You have some things correct, and some that are off, and you appear to have some political...manipulations by certain other parties (not you) mixed in.

I don't know where you got the idea that the US "didn't act on Syria until after Putin did." Russia was the latecomer there,and was invited in by Syria's leader in large part to counteract the US. One of the many very disturbing things in America now, is that the Republican Party, purely for LOCAL advantage, has been falsely promoting the idea that Putin's Russia actually led the defeat of ISIS (so far as that has gone); that Russia handled Syria correctly, and that the US was wrong; that Iran should be treated as a magically evil place, not because it is, but because they want to say no to ANYTHING that a (coincidentally black?) Democratic President tried to do, regardless of how wise and forward-looking it was; and worse.

The Republicans initiated the huge Federal financial bailout of the rich back in 2008, and then as soon as they lost the election, they blamed the entire bailout on Obama. They promoted the idea that keeping interest rates low, and continuing to assist the economy from the Federal level (which again, they started) was a disaster, even as the economy recovered. They blocked every Democratic initiative to help the economy further which they could, while complaining that although the economy was recovering, that it wasn't recovering fast enough.

And what was their "solution," after they gained full control? Was it to rein in government intervention, and address the climbing deficit, which they had decried from 2008 to 2016? Nope. They reversed course 180 degrees, and declared the deficit meaningless, cut taxes ONLY on the top moneymakers, promising large wage increases (none occurred), a return of industrial investment here (very little occurred, none of which wasn't already in the works before 2016). Now the deficit is vastly worse than ever before and growing.

I guess my "turning points" have been more like "un-events."

Things like going through social hell, and by utterly failing, finally recognizing that my early deduction that other people knew the right way to live, was a horrible error on my part.

My life didn't get any better from there on, but the fact that I completely own all my mistakes and shortcomings, has made whatever did happen, feel more real, and therefore more satisfying than any false victories would have.

The only positive thing I can derive from all the people who twist logic around to pretend they aren't racist, is that at least they recognize that being racist isn't a good thing.

But just recognizing that you don't want to be thought of as one, doesn't change whether you are one or not. That is determined by how you conduct your life.

I'm with Tom4uhere on this, overall. We're already traveling through time with no ability to return.

An additional observation about that...lots of people aren't conscious of it, but they actually DO have in the back of their mind, that they can go back in time and start over on things.

In a real way, when people mess up, and try to use an apology and a vow to get the other person to forgive them, they are often hopping to actually go back in time to before their mistake, and start again. No one can actually do that, hence many people end up complaining that their now ex partner refused to "forgive" them.

On another aspect of this, since I've both studied history AND occasionally participated directly in historically recorded events, I know all too well, that MANY seemingly fabulous eras of the past, were no where near as idyllic as they are portrayed.

I personally lived through the 1950's. It SEEMED okay, except that the censorship of the entire society was so deep, that reality was never dealt with by anyone.

I lived through the sixties as well. Lots of consciousness raising and exploration of mores and overturning of the censorships, but also tremendous strife, and the initiation of the negative forces that would show up to plague us all later.

The seventies were awful for me. Films were all about how terrible all our leading people really were, and how life just wasn't worth living. Until Star Wars and Rocky 2 came out towards the end of all that, the US society appeared to be eating itself just for fun.

The eighties saw the real beginnings of the "lets go back to pretending everything is really fine, whether it is or not" movement that is still dragging the country down.

And so on.

So I'd never want to have to go through any of that again.

Further back in the past, I would need to be empowered to be instantly made a particular powerful person, as WELL as retaining my knowledge. No good going back to the golden age of Greece as a slave.

I disagree. Requiring each other to "respond," means that whoever initiates, is always ALWAYS entirely in charge of both peoples lives.

I support much more personal freedom than that allows.

I view all this from my typical combination historian/service technician point of view.

I know that in long term service situations, just as in the paths of historic events and human behaviors, that nothing really bad happens out of the blue.

Yes, there has always been an element of at least showmanship, if not necessarily deception, involved with all attempts to politically lead. Even in the days of kings and emperors, power was built and maintained less by physical force, than by persuasions of various kinds.

I have seen lots of mechanical service situations, where an entire large system or collection of systems came to be in a constant state of disruption and collapse, entirely because for years before, person after person in a position to handle problems efficiently and effectively, elected to go for short cuts and short term advantages only. It was always made far worse, by those who came on the scene later, reacting with nothing but hand wringing and sarcastic observations of how "leadership is always corrupted by greed" or whatever.

The reasons we are in the mess we are now, are all in the far past, and have been made vastly worse over time, by the repetition of short term patch over short term patch, rather than any real effort being made to fundamentally fix anything.

In particular, when a large part of the leadership of a nation decides to ignore principles, and to make all decisions for the sake of short term gains, the overall nation will invariably be placed in a precarious and dangerous danger of complete collapse, over time.

The problem we have now, isn't just that some of our political leaders are selfish and personally corrupt. The problem we have, is that due to the conscious decision long ago, to set aside principles of decency, honesty, and above all, honor and integrity, in order to gain short term majority power in our legislatures, the entire fabric of those political parties and organizations converted themselves to consisting of a majority of people who don't even know what honor means.

As long as a majority of American voters continue to make choices based only on immediate perceived gratuities and emotional catering to prejudices and fears, the people who want to use us as a sludgy ocean of fools to sail their yachts of personal greed across, will continue to make sure we all stay in this mess.

Liars only succeed, when a majority of people choose to pretend they are not liars, for their own personal gain.

I wont claim that I have exactly that kind of problem, but I have enough.

I've reached the point where I see the whole mate-search almost mathematically. I visualize it as a combination of arcs of peoples lives (their lessons and remaining or newfound hopes), with the circumstances of existence itself.

As I experienced various things with mates in the past, I learned about my own limits, and about how to watch for limits in others. Things I knew that I needed a mate to enjoy or believe in, things that I knew I liked, that limited who could enjoy me.

Age has its effect as well...when we are very young, all sorts of physical activities, and much more important, physical risks, are easy to take on, often because we don't realize yet how they will limit our futures.

As we experience more, life is often similar to walking through a full-size maze, where you aren't allowed to backtrack. As we go through it, some avenues and opportunities close forever behind us, and fewer and fewer possibilities are available ahead. We can easily end up in a place where there is no option to go where we want, we can only go where the maze is still open.

In the world of mating, that means that although I may be fine and dandy as a match for lots of women, unless one of them chances to be in a part of the maze that I can still reach, it doesn't matter.

In the end, being a "great guy" is less than half the game won. We have to be THE "great guy" that the "great gal" we have come to recognize we must demand (due to our own limitations) wants, AND we have to be close enough to make things work.

And each and every quirk we have, or that our lives has delivered us into, slices off that many more possible mates.

It never becomes hopeless, but I think it's wise to recognize and accept that whereas as kids, we imagined that we could have a good time with dozens if not hundreds of nearby people, that if that was really ever true, it sure as hell isn't true anymore, and never will be.

It's not a good thing or a bad thing or a tragic thing, it's just a REAL thing.

Actually, it isn't specified what the hole is in. That's similar to a storm drain in size, and around here, they've got lots of dirt in them.

I don't know if I have anything that I actually came into possession of while I was a child, but I did go back and build a collection of Classics Illustrated books.

I have never myself experienced "bicuriosity," so this is more of an observation based on various readings and college courses I've had.

Anyway, not all sex related urges or "curiosities" are actually about wanting to perform whatever actions are involved. Lots of the time in particular, there is some ASSOCIATION involved, between the sexual image in the mind, and something else entirely.

For example, it can happen that a person comes to associate sexual interaction, even with the gender they usually go for, not with sex as such, but with CLOSENESS or COMFORT or APPROVAL or even as a reminder of the sense of safety they had as a child.

An only slightly related,and often misunderstood situation that's somewhat similar, is how lots of people get some pleasure from seeing someone naked, even though they don't want to have sex or a relationship with the person. The "seeing them naked" can be, instead of purely sexual, a trigger for the feeling that the target person is somehow more friendly, approachable, or less different; or it can even be a sort of exciting "counting coup" effect, much like one gets from collecting autographs, or finally owning the same car that their most admired film star owns.

I suggest you spend some time pondering more of the exact details of your desire or attraction. In particular, see if you can figure out what you expect to GET from such an interaction. Is it comfort? or even a sort of mirror effect, where you reassure yourself that the males you are with are having fun with you, and you know, because you've done what they do, yourself?

Especially if it's an urge or desire you haven't always felt, it's more likely to be an ASSOCIATION or TRANSFERENCE urge, than a direct and simple want.

I want to take this all apart a little bit, then take a much closer look at a couple of the pieces you've used here, and then put it back together from a slightly different point of view. I hope it will help a bit.

The first piece I want to look more closely at, is where you mention "or do you think its healthier to feel the more raw initial emotions?" This reminds me of a sort of odd fad notion that I've seen come up more than a few times during my life. Every now and again, nowadays and in further history, some people come up with the idea that it's "unhealthy" to hold emotions in. It's usually the result of something unpleasant happening, because someone DID hold emotions almost entirely inside, and then either exploded violently because of it, or suffered self destruction because of it.

Where the "solution" of allowing more emotions to flow "naturally" goes wrong, is that people go overboard, and eventually start attributing HONESTY and TRUTH to whatever immediate emotions pop up, and stop inspecting them at all, before spewing out whatever instant reactions they have. They forget that we can have emotional reactions because something here and now, only REMINDS us of something bad from our past, that actually has little or nothing to do with here and now.

Much as we get fads that say that eating RAW VEGETABLES is inherently, almost magically better for us than eating cooked or otherwise changed vegetables, simply because they ARE raw, people get the idea that venting their emotions literally thoughtlessly is somehow more "honest" than thinking everything through and weighing everything first, and then that "honesty" makes you a superior person somehow. Even though they aren't so much "honest," as they are just aimless.

More than anything else, it reminds me of a fad that swept upper class Rome long ago, where it was believed that holding a full bladder for too long was damaging to the innards (it can certainly feel that way sometimes!), and so it became a common thing for a rich person to call a servant over with a vase for them to pee into, right in the middle of a conversation with someone else.

Another thing I want to look more closely at, is the exact identity of each EMOTION involved. It occurred to me only fairly recently, that there may not really be as MANY emotions as we have names for, after all. For example, perhaps there is no emotion of "embarrassment." Perhaps embarrassment is made of a coupling of fear and confusion, with a bit of anger sprinkled over it. Perhaps jealousy is a mushed together bit of anger, some fear, all stifled under a half remembered set of rules, that no one ever actually made into law.

And maybe there is no emotion of empathy. When I "empathize" with someone, the emotions I feel, are all my own original emotions, that I felt when I went through something similar to what the person I am "empathizing" with. The reason why "empathy" can go wrong, is that it is VERY important to recognize that I AM re-feeling my OWN emotions, and I am not "sensing" what the other person feels. I IMAGINE that the other person and I are similar enough, that I MIGHT know how they feel. And when I decide to deal with the person I "empathize" with, as though they ARE feeling what I did, I think it's important to realize that I'm behaving as I wish others did in the past, when I DID feel those emotions.

I think it's still a good thing to do, mind you, but if I start believing that I'm feeling EMPATHY, instead of only imagining that the other person is like me, I might end up confusing who is who, and who's VALUES matter in the exchange.

I think this is the most correct answer.

Combine it with the fact that most people don't actually use their own carefully chosen and crafted words to express themselves (most people remember what others have said, and use that), and you have the primary formula for human communications failures.

The main common human behavior that really makes clear that her behavior has actually been VERY consistent throughout, is that most people have as their CORE goal, to feel as though they are "doing whatever they do, right." Not so much "right" in a great-philosophical way, so much as "right" in a way that fits the story of life that they assume they are living out.

She wants to think well of herself. So do you. She said she wanted to stay friends after the breakup, because that made her feel "nice," you wanted not to, because that made you feel "decisive," or perhaps "strong."

When she got in touch again after you were injured, she was continuing her role as "being a nice friend." When you allowed her to reconnect, you seem to have seen more in it, and perhaps thought about reconnecting more romantically, and that's why when she went straight to chatting about how she was being "hit on" a lot, you took it to be something like taunting.

In the meantime, EVERYTHING she was doing fit perfectly with treating you like a BUDDY. Sharing her involvements with other people, sharing her emotional journey AWAY from you after the breakup, as well as saying things that A FRIEND would take as polite and comforting (such as that she felt bad about how the breakup went, and that she "missed you.") That wasn't a come-on to get back together, as you seem to have surmised, it was identical to the way that many people politely say things like "great meal," when they didn't like anything you cooked.

All in all, this is a classic example of why SOME people support a "no contact" time period after a serious breakup. It's not always because everyone is angry, and might fight, it's to avoid exactly this kind of confusion about intentions and actions.

...or misleading, or commonly misapplied.

One that seems to come up a lot, is "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

In my direct experience and research, I have recognized that this is actually an act of letting people off the hook, and ascribing magic influence to "power."

I think the saying should be something closer to "Awarding someone power tends to REVEAL how corrupt or ignorant or incompetent to wield power that they already were.

Another is “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” I don't like that one, because history DOES NOT REPEAT.

I'm hoping to stimulate some thought on such things, because some very bad things have been done in the name of obeying such faulty "wisdom."

Expectations that differ from the actual marriage experience.

You know that annoying feeling you get when a poorly made gap in a sidewalk makes you trip and stumble? That's what I feel as I'm trying to read anything where words are obviously misused. To versus Too is a common one. Affected versus Effected. But even using "A" when it should be "An" can have the effect.

And of course, "their" versus "there."

I don't think badly of the person making the mistake, unless they angrily demand that they are right, or that there's something wrong with people who point out the mistake.

But it's that "crack in the sidewalk jarring trip" effect that bugs me. Sometimes the only way I can stand to read the more poorly written posts or articles I see online, is if I first copy past the whole thing into another place, so I can correct the mistakes.

I'd bet that I'm not alone in suffering the sidewalk crack effect, and that some people who don't pay attention to such details, aren't getting a fair hearing for their thoughts, simply because few people can stand to read their way through the way they are written.

Oh, and there's "where" versus "were," too. "Do" versus "due." ANything where the words rhyme, but mean completely different things.

For some reason, I've been seeing more misuse of "loose" when the person meant to say "lose," too.

Correct. Politicians love to play tricks with numbers when it comes to things like the trade deficit, sometimes including factors, sometimes not.

But the more important part of any statistic, and what it means. is WHY it changed however it did.

If the trade deficit grows, for example, because overall American spending grows, and that happens because Americans in general have more to spend, then the raising trade gap is a good thing. If the gap shrinks, because tariffs make foreign goods too expensive, but overall purchasing goes down as well, then it's not such a good thing at all.

In addition, if this ONE MONTH dip is real, but is due to the obviously very temporary effect of the tariff war, it is worse than meaningless. It is effectively similar to a statistic that shows that your savings account grew for one month, because you skipped paying some of your bills that month.

In our case, due to the huge tax cut for certain sectors, the national debt is increasing as never before, but is being ignored entirely. A very limited expansion has been accomplished by borrowing insanely against future stable growth that is NOT OCCURRING.

Actually, that old maths mystery is a good "parable" in a way. The lesson of it its, watch out for sneaky people who change the rules or the subject area of the situation in mid-interaction.

The trick in that one is performed by sneakily switching from one mathematical formulation of the exchange to the other, while adding up the numbers.

In economic politics, just as an example, some people like to play a trick where they switch calculations and points of view mid math, when talking about how much to pay workers. They might point out that without the employer paying anything at all, that the workers would have nothing, therefore they should be grateful and support capitalist calculations that show that sales would go down if they were paid a living wage, and therefore the employer would go out of business. By switching casually from worker calculations to employer calculations and back again, they make it APPEAR that the only solution is for workers to be abjectly poor, or work additional jobs to get by.

Meanwhile quietly pocketing the two pounds.

Well as usual, there always needs to be a caveat that some people use the word "wisdom" to refer to things other than what other people mean by it.

In my own sense of it, the difference between knowledge of facts and processes, and actual wisdom, is one of LEVELS OF PERCEPTION AND UNDERSTANDING, as opposed to AMOUNTS of information.

"Rational" does mean something like "mechanically logical." I would say that all WISDOM is rational, or at least depends on rationality, but that not all rationality results in wise insight. I think it's necessary to use logic and rational thought to explore any area of life, in order to build toward achieving wisdom.

Most of what I'e read in things like the Bible, are part of a serious and very positively intended effort to convey wisdom, and to help people achieve wisdom more quickly, by spelling out results and conclusions through various means.

The biggest tricky thing about trying to convey wisdom, is that in order for someone to really understand anything pervasively enough to have any sense of independent wisdom, is the same problem all parents have, trying to teach their children to learn how to stay safe in the world.

A list of "do's and don'ts" is a quick way to very crudely effect a very basic form of safety, but if children are to learn to work out how to stay safe in the great dynamic confusion and new-every-minute that is the real world, they must understand, often at a visceral level, WHY trying to stay safe is a good idea, as well as HOW to build and update their OWN list of "do's and don'ts."

In a very general way, it is WISE to EXPLORE and APPLY knowledge. Not just memorize it. Where things get really fun, is that more often than many people realize, real wisdom is only achieved, when the person recognizes that all of what they have learned about themselves and others, means that they DON'T have to try to get the other people to change, and that understanding how and why they are different, is enough.

Something I discovered on my own about all this, is that wisdom heard or read, and then only memorized and recited, is often wisdom lost or excitedly overlooked.

It can be tricky to correctly assess the meaning of a "look." Especially a "look" from a stranger.