Jealousy

Woman: He is not faithful to me!

Socrates: Why do you think so?

Woman: I can see it in his eyes. Over the years I have learned to spot this. I can just tell. Every man's eyes look different when they are not faithful.

Socrates: How so?

Woman: The change color. Like leafs in the fall. The go from green to dark brown.

Socrates: How can the eyes change color? I have never seen this happen.

Woman: This is because you are a man. Woman see things differently.

Socrates: True.

Woman: I do not even want his love. I just want his eyes to never change color. Do you understand?

Socrates: No, not really.

Woman: Let me explain. A man is never happy. Not even when he tastes the truth or fulfils his desires. But a woman is always happy except when man makes her unhappy.

Socrates: Most women I met tell me that they are not happy.

Woman: You see! So this is true!

Socrates: Tell me more about this man you with.

Woman: He is tall, intelligent, sexy. He does not read GQ and does not smoke. Occasionally he gets drunk. He likes to dominate and loves having sex with me.

Socrates: You really love him, don't you?

Woman: I sure do. I love them all until they make me unhappy. Then I switch between love, hate and pills for 3 months. Then it all repeats.

Socrates: What are you looking for in a man?

Woman: I like a man who is tall, intelligent, sexy. The one who does not read GQ and does not smoke. It is okay if he occasionally gets drunk. Most importantly, I want a man who likes to dominate and loves having sex with me.

Socrates: You are joking, right?

Woman: Not at all.

Socrates: But you described exactly the man you are with now?

Woman: So?

Socrates: So you found a perfect man?

Woman: I did. But his eye color changed. I lost him.

Socrates: That's terrible. Has this ever happen to you before?

Woman: What?

Socrates: The perfect match.

Woman: Sure. Happens all the time. I do not date men who are not perfect for me.

Socrates: It must be hard to find them?

Woman: Not really, although lately it has been sort of hard.

Socrates: What if you are mistaken and this man you are with now is faithful?

Woman: Impossible. The eye color changed.

Socrates: Will you confront him?

Woman: No, I never do that.

Socrates: What are you going to do?

Woman: Nothing. Live, I guess. Look for the next perfect man.

Intelligence

Woman 1: I can not believe this!

Woman 2: What again?

Woman 1: They just hired another director!

Woman 2: What?! Why?!

Woman 1: He is to head the pain management group.

Woman 2: You know this is becoming ridiculous.

Woman 1: I know. Ever since Karel took over, it has been total chaos. She just keeps on bringing these incompetent people. Why doesn't she want to promote us?

Woman 2: Obviously we are not smart enough.

Woman 1: Smart? Listen to this. Yesterday, we are sitting in a weekly meeting with clients. I am talking about the potential new indication for the drug that we are working on. I look at my boss and he is smelling his armpits.

Woman 2: Get out of here!

Woman 1: It is true. He stuck his fingers under the armpits, pulled them out and smelled them.

Woman 2: That has to be the most disgusting thing ever.

Woman 1: It was disgusting.

Woman 2: I bet there will be no business coming from these clients anymore.

Woman 1: You got that right.

Woman 2: That reminds me, did I tell you how my new boss walks around all the time and says: I am so busy, I just put some fires over on this project and now I am running to put out some more fires on another project.

Woman 1: No you did not, but I can totally see him do that.

Woman 2: And you know, the sad part is that it will totally work with Karel. She loves people who tell her that they are busy and that she is great.

Woman 1: I know, her idea of successful project is rush and tension. She actually told me that she likes to hear complains about my new boss. She thinks that complains imply that people are arguing and, so she thinks there is a lot of tension. Karel believes that out of tension in the team brings great results.

Woman 2: She is quite mad. I can not understand is how someone like her could have gotten so far?

Woman 1: She is not that bright, but she has no shame. She just gets on top and rides. Smart, dumb whatever, just push this thing through.

Woman 2: Yes, this is how she is.

Woman 3: Girls, you will love this one. I just went by the office of the new director to introduce myself. I walk in and see that he is playing Computer Poker!

Woman 1: His first day on a job!

Woman 2: He fits right in.

Woman 3: I miss Jane. It is so sad that she got sick and had to leave.

Woman 1: She was such a good person and a great leader.

Woman 2: She was. Life is so unfair, she is only 52 years old!

Woman 1: Cancer does not care.

Woman 3: It really does not.

Woman 2: I sent her flowers and an email, but she never replied.

Woman 1: I spoke with her two days ago.

Woman 3: What did she say?

Woman 1: She said she has a few month left.

Woman 2: This is so crazy!

Woman 3: I can not imagine what is it like. To live knowing that you are about to die.

Woman 1: She was very depressed. We barely spoke. She is going through a tough chemo to prolong her life for a few months. She needs to write her will and take care of a few things.

Woman 2: It is devastating.

Woman 3: I would like to go visit her. I do not know if she would want to see me though.

Karel: I walked by 1h ago, you were standing right here by the coffee machine. You are not being paid to just drink coffee. Get your lazy asses out of here, before I get you a pink slip wrapped present this Christmas!

Alcohol

Programmer: Last night I had an interesting vision.

Socrates: What was it?

Programmer: I imagined that I went to the tattoo shop and covered myself with the all the code that I have ever written.

Socrates: That is indeed very interesting. What do you think this symbolizes?

Programmer: I doubt there is any symbolism there, since the vision came after I had a six pack of #9.

Socrates: I know this beer, it is great.

Programmer: Yes, I doubt I can be effective without it.

Socrates: Do you drink often?

Programmer: Pretty much every day.

Socrates: Me too. Although I prefer wine to beer.

Programmer: I like to alternate.

Socrates: What is it about beer and wine that makes them so addictive?

Programmer: I think that they put our minds into a certain, otherwise unreachable, state of creativity.

Socrates: Yes, I love this state.

Programmer: Do you hear a strange sound?

Socrates: No, not really, what are you hearing?

Programmer: It is like a hummm.... Humming sound.

Socrates: I can't hear anything.

Programmer: I hear it quite distinctly and I think that it is increasing.

Socrates: Ok, since I can not hear it, I am going to pretend that it is not there.

Programmer: That is certainly one way of dealing with things.

Socrates: I am curious, how much beer do you need to drink in order to get to the point of creativity?

Programmer: You know, in my experience, it is not the quantity, but it is rather the amount of beer per unit of time. For me, it is enough to have a bottle, get buzzed and then to sip through interest of the evening.

Socrates: I hear the sound! It is quite odd. Hummmmmm... Humming sound.

Programmer: What do you think it symbolizes?

Socrates: I can't quite pin point it, but I have heard this sound before.

Programmer: I am afraid that it is a sound of madness.

Socrates: How can it be? I do not think that madness has any sounds.

Programmer: But it does. Listen... Hummmm... Hummmmm... Hummmmm... Do you understand?

Socrates: I do not think I do.

Programmer: Imagine that you are walking naked through a large city. There are people and lights everywhere. But you are naked with a mission. You just keep on going through. And finally, people accept you. And when they accept you, they sing: Hummmm.....

Socrates: This does sound mad.

Programmer: Just accept it.

Socrates: With a great pleasure.

Deceit

Man: I have a terrible tooth ache.

Woman: Me too.

Man: Have you been to this dentist before?

Woman: No. He was the first one in the phone book who agreed to see me.

Man: My dentist was at a funeral, he could not see me, but he recommended this one.

Woman: I do not have a family dentist, I always go to a different one.

Man: Why is that?

Woman: Well, I had this rather unpleasant experience...

Man: Do you mind sharing it with me?

Woman: When I was little, my mother used to take me to our family dentist. He was always nice to me. He smiled and always gave me a candy to go. When I came back from college I decided to continue going to him.

Man: I would never do that.

Woman: Well, for a while, it actually worked out really well. But then one day, I accidentally saw my chart. I was absolutely astonished. I mean there was a clear pattern there. He was systematically destroying my teeth.

Man: No way!

Woman: I could not believe it, but I stared at the chart and there was no mistake. The pattern was perfectly clear.

Man: I can't believe it!

Woman: Now you see why I go to a different dentist every time?

Man: I am surprised that I did not hear about this sort of thing before.

Woman: Why is that?

Man: I am a director of marketing of dental products for a major pharmaceutical company.

Woman: Maybe this is a well kept secret.

Man: Well I guess what our company does is not so clean either.

Woman: How is that?

Man: We conduct clinical trials for a drug and then interpret the data in a different way to get additional indications.

Woman: I am not sure I understand?

Man: During a trial we collect information about patients experiences. We then make statistical interpretation of this data to make a case for safety and efficacy of the drug. A lot of times we can look at the data differently and release the same drug to treat different things.

Woman: So this means that people can be buying drugs that do not really treat their problems?

Man: Thats basically right.

Woman: Thats crazy.

Man: Yeah.

Woman: You know in my line of work things are not that clean either.

Man: What do you do?

Woman: I work for a major software company.

Man: What is so bad about what the company does?

Woman: It creates markets for useless technologies. It invents new terminology and new concepts just to keep their market share. The solutions it creates do not make customer life simpler. In fact these tools make things more complicated and lead to more sales of technical services.

Man: I see. So the company creates solutions to make things more complex?

Woman: Thats right.

Man: I understand that. In the end of the day, your company is there to make money.

Woman: Sure. From this perspective, your pharmaceutical company is also just a businesses. You can't blame the company, it needs to to make money.

Man: I guess dentists are also running a business, so we can't blame them either.

Dentist: Sorry, I heard your conversation.

Woman: So is this true?

Dentist: What?

Man: That you are systematically destroying our teeth?

Dentist: I will answer you by telling you a story.

Woman: Ok, go ahead.

Dentist: I am single and use Match.com to meet women in my area. Exactly one week ago I met a women. We met at Starbucks during lunch and talked for 2 hours. I asked her for dinner and she agreed.

Man: This story is kind of long, maybe you should start working on my teeth?

Dentist: I am almost done. I show up at her house at 8 o'clock. I ring the bell, but no one answers. I realize that the door is opened. I walk in and see her. She is standing completely naked near an open window. She smiles and says: I waited for you all my life. I am so happy you are finally here. Then she turns to the window and jumps down from the 14th floor.

Woman: This is insane!

Man: My teeth hurt so bad!

Woman: This is so terrible, just terrible.

Man: Please, I think my tooth is going to need a root canal!

Dentist: Oh, no, I think it would have to be pulled out.

Randomness

Teenager: I find boys kind of random at times.

Stranger: How so?

Teenager: Well they play these stupid games that are really childish.

Stranger: You mean flirting?

Teenager: Oh, no. Not that at all. You see they do things that make no sense. One day they would be normal, show affection and then next day, would be totally cold and would act like jerks. It is this unpredictability that drives me crazy.

Stranger: Unpredictability and randomness are not necessarily the same things.

Teenager: Sure they are. If I can't figure out what or why something is, to me it is basically random. Most of my friends have pretty predictable behavior, so I would not call them random. Boys on the other hand...

Stranger: So to you, things that you can predict, things that make sense are non-random,and otherwise you would call them random?

Teenager: Yes.

Stranger: Fair enough, lets take a closer look at your friends. Were they predictable from the first day you met them?

Teenager: Well, I do not remember... Perhaps not as much, I mean, I did not know them that well.

Stranger: That's interesting, so your friends seemed more random before than they seem now.

Teenager: Eventhough it sounds odd, I would agree with that. Why is that?

Stranger: I think that it comes down to information. You see your friends are kind of natural phenomenon or processes. By interacting with them, over time, you extract the bits of information about their behavior and by knowing their behavior, you reduce your uncertainty about them. In short, they no longer seem as unpredictable or random to you.

Teenager: That makes sense to me. So over time, as we interact, we learn about each other and are less surprised about each other's behavior.

Stranger: Exactly. When you are surprised about something, that means you did not predict or anticipate it. With friends there are typically no surprises.

Teenager: But what about boys then? I mean, I can be dating a guy for months and he still is very much unpredictable?

Stranger: Maybe the difference is in the kind information. Compare your conversations friends with conversations with boyfriends. Are they of the same nature?

Teenager: Not at all! With my friends with just talk about everything. With guys, nothing like that.They never open up. Never share anything!

Stranger: Do not get upset. This is rather typical.

Teenager: I know, but it just so unfair.

Stranger: Do not worry, you will find the right guy. A lot of people grow up and stop being secretive, stop playing games.

Teenager: I hope what you are saying is true.

Stranger: Did I ever tell you a story about my eighth grade camping trip?

Teenager: No.

Stranger: Well, when I was in the eighth grade, I went camping with my classmates.We camped pretty high up in the mountains. At night, we got drunk and played guitar by the fire.

Teenager: That sounds cool.

Stranger: Yes, it was. But listen, one of my friends was this good looking, loud-mouth guy. He was always a leader, never had any troubles getting girls. One night, he got really drunk. We were sitting by the fire. He became very silent. And suddenly he just started crying. I have never seen a boy cry so hard before.

Teenager: What happened?

Stranger: For the longest time he just cried and said absolutely nothing. We begged him to tell us what is wrong and he would not.

Teenager: Did he finally tell you?

Stranger: The next morning. He said, my grandmother died from cancer four months ago. She was the nicest and most giving person I knew. I am having hard time letting her go.

Teenager: That is so sad.

Stranger: It was, we stood and shared silence for a while. Then we packed our bags and never returned to these mountains again.

Teenager: Why did you tell me this story?

Stranger: You do not think it was appropriate?

Teenager: No, I mean how is it related to our discussion on randomness?

Stranger: I would say directly.

Teenager: I do not think I understand you? I mean we are talking about one thing, suddenly you shift the focus and tell me a an unrelated story?

Stranger: Well, the fact is, to me that story was very logical in the context of our conversation.

Teenager: So can you explain your logic to me?

Stranger: Yes, it is simple, its like this: All strings are a-random, except for the ones we know about.

Apathy

Stranger: I had a strange dream last night.

Socrates: Tell me.

Stranger: I opened the door of my 14th floor loft. I did not turn on the lights, took off my socks on started walking towards the north-side window. I walked for about 1 hour when I realized that my feet were bleeding.

Socrates: I am sorry, I don't get, how could you walk for 1 hour towards the window?

Stranger: Well, this was a dream.

Socrates: And how did you know that an hour went by?

Stranger: In dreams you just know these things, they are obvious. Its like gravity in real life, you just know it.

Socrates: Ok, go on.

Stranger: My feet were bleeding because of the broken glass that covered the entire floor of my apartment. The odd thing was that I did not feel any pain. I noticed that I am bleeding by pure accident.

Socrates: Did you look down at something?

Stranger: No, in fact, I looked up. You see the entire ceiling of my apartment is covered with a mirror. I happen to look up and saw the reflection of my bleeding feet.

Socrates: That must have been a terrifying image.

Stranger: Belive it or not, I was not scarred at all. I turned around and went to the kitchen. Opened the fridge and got a bottle of Magic Hat #9.

Socrates: Is that a beer?

Stranger: Yes, and damn good one. It has this sweet berry texture to it. At any rate, I was sitting in the kitchen drinking cool beer and looking at my bloody feet. Right in the middle of the bottle it occurred to me that I was walking for one hour, but never reached the north-side of my apartment.

Socrates: Aha, so this seemed strange even in a dream!

Stranger: Yes, and so I woke up.

Socrates: You woke up?!

Stranger: Yes, I did.

Socrates: But this does not make any sense? Your dream, what was happening to you? You could have stayed in it and find out?

Stranger: You know, I think I could if I was younger, but I no longer have any control over my dreams.

Socrates: I have no idea what you mean by this.

Stranger: When I was young, I was in complete control of my dreams. For example, I could be sleeping and something bad would be going on, like somebody would be chasing me. In my sleep I would say to myself: 'Nothing to worry about, this is just a dream'. I used to think that it was kind of cool that I have such control over my dreams. Those days I could stop the dream and wake up any time I wanted to.

Socrates: So why didn't you stay in this dream?

Stranger: I told you, I can no longer control when I wake up, I am not aware of myself any more during sleep.

Socrates: Why do you think that is?

Stranger: I think that is because my mind is fading away.

Socrates: What do you mean by this?

Stranger: I mean that the logical or self-aware part of my brain is shrinking with age.

Socrates: And what is this experience like?

Stranger: It feels quite normal. Most of the time, I am not self-aware. I do not question why I am, I do not seek the truth. I simply exist. In the rare moments that I do become self-aware, I get scared and go back to the un-aware mode.

Socrates: Interesting, I never realized that.

Stranger: Me neither, until I experienced it. When I was 24, which is 10 + 14, I thought that all my life I will be seeking the truth, figuring out complex systems. I was pumped and excited back then.

Socrates: So what happened?

Stranger: Chemistry. Biology. Evolution. You name it. I am not even 1/2 the man I used to be. It is strange, but you can not fight it. You are simply no longer you. You are a different person, with a vague memory of what you were before.

Socrates: But you said that you remember yourself when you were young? How can you ignore that memory, those images and drives?

Stranger: I do not have a choice. 'Me' today is a different 'me'. I have a different chemistry. I do not have the passion and the drive that I used to have.

Socrates: So its all about chemistry then?

Stranger: I guess so. Although I think that Passion beats Chemistry. But then Chemistry beats everything else. Its a strange equation of life.

Socrates: Speaking of equations, why did you say before: 'When I was 24, which is 10 + 14'?

Stranger: Because I live on the 14th floor and because 14 are the first two decimal digits of Pi.

Socrates: Are you crazy?

Stranger: I am not to judge.