water water everywhere

There must be a little masochist inside me.  A cranky, self-flagellating man, Silas from the Dan Brown books if you will.  Because I am laying here, desperate with thirst, dry lipped, sore throated, enfeebled and headachy in a flat with working taps and many bottles of Evian.  None of these happen to be within arms reach.  So it is probably safe to assume that my masochist is in cahoots with the lazy bastard who keeps my arse welded to the sofa.  This is how people kill themselves slowly.

Purpose

What elevates us above the other primates is our ability to think philosophically.  Who am I? What is real? Why am I here? Our ability to ask these questions is both a blessing and a curse.  We are blessed that we have the capacity for existential thought, but we are cursed in that the questions we ask have had no satisfactory answer for thousands of years.  It is unfulfilling and possibly pointless, but our nature ensures that we will continue question.

I feel that today I went some way towards answering the unanswerable "Why am I here?" by realising my purpose; my overall reason for doing the things that I do.  Why have I studied?  Why am I continuing in this career?  What are my plans for the future?  All of these questions now seem, in my head at least to have some kind of unifying answer, and I feel that I may soon be on my way to living a Purpose Driven Life.

I'm not a Christian in any sense of the word, and I haven't read the book of that title, but the phrase perfectly encompasses how I am feeling right now.  Once there is a purpose that drives you, your actions are automatically imbued with special meaning, unconsciously pushing you to greater effort and greater success.

In my career I feel that there are two main priorities.  To help people, and to make money.  As a slave cannot serve two masters, everyone has a slant towards one or the other and some are wholly entrenched in one camp.  I do like money, I like the doors that money can open, and a life without money worries is an easy (easier) life but I want to help people.  The feeling when a dental phobic patient tells you that they trust you is indescribable.  I want that to continue.

I'm sitting here and I was compelled to write because I'm feeling so inspired right now, but you'll realise that I have yet to state my purpose here.  This is because it isn't yet in a form that lends itself easily to description.  It's a feeling, an idea, a thought, a spark of something special that is not yet alight.  I know that for dreams to be realised their airy insubstantial nature has to be solidified with specifics and time frames but I'm not ready for that yet.  I'm inspired, and I want to enjoy this feeling.

no es bueno!

I went on a date last month with a guy that I am pretty sure is the only hottie in the small town in which I currently find myself.  He was a sexy brown skinned mix of Cubano and Brasileiro parentage, raised in France with a slight Brummie twang.  He had bright green eyes, captivating and cheeky, and a smile to match.

We're both new to the area.  So we picked a pretty central place to meet, outside a local bar.

So far pretty standard stuff right?

We were both late, which is a pretty sad way of determining a potential soul mate, but whatever works.  When I walked up to the bar to meet him, he hugged me, then proceeded to circle me, the aforementioned green eyes raking me from locs to toes, with noticeable pauses in various areas of my anatomy, letting out a long and extended;

"buuueeeennoooooo"

*pause*

I felt a little bit violated.

Gentlemen this is not a good look.

Objectification at its finest!

So much has changed...

...and yet so much is unpleasantly familiar.

I'm trying to remember that sometimes people need to stick with the superficial, for peace and a simple life.  Sometimes buried stuff should stay buried.  Its easier.  Less hot, sweaty, digging up of the past.  If I thought that opening up would benefit me in any way, I'd do it.  But I have nothing new to add to the discussion.  Just "what's wrong with you?" and "what's wrong with me?", depending on the day's confidence level.  I still don't think I've heard the complete unvarnished truth, and I don't think I will, because I'm staying superficial. I'll save my depths for the more deserving.

Thats Dr Eva!

FOUR YEARS!!

Four years of life and I have finally reached the day that made it all worth while.  Last friday I opened an envelope while my heart pulsed in my mouth and then cried as I read Final Grade - BDS (Hons).  These weren't pretty tears.  They were snotty, red eyed, honking sobs of gratitude and relief, since I had managed to convince myself that I had failed at least one of the exams.  I hadn't quite composed myself when I called my parents and they were sure I had failed until I managed to get the good news out.

So now I'm a doctor (ish).  A doctor of teeth. And I couldn't be happier.

Results weekend fell on the weekend of my 26th birthday so it really was a celebration, presents included a stack of cash, a kindle (can't wait til Amazon finally delivers this), jewellery and a holiday to the Dominican Republic (although technically this was less of a present and more my Dad trying to get rid of his airmiles).

I am walking around London with a ridiculous smile on my face.  I'm a clown.  I look like I have been botoxed this way.  I don't care.

Back down on earth I still have patients to finish off and bureaucracy to navigate so I can move to Oxford with a clear head.

"deeeeeep"

I was perusing twitter, as you do when the biggest exams of your life are on the horizon and the pressure is turning you into a crazy person, and I found that someone had tweeted:

#Deep ----» "The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank" | Dante Rossetti"


I #facepalmed, because this is about as deep as....

...my simile engine has failed me, it's just not deep at all.  According to google Rossetti was a painter and poet and more interestingly, he is Cristina Rossetti's brother.  Google also says that during the course of his life he turned away from the anglican christian doctrine of his upbringing, so it's interesting that this quote is attributed to him.  Unfortunately my five minute search couldn't find any context for it so I'll have to accept it as read. which makes it a bald faced lie.Admittedly there are certain times where any one raised in a Christian household, whatever their current religious affiliation, is going to need to call god's name in vain.  Some examples:

During a lottery win "OH MY GOD!!"

During sex: "OH GOD!" (doesn't really have an effective replacement, swearing is a little more vulgar and "OH DARWIN" is a passion-killer if your dude's name isn't Charles)

During labor: "OH GOD!" (apparently pushing a human out of your body is painful, who knew? Again swearing is more vulgar, but I guess in this instance you could substitute "god" with whoever knocked you up)

But these are just commonly used literary/ verbal constructs.  When something goes well for an atheist and he is thankful, he can thank all the people that a theist would thank in addition to god, his parents, his significant other, his dog! Whoever he felt made a positive contribution to his success.  He can thank himself and all the hard work that he put in to make something happen. If he's a young american he could even thank his haters (but that requires a post all of it's own).

So I guess this is just to say, thanks for the concern Dante, but I think we'll be just fine :-)

why you shouldn't thank your haters

Because you probably don't have any!

Yes there may be people in your life that don't like you *shrug* not everyone is going to like you. 

Yes there may be people at your job who don't agree with your method of completing a task *shrug* not everyone is going to agree with you. 

Yes there may be people on the street who don't smile at you *shrug* not everyone is happy for you.

These are not haters, these are people to whom your life is irrelevant, a very different concept.


Just to confirm that my stance was correct, I went to the urban dictionary to get an up-to-date definition of exactly what a hater is:

[NB: there are 17 pages of definitions]

1. A person that simply cannot be happy for another person's success. So rather than be happy they make a point of exposing a flaw in that person.  

2. Overused word that people like to use just because someone else expresses a dislike for a certain individual.

All of the other 117 entries are variations on the above.  From my tone you can probably sense that I am in agreement with definition 2.  When it comes to people liking you and being happy for your success I say *shrug* not everyone is going to like you or be happy for you, and that is their right.  The only time that this should ever be a problem is if their negative words or actions have a tangible negative effect on you life.  The English language already has words for this, libel, slander, bullying.

I hate (ha!) the word hater even more when it is used to describe a person who has no interest in a particular celebrity.  Case in point, my response to the hijaking of all terrestrial television channels by kate and will's wedding.  My facebook status made note of the fact that I had no interest in anything but her dress, and when I finally saw that I was disappointed, I thought it was quite boring.  I may have also said that from some angles she looked like tiffany from eastenders (who I actually thought was quite pretty at the time).  The cries of "HAAAAATER" came in thick and fast.  Short of sending a wedding gift, I had no way of quieting the rabble.

When did expressing a negative opinion become hating?  What happened to balance?  As with many things that are wrong in the world, I blame america.  Maybe that makes me a hater? *shrug*