The dice decide my fate

First I wanted to write about male/female psychology again. But I can't come up with a complete post here, so I will just write some things I noticed.

One of my classmates, a girl, came to me and told me about one of her colleagues from work, someone she has fallen in love with. He had said some things to her that had given her hope that they would be together. As it turned out, this guy still had some kind of emotional relationship with his girlfriend, so it became difficult. My friend was of course angry because he had already given her the impression that he really wants to get into a new relationship.

This, dear readers, is typically male psychology. It's in the nature of a guy that he wants to keep every option open as soon as he thinks he will definitely break up with his girlfriend. So he raises hopes in the so called backups he keeps, and tries to check out whether he has a chance or not. Then, when he knows his chances, he starts to do what is most useful in his opinion. It can also include that he swears loyalty to his current girlfriend in that moment, just to make sure he won't lose her in case he makes a step back. Most important for him is that he has every chance open and won't break up with his girlfriend only to find out the other girl has been taken in the meantime.
In some cases a relationship only lasts for the reason that the unsatisfied boyfriend doesn't find a backup girl. So he prefers to stay in a relationship rather than being all alone. Must be something biological, if you ask me. The elemental fear of not being able to be with someone, to lose all possible objects of desire to rivals.

Now to something completely different. My own life is full of stress again lately. But I don't even know what to write. I get the best grades in many years, but still school stresses me. And my private life is not so easy either. And it's just because I'm unlucky enough to be cursed with a philosophical mind that likes to think rather a little too much than too less.

In all this mess, I'm reading a book at the time, called The Dice Man. I got interested in it when I found out that the song Such a shame by Talk Talk was inspired by it. So I read a couple of reviews about the book. The story is interesting, and although it's only a fictional novel, it deals with philosophical ideas of life. The protagonist is a worn-out psychologist who finds his life, including his job and his family, very boring. He doesn't find peace with Zen or the writing of his new book, so he doesn't know how to change the course of his life. One day, after playing games with friends, he sees the dice and decides to throw one of them, telling himself that he would rape his desired neighbour (and wife of his friend and colleague) if it's a one. And that's what happens. He hesitates but then obeys the die, and so it happens that his life is dictated by the dice. It becomes his philosophy of life. No more worrying, no more considering or planning, no more questions of what's right or wrong, no more responsibility to anyone. He can be a taxi driver, a dropout who goes to africa, a scientist, anything, it's all up to the dice.

This book is written over hundreds of pages and I think there's even a trilogy of the dice books. But this is the first title and since I'm rather into stuff that makes me think and not so much into stories, I'll stick to this one first and think about its ideas. I like it so far because in some way it tells you to let go of the things that only make your life worse. Sure, there are things you shouldn't do, but maybe you have to experience freedom before you know what life means to you. And when you look at yourself, you wonder why coincidence has made life so strange to you, why other people are different, and then you think what would happen if you didn't think any more but just let something else decide for you.

Although I will probably not engage in dice-tossing, I'll think about the philosophy of breaking the circle in a radical way - who knows what happens when you think different. You should think about it too.