The Art of Philandering

In the past, the word philander is only applicable to men who would have a lot of casual sexual relationships with women. These days, it's not only men who fall into the above mentioned category, but lots of women too. The world has gone chaotic and way too hedonistic just to appear 'cool' to others to have the 'number' escalating. Do conquests matter? How shallow!

Right, is there an 'art' to it? Since it's such a common thing these days, and there's a group at large out there who are not even ashamed to admit to it, or are actually proud that they could get away with it! If this is so, there must be an art to it since one can channel his / her energy in doing all these rather than 'investing' into just one partner and really, really make things work... or just to preserve oneself and save up just for that one special person.

There are different types of philandering - some just cheat when they already have partners, married or are in a relationship. While some go on serial sex sprees but 'keep things clean' by flitting from one 'flower' to the next - like bees draining nectar / pollen. So, which form of philandering's worse?

Yeah, everyone has a need to be accepted and loved by someone else. Some have this extra bit of gnawing need that the gap can only be filled with affairs or even philandering! Maybe it's all about having an ego boost by philandering - could that be an answer to some? Is it truly an answer to self-fulfilment or it's just a sad case of being in denial? Familiar lame and blatant excuses for doing either ranges from having a naggy to non-nymphomaniac wife or girlfriend (hey, even boyfriends / husbands too!). While in the case of a woman - having a loser boyfriend / husband back home (as read in many magazines and some undisclosed confessions from people I know). Some even give galling statements such as 'women or men tempting them' to do it... a pressure or some crazy need to quench their curiosity to 'try everything at least once'. It's all in the act of denial, I'd say! Some say it makes them appreciate their men / women more at the end of the day... but how silly to be experimenting oneself in such a way! I believe that guilt goes a long way, and it doesn't matter how one may put it as if they are 'over and done with it'... but they actually have recurring thoughts about 'things as they were'... creating their own mixed ups and hurting people who actually love them!

Well, that aside, it's just really interesting (if not disgusting) to see how some believe that they can completely compartmentalise their feelings to 'just sex minus the feelings'... having successfully come out clean from it doesn't mean that one is 'clean'... the taste of a forbidden fruit stays imbedded deep in the soul. Though some have found a new lease in life by 'changing' through a 'true love' or via a religious sect. Hey come on, such men or women should just admit that they don't want to control what goes on from the pew downwards and treat 'sex and love' as separate entities.

Sex and love as separate entities... in this case, let's look into gender differences. A majority of men are better at being pragmatic about compartmentalising, while most women are just too emotional to separate these two. As the gap of gender equality grows closer with equal job opportunities and women's emancipation, such women in this category who play the field should just get real with the fact that there'll never be true equality by proving that they can be like men in this department! Sad to say that most of the female gender eventually muck up the sex and love connection by mashing them together! In actual fact, though many will not agree at this stage till they muck up their lives, every human being long for stability and some form of decency before they expire. For goodness sake, even gigolos and prostitutes want to be decent at the end of the day!

Right, back to philadering... my thoughts about this is that the basic art of it is that to be a philaderer you must possess the following 10 characteristics (you may beg to differ - but I don't give a toss!) :

1) Be completely self-centred - only your feelings, needs and desires matter!
2) Be a compulsive liar
3) Be unbothered about ruining others' lives to experience true love just because you don't have it
4) Be upfront with seeking pleasure at all cost (hedonism at it's peak)
5) Be outdated by thinking that sexually transmitted diseases are kept at bay if contraception's used
6) Be continuously uneducated to the fact that you'll never get caught
7) Be blind to the meaning of loyalty, trustworthiness and everything that's moralistic
8) Be in a transient and irresponsible stage all your life and never commit to anything that till you lose it (but it's too late!)
9) Be unrelentlessly thick by believing that you are just having a good time while it lasts
10) Be a true cynic on the old saying : 'what comes around, goes around'

Well, it's interesting to know and see some who can be so cold about going through the motions without emotions. Beats me how they do it (I'm sure they think about it especially when some of their loved ones are being 'philandered' or perhaps they'll only come to realise it when they experience the downside of philandering at the end of the day! But hey, do these people have a conscience or it's just to bolster the low self-esteem? Hmmm...they must be really lonely 'up there' to be so full-on into servicing 'downstairs department' just to stay away from the real world of being an emotional being. Aren't we all habitual and emotional beings at the end of the day in spite of thinking that we can be very pragmatic and realistic? How many times do we need to be proven that we as flawed beings cannot be in full control and have everything that sails according to how and what we want at all times? So, could philandering be an act of insecurity with a front that says "I'm in control of myself and can do anything I want without getting caught"... So, what say you?

Chances

I believe in creating opportunities for things to take place, but I do not know of the outcomes. Neither do you, you or YOU. The unknown is not prophesised nor determined by us, but by the Creator as in accordance to the Will of God.

Some believe in fate, and some would count the stars and even their birthdates, birth-time and whatever just to ensure the accuracy of their future. If we are created by chance, why don't we chance it all and live each day as if it's a gift of life? Should we even need to refer or depart our monies to fortune-tellers, bomohs, gypsies and their crystal balls and other witch doctors just to take a glimpse into our future? This alone shows that we all long to know our purpose in life.

Yes, we are all created for a purpose in life. 'Chances' of our creation and existence, and whatever scientists or others' self-proclaimed genius ways of predicting the future by coining modern or archaic words still do not apease our minds of what and why things happened they way they did, or are they way they are. Yeah, acceptance is either by 'taking things with a pinch of salt'... or 'take it as a guide to live peacefully'... as some may say... but why the dying need to know if one still want to take it half seriously? Something's wrong somewhere. Why? Because we want to know - what's our purpose, and what will befall on us before we fulfill our purpose in life!
Well, let's look into 'chances' again... could things happen by chance? Is our existence too, by chance? Purposeless and meaningless? Molecules plucked out of the air to form beings and things around us, like all those said in the 'big bang theory?' I don't believe in this. Somehow, somewhere, our lives are created for a loaded purpose. Such purpose is based on our calling for whatever we need to fulfill before our time on earth is over. May it be a calling in our vocation in life, or peoples' lives that we are supposed to touch or unknowingly influenced or whatever. Likewise, people who come into our lives, through various types of relationships, i.e. friendship or whatever-ship, they leave little footprints and fingerprints in our lives that will never make us the same as before. Lessons to learn, experiences to wisen us up, making sense of who, what and how we are like for what suits us the best. All these entail our skills, our innate special little ways, discoveries of ourselves in relation to what is around us too as in 'why are we created?', 'what are we to fulfill?', 'what are our challenges in life?'

In reference to all the above, how could there be a chance that we are created? No, no, no, forget about going back to parents who did not do family planning. Still, one should know that it's not that easy to conceive, and nor is it by chance. It's all about timing, a God-bestowed timing. Believe it or not? So, did we just appear out of no where? We know that mommy and daddy got together and that's how we popped out. How about our forefathers... tracing right up to the very first being on earth? There must be a creator, isn't it? (Sorry, Atheists and Agnostics - what other proofs do you need on finding the existence of God, and also the presence of God?).

Anyway, apart from us being created, there are more amazing programming within us to lead a purposeful life. Did this all happen in a big bang, as in those of the famous scientific theory? Nah, nah, nah. Let's look at ourselves genetically - we are individuals with complexed DNAs. DNAs that are inherently programmed to make us as 'us' - special - definitely 'one of a kind' to make up for a teeny weeny 'lack' that the world needs. Yes, one of a kind that is loaded with a purpose of life in the Will of God. One might start asking, 'why are murderers, rapists and cheaters created?' Well, that's another whole story of the spiritual warfare that we are living in. We'll get into that another day. Now, bear with me on this one... A life that is created, is programmed to make a difference in the way the world ticks. Eventhough we may perceive ourselves as being no more effective than a drop in the ocean, but still, we make a difference even in our daily nuances!

Life as it is require us to go through grinds, moulds, shredders and all sorts that one can 'analogise'. Such, are not cruel happenings / plans to make us suffer, but to perfect us to be more focused and better beings. Some learn, and some just didn't because they also exercise their choices in obeying and disobeying - I'll call this 'tuning off the calling'. Right, we call 'sufferings' as learning experiences. Through these, we are developed, 'renovated' inwardly to adapt to changes in life. Changes that hones each of us, individually to fulfill a purpose in creating meanings for both ourselves and those that are around us. Isn't the Creator a genius in programming all these? How can we ever be free agents out of thin air that is created by chance, as science has been debunking the Bible and God's promise of Providence (that is when one seeks the kingdom first)?

The thought of being 'free agents' in running our lives without paying tribute to fulfilling our purpose will drive us into the wilderness (figuratively, maybe literally for some!). Being free agents or being calling-fulling-agents, we are not exempted from running into walls of different degrees of hardness till we 'see', or 'find' a way around it... but we always do it with a purpose, to fight for our survival in wanting to know 'what's the end deal after we've completed such rough patches in life?' Do you see what I mean by life becoming pretty meaningless if there isn't a purpose in life? Already, we absorb enough through our flawed little selves that contribute to our complexities. Above it all, we have to deal with our emotions! Everything seems to exercise all our range of emotions whether we like it or not, because 'we are not in control' of everything. Some may think that it's all in the mind, but isn't survival all about inner strength and believing that we do not live for ourselves alone in self love and full-on selfishness? If this is so, why do we need to live amongst others, why not live right in the middle or a dessert, as a hermit and out of sight and mind of any other beings?

Right, 'chances' are that, if we are to live without a calling, nor a will and a purpose, we will truly be all haggard and burnt out before our time. Hence, leaving us high and dry without a zest for life, aimlessly seeking without understanding the powerful, full-fledged message that there's God's providence when we seek the kingdom first. Why do people seek in the first place? Because all of us are looking into fulfilling a purpose. If those who are yet to know his/her purpose in life, they are actively or even passively seeking till they find meanings and signs in life.

Yeah, yeah, we all speak about 'but we have to fend ourselves, we have bills to pay'. True, we all have bills to pay at the end of the day, and thanks to the fall of man that dates back to Adam's and Eve's days, where the garden of Eden, a.k.a. garden of providence is taken away from man forevermore.

Still, such histories, Biblically, and also of those in books of mortal beings, would have given us all an insight of how we cannot be 'free agents' to do as we will, but to till we seek until 'Thy kingdom comes as it is in heaven...' - quoted from the Lord's prayer. The only meaning to the word 'chance' by itself is to 'give a chance' for others when they have wronged us, by forgiving them with an understanding of God's mercy and grace... just as how we need God's mercy and grace for being protected and have survived to live to this day. How's that for giving chances by giving an opportunity for others to fulfill their purpose in life? People need to complete stages in their lives to move on to learn things either in tandem with current things, or to break free from the past to go on to to fulfill their purpose in life. Instead of chancing things, we put in efforts by believing that we live in God's Will. A free will that is made easier if we abide to the calling, instead of going against it and only come round after insurmountable lessons. So, are we 'still' created by chance? With all these, I'll leave them to your own thoughts.