Posted: 11/May/2008 at 14:25 | IP Logged

I know someone wants to comment on what I wrote in St. Petersburg so I'm posting it here:

"The R-Word

• Every relationship has a natural lifecycle.
• One can never change another human being.
• a) True love is love of what is, not of what might be.
• b) Human beings are beautiful because they are free.
• a + b = c) Love that seeks to bind is not love, it is lack of love of oneself. The most beautiful love is the love that dares to let go.
• How can love ever be wrong? How can love ever be wrong? No matter how short, how long; how weak, how strong. The strength of love is not determined by the length of love. How can love ever be more wrong than some premature promise?
• A promise based on the unchanging nature of man will be in vain.
• Love defined is love killed.
• Fear of losing love causes us to catergorise love.
• Fear of love lost is love lost.
• Love must be continually be created or die.
• Love can never be had, it can only be experienced.
• Is love just a feeling, or is it a choice? (Like faith - see the discussion in the forum!) Is chosen love more important than felt love?
• "Falling in love" is the ultimate experience; it can never be experienced enough times.
• If the price of love is pain, please torture me some more!"

Some of this feels a tiny bit dated. Or at least "not fully formed thoughts". But that's ok.

I'd now like to add the following, which has been posted on the Tabriz, Iran page:

"Girls and I - The R-Word part II

I have received a few emails questioning my intentions with the girls in Tabriz and girls around the world for that matter. I find that those emails (from "the west") display exactly the same kind of system of "hijab" as in Iran, in terms of trying to control people’s behaviour. At the same time, I value those emails hugely, and, like the people on the bus, I value the fact that the issues are raised with me rather than sealed, packaged and stored in the appropriate compartment in someone’s mind as a fully resolved issue. Perhaps I haven’t explained myself properly and perhaps descriptions such as "gorgeous" and joking about virginity doesn’t help. So let me try to explain.

Firstly, right now I have the perfect excuse. Middle Eastern men are easy to meet; meeting women can be hard work. But, in my opinion, it’s the women of the Middle East who have the most to say and the fewest opportunities to say them. On the whole, particularly outside "the west", I’m more interested in the opinions of women. I don’t have to do anything to be on the receiving end of the opinions of men, they are everywhere! Also, in terms of my film there is a definite lack of women compared to men and I’m trying to do something about that.

"So you treat women like guinea-pigs for the sake of their opinions and your film?". God no. Whereas I sometimes treat my own life slightly experimentally by putting myself in certain situations to see what will happen to me, I would be saddened indeed if someone else accused me of doing that with their lives. Perhaps I did it once in Lebanon and for that I am truly sorry.

But this is only scratching the veneer. I don’t expect anyone to buy what I’ve said so far. It’s not untrue, but it’s not the core of the matter. Here’s what it really is.

I like girls. I also like boys. But I really like girls. I sometimes like women better than men, they can be easier to bond with on a deeper level. They are sometimes easier to feel love ("What, sex?" No, love.) for and receive love from. In my eyes many women are more respectful, gentler, better communicators, more caring, more open, more intuitive, more sharing, less blocked, more interested, more interesting, blah, blah, blah-blah-blah than many men. Oh I sound so gay. So let’s add "more aesthetically pleasing" as well. Oh that’s even more gay.

"But men and women can’t be just friends, there’s always something lurking behind!" Then I would on one hand pity your limited mind but also... perhaps you’re right. "Aha! Sex!" Well, that’s always a possibility, but not necessarily. Yes, I am predominantly heterosexual, but I rarely see women as sexual objects. If I did, the three girls in Tabriz would never have made friends with me for more than five minutes. Sex is very rarely my primary intention when encountering others. Sex is something that may happen somewhere down the line, as a by-product of a by-product of a by-product of something else. I’m going to have to like someone an awful lot first.

"So what is it about you and the girls in Tabriz?" I can’t really tell you. I love them. They are more than my friends, they are my sisters, they are more than my sisters, they are my godesses. There is something magical between the four of us that can’t be described. "Answer truthfully, would you like to have sex with one or more of them?" No, that would probably destroy the basis of our relationship of infinite trust and respect. Can you please just accept the answer that it’s just not an intention from any of us? Can you not believe that a man is capable of not thinking with his knob? It is a very tactile relationship but it can be that way only because I give them "good hijab" and vice versa.

"Then you’re the Devil in disguise".

Yes, Satan is my name. Who are you, anyway?

"Why are you asking, you invented me!"

Ok, ok... can you go away now?

"All you have to do is to stop typing."

I don’t want to stop typing, I’m on a roll.

"That’s your problem."

The discussion could be taken another step further. So what if I "fell in love" (in the traditional sense of the word) with one of them? Why would that be a terrible thing? And what if I was having sex with one of them? Or all of them? At the same time? And with a donkey? And the neighbour?

"Stop it, stop it, STOP IT! I can’t listen to this!" Why? It was you who brought up this whole discussion - there’s absolutely nothing about sex in what I’ve written above.

"So why do you keep writing about it? Why do you need to jusify yourself?" Well, I guess I do feel the need to justify myself. In a brilliant display of character-study, "Rookie" later told me in Tehran to "leave the last bits of remorse from my previous life behind". I suppose this is that "remorse" speaking.

In my opinion, the only real reason why the above scenario would be "wrong", if one assumes that it happened between four... five consenting adults and a consenting donkey, is that this is Iran and it could ruin the girls’ lives and their prospects of marrying. In addition to a possible case of animal cruelty. Though I’m quite sure that donkey would be the happiest donkey alive.

I will take this part of the discussion further in "The R-Word Part III" when something in the external world gives me the impulse to write it. Then you should seriously get ready to slate me, so far this is nothing...

But in terms of just being together, the girls are grown-ups and insist on taking their own decisions and their own risks and they don’t want me to think for them. And I am happy to take my own risks. I am also prepared to stand up for them if they get into trouble with the law, though there is nothing I can do if their families throw a fit.

"But you don’t consider their feelings. You come to town like a playboy and then just fuck off." Well, my life is very simple. Simplicity is the key to my current happiness, I believe. And without honesty there is no simplicity. So I make sure that everyone I meet knows exactly what the score is. But it’s a good point, and maybe this is exactly how I am trying to justify myself: I do consider this question. If I get the feeling that I will be taking more away from someone when leaving than I am adding to their lives when I am there, I won’t stay. 

"But why can’t you find one girl, stick with her, you can even go travelling with her... but just have a normal relationship with one girl?!"

Well, in addition to what I wrote in "The R-Word part I" (St. Petersburg), another reason for not being in a "conventional relationship" is that it changes your appreciation of people around you. Having another person permanently attached to your mind changes the way you relate to others and it changes your freedom to form new relationships. Relationships can’t be quantified. The limitation of inter-human relationships into pre-manufactured boxes is something I despise, it is no less than one of the greatest evils of mankind, in my opinion. A "conventional relationship" limits the possibility of the light shining out of your eyes instantly caressing the heart of another person opposite you, male or female, and vice versa. It limits your chances of giving and receiving love.

"But a proper relationship or marriage doesn’t limit love, it is the only medium of true love!" That’s your interpretation. My interpretation, based on my own and seemingly the vast majority of others’ less-than-ecstatic "relationships", and based on the definition that "true love" is a state where you always want what’s best for the other person even if it is detrimental to your own happiness, I wouldn’t want to afflict anyone with a relationship with me if I truly want what’s best for them. That would, in fact, be quite selfish on my part - I know that a "relationship" would most likely make me unhappy, no matter how comfortable it is, and it would therefore also make the other person unhappy. And I of course can’t to that to a person I truly love!

I dispute that a conventional relationship is the best possible expression of love. Love that is not trapped can truly be true and truly last forever.

Also, there is the question of identity. If I’m attempting to "obliterate" certain aspects of personal identity, such as culture, nationalism, religion, etc., in order to be as "non-exclusive" as possible and to live a life completely devoid of taboos, a "person permanently attached to my mind" would certainly go against that principle. I have a lot of love to give in many forms and I don’t want to limit that in any way. I don’t wish to bind myself to anything too strongly. I can die a happy man any day because of that. This principle also makes me always free to bind myself to anything I choose at any time.

Listening to, and trying to stay out of, yet another hostel coffee-room discussion on "polyamourosity" or some crap like that just the other day, I finally couldn’t contain myself anymore, turned around and said: "Why do you need to intellectualise it? Why can’t you just feel - and act accordingly?". Well, the need to intellectualise it is understandable, just like this bullshit "The R-Word Part II"; I am the "abnormal" one and the ball is in my court to make a case for a different kind of life to all the "normal" people.

And finally, as I’m travelling I keep repeating this phrase to a lot of people, and I really mean it: "You are always welcome wherever in the world I may be, I just don’t know where that is!". I will never turn anyone away if it’s humanly possible to do so. So tell me... how many girlfriends or wives would put up with that?

But, anyway, even if some relationships are sexual, so what? And also... what exactly is sex? Religious morality has taken us too far away from clear answers to those questions. Sex is in the mind... and possibly the heart. A handshake, with the right intentions, could be sex. But I’ll save all that for The R-Word Part III...

"I still think you’re the Devil in disguise!"

Ok, so let me finish off with an assurance that not a single hair on the three girls’ virginal heads has been ruffled, bent, broken, straightened, curled, bleached, trimmed or split except that time when I accidentally set Cat’s hair on fire when trying to light her cigarette."

Martin - Tehran