In Continuum.

Lives As Elevators

Human emotions are like elevators. Two distinctively groups of emotions are the male emotions, and the female emotions. Under both groups, they are further sub-divided into smaller classes, but of course in general it is not difficult to see the clear difference between the way a guy deals with a problem, and a girl deals with the very same problem.

I'm not exactly sure how this simile came about, but my beau and I were on the train when that happened. And it is true in a lot of ways that us humans work like elevators. But of course, as elevators there are a lot of different types. You have the ones that goes through a shaft, the ones that hangs on the side of grand five-star hotels, the ones that travel at amazing speeds like the one in Taipei 101, and imaginary ones like the glass elevator in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Men are like normal elevators traveling through a straight elevator shaft. You have different levels to get to by pressing buttons, and these buttons actually represents decisions made. For example, you are in a dead end relationship, with nothing ahead of you but more dread and more tears. You know that this relationship isn't going anywhere and the best way out is to have a clean break up. The 'break up' is of course, one of the levels, and the shaft is the emotional process that a man goes through before reaching that decision - the destination - eventually.

Men are simple creatures, and we love it. I used to hate the idea that people claim that men are simple, shallow creatures. I used to have a desire to distinguish myself from the rest, claiming that I am so much more sophisticated, so much more complicated emotionally. But in truth, I am no more simple than a mental sum tested in an ordinary Secondary School classroom in terms of my emotional processing. I do not go through long tedious mathematical workings to derive at an answer, but rather I rely solely on my common sense and brain to achieve it. The best possible way, the fastest, most efficent, most logical and rational way of dealing with a problem is usually what myself - or the majority of men - would do when dealing with emotional problems.

We are simple creatures and we (should) love it. There is nothing easier than to regard a problem with a simple mind, because there are times when the best way out is often the simplest. You save the pain, save the tears, save all the hassles and get down to business simply because your elevator shaft is straight up, or straight down. There is nothing complicated about that but only, different people - different men - have different numbers of floors. Some have lesser while others have more, and that differs between man to man. We reach different heights.

Women are like the glass elevator in the book "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator". Similarly, the buttons represents the decisions that we have to make in life. We take the same example as reference, but this time in a female's context. That alone makes things radically different already before even going into details.

If you know the story behind the glass elevator, you would know that the chocolate factory that Willie Wonka owns is the biggest chocolate factory in the world. Thus, Willie Wonka - being the genius as he is - invented a glass elevator that not only goes up and down, but left and right and to wherever places he pleases, simply by pressing a button.

Girls go through a series of emotional ups-and-downs and twists and turns before reaching a decision. Breaking up, for the girl, under the same circumstances, isn't as easy as the guy involved previously simply because she doesn't have an elevator shaft that goes straight up or straight down. She goes sidewards, upwards, downwards, length-wise and everywhere. It doesn't follow the conventional route of emotional process but rather chooses the complicated way out.

You might say that, as men, it is stupid for girls to actually torture themselves in that. But I think like men, women love the fact that they are complicated, complexed creatures that at times, hate the idea of being logical and rational. It makes them think, it makes them feel, and even if it is pain that they feel, so what? The hurt makes them feel alive, and to them a straight shaft is too boring and too dead. Let's go in all different directions before reaching the final decision, even if it means that we have to scream and shout at each other in the process. This makes women amazing creatures, and more sophisticated beings than men.

But both are contented with their nature, both love how they are built to be. If I have a choice to be a man or a woman in my next life - if I have a next one at all - I would probably opt to me a man again. It's just easier to be one in terms of the emotions. I guess I just love the feeling of being in a complexed person's life, and telling her that simplicity might be the best solution to her problems. It's nice to see a ball of mess in this plain straightforward way I guess, and of course there are other reasons to want to be a guy again. But of course, some things never change. We are always going to live lives as elevators.