Setback, or sign?

Pop culture - and Fabebook bumper stickers - tell us that setbacks are to be ignored. That these are stepping stones to those elusive "dreams" we're to follow to comlpete our lives. On the other hand, you have The Sign Theory, which states, quite emphatically, that "maybe he left you for a reason...," and "...failure is the lord's way of giving you another chance...," penning setbacks as a cosmic signal for the need to change something. This is confusing, I feel.
These people need to choose and make a damned informed decision.
Because surely, the way you view a roadblock, or a failure, or an FML moment, can change your consequent steps and the way you continue to deal with it.
I personally feel pressured by pop psychology. It has defined me, like most of my peers have been defined by it. We are the generation of beginning-to-love-your-curves and share-your-patriotism-on-Facebook.
But pop psychology is referred to as that for a very good, very literal reason - it's popular and that's about all. Nothing and no one ratifies it or controls it and it grows like a sprawling, colourful, mauling monster of silly ideas culled from average fiction and teenage movies.

It does not give good advice, I feel. 

Thoughts on thoughtfulness

It feels like thoughtfulness has become such a rarity that when it does pop up in real life, it's looked askance at, and even vilified. Most people cannot IMAGINE that a thoughtful word or gesture can be possible without a lurking, evil ulterior motive. This is a likely a reflection of society (thu. I spit on you) perceives the concepts of give and take. You can't possibly give something without wanting something, or someone, in return.
Social analysis  aside, I've come across very  very few thoughtful people. There are kinds people, nice people, people who are fun to be around, etc., but very few genuinely thoughtful folk. Having spent the major part of my life surrounded by family friends who were great in every way, all that is good, and kind and supportive, but no necessarily thoughtful  I was surprised when I went to college. I met K, the kind of person who bakes for elders' homes and brings you flowers on a random days, just because. It was lovely. And it inspired me, not a particularly thoughtful person, to try and be a bit more thoughtful toward people.
But I realised that it's the sort of trait that is best seen in people in whom it is inborn. Else, your gestures feel stupid, look a little stilted and are soon discontinued.

But, by the by in life, I have the luck to come across such people in unexpected places. It never fails to surprise me, or to make me smile. It always make me realise, also, that sweetness, and its appreciation, is an essential for a content life.

They're confused

They want to know why I prefer
To read
And miss the dazzling fleshy
Make-up pretty men and women
In orchestrated beauty
Onscreen
In CGI! With tigers and
Soundtracks and action and
Noise and vivid sex and
Blood-red blood and made-up
Glory.

But in my pages, the browned
Worn, ratty pages, my people
Live.
They breathe -- the dwarves and
leather-clad sex gods. They mimic
The voices inside my head.
The prancing young girl
Grows
In my mind's eye
To dazzling young woman, to mother,
To crone.
The men -- they're mine, they're created
But I give life
like God!
I draw breath from my being and
In my pages
They live.

And nobody else see them
Like me.
They know them, but my people
They're difference from other people's people.
My places are the same, but different.
My moats are bigger
My meadow is a different green and my busy sidewalk
Has different faces, holding coffee cups,
Striding busily.

So my pages, my worn, ratty
Thumbed-through volumes, my dusty
Shelves of Annes and Aidans and
Janes and Darcy and Lalithas and
Ford and the Millenn
ium Falcon, they live.
They live and so I live to live
With them.

And everybody else remains
Confused :)

The master craftsman

Everybody has an alter-ego they present to the world. It speaks in a certain way to certain people, it addresses the poor in a certain way and the rich and influential in another. It has certain opinions on religion and world politics and what this world is coming to. And it always has a certain way of sounding --intelligent, or resigned, or world-weary, or cute.

We all have a set of labels we keep in our pockets, ready to slip in to our fingers at the correct given situation, ready to be quickly slapped on to our foreheads. These labels define us as we would be defined. Appropriate to situation and person, the label comes off and on.

We decide what best to wear to suit the most ubiquitous label or if to change attire and play around with several labels, play chameleon. We can;t quite decide who takes our breath away, but we decide which ones we keep, which ones show the most promise and which ones show the highest likelihood of our greatest future happiness.

We each have a justification for why we are, what we do, how we dress, what we talk about. This explanation is detailed for some, simple and easy to understand for others...but always ready at hand in case someone bothers to ask

.

We are hardly ever ourselves. We are a careful alter-ego of our reality, masterfully crafted to only show what we need the world to see.