Self-improvement: Life is a Banquet

While driving a friend home, he brought up the question that I asked him a while ago: "If your life is a movie, will people want to watch it?" He told me that if the last six years of his life is the same level of excitement as most people's entire lives, he can see why they all think that their life movie is too boring to watch.

He had told me a number of interesting stories in his life that I would definitely pay to watch if it was a movie. Yet, what's sad is that many people think that he's making things up. Those things coulnd't possibly have happened in his life! He couldn't possibly have had the grandest time in Hong Kong just because he knocked out a guy at a bar to save a girl's honor. He couldn't possibly have grabbed a gun away from an idiot rich guy in front of a club and later won a sham court case for his amazing restraint in not beating the guy up. He couldn't possibly have dressed up as a black guy and walked down some ghetto neighborhoods to see what would happen.

I have stories as well but many of the more interesting ones may give me a bad reputation so I'll refrain from telling them here. The bottom line is many people's lives are apparently so boring that they'll rather believe that such tales can only happen in movies. Yet, they watch adapted movies which show ordinary people encountering interesting situations and they believe those stories. I find it funny that many people will rather believe in a story that's probably edited and dramatized for TV production rather than someone who's telling them face-to-face a segment of his or her life.

There's a quote from a character called Aunte Mame in a movie:

"Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death."

My question to you is if you're at a banquet hall with a table full of action, new characters, and plot twists, why are you starving in a corner instead of taking your seat at the table?

Sociology: Double Standards of Virginity

Recently, I was reading an article on Lolo Jones, the track and field athlete who has won a number of awards including the Olympics, which quickly led to reading on her comments on her virginity when she's past 29. I shall quote her lines here from her HBO interview earlier this year:

"If there's virgins out there, I'm going to let them know, it's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life — harder than training for the Olympics, harder than graduating from college, has been to stay a virgin before marriage."

She and others like her who believe in this idealism are following a flawed path without even realizing it. Religion or extreme conservative moral compass has blinded them to logic and truth. The logical reason that you make a vow in adolescence to not sleep with your partner is to prevent the long-term consequences which at that age you're very ill-equipped to deal with. At some point, moving forward by taking the jump into sexuality is a step to do to acquire greater social maturity. By not moving forward, the woman chooses to remain forever at the age of adolescence with her lack of experience. The growth of sexual maturity is one facet in the growth of emotional maturity for an individual.

Consider this scenario. When I encounter a man older than 35 who tells me that he's still a virgin, my first reaction is not of awe or admiration but rather of suspicion. I start wondering whether he's lying or whether he's socially retarded. If he is socially retarded but not overly creepy, I'll feel deeply sorry and offer to hook him up with someone I know. My reaction is not atypical; a man who has not followed his biological drive by that age is considered a deviant.

Clearly, a double standard exists. When a man is past a certain age and still a virgin, you either find him creepy or you feel sorry for him. Yet, when a woman in the same situation is somehow considered "good to have standards". This is especially prevalent among the conservative religious ladies who attempt to model themselves after perfection. They genuinely believe that they should wait out for a prince charming to explore their virgin territory.

Our lives are meant to be filled with experiences which enrich us and enable to to understand ourselves and others better. Choosing not to have certain experiences due to limits placed by an antiquidated social model is severely damaging to proper function in the modern society. Not all sexual experiences lead to stronger emotional bonds but many do. Instead of congratulating the woman for holding out, we should be instead feeling sorry for her level of sadly stunted romanticism.