Saturday, August 1, 2009

PLENTY OF FISH IN THE SEA

So I've decided that regardless of where my relationships have gone, or not gone, that I really need to stop listening to many of you. Especially with regards to that pathetic catch-all phrase "There are plenty of fish in the sea". Trust me people. There may be plenty of fish, but you don't go fishing with a bicycle seat and a half eaten waffle and expect to catch JACK SHIT! If you think you can, you don't know spit about relationship,or fish, or waffles or bicycle seats for that matter. In any case, I have taken a good look at what I had in past relationships, and know that I will no longer live with vague approaches at happiness. I bring everything I am to the person I love and what they get as a result should be appreciated more than what I am living with here and now. And that's not selfish or greedy. I do live with ideals of loyalty and love, but I do not love people for their version of it. I love the people who epitomize it in themselves and display it in their lives. Not for one person or another, but for everyone.
My friends, God bless them, are trying to help, but there isn't any. There is no one I wish to give it to who doesn't already understand the extent of it, and there is no one I could even attempt it with, save her. So what to do? What you do is sit, and wait, and hope that it will suddenly hit like an epiphany.
In the meantime I am assaulted with the small comforts, but the one I HATE is that ridiculous "there are other fish in the sea" I am in a pretty good mood in spite of the train wreck that has become my life as of late, so I decided to lay out a few snippets of my VAST fishing knowledge to the people who seem to think that the loves of our lives are so much like herring. Let's say that I have finally come to the realization that I am going to date again. I have fantastic qualities that need to be given to another person in order for me to feel truly happy. I am in good shape, well mannered, compassionate, I work hard to fulfill the needs of the woman I love. Why not? Let's just drop the mooring line, put on the ridiculous rain slicker, and head out into that glorious sea of willing fish just DYING to be filled with the love I have to offer.
So let's take a look at a few basic requirements for the people that I want to date. I am looking for a serious relationship, so I am not going to be extremely unreasonable, but, then again, I am not going to deceive myself by settling for someone who simply doesn't have that chemistry that makes me feel that certain way when I look at them. I am looking for a white woman between the ages of 35 and 50. I prefer taller, slim to athletic, people. Obviously because of the preference for athleticism, I am not sexually attracted to people who are overweight, nor do I find their lack of desire to be physically fit very attractive. A certain amount of education is required, but it doesn't have to be in any one field. Just something that gives an overall social rounding. Let's say above high school but no need to go past a BA degree. Now mind you, this is simply a rough break down.
Currently, in the United States, there are 300 million people. That's every man, woman, and child regardless of race or ethnicity, social status, or any other criteria. That's just the base number. Since I obviously am looking for a female, and they are at 50% of the population, I now have 150 million to work with.
I don't find anything wrong with people of different races, but, by and large, the cultural and ethnic differences that usually come with race are enough to make me prefer white women. They make up 80% of the population which means that the number of white female Americans is 120 million. Still not too bad. Down by more than half, but I am an optimistic soul. Remember that when you get to your criteria for the men you wish to date.
I spend a great deal of time ensuring that the body a woman looks at is maintained in a way they find appealing. I make very sure that I do not get lazy enough to gain weight and at the same time, not bulge all over with useless muscle that looks good but is usually useless. Currently 68% of America is overweight or obese. Overweight is less than thirty pounds past your target weight for your age. So, since I can not see an overweight person as attractive, nor see myself with a person who doesn't care to make it look better for themselves or others, I get to take off that 68% leaving me with 8,160,000 people.
I am not seriously concerned with age, but with age comes a great deal of compatibility. People of relative age share common characteristics and beliefs as others within that group. Now just to be fair, I am going to allow ALL ages from 18 to 65. We both know that I would not be able to deal with the views of a twenty year old, but just for mathematical stability, let's keep them in here.
Americans below the age of eighteen and above the age of 65 comprise 37% of the country's population. Subtract that from 8,160,000 and I get 5,140,000. Now I have to be a little vague here, but let's say that , just for the sake of argument that half of these people were the type that I would like to date regardless of whether they are married or not. That drops the number to 2,070,000. Now I know that I am pretty picky, but no matter who I have found attractive, only 1 in 10 feel the same way. That's 10%. and 10% of those women regardless of whether they are married is 207,000 people. Okay, let's recap a bit. We are now looking at the number of white American women who are not overweight and are between 18 and 65.
Now remember that these 207,000 women are still potentially married. It has been said that 62% of American women are happily married. That number is PATHETICALLY small and any man who has fucked up this much seriously needs to be left to his own devices, but that's not my problem. Let's just leave the "happily" married ones alone and make the new datable number at 78,660.
Just to make my stomach crawl, this is now less than one tenth of one percent of the American population. Now 80% of America has a high school diploma, but only 24.4% have a BA. So lets take off another 24.4%. Subtract 19,193 women off the list making the new WONDERFUL prospects for dating 59,467.
I have had a great many friends who are of alternative lifestyles. Gay or lesbian they are fantastic people to be friends with, but that does not mean they are going to be dating a heterosexual male. How many women in America are lesbians you might ask? Well, according to the U.S. Census, 4.25%. 56,940 is now the golden number.
As if to add insult to injury, I went back to look at my basic criteria. You remember I said that I like taller women? Well 70 inches is pretty tall so I subtracted a few inches and made it 66. That's 5 feet 6 inches tall. It's a damn good thing I did because, according to the statistics for the average height of a woman, 80% fall below that height. Even with a conservative 4 inch subtraction, I now have 11,388 people who have the MINIMUM requirements. That's 1/3 of the population of Watertown, New York.
Now I know I allowed the ages from 18 to 65, but I did a little digging into relationship statistics and found that regardless of my desire to include such a wide range of ages, that women, by and large, tend to NOT date below their own age, nor do they date higher than 10 years above.. How many is that you might ask? How about an astounding 93% of the remaining women with the minimum criteria. This almost makes me want to join a convent. There are now 797.Jesus Christ, I had more people in my graduating class in high school.
This is without even getting into the basic nitty gritty parts of a relationship that can't be quantified. It's these other parts that are found AFTER the basics are met, and finding them out in another person relies heavily on whether or not you are comfortable with them enough to even begin. Welcome to the necessity of basic criteria. The combination of those two parts is what makes that woman across the table from you become a PART of you, but you can't come to one without the other first. I totally believe in recognizing "love at first sight", but that spark has to exist FIRST before I ever attempt to touch the match to it.
This whole little exercise is a bit frustrating because it does not take into account any level of sexual compatibility, or compassion, no amount of trust, or any degree of appreciation for a person's sense of humor. There are SO MANY things that have to happen AFTER two people meet to make all the statistics look like child's play.
Remember when I said that 1 in 10 found me interesting enough to date? Well, I have found that my personality is not usually perceived as "normally male". Well NO SHIT. That's why I can bring a little more to a relationship because I can get past that testosterone soaked bullshit and actually expend the energy looking at a woman I love rather than sports stats and beer. Regardless of how I feel about it though, only 1 in 10 last longer than three dates. I suppose this would be FANTASTIC for a man who could give a shit whether he pleases a woman longer than that or not, but I want a serious relationship. So, knowing this about myself and knowing that my personal experience lends just as much to my dating as statistics. I now have 79.7 people to date. I am assuming that I will count the .7 woman, but .7 of WHAT? It can't be her height. .7 female? .7 white? Maybe she will be semi-opaque. No wait. Maybe it's just a handicap. Like a woman with a missing arm. I can date her. Right? 79.7 people.....from 300 MILLION. Want to feel a little more depressed? I found this on a web page while looking for statistics on American dating.
" A good percentage of the mature adult single women that I know have no intentions or designs on getting married again. They have found that there is no real reason to get married again. The scope of their life has expanded so much as a single that they can't see how they would ever want to get back to where they used to be."
And
"...their life has expanded so much as a single that they can't see how they would ever want to go back to where they used to be".
How do you argue with something like that? According to the article there is a "good Percentage". Now I am not going to try and quantify something with an arbitrary number, but I'll let you decide what good is and then you do the last bit of math.
No screw that. I AM going to do it. Let's just say, being as CONSERVATIVE as possible with the word "good" that that means 25%. I'm sure that if your kid came home and said he got a "GOOD" percentage of a spelling test that it would be MUCH higher than a 25%, but I am giving the benefit of the doubt. So 25% of the remaining women who COULD date but choose not to brings me down to 59.7.
I just can't seem to bring myself to removing that .7 of a woman, but at this point, I better not even entertain the possibility. I am going to stop here because I am about ready to cry. I look at the MASSES of people who are living with some of the most INCREDIBLY caustic, asshole, antisocial, controlling,manipulative,apathetic,uncaring,vacuous,egotistical,self righteous, calculating scumbags and all I can ask is......"Why?".
59 people. My God. Let me tell you something. If you were the greatest fisherman in the history of the world, with the most fantastic boat and the skill of a GOD, you would not be able to ply your ship into the "Sea of Opportunity" and find 59 fish.
I am separating from a woman who I thought actually HAD these qualities, but let me tell you something. Even after fulfilling almost every initial criteria, I found myself with a woman who has very little interest in what I feel about the world anymore, hasn't read a single page I have ever written, has never just sat down to hear my hopes and fears, and basically sees me as the "go to" guy when no one else will pick up the slack...or the mess. She no longer sees the world as an adventure, and any plan for the future has me assigned as an afterthought to her wants. Compassion is unneeded. Compatibility is irrelevant. Compromise is unnecessary. The absolute absurdity of all of this is that most people think of people and relationships like so many herring. And maybe that's because that's all people will ever thing of others. Like herring. Well I, myself, am not looking for fish in abundance.

LITTLE BOX OF CRAYONS

Box Of Crayons
"I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate -- it's apathy. It's not giving a damn."Leo Buscaglia "
Little Box Of Crayons
Relationships are complicated. They are heavy and cumbersome, and without the full understanding of them, often become far too much to deal with effectively. Everything is related to something else and it is almost impossible to gain any kind of stable footing when it feels like you are trying to stop a giant snowball from running you over as it travels down the mountain. No place to put your foot is bad enough, but most people are put into a position that they have no real balance for their own bodies, let alone any kind of load. And many relationships, or certain people within them LIKE, that. Because without your own personal balance and footing, how can you be expected to be able to accomplish anything? There is no load that can be applied to yourself if every time you do you feel as though you will topple over. And so they let go of the load. And unfortunately, when we do, we allow someone else to take control of it. Usually however they see fit because OBVIOUSLY we are not in the position to have any say in it whatsoever if we can't even keep ourselves upright.
This sets up a pattern. It sets in motion a continual cycle of inability that slowly erodes what it is in ourselves by believing we are incapable of making the decisions. And by the time we realize it, we often find that we have been relegated to the backseat of a relationship. Not by what we can or can't do, but by our own belief that we simply can not do it on our own. We NEED that other person to do it for us, and without them, we will fail. Period.
Well I felt this way for a very long time. And many of the people in my life have resigned themselves to the same fate. Always on the defensive, always in a place they don't truly wish to be, and always feeling as though they have no control whatsoever. We have looked at our relationships as a weight that we can not hold on our own, and we rely on the other to hold it for us. How they hold it is no longer up to us. What it is that keeps it there is also not up to us. It is THEIR relationship and our inability of us not to do what they expect ensures that we simply cannot function without it.
I think that is bullshit. I think that everything in a relationship can be pared away until it is no larger than a box of Crayola crayons. This box is what we put the attributes of the other person in our relationship. And how we view this box is directly related to our success within it. Now even though it is a box of crayons, we know that it is heavy. It has a weight to it that we can not understand and because we can't we often just think of it as a whole thing. It is an all or nothing concept. And the less we think about it, the better off we will be.
Now right now people are looking at what it is that they feel, or think they feel, so very much like a box of crayons.
So go and get a 64 box of Crayola crayons and let's put a little visible reality to what it is that many of you are trying to sort out of the person you feel you love. Because one of the problems so many of my friends seem to be having is that while it is very easy to say that they "love" someone, for whatever the reasons, they really have absolutely no idea what that word means . Some have the idea correctly in their head, but don't need it. Still others had it at one point and lost it along the way and simply added what it was to their lives they felt justified it. Like Christmas decorations on a dead tree. And then there are those who never had it at all. They thought they did, but, by and large, simply don't understand what it equates to at all. It's like having all of the pieces of a puzzle but not having the box to see what the picture was supposed to look like or the energy to do it. All they care to account for is that they do , indeed, have 500 pieces like they were supposed to have.
People are much like crayons. Not the crayons themselves, but the box that contains them. And the crayons inside are all of the components of what our relationship with them is defined by. Almost everyone looks at the box itself and assumes that that is what will be gained or lost. And that's much like believing that a child cries for the box the crayons come in when he doesn't get a box of crayons. What they WANT is the crayons. The BOX is irrelevant. Well our relationships are like a box of crayons, and,just as with real crayons, the box is irrelevant.
So before you read this, go and get a box of crayons. Spend a few minutes SERIOUSLY looking at what it is that so many of you claim to be hanging on to and really LOOK at it without it being all clouded over by everything else that gets thrown into your faces when you try to analyze a situation. Go get a box of CRAYONS!!!!
Instead of looking at these crayons as colors, take the crayons out of the box and right on the side of each one, what it is that you feel the other person has. The parts that you simply believe are there and are a part of the relationship as you see it. And don't skimp on them, either. This is exactly what your mind sees as inherent to your relationship with this person. At the same time, don't add in things that are associated with others. You are using these crayons as a physical representation of what it is you feel is necessary or vital to your particular relationship. They are concrete things in the world that normally have abstract associations. I did the same thing and I labeled a few like this:
Sense Of Humor
Compassion
Honesty
Trust
Reliability
Intimacy
Respect
Self respect
Comfort
Security
Manners
The ability to provide
Safety
Now you can go along and write as many labels on to crayons as you feel are necessary, but be HONEST with what it is that you think makes this relationship. A great many of you will do exactly what you have told me in countless conversations about your relationships. That you don't really KNOW what to put on the crayons. THAT is a very good indicator that you really didn't understand what it was you got yourself into in the first place. A few others will be able to quickly write an entire box of what it is they might lose, but watch what happens later on in this little technicolor experiment. When you are done, put all of the crayons back into the box, close it, and put it onto the table in front of you. Take EVERYTHING else off of the table and seriously set your mind to thinking completely about this ONE THING. You've spent enough time wandering around telling yourself you don't know. Spend a few minutes telling yourself what you DO know.
What you are looking at right now is NOT a box of crayons. It is everything that you associate with the person you are doing this exercise about. It is the whole package as you see it, feel it and most importantly, understand it.
This is your relationship that you see. It is everything that is there. If you were honest about what you wrote on the sides of the crayons, you will get an honest result. If you didn't really find that many things to write on the crayons, you are already getting an understanding of what is wrong. Most people spend their entire lives looking at the box from the outside. They say that the box is the person that they love, but never really get the chance to analyze the box as a collection of parts. To lose it, for whatever reason, is simply not possible for them to comprehend because they relate the entire box and all of its contents as the entire person. And the loss of the box is simply too much to deal with....so they don't.
Let's just take one crayon out of the box. Just for the sake of argument, we pull out the crayon labeled "Sense of Humor". Now MOST people look at this crayon and they assume that the whole crayon as being intrinsic to THAT person. That it represents HIS or HER sense of humor But it isn't. Because everyone has a sense of humor to some degree or another. So the majority of that crayon is what is in everyone and not just them. It is what that person brings personally to the sense of humor. That's what makes the uniqueness into it. But by and large, MOST of that crayon is just like everyone Else's. So do not attribute that whole crayon to that person specifically. It is their own spin they put on the crayon( or the quality it represents), and saying it is all or nothing is not possible. So ask yourself how much of this one crayon is in everyone, and then break off the piece that you feel is inherent ONLY TO THEM. That little piece is what you can say belongs back inside the box. The rest of the crayon is a quality everyone has, and can not, or should not, be attributed to themselves when all they do is add to it. Doing that is much like saying that without this person's sense of humor, there is no humor at all anywhere else. And feeling that only this person is capable of it creates the illusion where you justify the whole based on the part. You can only love the individual part, and they are not allowed to use the rest as a justification for themselves, and YOU can not use what belongs to everyone as a way to tip the scales.
Now some crayons are something that only they can do, but very often we assume that only they can do it because it has never been able to be seen in someone else. By the same token, you may find that there is very little at all of a quality with certain crayons and you have simply been attributing them to the whole because you had no way of disassociating it from the others. This is a point of awareness that should be VERY important to your overall perception of the qualities and the relationship. When you find a crayon(quality) that you expected to be there, and has almost no substance in it of themselves, take careful not of the weight of that crayon. Because that is weight you associated with the weight of the relationship that simply IS NOT THERE. The ONLY reason it is there is because YOU attributed it to the box.
Go through the whole box, and honestly break the crayons into the lengths you feel they themselves have a right to. No more, and no less. Look at the compassion, look at the communication, look at the honesty, and begin to realize what is there and what is not. Take those other pieces that are not part of them OUT OF THE BOX. They do not belong there, they are not theirs to use, and they unfairly add weight to the whole box. Our failure to see that we have attributed what is in everyone to a specific person, makes it possible for another person to keep a relationship just as it is by YOUR belief that it should be there, and not whether it is there at all. It's dead weight, and all to their advantage if you can't see that you put it there rather than it being there to begin with.
I did exactly this when I was confronted with the situation or the understanding that I was saying I loved someone, believed in the word, but had absolutely no idea of what I was basing it on. My marriage had collapsed and I was blaming myself. It was MY fault it wasn't working, and I was making the box of crayons the end argument. I was looking at the whole box and NEVER got to a point where I could objectively look into it and separate the wheat from the chaff. And when I was finally left completely alone I looked into the box as a way of trying to understand it. When I stopped attributing all of these qualities as the measure of my relationship, and truly LOOKED at what was left of her, there was far less than I thought. The ONLY reason this was staying where it was, was because I was the one who had been led to believe that there was more to her than there was by being unable to open the box.
This made me come to a very startling revelation. That I was sitting here assuming that I had a relationship. That I was justifying staying, and enduring, and mostly exerting effort, with very little substance to it at all. And that after I was finished, found that I was holding a very heavy box of chaff with very little wheat in it at all.
We are all so very good at saying what someone IS without ever allowing ourselves to say what they ARE NOT. We spend the lions effort feeling that we are the ones with the emotional failings and that we are the ones who should feel like absolute fools for even considering an alternative. But it is us that fails to realize that it is in THEIR best interest to allow us to believe that the incredible weight of the relationship is based on our PERCEPTION of its weight. The whole argument falls apart when we sit down by ourselves, LOOK at it, and find that we have attributed a large measure of weight in a relationship to them alone, without ever recognizing that ANYONE has that weight.
Take that box of crayons now, and give it a shake. Does it feel far less substantial when you realize that there really isn't as much there as you thought? And to think. All this time we were led to believe that it was so much more.

LIFE IS BUT A STAGE

You see your life as a movie. That it will play out just as it is supposed to and that you have very little control as to its outcome except that you will feel happy or sad, or laugh at what happens. It is played out in your head with no more control than a real person sitting in a heater does to the outcome.
Some movies are beautiful and romantic. And some are scary and horrific. Sometimes they are a combination of the two. But regardless of what they are about, a viewer has very few options as to what they themselves can do to affect it. They can play it over and over in their heads, and they can pause it to walk away, and they can rewind the parts they do not understand, but there is never anything that will change with the movie itself. The events will repeat as often as you give them cause to, and no matter how it plays out, the ending will always be the same.
But life is NOT a movie. Shakespeare wrote in As You Like it that "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players.They have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts.His acts being seven ages."
Life is not a movie. Life is like theater. The stage is as concrete as the earth we stand on, and all this occurs happens through movement of body and soul. Of breath and of willful intent to orchestrate events to our desire of the outcome. We do not view our lives as mere spectators to a play beyond our control. We are performers who, through skill,and flexibility craft our own lives to the eventually we have chosen for ourselves.
And so here we are at the fourth act. Our intermission of deception and idleness over, and now we set forth to the age of war. When that which we strive to have in our lives comes down to a simple grim determination to accomplish it. To live with what we expect in our heads, or to take up arms and affect the destiny of change in our lives.
Nothing goes wrong in a movie. All that is there has been carefully designed to be exactly what they wish us to see, and all the confusing bits and second attempts have been crafted out without our knowledge, so as to appear to be flawless...seamless. It is no less perfect, but it is made to be seen that way, and our inability to change it in no way accepts that it was, indeed flawed.
But when our life is seen as a theater, it becomes art in the presence of reality. Lights fail, people trip, and hecklers push and sway the performers based on their success or failure to adapt. To accomplish theater in such adversities is to truly understand the art of our lives. Things will go wrong, but it is only ourselves and our desire to accomplish it to the best of our abilities that will decide whether we receive a standing ovation or the boos and hisses of an epic flop.
Take control of your lives as only a skilled performer can. See and know what is needed to create the works of unparalleled beauty that define what it is to truly be alive. Do not sit in immobility expecting us to feel what can only be forced through their idea of understanding. Rise from your seat, don the props of soldiers and heroes and step onto the stage of your life. The greatest illusion is to see a movie as the reality and that the costumes are the truth. The beauty of theater, and life for that matter, is that for all the use of costumes no one ever doubts that beneath it there is a living breathing soul who knows what it is to be alive.

SHAME, REMORSE, AND GUILT

"Shame and remorse are the fees exacted of people with compassion , but it is always collected by others of little conscience. Guilt is the interest accrued to compassionate people that makes it impossible to be paid in full."

Guilt And Remorse
Many people(more than I ever thought possible after speaking to them about it) are living in lives filled with some of the most unbelievable feelings. Feelings that should be a counterpoint to the emotions of others, but have been somehow skewed in to the belief that one should feel where the other either can not, or worse, will not.  We feel loneliness and neglect. We feel unappreciated and ignored. We feel slighted and undervalued. We feel detached from what it is we have a right to be a part of, and at the same time we feel scrutinized in places and at times where no one else has a right to claim it. But most of all, and this is something that has become all too common, we have become all to willing to accept that it is OUR fault that we feel this way, and that it is OUR responsibility to change it for the betterment of those who require it of us?
And for what?

It certainly isn't for what we gain by bending to the will of others if the place we are bent, pushed,contorted,and cajoled into is not in our best interests or desires. So who are we doing it for, and, more importantly, WHY?

It would be one thing if we could look at the things we wish in our lives and make certain compromises. We make a sacrifice in one place to have success in others. But when the sacrifices become expected of us(worse, demanded) with no return for what we hoped to gain, we set the stage for a whole new situation. We sacrifice the concept of compromise and we capitulate. And capitulation is surrender. It is a loss of assets with no return.

     This would not be so bad if it was occasional, or temporary, but it isn't. It has invaded every aspect of our lives because we feel the obligation to a smooth sailing ship without ever realizing that we are now the sole person rowing the boat,and trimming the sails,and swabbing the decks for taskmasters whose only job is to decide whether or not we are doing it to their liking. And the more we relegate to their idea of smooth sailing, the less we have to bargain with or be allowed to claim as being a shared venture. Sooner or later, the opinion is ventured that it is indeed unfair, but at that point the option becomes to either do as they are told, or be thrown off the boat into the water. No mention is ever made of how the boat will be maintained afterward, but why should that be even considered when it is easier to point out who owns the boat.
 
So many people have accepted this behavior into so many parts of their lives that most are not even aware of it or how deeply it has seated itself into our behavior as habit. The problem with trying to live like this is that we are often the types of people who are aware of it in one place and try to find solace in something else just to get our minds off of it for awhile. So we engage in something we EXPECT to be completely insulated from it; something that is ours alone. Only to find that it reaches around from behind and bites us in a completely unexpected place. It's much like a person trying to plug a dike. No matter how much effort you place in the repair of one hole, another pops up somewhere else, and all the while you are being blamed for your inability to plug the holes. Well no wonder. It's not your dike and they aren't your holes, but there you are feeling as the only person who will get drowned by your failure to comply. This type of constant back peddling combined with the sense of responsibility we feel in ourselves to correct it makes our inability to do it to their standards wholly unattainable.Both in their eyes and in our own. And when we can not do it, we are left to feel as the one with a failure. We assume the guilt of not being able to perform. We justify the scorn, we internalize the sense of detachment, and we attack ourselves rather than the situation to which we have been relegated to out of nothing more than our desire to be so much more to others.

Shame and remorse are our rewards for trying to be what others expect of us while at the same time not having enough self respect to feel we deserve it. It was worth it enough to have it sacrificed in ourselves. So why should we feel so terrible when we expect it in return? And how did we ever get to the point that we felt that we should bear the brunt of the compromise...of the capitulation...of the surrender.

The time has come for us to believe in ourselves that we have just as much right to satisfaction and happiness as anyone else. That our desire to compromise comes with the assumed awareness that both people need to bend. If it is not worth it to them to go halfway, then DO NOT step back to allow so much as an inch of something that was not appreciated in you in the first place.

Even more so would be to no longer assign guilt to things that are not valued with the same coin as you would put to it. To what end does it serve to feel guilt if you are the only one to value it enough in the first place? If a man chooses to not wear shoes, and refuses them outright when you offer them, should you still be obligated to feel guilty  that you give shoes to someone else instead?Someone who needs shoes but has none? 

Remove these feelings of remorse and of shame. Know in your heart that if someone or something else does not have it in them to understand the value in it, it is a moot point to expect them to have an appreciation for someone who does. Do not spend your life trying to patch holes in dikes or row a boat when you have no real say in where it goes. Remove remorse and shame from the things you desire in yourself if they are not being appreciated for what they are by others except in the having of them.. Seek compassion and respect and belonging in people who stand beside you next to leaky dikes, and meet and care for people who stand before you with an oar of their own. Ones who ROW next to you. Trim sails together and know that paths of destiny will be met by direction made together, and not by the toil of a single oar.

STEAM LOCOMOTIVE

People are like steam locomotives when it comes to how we react to others around us. Steam locomotives are massive machines of potential power, and capable of unbelievable accomplishments. We would like to think the people we put the energy into would understand this potential and regard our feelings and thoughts to be worth it in their lives as we believe they should be. And rightfully so. Why else would they feel the need to keep something as powerful and useful to them as a steam locomotive if they did not have the need for it in the first place? But so very often we are left to feel as though, regardless of the limitless desire to carry the burdens like so much cargo, that it is not up to us to move the train. We are required to have the ability, have the fuel and the water, put the load onto the cars, and then simply wait until they feel the need to employ us. And that just isn't the purpose of the train. Potential without use results in the same thing as no potential and no use. A perfectly capable train and a load with no place to go.
Just in case anyone doesn't really understand how a steam locomotive works, I'll give you a very short explanation. Basically there is a furnace that heats water into steam. The steam builds under pressure in a boiler with enough energy to push the pistons through the cylinders and out onto the axles of the wheels. With each injection of steam, the massive wheels churn forward until it reaches the end of the piston stroke and chuffs out the remaining steam. Don't forget to blow the whistle for the thanks of a beautiful machine.
The primary component of all of this is pressure. It HAS GOT to be released in one way or another after heat has been put to the coals. Without a way of releasing this pressure through the internal workings of the machine for work, or a pressure relief valve, the boilers would simply blow apart. You can not stop it. You will not stop it. That is the reality. Either make the train move, or release the steam.
Steam engines, again as with people, are beautiful when they are treated well, and dangerous when they are not. After all, we are dealing with properties of immense heat, unbelievable amounts of pressure, and tons of steel. And people are no different except that they are powered with a sense of belonging, and recognition. It is a venture that requires a serious diligence to its care and function and results in epic catastrophes by neglect. Recognize its potential and they will be rewarded with what you can do for them. Ignore it and you will be left with with one of two things. Either a load not carried by a willing train, or a destroyed train with no hope of carrying anything for anyone, including themselves.
The things that are important in our lives and give impetus to our relationships, are like the components use to power a steam locomotive. Wood and fire. Water and steam. Think of these as the forces of passion, desire, purpose, and will in our relationships. Properly utilized for what they can do, they direct and mold our ideas and feelings, our thoughts and convictions, into action. They give a sense of value and worth to ourselves and at the same time reassures others that we have what it takes to carry our fair share of precious cargo over terrain that would be impossible without it.
But when we are left to ourselves with no input from who it is we feel should care, we are simply a big boiler on the tracks of our lives. We have ourselves stoked with all of the things that fuel the fires of good intentions, and we expect others to appreciate it and use it as we know we can. But intention without the need to have us express it, simply builds pressure. Allow us to expend that pressure to work and we will, but leave us with absolutely no outlet for what it is we are designed to do, and we simply build and build pressure until the bolts that hold us together threaten to blow us apart. And when that happens, and it WILL happen, we assume the responsibility of the blown boiler as a failing in ourselves, rather than due to neglect of person we did it for. So very often, we ride the line between expecting ourselves to not look like bad little trains and just wait until they are ready to need us, or we finally burst the bolts of the boiler and explode. Perhaps the worst feeling is to be expected to hold it all together judging the worth of our entire train on the durability of strained boilers left unattended. team locomotive boilers explode and fail all the time, but no one accepts the failure of the train before questioning who did it in the first place. But since we assume the failure in ourselves outright, why even look elsewhere. In any case, a bad little train.
Some of the most loved and amazing people in my life are coming to startling realizations about themselves and those around them. Quite often, they, and myself included,are left feeling as though what we are experiencing is wrong. Even worse is our perception that it doesn't matter what we think or feel, just so long as we are left to feel responsible for someone else unwilling to utilize it. It is the rationalization of condition by the belief that we are unable to affect change. Want to see the definition of defeat? Know that change is required of someone else, by being led to believe that you should be the one to affect it.
I don't want this to sound as though I am standing on my soapbox and that this has never happened to me. It DID happen to me. and the frustration and resigned defeat that I learned from it was, and at times still is, one of the most debilitating feelings I have ever known. It didn't matter what it was that I was trying to say, or how absolutely true it was, I went at conversations about ready to explode with conviction and intent. There was this MASSIVE well of potential for change that I knew I was going to direct what I was feeling and how I was living. That my rationalization was correct, that my points were true, and that I was justified in what I expected. To put it back into perspective, I was a steam engine ready to do what needed to happen one way or the other. I had been left to stew and broil until either the train would MOVE or I would explode. And I am not the one to allow something to blow my own boilers. So into these discussions and confrontations I went. They started out with me being very aware of the force I could project with the things I would say. As I got moving, more and more would come out. It was not angry but neither was I going to withhold anything, either. As far as their content was concerned, they were fair and correct; exacting as a surgeons knife. They were concise and to the point, true and factual in their logic, and the emotions I needed to have were important. Most of all, the whole issue was out there. I KNEW something would be done with it. When these explosions of intent were all said and done with, I really expected completely different outcomes. I expected to be understood. It was returned with silence. I was expecting some kind of exchange of ideas. Instead, I was met with a look of exasperation. I expected a true inspection of the facts and instead I was met with a specific example that was supposed to imply a failure of the generality. And most of all, the feelings and emotions that I had as a result of not getting the ones I wanted.
What the hell happened? How is it that this kept happening over and over and over? How was it that every conversation about what I was feeling left me feeling drained and weak and impotent? It took me a long time to figure this out, but when I did it made me understand how incredibly stupid I was to have not noticed it before. How incredibly effective it is for someone else to do this without me ever realizing how it was happening. And the main reason was that I was being CONDITIONED to feel this way because it did exactly what they wanted to occur without them having to do a single thing about it. They simply redirected the force of the argument into a place where I would expend the energy without realizing I had done it. Perfect. Flawless. And I NEVER saw it coming. They punched the valve that released the steam. And when everything was said and done I had nothing left. My real anger, however, came from my understanding that what I felt was not as important to them as how quickly they were willing to simply redirect the steam.
The difference between what was expected to happen and what occurred was not due to a lack of intention on my part. It happened because solution, and how they expected us to perceive it. We wanted work, and they wanted us to expend the energy to a place they didn't have to deal with it. This is the difference between "venting" and "blowing off steam". Most people simply don't want us to see the difference. But they do it because it is useful to them and it works. For them. Don't delude yourself by believing this as an unconscious act. ANYONE who feels the discomfort of being on the wrong end of a good point also understands the fact that it was felt by the person stating it. They allow us to "vent" our feelings. We are allowed to stand there and rail and get mad and blabber away about feelings and intentions, about or lack of thanks and gratitude. And somehow we are supposed to feel good about this by recognizing that they are sitting there patiently allowing us to "let it all out". Of COURSE they look understanding. But while we are feeling bad for having a temper and a desire to throw plates and dishes and slam kittens heads into car doors, we NEVER notice that they are leaning on the pressure relief valve. As though they thought our primary need in our life was to just make steam for it's own sake, and that the only responsibility they have to us is to make us feel as though they are so good at accommodating us by blowing it right out the top of a situation. They key to understanding ourselves as locomotives, and to stop feeling as though we are the ones who are incapable, is to stop for just a second and look at what that word locomotive really means. Its Latin for "MOVES BY ITSELF"!!
Understand that we, ourselves, are the engineers of our own steam locomotive. And that WE have the full right and ability to decide for ourselves where the steam we generate is going to be applied. Anyone else, regardless of how they feel about it, are simply passengers. Do we adjust OUR valves to move the pistons through the cylinders to move our individual train, or do we allow someone else to simply vent the steam, decrease the pressure, and leave the train sitting right where it was?
I'd like to mention here that people who operate REAL trains , would never confuse the difference between venting steam, and MOVING a train. To believe that all we need to do is release the pressure in order to have us feel better and fix the problem has COMPLETELY ignored the intention of the machine in the first place. It is our desire to have the fire of our engines, and steam and pressure in the boilers, directed to movement, but we don't get that when we have heated conversations about what we feel. We do not get growth or understanding or compassion when in order to alleviate the responsibility,they simply flip the valve of usable steam, and vent it RIGHT OUT THE TOP.
So we sit on the tracks again. Fully capable, fully provided with the wood and the water, and going absolutely nowhere because someone hasn't got a clue or a need to make our train go anywhere other than where it is right now. That's why it is where it is NOW. And why should they? It is obvious to them that there is plenty of energy to be had at their disposal. So why do anything but flip the valve when it isn't needed by them?
It is our sense of duty to provide the vehicle capable for change, but it is NOT our responsibility of us to assume the lack of direction because someone else didn't climb into the seat and, instead, leaned on the valve.
It is your train. It is your life. Do not question the abilities of your train. Do not question what you use to fuel it. Do not question the mechanics of the machine. Do not underestimate the potential of it to do exactly what is capable or intended to do. But take careful note of where the pressure is being directed and why. That is the difference between those who want you as the train you are rather than the potential you can be when they feel it is necessary.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF MARITAL RESIGNATION

     The light from the window shines in a dull red glow behind her closed eyelids. Only a brief moment before the alarm clock begins to blare out from the corner of the room. A quick inventory of her position tells her that, although her husband was in bed last night, they have never even touched each other during the night. The blankets that used to wrap around them both in the past, now shoved at one edge to make a small wall between them. No need,though. The wall between them already much larger than could be explained away by the ad hoc bundling board made in the darkness. She opens her eyes and realizes that she has awoken again,alone, without so much as a small kiss to rouse her. Her hair, down over her neck, assuring her that the attempt wasn't even made before he left the bed.

     She sits up in bed and swings her feet over the side of the bed. A quick stop to the bathroom to pee and glances over to the mirror before she washes her hands and face. "My God" she manages to mumble as she looks at the woman staring back who can't seem to pull a smile onto her face to become pretty. "Where did it all go?".
      The brush battles its way through her hair, realizing that it was not made this way from passionate love in the middle of the night, and is, instead, merely the result of another fitful night longing for it, instead. She brushes her teeth and wipes her mouth with the small hand towel and stares back at herself. Her smile stretches briefly across her face just long enough to remind her that she is, indeed, a very beautiful woman, and that true happiness lends its way to her beauty far more than she can muster at the moment. She thinks to herself that being beautiful is only half of a face if she is made to feel less than pretty by how you feel. No worries, A fake smile goes a long way toward beauty when it's presented to people who don't care to differentiate between a real one....and a fake one.

     Out into the kitchen to start coffee for him and breakfast for kids. The morning becomes a flurry of activity as one, then another, presents the problems that require immediate solutions. He wanders in and mumbles "hi". Just "hi". Said like a man on a bus or a passing pedestrian and not the man who she has been with for fifteen years. When did this happen? Did it happen years before she even noticed it? When did the man who used to wrap his arms around her and nuzzle her neck while making her a cup of tea, turn into the man who's only concern was whether she remembered that he needed her to go to the bank? When did this turn into her giving him the emotional reward and the promise of her sexuality, first, with less than a 50-50 chance it would be returned? That the woman who had 'nothing better to do' would have ample time to do what he said. That is, of course, after she completed the other mundane tasks that will be accomplished without his knowing. The dentist appointment, the shopping, the soccer practice,the laundry, the... . Where did this apathy come from?
Coffee in his cup, he wanders back out to finish getting ready for his day with the full extent of his wants accomplished. Other than that there is nothing.   She pours her tea into a cup and longs to be asked something that has nothing to do with the daily goings on of a household and is asked simply because he wanted to hear her voice. Instead, she is left feeling as though her desire to be reliable will be obscured again and again by the feelings associated with unappreciated indifference.

     The kids run off to the bus as she sits in the chair at the kitchen table and stares out the window at the snow on the ground in the yard. A slight twinge of anger and resentment creeping in under the fingers that grip her cup; the only warmth in the house. All in all, not a bad start to the day. The realization that she slept alone, wasn't wanted deep in the night, woke up on her own to an empty bed, looks older and sadder unless she fixed it herself, and that a trip to the bank will make it all better, is more than enough to set her on her way. Thank God for consistency.

     She has lost herself in the numbing regularity of this feeling. How many times has this series of events played itself out? A dozen? A hundred? Ten hundred? She doesn't even remember. Each day blending into another like a cavalcade of mediocrity. A slow dulling of senses once remembered as vital now nothing more than distant echoes. Her expected reliability to conform to his needs soured by his lack of appreciation for the effort becoming an all too common theme. And instead of the feelings that reinforce the bonds of a relationship, the exact opposites of regret and shame and frustration being the things that bind her to him. Now, more out of stubbornness to not be seen as a failure than out of desire, it is replaced by compliance in perpetuity with the rewards falling more to him than her.

     A shadow passes over her shoulder. His hand rests on her shoulder and for a brief instant, washes away all of the bad feelings with the sudden realization that she is going to be comforted regardless of her premature thoughts of self worth. Her fingers slips from inside the handle on the cup and reach up to put her hand over his. But before she can get halfway across her chest, her forearm gently brushing her right breast, his hand reaches across the table in front of her and scoops up the car keys on the table. Before her fingers can slip over his hand, it is gone again. Support. Nothing but support. With no more comfort given to a handrail or a crutch The door closes and the crunch of the gravel under the wheels of his car fades away down the street to be replaced by the sound of the coffee pot ticking slowly in the corner. The church bell up the road peals once and her mind skitters to a John Donne poem. "It tolls for thee" she mumbles darkly to herself.
Alone for a few minutes, she slips into a deep brooding within herself. She feels it with an intensity no one can understand. And she won't let them. Better to closet it away than have it look like it is anything but perfect. And maybe that's where it all went wrong. When the necessity to wax it over became more important than solving the problem. And who's problem was it? Was it hers for trying to hide it, or his because he knew she couldn't stand to look like less in the eyes of others even if it meant she would feel less happy as a result? One sin feeds the other, but both leaving her starving within.

     She stares out over the table. Everything in the house made to look warm and comforting; the picture of domestic bliss. The knickknacks on the walls espousing the wealth that family gives, and every color blending softly into another on the walls. Postcard perfect, form and flow, to a home that slowly developed tendrils like a cancer and turned into into nothing but a house. Four walls containing all the components of a seemingly happy life and none of them with any substance. Only form. A display case in a museum. A diorama of unfulfilled wishes and dreams.

     The brooding slowly makes room for guilt that always accompanies this feeling. There really is no need to allow this feeling to crawl and wend it's way into her day, she thinks to herself. Everything that she needs is here and is in abundance, so ruminating over the petty emotional wants of a woman are paltry at best. The alternative is far too uncertain to risk what is here, and, if anything, she can at least comfort herself with the knowing that the status quo can at least be endured. She has, after all, done it for years, and as long as she can continue to cram the skeletons and the regrets into cupboards within her mind, she can console herself that she is at least...comfortable. But as she stands to go to shower she thinks of the smooth muscles of her body and the press of her breasts against her robe, and knows that within her beats the heart of a woman who yearns for love in a way that reminds her that her body aches to be touched. That the skeletons within the cupboards of her mind are woefully short of space, and that her breasts wish for the hand of a man against them as much as against her heart. Potential beauty, a longing heart, and a body wishing to be filled to a bursting beyond comprehension. And it's going nowhere but to the bank.

     Is all of this worth it? The question rolls through her head more often than she thinks and anything that can drum out the repetitive tattoo within her is sought as a substitute. Keep busy and stay within the lines. Like the rules for coloring as a child will somehow apply on greater and greater canvases within her life. Within herself she knows she is worthy and knows that people who endure are admired in the eyes of others. But martyrs with no voice, or unrecognized by others, are no different than victims nailed to trees.

She slides her clothes on and finishes making herself the picture of capability. She is strong and no one else will know otherwise, but as she applies her eye shadow, she recognizes that her eyes are the window to her soul and that she has, once again, pulled Venetian blinds to eyes that feel a bit safer with the lashes folded inward.
     As she drives down the road the phone rings and she mechanically flips it open while steeling herself for the conversation. No excitement in her voice or happiness and elation at its origin. It is its automaticity that somehow lends the excuse for its continued performance.

     There is no "Hi, Babe" or "How are you?" Just the simple continued lackluster diatribe of continued tasks requiring completion. She talks clinically and as she hangs up feels absolutely no tickle in her heart as she tosses it back in her purse. The entire conversation lending nothing to her heart. And sadly, never even notices the loss of it anymore. Just process. A recurrent thought, however, creeps into her mind;  He isn't asking where she is or what she is doing is for love of her. More to find out where she is NOT.

     The day progresses as they always do. One event sliding into another with each moment monopolized for the desires of something or someone else. As though there is no notice of the fact that time counts, and keeps counting. Yesterday, today, tomorrow....all rolling into one long event.

Children home and dinner started, he pops into the house as though coming home is of no consequence. No shift in the warmth within the house, no increase in conversation. Just a simple appearance as eventful as his exodus this morning. Like David Copperfield had left a sheet in the doorway this morning and forgot to complete the stunt until dinner. No magic in it at all. The evening is a repeat performance of the morning with the demands replaced with the questions regarding their completion. Needs met, he drifts off to an evening spent with just as much need of her involvement as she had during the day. Two ships that pass in the night they are not. Ships that pass at least have a vested interest in the ports between them. These ships simply bumble to and fro in the wake of the other and hope not to have to trim sails to account for the course of the other.

     How long will this go on? Does the desire to want it make waiting worth it? Is the goal at this point the simple endurance of what is? Every day is just like its predecessor. Not enough to cause an issue or even for change, but not enough to warrant change either. Each day completed is another day gone that could have been spent feeling something else. The countless days spilling out behind like a long trail that gives credence and weight only by its length. How do you argue that what was acceptable for so long simply is no longer acceptable? What is it that can possibly have enough worth that it should tip the scales of dutiful mediocrity? Is it enough to simply say "enough"?

     She finishes her tea and tells herself "One more day". But deep inside, she wonders how much left of herself is there to give, and will she expend so much of herself that she will be unwanted by anyone else? She knows that in order to leave this, she has to be able to say that she gave all that she had. But in doing so, she just may give so much of herself that she dies from the inside, and no one would ever know it but her. Were it up to him and he simply walked away, she could deal with that. But to leave first is to , again, admit defeat. When did the ability to fight be traded for a belief that there was no accomplishment unless she won? Was that really how she felt, or was it how she was made to think of herself by him?

     Out in the dark, somewhere far away, could it be that the answers to unspoken prayers were listened to? Was what she wished and hoped for answered? And did the fears that kept her here worth what may have been somewhere else?  She didn't know, but she often wondered how it was that she was made to hold so soundly to something no more substantial than the wind by mere definition while ignoring the reality of something so much more concrete with sheer will.

     The children are put to bed and the house becomes quiet. He has gone to bed long before her and felt no need to have the touch of her lips or neck as he left. She is simply there. Not close enough within his heart to want, and not far enough away for him to let her seek something else. From the outside of the house, the house glows with the warmth of an enviable home, but each light in a different room; five beacons of indifference.

     She changes her clothes and slides into her side of the bed. No small touch as she slides her body within the covers. No warmth shared between them. She notices the cold blankets pushed into their protective fence as she closes her eyes and sees the darkness within her eyelids, she recognizes that there is still a darker place within.

WHERE IS YOUR HUMANITY (PART I)

We have lost our voice as a species.....and in doing so we lost our momentum to progress....and then we lost our way. The most highly developed organism on the planet, and we haven't got it within us to even BEGIN to grasp the qualities that separate us from the other animals. Hell, it's a PRIMARY religious tenet that gives you "dominion" over the lesser animals....and you don't even know what the fuck it is. Unbelievable. No, it isn't unbelievable. It's tragic.
I asked myself a very simple question the other day. What is Humanity? And I'm not talking about that bullshit Wikipedia definition , because all that tells you is the agreed upon definition of the WORD. I wanted the parts that actually DEFINE or quantify what it actually is to be humane rather than simply human. And you know what? It isn't there.
Try it for yourself. Go to Google or Wikipedia or any search engine of your choice. Expend all of that three and a half pound universe within the vault of your skull and tell me what you find. You'd think that a computer, designed by, and for, humans, and the electrical web of binary bliss with which we cull any and all manner of knowledge, should have a pretty good answer of the things that define the human experience. What you will get, however, is the same definition... over and over and over. You can have it translated into ANY language on the planet, you can use whatever font suits you, you can have it signed to you in American Sign Language on a video,and you can even have it spoken to you with the automated voice like some apathetic fembot, but you can't find what it's made of. As a matter of fact, its easier to get the ingredients in a TWINKIE than it is to find what humanity is. And yes, yes, I am sure that there is going to be that one person who tells me that the definition of humanity is different depending on who you're talking to. But that sounds a bit...odd,doesn't it? That's much like a teapot telling you it has tea within simply because it's a teapot on the outside.
I am thinking that this should come as no surprise to me, or anyone else within the choir to which I preach, but it is not exactly necessary to ask As I see it now, we have divided our human species into two distinct sub groups. There are those who strive to retain within them the qualities that distinguish them from the animals. I like to think of these people as the Human Humans. and there are those who could care less and prefer to be more like animals themselves as long as they can profit from it in one way or the other. Choose your poison. The quaffs are endless. In any case,Those who do it are the Sub Humans. Sadly, the Sub Humans make up about 85 percent of the world as I see it.
As if it isn't bad enough that the Sub Humans have now taken over as the dominant group, the Human Humans are further divided into those who revere the qualities of humanity to such a degree that they willfully separate themselves from individuals and the behaviors that do not support an existence based on something more than survival, and those who believe in the qualities as needed abstracts within the world but are no longer willing to expunge it from the world as they would wish it. They simply endure like human chattel for a predatory world that feasts on them at will.
I am not so sure when all of this started. I do remember, however, that when I was young, adults seemed to take an almost gleeful pleasure in telling me to 'grow up' before I tried to state views on anything more complex than whether I remembered my lunch and homework. It was like our height was directly tied to our ability to think, and that to do so was simply out of the question until a full stature was attained. So be it. Far be it from me, a mouthy midget, to suppose I had anything more to offer to a world much larger than myself. So I waited, and when I finally got to stand like a man, and think like a man, I opened my mouth...and was promptly told to shut up.
I must have failed to realize that the argument had little to do with my stature at all. The reason they didn't want me to speak was that they had already clamped their own eyes and ears shut, and to be reminded of the discontinuity between what had been TAUGHT as virtuous and what was DONE to sell it for cheap, was a little too much to swallow from someone so small. Now that I was older, however, and the avoidant stature tactic moot, the primary effort would now be on me to remain silent as a matter of social duty.
This rides along perfectly until all the bullshit games suddenly descend on top of the people who thought they were doing this for the benefit of themselves and, instead, come to realize that silence only benefits those who can make you do what they want just so long as you don't bring to light the awareness of their predation.
This is that one defining moment in a person's life where they make a choice. The choice to waddle along like docent sheep shepherded like mutton on the hoof and eaten at his leisure, or to break from the flock and hope to GOD that what you say has some meaning and worth to any that will listen. That what you say is noble in its virtue, true in its intent, and worth the price of being slaughtered screaming and bleating in the field just so long as it doesn't mean you have to be led to the chopping block just the same without speaking your mind.
So off I ran. I broke to the edge of the flock, and then to the wandering fringe that still trotted along the edges but was never brave enough to veer from the prescribed direction. I jumped once, tilted my face up, and stood up on my hind legs to be heard for the things I had to say with the hope that all would hear it. I may not have expected every one of them to listen, but what I found shocked me to the point of absolute numbness. Because even with age, and stature, and thought, and even a willing intention to speak out, there is one vital component that is necessary in order for all the others to come to fruition. And that is that someone has to be willing to listen. And I will be damned if I have found a single person who wasn't more willing to clap their hands over their ears and pretend rather than try it. It's like an entire generation fell sucker to the whole asinine game simply as a matter of course.
And maybe that's where we have all failed. That somewhere along the line, people came to accept the fact regardless of the fact that they couldn't think and act against their tender,that as long as the shepherd fed them and tended them it really didn't matter that they would all be led to slaughter. And every sheep has his own sell out point. That one thing that allows the herder to simply drive them along as a matter of duty receiving nothing more than the basics without ever knowing what it was they sold in order to receive something they could have gained for themselves.
I know I've been on this sheep kick for awhile, and referred to the users of virtue as shepherds, but they aren't. They are actually closer to zombies in some tacky Tom Sivini film. It's like a small number of us are the last REAL humans standing in a room of shuffling zombies. That the rest, the UN humans are winning, and that as soon as it is recognized that a brain, pink, and cognizant, and nutritionally yummy with its own ideas of self worth and a capacity to offer it to others is in close proximity to the ones who don't give a shit, the masses will turn on us and, through sheer numbers, descend on us to chew out that which makes us different. They won't attack it long enough to kill it, but long enough to have it not make a damn bit of difference in the long run. Just enough to destroy it so the rest can shamble along unfettered in miserable, albeit unified, company. To quite blunt and honest, the whole thing just makes me want to puke.
So that's it. The end of humanity simply because we found something more usable. And that is, apparently, to revert back to a bunch of animals. To think and act for our own needs regardless of the benefits we could gain from believing in abstracts. We have become a world of materialistic scavengers. Sure we have SUV's and suck latte's from Starbucks, but carrion nonetheless. The only difference between us and rats or seagulls is that when a rat or a seagull picks out the spine of another, at least they can do it with the common decency of never fooling the other of their true intentions.
Am I MORE human because I feel i have a better sense of it? Or am I lying to myself and should objectively admit that the majority of human behave differently from me and that the definition should fit the majority. Seems odd to me that the ones who could care less will dictate the definition, while the ones who do not, automatically exclude themselves from it by default. For what its worth, I think I'd like to put SOMETHING out there into the Internet about what humanity is to me. It may not be much, but it is certainly far better than looking across a web of information and having it offer up knowledge like dessicated silk spun flies.
I think one of the main things that differentiates a human from an animal is a sense of compassion. Because compassion really doesn't have any survival goal to it at all. It's one of those qualities that offers consolation to something wounded or hurt with no realistic benefit to the person who gives it. I'm not saying that from a humane standpoint, but from a survivalist one. Salmon don't really give a lick that the fish they've been swimming next to for the last five thousand miles suddenly leaps onto the rocks or was swiped from the water by a bear. As long as it gets to screw before it dies, all is good.
I need to sit down and have a cup of coffee. I'll write more on what humanity is a little later on. So far, I think it is going to have to do a great deal with the concept of altruism with regards to others. And while self sacrifice is a noble thing, I think it is being abused and manipulated by the more animalistic type of our species. It has become a tool of the vicious rather than as a virtue of the humane by allowing worthy people to sacrifice of themselves with little or no intention of repaying it in like or in kind. Simple dutiful obedience to a glutton. And the saddest part of this is that when a martyr isn't seen for their sacrifice, there is no difference between the martyr with a cross, and a corpse nailed to a tree.

VIRTUTE NON VERBIS

I keep coming to this agonizing dilemma within my head. On the one hand, I live with this idea that the virtues I hold within me are simply not there as a matter of course. That they are within me because I hold them important, and expect myself to defend them by acting in a way that proves to myself and others that they are worth the effort. Qualities like reliable truth, and honesty, or transparency of intent. Virtues of trust and compassion, of humility, and the necessity of dignity and respect... for those who deserve it. And on the other hand, I am constantly assailed by the notion that these things aren't of much use to people, or not admired, if it can be more easily PERCEIVED in greater degree in someone else by doing nothing. It makes a person feel as though the quick fix stock answers are of more weight if they can be sold as more than they are worth by doing nothing, than what I am willing to offer freely but not afforded the ability. Why should someone seek the truth through adversity when the status quo, pale and unrealized, is made to look so much better simply with the promise of it?
Virtues and qualities of worth are abstract concepts that are very difficult to quantify in a world that has become so accustomed to satisfying itself with physical trappings that mask internal failings. They spend BILLIONS on cosmetics and clothing to look better than we think they do, and then spend billions MORE looking to pharmaceuticals and therapists to rationalize why they aren't feeling as good on the inside as they should for what they paid for and painted over on the outside. They strive and cling to trophies and accolades that, for the most part, are only offered by compliance to someone Else's wants. Positions and mantles of worth are brief and fleeting, and sell everything that they have of themselves trying to live up to a notion of self worth by begging it from people who couldn't care less whether they had them in the first place.
Above everything else, they have become more and more incapable of living within the situations that they have made for themselves. It was sold out, piece meal, for one thing or another, and when it was realized what it was that was sacrificed, desperately attempted to make themselves feel more worthy by at least convincing themselves that they are still virtuous or possess the qualities that make us better. And that's where we all fail.
We want the titles of virtue and to have people perceive that we have these abstract qualities, but we do so very little in the way of actually achieving them. Even those who do possess them are sometimes very quick to offer them up as payment to those who do not simply because it is a short term fix to the overwhelming situational needs of the moment. Some very beautiful people are sacrificing their own virtues to be eaten alive by charming jackals. Nothing more useful than feeling like less of a person than by being bitten in the hand when you feed it.
Most of this comes from a very simple misunderstanding of what it is that defines noble virtues and qualities. It is not simply enough to want them. it has to be within every person to not only understand them, but strive to hold them important enough in themselves. Virtues and qualities need to be EXPECTED of others, and have them feel the need for others to see them exemplified within themselves. We need a world that needs to embrace those virtues, but also to become intolerant of those who simply can not or will not offer them to others. If we do not, then we set a precedence for repeated behavior that allows the empty words to hold more weight than the act of doing them.
While it is one thing to hoist the banner of 'virtue" and proclaim oneself worthy of carrying it as an important standard, it is a wholly different thing, and far more noble, to stand beneath the pennant and fight for it. There is a very famous engraving of Joan Of Arc holding the flag of France in her left hand, and a sword in her right. Come to think of it, almost every painting of battle involves two things. The banner, and the weapon. They are intrinsic to the understanding that every ideal needs to be defended, and done so by its worth to those who fight for it. Anyone can hold the guidon and drape themselves in a false sense of patriotism , but it is not the flag that assures protection. It is the sword that is wielded in defense of that which gives credence to the banner. Virtute Non Verbis. Deeds. Not words.
So many people in the world have becoming nauseatingly content with themselves to believe that in order to be seen as virtuous by others that all they need do is be cognizant of the definitions, regardless of whether they can or will do what is necessary to uphold them. Instead, they rely on the needs of others to have, furling in their faces like a satin veil, the eyewash and subterfuge that hides the plain fact that they are now unable to see that the virtues are not being defended by the sword at all. It is a death shroud with the hoist of a lifetime. Talk is cheap, and offers nary a whisper of worth.
Were it not bad enough that so many have decided it is of more use to themselves to cloak their cowering frames behind the flag of virtues and qualities they simply do not possess, it is a far worse thing to rally behind those who do. As though the followers of the grandest of deceptions have become legions of one-armed soldiers who ally them selves with a weaponless hand, and shamble rather than march shoulder to shoulder, on feet of clay.
For the love of God, and for the defense of the banner you clutch to, STAND UP!
Do not allow those who would benefit from your ignorance of the truth or have you endure to live lower than the standard to which you wish to be. Do not let a 'paper tiger' succeed and have you sacrifice out of confusion what they sold of themselves all the while making you feel like it was your decision.
Hold onto the nobility of your pennants with one hand, but pick up the sword and DEFEND what you decry as worthy. Allow the fringes to brush your face, but not so close as to blind you to the battlefield in front. There may be clay on your feet, but they are feet nonetheless, and the more you march, the more the clay falls beneath your feet to be trod upon by more determined advance.
It is a war.
It is a war against the belief that weak and feeble mewlings of the vainglorious are enough to supplant the true worth of a banner of such necessary stature. It is against the belief that it is enough to simply talk the talk, without walking the walk. If it is worth it to hoist above your head, it is worth it to wield the sword as well. And if it is not, then drop it to the earth and let it be trampled for what it is. Be done with it. Hope instead that it will be rended from its seams and used to staunch the bloody wounds suffered by the victims of frail ignorance. Hold no remorse in your heart for that which you had no need of proof for in deed, and, instead, satisfied yourself with the paltry belief that mere words could irradiate the need for action. If you are to be cut down, then do so unfettered with that cloying immobility of wet cloth. Pleading for mercy in the mud is done much better with two hands anyway.

THE TROUBLE WITH YOUR MONEY

When you first start out in life, many people are afforded the opportunity of getting "everything they want". That's actually a pretty noble thing for a parent to want for their children, but how a person understands it and thinks of themselves drives exactly what those things will become in the future.
Consider for a minute that you are a very normal person. normal looks, normal resources and a normal, that is to say, average, degree of acceptance for what and who you are. And what you are to others is directly related to what you can provide in the way of self worth and how you project your desire to see other people happy by doing the same to them. So the day comes when you are given something that gives you just a little bit of an edge over someone else. Maybe its a dress, or a car, or a new pair of blue jeans. It doesn't really matter what it is, but how you perceive yourself with regards to this is VERY important. Because sometimes a nice thing is just that. A nice thing. And at others, a nice thing becomes something that you use to cover up something you don't like about yourself in the first place. Its a panacea. A short term band aid over something your not exactly comfortable with. Sometimes it directly changes what it was you didn't think others liked. Maybe you were a blond and found that the boy you liked preferred redheads. So you changed it, and things went along. Other times we use things that are NOT associated with the original problem. Lets say you felt bad about the color of your hair, but you got a car instead. So now you may have blonde hair, but hey....you have a car instead. In any case, we are conditioned to feel certain ways about ourselves with regards to what it is we have around us. And when a person gets slowly mired into the collection of things at the expense of self worth, what results is a never ending cycle of feeling bad, covering it up with something that we hope distracts others from the supposed failure, and then driving on. But this is a domino effect combined with a snowball that gains speed and size as you get older. Each insult to a person internally become a desire or a need to find another way to cover it up....or distract others from seeing what you cant address. While you are young, this behavior nurtures a seed that grows without you even knowing it. It settles deep and slowly grows inside all the while you are trying to find a better car, bigger boobs, nicer hair, or anything else that can detract from the feeling of lowered self worth while still maintaining what you want others to see. And whether or not they see it, it continues to grow inside of you. The low self image stays low, and the harder you work to maintain it, the more readily age and time require more and more to maintain it. Ever wonder why a midlife crisis hits in the middle of your life? Because that's when most people finally tip the scale and realize that all this time they have been covering over things and feelings of lowered self worth with objects and possessions that they are no longer capable of getting, or are no longer performing the desired effect to others. The downward spiral tightens and rather than look constructively at the base problem, simply attribute it to a failure in themselves to be able to achieve it.
The worst part of this is that others seem to be so readily willing to accept the desire of these things as frivolities rather than the only thing that is keeping them sane. Because to have these things disappear without something to fill the void is to reject the ONLY thing they have used as comfort for their entire lives. And the people who got you here would like nothing better than to have you feel like that is the only solution.
So here they sit taking a look at what they are not, or do not feel of themselves, and feeling as though there is no possible way that they could be anything else. Walk away from the security blanket, regardless of its obvious unreality, is impossible. So the requirements to uphold it become larger...and larger....and larger. I would think that if a person who has everything in the world realizes that they feel miserable, would also realize that there will never be enough money in the world to satisfy the depths of their own emotional despair. Money does not buy all things. It only buys things until you can no longer afford them. and money does not buy happiness either. It simply pacifies the need for it until the price is too high to pay for NOT having it.
I am often baffled by how so many people look at my life and shake their heads as though I simply don't make enough money to be considered successful. And I turn on my heel and often ask them what it is that they purchase with this level of success. For those of you who know me, ask yourself if you believe I live with any less of a standard of living than you, regardless of how much you make. Do you see me living in a house ANY smaller than you? With less automobiles, or clothing, or savings? Any less in the way of retirement? Do you see my child with any less toys or prospects for the future? Ever seen him NOT go to the doctor or the dentist or the emergency room? Compare what you MAKE to what you OWE. This is your income to debt ratio. And while many people can say they make more money than I do, it means nothing in the grand scheme of things when I walk away at the end of the month accomplishing the same or MORE than people with two and three times the paychecks swamped in debt. Money is not the end all. Money is the TOOL that you use to get the goal. I wield that tool far better than people give me credit for, and exact the SAME standard of living by being able to balance what it is that I want and need with the ability and effort to find it.
You have a 1800 square foot house with a $2000 dollar mortgage. I have a 4400 square foot house with a $600 dollar mortgage. How did I do that? I bought a house worth more than it was purchased for, and used what I saved to repair it AND make additional payments to the mortgage. When you looked at your mortgage and said "I can afford that" the mortgage lender knew you'd only "afford" it for 30 years. He didn't give a SHIT whether you would have to fight and scrabble for every penny or that you'd ever be able to pay it off. As a matter of fact, it was in his best interest to have you NEVER pay it off. Next time you purchase a house, look at what you WANT and need, and then go looking for that. Not looking at what you can afford and regretting all the extra space you haven't got the time to enjoy.
You have two cars, and I have two cars. Mine are a 4 cylinder and a 6 cylinder. They AVERAGE 28 miles to the gallon. I go the same number of miles that you travel, but at the end of the month I have a fuel bill that is two-thirds less than what is normally expended while driving the same number of miles at the same speed with no less space in the vehicle. Sure, I suppose you paid for the ability to look successful in a large automobile, but have YOU ever given notice to someone else s vehicle THAT much? Is it REALLY worth it to go that extra suffering of financing a car for the opinion of someone who doesn't give a shit about you anyway?
Here's a little trick I should offer to you. When you bought your car, he asked you what day you wanted to pay on. Tell him the 16th of the month. THEN , pay one payment in advance and pay the rest on the first of every month. Because your interest is calculated monthly, and you paid it 14 days early. So take that 8% interest and half it.
Want another? The warranty package you bought on your car added as much as $3000 dollars to the price of your car. But if you went online to the SAME company he went to in the back room while you sucked on his free coffee and doughnuts, you would have found the warranty online for 350 dollars. It is the EXACT same warranty. Same company, same vehicle. So what did you get for $2650 dollars? Would you believe a cup of coffee and a doughnut? People often wonder why I am living in this little piss hole town when I could be making so much more money. But to be quite honest, how much would you pay to live in a place that had what I do here? I have lakes and rivers and waterfalls, safe streets, a nice school system, every amenity I could ever want or need, and within driving distance of any place I would want to go. A major international airport within an hour, another country to visit if I wish, one of the worlds most famous cities and all of it in a rural setting people scream for their entire lives. So how much would you pay for it? To many people, it is not beyond their thinking to say that they would pay the lion's share of their income JUST to live where they want. So should it be any grand stretch of the imagination to understand that NOT earning it and living here just the same is just as logical. Instead of looking at me as ONLY earning 32,000 a year, look at me as earning 60,000 and paying for what I have already. You PAY to go to Vegas to gamble. I drive an hour to gamble just the same. I do, by the way gamble only nickels. You want to ski in Lake Placid? You PAY to fly here. I drive an hour. You want to spend a night in Manhattan? Then PAY to fly here. I drive. You want to camp in a rustic cabin in the Adirondacks? PAY to fly here. I drive there in an hour.
Everyone I know has a cell phone. And yours has ALL the amenities on it that makes it JUST the phone to have. But quite honestly, and once again, have you ever given a SHIT about what someone else had to their ear? I sure as hell don't. Go look at your cell phone bill and tell me what it is. If it is less than the 60 dollars I paid for ALL THREE of mine with the same services, I will EAT IT.
Are you saving any for retirement? If you are paying for all of these other things by a hand to mouth mentality, robbing Peter to pay Paul, I will bet that you haven't got near as much to play with at the end of the month as you intended to. MOST I would assume is going to pay off the debts incurred by an overuse of credit. A credit I refuse to use because it has the same distorted logic as a mortgage. That people have you reason that you only need to afford the BILL, not what was put on the credit, is an abomination. I am sure you have all seen me use a credit card for exactly the same purchases you would use them for, but debiting an account is not the same as credit, and at the end of the month you are paying even more of your money for the privilege of borrowing what you didn't have in the first place. And all for the greedy pocket of someone who thought that by making you feel successful for having the ability somehow cost you less. I have been told that when I go out, that I am very well dressed and have never looked out of place with what I wear. I can have exactly what I need to do what it is we have chosen to do in a way that LOOKS like more than its worth. And wasn't that your intention in the first place? To LOOK the part? Well guess what? I did it with a third of the money and NEVER ONCE had a person look to the price tags on my clothes. They DID ask me which store I bought it from,though , and went about naming top of the line stores. Which tells me that NONE of these people really even KNOW that the same clothes are two-thirds less anywhere else.
I am often STUNNED by the amount of money spent on food. Yes, it is true that food is a necessity, but food is something that has been processed and packaged to save time more than it is money. So if you are enjoying the time you cook as something done as entertainment, rather than an exercise in time management, you may find that your food budget goes DOWN and so does your entertainment budget. Learn to cook with the best you can buy, and you will be surprised at how much better you feel by knowing you had a healthy meal and STILL paying less. MOST people wouldn't know the difference between a 37 cent can of cola and a Pepsi when you put it in front of them, so why the hell waste MORE of your money on someone who hasn't got enough of an interest to CARE in the first place? My son will go to college and will not incur a student loan debt. He can go to the college of his choice and that money has been put aside. He has a fund for his first car, and in the event that I am hit by a milk truck, will be taken care of with life insurance. Any different from your child?
I am often ...almost scared at the commercials where people plan for their 'Golden Years'. These overly exaggerated claims that you are planning for a future that never comes. They show pictures of elderly people walking on a beach next to an RV with the sun going down on their day like it does on their lives. But lets be honest. How many people do you know EVER put and end point to the savings, and instead worked their gnarled fingers to the bone right up until the day they died? Do you think the man who slid the pretty portfolio across the desk with a charming gleam in his eye gave a shit from month to month as he collected his earnings from your work? To him, you are no more then the money spent on a utility bill, and he does the same thing with every other person. When you die, with all of your labors amassed into a fund, he will simply close the account, write a check to your next of kin, and make an appointment for the next young couple willing to fall for the same bullshit lines. Planning for your future is only good if you PLAN on having the future you expected. But pouring that money you COULD have enjoyed your life, with only to have a check written to someone else, is a wasted life.
My utilities in my house are just as functional as yours, and cost me two-thirds less by living in a town with it's own hydroelectric power. I switched my lights to fluorescent bulbs and saved 58 dollars PER LIGHT per year. How do I save so much? I turned off the DAMNED lights. One of the most asinine behaviors of American culture is the absolute necessity to believe they need to be successful without knowing one God Damned thing about how to go about it. As though throwing it in the air to the first person who says what they purchase or use will make them look better, is the one who should have it. That what you want or need is worth paying for the time you save by not doing it yourself. All the while not valuing the time in the first place. Time IS money, but its YOUR time and it's YOUR money.
Making money is one thing. But knowing the USE of money is another entirely. Being successful in the world has just as much to do with realizing that everyone under the sun will do their damnedest to make you feel like they are doing you a favor while fucking you out of something that can be had elsewhere for less. Every service that offers you something should come with a mantra that says "What's in it for this guy if it's such a deal for me?" Because when you see that, you will realize that the whole exercise is just smoke and nonsense to get more out of you than he puts into it. Capitalism is a free market economy, and succeeding in it is not simply buying the top of the line. Its finding the top of the line from the person who is willing to offer it with the lowest profit margin.
It's all nickels and dimes people. You may look at it as thousands or tens of thousands, but it's all just nickels and dimes. And I hate to say it, but most of you are being "nickeled and dimed" to DEATH. So don't look at me with that pity that implies that I don't make it in the world. I don't count money. I make money COUNT. Sure, I'd love to be able to put away even more money, but to be quite honest, I would be working twice as hard and enjoying my life less for it. Work to live, don't live to work. And above everything else, realize that everything that you have can be made better by simply investing a little bit of TIME into it yourself. You gain an appreciation for it's value TO YOU. Anything that is simply purchased and ignored isn't worth it in the first place. That should apply to houses, and cars, and retirement funds....even people. Time counts, and keeps counting. Might as well make you money count for the time.