There once was a man without a spine.
He was a very likable guy. The advantage of not having a spine was that he could fit himself to anyone, and he frequently did. He could flex this way and that.
But he couldn't stand up ...
...and being kinda mushy and flat most of the time, people often walked on him without realizing he was there.
So he got sad, having this dreadful absence of a spine, and he was resentful too. He wondered why other people couldn't fit themselves to him the way he fit himself to others, but that was silly because he never felt he had the right to ask anyone directly to fit themselves to him. He was formless, what was there to fit to anyway? In cyberspace he talked tough as if he had a spine, but people could clearly see by his rage and resentment that he didn't have one in real life, and he perished in the flame wars he provoked and only came out feeling more ashamed and ineffectual.
He wished he could be with a woman, to help him the way a spine would. If he clung to a woman with a spine, he could stand up, but women didn't like it when he did that. He often called them "bitches" for the women with spines coldly asked him to let go of them, or unceremoniously shrugged him and his issues off onto the ground telling him to get his own spine.
If he fancied a spineless woman, on the other hand, he couldn't get her interest because they were looking for men with spines that they could cling to. But the spineless women would hang around with him for sympathy, and he'd be their platonic male friend and play "therapist" though he was as sick as they were. He'd often call himself a "feminist" and lecture these spineless women how to stand on their own when he had no idea of how to stand for himself.
With all the bending and flopping around he did, a spine never could get a chance to grow.
Then one day he had a brainstorm, he decided he'd make himself a spine.
He took a long stick.... and he put it far up his ass.
It was an improvement, though uncomfortable. It was the first time in his life he could walk tall, if not a bit stiff. He found he could have opinions at odds with others, and stand for them. He found out that he didn't have to be liked, that the world didn't end if he pissed someone off. He didn't want to fit easily with other people anymore, in fact he became inflexible.
People commented on the change, some people didn't particularly like him with the stick up his ass but they did notice him more. Some people felt that at least they could respect him, even if they didn't always like him because he did less whining. At least nobody stepped on him by accident.
However relationships still didn't come easy, it was hard for a woman with a spine to love him with the stick up his ass. He was stiff, cold, brutally opinionated, condescending, and self-righteously hostile. But eventually he did attract a very pretty woman without a spine who saw him as a tower of strength to cling to.
At first he loved this woman, he thought the stick up his ass was the answer to his dating problems. He was finally being loved the way he once loved others. At first it was great, and then it was good, and then it was ok, and then it was uncomfortable, and by the end of a year it was infuriatingly suffocating. The spineless woman clung like a straightjacket. The horror!!! The horror!!!
But the stick up his ass made him so inflexible he didn't know how to get the spineless woman off of him, If only he could bend. He was trapped, upright in his "obligations", "duty to her", "guilt", "pride in his commitment", he spent months with his arms helplessly flapping about trying to get her off of him and trying not to look like he was doing that.
He was hoping that she would leave by hinting her indirectly, he used sarcasic tones, said mean things that were "just a joke", neglect, "constructive" criticism intended to insult. He only made the spineless woman feel more insecure, so she clung HARDER.
Spineless men envied him, called him a jerk for the way he was treating her, just the way he remembered how he used to envy other men before he had the stick up his ass (when he'd play consoler to their teary-eyed spineless girlfreinds). If only they knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of a spineless person's embrace they'd understand. He wished she'd leave him for one of the spineless men who envied him. He felt ashamed for the way he must have made women feel in the past when he was trying to cling to them, he knew that they weren't so evil after all.
One day he decided that there was only one way to be free of the spineless woman once and for all, the stick up his ass had to go.
So he pulled the stick out, and to his amazement a miracle happened: he was still standing! All of the years of inflexibility allowed him the chance to grow a spine. At first he was still a bit stiff but eventually he had the flexibility to contort a bit and yet maintained the firmness to struggle, push, and wriggle from the spineless woman's grasp (though she protested much). He stayed far out of her reach and the reach of other spineless women so that he could never be grasped by one again.
He was overjoyed with his new-found freedom; he could bend sometimes like he used to (but not too far) and also he could stand tall. He went out, partied, enjoyed life to the fullest, and eventually found a woman with a normal spine like his.
They stood together as separate individuals giving mutual support and enjoying time alone too, and lived (relatively) "happily ever after"...
The end :)
[By John Russell]
Guitarist Laurindo Almeida was born in
He recorded with Baden Powell, Stan Getz, Herbie Mann and others, and enjoyed some success when bossa nova was at its peak, with his own album, Viva Bossa Nova.
He wrote more than 200 compositions, among them his First Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra. He also composed and recorded music for over 800 movies & TV series.
From the 1960s until the 1980s he was a member of the chamber-jazz group the L.A. Four (with Bud Shank, Shelley Manne and Ray Brown).
Almeida also performed classical music and is credited with the American debut recordings of works by two of
It was during the 1960s when he enjoyed his greatest recognition, winning Grammy Awards for the albums Spanish Guitars of Laurindo Almeida and Conversations with the Guitar in 1961, for Reverie for Spanish Guitars and Discantus (he shared that with Igor Stravinsky for best contemporary composition!) in 1962, and for Guitar from Ipanema in 1965.
In 1971, he married Deltra Eamon, lyric soprano from
Laurindo Almeida passed away on
* .. my personal favourite :)
and fall apart and start again...And I can't sleep without your breathing And I can't breathe each time you're leaving And I'll pray you won't stay away That you'll come back to me someday...start again.start again.start again.start again.start again.start again.start.again.start again.start again.
In the past the study of philosophy and religion has done
many speculations on the phenomenon of love.
But love has always ruled, in music, poetry, paintings,
sculptor and literature.
Psychology has also done lot of dissection to the essence of love,
just like what biology, anthropology and neuroscience
has also done to it.
Psychology portrays love as a cognitive
phenomenon with a social cause.
It is said to have three components in the book of
psychology: Intimacy, Commitment, and Passion.
Also, in an ancient proverb love is defined as a high
form of tolerance.
And this view has been accepted and advocated
by both philosophers and scholars.
Love also includes compatibility.
But it is more of journey to the unknown
when the concept of compatibility comes into picture.
Maybe the person whom we see in front of us,
may be least compatible than the person
who is miles away.
We might talk to each other and portray
that we love each other,
but practically we do not end up into any relationship.
Also in compatibility, the key is to think about
the long term successful relationship,
not a short journey.
We need to understand each other and must always
remember that no body is perfect.
Be together, share your joy and sorrow,
understand each other, provide space to each other,
but always be there for each others need.
And surely love will blossom to strengthen your
relationship
with your matter of affection.