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Ok, I need to remind the internet that I have the best bird in the universe. it’ll follow you into any room and then either come play with you or make itself comfortable several feet away if you’re busy doing something else. last night i got out of the shower to find it waiting for me in my bedroom, sitting quietly on top of some boxes while i dried my hair and sent some emails. at some point i looked up and started talking to it, and it got all excited and ran across the room, scaled my pant leg, and sat in my lap for a head rub. to borrow the words of someone i once knew, this creature is perfect because it is always affectionate but never clingy. it’s basically my perfect, ideal pet.

Thank you for all your name suggestions…i’ve been trying them all on and hope something sticks soon. I’ll get more serious about thinking about this when I can afford to get a full nights’ sleep and eat a meal sitting down (and not in front of a computer).

Ok, so the real reason I’m taking a break from handling my shit to write this post is that I’ve had something swarming around my head, and I wanted to record it so my brain can put it aside to revisit later. It’s not that big of a deal, but it will definitely continue to occupy my brain space if I don’t do something with this.

Background: I spend a lot of time thinking about possessiveness in relationships and how much better the world could be if we stopped treating each other as commodities to be locked down. I think this behavior is symptomatic of various other issues within a relationship, so most of this time, I’m really thinking more about what those contributing factors are and how to mitigate them.

Exactly three people who read this blog are going to appreciate the following analogy, but I’m going to go for it anyway…

In the world of software development, programmers often like to talk about code ‘smells’, or things you observe in code that are not objectively wrong or bad, but suggest that the overall code structure isn’t very healthy. I’ve noticed that I apply the smell model to relationships as well. Things I consider relationship ‘smells’ include a poor talking about the relationship : having the relationship ratio, either party acting out of character in order to discourage jealousy on the part of the other, and of course, putting fixtures in place to create overhead in either of you leaving.

My primary issue with possessive behavior is that it reeks of low self-esteem and/or selfishness, which always seems to me like a matter of either not valuing yourself enough or not valuing the other person enough. Either way, that’s obviously bad. Whether you’re with someone who can’t genuinely love you, or someone who simply won’t, I feel pretty strongly that you should let that little bird fly away as soon as you establish this. There are more out there, you know.

So somewhere in my head this ideal is kicking around that in order to be the most loving person I can be, I need to constantly monitor my motivations and reject inclinations I have to try to build a safety net. It’s a little scarier to live that way, but I’m convinced that it’ll make for better relationships in the long run.

So those are the basics—this isn’t anything revolutionary or nuts or even original, and I’m really oversimplifying my views on that matter, so please don’t take any of that as some huge judgment. I’m not anti-commitment or anti-marriage or any of that; I just think that if you’re going to try to build something with someone, you should try to hold the bricks together with something other than fixtures intended to control and possess each other. That’s all.

Anyhow. Recently I found myself explaining than in english, when you say that a belongs to b, you are saying that b owns a, but if you simply say that a belongs, you are saying that a fits or is complementary to its environment. Which disturbs me because that seems to imply that the environment has some sort of ownership over a. If you say that two people belong together, what are you even really saying? Is the notion of coupling love and ownership really this entrenched in our language/culture? I might be going up against something bigger than i’d expected.

It occurred to me while writing this that the only times I’ve been deeply committed to someone, that commitment was not (or coincidentally) solicited. So maybe my problem with the notion of a parter as domain or property isn’t really so generic. Maybe I just reject trying to simulate the very beautiful phenomenon of wanting to give yourself to another person with the very ugly one of ensuring that they can’t give themselves to anyone else.

Maybe I answered my own question. Maybe this blog post is now completely irrelevant.

but I’m going to publish it anyway and be glad that now I can get back to work.

happy friday, everybody.