A good and proper reply by Assistant Director Skinner

Mulder: It was you, you were the one who left Cancer Man's location for me... You put your life in danger

Skinner: Agent Mulder, every life, every day, is in danger. That's just life.

Reflections on self-torture...

So I've been thinking... I used to run for the purpose of being healthy (not a very obvious benefit, perhaps a long-term "goal" to be seen, which may not even happen since being healthy depends on other things than just physical exercise), then also for the purpose of losing weight and looking better naked (a definitely more obvious benefit), and then at some point recently I thought maybe I shouldn't bother running. For a week I let it go with intention. I forgot exactly what my reasoning was behind this choice but at some point I decided to go for one jog and found this other purpose... which appears to be stronger than the previous ones mentioned. I think running is sort of self-torture. It hurts, it feels painful breathing when I'm tired, all I start thinking about is how much I would love to collapse and drink water cuz my throat is getting dry as hell. Muscles ache, I stink a lot, have so much sweat pouring down on me, and all that fun stuff... but then I went to the park and let myself collapse in the grass after the jog... and it was a really awesome feeling. There were little thoughts in my head, my body appreciated basically everything about the environment at the moment... didn't even mind the bugs that were definitely under and around me. I've done this before, but I only thought about how delicious the moment was then and there. So I've been thinking about further self-torture, or torture in general... well I hate goriness so those movies when someone's getting mutilated while alive is not what I'm talking about here, I can barely watch that shit. But like, when you got exams coming up, and papers (I talked to A.Lin about this) and you got all this pressure on you and it feels like there's not even time to properly breathe, or shower even, well, when all that is done... I think the feeling is kinda the same. It's this awesome feeling that I'm free from that previous torture and the environment feels just right. Life feels so freeing. I would think that a prisoner who is let out of jail must feel this feeling in exponential amounts. Also, people who come back from the death, many of them seem to just have a change of life and be able to appreciate it so much more. What has changed really? I mean, the environment isn't really that much different. It's just that after all that torture, we are able to appreciate life without it. Without the torture itself, it just kinda goes by, same as with torture, but more like, unnoticed. The wind doesn't strike me as so important day to day as after a jog. The ground doesn't seem so comfortable. The shade of a tree. All that stuff I barely even notice throughout my days, but that's ALL I notice after the self-torture moments of jogging. Life just tastes good. Even meditation, it's torture to have to just pay attention to my breath and not do anything else for a while. But it helps me appreciate the time when I'm not meditating more. Well it could be a little different with meditation... though I did kinda get this idea from the buddhist book "The Joy of Living", where the author talks about how what we seek to gain from meditation is the feeling of bliss one would get from finishing a difficult job...
But yea, basically I think self-torture is good. I think now I need it a lot more, in terms of jogging at least... knowing that that feeling can be brought about by me... now that's enough of a motivation to get me to do horrible things haha. That feeling of weightlessness and appreciation seems to be pretty close to happiness.

The X Files... Season 1 Finished, Season 2 Started... focus on the M&S love

So I just started season 2. The first episode is called 'little green men'... in it there's a lot more of the subtle mulder/scully love, and it's that love that I wanna talk about now. Throughout season 1, we see the hints of sexual attraction come up here and there. There's jealousy that comes up often from both parties. However, this jealousy is manifested as a tiny flicker, as if trying to turn on a lighter. It comes and as soon as is there it leaves. What's interesting is that past that jealousy what remains is friendship. The bond between Mulder and Scully thus, is definitely held by friendship. When Mulder ran off with that british chick who had broken his heart years before and he explicitly told Scully he was gonna go with that "case" alone, Scully got a little annoyed, but like I said, it was just a flicker of annoyance. Soon after, she started digging in the case and went over to where Mulder was to help him out. I guess if it were me, I would just think... well I guess he just likes that chick so I'm just gonna go do my own thing instead, and I'd be all pissed and thinking about what they might be doing by themselves and trying to block that out of my head or trying to "accept the truth." But Scully is too awesome for simply sulking, so she decided to go out there with her findings, and even when she found them 2 dancing quite romantically (and also didn't like what she saw), she stayed and saved a few people's lives by doing that. It really was quite awesome to watch. That episode was really awesome actually, it was called 'Fire,' from the first season. Anyway in the beginning of this first ep of season 2, Mulder is acting depressive cuz the X Files had been shut down, even ignored Scully and shit. She remained strong and still looked for him, even went after him when he left to San Juan looking for extraterrestrial signs. He had said at some point that he didn't even trust himself anymore. She urged him to go back to his search for truth, which is really interesting because most of the time what she does is try to bring him back to reality and snap him out of his loony ideas. I guess she did that cuz she knew that was such an important thing to him, and because it was important to him, it also was important to her. I'm recalling the many times when after trying to convince Mulder to get a life, she ended up going after him and joining him in all the adventures. But anyway, at the end of the episode, Mulder tells Scully how even without having the X Files assigned to him anymore, he still had his work, he still had her, and he still had himself. I thought it was really cool how he said he still had her, and even cooler that he said he still had himself. He'd lost himself and Scully helped him bring himself back. That to me is true love, I guess. It's very bound on a strong friendship. Thus, their attraction doesn't stand alone in the game, it doesn't override the friendship, and because of that, neither of them quits based on the simple appearance of rejection.
Which brings me to my next point... why is their friendship so strong to begin with? Well, in my strong opinion, it is so strong because to begin with indeed, they started their relationship based on their own selves. Each never left his and her own self out of the situation. This creates the conflicts we see in each episode, and somehow their differences do not make them hate each other but rather appreciate the qualities that each brings. So, I think that when we decide to be our most honest selves, when we don't say things just to be nice, or just to have the other person like us, we undoubtedly create higher possibilities for disagreement. That I guess is the test in and of itself, if we can stand the person, or even like the person when he or she is defending the truest part of themselves, then we know whether we really like them for who they are. Because Mulder and Scully weren't trying to like each other, but because they were trying to defend their true ideas, beliefs, selves, they were able to forge a friendship that endures the volatile attraction that men and women are likely to feel for each other. So what I'm saying is this, the attraction by itself, without true friendship, cannot survive reality. Attraction is a fleeting thing. For some, it may last longer than others, but like all feelings, in my strong opinion, it comes and goes. So I guess, what I would call love as of now, is the ability for both people to stand for themselves and each other as a friend, when the attraction they feel for each other is threatened or compromised. Which definitely doesnt seem like an easy feat. And I dunno if I've seen it happen anywhere other than in the X Files really... well, I guess I have had that type of friendship with some friends, but I don't have a sexual attraction for them...