Paradoxes revisited

I wear a beard...occasionally. At my work in the office everyone's shaved clean. I like to have a beard going on. Back then in highschool, as soon as the firs strand of hair grew on my face I was awaiting for my ugly looking mustache to pull itself down to the soft teenage hair of my chin, so I shaved the young skin harshly with my father's razor. It bled most of the times, but to me that was a sacrifice well worth it. At university, when I was my own supervisor, I had the Darvish's beard going on that made me look like a drunk homeless dude on trying to put himself on the right path of life. I don't look like a homeless dude I used to look anymore, but my hesitations to shave or keep the beard every night tells me that I still haven't found the right path.

I used to think a lot about the paradoxes that compose our lives for us like a symphony that sounds foreign to your ears. There are ups and downs and both are equally well worth it. Once the notes play you, and series of rhythms pass there's no going back. Now that I am actually living those paradoxes I am not sure if I can really view them as worth while anymore. I just view them like anybody else...happy moments and sad moments. In other words, moments that I rather experience more of, and moments that rather experience less of.

For instance...I didn't have my phone today on me for the whole day. It meant, no reading the e-magazines on the way to work, or no funnies from my jokes application. It meant no podcasts on the way back, and no music either. It meant no Grand Theft Auto when in the washroom, and no singing to the tunes in the shower. Instead, I realized how I had missed the time to actually contemplate the stuff I've already read and listened to the days before. How I had missed the time to search for my own music myself. Instead of trying his or her playlists here and there on YouTube.

or let's take love...slowly but surely I am coming to realize the control/compromise game I had come to see as the derive in a relationship is not actually that pleasant. Whether you're only in it for the sex, or to create something out of it that would last a lifetime, it all seems to boil down to the same thing...there's nothing new...it's always about how much of YOU is left after your compromises! You fall in love with someone because of specific character traits but then you stay in a relationship only to calm and tame those very traits that attracted you in the first place. You walk into a relationship to complete yourself, only give up many of the things you thought you are without even knowing it.

When you meet a friend, or a potential partner, or a new boss or a colleague you want to impress, you unintentionally start promoting the best version of yourself to the other person. Then if you are persuasive enough for them to take your mental image of best of you as the normal you, they would treat you as if you are indeed the best version of you. They would compliment you as if you are the best version of you. They would support you in your ups and downs as if you're the best version of you. Slowly you would come to believe the [let's be abruptly honest] lies you told them in the first place while deep down you know you can not live up to the image. It wouldn't be mental image if you could have lived up to it...and so you become a sad little story.

And now I am still wondering if I should shave for tomorrow or not...I am writing all this, by myself, smoking, drinking wine and reading Hafez. And funny the last part of the first poem I just read was:

ترک افسانه بگو حافظ و می نوش دمی

که نخوفتیم شب و شمع به افسانه بسوخت

Hafez, stop talking about the myths, and drink some wine for a moment

because we didn't sleep the night, and our candle was burnt by the myths [we kept talking about]