[I wrote this on Friday Dec. 24th. Been thinking about editing it but I think I will leave it in rambly brain dump format ;]

I'm soooo happy right now. Patri and I are on E, so of course I am, but its much more than that. We've just blown through some amazing emotional barriers, and I really think that we're going to make things work. Slowly ;)

I'm so excited and thinking of so many new ideas, although they're all really about the same topics, and either I'm not communicating them or Patri is just not interested in the nuances at the moment...

He's trying to get me to appreciate the moment and just enjoy. And its a huge service that he provides me in life, all the time, but I want to type right now because I want to catch some of these new ideas going by a mile a minute, and that is my passion. I can be in the moment later, I will not sacrifice this great opportunity and save some of these threads to come back to later.

We're real partners now. He's opening up, telling me what he wants, and discovering that I want that, and that I want him to have it and be happy.

There's no cookie cutter that we're fitting into to turn out in the end a certain way. This illusion stops people from growing in all the real ways that they can and really want to

People love to grow, to feel bigger, more in control, lovable, worthwhile

The passive aggressive cycle is usually what stops them. Thinking they should be other than they are, trying to enforce those rules, and then having that inner desire build and build and work against their conscious goals.

I see it all the time and it makes me sad, because I can see it and the solution is so elegant and simple but all those layers of defensiveness stop people from being able to get there. My own and those of everyone I'm around.

Patri and I are working on being honest with each other. Identifying what we really want and not hiding it. Not that either of us gets what we want all the time, but its really important to acknowledge and make our decisions based on what is really there. Because we want to be who we are and not the model of what each of us thinks the other wants. As I think is true for most people deep down

But there are some things about each other that we just can't understand. And understanding and accepting that is wonderful. Its idealistic to think that there are perfect matches that one can get everything from. And if I thought a god with our happiness in mind created us, I would expect that. But I don't think that's how the world is. And I love and enjoy Patri, but I need things from other people and he does too. And us both denying this on each other's behalf just makes us smaller and doesn't add to the happiness of either of us.

I want us both to blossom. To have our strong relationship at the base of it all, and to open wings and get out there at the top. Really explore and create lives that we really want. As the people we really are.

My mental impression of Patri and I is that of a couple of kids. We both go through phases of feeling scared, wanting assurance, wanting freedom and to throw everything off to the sides so we can wave hour hands around flailingly. We try to hold back our impulses so as not to hurt others or ourselves, but it doesn't work too well. Just builds many fragile things that break easily when the gradually building volcano of repressed emotions blows up ;) Exactly what we were trying to avoid ;)

I need to figure out how to deal with my dependency issues. I am much more competent than I give myself permission to be. Often times, although I'm 90% sure I know the efficient way to do something and can handle it quite well on my own, I will ask someone else to do it. And often times they do it wrong, in a way that I'd already thought over and realized wouldn't work.

This is especially bad with men, because most of them have that desire to do things for you to make themselves more desirable. So I can't really talk about things without initiating action. Girls are great, they like to just talk ;) I discover so much more from them... and feel like I teach a lot. I know I'm very perceptive, but I don't communicate very well with men. But some women really understand me, and appreciate the ideas I've come up with, that I've spent years and years working out. And see it as unusual and special in the same sense that I feel it. I try not to talk about it, "its bad to brag," but in the areas that I have an affinity for, I think I am very smart, and I have not in fact met anyone who I thought was more perceptive than myself. Although I willingly admit that I am quite dull in most areas ;)

My intelligence is that of talent: I have certain areas that I excel far beyond what most would guess at, but if you average it out with my other abilities I'm pretty average.

But the great thing about life is that we don't have to be average. I can use my abilities and create things with them to make life more beautiful for myself and those around me, and someone else can use the abilities they have but I don't just as effortlessly to make a huge difference to me.

Many people have large impacts on me, again, I need to work on talking to them about it more, because I think its important for people to know. If there isn't communication they often lapse into self doubt and end up going away because they do not think that their effort is appreciated.

Appreciation is a gift that is highly undervalued. In the right circumstances, appreciating someone can change their life. It makes them feel worthwhile. That there's someone other than themselves who sees the value in what they do and who they are.

Trust is important with appreciation. Most appreciation is doled out in hopes for reciprocal, without care given to the content. This is not worth very much, especially to people who already have good lives. But sometimes it reels in help and gets the person on a path to happiness.

But back to trust, appreciation must be genuine, not hidden agendas. Hence, one can't really trade appreciation, they are trading something else but it is not that. Many things are bought and sold that are vastly different than whatever agreement has been acknowledged and yet also what both parties had actually been after.

Its really great to have friends who really like and appreciate me. My ideas. My ideas are my essence. And by thinking they're great these people give me much more than they imagine. I should work on showing my appreciation and appreciating them even more.

I saw an article about how its a negative utility investment to be open with those you're already friends with. But while true in many instances, the statement assumes certain goals which I don't think apply to myself or many others. We need our shallow working relationships certainly, and its good to keep them stable and not get mixed up by getting in too deep. But we all also desire to be great. To think that deep down, the person we really are, is cool and that people who know that person would love them.

Unfortunately this feeling is often covered in so many layers of fear and rules and whatnot that its hard to get to.

And after years of work, I'm here :) And life will continue to be challenging and hard work, because it if it wasn't it would be boring :)

Life is not about reaching a goal, it is about living. A goal of good living is of course a noble one though ;)

But yeah... I've never appreciated acting in real life. Why would you want the people close to you to like someone you are not? All that does is make someone even more lonely and isolated.

But I cannot say that I don't understand. Fear is a very powerful motivator, as with going with the flow. One has to be of the mind set and at a point in their life where they can really dig down to the roots and figure out what's there.

And they need help. Unfortunately this sort of help takes a lot of time and effort and one person cannot do it for very many others. But I've been doing it for Patri and myself, and have a couple of others whom I really like and identify with that I try hard with. Its important to be selective for people who really can benefit and change, and really understand the value and want to. At least on some level ;) I don't want to be part of some person's artificial cycle, a drug to get doled out and used up. I want to build big things. Things that take years, and last lifetimes.

An acquaintance of mine is in a lot of pain. She doesn't accept herself. It could be chemical and that she just can't but I don't believe that. But getting through to her would take much more than I am capable, and it has to be done at once: a flow, you can't just chip away at it because the little efforts just dissipate. Although it is work making a few of them for any given person. Maybe they haven't had it before, and given a hand they will grab it and pull themselves up and not you down. And even better, they will join the understanding and closeness that comes with it. What gives value to my world.

I wish I could do more to help people. I really want things to work out well for people in generally, but especially those I care about. That I feel a bond with. I love ya radiantsun ;) And tigresa, and all of my other wonderful friends :)

And Mz. F. I don't know you well, but I fell in love with you at first sight, as many people do ;) And Chrysarose. Those two should really talk, they're a lot alike and I think would really enjoy each other and could open up with each other in ways that they can't with other people. Like myself and Patri ;) I'm very attracted to both of them although I'm not really bi: I just like flirting with and kissing girls ;)

I'm attracted to a lot of people but keep distanced because I'm not good at managing relationships. One with Patri alone has been years of hard work for me ;) But as we're getting that more and more under control I'm branching out more and more, and its been wonderful.

I used to not believe that people could have relationships without motivations: wanting something, sex usually, but power and other things. Hence I kept myself very isolated. And lonely. I think that for a lot of people my initial impression is right. So much of the world is just confused lonely people trying to grab onto something to keep their heads above the water.

And you just can't help anyone who doesn't try to help themselves, and most people are too confused to even consider it an option. They just go about pawing at life and picking up whatever scraps of enjoyment they can steal away with. And at least that is something.

But I want to have more than that, and I wish to be with people and have strong bonds with them. And therefore I have to choose carefully. I enjoy helping, it is part of me that is very significant. But I need to pick people who are there. Who really need help and can actually use it. Those who are just looking for handouts have many other options where they can mutually benefit.

I like people. Because they feel. I know that they have feelings like I do, like the ones I had as a kid thinking that no one else could possibly feel the depth that I was feeling ;) Even though I can't feel what other people feel as they do, I imagine. And this imagination gives me vast amounts of both pleasure and pain.

I've probably got it right on the big picture level with a lot of people, but not when it comes to the details... hence I try to avoid imagining them and sticking to accurate data ;) Or rather, I can't help but imagine them, but I try to ask people what they really think and/or feel. I'm often amazed when I do this... there's some factor that I just hadn't thought of when I was modeling them that is a huge part of who they are.

You never know what it is with people, as we're all so different and come from such different places. There is always a reason for why people act the way they do, and it is often very deep and unaccessed even by them. Let alone someone like the arrogant child I was who thinks they can figure it all out in a few brief meetings ;)

But the big picture, the essence, unlike the details, I have become more confident of my perceptive abilities with time. And my abilities have improved a lot! Especially now that I really try to listen to my initial reactions and analyze them.

It can be the way someone looks around. That's a big one. I can see that this girl is insecure and doesn't like herself, and think to myself that its a shame because she's very cool. And I hope for her that she learns to accept and embrace the human being that is herself. She'll have a long journey before it happens though, if it does, because she is desirable and those looking for handouts are always after whatever little bits she manages to put together, and because of her low self esteem and feelings of worthlessness she always consents, assuming that everyone else is a more important human being than herself.

[I wrote a lot more that I was really happy with over the next couple of days: it took about five days for the stimulant effects to completely wear off!! But if I post more I will definitely need to do some editing first. Whatever brain cells killed over the process were well worth it, things have been fantastic between Patri and I with the resulting understanding and progress toward a relationship that we both really want and might not have otherwise reached. Opening up is hard... especially when you don't consciously realize what you're holding back ;]