I�ve been paying a lot of attention lately to the things going on around me. Or rather, the things that have been entering my range of attention have been along similar lines. Those similar lines?

I�ve been hearing/seeing a hell of a lot of complaining/whining about life in general. I�ve been listening to people who complain about how their lives are worse because of someone else�s actions/choices/motivations. I�ve heard a lot of conversation about how someone should be responsible, how someone needs to fill a certain void... someone other than the person complaining about the void.

I don�t like that. I don�t like it because I wonder if I�m seeing this more frequently because it�s more common now, or if I�m seeing more of it because I�m not depressed anymore; because I�m becoming more observant.

This isn�t an �I don�t like this� situation like an impending disaster, it�s more a situation where I think to myself, �Wow, was I so far down that I behaved like this? Was I so bad off, in my own self pity, that I didn�t notice that other people were in the same boat? Was I so blind that I would have starved myself because I couldn�t see the bread in front of me?�

Okay, so that might not make a whole hell of a lot of sense to you folks, but those are questions that run through my mind.

Now, I listen to Country music a lot. I like it. Don�t bitch at me, I also like Barry Manilow. Regardless, many, many years ago, Country music was all about �There�s a tear in my beer cause I�m cryin for ya dear.� (actual lyrics from a Hank William�s Sr. song entitled �There�s A Tear In My Beer�) There were all sorts of lyin, cheatin, stealin, broke down, flat busted songs out there. So many of them.

In the past few years, the last decade or so, the songs have become more along the lines of lets-get-drunk-and-party-it-up-bubba. One in specific that I like a lot is �Bubba Shot The Jukebox� It�s about a big-ol-guy who hears a song that brings a tear to his eye. So, what does he do? He goes out to his truck, grabs his gun and shoots the Jukebox to hell. Heh. Hey, at least he did something. Not exactly what I would have done, but still.

*smirks*

Anyway, songs about fidelity and devotion to your mate have been more prevelant as of late. Songs about making work second and family first... things like that. Returning to the important things in life, etc. I like that kind of music. I like to hear men sing about how important family is. That�s something that hasn�t been very comon at all in Country music; any music, actually.

There are still plenty of songs about lyin, cheatin and stealin, but they�re not as morose and melodramatic as old Country has been.

Anyway, the point I am interested in making, is that in my life, there seems to be a greater quantity of whininess. I don�t know if this is due to people actually whining more, or if it�s due to the fact that now I�m actually paying attention to what�s going on around me.

I�m a little frustrated because I don�t want to be a whiner. I hate whining and the thing I want to do most when someone whines, is smack them upside the head and tell them to knock it the F off. That�s not conducive to strong relationships, however.

Eh, I started this entry yesterday and today, I don�t want to talk about this specific aspect of it. I just heard, on the radio, one of those songs that makes me want to smack the crap out of the singer. This guy, Mark McGwin (I think that�s how it�s spelled) has had two songs which have received a large amount of radio play in the past few months. The first song was about him lusting after a married woman. Ick. Nasty boy. It�s filled with tripe about how her husband is a creep and she deserves to be with someone better. That her wedding ring is painful to him... all that rot.

His second song is filled with whining about how his own wife is cheating on him, how devistating that is to him and how it couldn�t really be her because HIS wife doesn�t dance. She doesn�t have any short skirts and she never wears her hair down and �crazy�. Fuck that shit, man.

These songs are getting a lot of air play and that bugs the crap out of me. Why? Because cheating is an extremely important thing to me. I have little to no respect for people who cheat on their significant other. Now, strangely, that doesn�t apply to polyamory.

Why? Because the whole concept of polyamory is to have a primary relationship and to love others within that primary relationship. It is not to cop a quick feel when the primary isn�t looking. It�s not about �cheating�; having a sexual relationship with someone without your primary�s knowledge.

But, these songs from Mark McGwin, and others like them, irk me because they�re all about cheating, getting something on the sly. And why? Because the dude is horney. (There are songs about women cheating too, sung by women, I�m not leaving them out) And then Mark McGwin has the gall to complain about his wife doing what he�s doing? That, I think, is the part that really torques me off.

I�m not upset with Mark McGwin. Personally, I don�t know him, I have little to no chance of ever meeting him, no biggie. But there are men and women out there who identify with his songs as the protaganist and whiner. That is what bugs me so much.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine last night in which we were discussing my reactions toward whining. Heh. He agreed that I don�t do sympathy well. He said something akin to, �Yeah, this is you. �This is who I am, this is the way it is. Now, quit whining or I�ll knock your head off.� � We laughed. Why? Because that�s so my attitude. I wouldn�t intentionally give them a reason to whine, but it does irritate me so very much.

I suppose I�ll have something like, �Here lies Jennifer. Quit your whining and go home.� on my tomb stone. Heh. Along with the cheese. *smirks* Yeah, sorry, bad joke.

Then, of course, I come to question why whining bothers me so very much. What is it that drives me nutso? My instant reaction is to say that I hate it because it�s something I do and I hate it in myself. But I really don�t think I�m a whiner. *shrugs* Am I? *cringes cause she doesn�t want to know she whines*

And that train of thought stops briefly at another station... Every time I see something that irritates me, I examine myself once again to see if I�m doing that. When I complain about something to someone, when I make a comment in regard to something I don�t appreciate or won�t abide, I look upon my own life and see if I�m guilty of doing those things.

I�ve always turned my attention inward in those cases. I want to know if I�m doing that irritating behavior because I don�t want to be an irritant. And, I have found that I really don�t get along with people exactly like me. Heh. Not at all, actually. Well, I should qualify that a little. I don�t get along with women who are like me if they�re exhibiting those behaviors I detest. For instance, a person who states her opinions as facts. That bugs the shit out of me and I get really, really irked.

There is a woman on a message board I infrequently frequent who does this. She will state her opinions as if they were facts. That pisses me off because when I try to converse with her, stating that my opinions come from my experience and those experiences have taught me that what she says isn�t true, she�ll go all pissy and defensive over how she�s right and I�m wrong and there are no two ways about it.

Sorry, that�s thinking in absolutes and something I just can�t afford to do. In my life, I�ve experienced to much to believe in absolutes anymore. What is an absolute for me is not an absolute for someone else. Thus, it�s not an absolute. Things that are absolute for someone else aren�t necessarily absolute for me, thus, they�re not absolutes.

For instance: many people hold that the sky is blue. They consider that to be an absolute. However, up here, the sky is gray a large portion of the time. Sometimes it�s white. Durring sunset, it can range from gold to faint green hues. Thus, blue is not an absolute. I�ve flown over the polar cap twice, the sky up there was colorless. The clouds below were white, the sky was clear until the horizon where it touched the clouds and thus reflected white. There wasn�t any blue at all.

Some people hold that grass is green, and that that�s an absolute. Sorry, I was in Dallas where the growing grass was brown. Granted, a very light shade of brown, but it was brown nonetheless. I�ve seen blue grass, legitimately blue. I�ve seen lush, green grass, but I know, from what I�ve seen, that not all grass is green.

Another thing... I used to believe that daffodils were clutivated flowers, that they were only yellow and that they had to be planted. They were bulb plants. True in many cases. But, we have lots and lots of wild daffodils around here. And they�re not always yellow. some are white, some are a kind of cream color. Yellow, cultivated daffodils are not an absolute.

This has taught me that just because I believe something to be true beyond the shadow of a doubt doesn�t mean that others will see it in the same light. Thus, I have learned to change my perspective often. In my experience, those who think in absolutes stand at point A and see point B and nothing else.

I stand at point A and see a world unfolding before me. I can turn just a little and see even more of the world. I deal with my peripheral vision. I think with my peripheral... well... vision? *shrugs* I see in the periphery and I think in the periphery.

This, of course, sometimes blinds me to the tunnel I�m approaching. *chuckles* I don�t want to be blind to the tunnel Usually when someone is blind approaching the tunnel, they don�t see the train which is about to give them an attitude adjustment.

Eh, I�ve rambled on long enough, I think. There�s more I want to say, but I just haven�t been able to shake it out of the periphery yet.

I suppose that one of the reasons my entries are so disjointed is because I�m jumping from peripheral lilly pad to peripheral lilly pad. Those people who tend to look from point A to point B then point C would get side tracked and waylaid by my jumping around from idea to idea.

Consider it this way. If you have a train of thought most people follow a fairly straight line, stopping every once in a while to explore a scenic place along the way. I jump the tracks all the time.

Think about a piece of string. Holding one end in your fingers, follow the other end in a straight line. Me? I take that whole string, ball it up in my hand and poof... I�m jumping from point A to point Q in half the time it takes to blink. *grins*

For me, there are no absolutes. For others, there are.

Interesting world we live in.