a difference of mind

A few thoughts from the edge:

Men's minds, for the most part, work along a single longitudinal path: A triggers B, B triggers C and so forth. They consider themselves to be smart, because they are barely able to grasp causal chains. Men's intelligence is expressed by the extent to which they can estimate or predict a sequence of steps in a chain reaction. Like chess players, some men can think one or two steps ahead, some seven or eight. Alternatives to their one-dimensional, allegedly "logical" path of thinking are beyond their imagination.

Womens minds, on the other hand, are much more complex. Women embrace several different natures in their personality. In addition to the men's straightforward "logical" way of thinking, they (according to C. G. Jung) incorporate a personification of the unconscious counter-sexual image, in other words the inner man in a woman. This archetype encompasses a number of instincts that are quite useful in supplementing a woman's emotions. In addition, women's minds embrace a third governing force, the so-called "shadow", a counter-image of their true character. The working-type woman, for instance, can identify with the feelings of a spoiled tootsie. A woman who has run expeditions in Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan all her life, can suddenly become flustered at the run of a nylon stocking. What makes women so unfathomable to men is that they can leap in a split second from one level of their personality to the other. As a consequence, that charming lady you are flirting with suddenly turns into a sharp-tongued businesswoman, only to react like a helpless college girl in the next moment. It would be asking too much of a man's mind, being merely a simplified, incomplete version of a woman's mind, to be able to comprehend this kind of complexity in the opposite gender.

le rêve fraîchit

Sometimes, you have to resort to a poet who renounces poetry to describe how you are feeling:

C’est le repos éclairé, ni fièvre ni langueur, sur le lit ou sur le pré.
C’est l’ami ni ardent ni faible. L’ami.
C’est l’aimée ni tourmentante ni tourmentée. L’aimée.
L’air et le monde point cherchés. La vie.
- Était-ce donc ceci?
- Et le rêve fraîchit.


It is rest in the light, neither fever nor languor, on the bed or on the meadow.
It is the friend neither ardent nor weak. The friend.
It is the beloved neither tormenting nor tormented. The beloved.
The atmosphere and world unsought. Life.
- Was it this, then?
- And the dream is growing cold.

icky overtures

AK's taking the literary veil.