Loving / Being Loved

Humans spend an inordinate amount of time wanting, wishing, waiting, and trying to be loved. Many of the untold decisions that we make are made with the hope of being loved. Many of the seemingly inconsequential actions we take are for the same reason. We feel incomplete when we lack the love of someone we hope to be loved by. We feel alone, we feel unwanted, we feel insignificant. Our self-esteem plummets. We are minimized, and become marginalized by our own experience, in our own eyes, and in the perception of others. Those of you who have been without love understand that all too clearly.

However, many people are controlled by their need to be loved, and some even try to control others regarding the manner in which they wish to be loved. Many suffer serious debilitating illnesses when those expectations are not adequately met. I knew a woman who, in an attempt to be loved ‘the way she wanted to be loved’ took on a mysterious illness as a means of getting the love (attention) that she was lacking. Doctors never found anything wrong with her, but for many years they appeased her in that need by sending her to a myriad of different specialists, and prescribing a pharmacies worth of different medications to make her feel better. She welcomed those drugs like a fish welcomes water. It has, over the years, been a horrendous abuse of the Health Care system, and an even worse (self-generated) collapse of her own dignity. Of course, her basic need for control continued to prevail. It was easier for her to be sick than to be honest. That, obviously, was the actual illness. It was easier to illicit sympathy than to embrace reality. It was just easier for her.
Eventually the illness will kill her. It is the case with many people.
Dishonesty kills.

Love takes courage.

Lacking that courage, it is very common for people to make themselves unlovable, rejecting the love of others because it is not the ‘kind’ of love they want, and then resenting not being loved by the same ones whose love they have dismissed. That resentment, ultimately, leads to depression and eventual personal deterioration. Defining how one wants to be loved, rather than accepting someone else’s love for what it is, is, also, often what drives people to seek compromised solutions, becoming willing to settle for a semblance of love, oftentimes in the forbidden, in the mysterious, or the profane. Some will embrace a substitute as if it were love itself.

Love is something we don’t really want to live without. The modern day ‘love yourself’ theology, and movement, emerged as a comfortable way to compensate for our own un-loveliness, for our own compromised position in the world, and for the ever deepening void of authentic love in our lives. Those lacking a fundamental love will eventually embrace either self-loathing or self-love to fill the emptiness. Love is a very powerful thing. I believe that we should respect ourselves, we should love that we are diverse, unique, interesting and complex individuals, and that we should embrace the presence, and growth, of love within ourselves; not ‘of’ ourselves, but ‘within’ ourselves. The ‘I love myself’ way of thinking seems just a little creepy to me. I know people who are in love with themselves, and believe me, it’s not very pretty.

Then there are those who want to be loved by everyone; everyone they know, and everyone they meet. They can’t be happy unless they feel loved by all. But if everybody loves you based on how you act in seeking their approval, more likely than not, you have some deep, secret, and serious issues, some honesty avoidance issues, or some kind of chameleon personality. No one really knows another like they think they do, and love seekers are not really known by anyone. They conceal their faults and failures like a cheap suit covers a flawed body. If one’s consuming focus is on being loved, one will never really love somebody else, they can only pretend at it. When one seeks to just meet their own needs, to the exclusion of the needs of others, they compromise the act of receiving love, they subvert it, and they invalidate it. They seek to take love, rather than to be given it. They cheapen love, and they overthrow its basic intent. Love will not be taken. It is always given because that’s what love does. That’s what love is.
It gives of itself.

Loving is not necessarily always doing what somebody else would like, or even what they think might satisfy them. Sometimes it is being, for them, the voice of reason, the solid ground from which their soul can take root and grow.
Sometimes love is coming to the rescue.
And sometimes love is doing nothing at all.

In many respects it takes the love of others to enable our own ability to love. But it can also be said that loving enables ones ability to be loved.
It works both ways.
Personally, I think that when we cultivate loving, the love of others finds us.
It just finds us, usually unexpectedly,
but it finds us.

It’s Really More Simple Than It Seems

Life is never easy, but there is a less complicated way to live, there is a general guide to live by, a means of keeping ones equilibrium in life. It is often the second choice of any given individual, but it is, ultimately, the best choice. It is a tried, true, and historically tested manner of being. It is ancient wisdom, and it is applicable in contemporary life as well. It is not complicated, and it is embraceable by all but the truly self-indulgent. It is for those wishing to live in harmony with consciousness, and for those simply wanting not to stray too far from what they know to be of value and importance. It is a principle that allows the pleasure, and the enjoyment of life, but holds at bay the temptations that call to us like sirens in an enveloping fog. It is a place where honesty trumps deception, and where kindness supercedes self-service. It is a place of self-denial by choice, rather than by imposition. It is where integrity resides, and self-importance falls away like dead skin.

There is satisfaction in the process, and reward in itself. It is an automatic system of checks and balances that does not really need to be checked, or balanced. It is moving in the slipstream, and it is living in the blessing. It is a state of mind, and of practice. It is being comfortable with the intention of one’s life, and uncomfortable with one’s adversarial nature. It is what enables a thankful heart, and perpetuates a sense of gratitude. It incubates faith. It encourages liberty, and provides sanctuary. It allows for the expansion of the soul.

As I said, “Life is never easy, but there is a less complicated way to live.
It’s really more simple than it seems.”

Be IN the world,
but not OF the world.

What Are We Thinking?

You’ve probably been reading about the sexual abuse scandal involving U.S. swim coaches who have been molesting, groping, and secretly taping numerous young female swimmers around the country. Thirty-six coaches have been banned for life. Now I bet that really makes us feel good about ourselves! Not that they’re going to go coach somewhere else, or anything like that!!!

Have you had about enough of the phony righteous concern being expressed by the U.S. Governing body, and other presiding authorities, who pretend they want to ‘clean up the sport’? Don’t we go through this every year? With swimming, gymnastics, ice-skating? And, obviously, not only with U.S. Olympic sanctioned sports. It happens every day in youth soccer, Little League baseball, girls softball, wrestling, and other sports as well. Oh, they’re intent on catching the perpetrators. . . . . . . . . . .yeah, after the f***ing molestations have already occurred! That does the kids a lot of good.

Question: If all these so-called ‘authorities’ are so motivated to prevent the devastation in these children’s lives, why do they not have the courage to make changes that actually work?
Answer: Oh, I don’t know, could it be that ‘harmless’ little Political Correctness (Personal Cowardice) gene I’m always talking about? Just wondering.

Solutions? Hey, I’ve got an idea. Of course it would have taken a genius, like myself, to think of it. It’s not like any ordinary intelligent adult could conceive of such a solution!

NO MORE MEN COACHING YOUNG GIRLS. ANYWHERE. EVER.
(Oh, did I say that out loud?)

Let me repeat. EVER. Not in youth sports, not in High School. Not until girls are Juniors in College, or at least an equivalent age. Not until girls are old enough to read the intentions of their coaches, and experienced enough, and confident enough, to navigate that minefield, or at least mature enough to make their own choices in the matter. That means they must be ADULTS. Do you hear me? There is just too heightened of a sexual presence in today’s world. Does anybody think that these coaches do not indulge their fantasies on the Internet, and then not succumb to the compulsion to ‘play them out’ with the kids on their teams? Predators almost always gravitate towards the youngest, the weakest, the most vulnerable and clueless. That means children and adolescents. Is there anybody responsible for Youth Sports in our country that does not understand that?

You say, “But what about the boys?” Simple, until boys are juniors in High School every male coach must be complimented by an equal number of female coaches present on the team. Let me say that again. For every male coach on a Youth Sports team there must also be a female coach on the same team. I don’t care if all she does is bring snacks (that is not a comment on women as coaches, it is a comment on the importance of having a female presence). To further ensure the protection of our children, no male coach should have any contact with a child, or teen, away from the court, or playing field, for any reason, unless the child is accompanied by a parent, or another female coach. You say, “But what about sleepovers? They’re a tradition for youth sports teams” Yeah, they are, and I say, “Exactly what kind of adult male coach (married, or not) wants to have his team sleep over at his house?”
Please!

By the time a boy is in his third year in High School, he is, by and large, through the most difficult part of his adolescence, the most vulnerable time of his young life. The male coaches of Junior and Senior High School boys should, still, be closely monitored; and then, beginning with College, the boys could be under the guidance of male coaches without the presence of a female. Hopefully, by then, they will be seasoned, and savvy enough to fend for themselves.

And the locker room? Keep the friggin’ coaches out of the locker rooms until the boys are finished dressing. They don’t need to ‘supervise’ boys taking showers. If they’re already predisposed towards adolescent boys, they shouldn’t also have a free pass to ogle them.

Now, are these concepts that difficult to understand, or implement? You say, “But no ‘male-only’ coaches up until the Junior year in High School for boys, but the junior year of College for girls; that’s treating boys and girls differently.”
Well, let me just say this about that. “BOYS AND GIRLS ARE DIFFERENT.” And I’m sorry to have to offend you, but if you don’t understand that, if you’ve bought into the PC lie that boys and girls are the same, then you should not be raising kids.

Mothers, do you think you know the men coaching your kids? For that matter, do you think you know your Pastor, or Priest? Do you think you know their teacher? I know you’d like to think you do. Well, I don’t mean to alarm you unnecessarily, and you’re likely to hate me for this, but you probably don’t even really know your own husband.
Put that in the context of a coach who ‘seems like such a nice guy’.

OK, I’m ready to be arrested by the PC police (hands extended, ready for handcuffs). Better me for what I think, and what I say, than the men who are actually molesting the kids, or the ‘governing bodies’ who perpetuate it. Right?

I’m really just the messenger, but we like to get mad at the messenger. Makes us feel like we’re doing something to solve the problem.

People, this is not our grandparents world. And if we don’t wake up and understand that, the incidents of molestation of our children are going to continue to rise exponentially. Wake up, stop hiding behind Political Correctness, and insist that these solutions, or similar ones, be instituted, post haste, in your own communities.

In today’s world, Men, unsupervised, coaching children, or adolescent boys?
Men coaching young girls?

What are we thinking?

PoliTricks

Warning: Don’t read this if idealism creates, and governs, your ideology. It’ll only make you mad.
Idealism used to be the social/political domain of Hollywood, thirteen year-old girls, and fifteen year-old boys. Unfortunately, it has now infected a disproportionate number of actual adults. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the pot we’ve been smoking like tobacco, or the pharmaceuticals we’ve been chewing like candy.

* Obama has pretty much just invalidated our nuclear deterrent by saying that the U.S will not use nuclear weapons, even in self-defense. Isn’t that like putting a sign on the front door of your house that reads, “I have an arsenal of guns in my closet, but come on in, take whatever you want; rape, torture, and murder my family, and, because I want to be perceived as an enlightened man, you have my word that I will not raise a single weapon against you? I will lead by example.”

Oh, and concerning deterrence, when you’ve given someone carte blanche to use a nuclear first-strike against you, hasn’t the concept of ‘not using nuclear weapons, even in self-defense’, really just become a ridiculous oxymoron? Like you’d actually be alive to defend yourself?

I know, if Obama is such a trusting soul, how bout he take a walk through any city in America, or the world for that matter, without the deterrent of his Secret Service protection. I think he’d learn (just a little too late) how important it is to have that deterrent in place.

* Well, Obama promised ‘transparency’, and it is becoming quite ‘apparent’ that his administration is interested not so much in what the people want as they are in what they want for the people. That has become very transparent.

* Have had some time to let this really sink in now, so let me see; after suffering devastating, and debilitating depression, and unwanted, and unwarranted intrusion by the government into his life and finances, the suicidal guy who flew his plane into the IRS building in Texas is, by that same government, branded a terrorist.
But the Muslim psychiatrist, who murdered all those soldiers at Fort Hood, and who acted under the guidance of one of the most extreme Imams in the country today, is labeled a criminal?
I’m not telling you anything you’re not already aware of. I just want to remind you of the profound disinformation policy this administration operates under.

* And now you can’t call a government official a liar, a hypocrite, or refer to them as ‘intellectually dishonest’. That’s pretty good protection ‘progressives’ have designed for themselves. If you can’t call them what they are, God forbid, what can you call them?

* Concerning the Tea Party movement, of which I am not a member; how interesting is it that a grass-roots movement raised up in response to the unbearable tax burden being imposed upon the American people, is being made out to be, by the politicians, and by the media that controls them, a ‘dangerous radical extremist fringe group’?

Protest a liberal Government? Not unless you want to be targeted. As you may have already realized, when liberals protested George Bush, threatened him, disrupted speeches etc., they were referred to as ‘patriots’. But when Tea Party members protest Obama’s policies, well, hmmm, ‘dangerous radical extremist fringe group’? Funny how one’s particular political ideology determines whether or not they actually believe in free speech for somebody else.
In my mind, and in my experience, the Government is a ‘dangerous radical extremist fringe group’.

The Tea Party movement, in case you don’t know, evolved as a result of an unreasonable, and unbearable, tax burden on the American people, and citizens being forced to submit to Taxation without Representation.
Do you really think any of those politicians in Washington actually represent you?
No wonder Washington is afraid of the people.
They ought to be.

* I am also not a member of the Democratic, Republican, Socialist, or Communist Party.
Oh, same Party? Sorry, my bad.

* Free Health Care?
I remember reading a Twitter comment posted by an actual twit, which read, “Yeah, free health care, a helping hand.” And who exactly was given the choice to help you?
Let’s see if I have this right. According to the Health Care bill, they’re going to take (steal) money from everybody who they think has too much, no matter how hard they worked to earn it, and they’re going to give it to all the people who sit on their couch drinking beer all day, smoking their ‘medicine’, anesthetizing themselves with The View, Oprah, Ellen, Tyra, ET, and TMZ? Sounds fair to me.
ObamaCare?
RobamaHood.

* And Barney Frank? Lovely. What a piece of work. He gives ‘sleaze’ a bad name.
Do you realize that people actually elected him?

* And speaking of drugs, if you have to take a drug test to work in a warehouse (or wherever), don’tcha think its only fair that we know what chemicals are influencing the thinking, and behavior, of these Congressional imposters?

Just sayin’.



OK, I got all that out of my system.


*But the good news is that There Are Humans Among Us.
I know, because every once in awhile I’ll run across one.

They Sense Us

After receiving my Census survey, which contains questions that are none of the Governments friggin’ concern, is it any big surprise that the form is supposed to be returned to the “2010 Census Data CAPTURE Center”? What, do they want to know where to find me just in case I happen to disagree with their policies? They’ve asked for my name, and my phone number. My phone number? Why would they need to call me? Are they afraid that maybe I counted the number of persons living at my residence wrong? Or might they just want to chat? They’re not entitled to my name, or my phone number. I am entitled to anonymity. I, personally, am none of the Governments business.

The government is entitled to know how many people live at my residence, and nothing more. Constitutionally, the Census is taken in order to determine how many Representatives each State is to have in the U.S. Congress. It is not intended to determine my ethnicity. The survey states that it needs to know my ethnicity in order for the government to be able to ‘establish bi-lingual education programs’ for people of Hispanic origin. They want to know if I’m “Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish; Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Argentinean, Columbian, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, and so on.” They’re not really interested in knowing if I’m French, Greek, Italian, Danish, Swiss, Swedish, Dutch, German, Austrian, Norwegian, Icelandic, Flemish, Czech, Polish, Slovakian, Sorbian, Russian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Serbian, Hungarian, Romanian, Macedonian, Slovenian, Latvian, Lithuanian, etc. etc. etc. I guess these (mostly) Caucasian immigrants don’t need bi-lingual education programs. They can just make do on their own.
Do you get the feeling that the government is trying to target a certain voting block? Just wondering.

And why is it that they want to know whether or not I rent, or own, have a mortgage, or an outstanding loan, etc? They are not entitled to know that. That’s my business, not theirs. Besides, if they must know, they can already check with the IRS. Like me, do you find it just a little disturbing that the government is so interested in knowing who’s White, and who’s “OF Color? Who’s Poor, and who has Assets?

The Census was never intended to be used by sociologists, economists, and other ‘researchers’ to ‘analyze social and economic trends’; although the government freely admits that it’s used for that purpose. Code, really, for wanting to know which districts to send the entitlement bribes (I mean the ‘stimulus packages’) to. Again, a pretty blatant, and transparent, attempt to ‘stimulate’ the voters in those particular regions.
And their ‘Privacy/Confidentiality’ claim? Well, if you believe that, you might also like the Government to manage your Health Care.

I would never encourage anyone to defy their own Government, unless, of course, their government was dishonest, deceitful, with a Fascist agenda, and attempting to usurp your individual rights; but, personally, I answered ‘2’ to the question about ‘How many people live at your residence’?, and NOYB (None Of Your Business) in response to the rest of the questions.
Do what you think is right.