I wanted what we all want: everything. We want a mate who feels like family and a lover who is exotic, surprising. We want to be youthful adventurers and middle-aged mothers. We want intimacy and autonomy, safety and stimulation, reassurance and novelty, coziness and thrills. But we can't have it all.
Where was that fragile, golden-fair Dresden doll I used to be? Gone. Gone like porcelain turned into steel-made into someone who would always get what she wanted, no matter who or what stood in her way.
Modern man lives under the illusion that he knows 'what he wants,' while he actually wants what he is supposed to want. In order to accept this it is necessary to realize that to know what one really wants is not comparatively easy, as most people think, but one of the most difficult problems any human being has to solve. It is a task we frantically try to avoid by accepting ready-made goals as though they were our own.
The media represents world that is more real than reality that we can experience. People lose the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. They also begin to engage with the fantasy without realizing what it really is. They seek happiness and fulfilment through the simulacra of reality, e.g. media and avoid the contact/interaction with the real world.
But Katie knew it was a sin, had known from the moment she made the decision to lie with Adam. However, the transgression wasn't making love without the sanction of marriage. It was that for the first time in her life, Katie had put herself first. Put her own wants and needs above everything and everyone else.
"Cathy, don't look so defeated. She was only trying to put us down again. Maybe nothing did work out right for her, but that doesn't mean we are doomed. Let's go forth tomorrow with no great expectations of finding perfection. Then, expecting only a small share of happiness, we won't be disappointed." If a little hill of happiness would satisfy Chris, good for him. But after all these years of striving, hoping, dreaming, longing-I wanted a mountain high! A hill wasn't enough. From this day forward, I vowed to myself, I was in control of my life. Not fate, not God, not even Chris was ever again going to tell me what to do, or dominate me in any way. From this day forward, I was my own person, to take what I would, when I would, and I would answer only to myself. I'd been kept prisoner, held captive by greed. I'd been betrayed, deceived, tied to, used, poisoned ... but all that was over now."
Yes, what is it like? Certainly not like she dreamed. But maybe that's okay. We want what we want. At home, she works herself into a frenzy worrying about what she isn't--and perhaps loses track of just where she is.
The only weapon of power, its only strategy against this defection, is to reinject the real and the referential everywhere, to persuade us of the reality of the social, of the gravity of the economy and the finalities of production.
"Failure to put the relationship on a slower timetable may result in an act that was never intended in the first place. Another important principle is to avoid the circumstances where compromise is likely. A girl who wants to preserve her virginity should not find herself in a house or dorm room alone with someone to whom she is attracted. Nor should she single-date with someone she has reason not to trust. A guy who wants to be moral should stay away from the girl he knows would go to bed with him. Remember the words of Solomon to his son, "Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house" (Proverbs 5:8). I know this advice sounds very narrow in a day when virginity is mocked and chastity is considered old-fashioned. But I don't apologize for it. The Scriptures are eternal, and God's standards of right and wrong do not change with the whims of culture. He will honor and help those who are trying to follow His commandments. In fact, the apostle Paul said, "He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear" (1Corinthians 10:13). Hold that promise and continue to use your head. You'll be glad you did."
Kogda ia byl molozhe, ia poluchal to, chto mne bylo polozheno. Kazalos', v etom i sostoit zhizn'. I gde-to podsoznatel'no ia schital, chto sushchestvuet nekaia sistema vysshei spravedlivosti. No ee net. Ili esli i est', to ne dlia takikh, kak ia. I vozmozhno ne dlia takikh, kak vy. Esli my poluchaem lish' to, chto nam prichitaetsia, to my poluchaem nemnogo, ved' tak? I vse delo v tom, chego ty khochesh', razve net? Kogda ia byl molozhe, ia pritvorialsia, chto khochu, ili deistvitel'no dumal, chto khochu, mnozhestvo veshchei, prosto potomu, chto etogo zhe khoteli drugie. Ia ne utverzhdaiu, chto stal starshe i mudree - nu khorosho, lish' chut'-chut', - no seichas ia znaiu, chego khochu i ne teriaiu vremeni na to, chego ia ne khochu. I esli vy otvechaete za sebia, to ne stoit perezhivat' po povodu togo, chto kto-to eshche chego-to khochet. Potomu chto eto tozhe otnimaet mnogo vremeni.