Our house just Ain't a home

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=1118133

I read an advice column that had to do with rape the other day. The column is by my favourite advice column person, Dan Savage, and the column is called Savage Love. Perhaps I'll post a link to it here. While I very rarely have any occasion to disagree with Mr. Savage - and I certainly don't disagree with him WRT the particular column - it did get me thinking about rape and some various aspects thereof: legal, moral, crime and punishment type stuff. So that will be the topic of a future post. I'll do a series of 3 or 4 on sex, because I have a few potential topics in that vein now. But not starting today. 

Instead, I was talking with a coworker, and she has just recently moved back into her parent's house after breaking up with her boyfriend. The only really notable thing about that is that she is 27; that seems to me like a good intro into the topic today. In Canada and the US, we view "living at home" as a somewhat negative thing - even though many of us do it. So perhaps this is a thing that needs a bit of exploration. 

Get the Hell out of my House, and take your Loser friends with you: As soon as you are financially able, you should get your own place. Or maybe be forced to get your own place - in other words, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. Maybe "financially able" isn't the right term; maybe it should be, as soon as you graduate from high school or college or university. You have to join the adult world at some time; living on your own is the a great start. 

That's from the parent's perspective. But what about from the adult child? Why would a 21 or 22 or 35 or 45 year old person want to live in the same house as the parents? THere are the obvious complications caused by partying, but that is only the start of it. When you live at your parent's place, you have to live by their rules. that means you turn down the TV and music; that means you keep a curfew; that means that you eat the supper that they cook. And if you are paying them rent, then why not just get your own place? If you aren't paying them rent, then you get no say in the operations of the place. But you are still expected to keep up on the maintenance, and do the dishes, and basically be treated like a child. 

Sometimes, parents really want their kids to get out. They've worked hard, raised their kids, helped them out of trouble, picked them up when they were loaded, gave them money and support - now they want their space. So let them have it! Sure they want to see you, but maybe they want to have sex in the living room without worrying their adult kids are going to walk in on them. Or sleep naked and walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Or watch more shows that Dawson's Creek and Gilmore Girls reruns. So give your parents the space they deserve, and find your own place in the world. 

I can't Get out! They Keep pulling me back in! The thing is, I want to get my own place, really I do, but it's just to expensive. I have student loans and car insurance and a car loan and rent would be minimum of $600 a month, and that's with a roommate, and I still want to travel, and where would I put all my stuff, I don't want to have to work 2 jobs just so I can live. Besides, I know about life, I know how to pay my bills on time, why is it necessary to pay more? My parents are mortgage free anyway, so its not like I'm imposing on them. 

Sometimes, parents are actually close to their kids. And they want them to stay at home; and the kids want to be there. Moving out just for the sake of moving out is not a real good option; soon enough, the kids and parents will grow apart because the kids will get their own lives; the closeness that comes from being an adult with your parents is a rare treat; it should be prolonged, not shortened. And many times, the parents benefit from having the kids around - they can help with the maintenance and chores - and if you are going to pay rent anyway, why not pay it to your family? Why would you prefer to give your money to a stranger. 

Putting aside money issues, there is the cultural aspect of it. In virtually all cultures, the kids will live at home until they get married. This extends to European, African, Asian, and probably South and Central American. The only cultures that value living on your own is Canadian, American, Australian, and some parts of Great Britain. We should accept that cultures have different ideals, and accept it. 

What I think: The very phrase "living at home" seems to me to bring up a certain expectation. Don't you always live at home? No - when you are away at school, for example. So "living at home" implies that until you have your own home, you are not really fulfilling your expected role. So i really do think that the concept of not living at the same residence as your parents when you are over 22 really is a cultural one; one that is strongly influenced in Canada by the sheer volume of land available. Because Canada is largely a nation of immigrants and wanderers, the culture expects it's young to get up and go - out of the family house. I don't think that there is anything wrong with living at your parents house, and often it is more practical than not. Still, I can't help but think that people who do still live with their parents for an extended period of time are somehow less independent than others. I still tend to think of those people as somewhat spoiled or lazy - even though I know it isn't true.    

How I relate: Personally, I moved out of the parent's place when I was 17 and I could never go back. I get along great with my parents, and I love them a lot, but I just couldn't just have "my own room". Women aren't the only ones who need a room of their own. I can visit there, and I can stay with my inlaws for short periods, but for a year or two? Wouldn't happen. It bothers me that I look down on people who live at their parent's place, probably because it somehow feels like they are cheating - why do they get to live rent free and have their groceries provided and I don't? But I know that's me being petty. 

So not bad this month on the post count. Still working on the portfolios; harder to structure for the small amounts. I have made some good progress on them, and have 4 or 5 designed. There a currency portfolio, which was really straightforward; a real property one (gold, silver, and whatnot - the actual commodities), a penny stock one, a Canadian equity one, a bond /debt one; and a balance one. I'll post the makeup of them soon. And in my next few posts, I'll start the "sex sells" series.  

Dreams, dreams, Dreams

Apparently I decided to go with a post on dreams. I have been writing down my dreams for the past week or so, and have noticed that I dream much more that I thought I did. Or perhaps just that I remember them more now that I know I am going to be writing them down. Whichever. 

Before I get into the dreams, I have another idea for some posts. I am very interested in the markets, and I am reminded of a magazine that I read in the mid-90's. It was called POV; it was in the vein of Maxim but predates it; and closer to GQ than Maxim, but not so juvenile. They had one particular feature I liked a lot, called "Your $10,000 portfolio". I liked this one because it seemed to me that most people in the target audience probably did have, or could reasonably have, a $10,000 portfolio. The audience was the 20-30 urban / suburban male. So I am going to design a few of these portfolios and publish the results here. Different focuses, different goals, different types. And I just had another idea for a future column: living with parents for extended periods after school is finished. But back to the dreams.  

Dreams have deep meaning: Dreams are a window into our soul. They reflect our innermost desires, fears, hopes. It is only because we don't know how to interpret them that their true meaning is lost. This is why psychologists study dreams - because it is such an important part of our psyche. 

This is also why virtually every culture holds dreams in very high spiritual regard.  Because they have meaning that help understand who we are as people; what changes to make in our lives; how to make these changes; and breaks the barrier between our subconscious and conscious. 

Dreams have had an effect on many people; history is full of examples of people who had dreams that warned them, inspired them; revealed the future and the past to them. While dreams may not be a real crystal ball, they have unquestioned power and relevance in most people's lives. 

Dreams are only what we make of them. Dreams are simply random thoughts that bounce around in our heads, and when we sleep, because we have no control over our thoughts, these random thoughts come out. This is why dreams usually make no sense - there is no conscious process to organize our thoughts and make them interpretable. 

Dreams have no meaning; it's only when people think about dreams in their conscious state that they ascribe meaning to snippets of information. When people "sleep on it" and have a dream about how to solve a problem, it is the conscious mind that determines the solution - not the unconscious dream mind. That we give meanings to dreams merely indicates that we don't want to take credit or blame for not recognizing the solution early. 

90% of the time, your dream will be about whatever you were thinking about before you fell asleep. And most dreams aren't even remembered; so that's a pretty inefficient method of bridge the consciousness gap. The other 10 percent of dreams is made up of stock dreams like falling and going to school naked, and nonsensical dreams that seem more appropriate in a Dr. Seuss book. 

What I think: I think that most dreams are meaningless, and just a reflection of your more recent thoughts. Something akin to a daily data dump. That said, I certainly do not doubt the cultural and sometimes personal meanings and significance of dreams. And because of the constant repetition of types of dreams and dream archetypes, the concept of collective unconscious is reinforced. 

How I relate:  I have personally had a few dreams that have helped clarify some things, but nothing earth-shattering. No Eurekas or a-ha's, but a few hmmms. But I tend to doubt people who tell me that, after the fact, they had a premonition dream. A dream about a fire and then a building burning down in the next few weeks is far to broad and reeks of someone just trying to make themselves feel important. 

So that's a good start. It's an interesting topic; I don't think I can explore it much more. I will continue to write down my dreams, and if I got really excited I would post them. But not here - somewhere in a different blog. If I had one. Which I don't.  

An aside; when I was looking for pictures to post on this blog, pictures of people sleeping are mostly women or children. Men don't sleep, I guess. 

Choices

In reading some of my  blog, I noticed something: when I wrote about topics that I was going to write about, I did so. Also, I wrote about sex a fair bit. So I decided that I would try something new, to make me write more: every time a post something, I will put something either in the preamble or the afterthought about topics that I want to write about. This means I shouldn't have to think too much about new topics, because I can just refer to old posts for new topics. So two things that I have been thinking about lately, but won't write about today, are prostitution and attitudes toward sex. I've kind of covered the "attitudes" before, but not in any real way. So look for that in a future post, or at least a version of it. 

Today, however, I am going to write about choices. It came to me while I was in my favourite store, Walmart. (That was a joke. I hate Walmart. But I was there.) We were getting some different soaps - one for dishes, one for laundry, one for washing floors, and it occurred to me that we have a lot of choice for a lot of the same things. Is this good or bad, or neither? Let's see. 

Mo' Choice, Mo' Problems: Choice is just a marketing tool. When you look at, say, the difference between "dry hair" shampoo or "oily hair" shampoo, the ingredients are the same. SO why dowe have different choices? Just because we like to think that having more choices make us seem more in control. Which is exactly what the marketers want. 

And if it's not a marketing tool, then why do we need a

ll these choices? Go into a restaurant, and everyone gets to pick what they specifically want, right now. But if you ate at home, whoever is cooking gets to pick what you eat, and generally, you are pretty happy with it. So choice really doesn't matter - it's not like we are any happier with our restaurant meal than we are with home meal. In fact we are more likely to be unhappy with the restaurant meal because we had a specific choice. 

And then there is the problem with trying to decide. If We have too many choices, we simply can't decide. We have so many choices that sometimes we just won't bother making a choice - we'll just leave. That can't be good for us. There was a study that showed that people who were faced with too many choices of jam would simply not buy it - even if it was on their lists.  

More choice is better for us! More choice is a fantastic thing. When we want something, the more choices we have the less we have to give up. If we want to eat out, we can eat out wherever we want - and we even have choices within choices. That's why people want to live in cities - because we can pick the Chinese restaurant we want, not just the only one in town. 

People can complain about marketers all they want - if people don't want something, they just won't buy it. Some people want seedless raspberry jam in the 500ml bottle; some want seeds in the 300ml bottle. We can make rational choices about what we want and make our decisions based on that, and not just on what is available to us. 

And choice is about so much more that just consuming goods. It's about things like the internet, that have given everyone exactly what they want to find. If you are a freak, chances are you can find a freak like yourself. It's about being able to play whatever sport you want, eat the food you like, talk to the people you want to. The ability to make  choices is exactly what democracy is all about. 

What I think: I think that we have passed the point of healthy choices, especially in terms of consumer goods. At the same time, some areas of our lives are conspicuously devoid of real choice - like, for example, elections. You can either vote for the party you are for or against, but it usually comes down to a two horse race. Too much choice, I think, gives us the illusion of freedom when it really just distracts us from other issues in our lives. Going back to the original example, I think that a choice of 30 different dish detergents doesn't really make sense, and seems like a waste of our resources - but I still like my orange degreasing Dawn detergent. 

How I relate: Like many people, I face many choices every day; in my job, I try to help people make choices with respect to certain aspects of their lives. That doesn't mean, though, that I think all that I offer is good.  But when I give people a choice, I hope that I can help them make a choice that will actually benefit them. 

So that's about that; I have also been thinking about dreams lately. There may be a good post in that too.