and the whole trip seems pointless.

For most people, this question wouldn’t even come up, because the point of climbing a mountain is to climb a mountain, right? Or to say that you have. At the very least, you climb to enjoy the view. It reminds me of the video for ♫ Free ♫ by Rudimental. In the video, this guys spends several gruelling weeks struggling to the summit of a mountain. Then he straps on a para-wing-gliding thingie and flies down in less than an hour.

Watching that video, I first ask myself what he was smoking, and what would possess me to jump off such a mountain for kicks. Then I ask if he thought it was worth weeks of torture just for one hour of pleasure. The look on his face says it was, at least for him.

There doesn’t need to be some deep philosophcal reason for doing such crazy things, at least not for the average person. He did it because he wanted to do it, and because he could. With my project, I worked on it because I wanted it to succeed. And it did. Now it’s over and everything is crumbling. Trust, belief, friendships … and all because of money.

So I’m asking myself what the point was, why I even bothered. Logically speaking, the project succeeded, so the aftermath shouldn’t matter. The goal was achieved. I suppose the reason I’m upset is we had different ideas of success, different measures of how it should all end. So while some people are perfectly content with the result, I’m disillusioned and really, really sad.

There IS a logical side to my mind. And it’s telling me to stop being overly emotional, to look at things rationally, to stop blowing the situation out of proportion. It’s telling me I expect too much from people, and that I always think the worst of them … descriptors that seems oddly contradictory. Another part of me says the reason I am who I am is that I see people better than they see themselves, which makes me think the best and worst of them often at the exact same time.

Sometimes I think I need to get out of the real world, stop interacting with flesh and blood, and just write stories in my head. Or better yet, write these stories on paper and get paid for them. After all, my characters will never disappoint me. They will always live exactly how I want them to live. Plus, I get to play God, which is always fun. Now there’s an idea.

♫ You found me ♫ The Fray ♫

That’s not an entirely accurate statement. Aside from the occasional Stargate or Greys’ Anatomy marathon, I rarely watch TV. Not even for the movies. I do enjoy series though. I torrent a season at a time and get completely lost in the story. But then again, everybody watches series in chunks these days. There are down sides, of course. Like, if I watch 13 episodes at a time, I can see the exact spot where the writer ran out of ideas. And I get tired of re-used tropes far more quickly.

For example, I adored Big Bang Theory for a while, and the first time Sheldon said, ‘My mother had me tested,’ I nearly split my sides laughing. But after watching 15 episodes in a row and hearing the phrase fifty times, it gets a little boring. The up side is it beats waiting a whole week for my next fix of Penny. Still, lately, I’m not so sure serials worth it. And it’s all because of one simple word. Rape.

Disclaimer: this could be a trauma trigger, so please read with care.

For most women, rape is the worst thing that could happen. Fear of rape affects where we go, who we talk to, how we dress, and what time we go home. Once it has happened, well, there’s always the fear that it could happen again. In any given situation – a fire, a war, a robbery, a quiet street, a crowded matatu, a riot, a one-on-one job interview … the fear is always there.

I suppose that’s why I like series. They run for an hour at a time, and in that space, I can forget the stresses, and yes, the fears of ordinary life. Here’s the thing though. I found a recent quote that said art must reflect society. And so even in fiction, there is lots of rape.

I’ve learned to consciously avoid what I call ‘depressing’ points of fiction. I won’t watch anything with gender violence, racism, slavery, abduction, child abuse, or feminism as a theme. So I’m one of the few that hasn’t looked for 12 years a slave. I prefer to stay with smart comedy and safe, fluffy fiction. Big Bang Theory. Last of the summer wine. Eureka. Charmed.

So I was pretty happy when I found Downton Abbey. It has everything! Beautiful clothes. Genius lines. And best of all, lot and lots of British accents. *happy sigh* Until Anna.

I understand that fiction must portray reality. I get that art reflects life. What I don’t get is why we feel the need to use rape quite so callously. It’s like a writer sits back and thinks hey, nothing has happened in the story for a while. Let’s just throw in a random rape to move the plot along.

I don’t understand why a man would feel the need to rape a woman. In theory, I understand the power, the need for control. But why not kick a dog, or shoot a plate. Why force yourself on a woman just because you’re – what – cold, lonely, angry, horny? And when a writer decides to do that to some random character, then really, why?

I understand – on a logical level – that rape evokes such raw reactions that you can’t NOT use it in drama. But in a strory that already had everything – including a rabid following – it was rather needless to throw that in. I feel ambushed. I feel rather like I was attacked myself. Granted, as one who has experienced rape, I feel that way every time I see it in fiction. But this one hurt me more specifically, because it was so callous, so uncalled for, so out of character for the show.

It felt exactly like walking down a safe, harmless street and being jumped by a rapist. It hurt so much specifically because I never saw it coming. And in that way, it was a very realistic portrayal of the act, because no victim ever sees it coming.

That’s part of why it hurts so much. You’re happily walking down a street, or you’re at a job interview, or you’re spending time with a man you trust. Suddenly everything changes. You’re not a human being anymore. You’re an object that somebody wants, and they viciously take what they want, simply because they can.

I’m generally fussy about what I watch. Now I feel nothing is really safe, not even trite, fluffy period dramas loaded with wit and British accents. I doubt I’ll be watching Season 5 of Downton Abbey. Or Scandal. Or Broke Girls. Or anything really. In fact, I’ll probably stick to really old books and documentaries.

And reality shows on cookery and fashion. Because at least rape hasn’t snuck into that market yet. And on that note, I’m off the find the Great Gatsby. On PDF. But maybe I should Google it first, just to be sure there’s nothing in there that I don’t want to read.

♫ Everything ♫ Alanis Morissette ♫