Monday, August 06, 2012
"To Thine Own Self, Be True"
I've no idea if Socrates really said that. I have believed that to be true for my whole life.
But I've also done a lot of thinking about true and what is true for me lately. I re-encountered this whole concept during my Like A Pro training. It made perfect sense. It resonated. If I cannot be true to my self, how can I accept the requests of others?
Now I take up a different question, posed by the brief reading of 'This is How'.
In that, the author suggests that we lie to ourselves. A lot. A lot more than we know. I won't quarrel with this assertion, as I tend to think it's more or less on target.
But it leads me to ask about myself.
If I cannot be fully in my own true self, if I cannot find, define, or unlock the "real me", ever, then being true to myself seems, well, kinda problematic. How might one ever know that one is being true to ones self if the truth of the one self is either obscured or unknown?
Which leads me to ask, perhaps quite logically: how on earth does one discover the truth of who they really are? That deep, dark secret place we never open up? Does it mean that the many persons I know that, given this same question would likely answer "well of course I know who I am", would be predisposed to answer that all of this is a crock? That the "real self" is woo woo? That the "real self" is a fiction we create to avoid life's unpleasantries?
I tend to think not.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Assumptions
Odd. A simple "hi" leads to an absurdity of complication. I say "we seem to be fellow travelers. Wanna share?" and I get "No thanks. I am not interested in a date". Eh?
Honestly, I am sick to death of the communication problem. It's read into like no tomorrow. This is the kind of thing that drives me away.
Road trip.
I think.
Honestly, I am sick to death of the communication problem. It's read into like no tomorrow. This is the kind of thing that drives me away.
Road trip.
I think.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Rejection and self
The past weekend was very hard. I was told, in a clear way, at a time when further processing seemed unlikely, that my outward appearance was something that drove people away. I was asked if this is what I intended, which was odd.
It took me a long time - the better part of 30 hours - to really process this, and it hurt like hell when it landed. It's taken me 3 days to get out of the worst of the pain of it, and I'm still on the edge. I still am reticent to see others, be around people.
I've a lot of things to reflect on.
It's just that this one is really painful.
It took me a long time - the better part of 30 hours - to really process this, and it hurt like hell when it landed. It's taken me 3 days to get out of the worst of the pain of it, and I'm still on the edge. I still am reticent to see others, be around people.
I've a lot of things to reflect on.
It's just that this one is really painful.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Know thyself?
I'm having a lot of trouble choosing.
That's the simple line.
It's more than that, though, it's a lot about things like taking care of myself, of being ok with asking for what I want and saying what I don't want.
I just don't know where the boundaries are.
In fact, I am often unsure where MY boundaries are, and that speaks to the larger issue.
So in this specific case, I cannot decide what I want to do on a given evening. There are only so many hours in the day and week - how do I spend them? At the same time, there's part of me that is oddly resistant to the interests of a particular person. I find it can smother me at times... but is that the real issue?
And maybe what I am struggling with is how do I LEARN to detect when I am being honest with myself in a way that is clear and open and not disguised as something else?
If I don't want something, then I need to be OK with saying I don't want it. It's a flavor of no, to be sure. And since I don't ask a lot, then it gets sticky quicky for me. Don't ask means I may be prone to BEING asked more, and if I am unsure of what I want AND not sure about saying yes or no, it fast becomes a morass. Then I start to try and piece it together, to make amends, to "perform" so that I won't be subject to disapproval and/or recriminations.
So I am still stuck. Is this boundary stuff? No stuff? Disapproval stuff? Do I feel better, do myself a favor, by saying "no"? Or "yes"?
That's the simple line.
It's more than that, though, it's a lot about things like taking care of myself, of being ok with asking for what I want and saying what I don't want.
I just don't know where the boundaries are.
In fact, I am often unsure where MY boundaries are, and that speaks to the larger issue.
So in this specific case, I cannot decide what I want to do on a given evening. There are only so many hours in the day and week - how do I spend them? At the same time, there's part of me that is oddly resistant to the interests of a particular person. I find it can smother me at times... but is that the real issue?
And maybe what I am struggling with is how do I LEARN to detect when I am being honest with myself in a way that is clear and open and not disguised as something else?
If I don't want something, then I need to be OK with saying I don't want it. It's a flavor of no, to be sure. And since I don't ask a lot, then it gets sticky quicky for me. Don't ask means I may be prone to BEING asked more, and if I am unsure of what I want AND not sure about saying yes or no, it fast becomes a morass. Then I start to try and piece it together, to make amends, to "perform" so that I won't be subject to disapproval and/or recriminations.
So I am still stuck. Is this boundary stuff? No stuff? Disapproval stuff? Do I feel better, do myself a favor, by saying "no"? Or "yes"?
Monday, October 11, 2010
Privilege
I have a lot.
so many have so little.
It's time to move on.
Time to give back in more tangible ways, perhaps.
so many have so little.
It's time to move on.
Time to give back in more tangible ways, perhaps.
Irrationality
There's a lot of "stuff" behind my reticence and anger over the camp.
I realize that quite a lot, maybe all of it, is largely irrational.
And that leads me to consider that a lot of it is about my feelings around my father.
So when I say I am harboring resentment, it is not resentment directed towards my siblings, but rather a deeper resentment directed to my now dead father. I push back against "do this, be this person", and that is a lot of what I hear when my brother expresses HIS resentment around the camp. It hits me, andI get irrational, and I fail to see that it is about my own resentment.
Step one: do a better job about taking care of myself. Learn to TAKE that time I need to be whole. Whatever that is, let go, let it happen, do it.
Step two: own this.
Step three: let go. None of it matters in the context of the camp itself. Either use it and like it or let it ALL go.
Choose.
I realize that quite a lot, maybe all of it, is largely irrational.
And that leads me to consider that a lot of it is about my feelings around my father.
So when I say I am harboring resentment, it is not resentment directed towards my siblings, but rather a deeper resentment directed to my now dead father. I push back against "do this, be this person", and that is a lot of what I hear when my brother expresses HIS resentment around the camp. It hits me, andI get irrational, and I fail to see that it is about my own resentment.
Step one: do a better job about taking care of myself. Learn to TAKE that time I need to be whole. Whatever that is, let go, let it happen, do it.
Step two: own this.
Step three: let go. None of it matters in the context of the camp itself. Either use it and like it or let it ALL go.
Choose.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Time out
[draft for ideas]
Events are not "time for me" they are not "downtime". So when I go, I need to allow for recuperation, down time, afterwards.
My internal creativeness whatever that may be, is stifled. I need to open that up.
Both of the above play into my feeling I cannot achieve intimacy, as I am so wonting for the above that I tend to push back at others in order to try and get it... and since I am not aware that that is what I need or want, that push back comes out wrong and hurtful.
And I am discovering that when I DO allow "time for me", when I let it go, let me take precedence, that it generates useful information and feelings.
Events are not "time for me" they are not "downtime". So when I go, I need to allow for recuperation, down time, afterwards.
My internal creativeness whatever that may be, is stifled. I need to open that up.
Both of the above play into my feeling I cannot achieve intimacy, as I am so wonting for the above that I tend to push back at others in order to try and get it... and since I am not aware that that is what I need or want, that push back comes out wrong and hurtful.
And I am discovering that when I DO allow "time for me", when I let it go, let me take precedence, that it generates useful information and feelings.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Reclaiming the present
Be present. It is a mantra for many, and it is a good foundation upon which to live ones life. Being fully present is both a wonder and a challenge, and those of us who take on this particular facet (of which it is often part of a larger set of ideas that comprise an entire practice) do so with a willingness and openness that belies the underlying complexity of the simple statement: be present.
What is meant by this? And what are the complexities that make it up?
When we say "be present" we are referring to the idea that one's own mind is often the source of an endless spring of distractions. We sit, and are overwhelmed by the flood of our own imaginations. we thirst, we desire, we despair - it's all part of the process of both being with who we are and of being able to accept it, being gentle with our own selves and of being willing to stand within it but let it go. "thinking!" is often how some teach this.
the mind is a peculiar part of being human (though I will note parenthetically here that I am not at all persuaded that the other creatures, at least many orders of them, are not also victimized by thought, but that's another story). we think, therefore we are. And so it does flow. But when we stop and wonder what it is that is emanating from our minds, it becomes easier to understand not just the process and challenge of sitting, but also of being present and what that truly means.
Much of our lived experience is mae up of things that happen to us. we eat, we drink, we love, we travel, we listen, we hurt - all of these are part of our life experience. It is a sectrum of things that range from the sublime to the evil, the pained, and all of it together comprise what we feel and who we are. and all - all - these things that happen to us happenED to us, they are none of them future events. They all DID happen, it is the past, it is what we do to evaluate much of our experience.
It is also, in a great many respects, essential. But it is not and should not be the means by which we live our present. Lets examine this for a moment. When a child learns to walk, one of the things its parents try to do is to help the child learn about danger. That child, when approaching a busy street where cars or other larger objects may be whizzing past, must learn to stop and look and listen. Without it, there would be no direct experience to draw from to be able to inform future encounters with busy thoroughfares, or at least such informing would be burdened by deep pain. Thus the parents do what they must to instill in the child some sense of how to not be in the world, a way to avoid that potentially heartbreaking mistake. Such is not the case, however, in many other of life's experiences. We may fal ill and need serious medical attention. We may fall in love and, after some time, fall out of that love, leaving one or more of the participants in a state of deep sadness. these and many, most, other of our experiences in life are ways that we ourselves come to build a set of past experiences that inform the present. We FELL in love once, it hurt, and now, if faced with the possibility again, we may choose to remember that experience and perhaps be able to sidestep some of the things that might again lead to pain. this is the past informing our present.
And indeed, all - all - of our experience, our lived life, is made up precisely of these events. Each one becomes oart of who we are, part of our own "dictionary" of how we navigate further, how we live in the present, and, indeed, part of what our mind works with, in wake or in sleep, as we go through a day. It is here that the tumble of thoughts try and pull us out of the reverie of sitting meditation, and it is here that our minds try and bring us when we try and be present.
There are, over the course of a small section of each and every one of our lives, literally millions upon millions of these events. Some are so small and inconsequential so as to be meaningless. some are so routine that their service in our lives is simply part of a larger routinization, a needed process, that helps make life more comfortable. But the large majority of these events are far more than inconsequential. Some of us are comprised of an innumerable number of deep hurts - abuses, pains, neglect of all types - and these have become over time our map of experience. some of us are so deeply affected that we cannot escape the bonds of this past - the hurt is so continuous that it informs all events going forward: the ast becomes the future. Most of us, thankfully, do not suffer this way, but rather manage to manage those events, sorting out the ones of deep pain and setting them far away, or perhaps, if we're lucky, approaching them and with help or great skill, letting them simply be part of our lives. It's all a matter of balance, it's all a matter of how each one of us chooses to make sense of that past, to let it or not let it overwhelm and control us, to dictate the future.
And herein is, I think, the really difficult challenge of really, truly, being present. That flood of thought is our past, it emerges, deftly fooling us into thinking it is our imagination, or fooling us into believing that these are simply thoughts and feelings, too often not connected to some specific part of that past. This is quite normal and understandable, and something that we cannot and should not try to escape or avoid. But herein lies the challenge: when we seek to be "fully present" we are, in essence, asking ourselves to forget our past, to set aside deeply those very events that make us who we are, that sometimes protect us, that make our lives comfortable. We are expecting to be released from ourselves, to be allowed to wander freely in a setting that has no past. This is impossible of course. what, then, is the resolution?
Part of the process, I think, is to be able to take time to examine the self in the context of that jumble of lived experiences, with an eye toward singling out those moments, those events, that have deeply shaped and shaken us. To be able to stand up and tell ourselves that what happened happened, that it is part of that we must accept and embrace, but that it is PAST, not present. Being fully present must, in essence, become an event unto itself, informed by the past but not controlled by it. IT is often a matter of "stepping past" that past event or idea, of letting it go, knowing that it might well happen again. It is risk. It places us in a position of great vulnerability, a place that, often due to that same painful past set of experiences, can lead us to hide, to in effect, avoid being present in a manner that is tempered, and often ruled, by that past. Being fully present is about the now, but must have with it a willingness to open ones heart and mind to the realities, often painful realities, of a lived past, a very real past, that leaves us weak, subject to more pain, more difficulty.
What is meant by this? And what are the complexities that make it up?
When we say "be present" we are referring to the idea that one's own mind is often the source of an endless spring of distractions. We sit, and are overwhelmed by the flood of our own imaginations. we thirst, we desire, we despair - it's all part of the process of both being with who we are and of being able to accept it, being gentle with our own selves and of being willing to stand within it but let it go. "thinking!" is often how some teach this.
the mind is a peculiar part of being human (though I will note parenthetically here that I am not at all persuaded that the other creatures, at least many orders of them, are not also victimized by thought, but that's another story). we think, therefore we are. And so it does flow. But when we stop and wonder what it is that is emanating from our minds, it becomes easier to understand not just the process and challenge of sitting, but also of being present and what that truly means.
Much of our lived experience is mae up of things that happen to us. we eat, we drink, we love, we travel, we listen, we hurt - all of these are part of our life experience. It is a sectrum of things that range from the sublime to the evil, the pained, and all of it together comprise what we feel and who we are. and all - all - these things that happen to us happenED to us, they are none of them future events. They all DID happen, it is the past, it is what we do to evaluate much of our experience.
It is also, in a great many respects, essential. But it is not and should not be the means by which we live our present. Lets examine this for a moment. When a child learns to walk, one of the things its parents try to do is to help the child learn about danger. That child, when approaching a busy street where cars or other larger objects may be whizzing past, must learn to stop and look and listen. Without it, there would be no direct experience to draw from to be able to inform future encounters with busy thoroughfares, or at least such informing would be burdened by deep pain. Thus the parents do what they must to instill in the child some sense of how to not be in the world, a way to avoid that potentially heartbreaking mistake. Such is not the case, however, in many other of life's experiences. We may fal ill and need serious medical attention. We may fall in love and, after some time, fall out of that love, leaving one or more of the participants in a state of deep sadness. these and many, most, other of our experiences in life are ways that we ourselves come to build a set of past experiences that inform the present. We FELL in love once, it hurt, and now, if faced with the possibility again, we may choose to remember that experience and perhaps be able to sidestep some of the things that might again lead to pain. this is the past informing our present.
And indeed, all - all - of our experience, our lived life, is made up precisely of these events. Each one becomes oart of who we are, part of our own "dictionary" of how we navigate further, how we live in the present, and, indeed, part of what our mind works with, in wake or in sleep, as we go through a day. It is here that the tumble of thoughts try and pull us out of the reverie of sitting meditation, and it is here that our minds try and bring us when we try and be present.
There are, over the course of a small section of each and every one of our lives, literally millions upon millions of these events. Some are so small and inconsequential so as to be meaningless. some are so routine that their service in our lives is simply part of a larger routinization, a needed process, that helps make life more comfortable. But the large majority of these events are far more than inconsequential. Some of us are comprised of an innumerable number of deep hurts - abuses, pains, neglect of all types - and these have become over time our map of experience. some of us are so deeply affected that we cannot escape the bonds of this past - the hurt is so continuous that it informs all events going forward: the ast becomes the future. Most of us, thankfully, do not suffer this way, but rather manage to manage those events, sorting out the ones of deep pain and setting them far away, or perhaps, if we're lucky, approaching them and with help or great skill, letting them simply be part of our lives. It's all a matter of balance, it's all a matter of how each one of us chooses to make sense of that past, to let it or not let it overwhelm and control us, to dictate the future.
And herein is, I think, the really difficult challenge of really, truly, being present. That flood of thought is our past, it emerges, deftly fooling us into thinking it is our imagination, or fooling us into believing that these are simply thoughts and feelings, too often not connected to some specific part of that past. This is quite normal and understandable, and something that we cannot and should not try to escape or avoid. But herein lies the challenge: when we seek to be "fully present" we are, in essence, asking ourselves to forget our past, to set aside deeply those very events that make us who we are, that sometimes protect us, that make our lives comfortable. We are expecting to be released from ourselves, to be allowed to wander freely in a setting that has no past. This is impossible of course. what, then, is the resolution?
Part of the process, I think, is to be able to take time to examine the self in the context of that jumble of lived experiences, with an eye toward singling out those moments, those events, that have deeply shaped and shaken us. To be able to stand up and tell ourselves that what happened happened, that it is part of that we must accept and embrace, but that it is PAST, not present. Being fully present must, in essence, become an event unto itself, informed by the past but not controlled by it. IT is often a matter of "stepping past" that past event or idea, of letting it go, knowing that it might well happen again. It is risk. It places us in a position of great vulnerability, a place that, often due to that same painful past set of experiences, can lead us to hide, to in effect, avoid being present in a manner that is tempered, and often ruled, by that past. Being fully present is about the now, but must have with it a willingness to open ones heart and mind to the realities, often painful realities, of a lived past, a very real past, that leaves us weak, subject to more pain, more difficulty.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Loneliness
I got a note back today from someone I've had a mild interest in. It's odd, cuz that interest really has been somewhat muted - yes, I notice an energy we sometimes get, but it's not as though I'm hot for this person, and we've not dated (I hate that word). So for me it is sort of "well, if something more happens ok, otherwise..."
but the reply that was sent leads me to something unexpected.
I'm well aware of how I've changed myself in the past few years. I'm moving closer and closer to a change in me that is core: I'm a trans person, but not in the usual sense. I self identify as co-gendered, a term that leaves most pople shaking their heads - "wtf?"
The reply examined the assumptions that this person knew of themselves, but led then into a kind of "I don't know how I feel about your gender expression" and "I'm not sure if I have the kind of interest in exploring this further due to that gender thing". I wasn't hurt so much by the reply per se - I don't have any stake, so.... does it matter that much?
but I was deeply affected when I reflected on how this kind of reply left me as a person. totally, utterly alone. And this, I think, is the future reality I have to face. It's as though I have finally come face to face with my own change, my own self, my new self, and now I have to either accept it or abort the whole thing.
I've travelled down this unknown road for a while, not knowing anything about the end. I've encountered the kinds of sentiments that let me know that, in the view of some, I am not "trans enough". And I've certainly encountered the views of those that think I am "too weird". I'm both. I don't want, I never wanted, to be this way. But here I am. I have no community, no ties that let me associate with others. I define myself in a way that is utterly singular (am I a singularity??). I need to acept that I will never have partners, never have a relationship. I won't be approached by others who think I am hot, or who want to spend time with me based on who I am as this person.
It's funny. I don't hold any of my own feelings about this against the respondent, but I am now more aware of how the path I've chosen or the path that has chosen me, is, in some ways, a social death sentence. I'm doomed to not be connected. I don't fit in either world. I don't really fit anywhere. And it leaves me sad, despondent, wondering if I should even bother with this whole identity blossom?
but the reply that was sent leads me to something unexpected.
I'm well aware of how I've changed myself in the past few years. I'm moving closer and closer to a change in me that is core: I'm a trans person, but not in the usual sense. I self identify as co-gendered, a term that leaves most pople shaking their heads - "wtf?"
The reply examined the assumptions that this person knew of themselves, but led then into a kind of "I don't know how I feel about your gender expression" and "I'm not sure if I have the kind of interest in exploring this further due to that gender thing". I wasn't hurt so much by the reply per se - I don't have any stake, so.... does it matter that much?
but I was deeply affected when I reflected on how this kind of reply left me as a person. totally, utterly alone. And this, I think, is the future reality I have to face. It's as though I have finally come face to face with my own change, my own self, my new self, and now I have to either accept it or abort the whole thing.
I've travelled down this unknown road for a while, not knowing anything about the end. I've encountered the kinds of sentiments that let me know that, in the view of some, I am not "trans enough". And I've certainly encountered the views of those that think I am "too weird". I'm both. I don't want, I never wanted, to be this way. But here I am. I have no community, no ties that let me associate with others. I define myself in a way that is utterly singular (am I a singularity??). I need to acept that I will never have partners, never have a relationship. I won't be approached by others who think I am hot, or who want to spend time with me based on who I am as this person.
It's funny. I don't hold any of my own feelings about this against the respondent, but I am now more aware of how the path I've chosen or the path that has chosen me, is, in some ways, a social death sentence. I'm doomed to not be connected. I don't fit in either world. I don't really fit anywhere. And it leaves me sad, despondent, wondering if I should even bother with this whole identity blossom?
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
The Complicatedness of "Yes"
I've just (almost, really, only a page or two left) finished reading a chapter in 'Best Sex Writing 200' by Thomas Macaulay Millar - 'Toward a Performance Model of Sex'. It's awe inspiring to me, and raises deep questions about the nature of consent.
That aside, it also leads me to think more clearly about my own foibles around yes and no and "getting any". I've been troubled by this for a long time, maybe most of my life. It's not that I was somehow "raised a feminist" (hardly). Nor was it that I had some epiphany or early gf encounter that led me to the well. Rather, it seems to be a somehow acquired (gradually) process wherein I cannot accept the idea that I can "ask" without playing in to the awfulness of getting a "yes" through a subtle form of coercion, that the women I ask are somehow accommodating my interest. That repulses me. It repulses me primarily b/c I don't think *anyone* should be in the position of having to yield if they are not fully cogent of, fully accepting in themselves of, and fully in touch with, their *own* inner desires. Since I have realized how difficult it is for anyone - myself included - to be deeply in touch with those things, it more or less becomes an intractable problem: how can I possibly *expect* "yes" from another within whom the nascent seeds of any desire are still unfurling? Is it even possible to partake of something as intimate as the dance of sex with another person without risking that loss in one side or the other that capitulates need and desire to that of the other person? I dont yet have the answers to these questions. I just know that right now they are deeply disturbing to me. It feels as though I am somehow "taking away" from the other when I ask and get "yes".
"No", at the same time, is a different facet, harsh, painful, unyielding. True, I've heard "no" described as a way of being positive, of being good somehow and letting the other person know they have a certain freedom. All well and good, but it belies the deeper problem.
Enter Millar's commodity model of sex. We are steeped in a commodity culture. Everything we see, hear, touch, do, sleep, breath, feel, eat, say or do is built on this commodity model. Millar paints a picture of sex as performance using music as the central idea: a musician may elect to *collaborate* with other musicians, and in so requesting ("Would you like to collaborate on this piece?") moves far away from the commodity model. Looking at it in reverse, I imagine what it might be like if one musician asks another "So, how much to get you to play this piece with me?". Sad. If all musical rendering by more than a soloist were constructed this way, we'd all be the poorer. I doubt Lennon asked McCartney this on the threshold of "I am the Walrus". It seems unlikely that deeply felt music emerges from a simple cash transaction: "Will that be Visa or Mastercard?".
What emerges for me here is a different way of approaching my own terror around this. Instead of "would you like to fuck?" (seriously, I've never once actually asked that question but it serves the point here), I could instead ask "I would love the chance to collaborate with you in a sharing of the senses", leaving open ALL the possibilities that such enjoinments might allow. It leaves open all the choices, including "no" (which, interestingly now seems to be come something like "That kind of collaboration isn't possible for me now. I may get back to you if that changes. Thank you for asking me"). "Yes" now becomes an invitation to possibility, and no longer is rooted in "what's it worth to ya?".
Of course, this leaves wide open the larger problem of informing others - potential partners included - of this rather dramatic shift in perspective. After all, since 99% of the western industrialized world (and a distressingly high percentage, growing daily, of the lesser-industrialized world) is steeped in commodity exchange, how are we to cope with a shift in linguistic sensibility that draws not from an actual change in the language used, but rather the subtle shades of the same words which now must be taken on a totally different level? It's easy to take a step toward changing our *own* approach from "Fuck me now" to "Would you care to dance", but that presumes that, along with the conveyance of an inner desire to do *something*, the "other" to whom we are addressing our interest can both pick up (npi), reinterpret, and respond in kind to our beseechments. That's asking and expecting a lot. I would fully expect a lot of weird looks if I simply did this, sans warnings.
One place to begin is education. Certainly, there's a way to this in a shared group setting. That will help, but it's a small step.
I suppose the other obvious place to begin is in direct contact with existing partners with whom I enjoy this kind of sharing. Trying out this model shift, asking to collaborate instead of begging to fuck is an interesting variation on the usual paths to getting together. Certainly the element of surprise here won't, at least I don't think it will, suffer any risk to the existing bonds. The strength of what I have is not predicated on a secure channel of unvarying communication between us.
A side note might be in order here (though this is a book length possibility). Communications among H. sapiens is abysmally bad. For a species that somehow prides ourselves on the model of verbal communication, we are piss poor at it: warring, fighting, bitching, complaining, never getting the message through of what is really wanted or needed. It's appalling, really, when you think about. It's also miraculous, when you think about that, that we have survived as long as we have, despite the instruments fashioned to ensure the efficacy of our mutual destruction. Anyway....
Finally, the last place to test the waters, as it were, might be in ordinary, everyday life. A shift of our habitus. I think of work: what would changes there look like? How often is what I am called upon to do - and the number of face to face transactions (see? there it is - commodity) I actually do these days - something that can be quantified or boiled down to "what's it worth to ya?" or similar linguistic tropes? I imagine what it might be like to effect a transaction in the supermarket, blithely ignoring the non-transactional part (that's the part where I take the food and give them money) of the exchange with the cashier and try and supplant the usual "I'm here to buy shit" with something more along the lines of "how can I collaborate with you [the cashier] to fulfill this process?". Complicated.
So, yes, "yes" is devilishly complicated. Getting there, at any level, anywhere, is a complex and bedeviled series of (mis)steps. It's pre-damaged by an almost innate INability to communicate. "No" is easy. It's very harshness can be a measure of strength. I recall - albeit vaguely - that book of maybe a decade ago, "Getting to Yes", something all about business and how to get to an agreement that both parties like. I haven't seen it in a while. IT leads me to wonder how we got where we are now, and why asking another to share a deeper part of who we are is sadly relegated to "Fuck me for a dollar" and not "share with me some part of you that you love, and I will give it back".
That aside, it also leads me to think more clearly about my own foibles around yes and no and "getting any". I've been troubled by this for a long time, maybe most of my life. It's not that I was somehow "raised a feminist" (hardly). Nor was it that I had some epiphany or early gf encounter that led me to the well. Rather, it seems to be a somehow acquired (gradually) process wherein I cannot accept the idea that I can "ask" without playing in to the awfulness of getting a "yes" through a subtle form of coercion, that the women I ask are somehow accommodating my interest. That repulses me. It repulses me primarily b/c I don't think *anyone* should be in the position of having to yield if they are not fully cogent of, fully accepting in themselves of, and fully in touch with, their *own* inner desires. Since I have realized how difficult it is for anyone - myself included - to be deeply in touch with those things, it more or less becomes an intractable problem: how can I possibly *expect* "yes" from another within whom the nascent seeds of any desire are still unfurling? Is it even possible to partake of something as intimate as the dance of sex with another person without risking that loss in one side or the other that capitulates need and desire to that of the other person? I dont yet have the answers to these questions. I just know that right now they are deeply disturbing to me. It feels as though I am somehow "taking away" from the other when I ask and get "yes".
"No", at the same time, is a different facet, harsh, painful, unyielding. True, I've heard "no" described as a way of being positive, of being good somehow and letting the other person know they have a certain freedom. All well and good, but it belies the deeper problem.
Enter Millar's commodity model of sex. We are steeped in a commodity culture. Everything we see, hear, touch, do, sleep, breath, feel, eat, say or do is built on this commodity model. Millar paints a picture of sex as performance using music as the central idea: a musician may elect to *collaborate* with other musicians, and in so requesting ("Would you like to collaborate on this piece?") moves far away from the commodity model. Looking at it in reverse, I imagine what it might be like if one musician asks another "So, how much to get you to play this piece with me?". Sad. If all musical rendering by more than a soloist were constructed this way, we'd all be the poorer. I doubt Lennon asked McCartney this on the threshold of "I am the Walrus". It seems unlikely that deeply felt music emerges from a simple cash transaction: "Will that be Visa or Mastercard?".
What emerges for me here is a different way of approaching my own terror around this. Instead of "would you like to fuck?" (seriously, I've never once actually asked that question but it serves the point here), I could instead ask "I would love the chance to collaborate with you in a sharing of the senses", leaving open ALL the possibilities that such enjoinments might allow. It leaves open all the choices, including "no" (which, interestingly now seems to be come something like "That kind of collaboration isn't possible for me now. I may get back to you if that changes. Thank you for asking me"). "Yes" now becomes an invitation to possibility, and no longer is rooted in "what's it worth to ya?".
Of course, this leaves wide open the larger problem of informing others - potential partners included - of this rather dramatic shift in perspective. After all, since 99% of the western industrialized world (and a distressingly high percentage, growing daily, of the lesser-industrialized world) is steeped in commodity exchange, how are we to cope with a shift in linguistic sensibility that draws not from an actual change in the language used, but rather the subtle shades of the same words which now must be taken on a totally different level? It's easy to take a step toward changing our *own* approach from "Fuck me now" to "Would you care to dance", but that presumes that, along with the conveyance of an inner desire to do *something*, the "other" to whom we are addressing our interest can both pick up (npi), reinterpret, and respond in kind to our beseechments. That's asking and expecting a lot. I would fully expect a lot of weird looks if I simply did this, sans warnings.
One place to begin is education. Certainly, there's a way to this in a shared group setting. That will help, but it's a small step.
I suppose the other obvious place to begin is in direct contact with existing partners with whom I enjoy this kind of sharing. Trying out this model shift, asking to collaborate instead of begging to fuck is an interesting variation on the usual paths to getting together. Certainly the element of surprise here won't, at least I don't think it will, suffer any risk to the existing bonds. The strength of what I have is not predicated on a secure channel of unvarying communication between us.
A side note might be in order here (though this is a book length possibility). Communications among H. sapiens is abysmally bad. For a species that somehow prides ourselves on the model of verbal communication, we are piss poor at it: warring, fighting, bitching, complaining, never getting the message through of what is really wanted or needed. It's appalling, really, when you think about. It's also miraculous, when you think about that, that we have survived as long as we have, despite the instruments fashioned to ensure the efficacy of our mutual destruction. Anyway....
Finally, the last place to test the waters, as it were, might be in ordinary, everyday life. A shift of our habitus. I think of work: what would changes there look like? How often is what I am called upon to do - and the number of face to face transactions (see? there it is - commodity) I actually do these days - something that can be quantified or boiled down to "what's it worth to ya?" or similar linguistic tropes? I imagine what it might be like to effect a transaction in the supermarket, blithely ignoring the non-transactional part (that's the part where I take the food and give them money) of the exchange with the cashier and try and supplant the usual "I'm here to buy shit" with something more along the lines of "how can I collaborate with you [the cashier] to fulfill this process?". Complicated.
So, yes, "yes" is devilishly complicated. Getting there, at any level, anywhere, is a complex and bedeviled series of (mis)steps. It's pre-damaged by an almost innate INability to communicate. "No" is easy. It's very harshness can be a measure of strength. I recall - albeit vaguely - that book of maybe a decade ago, "Getting to Yes", something all about business and how to get to an agreement that both parties like. I haven't seen it in a while. IT leads me to wonder how we got where we are now, and why asking another to share a deeper part of who we are is sadly relegated to "Fuck me for a dollar" and not "share with me some part of you that you love, and I will give it back".
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Nexus of Desire
Since my father's death, I've noticed a subtle shift in the way I intersect with desire.
Prior to his passing, I can say with good assurance that my desire was very clear, strong, directed. I had (still have) good partners, and we enjoyed many an hour or three having good sex of all flavors. There was kink, vanilla and a lot in between. I was rarely one to pass on the chance to partake, and I loved it in a huge variety of places. I never really questioned that. Part of it was my celebration of my body, my willingness and desire to give of myself, to see others experience pleasure.
The shift since perhaps last October has been odd. I still have desire, and while I can't say it is quenched much, the "direction" (vector?) has changed. I still feel a passion for my partners, I still enjoy the sharing, but it has waned a lot in the intervening months. I'm not at all sure why, just that the vector is somehow a mixture of self-reflection brought on, I guess, by the whole process of death and dying and especially when you are left an orphan, and by the inner turmoil brought on by my former spouse (who has taken a decidedly greedy turn).
One other side effect here is that a lot of the issues around jealousy, especially around one partner in particular, have somehow gently wafted away. At times, I almost feel ambivalent towards her, although when we reconnect, which is increasingly rare, I melt back into that wonderful place of a deep love for her. But at other times, knowing she has chosen to spend most of her time with someone else, I am now largely "meh" about that, at times genuinely encouraging her (compersion? me?) to enjoy it, trying, when needed or asked, to be supportive of the foibles and challenges she faces with her other relationships. This is good, but not planned.
I'm left at this point often wondering if I even want to share my desire with others at all. Heading to WF, I wonder about this a lot. So much of push there is about "getting it" and for me, now, I simply don't seem to want it.
Prior to his passing, I can say with good assurance that my desire was very clear, strong, directed. I had (still have) good partners, and we enjoyed many an hour or three having good sex of all flavors. There was kink, vanilla and a lot in between. I was rarely one to pass on the chance to partake, and I loved it in a huge variety of places. I never really questioned that. Part of it was my celebration of my body, my willingness and desire to give of myself, to see others experience pleasure.
The shift since perhaps last October has been odd. I still have desire, and while I can't say it is quenched much, the "direction" (vector?) has changed. I still feel a passion for my partners, I still enjoy the sharing, but it has waned a lot in the intervening months. I'm not at all sure why, just that the vector is somehow a mixture of self-reflection brought on, I guess, by the whole process of death and dying and especially when you are left an orphan, and by the inner turmoil brought on by my former spouse (who has taken a decidedly greedy turn).
One other side effect here is that a lot of the issues around jealousy, especially around one partner in particular, have somehow gently wafted away. At times, I almost feel ambivalent towards her, although when we reconnect, which is increasingly rare, I melt back into that wonderful place of a deep love for her. But at other times, knowing she has chosen to spend most of her time with someone else, I am now largely "meh" about that, at times genuinely encouraging her (compersion? me?) to enjoy it, trying, when needed or asked, to be supportive of the foibles and challenges she faces with her other relationships. This is good, but not planned.
I'm left at this point often wondering if I even want to share my desire with others at all. Heading to WF, I wonder about this a lot. So much of push there is about "getting it" and for me, now, I simply don't seem to want it.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Alone time
Since my dad died, I've changed a lot. One thing that shifted was the time I felt I needed to spend by myself. Seems that's grown a lot. Now, I wonder.
Am I spending too much time alone?
It's not that I've cut off my two main partners, but I clearly am taking a lot of time to be with my own self. Part of that is good. I get to reflect more, think more, be more of who I am. But the downside is that I feel a bit more.... eccentric, like there's something wrong and I am not quite sure what that is.
It's funny, cuz I think now more than ever I have a need to have someone to reflect off of, to pull me up short when I am really in left field and to reinforce things when I'm not.
Challenge here is that the dark side creeps in and I have to work harder to stay that.
Am I spending too much time alone?
It's not that I've cut off my two main partners, but I clearly am taking a lot of time to be with my own self. Part of that is good. I get to reflect more, think more, be more of who I am. But the downside is that I feel a bit more.... eccentric, like there's something wrong and I am not quite sure what that is.
It's funny, cuz I think now more than ever I have a need to have someone to reflect off of, to pull me up short when I am really in left field and to reinforce things when I'm not.
Challenge here is that the dark side creeps in and I have to work harder to stay that.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Changes
Bowie said it first.
But it's true. For me, those changes have been little short of monumental since Sept 27th.
I was literally in the car driving back from summer camp when I got the call that something was significantly changed with my father. My sister said she was arriving the next morning. I stopped in and saw him on my way home. There'd been so many situations like this that I really did not expect to find much amiss. He was clearly not in a good way.
He died 10 days later.
I've reflected a lot on the experience since then. Going through death is a unique experience. There's nothing else I've ever experienced that afforded such clarity of mind.
But while that side of it was deep and has left lasting marks, the other part of it was a surprise and, in the end, is my real inheritance from him.
All my fear went away. Okay, maybe not all of it - I suppose there are still moments of anxiety about some things. But the reality of who I am, the real me, that one that had to get of this prison cell - that's the fear that's gone.
There's a new set of fears - reluctances might be a better word if it were one. But now the real me is here. I'm not afraid of that person. I am concerned? nervous? anxious? about who that person might become, might want to become. Do I do that? It feels so far past that in my life - how can I possibly make a change so fundamental to me as the person I've lived inside of for all these decades?
I've talked with several vital players in my life about this. I suspect one of them wonders why I don't take the plunge, change, metamorphose into that other. I'm not entirely sure. Part of me seeks to do just that, but the other aspects of me that I cherish - the drive, the dick, the body I have now - is reluctant to harbor that degree of change, of loss. I've considered cosmetic alternatives - that's a possibility,but I'd need to really consider the consequences. Could I live out that way? Do I want to live out that way?
The journey I'm on now is destined to take me to a forboding place. I know I must do that first.
Then. We shall see.
But it's true. For me, those changes have been little short of monumental since Sept 27th.
I was literally in the car driving back from summer camp when I got the call that something was significantly changed with my father. My sister said she was arriving the next morning. I stopped in and saw him on my way home. There'd been so many situations like this that I really did not expect to find much amiss. He was clearly not in a good way.
He died 10 days later.
I've reflected a lot on the experience since then. Going through death is a unique experience. There's nothing else I've ever experienced that afforded such clarity of mind.
But while that side of it was deep and has left lasting marks, the other part of it was a surprise and, in the end, is my real inheritance from him.
All my fear went away. Okay, maybe not all of it - I suppose there are still moments of anxiety about some things. But the reality of who I am, the real me, that one that had to get of this prison cell - that's the fear that's gone.
There's a new set of fears - reluctances might be a better word if it were one. But now the real me is here. I'm not afraid of that person. I am concerned? nervous? anxious? about who that person might become, might want to become. Do I do that? It feels so far past that in my life - how can I possibly make a change so fundamental to me as the person I've lived inside of for all these decades?
I've talked with several vital players in my life about this. I suspect one of them wonders why I don't take the plunge, change, metamorphose into that other. I'm not entirely sure. Part of me seeks to do just that, but the other aspects of me that I cherish - the drive, the dick, the body I have now - is reluctant to harbor that degree of change, of loss. I've considered cosmetic alternatives - that's a possibility,but I'd need to really consider the consequences. Could I live out that way? Do I want to live out that way?
The journey I'm on now is destined to take me to a forboding place. I know I must do that first.
Then. We shall see.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
"Turn and face the strange".
Since my father's death last month, something has changed, deeply, inside me. It's not about that relationship - that was always hard, and of late, very distant.
It's more to do with the growing self-realization, the part of me that now, finally, is starting to know who I am, no longer the definition of someone else.
And with that has come an odd shift in my sex and sexuality and my desire.
Whereas before it often felt (at least it was very vague and undefined) that when, for example, I wore thigh high nylons and walked about with them, it was as though part of me was trying to broadcast a message - "get laid". Was I? I don't know. (And I mean "get laid" in the broadest, most 'meta-' way possible, not just a BDT literal meaning). So when I was noticed, it was a lot about trying to see if what I imagined their conception of the meaning behind it could be something I understood in a way that opened the door to further connecting. That was me, compromising my self, in order to get the connection, whether sexual or something else.
But now, wearing thigh high nylons is more a marker of who I know I am, deep inside. And now it is not a matter of when someone sees me they say "Hotcha hotcha" and "Let's screw" but rather, I wonder, do they see the real me, and do they really know what this means as part of who I am? Do they truly understand that part of who I am, and do they grasp that the symbols are no longer a request for something like sex, but rather now are intrinsic representations or manifestations of the true self?
It is as though the symbolic language I've incorporated into the "me" of the past 15 years has suddenly jelled, morphed, into something at once deeply intimate and strangely unfamiliar. Who IS this odd person? [I KNOW this odd person well]
And with that comes the recognition, I think, that the inner person, though highly desiring of good sex contact and such, is no longer driven to that particular edge based on how I appear, no longer reaching for that fulfillment because of someone's "definition" of "me", but instead stems from a more fundamental place, and an interest in connecting that is totally free and clear of those older, familiar identities.
The person I am, really, now, finds solace, and, I hope, true self-confidence because I AM able to simply express that inner me as I feel it, and not because I am trying so so hard to "fit" into the mold of what others have tried to make me, whether real or imagined on my part.
There is one more sub-barrier, but even that, somehow, feels a lot different. I suspect I will manage to overcome that one with considerably more ease, esp since that relationship as it was is over.
It's both scary and exhilarating.
Since my father's death last month, something has changed, deeply, inside me. It's not about that relationship - that was always hard, and of late, very distant.
It's more to do with the growing self-realization, the part of me that now, finally, is starting to know who I am, no longer the definition of someone else.
And with that has come an odd shift in my sex and sexuality and my desire.
Whereas before it often felt (at least it was very vague and undefined) that when, for example, I wore thigh high nylons and walked about with them, it was as though part of me was trying to broadcast a message - "get laid". Was I? I don't know. (And I mean "get laid" in the broadest, most 'meta-' way possible, not just a BDT literal meaning). So when I was noticed, it was a lot about trying to see if what I imagined their conception of the meaning behind it could be something I understood in a way that opened the door to further connecting. That was me, compromising my self, in order to get the connection, whether sexual or something else.
But now, wearing thigh high nylons is more a marker of who I know I am, deep inside. And now it is not a matter of when someone sees me they say "Hotcha hotcha" and "Let's screw" but rather, I wonder, do they see the real me, and do they really know what this means as part of who I am? Do they truly understand that part of who I am, and do they grasp that the symbols are no longer a request for something like sex, but rather now are intrinsic representations or manifestations of the true self?
It is as though the symbolic language I've incorporated into the "me" of the past 15 years has suddenly jelled, morphed, into something at once deeply intimate and strangely unfamiliar. Who IS this odd person? [I KNOW this odd person well]
And with that comes the recognition, I think, that the inner person, though highly desiring of good sex contact and such, is no longer driven to that particular edge based on how I appear, no longer reaching for that fulfillment because of someone's "definition" of "me", but instead stems from a more fundamental place, and an interest in connecting that is totally free and clear of those older, familiar identities.
The person I am, really, now, finds solace, and, I hope, true self-confidence because I AM able to simply express that inner me as I feel it, and not because I am trying so so hard to "fit" into the mold of what others have tried to make me, whether real or imagined on my part.
There is one more sub-barrier, but even that, somehow, feels a lot different. I suspect I will manage to overcome that one with considerably more ease, esp since that relationship as it was is over.
It's both scary and exhilarating.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Head Noise
The head noise is bad this morning. I got persuaded a long time ago that this never does stop. Meditation and other things do help, but in the end the noise is always there. It is more about what you DO about this that counts.
So at 5 a.m. I am wide awake. *I hate typing* And I start ruminating on the usual stuff.
Not all is bad and ugly,
For example, it came to me that the way to plow through the dissertation is to start with the main question, to elaborate that quite a bit, not necessarily by asking more questions, but posing it in different ways. Then, for each following chapter, restate in some form the main question. This is very effective when I consider the "Why SXM?" chapter. I could start that by asking "If I am interested in technology and how it affects / interacts with the informal economy and tourism then this place is good b/c ..." See how that works? History could start with something too - perhaps "In considering the present and how ITC and I.E. and Tourism intersect, it is useful to look at the past."
But most of it is bad and ugly.
But then the same head noise quickly degenerates into my issues around K and why the relationship isn't working too well, even though part of me knows it is working. The part I am more in tune with now has to do with this sense of having to compete for time and energy and affection. I do not like competition at all, never have, probably never will. But I feel like capturing her attention is a matter of competing for her time. Then of course this whole part spirals down into all the things I hate about myself, which I think I am at least a little better at managing now. That whole cognitive shift bit still is there, for sure, but when I am overtired, and far from home and not at my body best, it is a lot harder to try and avoid the painful parts and to stay aware of how that works.
Part of me knows with certainty that the underlying drive at 5 a.m. is due to the body factors - lack of sound sleep, uneven nutrition, too much wine, off cycle, etc.. But that's not easy to let go of when I am simply lying there wondering it all. It gets away from the rational mind really fast.
I've learned in the past that usually (but not always) simply getting up shifts it around in odd ways, and I'm left with this sense of "WTF?". But underneath that is often a funny sort of body thing - something is off kilter there and I have no easy handle on what it is and therefore even less of a chance to try and fix it.
How can one fix the head noise?
Meditation helps, but does not eliminate. I should do more, but the goals now for me are so different.
Sex is an odd escape. I often find that playing with myself, getting really hard, building the energy that way is a useful escape, but wonder: is it simply an escape? Is it a simplification of things in a way that, like so many other approaches, merely tucks it under the rug kind of thing, leaving the harshness of what it is or might be festering in the back rooms of the head?
Writing is useful at times, but I'm never really sure I can separate myself from the mechanics of it all - I'm left slightly empty by the fact that the damn interface is so limiting. Is it what I really think or feel or is it driven by the curse of whatever I happen to choose as an interface? I think at times real pen and paper wrk better this way, but not always. I lose something "in the translation" which is to say that I never quite feel I capture what is IN my head as Itry and get it out onto a page of any sort.
So at 5 a.m. I am wide awake. *I hate typing* And I start ruminating on the usual stuff.
Not all is bad and ugly,
For example, it came to me that the way to plow through the dissertation is to start with the main question, to elaborate that quite a bit, not necessarily by asking more questions, but posing it in different ways. Then, for each following chapter, restate in some form the main question. This is very effective when I consider the "Why SXM?" chapter. I could start that by asking "If I am interested in technology and how it affects / interacts with the informal economy and tourism then this place is good b/c ..." See how that works? History could start with something too - perhaps "In considering the present and how ITC and I.E. and Tourism intersect, it is useful to look at the past."
But most of it is bad and ugly.
But then the same head noise quickly degenerates into my issues around K and why the relationship isn't working too well, even though part of me knows it is working. The part I am more in tune with now has to do with this sense of having to compete for time and energy and affection. I do not like competition at all, never have, probably never will. But I feel like capturing her attention is a matter of competing for her time. Then of course this whole part spirals down into all the things I hate about myself, which I think I am at least a little better at managing now. That whole cognitive shift bit still is there, for sure, but when I am overtired, and far from home and not at my body best, it is a lot harder to try and avoid the painful parts and to stay aware of how that works.
Part of me knows with certainty that the underlying drive at 5 a.m. is due to the body factors - lack of sound sleep, uneven nutrition, too much wine, off cycle, etc.. But that's not easy to let go of when I am simply lying there wondering it all. It gets away from the rational mind really fast.
I've learned in the past that usually (but not always) simply getting up shifts it around in odd ways, and I'm left with this sense of "WTF?". But underneath that is often a funny sort of body thing - something is off kilter there and I have no easy handle on what it is and therefore even less of a chance to try and fix it.
How can one fix the head noise?
Meditation helps, but does not eliminate. I should do more, but the goals now for me are so different.
Sex is an odd escape. I often find that playing with myself, getting really hard, building the energy that way is a useful escape, but wonder: is it simply an escape? Is it a simplification of things in a way that, like so many other approaches, merely tucks it under the rug kind of thing, leaving the harshness of what it is or might be festering in the back rooms of the head?
Writing is useful at times, but I'm never really sure I can separate myself from the mechanics of it all - I'm left slightly empty by the fact that the damn interface is so limiting. Is it what I really think or feel or is it driven by the curse of whatever I happen to choose as an interface? I think at times real pen and paper wrk better this way, but not always. I lose something "in the translation" which is to say that I never quite feel I capture what is IN my head as Itry and get it out onto a page of any sort.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Challenge time
If indeed this cognitive shift is real, settled, part of me to the extent that I can ward of demons more aptly, then I wonder: is it time to challenge me ins some way? Should I venture out and find venues that I know from past experience are likely to be hard? Some possibilities:
- Visit my dad. Invariably this pushes huge ugly buttons that leave me breathless with pain at times.
- Stay up too late. I'm a lot better about this one, but I also know that past 1 or so, I move rapidly toward panic. If I chose a weekend with a safe tail, it would be a good experiment.
- Attend large social gatherings and make myself ask for something. This is impending, so it'll happen regardless.
There's also an intersting "companion" to all this: discovering and AFFIRMING what I like and don't like. I can envision this as being across fields of myself, places where, until now, I've often been reluctant to open up to myself. What do I like? What do I dislike? Those two questions alone can span so much of me, so much of the hidden me, that it makes me tired jus' thinkin' about it! But it is, I think, a very real possibility.
Part of this stems from my reading of Orloff, suggested by a dear friend (thank you!). It's not just about opening up my intuition, but as much about sensing, becoming sensitive to, my own limits and desires. She talks (or is going to talk) about overload and has talked about pace. When I did that particular exercise the other day, I was a bit startled by the rapidity of the result. It was clear and unambiguous. In sensing my own pace, I am in a very real sense connecting with my own needs and desires. If my pace is such that I am capitulating a lot, my own needs and desires are being shunted. I would do well to unlearn that, to learn how to manage my pace in a manner that suits me.
And not forget to not be mean in the process.
- Visit my dad. Invariably this pushes huge ugly buttons that leave me breathless with pain at times.
- Stay up too late. I'm a lot better about this one, but I also know that past 1 or so, I move rapidly toward panic. If I chose a weekend with a safe tail, it would be a good experiment.
- Attend large social gatherings and make myself ask for something. This is impending, so it'll happen regardless.
There's also an intersting "companion" to all this: discovering and AFFIRMING what I like and don't like. I can envision this as being across fields of myself, places where, until now, I've often been reluctant to open up to myself. What do I like? What do I dislike? Those two questions alone can span so much of me, so much of the hidden me, that it makes me tired jus' thinkin' about it! But it is, I think, a very real possibility.
Part of this stems from my reading of Orloff, suggested by a dear friend (thank you!). It's not just about opening up my intuition, but as much about sensing, becoming sensitive to, my own limits and desires. She talks (or is going to talk) about overload and has talked about pace. When I did that particular exercise the other day, I was a bit startled by the rapidity of the result. It was clear and unambiguous. In sensing my own pace, I am in a very real sense connecting with my own needs and desires. If my pace is such that I am capitulating a lot, my own needs and desires are being shunted. I would do well to unlearn that, to learn how to manage my pace in a manner that suits me.
And not forget to not be mean in the process.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Difficult moments and fucked up dreams
It finally got a little nicer weatherwise here. It's odd to see after so many cold gray crappy days.
So I worked outside last night until 7. It was nice to do, to connect that way, to have my own space to do it the way it suited me. Not in any sort of cantankerous fuck you I never liked your way way, but more a finally I can just let go of that past and move ahead way. It was nice. Of course, I got sore. It's my own fault, I know. I haven't been doing the requisite back exercises, and I am under-exercised due both to medical and weather, but still...
A quiet evening alone was the ticket. An hour phone call with a soon-to-be playmate was nice, even thought I was frustrated about the likely need to cancel a planned visit to her. Vehicles can suck at times, Bad cash flow can suck even more!
I turned in late, and didn't even douse lights til almost midnight. I was surprised to then wake up, body hot, at 4:06, and toss and turn a lot. I finally decided after some false stops to shave and then have a little play, which of course cycled on and off - that wonderful tantric-like energy flow - I love that in the morning. THEN, of course, I fell back to sleep.
And those fall back to sleep dreams - they are WEIRD. This was no exception.
I'm at a banquet of some sort. The dining room is long, with a bit of a curve. I am sort of in line to get my food The plates are all individually separated by a cloth napkin and a tarnished silver platter like thingy. I take my plate (the napkins are just there to separate - napkins for eating are at the tables). The first food area is lasagna. There are several types, two primary variants. The main type is more or less conventional lasagna, but is really pretty. IT is cut perfectly clean and square, and looks almost like a plastic mime. The other type they call "British Lasagna" and I have no clue as to what it is. There is a lot less of it, and the pieces are quite small. It is dense looking, dark red, pungent. I take a piece and it sits on my big plate next to the regular beauty pageant lasagna. I move ahead. By the time I get to the next separate table of food - just vegetables and not too many of them - it looks like my beauty lasagna has somehow slipped right off the plate. There's not a trace of it. The British Lasagna is still there, clinging, stuck, to the plate. But no regular. Odd. So I move on, taking some green beans. I can't quite picture what was next, maybe nothing, but I do recall then turing round the last table to the other side and heading back. On my way, I see some poor service worker trying diligently to clean up a HUGE mess on the floor. I say as I pass, with a smile, "That was probably caused by me" thinking it was my missing beauty lasagna. But as I pass her, I realize that no, she is cleaning up a spilled quart of ice cream that had been dropped or fallen and melted on this nice rug. How it got there, melted, in the first place, seems odd to say the least.
I get back to the place I thought I was supposed to sit, a large round table, well, not quite round, but I recall somehow before I got food - you know how you often go and sit down and claim your spot? And I was with someone, I have no idea who. But I recall at that point I got into a bit of tiff with someone who, after I had quite clearly claimed my spot somehow (who knows how? jacket on the back? Turned up glass? Personal effects on seat?) simply took it and stated to sit down. I recall saying quite audibly "That is my seat" and she either ignored me or did not hear, at which point I repeated, VERY loudly "THAT IS MY SEAT". She turned and looked somehow stunned or insulted or maybe both? And proceeded to sit down anyway. It was like I was not there. Hmmm.... So I took the seat next to her. But, at any rate, when I did get back with my food, I realized that that seat too had been taken by someone, and even the person I was with simply looked up and smiled at me and then motioned me over... to where? IT was odd, but I recall thinking, oh no prob, I will go and sit at another table. And then there was this odd internal mental processing going on about how I normally (?) would have decided to go FAR away and pout, sit alone, act hurt, etc., but that this time, somehow, I simply wandered around and looked for a seat. The dream seems to have stopped before I actually sat down, but the last point is the one I am interested in.
Namely: I think I have some sort of fundamental cognitive shift in place. More than once in the past, oh, week, I have recognized that I was in a situation where I *should* have felt one way, *should* have acted one way, but did not. I was even aware several times of almost trying to direct my mind to that dark shitty place of the past... and realized it was like the door was locked, and my mind could not get in. Instead of "poor me" or "s/he won't like me anyway" kind of thinking, I was more "oh well. S/he likes me, it just didn't work out" thinking. It is a very fundamental change for me, one I like, but is a bit disarming.
I think it may be a combination of things.
First: regular SAMe. I think this has helped. IT may finally be at the point where I have a stable level in my body and so it works a little more consistently. One of the odd things that I have recognized about the past week is that I have had all or a combination of "hot buttons" that I know from painful experience have frequently led me to the black hole - over tired, lack of food, etc. But having had these in place and NOT having fallen in...
Second: I have somehow gotten over the toxic parts of my relationship with a lover. I love her deeply, I know, but in the past 6 months it got ricockulous. I was having separation anxiety when we said goodbye, I was taking her "I can't see you tonight"s really hard. I was not liking her other lovers. I recognized it was getting toxic for me. Somehow, I let go. I still love her deeply, and I would still consider a move to where she would go in 6 months to a year (if she goes). BUt now? It is like it is OK to NOT be so glued to her, NOT be so stick that every thing she does or does not do is somehow a reflection of my own failings or limits, or of her somehow deciding that I am not good enough.
I don't know where or how this happened, this cognitive shift, but it seems to be here.
So I worked outside last night until 7. It was nice to do, to connect that way, to have my own space to do it the way it suited me. Not in any sort of cantankerous fuck you I never liked your way way, but more a finally I can just let go of that past and move ahead way. It was nice. Of course, I got sore. It's my own fault, I know. I haven't been doing the requisite back exercises, and I am under-exercised due both to medical and weather, but still...
A quiet evening alone was the ticket. An hour phone call with a soon-to-be playmate was nice, even thought I was frustrated about the likely need to cancel a planned visit to her. Vehicles can suck at times, Bad cash flow can suck even more!
I turned in late, and didn't even douse lights til almost midnight. I was surprised to then wake up, body hot, at 4:06, and toss and turn a lot. I finally decided after some false stops to shave and then have a little play, which of course cycled on and off - that wonderful tantric-like energy flow - I love that in the morning. THEN, of course, I fell back to sleep.
And those fall back to sleep dreams - they are WEIRD. This was no exception.
I'm at a banquet of some sort. The dining room is long, with a bit of a curve. I am sort of in line to get my food The plates are all individually separated by a cloth napkin and a tarnished silver platter like thingy. I take my plate (the napkins are just there to separate - napkins for eating are at the tables). The first food area is lasagna. There are several types, two primary variants. The main type is more or less conventional lasagna, but is really pretty. IT is cut perfectly clean and square, and looks almost like a plastic mime. The other type they call "British Lasagna" and I have no clue as to what it is. There is a lot less of it, and the pieces are quite small. It is dense looking, dark red, pungent. I take a piece and it sits on my big plate next to the regular beauty pageant lasagna. I move ahead. By the time I get to the next separate table of food - just vegetables and not too many of them - it looks like my beauty lasagna has somehow slipped right off the plate. There's not a trace of it. The British Lasagna is still there, clinging, stuck, to the plate. But no regular. Odd. So I move on, taking some green beans. I can't quite picture what was next, maybe nothing, but I do recall then turing round the last table to the other side and heading back. On my way, I see some poor service worker trying diligently to clean up a HUGE mess on the floor. I say as I pass, with a smile, "That was probably caused by me" thinking it was my missing beauty lasagna. But as I pass her, I realize that no, she is cleaning up a spilled quart of ice cream that had been dropped or fallen and melted on this nice rug. How it got there, melted, in the first place, seems odd to say the least.
I get back to the place I thought I was supposed to sit, a large round table, well, not quite round, but I recall somehow before I got food - you know how you often go and sit down and claim your spot? And I was with someone, I have no idea who. But I recall at that point I got into a bit of tiff with someone who, after I had quite clearly claimed my spot somehow (who knows how? jacket on the back? Turned up glass? Personal effects on seat?) simply took it and stated to sit down. I recall saying quite audibly "That is my seat" and she either ignored me or did not hear, at which point I repeated, VERY loudly "THAT IS MY SEAT". She turned and looked somehow stunned or insulted or maybe both? And proceeded to sit down anyway. It was like I was not there. Hmmm.... So I took the seat next to her. But, at any rate, when I did get back with my food, I realized that that seat too had been taken by someone, and even the person I was with simply looked up and smiled at me and then motioned me over... to where? IT was odd, but I recall thinking, oh no prob, I will go and sit at another table. And then there was this odd internal mental processing going on about how I normally (?) would have decided to go FAR away and pout, sit alone, act hurt, etc., but that this time, somehow, I simply wandered around and looked for a seat. The dream seems to have stopped before I actually sat down, but the last point is the one I am interested in.
Namely: I think I have some sort of fundamental cognitive shift in place. More than once in the past, oh, week, I have recognized that I was in a situation where I *should* have felt one way, *should* have acted one way, but did not. I was even aware several times of almost trying to direct my mind to that dark shitty place of the past... and realized it was like the door was locked, and my mind could not get in. Instead of "poor me" or "s/he won't like me anyway" kind of thinking, I was more "oh well. S/he likes me, it just didn't work out" thinking. It is a very fundamental change for me, one I like, but is a bit disarming.
I think it may be a combination of things.
First: regular SAMe. I think this has helped. IT may finally be at the point where I have a stable level in my body and so it works a little more consistently. One of the odd things that I have recognized about the past week is that I have had all or a combination of "hot buttons" that I know from painful experience have frequently led me to the black hole - over tired, lack of food, etc. But having had these in place and NOT having fallen in...
Second: I have somehow gotten over the toxic parts of my relationship with a lover. I love her deeply, I know, but in the past 6 months it got ricockulous. I was having separation anxiety when we said goodbye, I was taking her "I can't see you tonight"s really hard. I was not liking her other lovers. I recognized it was getting toxic for me. Somehow, I let go. I still love her deeply, and I would still consider a move to where she would go in 6 months to a year (if she goes). BUt now? It is like it is OK to NOT be so glued to her, NOT be so stick that every thing she does or does not do is somehow a reflection of my own failings or limits, or of her somehow deciding that I am not good enough.
I don't know where or how this happened, this cognitive shift, but it seems to be here.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Beltane Sacred Sexuality
This was Beltane number two for me. A decidedly mixed bag in many respects save one: the event was a lot of fun!
I hosted 3 workshops. The upside is.... I love giving this. The downside is that I miss almost ALL of the workshops I would like to attend, and here, that's quite a few!
Sexual meditations is really about a personal technique, and after 2 runs, and a small audience, I am gonna rethink this one. I love the method, I know the attendees love the result, but I'm not conveying something about this in the blurb. I either have to hard sell it or change tactics.
Body Image. This is ALWAYS a hard one. I had a good group this time, and all of us really put ourselves way out there with it. This time we had enough time each, and that made it a lot better. I also managed to remember to include a connect time at the END of the workshop - a simple circle and hold hands and an embrace one-on-one for each of us. I think that's important. The REALLY cool part about this is I was asked to present this workshop at a totally different venue later this year. This was a real honor, and I am hopeful I can pull it off (long distance to travel).
Body Painting. This was a first in this format. Last year I did a piece on the sacred mark - the idea there was to draw on the 50,000 year legacy of human beings to apply colors to the body. That went well, was quite different. This year, I decided I would have fun with it, plain and simple! So that we did: assembled about a dozen people and set up a nice range of crazy colors (silver and gold were huge hits!) and went at it. Lots of very cool designs, lots of interesting ideas, and then B and I paraded up vendors row with it! It was really fun. I plan to at least bring this to LR.
The Beltane rituals are really well done here. There is just the right blend of sacred, sensual and silly. They manage to be respectful while adding in a dash or two of irreverence to make it fun. It works well. I respect the process, and in fact wonder if it would make sense to go ahead and somehow require attendance at at least one of the rituals. Don't have any idea how that might work - maybe would have to be a carrot kind of approach, but I do see parallels here to the Winterfire no community meals issue. Shared participation builds bonds in ways that nothing else can, whether it is food or ritual, it's something that I think in the end really helps all the participants.
Turning to somewhat more personal matters....
I became aware at some point that every time I went near sex, this tape rolled in my head - "I am not good enough". I worked that for quite a while, trying to both notice it and overcome it. Of course, simply overcoming something like that is often problematic - without any knowledge of its root, overcoming is a little too much like ignoring. It doesn't work too well. I did not seem to make much progress on that approach. But then somehow it dawned on me: the problem is not so much I am not good enough, but rather that the same tape - "I am not good enough" - is a response to a deeper voice that scolds and reprimands and chides and denigrates. Once I found this vector, it felt different. Where did this voice come from?
And following a deep and heartfelt conversation with another participant - a conversation I not only did not know I was going to have, but also had no idea that it would take the crying painful direction it did take for me, I made this connection more tenaciously. He asked me at one point in reference to something else "Do you know whose voice it is?". that got me thinking a lot. IT is a way, I think, to try and approach the resolution or at least the management of this particular tape. If I can get to whose voice I hear, then I wonder if I can get to stopping the tape, perhaps beginning to erase it.
These are deep wounds, and I am not entirely sure I can heal them. They may continue on until I am dead. But I suppose in the end it makes more sense to at least try and work on them, to try and ameliorate the effects, and not simply let them continue to run me.
I hosted 3 workshops. The upside is.... I love giving this. The downside is that I miss almost ALL of the workshops I would like to attend, and here, that's quite a few!
Sexual meditations is really about a personal technique, and after 2 runs, and a small audience, I am gonna rethink this one. I love the method, I know the attendees love the result, but I'm not conveying something about this in the blurb. I either have to hard sell it or change tactics.
Body Image. This is ALWAYS a hard one. I had a good group this time, and all of us really put ourselves way out there with it. This time we had enough time each, and that made it a lot better. I also managed to remember to include a connect time at the END of the workshop - a simple circle and hold hands and an embrace one-on-one for each of us. I think that's important. The REALLY cool part about this is I was asked to present this workshop at a totally different venue later this year. This was a real honor, and I am hopeful I can pull it off (long distance to travel).
Body Painting. This was a first in this format. Last year I did a piece on the sacred mark - the idea there was to draw on the 50,000 year legacy of human beings to apply colors to the body. That went well, was quite different. This year, I decided I would have fun with it, plain and simple! So that we did: assembled about a dozen people and set up a nice range of crazy colors (silver and gold were huge hits!) and went at it. Lots of very cool designs, lots of interesting ideas, and then B and I paraded up vendors row with it! It was really fun. I plan to at least bring this to LR.
The Beltane rituals are really well done here. There is just the right blend of sacred, sensual and silly. They manage to be respectful while adding in a dash or two of irreverence to make it fun. It works well. I respect the process, and in fact wonder if it would make sense to go ahead and somehow require attendance at at least one of the rituals. Don't have any idea how that might work - maybe would have to be a carrot kind of approach, but I do see parallels here to the Winterfire no community meals issue. Shared participation builds bonds in ways that nothing else can, whether it is food or ritual, it's something that I think in the end really helps all the participants.
Turning to somewhat more personal matters....
I became aware at some point that every time I went near sex, this tape rolled in my head - "I am not good enough". I worked that for quite a while, trying to both notice it and overcome it. Of course, simply overcoming something like that is often problematic - without any knowledge of its root, overcoming is a little too much like ignoring. It doesn't work too well. I did not seem to make much progress on that approach. But then somehow it dawned on me: the problem is not so much I am not good enough, but rather that the same tape - "I am not good enough" - is a response to a deeper voice that scolds and reprimands and chides and denigrates. Once I found this vector, it felt different. Where did this voice come from?
And following a deep and heartfelt conversation with another participant - a conversation I not only did not know I was going to have, but also had no idea that it would take the crying painful direction it did take for me, I made this connection more tenaciously. He asked me at one point in reference to something else "Do you know whose voice it is?". that got me thinking a lot. IT is a way, I think, to try and approach the resolution or at least the management of this particular tape. If I can get to whose voice I hear, then I wonder if I can get to stopping the tape, perhaps beginning to erase it.
These are deep wounds, and I am not entirely sure I can heal them. They may continue on until I am dead. But I suppose in the end it makes more sense to at least try and work on them, to try and ameliorate the effects, and not simply let them continue to run me.
Monday, April 13, 2009
What do I need?
Honestly, I have no fucking idea.
The past few days have been an odd conflation of UP and down. UP due to wonderful houseguests - self maintaining, easy to get along with, etc. despite one being in a bit of a funk. The flip side: I am seriously overtired and out of synch foodwise, and I am really pent up horny in a way that doesn't roll around too often. Add to that I have a major sink clog in the kitchen - you get the idea.
It has led me to a place of wondering what I need.
Part of that stems from a relationship. Lover is wonderful - soft, warm, kind, loving, attentive... and she has 3 other BFs besides me. Yeah, I have processed jealousy. Been through it. I know it still appears. But this is not about that.
It's about my needs not being met, and, in a parallel fashion, having this weight of knowing, or at least feeling, that her interest in me, sexually, is low. Yeah, we do it, we have scened, may again, we have fucked, may again, but it is not enough for me somehow. I want her to want me deeply, and the lands me cultural jail (or perhaps cultural hell). I have this bizarre internal image of me fucking her to next Tuesday, drilling her hard until she gives it up and then she tells me, pantingly, "more" and I give it to her. I HATE this image. IT is part of a set of cultural baggage I cannot abide. But it's there. Like asore, it festers in my head and won't leave.
And I don't trust that as an image of "what I need". At times, maybe. More times, nope, not even close.
So what DO I "need"?
Someone to talk to. But that raises other problems. Like, if there is someone around that is available to talk, then if they are intimates, the talk is constrained. If they are not, the closeness is compromised.
Sleepy
The past few days have been an odd conflation of UP and down. UP due to wonderful houseguests - self maintaining, easy to get along with, etc. despite one being in a bit of a funk. The flip side: I am seriously overtired and out of synch foodwise, and I am really pent up horny in a way that doesn't roll around too often. Add to that I have a major sink clog in the kitchen - you get the idea.
It has led me to a place of wondering what I need.
Part of that stems from a relationship. Lover is wonderful - soft, warm, kind, loving, attentive... and she has 3 other BFs besides me. Yeah, I have processed jealousy. Been through it. I know it still appears. But this is not about that.
It's about my needs not being met, and, in a parallel fashion, having this weight of knowing, or at least feeling, that her interest in me, sexually, is low. Yeah, we do it, we have scened, may again, we have fucked, may again, but it is not enough for me somehow. I want her to want me deeply, and the lands me cultural jail (or perhaps cultural hell). I have this bizarre internal image of me fucking her to next Tuesday, drilling her hard until she gives it up and then she tells me, pantingly, "more" and I give it to her. I HATE this image. IT is part of a set of cultural baggage I cannot abide. But it's there. Like asore, it festers in my head and won't leave.
And I don't trust that as an image of "what I need". At times, maybe. More times, nope, not even close.
So what DO I "need"?
Someone to talk to. But that raises other problems. Like, if there is someone around that is available to talk, then if they are intimates, the talk is constrained. If they are not, the closeness is compromised.
Sleepy
Monday, March 09, 2009
Through a Glass Darkly
I'm really having issues around relationships these days. I crashed and burned REALLY badly this past weekend, feeling a deep sense of despair and rejection and a horrible sense of worthlessness. While a lot of the feelings appear to stem from a particular relationship, I'm not entirely convinced that it is that per se. Every time I try and analyze it,I seem to wind up in the same place: it comes from a deep seated sense of inadequacy. I'm puzzled and frustrated and even angry that it always seems to connect back to sex. Why is that? Why is it that the worst of the emotional freight train winds up there?
And each time I think I am past it, each time I feel like I am ok with her fucking someone else, some other, odd confusion of circumstance shows up that leads me away from that place of being ok. This time, it was around timing. I got sandwiched in between a call of being together and dinner/dance, that had her getting a great fuck in between that 2 hour window. On one level I am ok with it - pleasure is good, sharing is good, it's all fine. But I push my head into this sick little corner that says I am second fiddle, last, not desired simply beCAUSE of this. Part of me rejects it out of hand, and says I don't care if I feel that way, it makes no sense. But the larger and older and more powerful part of me takes over, reminding me that I am in fact undesirable, no good, not wanted, and that being last is part of who I have to be.
I went upstairs and cried really hard for half an hour. Inside I felt I wanted to reject ALL relationships, run away from ALL possibility of pain, and I tried this. I then texted and said don't contact me anymore. I think I was subconsciously reaching out past my broken, fucked up self, and wanting desperately for her to find that broken me and soothe it, come back to it. I feel disingenuous about that, a lie I cannot stop. I took it further, though, and sent that same note to another whom I love. Reject everything, the mind said, and avoid it all. "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here" might as well have been the sign I had hanging on my head.
Funny how, after 24+ hours of reflection (which included me processing this with her over deep tears, as well as a passing remark after I apologized for being so fragile, that she thought we should probably talk about that) I am now entering some sort of anger phase. It's a kind perverse play on the Kubler-Ross stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. First for me in this case was depression, followed by bargaining, then some denial, and now I feel this odd anger. Who am I angry at? I think it is me, but am not so sure.
(return to this later. It is nice to finally have back something that is not read by others I know. IF you're passing through, please comment. I don't know you - it's safe)
And each time I think I am past it, each time I feel like I am ok with her fucking someone else, some other, odd confusion of circumstance shows up that leads me away from that place of being ok. This time, it was around timing. I got sandwiched in between a call of being together and dinner/dance, that had her getting a great fuck in between that 2 hour window. On one level I am ok with it - pleasure is good, sharing is good, it's all fine. But I push my head into this sick little corner that says I am second fiddle, last, not desired simply beCAUSE of this. Part of me rejects it out of hand, and says I don't care if I feel that way, it makes no sense. But the larger and older and more powerful part of me takes over, reminding me that I am in fact undesirable, no good, not wanted, and that being last is part of who I have to be.
I went upstairs and cried really hard for half an hour. Inside I felt I wanted to reject ALL relationships, run away from ALL possibility of pain, and I tried this. I then texted and said don't contact me anymore. I think I was subconsciously reaching out past my broken, fucked up self, and wanting desperately for her to find that broken me and soothe it, come back to it. I feel disingenuous about that, a lie I cannot stop. I took it further, though, and sent that same note to another whom I love. Reject everything, the mind said, and avoid it all. "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here" might as well have been the sign I had hanging on my head.
Funny how, after 24+ hours of reflection (which included me processing this with her over deep tears, as well as a passing remark after I apologized for being so fragile, that she thought we should probably talk about that) I am now entering some sort of anger phase. It's a kind perverse play on the Kubler-Ross stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. First for me in this case was depression, followed by bargaining, then some denial, and now I feel this odd anger. Who am I angry at? I think it is me, but am not so sure.
(return to this later. It is nice to finally have back something that is not read by others I know. IF you're passing through, please comment. I don't know you - it's safe)
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