Bøger af Tom Omidi Ph. D.

Soon we should agree that humans' natural qualities do not match their common (idealistic) perception of themselves, and that this mental incongruity accounts for most of our personal and interpersonal problems. In addition, the characteristics of the environments we have gradually built around ourselves make it impossible for us to converge with either our natural or idealistic view of a human. Nevertheless, it seems as if we must face the same old cliché, 'Who are we?' even more seriously now, in order to detect the origin of our personal and social problems. Our findings would then make us wonder with even more surprise, 'Why have we become this way?' Under the present circumstances, it is quite difficult for parents to advise their children about life. The competition in society to give children all the privileges they supposedly deserve and more is too stiff to allow any one parent teach the reality of life and its hardships to his/her children. Instead, they grow up to believe that life is a place to find happiness, which they also imagine comes from pleasures, sexuality, wealth, and arrogance. Parents are doomed if they support them to follow their shallow dreams, as they often turn out to be too fanciful and frustrating for them. And parents are doomed also if they try to push their children a bit toward a more practical and simpler lifestyles in hopes of curbing their rising expectations from life and relationships every year. We get blamed for not letting them follow their dreams and we get blamed for interfering in their lives and phony ideals. How can we tell our kids that all their dreams nowadays, including fame, love, trust, sincerity, and all the rest of all those good imaginations are only sure ways of losing more chunks of their independence, identity, and integrity? Of course, there is a lot of fun living in the 'perceived world' according to our fantasies, as if we have gone to movies to relax our busy minds for a short while. But the danger is that this 'perceived world' has overwhelmed our whole being and identity and thus obscured our senses and judgment. It is this submission to our phony identities and lifestyles that causes our chronic depression and stress, all due to the prevalent features of social living nowadays.

Gender's physical and hormonal differences are obvious, but their behavioural and emotional differences have been a matter of interest, excitement, and irritation regularly, especially in the new era. Even more amazing, the more we have tried to learn about, and practice, gender equality, the more gender parities have manifested and the more conflicts have risen between genders. Overall, as relationship conundrums increase in soci-ety, we feel both obliged and intrigued to study gender mentali-ties and answer many questions in hopes of improving the health of relationships and society. For facing all these new challenges, it is necessary to view gender differences in a more productive perspective, instead of being cynical and critical too much about them. We must view them as a potent inner force that could help genders complement each other and increase efficiency in their relationships

Unfortunately, we refuse to grasp life's sad realities and grow a more practical mentality accordingly. Despite our recurring disappointments and sufferings, we do not realize the pressure we are putting on one another with our naive views about life, mostly about an elusive happiness. We do not feel or admit that only by helping one another less selfishly, we might bear life's hardships together a bit easier. No one can elude, or do any-thing about, life's severe limitations in our wicked society, but only grasp and accept them with grace. Hence, it seems too idiotic and pathetic when we blame others, e.g., our spouses, for our stress and life's limited capacity to offer happiness to anybody. We are too naïve and stubborn to admit even these basic principles of social coexistence, yet try to discover the elaborate mysteries of life, love, and happiness. That is why our social structure and values are all falling apart too.

Unfortunately, we refuse to grasp life's sad realities and grow a more practical mentality accordingly. Despite our recurring disappointments and sufferings, we do not realize the pressure we are putting on one another with our naive views about life, mostly about an elusive happiness. We do not feel or admit that only by helping one another less selfishly, we might bear life's hardships together a bit easier. No one can elude, or do any-thing about, life's severe limitations in our wicked society, but only grasp and accept them with grace. Hence, it seems too idiotic and pathetic when we blame others, e.g., our spouses, for our stress and life's limited capacity to offer happiness to anybody. We are too naïve and stubborn to admit even these basic principles of social coexistence, yet try to discover the elaborate mysteries of life, love, and happiness. That is why our social structure and values are all falling apart too.

The chaos in relationships nowadays disables partners to relate in a meaningful way. Instead, they seem mostly engaged in some kind of a game, or they behave passively around each other to make the best of such a frustrating entrapment. A major source of this chaos in relationships is that couples perceive and define their 'relationship needs' as an extension of their personal needs. Some people are even more selfish and insist that their personal needs must supersede their partners' needs and any kind of relationship needs that might exist. They try to dominate their partners and set crooked guidelines for their relationships. In fact, we all naively assume that relation-ships' main (and often 'only') purpose is to make us happy.

This novel is about a young boy's perplexing journey through adolescence in a corrupt, fast-changing environment of Iran during the last years of the Shah's regime. The playful, overly curious Kian Noori is anxious to solve several mysteries regarding his parents' history and lifestyle amidst the showy aristocratic society of Iran before the Islamic revolution. Then his life is turned upside down when a gypsy arrives at their home to tell his mother's fortune. He is not only mesmerized by her charm, but also perturbed by her peculiar predictions of his future and her warning about an ominous woman who would soon come into his life. Special circumstances expose Kian to the adults' vulgar life-styles in lavish parties and nightclubs, so he loses his chance to experience youth like other teenagers. Instead, he is drawn fast into risky territories, including affairs with older women. All along, he is grappling with his cynicism about his friends, adults, and even God. Many other questions, especially the rea-sons behind his mother's malice toward him, also keep him on the edge. He eventually succeeds to escape his parents and the life of the bourgeoisie in Tehran in order to find peace in the new world. Still, his parents' extreme retaliations against each other lead to their ultimate demise when they get themselves entangled with the hectic justice system of the new Islamic government. Kian feels guilty for his inability to help them even as a learned psychiatrist practising in Los Angeles.

Over 900 facts, trends, and choices about relationships in this book demonstrate the difficulty of satisfying this simple human need in the new era. They show the main sources of relation-ship conflicts and the consequent, rising personal frustration and depression. With our bizarre perceptions and values about relationships, we have indeed gotten ourselves trapped in an agonizing web of complex dilemmas. As societies get more complex every day, our lifestyles and convictions have changed drastically. Accordingly, our rela-tionships have become quite difficult to understand and man-age. Our personal needs, insecurities, and idiosyncrasies have also been increasing rapidly in line with changes in social values. However, we not only ignore the hazards of these rising personal shortfalls, but also justify our new needs and defects so obsessively and arrogantly.

These fifteen interrelated essays and short stories depict a rather full cycle of the protagonist's life in an abstract style. They contain a mass of actual events and perplexing thoughts that have propelled the course of my lousy life, but also made it bearable and even interesting on some days. Our mundane experiences best reveal the peculiarities of our habits, cultures, and minds, but also our resilience and coping mechanisms. They show the intricacy of human nature, ego, and spirit firsthand, which authors strive to capture in their tales. For example, the rather odd story of Trumpet Man reflects the lively culture and atmosphere in downtown Vancouver, as well as a great perspective of the fluid humanity. Conversely, the oddity of random events and our fates often make us wonder about some kind of magic or supernatural always interfering with our lives and plans. Starting with the intriguing and high-spirited events in the first story, The Big Plan, various adventures in subsequent stories carry the readers toward the last story, The Final Plan, where the protagonist (like many other people) faces the biggest contrast with his initial vision of life. I have been either the protagonist (over sixty percent) or a secondary character in these stories. Some aspects of the stories have been modestly changed, though, to make them more complete or meaningful. The endings of a few stories have also been altered to offer a different outcome I liked better, but only because it could have easily been the case in those circumstances, anyway. Yet, I have tried to remain fully faithful to the gist of the stories and characters' quirks in the way they had intrigued me to write about them in the first place. These essays and stories were written randomly during the last fifteen years, but by accident, they seem to cover the three stages of the protagonist's life. The first phase-the beginning-covers youth's narrow vision of life while they struggle with their dilemmas and confusion in hopes of building their characters and lives. The second phase-the middle-relates to our direct experiences and involvement with life as we strive to survive financially and emotionally, while wonder about the purpose of all that hard work regularly. We face middle-age crisis and do a great deal of soul-searching and reflection. The third phase-the end-arrives as we feel old and defeated, realize life's vanity, and eventually reach the point of resignation. The use of first person voice or a narrator (with mixed pseudonyms for characters) fitted each stories' particular structure best when written independently many years ago. They have been kept intact for the purpose of this book. This variety seems to help avoid monotony, however, despite the intention to follow a particular character's interests and thoughts throughout the fifteen stories. A commoner's unsettling fate and mind manifest during his travels from city to city, while he staggers in the journey of life itself, satiates his curiosities, encounters complex people and situations, and strives to make sense of it all. As my main field of interest and study, 'relationships' has naturally emerged as a recurring theme in almost all the stories in this book. Social welfare and individuals' health are in severe jeopardy, while people struggle to balance their sexual urges, independence, and emotional needs. Companionship is a basic human need, especially in our stressful and harsh societies, while sexual deprivation and relationship complexities are getting more burdensome and out of hand every day too.