Sunday, March 14, 2004
Prejudice in medical research
Are you aware that the large majority of medical studies have been done on men only, because of the risk of pregnancy for women (and the risk of harming a fetus) and because of the "complications" of correcting for gender factors when analyzing the results from both genders? We don't actually KNOW how a wide variety of drugs and other medical procedures affect women, other than what experienced doctors can report if asked... and that's a MUCH bigger danger to women than a possible oopsie pregnancy in a woman participating in a study... and the medical costs of treating women for whom most treatments involve some guesswork FAR outweigh what the extra work in analyzing data for a 2nd gender would be.
Gee, gals, aren't you thrilled to be a "complication" to those heavily-funded researchers, such that they'd rather just ASSUME that the results apply to us rather than be SURE?
There are many other such biases included in medical research; the elderly of both genders, and people of color of all ages, are grossly under-represented, even though it's common knowledge both that geriatrics is a whole separate field and that people of different racial backgrounds have different likelihoods of a wide variety of ailments, due to both genetic factors and cultural factors such as diet; the white male has been the stand-in for all of us.
I'm sure I don't have to remind anyone how the misperception of AIDS as a "gay disease" slowed the research into it and cost countless lives; the gay and transgendered communities are STILL being pretty thoroughly overlooked by medical researchers, and this is especially hard for the latter, as they don't know which drugs are safe to take with their hormones long term, or at all, until it's too late.
There's another sort of prejudice in medical research, and that is to avoid anything that would get them derided or possibly called crackpots. There's some chemical found in tobacco that is an excellent treatment for schizophrenia, and in fact most schizophrenics self-medicate with cigarettes, but the research isn't getting done because of the uproar against smoking. Something in marijuana fights nausea far better than any known drug, which is literally life or death to some cancer and AIDS patients, but no one will study it because they'd have to fight against the illegality if it. And there's another whole category of research that is truly glaring by its omission; with all the different ways they have to scan the brain and see what's going on in it, allowing them to see EXACTLY what happens where in the brain during every kind of action, thought and feeling, why, why, WHY has NO ONE undertaken a study of "people who demonstrate an ability to act consistently beyond the laws of probability," aka psychics, and gotten some idea of what parts of the brain are responsible? Why won't they even attempt (or pretend to attempt, if they are believers) to "prove" that the parts of the brain which become active during psychic activity are the same as those that are active when people are trying to deceive, and therefore that psychics are all fakers? Why won't they touch anything that smacks of "the occult" with a 10 foot pole?
Why do you think?
If one researcher, just ONE, is willing to use his time and his access to, say, an MRI machine, to look into the brain activity of even ONE psychic, a domino effect will be started that will lead to many of the mysteries of karma being solved in our lifetime, and that researcher will achieve international fame and a place in history. I hope that some researcher somewhere is realizing that right about now...
Gee, gals, aren't you thrilled to be a "complication" to those heavily-funded researchers, such that they'd rather just ASSUME that the results apply to us rather than be SURE?
There are many other such biases included in medical research; the elderly of both genders, and people of color of all ages, are grossly under-represented, even though it's common knowledge both that geriatrics is a whole separate field and that people of different racial backgrounds have different likelihoods of a wide variety of ailments, due to both genetic factors and cultural factors such as diet; the white male has been the stand-in for all of us.
I'm sure I don't have to remind anyone how the misperception of AIDS as a "gay disease" slowed the research into it and cost countless lives; the gay and transgendered communities are STILL being pretty thoroughly overlooked by medical researchers, and this is especially hard for the latter, as they don't know which drugs are safe to take with their hormones long term, or at all, until it's too late.
There's another sort of prejudice in medical research, and that is to avoid anything that would get them derided or possibly called crackpots. There's some chemical found in tobacco that is an excellent treatment for schizophrenia, and in fact most schizophrenics self-medicate with cigarettes, but the research isn't getting done because of the uproar against smoking. Something in marijuana fights nausea far better than any known drug, which is literally life or death to some cancer and AIDS patients, but no one will study it because they'd have to fight against the illegality if it. And there's another whole category of research that is truly glaring by its omission; with all the different ways they have to scan the brain and see what's going on in it, allowing them to see EXACTLY what happens where in the brain during every kind of action, thought and feeling, why, why, WHY has NO ONE undertaken a study of "people who demonstrate an ability to act consistently beyond the laws of probability," aka psychics, and gotten some idea of what parts of the brain are responsible? Why won't they even attempt (or pretend to attempt, if they are believers) to "prove" that the parts of the brain which become active during psychic activity are the same as those that are active when people are trying to deceive, and therefore that psychics are all fakers? Why won't they touch anything that smacks of "the occult" with a 10 foot pole?
Why do you think?
If one researcher, just ONE, is willing to use his time and his access to, say, an MRI machine, to look into the brain activity of even ONE psychic, a domino effect will be started that will lead to many of the mysteries of karma being solved in our lifetime, and that researcher will achieve international fame and a place in history. I hope that some researcher somewhere is realizing that right about now...
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Why we don't entertain
My husband and I virtually never have any other human beings in our home; it only happens a few times a year. You can count the # of times anyone has EATEN in our home, in all the years we've been married, on the fingers of one hand. In part, this is because the effort to make our house presentable is so gargantuan that it FAR outweighs the enjoyment of having anyone here, not that we have anything to do around here for a guest anyways-what are they supposed to do, look over our shoulders as we type emails, lol? We're geeks, and have mountains of computer stuff but virtually nothing else; almost no furniture, mostly bare walls, no games (we're not THAT sort of geek)... oh, and we don't cook, either, so if they HAVE to be here at dinner time and don't want to go out, they have to be satisfied with takeout. The REAL problem, though, is that my husband is a slob to a degree that would make Oscar Madison gasp in horror, and we don't have a Felix Unger here to clean up after him.
Although my husband PROMISED to not make our home a disaster area as part of our marriage agreement, it hasn't worked out that way, and the only times I can, with a LARGE amount of badgering, get him to do ANY cleaning are when someone is going to be coming over. Do the math; the house therefore only gets cleaned a few times a year.
I hasten to add here that all MY stuff is neatly put away, any mess *I* make is instantly cleaned up, and that MY "areas" of the house are immaculate; because he married me, as opposed to purchasing me at a slave auction, I flatly refuse to spend the hours it would take every day to eliminate HIS mess and filth, so... it just sits there (I've learned to deal with it, as the alternative is a padded cell).
If I told you how many person-hours it takes to prepare the house for a guest, you simply wouldn't believe it... and mind you, we keep all the bedroom doors closed, so we have less than half of the actual house to clean. Part of this endless parade of hours gets wasted by my husband constantly trying to argue his way out of individual tasks: "She isn't tall enough to see the top of the fridge, so there's no need to clean that" "She's as tall as I am, and *I* can see it, so clean it" "She won't be here long enough to use the bathroom, so there's no need to clean that" "She'll head for the bathroom the moment she gets in the door, so clean it" "He won't notice what the toilet bowl looks like" "ANYONE will notice a BLACK toilet bowl, so clean it" etc. Then, he always has to do it sloppily the first time around, leaving things NOT neat and clean, and so has to do it all again; no amount of pointing out that it's MUCH faster to just do it ONCE has had any effect as of yet. At all points in the cleanup, he has to be checked on to make sure he hasn't gotten "accidentally" distracted by the TV, a magazine, or floating dust motes and stopped making cleaning movements. {sigh}
Although I start fighting to get things cleaned up several days in advance, he's always sure that it will magically take far less time this time than all the other times, and far too much is left for the last day, leading to us staying up until 5AM cleaning, cursing and screaming at each other nonstop, so that the day of the visit finds us exhausted, stressed out and cranky as hell; is it any wonder we greet our guests with no joy in our hearts?
Having anyone here long enough to have to provide food for them adds a whole other level of aggravation; we have to go out and buy whatever drinks and snacks they like, since no one wants what we normally have, we have to make ice and find room for it in the freezer somehow (don't ask), and if they're going to have an actual meal we have to wash the dishes and silverware, rather than stashing it all in the (broken) dishwasher or oven, and make sure the microwave is cleaned out.
Because my husband refuses to wipe his feet before he comes in the house, and refuses to use the drip pans for the cars, our pale carpet is nearly BLACK in the main traffic areas; when he hauled away the piles of boxes and junk he'd had on every bit of carpet aside from the narrow paths through each room, the contrast in carpet color was so horrifying that we had to rent a Rug Doctor and make multiple passes with it to make the carpet presentable. (Note; my husband only agreed to this extra effort because our guests will be seeing our home for the first time, and they have a much nicer place than we do... and, because one of them is MALE, and he feels competitive with him.)
We still have a scary amount of stuff to do before they arrive tomorrow, including squaring away the mess on the patio and making the guest bathroom (which my husband uses) look less like something you'd find out behind a gas station and more like something decent people would be willing to enter without full hazmat gear. (No, *I* do NOT use that bathroom; MY bathroom is immaculate, but they'd have to go through the master bedroom to get to it, and that's out, so...)
Once they get here, guess what we'll all be doing? Sitting on the floor (we don't have a couch), holding junk food in our laps (no coffee table, either) watching movies THEY are bringing with them (because we don't buy movies). Makes you wonder what in the world they're thinking, wanting to get together HERE, doesn't it? It's just that they've never seen the place in all the time they've known us, so we sort of have to let them come in and look around... after which they'll be happy to just see us at THEIR house, or to meet us places, just like everyone else we know.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.........
Although my husband PROMISED to not make our home a disaster area as part of our marriage agreement, it hasn't worked out that way, and the only times I can, with a LARGE amount of badgering, get him to do ANY cleaning are when someone is going to be coming over. Do the math; the house therefore only gets cleaned a few times a year.
I hasten to add here that all MY stuff is neatly put away, any mess *I* make is instantly cleaned up, and that MY "areas" of the house are immaculate; because he married me, as opposed to purchasing me at a slave auction, I flatly refuse to spend the hours it would take every day to eliminate HIS mess and filth, so... it just sits there (I've learned to deal with it, as the alternative is a padded cell).
If I told you how many person-hours it takes to prepare the house for a guest, you simply wouldn't believe it... and mind you, we keep all the bedroom doors closed, so we have less than half of the actual house to clean. Part of this endless parade of hours gets wasted by my husband constantly trying to argue his way out of individual tasks: "She isn't tall enough to see the top of the fridge, so there's no need to clean that" "She's as tall as I am, and *I* can see it, so clean it" "She won't be here long enough to use the bathroom, so there's no need to clean that" "She'll head for the bathroom the moment she gets in the door, so clean it" "He won't notice what the toilet bowl looks like" "ANYONE will notice a BLACK toilet bowl, so clean it" etc. Then, he always has to do it sloppily the first time around, leaving things NOT neat and clean, and so has to do it all again; no amount of pointing out that it's MUCH faster to just do it ONCE has had any effect as of yet. At all points in the cleanup, he has to be checked on to make sure he hasn't gotten "accidentally" distracted by the TV, a magazine, or floating dust motes and stopped making cleaning movements. {sigh}
Although I start fighting to get things cleaned up several days in advance, he's always sure that it will magically take far less time this time than all the other times, and far too much is left for the last day, leading to us staying up until 5AM cleaning, cursing and screaming at each other nonstop, so that the day of the visit finds us exhausted, stressed out and cranky as hell; is it any wonder we greet our guests with no joy in our hearts?
Having anyone here long enough to have to provide food for them adds a whole other level of aggravation; we have to go out and buy whatever drinks and snacks they like, since no one wants what we normally have, we have to make ice and find room for it in the freezer somehow (don't ask), and if they're going to have an actual meal we have to wash the dishes and silverware, rather than stashing it all in the (broken) dishwasher or oven, and make sure the microwave is cleaned out.
Because my husband refuses to wipe his feet before he comes in the house, and refuses to use the drip pans for the cars, our pale carpet is nearly BLACK in the main traffic areas; when he hauled away the piles of boxes and junk he'd had on every bit of carpet aside from the narrow paths through each room, the contrast in carpet color was so horrifying that we had to rent a Rug Doctor and make multiple passes with it to make the carpet presentable. (Note; my husband only agreed to this extra effort because our guests will be seeing our home for the first time, and they have a much nicer place than we do... and, because one of them is MALE, and he feels competitive with him.)
We still have a scary amount of stuff to do before they arrive tomorrow, including squaring away the mess on the patio and making the guest bathroom (which my husband uses) look less like something you'd find out behind a gas station and more like something decent people would be willing to enter without full hazmat gear. (No, *I* do NOT use that bathroom; MY bathroom is immaculate, but they'd have to go through the master bedroom to get to it, and that's out, so...)
Once they get here, guess what we'll all be doing? Sitting on the floor (we don't have a couch), holding junk food in our laps (no coffee table, either) watching movies THEY are bringing with them (because we don't buy movies). Makes you wonder what in the world they're thinking, wanting to get together HERE, doesn't it? It's just that they've never seen the place in all the time they've known us, so we sort of have to let them come in and look around... after which they'll be happy to just see us at THEIR house, or to meet us places, just like everyone else we know.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.........
Friday, March 12, 2004
My experiences with the spirit of a friend
A dear friend of mine died tragically a few years ago; we'll call her Sarah. I've had 2 interactions with her spirit:
1) She passed away on a Thursday night, and I found out on Friday. Friday evening, I went to delete her from my ICQ; I clicked on the control to bring up the "Delete" screen, and then tried to click on the "button" to do the actual delete... and the button wouldn't work-it wouldn't "press down" and it did NOT delete her. I tried and tried, and then tried to Cancel out of the screen.... and THAT wouldn't work either. Then, I tried to use my File menu to Quit out of ICQ, and it wouldn't even do THAT, which shouldn't have been POSSIBLE; none of those things had EVER happened to me in my 2 years of constantly using ICQ.
At that point, I realized what was causing the problems, and I sat back and talked to Sarah; I told her I loved her, and missed her, and hoped that she was OK, and that I would NEVER forget her or stop caring about her. After that, I called my husband in and told him what had happened, and he FREAKED, even though as a rule he does NOT believe in this sort of thing; once he'd recovered, he did some sort of command that got the Delete screen to go away, and then I was able to Quit out of ICQ, reload it and, regretfully, delete Sarah.
2) Sarah had been in an online club of mine, and I had left her on the member list even after her death. When I had to switch the club to a new site, I spent many hours copying and transferring posts without incident, UNTIL I tried to bring up the last post of Sarah's; the system refused to load the page, even after a dozen tries. I tried to bring up other posts that were linked to hers, so as to get to it indirectly; no dice, they all failed, and nothing like that had EVER happened in 2 years of using that system. So, as I did when I wasn't able to delete her from ICQ, I stopped and talked to her, and told her how much I loved and missed her. I closed the window, re-logged-in, and was able to proceed normally. I didn't think it was a coincidence the first time, and I sure as shootin' don't think it was the 2nd time, either.... it was SARAH.
Are you still with me, Sarah? If you are, know that you are still in my heart and thoughts, and that every time I read about someone who shows extraordinary courage under hideous circumstances, I remember the awe I felt watching you deal gracefully with more than one person should ever be asked to endure. I hope that wherever you are you have found as much joy as the human spirit can absorb. Much love, dear friend...
1) She passed away on a Thursday night, and I found out on Friday. Friday evening, I went to delete her from my ICQ; I clicked on the control to bring up the "Delete" screen, and then tried to click on the "button" to do the actual delete... and the button wouldn't work-it wouldn't "press down" and it did NOT delete her. I tried and tried, and then tried to Cancel out of the screen.... and THAT wouldn't work either. Then, I tried to use my File menu to Quit out of ICQ, and it wouldn't even do THAT, which shouldn't have been POSSIBLE; none of those things had EVER happened to me in my 2 years of constantly using ICQ.
At that point, I realized what was causing the problems, and I sat back and talked to Sarah; I told her I loved her, and missed her, and hoped that she was OK, and that I would NEVER forget her or stop caring about her. After that, I called my husband in and told him what had happened, and he FREAKED, even though as a rule he does NOT believe in this sort of thing; once he'd recovered, he did some sort of command that got the Delete screen to go away, and then I was able to Quit out of ICQ, reload it and, regretfully, delete Sarah.
2) Sarah had been in an online club of mine, and I had left her on the member list even after her death. When I had to switch the club to a new site, I spent many hours copying and transferring posts without incident, UNTIL I tried to bring up the last post of Sarah's; the system refused to load the page, even after a dozen tries. I tried to bring up other posts that were linked to hers, so as to get to it indirectly; no dice, they all failed, and nothing like that had EVER happened in 2 years of using that system. So, as I did when I wasn't able to delete her from ICQ, I stopped and talked to her, and told her how much I loved and missed her. I closed the window, re-logged-in, and was able to proceed normally. I didn't think it was a coincidence the first time, and I sure as shootin' don't think it was the 2nd time, either.... it was SARAH.
Are you still with me, Sarah? If you are, know that you are still in my heart and thoughts, and that every time I read about someone who shows extraordinary courage under hideous circumstances, I remember the awe I felt watching you deal gracefully with more than one person should ever be asked to endure. I hope that wherever you are you have found as much joy as the human spirit can absorb. Much love, dear friend...
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Vampires
If you've been watching "Mad Mad House" on the Scifi Channel, you've seen "Don the vampire"; if your tastes are as warped as mine, you've also seen that he's a BABE. In any case, he got me thinking about, er, things that I won't post in a public place, lol, and also about the origins of the vampire myth.
Don refers to the drinking of blood as a way to "feed" on people's life force; I don't know if it's POSSIBLE to do that, via blood or any other way, but it's an interesting, science-fictiony concept, this idea of one being being able to drain energy directly from another... if it's actually possible, let's hope Bill Gates never learns how to do it. In any case, Don ties all this up with exploring, reaching higher levels of consciousness and so forth, which could be all BS, or could be the whole point of it for him, and the gothic trappings just put it in a framework that makes it easier for his mind to open; we'll never know, that much I AM sure of.
The modern, New Age-y "vampires" bear little resemblance to the traditional ones, which is probably because the traditional ones are supposed to have powers that these folks lack. What most people don't realize is that the idea of the vampire is based on REAL human beings; they didn't have supernatural powers, they weren't undead, and it had nothing to do with having been bitten-they had a rare medical condition called porphyria.
Porphyria is a genetic disorder (technically, a group of disorders), in which the victims can't metabolize iron without an enzyme found in, you guessed it, BLOOD... and so of course they'd crave blood, which has the enzyme and alot of iron. The extreme cases that led to the vampire myth, that are thought to have appeared in an unusual # (since they are all rare disorders) for a while in the countries where the myth originated, would lead to the victims having a particularly hideous form of anemia, and intense photosensitivity in the skin due to how ultraviolet light interacts with the chemicals that build up in their blood.
The victims would be horribly burned by sunlight. They would be VERY white due to their total avoidance of the sun and their anemia. Their gums would recede, giving them the appearance of fangs, and the gums would bleed, making their mouths seem bloody even if they hadn't consumed blood. Their eyes would be sunken and bloodshot. Their skins would be super-sensitive to many chemicals, such as those found in, what else, garlic. Their urine would be dark red, leading to the belief that they excreted blood rather than normal bodily fluids. They would DRINK blood for the enzymes and the iron, although generally the blood of animals (which they'd have killed to eat), as they'd lack the strength to kill a healthy person for the most part. And, they would often become crazy, and behave accordingly.
Sounds like a pretty good description of the classic vampire, doesn't it?
How many other things that you've dismissed as pure fantasy have a basis in reality, do you suppose?
Don refers to the drinking of blood as a way to "feed" on people's life force; I don't know if it's POSSIBLE to do that, via blood or any other way, but it's an interesting, science-fictiony concept, this idea of one being being able to drain energy directly from another... if it's actually possible, let's hope Bill Gates never learns how to do it. In any case, Don ties all this up with exploring, reaching higher levels of consciousness and so forth, which could be all BS, or could be the whole point of it for him, and the gothic trappings just put it in a framework that makes it easier for his mind to open; we'll never know, that much I AM sure of.
The modern, New Age-y "vampires" bear little resemblance to the traditional ones, which is probably because the traditional ones are supposed to have powers that these folks lack. What most people don't realize is that the idea of the vampire is based on REAL human beings; they didn't have supernatural powers, they weren't undead, and it had nothing to do with having been bitten-they had a rare medical condition called porphyria.
Porphyria is a genetic disorder (technically, a group of disorders), in which the victims can't metabolize iron without an enzyme found in, you guessed it, BLOOD... and so of course they'd crave blood, which has the enzyme and alot of iron. The extreme cases that led to the vampire myth, that are thought to have appeared in an unusual # (since they are all rare disorders) for a while in the countries where the myth originated, would lead to the victims having a particularly hideous form of anemia, and intense photosensitivity in the skin due to how ultraviolet light interacts with the chemicals that build up in their blood.
The victims would be horribly burned by sunlight. They would be VERY white due to their total avoidance of the sun and their anemia. Their gums would recede, giving them the appearance of fangs, and the gums would bleed, making their mouths seem bloody even if they hadn't consumed blood. Their eyes would be sunken and bloodshot. Their skins would be super-sensitive to many chemicals, such as those found in, what else, garlic. Their urine would be dark red, leading to the belief that they excreted blood rather than normal bodily fluids. They would DRINK blood for the enzymes and the iron, although generally the blood of animals (which they'd have killed to eat), as they'd lack the strength to kill a healthy person for the most part. And, they would often become crazy, and behave accordingly.
Sounds like a pretty good description of the classic vampire, doesn't it?
How many other things that you've dismissed as pure fantasy have a basis in reality, do you suppose?
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
The karmic reward for making the right choice
I've seen over and over that, if I make the right choice about something, karma will send me a reward within 48 hours, and this reward will be something outside of my control, something unexpected, and usually something that has some sort of relation to the original issue.
I made the right decision a couple of days ago, to do what I could to make it harder for an eBay seller to screw over other customers, and in response, karma sent me something mind-boggling; I got an email from eBay in reference to a seller who had cheated us but in a way that eBay declines to get involved with, thus letting the criminal keep all the $ and keep selling on eBay... but, the rarest thing in the world had happened, and one of the customer service people had noticed something in my original message that pointed to the breaking of an eBay rule I hadn't even known about by this seller, and had actually forwarded my message to someone who could DO something about it!! When's the last time you saw ANYONE go out of their way to take a problem to another department, or even NOTICE any problem outside of what they're paid to handle?
The rule in question is about not using feedback to try to force someone to take a certain action; eBay calls this sort of behavior "feedback EXTORTION," if you can believe THAT, and it turns out that they consider this a BIG crime (even though they don't think theft and fraud are worth worrying about), so much so that this infraction will probably cost the seller her eBay account. She had promised a partial, PARTIAL, refund for the damaged sweater, but only if I gave her a + feedback first; I'm guessing that she's going to be wishing she'd just handed over a full refund right off the bat like ANY decent seller would.
Karma is a wonderful thing, ahhhhhhhh....
I made the right decision a couple of days ago, to do what I could to make it harder for an eBay seller to screw over other customers, and in response, karma sent me something mind-boggling; I got an email from eBay in reference to a seller who had cheated us but in a way that eBay declines to get involved with, thus letting the criminal keep all the $ and keep selling on eBay... but, the rarest thing in the world had happened, and one of the customer service people had noticed something in my original message that pointed to the breaking of an eBay rule I hadn't even known about by this seller, and had actually forwarded my message to someone who could DO something about it!! When's the last time you saw ANYONE go out of their way to take a problem to another department, or even NOTICE any problem outside of what they're paid to handle?
The rule in question is about not using feedback to try to force someone to take a certain action; eBay calls this sort of behavior "feedback EXTORTION," if you can believe THAT, and it turns out that they consider this a BIG crime (even though they don't think theft and fraud are worth worrying about), so much so that this infraction will probably cost the seller her eBay account. She had promised a partial, PARTIAL, refund for the damaged sweater, but only if I gave her a + feedback first; I'm guessing that she's going to be wishing she'd just handed over a full refund right off the bat like ANY decent seller would.
Karma is a wonderful thing, ahhhhhhhh....
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
What's in a name?
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet... right?
I'm endlessly astounded by women who make a big issue about what last name they'll have after they get married, as if a last name were anything other than a way for us to keep track of who's related to who. Why on Earth would you WANT to marry someone that you're unwilling to share a last name with? What more basic thing is there to share with someone you're taking to be your closest relative than their last name?
Yes, I've heard the arguments from women about giving up "their name," and about how taking a man's name is supposed to be somehow bad, by symbolizing what used to be a switch in "ownership" of the woman from her father to her husband, but, remember, the last name that the woman starts out with is NOT "her name," it's her FATHER'S name, in other words a MAN'S name, so what will she accomplish if she hangs onto the name of the man who originally gave her one, which was traditionally as much of a symbol of her being "owned" and controlled by men as taking her husband's name would be?
If she takes her mother's maiden name, she's STILL getting the name from another person, so it's NOT "her name," and where did her mother get the name from? HER father, a MAN, so this just moves the male origin of the name back one generation, and STILL doesn't escape the whole concept of having a man's name.
The only way to have your OWN name is if you choose a name and legally adopt it. The only way to "inherit" a name that didn't come from a man, if you don't live in one of the cultures where the woman's name is passed to the children (some Hispanic cultures do this, for example), is if your mother or some other female relative legally chose a whole new name and passed it along a female-only line until it got to YOU. Given that, why get hysterical over whether your last name comes from the man who provided half of your DNA or the man you're married to?
As for the whole idea of hyphenating, I think George Carlin said it best; "Pick one name or the other, you pretentious bitch!!" This goes for couples where BOTH of them hyphenate, too; leave that for those so wealthy and powerful that their last names actually MEAN something to society... YOUR last name is NOT so important that it has to be preserved at the cost of making it overly complicated to refer to you. I remember my husband telling me he'd rather take MY last name than have any hyphenation, and I couldn't agree more; marriage is 2 becoming one, and that means ONE last name, whichever last name you choose... or, if you create a whole new one, that's even better, as it would belong uniquely to the 2 of you.
If you don't like the cultural expectation that the woman has to be the one to change names, grow up; our culture expects the man to risk his life to save yours if the situation calls for it, and to do all the difficult and icky tasks of life (yes, you're perfectly capable of taking out the garbage, changing the oil in your car, mowing the lawn and killing that rat that got caught in the trap, but every man accepts that he SHOULD do these tasks as part of his service to you), so it's not asking too much that YOU undergo the work of a name change if only one of you has to do it... quite aside from the fact that if HE changes HIS name he'll endure all sorts of teasing and carping, AND that, at least in many states, it's free for the woman to change her name but costs a big chunk of change for the man to change his.
So please, ladies, quit making a stink about the perfectly logical expectation that a married couple will share a last name as well as everything else in their lives, quit making it hard to tell if you're actually married to a man or not, quit confusing your kids and their teachers, etc, as to who their parents are based on their last names, and quit glopping your names up with hyphenation; pick ONE last name to share as a married couple, and save your battles about stuff in the realm of "being a modern, independent woman" for things that actually MATTER.
I'm endlessly astounded by women who make a big issue about what last name they'll have after they get married, as if a last name were anything other than a way for us to keep track of who's related to who. Why on Earth would you WANT to marry someone that you're unwilling to share a last name with? What more basic thing is there to share with someone you're taking to be your closest relative than their last name?
Yes, I've heard the arguments from women about giving up "their name," and about how taking a man's name is supposed to be somehow bad, by symbolizing what used to be a switch in "ownership" of the woman from her father to her husband, but, remember, the last name that the woman starts out with is NOT "her name," it's her FATHER'S name, in other words a MAN'S name, so what will she accomplish if she hangs onto the name of the man who originally gave her one, which was traditionally as much of a symbol of her being "owned" and controlled by men as taking her husband's name would be?
If she takes her mother's maiden name, she's STILL getting the name from another person, so it's NOT "her name," and where did her mother get the name from? HER father, a MAN, so this just moves the male origin of the name back one generation, and STILL doesn't escape the whole concept of having a man's name.
The only way to have your OWN name is if you choose a name and legally adopt it. The only way to "inherit" a name that didn't come from a man, if you don't live in one of the cultures where the woman's name is passed to the children (some Hispanic cultures do this, for example), is if your mother or some other female relative legally chose a whole new name and passed it along a female-only line until it got to YOU. Given that, why get hysterical over whether your last name comes from the man who provided half of your DNA or the man you're married to?
As for the whole idea of hyphenating, I think George Carlin said it best; "Pick one name or the other, you pretentious bitch!!" This goes for couples where BOTH of them hyphenate, too; leave that for those so wealthy and powerful that their last names actually MEAN something to society... YOUR last name is NOT so important that it has to be preserved at the cost of making it overly complicated to refer to you. I remember my husband telling me he'd rather take MY last name than have any hyphenation, and I couldn't agree more; marriage is 2 becoming one, and that means ONE last name, whichever last name you choose... or, if you create a whole new one, that's even better, as it would belong uniquely to the 2 of you.
If you don't like the cultural expectation that the woman has to be the one to change names, grow up; our culture expects the man to risk his life to save yours if the situation calls for it, and to do all the difficult and icky tasks of life (yes, you're perfectly capable of taking out the garbage, changing the oil in your car, mowing the lawn and killing that rat that got caught in the trap, but every man accepts that he SHOULD do these tasks as part of his service to you), so it's not asking too much that YOU undergo the work of a name change if only one of you has to do it... quite aside from the fact that if HE changes HIS name he'll endure all sorts of teasing and carping, AND that, at least in many states, it's free for the woman to change her name but costs a big chunk of change for the man to change his.
So please, ladies, quit making a stink about the perfectly logical expectation that a married couple will share a last name as well as everything else in their lives, quit making it hard to tell if you're actually married to a man or not, quit confusing your kids and their teachers, etc, as to who their parents are based on their last names, and quit glopping your names up with hyphenation; pick ONE last name to share as a married couple, and save your battles about stuff in the realm of "being a modern, independent woman" for things that actually MATTER.
Trying to find the right karmic path
What comes around goes around (aka what goes around comes around); this is the most basic way to explain the standard view of karma-what you send out is what you get back.
What gets confusing is when negative action taken against one person benefits another person, or many people, especially if YOU aren't going to personally benefit; for example, if the guy who beat your friend up when they went out starts sniffing around some other friend, if you warn her that's negative to him, but will likely save HER from getting hit... so is telling bad or good, karmically speaking?
Sadly, there's no manual to guide us; we have to use common sense and instinct and try to do what seems most right... and it won't hurt that that very intention gets you positivity points. Don't kid yourself if you just want to be vengeful by trying to seem altruistic, but DO think about how that negativity could bounce right back to YOU.... like if the battering man has secret info on YOU that he could spill if you tell on HIM.
I had a karmic quandary today, when time had run out to leave feedback for a seller on eBay who had screwed us BADLY; he had already left - feedback for US (UNdeservedly, of course, sigh), so there was nothing more he could do to us, and there's no reason to think he'd be any less quick to screw OTHER sellers, especially since what he wrecked OUR feedback rating for was a $2 item... BUT, his feedback rating was currently still low enough that a - feedback would have a significant impact, especially since he was at 100% positive.
My husband's take on ANY time he's shit on by anyone is to just let it slide, and often to kiss up to them in the bargain; since he has no real friends, and his few semi-friends all like ME better, obviously this is NOT the best way to handle people, either karmically or psychologically, and believe me I have taken note of that on both counts. In the past, we have held back from leaving - feedback because of the fear, or rather the near-certainty, of retaliatory - feedback, but this time it wasn't an issue, so I pointed out to my husband how grossly this seller had ignored the procedures eBay says to follow before leaving - feedback and stuck to it while he hemmed, hawed, and finally shrugged and said for me to do whatever I wanted to.
Which I did; I took GREAT pleasure in leaving - feedback for the twit who caused so much stress and upset, and lowering his feedback level from 100% to 98.6%, which is VERY low by eBay standards... I'm just sorry I can't see his FACE when he sees what the result of his actions has turned out to be. If this reduces the benefit I get from taking the correct action, that's OK; it's so rare to be able to personally be able to make sure that a wrongdoer gets his just desserts that it's worth it!! :-)
What gets confusing is when negative action taken against one person benefits another person, or many people, especially if YOU aren't going to personally benefit; for example, if the guy who beat your friend up when they went out starts sniffing around some other friend, if you warn her that's negative to him, but will likely save HER from getting hit... so is telling bad or good, karmically speaking?
Sadly, there's no manual to guide us; we have to use common sense and instinct and try to do what seems most right... and it won't hurt that that very intention gets you positivity points. Don't kid yourself if you just want to be vengeful by trying to seem altruistic, but DO think about how that negativity could bounce right back to YOU.... like if the battering man has secret info on YOU that he could spill if you tell on HIM.
I had a karmic quandary today, when time had run out to leave feedback for a seller on eBay who had screwed us BADLY; he had already left - feedback for US (UNdeservedly, of course, sigh), so there was nothing more he could do to us, and there's no reason to think he'd be any less quick to screw OTHER sellers, especially since what he wrecked OUR feedback rating for was a $2 item... BUT, his feedback rating was currently still low enough that a - feedback would have a significant impact, especially since he was at 100% positive.
My husband's take on ANY time he's shit on by anyone is to just let it slide, and often to kiss up to them in the bargain; since he has no real friends, and his few semi-friends all like ME better, obviously this is NOT the best way to handle people, either karmically or psychologically, and believe me I have taken note of that on both counts. In the past, we have held back from leaving - feedback because of the fear, or rather the near-certainty, of retaliatory - feedback, but this time it wasn't an issue, so I pointed out to my husband how grossly this seller had ignored the procedures eBay says to follow before leaving - feedback and stuck to it while he hemmed, hawed, and finally shrugged and said for me to do whatever I wanted to.
Which I did; I took GREAT pleasure in leaving - feedback for the twit who caused so much stress and upset, and lowering his feedback level from 100% to 98.6%, which is VERY low by eBay standards... I'm just sorry I can't see his FACE when he sees what the result of his actions has turned out to be. If this reduces the benefit I get from taking the correct action, that's OK; it's so rare to be able to personally be able to make sure that a wrongdoer gets his just desserts that it's worth it!! :-)
Sunday, March 07, 2004
Pet Peeves
Like everyone, I have quite a few-here are some of my current "favorites":
1) People who ring the doorbell and then instantly KNOCK; each of these things is intended to summon the occupants within to the door, and each does that perfectly well, so what bonus do you get from doing BOTH?
2) People who say "feel" when they mean "think," because they think that saying "feel" makes their comment more powerful and harder to argue with, never grasping that by using a word in a totally wrong way they sound like morons. Feelings are things like anger, sadness and fear; a line like "I feel that all people should receive free healthcare," does NOT describe a feeling, and to use the word "feel" like that is just plain WRONG, no matter how strongly you "feel" about the subject.
3) People who, upon hearing/reading you make an intelligent and factually-based point, jump in and say/post something so stupid that you can't believe they said it; a recent example of such a rebuttal was the claim that psych meds won't help unless the person taking them is also in therapy... as if the meds are magic, and won't affect the body unless they "know" that the person who took them is going to a therapist.
4) The tech support departments of virtually every company that provides an online service; they are apparently all given training to respond to EVERY bug report by telling you to delete all your cookies (and thus have to re-login to every site you visit), and/or to blame your computer, browser, etc, even if you include the fact that ONLY their site has this bug, and that it does it with all your browsers, and that you already deleted all your cookies... it's nearly impossible to get them to admit that their own site is nearly always the reason the user had a problem.
5) People who have no relationship, and often have NEVER had a successful long-term relationship, who advise everyone within range about THEIR relationships.
6) People who, upon hearing you say that you like or dislike something, instantly try to prompt you to say the opposite: "I hate beer" "But don't you think that beer tastes wonderful?" "I love dogs" "But don't you think that dogs are stupid?"... and somehow they think this is more polite than ridiculing you directly.
7) People who fail to grasp the difference between a fact and an opinion, especially when they feel free to argue any facts you give, but want their opinions to be treated as inarguable facts.
8) People who rarely initiate the contact between the 2 of you who, when you haven't bothered with them in a while, take a scolding tone with you about how long it's been since you called/wrote/IMed them, even if THEY haven't made the effort in months or YEARS.
9) People who think that their own personal experience counts for more than what has been scientifically and/or statistically proven for the vast majority of people; sorry, you're just NOT more important than the thousands of people who had a different experience.
10) People who believe every ridiculous email they get claiming that some kid dying of cancer needs them to forward the email, or that AOL will pay them to forward the email, or that signing an online petition will accomplish something, especially in another country.... and who then forward this garbage to ME.... and who are insulted and outraged when I point out that what they forwarded is a hoax, along with a URL to the article on http://www.snopes2.com/ which proves that it's a hoax.
Gosh, it feels good to vent!! :-)
1) People who ring the doorbell and then instantly KNOCK; each of these things is intended to summon the occupants within to the door, and each does that perfectly well, so what bonus do you get from doing BOTH?
2) People who say "feel" when they mean "think," because they think that saying "feel" makes their comment more powerful and harder to argue with, never grasping that by using a word in a totally wrong way they sound like morons. Feelings are things like anger, sadness and fear; a line like "I feel that all people should receive free healthcare," does NOT describe a feeling, and to use the word "feel" like that is just plain WRONG, no matter how strongly you "feel" about the subject.
3) People who, upon hearing/reading you make an intelligent and factually-based point, jump in and say/post something so stupid that you can't believe they said it; a recent example of such a rebuttal was the claim that psych meds won't help unless the person taking them is also in therapy... as if the meds are magic, and won't affect the body unless they "know" that the person who took them is going to a therapist.
4) The tech support departments of virtually every company that provides an online service; they are apparently all given training to respond to EVERY bug report by telling you to delete all your cookies (and thus have to re-login to every site you visit), and/or to blame your computer, browser, etc, even if you include the fact that ONLY their site has this bug, and that it does it with all your browsers, and that you already deleted all your cookies... it's nearly impossible to get them to admit that their own site is nearly always the reason the user had a problem.
5) People who have no relationship, and often have NEVER had a successful long-term relationship, who advise everyone within range about THEIR relationships.
6) People who, upon hearing you say that you like or dislike something, instantly try to prompt you to say the opposite: "I hate beer" "But don't you think that beer tastes wonderful?" "I love dogs" "But don't you think that dogs are stupid?"... and somehow they think this is more polite than ridiculing you directly.
7) People who fail to grasp the difference between a fact and an opinion, especially when they feel free to argue any facts you give, but want their opinions to be treated as inarguable facts.
8) People who rarely initiate the contact between the 2 of you who, when you haven't bothered with them in a while, take a scolding tone with you about how long it's been since you called/wrote/IMed them, even if THEY haven't made the effort in months or YEARS.
9) People who think that their own personal experience counts for more than what has been scientifically and/or statistically proven for the vast majority of people; sorry, you're just NOT more important than the thousands of people who had a different experience.
10) People who believe every ridiculous email they get claiming that some kid dying of cancer needs them to forward the email, or that AOL will pay them to forward the email, or that signing an online petition will accomplish something, especially in another country.... and who then forward this garbage to ME.... and who are insulted and outraged when I point out that what they forwarded is a hoax, along with a URL to the article on http://www.snopes2.com/ which proves that it's a hoax.
Gosh, it feels good to vent!! :-)
Saturday, March 06, 2004
Cause and effect
There's a school of thought amongst believers in karma (in the broad sense that includes science, particularly quantum physics) that time doesn't actually exist, that it's something we invented to explain duration and change, based on the way our brains work. In a related thought, there are questions as to whether cause and effect exist; if there's not really any time, the answer is of course no, but even if time really is more than how the chemicals in our brains allow us to perceive how things in the universe don't all happen at once, cause and effect may in fact be an illusion, at least some of the time.
Because precognition exists, we know that the immediate future at the very least is pretty close to being set in stone in most particulars; given that, it's not to hard to imagine that, with the low-grade psychic ability that everyone has at the very least, we sense that something is about to happen and "go with the flow" and take the actions that will cause that event, as described in endless scifi stories, or take action that is most beneficial to us because we know what events are coming up, which is often called "instinct" or "I had a feeling"... but, since we take the action BEFORE the event, which is the cause and which is the effect? Is something in the future the cause of an event in the past? If precognition is taking place, and you act on it, then yes, the effect comes BEFORE the cause, in the same way that you hear the echo of a sound before you hear the sound itself under some circumstances.
Time may exist, but it's not just a one-way line; if it was, we couldn't see even one second into the future. What shape or form is it, then? I visualize it as sort of like traveling through uneven terrain in a heavy fog; you can go in many directions, but the farther away your destination is (in time or space) the vaguer it is, and the harder it is to get there, because the fog shifts and changes and you can't always see the goal or the path to it... but at times the fog lifts and you can see well ahead with perfect clarity. Time would therefore consist of, or be created from, or perhaps be controlled by, the energy of karma in a somewhat undefined state that solidifies 100% the moment before you enter it.
I truly think that what we label cause and effect is often backwards, but because most people don't believe in karma or the existence of the future, what else can they go by but linear time? I have a friend who's convinced that he caused an earthquake because he had all these intense earthquake thoughts moments before a quake occurred, and he won't accept that he had those thoughts BECAUSE the earthquake was coming, rather than having somehow generated the power to shake the earth within his own head.
In the realm of quantum physics, cause and effect as we understand it just doesn't exist; the outcome of experiments often depends on what the probability is that someone is watching, for example. Since this is a thoroughly-proven scientific fact, why is it so hard for people to accept that cause and effect are less certain than we think OUTSIDE of the quantum realm as well? Next time you find yourself taking actions based on "instinct" or "a feeling," pay attention to what happens and ask yourself..... what was REALLY the cause, and what was REALLY the effect?
Because precognition exists, we know that the immediate future at the very least is pretty close to being set in stone in most particulars; given that, it's not to hard to imagine that, with the low-grade psychic ability that everyone has at the very least, we sense that something is about to happen and "go with the flow" and take the actions that will cause that event, as described in endless scifi stories, or take action that is most beneficial to us because we know what events are coming up, which is often called "instinct" or "I had a feeling"... but, since we take the action BEFORE the event, which is the cause and which is the effect? Is something in the future the cause of an event in the past? If precognition is taking place, and you act on it, then yes, the effect comes BEFORE the cause, in the same way that you hear the echo of a sound before you hear the sound itself under some circumstances.
Time may exist, but it's not just a one-way line; if it was, we couldn't see even one second into the future. What shape or form is it, then? I visualize it as sort of like traveling through uneven terrain in a heavy fog; you can go in many directions, but the farther away your destination is (in time or space) the vaguer it is, and the harder it is to get there, because the fog shifts and changes and you can't always see the goal or the path to it... but at times the fog lifts and you can see well ahead with perfect clarity. Time would therefore consist of, or be created from, or perhaps be controlled by, the energy of karma in a somewhat undefined state that solidifies 100% the moment before you enter it.
I truly think that what we label cause and effect is often backwards, but because most people don't believe in karma or the existence of the future, what else can they go by but linear time? I have a friend who's convinced that he caused an earthquake because he had all these intense earthquake thoughts moments before a quake occurred, and he won't accept that he had those thoughts BECAUSE the earthquake was coming, rather than having somehow generated the power to shake the earth within his own head.
In the realm of quantum physics, cause and effect as we understand it just doesn't exist; the outcome of experiments often depends on what the probability is that someone is watching, for example. Since this is a thoroughly-proven scientific fact, why is it so hard for people to accept that cause and effect are less certain than we think OUTSIDE of the quantum realm as well? Next time you find yourself taking actions based on "instinct" or "a feeling," pay attention to what happens and ask yourself..... what was REALLY the cause, and what was REALLY the effect?
Friday, March 05, 2004
Supertasters unite!!
Ever since I mentioned being a supertaster a while back, I've been planning to circle an essay around it; the topic came up several times in the past few days in my offline life, so now looks like a good time.
I've always hated the term "picky eater," as it makes it sound like the person so named is CHOOSING to not eat certain things, not because they taste horrible, but just from being a prissy, finicky person... that's certainly what people have labored to tell ME about my long list of food dislikes my entire life, because "it's just not possible for anyone to not think THIS is tasty." {sigh}
One of the greatest days of my life came when science gave me the answer; it turns out that we vary WIDELY in how many tastebuds we have, and therefore the same food can taste totally different to different people... which *I* of course could have told them all along. Those of us with far more taste buds than average, particularly those taste buds that detect bitterness, are called "supertasters"; most people are within the "normal" range, and are called "tasters," and another 25% or so of people have significantly FEWER taste buds than average, and are called "nontasters."
Supertasters tend to have an aversion to foods and beverages with an element of bitterness in them, such as vegetables (particularly cruciferous ones), alcohol, coffee, tea, aged cheese, dark chocolate and many spices, and often also to things that are too sweet or too fatty. Because salt reduces your perception of bitterness, supertasters often use alot of it, and we also often like sour things, as sourness can "cut" sweetness and richness in foods to make them more palatable, and also deflects the perception of bitterness.
I remember with great pleasure the day when I was able to prove to my family that my "picky eating" was NOT the result of some sort of character flaw or moral failing, but based on the physical structure of my tongue; the foods I hated, my heavy use of salt, my love of sour, my dislike of things that were too sweet, my intensive dissection of my meat to eliminate every scrap of fat... all of it was spelled out in the article I quoted triumphantly from, and in the articles I've seen since then and rubbed their noses in.
If there are any parents reading this, and your kids seem to be rejecting foods in the pattern I've described, please, PLEASE don't make them spend their entire childhood with you force-feeding them foods they hate because you think they "should" like them... you're inflicting truly grim punishment on them when they haven't done anything wrong. None of the foods they dislike are necessary for them to eat to be healthy, with the partial exception of veggies, and that can be made up for with fruit consumption, with putting lemon or a tasty sauce on the veggies to make them palatable, or, if nothing else, by taking vitamins; you wouldn't ask an adult to gag down foods they hate, and you shouldn't ask a child to either.
I wish someone has told my parents all this so that I wouldn't have spent my early life DREADING going down to dinner because I hated everything my mother cooked (I'm convinced that both of my parents were nontasters, which is the supertaster child's worst nightmare), and becoming unhealthily attached to junk food because it was the only food I got that tasted GOOD. I've spent alot of time since getting married trying to get a better diet, discovering that I don't actually hate chicken, just the bitter sauces my mother cooked it with, that fruit is really good, especially things like berries (the tarter the better) that my mother was too cheap to ever get, and that I don't have to have a heart attack that every new food means some new form of taste torture because other people don't make food with the intensely bad flavors my parents preferred (and no one badgers me if I taste something and don't like it-people actually, GASP, make an effort to give me food I like).
I often wish that there were more foods in the world that I liked, and that I could eat in any restaurant rather than in the few that have acceptable foods on the menu, but supertasters are usually slim because so few foods interest us, and the older I get the more I value that. Also, when I discover something I like, it's very exciting; if you're a supertaster, try my new favorite, Altoids Tangerine Sours. :-)
I've always hated the term "picky eater," as it makes it sound like the person so named is CHOOSING to not eat certain things, not because they taste horrible, but just from being a prissy, finicky person... that's certainly what people have labored to tell ME about my long list of food dislikes my entire life, because "it's just not possible for anyone to not think THIS is tasty." {sigh}
One of the greatest days of my life came when science gave me the answer; it turns out that we vary WIDELY in how many tastebuds we have, and therefore the same food can taste totally different to different people... which *I* of course could have told them all along. Those of us with far more taste buds than average, particularly those taste buds that detect bitterness, are called "supertasters"; most people are within the "normal" range, and are called "tasters," and another 25% or so of people have significantly FEWER taste buds than average, and are called "nontasters."
Supertasters tend to have an aversion to foods and beverages with an element of bitterness in them, such as vegetables (particularly cruciferous ones), alcohol, coffee, tea, aged cheese, dark chocolate and many spices, and often also to things that are too sweet or too fatty. Because salt reduces your perception of bitterness, supertasters often use alot of it, and we also often like sour things, as sourness can "cut" sweetness and richness in foods to make them more palatable, and also deflects the perception of bitterness.
I remember with great pleasure the day when I was able to prove to my family that my "picky eating" was NOT the result of some sort of character flaw or moral failing, but based on the physical structure of my tongue; the foods I hated, my heavy use of salt, my love of sour, my dislike of things that were too sweet, my intensive dissection of my meat to eliminate every scrap of fat... all of it was spelled out in the article I quoted triumphantly from, and in the articles I've seen since then and rubbed their noses in.
If there are any parents reading this, and your kids seem to be rejecting foods in the pattern I've described, please, PLEASE don't make them spend their entire childhood with you force-feeding them foods they hate because you think they "should" like them... you're inflicting truly grim punishment on them when they haven't done anything wrong. None of the foods they dislike are necessary for them to eat to be healthy, with the partial exception of veggies, and that can be made up for with fruit consumption, with putting lemon or a tasty sauce on the veggies to make them palatable, or, if nothing else, by taking vitamins; you wouldn't ask an adult to gag down foods they hate, and you shouldn't ask a child to either.
I wish someone has told my parents all this so that I wouldn't have spent my early life DREADING going down to dinner because I hated everything my mother cooked (I'm convinced that both of my parents were nontasters, which is the supertaster child's worst nightmare), and becoming unhealthily attached to junk food because it was the only food I got that tasted GOOD. I've spent alot of time since getting married trying to get a better diet, discovering that I don't actually hate chicken, just the bitter sauces my mother cooked it with, that fruit is really good, especially things like berries (the tarter the better) that my mother was too cheap to ever get, and that I don't have to have a heart attack that every new food means some new form of taste torture because other people don't make food with the intensely bad flavors my parents preferred (and no one badgers me if I taste something and don't like it-people actually, GASP, make an effort to give me food I like).
I often wish that there were more foods in the world that I liked, and that I could eat in any restaurant rather than in the few that have acceptable foods on the menu, but supertasters are usually slim because so few foods interest us, and the older I get the more I value that. Also, when I discover something I like, it's very exciting; if you're a supertaster, try my new favorite, Altoids Tangerine Sours. :-)
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Karma can be VERY specific
Last night before bed, as part of a rambling train of thought, I remembered a guy I knew briefly years ago, who had had a grim case of rosacea, and, although he'd had it for YEARS, he was still ignorant enough about it to pronounce it "roh-say-ah" instead of the correct way, "roh-say-shah"... it drove me crazy, not just because of the mispronunciation but because it was an unsightly medical condition and so naturally I didn't think it would be too nice of me to correct him and undoubtedly have to ARGUE with him about it, as of course he'd he sure HE was saying it right-I REALLY had to bite my tongue.
I then remembered when the company my husband was working for was designing some printed materials for a cream to treat rosacea, and the people in the office got into a heated disagreement as to how to spell it (it is often misspelled "rosaceae") which apparently wasn't solved by checking the references, as the spellings were inconsistent; they actually called me at home to ask me to drag out the Oxford Unabridged and verify which spelling was right.
I didn't think any more about it until I was refreshing madly on the recent-posts page, looking for new blogs to read, as I do pitifully often, and a blog came up that was titled "Rosaceae" (this is an actual word, it turns out, and describes a plant in the raspberry family, as was backed up by the picture of the raspberry on the blog). Coincidence? With a word THAT unusual, with a common misspelling that is another unusual word? No way.
Many people have had this sort of experience with words, where they hear, read or think about an unusual one, and it makes an impression on them, and then it shows up again right away, often several times. This is another version of the karmic mechanism that makes the person you haven't spared a thought for in months or years call you 10 minutes after they came into your mind; I don't know whether it's cause and effect, and the first incident leads to the other, or precognition, where you think of something because it's about to happen, or whether, as some psychics say, the present, near past and near future are so tightly knitted together that you can't always tell them apart when you "look with your inner eye" (for example, some psychics don't seem to do well at guessing the order of cards in a deck, until the tester realizes that they are guessing the card looked at before, or the one about to be looked at, with deadly accuracy, not the card that the tester is holding during each guess).
Any thought, feeling or action that comes from you has the power to draw something to it that "fits" with it; although we all accept that actions have consequences, we need to also accept that even our thoughts have the power to make things happen... maybe the Catholic church isn't so far off in saying that the thought is the same as the deed, after all.
I then remembered when the company my husband was working for was designing some printed materials for a cream to treat rosacea, and the people in the office got into a heated disagreement as to how to spell it (it is often misspelled "rosaceae") which apparently wasn't solved by checking the references, as the spellings were inconsistent; they actually called me at home to ask me to drag out the Oxford Unabridged and verify which spelling was right.
I didn't think any more about it until I was refreshing madly on the recent-posts page, looking for new blogs to read, as I do pitifully often, and a blog came up that was titled "Rosaceae" (this is an actual word, it turns out, and describes a plant in the raspberry family, as was backed up by the picture of the raspberry on the blog). Coincidence? With a word THAT unusual, with a common misspelling that is another unusual word? No way.
Many people have had this sort of experience with words, where they hear, read or think about an unusual one, and it makes an impression on them, and then it shows up again right away, often several times. This is another version of the karmic mechanism that makes the person you haven't spared a thought for in months or years call you 10 minutes after they came into your mind; I don't know whether it's cause and effect, and the first incident leads to the other, or precognition, where you think of something because it's about to happen, or whether, as some psychics say, the present, near past and near future are so tightly knitted together that you can't always tell them apart when you "look with your inner eye" (for example, some psychics don't seem to do well at guessing the order of cards in a deck, until the tester realizes that they are guessing the card looked at before, or the one about to be looked at, with deadly accuracy, not the card that the tester is holding during each guess).
Any thought, feeling or action that comes from you has the power to draw something to it that "fits" with it; although we all accept that actions have consequences, we need to also accept that even our thoughts have the power to make things happen... maybe the Catholic church isn't so far off in saying that the thought is the same as the deed, after all.
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Does size really matter?
Why are men so concerned about this? Guys, by the time you unzip your pants, the woman has already made her mind up about you; it's REALLY not a make or break issue. How'd you like to be female, and be judged by breast size, that IS clearly visible right away, and IS used as part of decision-making, even though it has no actual impact on the physics of sex? You've got it easy, so quit fretting.
Yes, some women like the idea of being dazzled by size, just as some (most?) men do, but, just like a man is perfectly happy with average most of the time, so is a woman; average in America is 5.1", and not many men are significantly different than that, so chances are you're perfectly acceptable and no woman has ever worried about it while with you.
What women DO get dismayed over, that far fewer of you are worrying about, is what you DO sexually. There are few if any women who enjoy kissing that requires them to mop their faces with towels afterwards, breast handling that resembles kneading bread dough or milking a cow, oral sex that resembles what a dog might do or is nonexistent or grudgingly done, or intercourse that is initiated after insufficient foreplay.
Even MORE important than your technique is for you to have bathed recently, and to not have lounged around in holey underwear, swigging beer, belching, farting, picking your nose and scratching your balls, for the hours preceding your attempts to get laid.
Don't blame any failings you have in the romantic arena on the size of any part of your body; if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, even if you're in the, uh, peewee league, the woman will be happy. If you keep quiet about the woman's cellulite, stretch marks and those 10 pounds she's always trying to lose, she'll keep quiet about any sub-optimal parts YOU might have, and then BOTH of you can do the most important thing for enjoyment of sex.... RELAX.
Yes, some women like the idea of being dazzled by size, just as some (most?) men do, but, just like a man is perfectly happy with average most of the time, so is a woman; average in America is 5.1", and not many men are significantly different than that, so chances are you're perfectly acceptable and no woman has ever worried about it while with you.
What women DO get dismayed over, that far fewer of you are worrying about, is what you DO sexually. There are few if any women who enjoy kissing that requires them to mop their faces with towels afterwards, breast handling that resembles kneading bread dough or milking a cow, oral sex that resembles what a dog might do or is nonexistent or grudgingly done, or intercourse that is initiated after insufficient foreplay.
Even MORE important than your technique is for you to have bathed recently, and to not have lounged around in holey underwear, swigging beer, belching, farting, picking your nose and scratching your balls, for the hours preceding your attempts to get laid.
Don't blame any failings you have in the romantic arena on the size of any part of your body; if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, even if you're in the, uh, peewee league, the woman will be happy. If you keep quiet about the woman's cellulite, stretch marks and those 10 pounds she's always trying to lose, she'll keep quiet about any sub-optimal parts YOU might have, and then BOTH of you can do the most important thing for enjoyment of sex.... RELAX.
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Drawing people into your life
If you're tuned into karma, and generally even if you're not, if you have needs that could be fulfilled by another person, things you need someone to teach you or help you with, etc, that person will appear in your life. It's like you're a magnet, and what you need is steel; you can toss a magnet into a bag of objects, only one of which is steel, and shake it all around, and BOOM, they'll find each other; karma, which is based on energy, works the same way. (Unlike the magnet, though, you have to CHOOSE to grab onto the person.)
I had been fantasizing about "if only I had some mothering and nurturing, someone to look after ME rather than always the other way around"... and a woman whose face I'd been seeing for half of my life as a character in my novel showed up, I knew instantly it was her, I was RIGHT, and we have so many freaky things in common that it's nearly hair-raising. Note that I didn't find her by LOOKING, she just showed up where I was one day.
I had been whimpering about the lack of truly intelligent and interesting people to talk to on a daily basis, and BOOM, I've found one, and he has a group of bright and entertaining online friends; once again, I wasn't actively searching for this man, or his friends, I just happened to post a note on his blog because I like what he had on there, as I've done many times, but he read MY blog, and we sort of went on from there.
There no guarantee that either of these people, or their friends, will be permanent members of my world (although at this point I hope they all will), but they're what I asked for recently, and I jumped right on them as soon as I found them (figuratively, not literally, although one of them might wish otherwise... or maybe BOTH, time will tell), and I've been very happy so far.
Ask, and often you WILL receive... so be VERY careful what you ask for.
I had been fantasizing about "if only I had some mothering and nurturing, someone to look after ME rather than always the other way around"... and a woman whose face I'd been seeing for half of my life as a character in my novel showed up, I knew instantly it was her, I was RIGHT, and we have so many freaky things in common that it's nearly hair-raising. Note that I didn't find her by LOOKING, she just showed up where I was one day.
I had been whimpering about the lack of truly intelligent and interesting people to talk to on a daily basis, and BOOM, I've found one, and he has a group of bright and entertaining online friends; once again, I wasn't actively searching for this man, or his friends, I just happened to post a note on his blog because I like what he had on there, as I've done many times, but he read MY blog, and we sort of went on from there.
There no guarantee that either of these people, or their friends, will be permanent members of my world (although at this point I hope they all will), but they're what I asked for recently, and I jumped right on them as soon as I found them (figuratively, not literally, although one of them might wish otherwise... or maybe BOTH, time will tell), and I've been very happy so far.
Ask, and often you WILL receive... so be VERY careful what you ask for.
Monday, March 01, 2004
2 months of blogging
It's hard to believe that it's been 2 MONTHS already!!
I started this blog with absolutely NO knowledge of the blogosphere or anything connected with it. Using my minuscule knowledge of html and a vague memory of program flowcharting, I attacked the template to try to make my site easier on the eyes; I resized a few things, restored uppercase letters to the headings, and did a little rearranging. I inserted line breaks to keep the title and sig lines from being on top of the essays. I went through endless color changes before everything looked reasonably attractive and coordinated; sadly, although there's something that LOOKS like it's the visited-link color code, changing it doesn't alter anything, so the real code is hidden somewhere I could never find, or maybe the system just wants those links to be gray no matter what's in the template, so that'll be staying the default color until I find a way to fix it.
Before I actually created the blog, I did an exhaustive search for counters, and picked the one I liked best; that worked fine from the start, which was a refreshing change. I quickly learned that it was possible to have a blog search, but the first 2 I tried didn't work, for reasons that remain a mystery; the 3rd time WAS in fact the charm, though, and I got one that worked courtesy of FreeFind. Next came the struggle to get the stupid thing placed where I wanted it, which entailed frantic searches to html sites to find a command that would right-justify the image AND text created by the FreeFind code (every command seemed to work on one or the other but not both, sigh); I had to use an "obsolete" command, "div align="right"," to manage it, but I finally DID it.
Then, I discovered that my automatic ping to Weblogs.com was NOT working, and thus started my search for ways and places to ping; I've got quite a list to go through each day now.
I figured I should try to get added onto traditional search engines, and have signed up for every one in existence, but I have yet to see any evidence that I'm ON any of them; no matter how cleverly I word searches on their sites, my blog doesn't come up on however many pages I have the patience to check. Hope springs eternal, though.
During the search engine project, I learned of the existence of meta tags and spiders, and the importance of the former to the latter, and so added a bunch of tags just in case anything other than FreeFind ever actually spiders my blog.
A blog I visited had a link to a blog search engine, and I eagerly embraced the idea and signed up; eventually, I discovered a lengthy list of other engines, and have been gradually getting signed up with them, on the off chance that anyone is looking for any of my topics, lol.
This lead to my finding out about RSS feeds, and, while I STILL don't really know what they are, so many sites asked for them that I knew I had to get one (the Atom thing is NOT working for this blog, I checked, so I had to find one elsewhere); the end result is the various ways of subscribing to me that you can now find in my sidebar. Another great technical triumph came when the code from Feedster didn't make the text part of the link show, and I figured out which part of the code to take from my counter html and add to Feedster's to make it work.
I also found a couple of forums for bloggers, but sadly they're sort of dead and don't seem likely to lead to much traffic being generated for anyone; looking for others is on my list of things to do, though, because I'm betting there ARE busy blog forums somewhere.
I've had the pleasure of meeting some of my fellow bloggers on their sites, and have had enough questions repeated that I've decided to address them formally:
1) "Why don't you have any way for people to post comments?"
Because I've had all I'm going to take of being argued with and attacked online, and I know from experience that people will ALWAYS come out of the woodwork to spew venom about even my most innocuous posts; I feel under no obligation to allow them to do so, and, frankly, I get quite a bit of enjoyment out of the thought of the would-be assailants gnashing their teeth in frustration because they have no way to add their 2¢... hehehehehe.
2) "But what about those of us who would have NICE things to say, and/or interesting points to make?"
Dealing with the bad apples would stress me out too much to make it worth letting people give me a few compliments... and, I really don't want to have to deal with ANY debating, even if it's all pleasant and informative... AND, if I know that people are able to respond, I won't be able to write the way I want to; every word would be aimed at forestalling possible objections rather than telling the truth as I see it, and the entire purpose of this blog is for me to be able to tell "my truth."
3) "Why isn't there a way to email you?"
Because I don't want the frustrated nay-sayers to send me emails, and I don't want to risk someone I know verifying that it's ME writing this blog (see below).
4) "Why are there no photos or personal information about you?"
This blog is an absolute secret from everyone in my life except my husband, and it needs to STAY that way; the LAST thing I want is one of my loved ones reading something here that upsets them and being able to definitively trace it to ME.
That's pretty much the entire story of my blog thus far; thanks to all of those who take time out of their day to read my little rants. :-)
I started this blog with absolutely NO knowledge of the blogosphere or anything connected with it. Using my minuscule knowledge of html and a vague memory of program flowcharting, I attacked the template to try to make my site easier on the eyes; I resized a few things, restored uppercase letters to the headings, and did a little rearranging. I inserted line breaks to keep the title and sig lines from being on top of the essays. I went through endless color changes before everything looked reasonably attractive and coordinated; sadly, although there's something that LOOKS like it's the visited-link color code, changing it doesn't alter anything, so the real code is hidden somewhere I could never find, or maybe the system just wants those links to be gray no matter what's in the template, so that'll be staying the default color until I find a way to fix it.
Before I actually created the blog, I did an exhaustive search for counters, and picked the one I liked best; that worked fine from the start, which was a refreshing change. I quickly learned that it was possible to have a blog search, but the first 2 I tried didn't work, for reasons that remain a mystery; the 3rd time WAS in fact the charm, though, and I got one that worked courtesy of FreeFind. Next came the struggle to get the stupid thing placed where I wanted it, which entailed frantic searches to html sites to find a command that would right-justify the image AND text created by the FreeFind code (every command seemed to work on one or the other but not both, sigh); I had to use an "obsolete" command, "div align="right"," to manage it, but I finally DID it.
Then, I discovered that my automatic ping to Weblogs.com was NOT working, and thus started my search for ways and places to ping; I've got quite a list to go through each day now.
I figured I should try to get added onto traditional search engines, and have signed up for every one in existence, but I have yet to see any evidence that I'm ON any of them; no matter how cleverly I word searches on their sites, my blog doesn't come up on however many pages I have the patience to check. Hope springs eternal, though.
During the search engine project, I learned of the existence of meta tags and spiders, and the importance of the former to the latter, and so added a bunch of tags just in case anything other than FreeFind ever actually spiders my blog.
A blog I visited had a link to a blog search engine, and I eagerly embraced the idea and signed up; eventually, I discovered a lengthy list of other engines, and have been gradually getting signed up with them, on the off chance that anyone is looking for any of my topics, lol.
This lead to my finding out about RSS feeds, and, while I STILL don't really know what they are, so many sites asked for them that I knew I had to get one (the Atom thing is NOT working for this blog, I checked, so I had to find one elsewhere); the end result is the various ways of subscribing to me that you can now find in my sidebar. Another great technical triumph came when the code from Feedster didn't make the text part of the link show, and I figured out which part of the code to take from my counter html and add to Feedster's to make it work.
I also found a couple of forums for bloggers, but sadly they're sort of dead and don't seem likely to lead to much traffic being generated for anyone; looking for others is on my list of things to do, though, because I'm betting there ARE busy blog forums somewhere.
I've had the pleasure of meeting some of my fellow bloggers on their sites, and have had enough questions repeated that I've decided to address them formally:
1) "Why don't you have any way for people to post comments?"
Because I've had all I'm going to take of being argued with and attacked online, and I know from experience that people will ALWAYS come out of the woodwork to spew venom about even my most innocuous posts; I feel under no obligation to allow them to do so, and, frankly, I get quite a bit of enjoyment out of the thought of the would-be assailants gnashing their teeth in frustration because they have no way to add their 2¢... hehehehehe.
2) "But what about those of us who would have NICE things to say, and/or interesting points to make?"
Dealing with the bad apples would stress me out too much to make it worth letting people give me a few compliments... and, I really don't want to have to deal with ANY debating, even if it's all pleasant and informative... AND, if I know that people are able to respond, I won't be able to write the way I want to; every word would be aimed at forestalling possible objections rather than telling the truth as I see it, and the entire purpose of this blog is for me to be able to tell "my truth."
3) "Why isn't there a way to email you?"
Because I don't want the frustrated nay-sayers to send me emails, and I don't want to risk someone I know verifying that it's ME writing this blog (see below).
4) "Why are there no photos or personal information about you?"
This blog is an absolute secret from everyone in my life except my husband, and it needs to STAY that way; the LAST thing I want is one of my loved ones reading something here that upsets them and being able to definitively trace it to ME.
That's pretty much the entire story of my blog thus far; thanks to all of those who take time out of their day to read my little rants. :-)
Sunday, February 29, 2004
When one door closes...
... another door opens. Or several doors. We hear this sort of thing said all the time, but WHY do people say it? What happens in our lives to make us think this is the way it works?
When you believe in karma, the explanation is simple; when something significant drops out of your life, whether it's a job, a lover, your health, whatever, it leaves a "hole" that need to be filled with something-karma, like nature, abhors a vacuum. There are usually GOOD things waiting to fill the hole, but in our misery we often don't see them, or don't have the energy to respond to them, in which case BAD stuff will appear to fill the hole. The saying about opportunity not knocking twice applies here; karma gives you chances, but if you don't take them you're out of luck.
I was talking about the worst period of my adult life to a friend today, and I found myself listing the astonishing # of the BEST things of my CURRENT life that started right at that same time; each of those things had existed long before that time, but they didn't cross MY path until I was in desperate need. Coincidence? Not a chance.
When you believe in karma, the explanation is simple; when something significant drops out of your life, whether it's a job, a lover, your health, whatever, it leaves a "hole" that need to be filled with something-karma, like nature, abhors a vacuum. There are usually GOOD things waiting to fill the hole, but in our misery we often don't see them, or don't have the energy to respond to them, in which case BAD stuff will appear to fill the hole. The saying about opportunity not knocking twice applies here; karma gives you chances, but if you don't take them you're out of luck.
I was talking about the worst period of my adult life to a friend today, and I found myself listing the astonishing # of the BEST things of my CURRENT life that started right at that same time; each of those things had existed long before that time, but they didn't cross MY path until I was in desperate need. Coincidence? Not a chance.
Saturday, February 28, 2004
What is a "genius"?
A genius is someone who is beyond intelligent, beyond VERY intelligent; a genius is someone whose mind works not just "better" but in a totally different way than a normal person's does. A genius thinks in leaps, in intuitive lunges, around corners, over obstacles, through the clouds and over the horizon. A genius sees in new and different ways, comes up with novel solutions, creates out of thin air... and is usually seriously screwed up.
If you know any geniuses, you know what I mean; they tend to be socially clueless, absentminded, overly intense, dysfunctional, erratic, neurotic, bordering on crazy, or all of the above-is that a coincidence? Is it a coincidence that people who have clinical depression or other so-called "mental illnesses" are on the whole far smarter than average? Or that so many psychos are brilliant? Or that so many great creative minds end up going crazy and committing suicide or losing themselves in drugs or alcohol?
Science has yet to show us what genius IS, or where it comes from, but it seems logical to assume that there IS a connection between genius and being messed up; these things might be genetically linked, like red hair and freckles are, or they might be cause and effect, like over-active thyroid and thinness. Genius might be based in a different brain structure, or different brain chemistry, or both, and it affects the thought processes like nitrous oxide affects an engine; the performance is radically improved, but there's the constant danger that it'll go BOOM, leading to depression, madness, etc.
Geniuses are rarely happy, so don't envy them their greater brainpower. Some of them gain $ and fame due to their art or science, but many are too socially maladjusted to do more than scrape by, and they nearly always have trouble with relationships; they have little patience with lesser mortals as a rule, and no one likes to be around someone who outthinks them all the time. We owe much of what is good in the world to their efforts and sufferings, though, so if you meet someone who's so brainy that you feel put off, take a deep breath and give them a chance; if given a chance, a genius can often turn out to be a dazzling companion, well worth the patience you'll have to show with their odd quirks.
If you know any geniuses, you know what I mean; they tend to be socially clueless, absentminded, overly intense, dysfunctional, erratic, neurotic, bordering on crazy, or all of the above-is that a coincidence? Is it a coincidence that people who have clinical depression or other so-called "mental illnesses" are on the whole far smarter than average? Or that so many psychos are brilliant? Or that so many great creative minds end up going crazy and committing suicide or losing themselves in drugs or alcohol?
Science has yet to show us what genius IS, or where it comes from, but it seems logical to assume that there IS a connection between genius and being messed up; these things might be genetically linked, like red hair and freckles are, or they might be cause and effect, like over-active thyroid and thinness. Genius might be based in a different brain structure, or different brain chemistry, or both, and it affects the thought processes like nitrous oxide affects an engine; the performance is radically improved, but there's the constant danger that it'll go BOOM, leading to depression, madness, etc.
Geniuses are rarely happy, so don't envy them their greater brainpower. Some of them gain $ and fame due to their art or science, but many are too socially maladjusted to do more than scrape by, and they nearly always have trouble with relationships; they have little patience with lesser mortals as a rule, and no one likes to be around someone who outthinks them all the time. We owe much of what is good in the world to their efforts and sufferings, though, so if you meet someone who's so brainy that you feel put off, take a deep breath and give them a chance; if given a chance, a genius can often turn out to be a dazzling companion, well worth the patience you'll have to show with their odd quirks.
Friday, February 27, 2004
Caught between genders
All the furor about gay marriages (which SHOULD be 100% legal everywhere on Earth, and right now, in my not particularly humble opinion) has gotten me thinking about one of the "gray areas" that makes it impossible to draw a line as to what sort of sexual desire, relationships, and marriage are "good" or "bad."
Female. Male. Is that all there is? Nope. About one baby in 2000 is born with "ambiguous genitals," which are neither purely male or purely female, and often look nothing like either one; such a child (or adult) is called "intersexual" (the more familiar term "hermaphrodite" applies to a subset of intersexuals). Even more amazing; when you add in the chromosomal abnormalities that make a person GENETICALLY neither male nor female, or a different gender than the genitals show, intersexuals account for 1 birth out of every 100; that's right, a full 1% of the people you see in the average day are provably neither male nor female in the accepted sense, even though most of them have bodies that appear to be of a familiar gender.
This brings up lots of interesting questions. If someone is intersexual, what kind of sexual desire makes them straight or gay? If they desire other intersexuals only, does THAT make them gay? If so, does that mean that they can desire EITHER "normal" gender and be straight? Which gender(s) should they be allowed to marry, or should they be forbidden to marry because of the genitalia or chromosomes they were born with, when no other physical "abnormality" keeps a person from being allowed to marry?
Some forms of intersexuality, such as 5-Alpha Reductase Deficiency, create people who look like one gender based on their genitals (female, in this case), but their DNA is of the OTHER gender; is a person's gender based on their genitals or on their chromosomes? Doctors and scientists say it's the DNA that counts, which leads to another question; if someone appears female on the outside, but is chromosomally male, and she desires other women, is she gay or straight? Doctors would say that she is straight because she is in fact a MAN, but if you go by genitals, then she'd be gay.
It gets even more complicated; some intersexuals have XXY chromosomes. As you might remember from high school biology, women are XX, and men are XY... so, what gender are XXY people? Technically, they are neither male nor female, of course, but some of them look like "normal" men and women... and the majority of transsexuals (people who believe that their true gender is opposite to what their "genital gender" is) fall into this category. That's right; most transsexuals have chromosomes such that they are equally "valid" as men or women, and it's just a roll of the dice as to which body type they ended up with. The folks who think that transsexuals shouldn't have the right to decide which gender they are, and to change gender, with claims that everyone has an "assigned" gender (by God or nature) that shouldn't be altered are simply, provably, WRONG. Given that they're wrong, what objection can there be to someone wanting surgery to make their genitals match their DNA, or even to how their DNA "genderized" their brain?
If an XXY person is "lucky," they got the same gender of brain/feelings as they did gender of body, but very often they do NOT, and so naturally they want their true gender physically; sadly, even if they can afford the surgeries, and can handle the physical pain, they have to deal with the emotional pain of people thinking they're "sick" and/or "evil" for wanting their bodies to be RIGHT. In some countries they can NEVER legally change their gender, so they can't marry someone who is the opposite sex of their true gender even when their genitals match it; they are actually STRAIGHT (with the usual % of exceptions), and they aren't allowed to marry someone of the opposite sex!!
AND, a non-trivial % of gay people are in fact intersexuals whose "genetic gender" differs from their "genital gender," such that medically speaking they are STRAIGHT... but of course THEY can't marry anyone whose gender is the opposite of their true gender either.
Intersexuals are fighting a battle to NOT be assigned an arbitrary gender, and I hope they win it; after all, how DARE anyone think that they have the right to decide what gender someone with non-standard genitals and/or chromosomes has?!! How DARE they force surgeries on babies and children based on vague ideas about what gender they "should" be, such that the kids grow up with an enforced gender that rarely matches what gender they FEEL themselves to be?!! Intersexuals want the option to be able to put something other than male or female down for their gender, and they should HAVE that right, as they are NOT male and NOT female. If they win this right, this opens up all sorts of issues, ranging from things like which restroom and changing room they should use to, as I said above, what gender(s) they'd be allowed to marry. I'd also be interested to see what the major religions would rule about people without standard gender; as far as I know, no religion decrees intersexuals to be innately "sinful," so it should be ok for them to marry (because such a marriage wouldn't be a sin), but how would the religious leaders decide which gender(s) an intersexual would be allowed to marry?
If they're allowed to marry people from either standard gender, as they SHOULD be (by what logic could you pick just ONE gender for them to marry, after all?), you're going to have people marrying folks who LOOK like the same gender as they are... and, of course, once you allow people with the same genitals (but different chromosomes) to marry, what excuse will you have for not letting OTHER folks with identical genitals, aka gay people, marry?
We need to have legislation that recognizes that there's more in the world than men and women who're going to skip off into the sunset together. 10% of people desire the same gender, and another 1% have non-standard gender; while it's easy to dismiss them as minorities small enough to just be ignored, they're human beings with feelings, with rights, with the same desire to love and be loved as anyone else. If your current belief system rules against gays, I urge you to consider the situation of intersexuals, and to decide what, in all fairness, they should be permitted to do... and then to reevaluate how you view gays based on what you come up with. If your current belief system accepts gays, and their right to marry, think about the situation of intersexuals anyway; it'll likely be the subject of major legal battles in the years to come.
Female. Male. Is that all there is? Nope. About one baby in 2000 is born with "ambiguous genitals," which are neither purely male or purely female, and often look nothing like either one; such a child (or adult) is called "intersexual" (the more familiar term "hermaphrodite" applies to a subset of intersexuals). Even more amazing; when you add in the chromosomal abnormalities that make a person GENETICALLY neither male nor female, or a different gender than the genitals show, intersexuals account for 1 birth out of every 100; that's right, a full 1% of the people you see in the average day are provably neither male nor female in the accepted sense, even though most of them have bodies that appear to be of a familiar gender.
This brings up lots of interesting questions. If someone is intersexual, what kind of sexual desire makes them straight or gay? If they desire other intersexuals only, does THAT make them gay? If so, does that mean that they can desire EITHER "normal" gender and be straight? Which gender(s) should they be allowed to marry, or should they be forbidden to marry because of the genitalia or chromosomes they were born with, when no other physical "abnormality" keeps a person from being allowed to marry?
Some forms of intersexuality, such as 5-Alpha Reductase Deficiency, create people who look like one gender based on their genitals (female, in this case), but their DNA is of the OTHER gender; is a person's gender based on their genitals or on their chromosomes? Doctors and scientists say it's the DNA that counts, which leads to another question; if someone appears female on the outside, but is chromosomally male, and she desires other women, is she gay or straight? Doctors would say that she is straight because she is in fact a MAN, but if you go by genitals, then she'd be gay.
It gets even more complicated; some intersexuals have XXY chromosomes. As you might remember from high school biology, women are XX, and men are XY... so, what gender are XXY people? Technically, they are neither male nor female, of course, but some of them look like "normal" men and women... and the majority of transsexuals (people who believe that their true gender is opposite to what their "genital gender" is) fall into this category. That's right; most transsexuals have chromosomes such that they are equally "valid" as men or women, and it's just a roll of the dice as to which body type they ended up with. The folks who think that transsexuals shouldn't have the right to decide which gender they are, and to change gender, with claims that everyone has an "assigned" gender (by God or nature) that shouldn't be altered are simply, provably, WRONG. Given that they're wrong, what objection can there be to someone wanting surgery to make their genitals match their DNA, or even to how their DNA "genderized" their brain?
If an XXY person is "lucky," they got the same gender of brain/feelings as they did gender of body, but very often they do NOT, and so naturally they want their true gender physically; sadly, even if they can afford the surgeries, and can handle the physical pain, they have to deal with the emotional pain of people thinking they're "sick" and/or "evil" for wanting their bodies to be RIGHT. In some countries they can NEVER legally change their gender, so they can't marry someone who is the opposite sex of their true gender even when their genitals match it; they are actually STRAIGHT (with the usual % of exceptions), and they aren't allowed to marry someone of the opposite sex!!
AND, a non-trivial % of gay people are in fact intersexuals whose "genetic gender" differs from their "genital gender," such that medically speaking they are STRAIGHT... but of course THEY can't marry anyone whose gender is the opposite of their true gender either.
Intersexuals are fighting a battle to NOT be assigned an arbitrary gender, and I hope they win it; after all, how DARE anyone think that they have the right to decide what gender someone with non-standard genitals and/or chromosomes has?!! How DARE they force surgeries on babies and children based on vague ideas about what gender they "should" be, such that the kids grow up with an enforced gender that rarely matches what gender they FEEL themselves to be?!! Intersexuals want the option to be able to put something other than male or female down for their gender, and they should HAVE that right, as they are NOT male and NOT female. If they win this right, this opens up all sorts of issues, ranging from things like which restroom and changing room they should use to, as I said above, what gender(s) they'd be allowed to marry. I'd also be interested to see what the major religions would rule about people without standard gender; as far as I know, no religion decrees intersexuals to be innately "sinful," so it should be ok for them to marry (because such a marriage wouldn't be a sin), but how would the religious leaders decide which gender(s) an intersexual would be allowed to marry?
If they're allowed to marry people from either standard gender, as they SHOULD be (by what logic could you pick just ONE gender for them to marry, after all?), you're going to have people marrying folks who LOOK like the same gender as they are... and, of course, once you allow people with the same genitals (but different chromosomes) to marry, what excuse will you have for not letting OTHER folks with identical genitals, aka gay people, marry?
We need to have legislation that recognizes that there's more in the world than men and women who're going to skip off into the sunset together. 10% of people desire the same gender, and another 1% have non-standard gender; while it's easy to dismiss them as minorities small enough to just be ignored, they're human beings with feelings, with rights, with the same desire to love and be loved as anyone else. If your current belief system rules against gays, I urge you to consider the situation of intersexuals, and to decide what, in all fairness, they should be permitted to do... and then to reevaluate how you view gays based on what you come up with. If your current belief system accepts gays, and their right to marry, think about the situation of intersexuals anyway; it'll likely be the subject of major legal battles in the years to come.
Thursday, February 26, 2004
What does pride REALLY mean?
Pride USED to refer to what you felt once you had accomplished something; it suggested that you had proven yourself to be worthy by virtue of your exertions and your achievement.
When the various minority groups in America started the battle for equal rights, they often made an issue of bring "proud" of whatever it was that made them a minority, because that word suggested worthiness... but they're missing the point. You don't become black, Hispanic, Jewish, gay, etc as a reward for achievements, you're BORN that way... and pride does NOT validly come into play for things that you were born with or that were otherwise given to you by your family (such as inherited $).
Pride CAN certainly suggest having overcome obstacles, but only those who have actually fought those battles personally have the right to feel proud; others who share their race, religion or sexual orientation don't get to take any credit.
The scariest example of "pride" is among Hispanics (which in America means people from every Spanish-speaking country EXCEPT Spain, go figure); if you are non-white and the people of your country of origin speak Spanish, that means that white Spaniards came to your country, stole all the gold from the native peoples, raped the women, killed many of the men, forced conversion to Catholicism and the learning of Spanish at swordpoint, and destroyed the native culture... what about that are you PROUD of?!!
Claiming "pride" based on skin color or whichever hunk of land your parents live on (or whatever) is the equivalent of people being given jobs via quotas rather than merit; in the same way that no one thinks that minorities are more capable because they were given jobs that they weren't qualified for, much less the MOST qualified for, no one thinks more highly of a minority who claims "pride" for something that they didn't have to earn (ie "the 'right' to be black"), and in fact people will think LESS of them because they see them as needing to focus on something that should NOT be a cause for pride because they don't actually HAVE anything to be proud of... which produces the opposite result than the intended one.
W.A.S.P.'s don't go around feeling surges of pride based on nothing, so there's no need for any other group to either; save pride for actual ACHIEVEMENTS. By all means be happy about every element of who you are, be glad to be in whatever groups you're in, and feel certain that you are in every way as valuable and worthy of a person as those in every other group; this is the simple truth, after all. If you want those in the majority to have a higher opinion of you and others like you, you won't manage that by waving banners saying how "proud" you are; combat prejudice, as Oprah always advises, with EXCELLENCE. Every time a minority individual accomplishes something admirable, it destroys more prejudice than every parade ever marched in ever did, and creates a greater perception of equality and mutual worthiness than every handout and special deal from the government ever will.
DO something, and do it well; then, you'll have every right to feel pride.
When the various minority groups in America started the battle for equal rights, they often made an issue of bring "proud" of whatever it was that made them a minority, because that word suggested worthiness... but they're missing the point. You don't become black, Hispanic, Jewish, gay, etc as a reward for achievements, you're BORN that way... and pride does NOT validly come into play for things that you were born with or that were otherwise given to you by your family (such as inherited $).
Pride CAN certainly suggest having overcome obstacles, but only those who have actually fought those battles personally have the right to feel proud; others who share their race, religion or sexual orientation don't get to take any credit.
The scariest example of "pride" is among Hispanics (which in America means people from every Spanish-speaking country EXCEPT Spain, go figure); if you are non-white and the people of your country of origin speak Spanish, that means that white Spaniards came to your country, stole all the gold from the native peoples, raped the women, killed many of the men, forced conversion to Catholicism and the learning of Spanish at swordpoint, and destroyed the native culture... what about that are you PROUD of?!!
Claiming "pride" based on skin color or whichever hunk of land your parents live on (or whatever) is the equivalent of people being given jobs via quotas rather than merit; in the same way that no one thinks that minorities are more capable because they were given jobs that they weren't qualified for, much less the MOST qualified for, no one thinks more highly of a minority who claims "pride" for something that they didn't have to earn (ie "the 'right' to be black"), and in fact people will think LESS of them because they see them as needing to focus on something that should NOT be a cause for pride because they don't actually HAVE anything to be proud of... which produces the opposite result than the intended one.
W.A.S.P.'s don't go around feeling surges of pride based on nothing, so there's no need for any other group to either; save pride for actual ACHIEVEMENTS. By all means be happy about every element of who you are, be glad to be in whatever groups you're in, and feel certain that you are in every way as valuable and worthy of a person as those in every other group; this is the simple truth, after all. If you want those in the majority to have a higher opinion of you and others like you, you won't manage that by waving banners saying how "proud" you are; combat prejudice, as Oprah always advises, with EXCELLENCE. Every time a minority individual accomplishes something admirable, it destroys more prejudice than every parade ever marched in ever did, and creates a greater perception of equality and mutual worthiness than every handout and special deal from the government ever will.
DO something, and do it well; then, you'll have every right to feel pride.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Tea for 2
I intensely dislike all hot liquids (the inside of my mouth is apparently hyper-sensitive to heat), and never drink any of them, including soup, unless I'm sick... and even then, I drink them at nearly room temperature. Because I'm a supertaster, which means that I have an unusually high # of taste buds and perceive bitterness much more strongly than normal people, I particularly dislike coffee (un-American, I know) and every kind of tea.
Today, a new friend offered to make some tea for me; I had an inexplicable desire to have some, so I agreed, although never in my life had I had that urge. I was very leery of drinking it when she brought it to me, but given the urge I'd had I braced myself and drank some; it had fruit flavor added, and so wasn't too bad, thank goodness. I drank it all as we spoke... and noticed that the normally high level of tension in upper body had been greatly reduced.
I asked her about the tea, which turned out to be made primarily from an herb that is a common tea base in Africa; she didn't know of any medicinal properties of the herb, but I was SURE it had some. I looked it up when I got home, and there it was; what I had felt was one of the effects it is known for.
How did I KNOW that this herb would be a good one for me, so strongly that I asked to have something to drink that I would normally NEVER consume? It's logical that our psychic abilities might extend to "knowing" that an herb had applicable medicinal benefit; herbal remedies had to have each been discovered somehow, and trial and error of every herb with every ailment seems like too tall of an order for the healers of centuries ago to have carried out.
As if that weren't enough for one day; although my friend naturally made the tea with boiling water, once she had poured it into mugs she didn't bring them to the table right away, but talked on about her family until it occurred to her to serve the tea... at which point it had cooled down to the exact temperature I drink "hot liquids" at. How did she KNOW not to serve the tea hot as any normal person would want it (and she didn't apologize for having let it cool down so much, as she would have had it not been at some level intended)? I've felt a strong karmic connection to her since the moment I saw her; this is just the latest evidence I've seen of it. I think she may have been sent to me to re-mother me; time will tell.
Today, a new friend offered to make some tea for me; I had an inexplicable desire to have some, so I agreed, although never in my life had I had that urge. I was very leery of drinking it when she brought it to me, but given the urge I'd had I braced myself and drank some; it had fruit flavor added, and so wasn't too bad, thank goodness. I drank it all as we spoke... and noticed that the normally high level of tension in upper body had been greatly reduced.
I asked her about the tea, which turned out to be made primarily from an herb that is a common tea base in Africa; she didn't know of any medicinal properties of the herb, but I was SURE it had some. I looked it up when I got home, and there it was; what I had felt was one of the effects it is known for.
How did I KNOW that this herb would be a good one for me, so strongly that I asked to have something to drink that I would normally NEVER consume? It's logical that our psychic abilities might extend to "knowing" that an herb had applicable medicinal benefit; herbal remedies had to have each been discovered somehow, and trial and error of every herb with every ailment seems like too tall of an order for the healers of centuries ago to have carried out.
As if that weren't enough for one day; although my friend naturally made the tea with boiling water, once she had poured it into mugs she didn't bring them to the table right away, but talked on about her family until it occurred to her to serve the tea... at which point it had cooled down to the exact temperature I drink "hot liquids" at. How did she KNOW not to serve the tea hot as any normal person would want it (and she didn't apologize for having let it cool down so much, as she would have had it not been at some level intended)? I've felt a strong karmic connection to her since the moment I saw her; this is just the latest evidence I've seen of it. I think she may have been sent to me to re-mother me; time will tell.
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
The breakout dream
Once this dream gets started, I always know what the situation is; I know that I'm inside many levels or layers of enclosures, and that I have to engage in an almost video-gamish frenzy of finding the spots I can break through on each one to get out... and FAST, because new enclosures come into existence about as quickly as I break out.
The enclosures can look like buildings, or fences that meet overhead, or vaguely greenhouse-looking sorts of things that swim into place around me when I think I've reached the open air at last. No 2 look the same, either within a dream or compared to other dreams; the only things they have in common is that I have to break out of them or be trapped, and that they seem to be actually attempting to thwart me.
Flying is always a part of the dreams too, and, while it's supposed to in general be sexual, in my case it's about freedom, and often specifically escape (I usually fly away from whatever the monsters are that chase me in my dreams). I might start out breaking through walls, windows, etc, with my feet on the ground, but by the end I'm ALWAYS flying, battering my way out of enclosures that are about the size of domed sports arenas, or bigger... and I fly away. (Sometimes, I THINK I'm free and flying away, only to come up against ANOTHER barrier that was so huge I couldn't see it before, as if the walls had been beyond the horizon).
I've mulled this extensively, and have concluded that the only possible "barriers" that I have to keep fighting in my life all have to do with... my husband. He has many fine qualities, but he's a slob, a procrastinator, he's lazy, he does tasks half-assedly, or even quarter-assedly, with no analysis and no thought as to what MY reaction will be. I literally DO feel like I'm banging my head against the proverbial wall with him, with constantly trying to explain to him what he should be doing, and when, and how, although things like closing and LOCKING the door when he leaves the house, flushing the toilet when he's finished with it, and putting perishable foods back into the fridge when he's done should NOT have to be on MY list of things to teach him (I'm NOT his mother, much as I feel like I am). He lives his life in an attempt to achieve maximum task-avoidance, and when he DOES undertake a task he tries to do it without me seeing him, so that he can do it some random dead-wrong way without my input, which he seems to think gains him points in heaven even though he KNOWS he's going to have to be yelled at, tear whatever he did down and do it the right way, WITH my input. It often feels like my entire interaction with him consists of dragging him out of whatever corner he's hidden himself in to try to avoid my eye, and therefore tasks, and arm-twisting him into doing something, ANYTHING of value to our lives, while he throws out a million arguments as to why he should, in essence, be allowed to drift through life NEVER doing any tasks or chores.
Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I NEVER had this dream before I got married, and, based on the extensive list of "always struggling with him" comments that just came bursting out, lol, and even my use of the word "thwart" in reference to the enclosures when it applies so well to what HE does to my plans, it looks like what I had as a best-guess when I started writing this was RIGHT.
I've gotta say, I never saw much benefit to me of writing anything down in my pre-blog days, other than just being able to lay out some of my ideas that the beleaguered people in my life don't want to hear any more, so that I could feel "heard" even if I didn't know for sure if anyone had read any particular essay, but there have been several times already where I've only had a partial analysis of something, sat down at the keyboard, and had words come streaming onto the screen that filled in all the gaps and tied everything together. I've always been able to tap into that ability to let stuff come pouring out of my subconscious for writing fiction, but I never knew it worked for "the search for answers" as well; it's pretty cool, and a little exciting, to realize that new revelations may be as close as my next blog entry.
The enclosures can look like buildings, or fences that meet overhead, or vaguely greenhouse-looking sorts of things that swim into place around me when I think I've reached the open air at last. No 2 look the same, either within a dream or compared to other dreams; the only things they have in common is that I have to break out of them or be trapped, and that they seem to be actually attempting to thwart me.
Flying is always a part of the dreams too, and, while it's supposed to in general be sexual, in my case it's about freedom, and often specifically escape (I usually fly away from whatever the monsters are that chase me in my dreams). I might start out breaking through walls, windows, etc, with my feet on the ground, but by the end I'm ALWAYS flying, battering my way out of enclosures that are about the size of domed sports arenas, or bigger... and I fly away. (Sometimes, I THINK I'm free and flying away, only to come up against ANOTHER barrier that was so huge I couldn't see it before, as if the walls had been beyond the horizon).
I've mulled this extensively, and have concluded that the only possible "barriers" that I have to keep fighting in my life all have to do with... my husband. He has many fine qualities, but he's a slob, a procrastinator, he's lazy, he does tasks half-assedly, or even quarter-assedly, with no analysis and no thought as to what MY reaction will be. I literally DO feel like I'm banging my head against the proverbial wall with him, with constantly trying to explain to him what he should be doing, and when, and how, although things like closing and LOCKING the door when he leaves the house, flushing the toilet when he's finished with it, and putting perishable foods back into the fridge when he's done should NOT have to be on MY list of things to teach him (I'm NOT his mother, much as I feel like I am). He lives his life in an attempt to achieve maximum task-avoidance, and when he DOES undertake a task he tries to do it without me seeing him, so that he can do it some random dead-wrong way without my input, which he seems to think gains him points in heaven even though he KNOWS he's going to have to be yelled at, tear whatever he did down and do it the right way, WITH my input. It often feels like my entire interaction with him consists of dragging him out of whatever corner he's hidden himself in to try to avoid my eye, and therefore tasks, and arm-twisting him into doing something, ANYTHING of value to our lives, while he throws out a million arguments as to why he should, in essence, be allowed to drift through life NEVER doing any tasks or chores.
Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I NEVER had this dream before I got married, and, based on the extensive list of "always struggling with him" comments that just came bursting out, lol, and even my use of the word "thwart" in reference to the enclosures when it applies so well to what HE does to my plans, it looks like what I had as a best-guess when I started writing this was RIGHT.
I've gotta say, I never saw much benefit to me of writing anything down in my pre-blog days, other than just being able to lay out some of my ideas that the beleaguered people in my life don't want to hear any more, so that I could feel "heard" even if I didn't know for sure if anyone had read any particular essay, but there have been several times already where I've only had a partial analysis of something, sat down at the keyboard, and had words come streaming onto the screen that filled in all the gaps and tied everything together. I've always been able to tap into that ability to let stuff come pouring out of my subconscious for writing fiction, but I never knew it worked for "the search for answers" as well; it's pretty cool, and a little exciting, to realize that new revelations may be as close as my next blog entry.
Monday, February 23, 2004
The downside of the sexual revolution
A woman used to be able to get a man to promise to take care of her and any children she had until the day he died (aka marry her), and make it STICK, in order to have sexual access to her; her sexual favors were therefore worth a life's labor in his mind, and so was SHE.
Nowadays, most men expect sex on the first date, meaning that even IF he paid for everything, he's valuing the woman's sexual favors, and HER, at the level of a dinner and maybe a movie. If he gets her to come home with him from a bar or club, he feels entitled to her sexual favors for the price of a drink or 2, and that's what he values HER at.
Is this an improvement?
A woman used to be able to get to know a man VERY well, care about him, be sure he cared about HER, be committed to him, and be sure he was committed to HER, before sharing her body and deepest emotions with him.
Nowadays, it's a rare men who'll wait more than a few dates for sex before walking away (based on how they answer anonymous surveys on this topic), so the woman has to either agree to the most intimate physical acts with a near-stranger or be alone.
Is this an improvement?
It used to be that a nice woman wasn't expected to do anything "kinky," and, although the man would be thrilled if she DID do those things, he never made it a requirement, or demanded them, or even ASKED for fear of offending her.
Nowadays, men expect women to automatically do things that he couldn't have been sure of getting from a HOOKER a few decades ago, and if she doesn't do those things he'll push and badger and pout and try to guilt-trip her into doing them... he'll even make the absence of them a valid excuse in his mind to cheat on her.
Is this an improvement?
A woman used to have the right to say no, and in fact was EXPECTED to say no a significant % of the time, so when the "yes" came the man was thrilled and grateful.
Nowadays, if the woman says "no," the man will feel rejected and offended, and will withhold affection and attention in retaliation, pick fights, accuse her of trying to manipulate him, or threaten to find satisfaction elsewhere if she isn't willing to put out every time he asks.
Is this an improvement?
It used to be that a couple got to know each other before sleeping together, so that they could decide if they truly liked each other without being blinded by sex.
Nowadays, people jump into bed based on nothing more than brief attraction, and then have a relationship by default because they're sleeping together, not realizing that they are NOT compatible until they've wasted all sorts of time and effort on each other, during which time they might have moved in together, gotten married, had a kid, all of which gets broken apart because they never had a chance at long-term couplehood and didn't know it.
Is this an improvement?
Nearly all kids used to be born to married parents, where the father brought in an income and lived in the home and took care of them.
Nowadays, a man rarely feels obligated to marry a woman just because she's pregnant, or to STAY married to her just because she has borne him children. Many men fail to pay child support, much less give emotional support or even invest the time to just be around so that the kids feel valued and secure.
Ask the countless children living in poverty in households headed by women if THAT is an improvement.
Sure, it's great that we as women these days feel free to be sexual and have sex without feeling "dirty," and that we feel entitled to GOOD sex, frequent sex, etc... but does that REALLY make up for all we LOST because of the sexual revolution?
Nowadays, most men expect sex on the first date, meaning that even IF he paid for everything, he's valuing the woman's sexual favors, and HER, at the level of a dinner and maybe a movie. If he gets her to come home with him from a bar or club, he feels entitled to her sexual favors for the price of a drink or 2, and that's what he values HER at.
Is this an improvement?
A woman used to be able to get to know a man VERY well, care about him, be sure he cared about HER, be committed to him, and be sure he was committed to HER, before sharing her body and deepest emotions with him.
Nowadays, it's a rare men who'll wait more than a few dates for sex before walking away (based on how they answer anonymous surveys on this topic), so the woman has to either agree to the most intimate physical acts with a near-stranger or be alone.
Is this an improvement?
It used to be that a nice woman wasn't expected to do anything "kinky," and, although the man would be thrilled if she DID do those things, he never made it a requirement, or demanded them, or even ASKED for fear of offending her.
Nowadays, men expect women to automatically do things that he couldn't have been sure of getting from a HOOKER a few decades ago, and if she doesn't do those things he'll push and badger and pout and try to guilt-trip her into doing them... he'll even make the absence of them a valid excuse in his mind to cheat on her.
Is this an improvement?
A woman used to have the right to say no, and in fact was EXPECTED to say no a significant % of the time, so when the "yes" came the man was thrilled and grateful.
Nowadays, if the woman says "no," the man will feel rejected and offended, and will withhold affection and attention in retaliation, pick fights, accuse her of trying to manipulate him, or threaten to find satisfaction elsewhere if she isn't willing to put out every time he asks.
Is this an improvement?
It used to be that a couple got to know each other before sleeping together, so that they could decide if they truly liked each other without being blinded by sex.
Nowadays, people jump into bed based on nothing more than brief attraction, and then have a relationship by default because they're sleeping together, not realizing that they are NOT compatible until they've wasted all sorts of time and effort on each other, during which time they might have moved in together, gotten married, had a kid, all of which gets broken apart because they never had a chance at long-term couplehood and didn't know it.
Is this an improvement?
Nearly all kids used to be born to married parents, where the father brought in an income and lived in the home and took care of them.
Nowadays, a man rarely feels obligated to marry a woman just because she's pregnant, or to STAY married to her just because she has borne him children. Many men fail to pay child support, much less give emotional support or even invest the time to just be around so that the kids feel valued and secure.
Ask the countless children living in poverty in households headed by women if THAT is an improvement.
Sure, it's great that we as women these days feel free to be sexual and have sex without feeling "dirty," and that we feel entitled to GOOD sex, frequent sex, etc... but does that REALLY make up for all we LOST because of the sexual revolution?
Sunday, February 22, 2004
The white light of healing
You have the power to heal. Whether you have ever used it or not, whether you believe it or not, it is THERE.
The laying on of hands is the oldest method of healing known to mankind. It's just what it sounds like; one person puts their hands on another and helps that person overcome illness, injury and suffering by doing so. Do you remember how your little hurts stopped hurting once your mother "kissed them and made them better"? Did you ever had a good doctor, one who'd make you feel better, not just emotionally but PHYSICALLY, as soon as (s)he started to examine you? The hands aren't the only place where healing energy can leave your body, and a healer doesn't even need to be making a conscious attempt to heal for it to work; it's a natural bodily function for us to be able to do this.
It's easy to see what the survival advantage would be in the caveman days to any person, family or group where this ability existed, especially if it was well developed; as with all other "psychic abilities," this one came about because it allowed those that possessed it to have a higher probability of reproducing and having their offspring live to reproduce.
I first discovered MY ability to do this by accident. A man I was seeing mentioned that he'd had a pain in his abdomen; without thinking, I reached out and put my hand on what turned out to be the exact site of his pain. He commented on that, and then went on to describe the evolution of this pain while my hand stayed on the spot in what I vaguely thought of as an attempt to offer comfort. He yelped that my hand had gotten HOT, and, when I drew it away and placed it against my face, I confirmed that it was; my other hand, when tested, was normal temperature. His babble about what was going on stopped abruptly when he realized that the pain was GONE... not, just relieved somewhat, GONE, and it STAYED gone.
I have been able to do this many other times, and, although you might argue that whatever effects I felt as I healed, and that the "patient" felt, were imagined those times, on that first time, when neither of us had any thought about this sort of thing, it happened "blind," and was undeniably real.
What does the healing? Energy. What kind? Kirlian photography gives us a clue; this fascinating way of recording energy emanating from an object shows greater brightness around the hands of those who see themselves as healers than around the hands of nonhealers, and that brightness increases when the healer is trying to project healing energy through their hands. The image is produced when the object being photographed is subjected to an electric field, so whatever the energy is, it has some sort of additive effect with electricity.
When you hear references to "sending white light" or to the "white light of healing," it's this same energy that is being referred to; it's not ACTUALLY light, of course, or we could SEE it, but there is an amazing consistency with how people visualize the power that they send out... maybe it's just natural for us to see a force for "good" as a white light. In any case, you don't need to actually be touching a person to send them healing energy, or even in proximity; I've sent it as far as 8000 miles away, to a recipient who verified when he had received it, and mind you this man was a hard-core sceptic whose religious beliefs made this VERY difficult for him to accept.
The use of hands makes the energy easy to focus and transfer, and we're used to connecting with other living things through our hands, so it's a natural spot for energy to flow from; when you try to send the light over a distance, it is often helpful to visualize holding your hand out, and the light flowing from your hand to the person in need.
Healing comes from the same energy, or same spectrum of energy, as precognition, telepathy, spirits, synchronicity, and all the other aspects of karma. It's not mysterious, magical or scary, it's a natural function, like thinking, feeling or dreaming, which we ALSO have virtually no understanding of as of yet. Try it for yourself (using your hands is by far the easiest way); as a control, try it on a small child or pet, or an adult who doesn't know in advance what you're going to do. There's no specific method, really, just place your hand over the affected area (which would be where there is injury or pain, or where symptoms are concentrated in an illness), and exert your will that the pain will decrease. You might visualize light and/or heat coming from your hand, or anything else that makes sense to you; whatever seems right to you will probably be the easiest way for you to focus.
Once you've seen how easy this is to do, you'll naturally feel excited, and want to talk to people about it; take it from me, this will REALLY freak some folks out, so think long and hard before confiding in a person. Keep this and any other abilities you discover in yourself as positive things, so that you don't develop blocks to using the energy, and don't try to use them to manipulate or upset people.... remember, this is all part of karma, and if you misuse it karma will remind you of the need to not create negative energy. Good luck.
The laying on of hands is the oldest method of healing known to mankind. It's just what it sounds like; one person puts their hands on another and helps that person overcome illness, injury and suffering by doing so. Do you remember how your little hurts stopped hurting once your mother "kissed them and made them better"? Did you ever had a good doctor, one who'd make you feel better, not just emotionally but PHYSICALLY, as soon as (s)he started to examine you? The hands aren't the only place where healing energy can leave your body, and a healer doesn't even need to be making a conscious attempt to heal for it to work; it's a natural bodily function for us to be able to do this.
It's easy to see what the survival advantage would be in the caveman days to any person, family or group where this ability existed, especially if it was well developed; as with all other "psychic abilities," this one came about because it allowed those that possessed it to have a higher probability of reproducing and having their offspring live to reproduce.
I first discovered MY ability to do this by accident. A man I was seeing mentioned that he'd had a pain in his abdomen; without thinking, I reached out and put my hand on what turned out to be the exact site of his pain. He commented on that, and then went on to describe the evolution of this pain while my hand stayed on the spot in what I vaguely thought of as an attempt to offer comfort. He yelped that my hand had gotten HOT, and, when I drew it away and placed it against my face, I confirmed that it was; my other hand, when tested, was normal temperature. His babble about what was going on stopped abruptly when he realized that the pain was GONE... not, just relieved somewhat, GONE, and it STAYED gone.
I have been able to do this many other times, and, although you might argue that whatever effects I felt as I healed, and that the "patient" felt, were imagined those times, on that first time, when neither of us had any thought about this sort of thing, it happened "blind," and was undeniably real.
What does the healing? Energy. What kind? Kirlian photography gives us a clue; this fascinating way of recording energy emanating from an object shows greater brightness around the hands of those who see themselves as healers than around the hands of nonhealers, and that brightness increases when the healer is trying to project healing energy through their hands. The image is produced when the object being photographed is subjected to an electric field, so whatever the energy is, it has some sort of additive effect with electricity.
When you hear references to "sending white light" or to the "white light of healing," it's this same energy that is being referred to; it's not ACTUALLY light, of course, or we could SEE it, but there is an amazing consistency with how people visualize the power that they send out... maybe it's just natural for us to see a force for "good" as a white light. In any case, you don't need to actually be touching a person to send them healing energy, or even in proximity; I've sent it as far as 8000 miles away, to a recipient who verified when he had received it, and mind you this man was a hard-core sceptic whose religious beliefs made this VERY difficult for him to accept.
The use of hands makes the energy easy to focus and transfer, and we're used to connecting with other living things through our hands, so it's a natural spot for energy to flow from; when you try to send the light over a distance, it is often helpful to visualize holding your hand out, and the light flowing from your hand to the person in need.
Healing comes from the same energy, or same spectrum of energy, as precognition, telepathy, spirits, synchronicity, and all the other aspects of karma. It's not mysterious, magical or scary, it's a natural function, like thinking, feeling or dreaming, which we ALSO have virtually no understanding of as of yet. Try it for yourself (using your hands is by far the easiest way); as a control, try it on a small child or pet, or an adult who doesn't know in advance what you're going to do. There's no specific method, really, just place your hand over the affected area (which would be where there is injury or pain, or where symptoms are concentrated in an illness), and exert your will that the pain will decrease. You might visualize light and/or heat coming from your hand, or anything else that makes sense to you; whatever seems right to you will probably be the easiest way for you to focus.
Once you've seen how easy this is to do, you'll naturally feel excited, and want to talk to people about it; take it from me, this will REALLY freak some folks out, so think long and hard before confiding in a person. Keep this and any other abilities you discover in yourself as positive things, so that you don't develop blocks to using the energy, and don't try to use them to manipulate or upset people.... remember, this is all part of karma, and if you misuse it karma will remind you of the need to not create negative energy. Good luck.
Saturday, February 21, 2004
What's sexy?
Modern society shoves sex at us from every angle 24/7, such that we are sated and unsurprised by it all, and have forgotten the pleasures of the tease, of being tantalized, of buildup, of true eroticism, and in general of all the things that used to be seen as sexy before the days of breast implants and thongs. Women, who to this day are judged primarily on looks and sex appeal, have had, since movies and then TV brought beautiful and provocative images into the lives of all men, to go to ever greater extremes to be ahead of the curve sexual-display wise, which forced the curve to move, and so on. The use of female sexiness to sell EVERYTHING, from breakfast cereal to entire movies, meant that these ever more extreme images have pounded our brains to near numbness, so that imagery that would have given our grandparents heart attacks just makes us shrug... so what can we get to seem sexy, REALLY sexy, to us any more?
Those of us old enough to remember the not-so-distant past, in which a man would be aggressive in his sexual pursuit but not "look" sexy, dress sexy, or ACT sexy can see that, with women having gone so far to "out-sexy" each other that they've become virtually indistinguishable, and therefore rather dull, with their hair extensions and push-up bras, it's really only MALE attempts at sexual display that are novel enough to BE sexy anymore.
Don't believe it? In an attempt to keep the female body "new" and exciting, they've had no choice but to cover it up more; compare what actresses were wearing 5-10 years ago with what they wear NOW, for example. It's not just famous women who are changing, although they are always the first TO change, as their $ depends on them being the most sexy: Have you noticed the increasing popularity of women's underpants that look like shorts, and cover more of the female lower body than any popular undergarment has done in DECADES? Of skirts that make you think of Audrey Hepburn rather than "stripper"? Of women, even quite young ones, returning to the 70's idea of sexy with jeans and a moderately revealing top rather than all wearing hooker outfits? Sexiness DOES require some element of novelty, and, once you've gotten thoroughly used to seeing nearly-naked, it ceases to create the most excitement any more, and something more covered up seems exciting (not to mention classier).
Meanwhile, we're seeing MEN grooming themselves, moisturizing, using hair products (have you heard the term "metrosexual," referring to a straight man who grooms himself to the level a gay man would?), working out, dieting, and dressing to show it off, especially men in the entertainment industry. Men's magazines and catalogs of men's clothing are filled with pics that are nearly pornographic, in part to interest gay men, of course, but in general because we're now ready as a culture to see men being sexy; magazines for women, such as Cosmo, are filled with "naughty" pics of men that would have seemed extreme not that long ago.
Any new male actor shows us his washboard abs as reliably as new starlets used to show their cleavage. Male beauty and sexiness is now being marketed in the way women's has always been, and men now have a degree of beauty and sexiness that they've never had before; look at photos of old-time male stars, who were older, less attractive by FAR, and muscle-free compared to modern heartthrobs, and you can't miss it.
The female form has been hyper-eroticized and exaggerated to the point that the pendulum is swinging back to something less sleazy, something that leaves a bit to the imagination. What's sexiest now is the MEN who suddenly have bare skin, hard bodies, bulging groins, and loose, sensual body language; since women now have the $ to pay for whatever those sexy images of men point them to, male sexiness is good business, and that make it easy for this trend to take off in a way it never could have before.
Yes, men are still looking at the same sort of nudie pics they always have, for the same purpose they've always used them for, but they are biologically programmed to be easily bored, and are willingly turning to images of a less blatantly-displayed female form as the ideal, while male sex symbols are becoming MORE blatant, more "hot." As a woman, I've gotta say that I'm looking forward to MEN getting steadily nakeder and more "obvious" in the years to come, while women go back to being more "ladylike" and old-school sexy; turnabout is fair play!! :-)
Those of us old enough to remember the not-so-distant past, in which a man would be aggressive in his sexual pursuit but not "look" sexy, dress sexy, or ACT sexy can see that, with women having gone so far to "out-sexy" each other that they've become virtually indistinguishable, and therefore rather dull, with their hair extensions and push-up bras, it's really only MALE attempts at sexual display that are novel enough to BE sexy anymore.
Don't believe it? In an attempt to keep the female body "new" and exciting, they've had no choice but to cover it up more; compare what actresses were wearing 5-10 years ago with what they wear NOW, for example. It's not just famous women who are changing, although they are always the first TO change, as their $ depends on them being the most sexy: Have you noticed the increasing popularity of women's underpants that look like shorts, and cover more of the female lower body than any popular undergarment has done in DECADES? Of skirts that make you think of Audrey Hepburn rather than "stripper"? Of women, even quite young ones, returning to the 70's idea of sexy with jeans and a moderately revealing top rather than all wearing hooker outfits? Sexiness DOES require some element of novelty, and, once you've gotten thoroughly used to seeing nearly-naked, it ceases to create the most excitement any more, and something more covered up seems exciting (not to mention classier).
Meanwhile, we're seeing MEN grooming themselves, moisturizing, using hair products (have you heard the term "metrosexual," referring to a straight man who grooms himself to the level a gay man would?), working out, dieting, and dressing to show it off, especially men in the entertainment industry. Men's magazines and catalogs of men's clothing are filled with pics that are nearly pornographic, in part to interest gay men, of course, but in general because we're now ready as a culture to see men being sexy; magazines for women, such as Cosmo, are filled with "naughty" pics of men that would have seemed extreme not that long ago.
Any new male actor shows us his washboard abs as reliably as new starlets used to show their cleavage. Male beauty and sexiness is now being marketed in the way women's has always been, and men now have a degree of beauty and sexiness that they've never had before; look at photos of old-time male stars, who were older, less attractive by FAR, and muscle-free compared to modern heartthrobs, and you can't miss it.
The female form has been hyper-eroticized and exaggerated to the point that the pendulum is swinging back to something less sleazy, something that leaves a bit to the imagination. What's sexiest now is the MEN who suddenly have bare skin, hard bodies, bulging groins, and loose, sensual body language; since women now have the $ to pay for whatever those sexy images of men point them to, male sexiness is good business, and that make it easy for this trend to take off in a way it never could have before.
Yes, men are still looking at the same sort of nudie pics they always have, for the same purpose they've always used them for, but they are biologically programmed to be easily bored, and are willingly turning to images of a less blatantly-displayed female form as the ideal, while male sex symbols are becoming MORE blatant, more "hot." As a woman, I've gotta say that I'm looking forward to MEN getting steadily nakeder and more "obvious" in the years to come, while women go back to being more "ladylike" and old-school sexy; turnabout is fair play!! :-)
Friday, February 20, 2004
Some recent synchronicities
I got an email a few days ago from a friend describing a browser problem that I hadn't encountered. I asked my husband about it, and, although HE had never seen it either, he agreed that the description of the problem and the bug in the browser that would cause it made sense. Ten minutes later, that exact browser problem occurred on my computer.
A couple of days ago, I got the CD of the soundtrack to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Listening to it, I developed a strong desire to see the movie again. Guess what turned out to be showing on Bravo, of all channels, last night?
Yesterday, as an episode of M*A*S*H came on, I asked my husband how the lyrics to the theme song, "Suicide is Painless," had anything to do with the concept of the show; he had no idea. Tonight, BANG, there was the original movie on which the series was based, being shown on FX, and once I started watching it the explanation for the lyrics became totally clear.
Coincidence?
My husband still doesn't believe in synchronicities, but, when I pointed these out to him, he suggested, only half-jokingly, that I speculate with him about a movie he's hoping will come on TV some time soon. Only half-joking, because he KNOWS, he just can't accept it. He's known since...
We had gone into a stereo store, and saw a little side room that turned out to be the place to hear all the different kinds of car speakers all at the same time. Having ascertained that, we turned to go out, but I found myself compelled to stay. "What are you looking at?" he asked. "Nothing, just wait," I said. "What for what?" he asked. "I don't know, just WAIT," I replied. He stood there with that put-upon expression of "man indulging irrational woman" for another 10 seconds or so... at which point a song by my favorite band, which I had NEVER heard on the radio before, not even when it had first been released many years before, started playing.
Life will be MUCH less stressful for him once science shows how our brains pick up on what will happen in the near future, lol.
A couple of days ago, I got the CD of the soundtrack to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Listening to it, I developed a strong desire to see the movie again. Guess what turned out to be showing on Bravo, of all channels, last night?
Yesterday, as an episode of M*A*S*H came on, I asked my husband how the lyrics to the theme song, "Suicide is Painless," had anything to do with the concept of the show; he had no idea. Tonight, BANG, there was the original movie on which the series was based, being shown on FX, and once I started watching it the explanation for the lyrics became totally clear.
Coincidence?
My husband still doesn't believe in synchronicities, but, when I pointed these out to him, he suggested, only half-jokingly, that I speculate with him about a movie he's hoping will come on TV some time soon. Only half-joking, because he KNOWS, he just can't accept it. He's known since...
We had gone into a stereo store, and saw a little side room that turned out to be the place to hear all the different kinds of car speakers all at the same time. Having ascertained that, we turned to go out, but I found myself compelled to stay. "What are you looking at?" he asked. "Nothing, just wait," I said. "What for what?" he asked. "I don't know, just WAIT," I replied. He stood there with that put-upon expression of "man indulging irrational woman" for another 10 seconds or so... at which point a song by my favorite band, which I had NEVER heard on the radio before, not even when it had first been released many years before, started playing.
Life will be MUCH less stressful for him once science shows how our brains pick up on what will happen in the near future, lol.
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Are online relationships "real"?
The FEELINGS we have for people we become involved with online are certainly real, but does that mean that the relationships themselves are?
For most of human history, the ONLY way to have a relationship was with someone you knew face to face. In the time since most people were able to read and write, and mail delivery became reliable, it has been possible to have some sort of involvement with people at a distance, but can that really be called a relationship when you've never SEEN the person, and so can't be SURE about your perceptions of them? When you've never had to depend on them to do things for you, never been through hard times with them to see how they cope?
Nowadays, when we can share endless words and photos at the touch of a button, when we can chat on the IM's or in chatrooms and feel a real-time connection, it's much easier to get emotionally involved... but, does that mean that it's a relationship when we STILL haven't interacted "for real"?
I've spent a pretty huge amount of time socializing online, felt alot of things for alot of people, and seen other people go through all sorts of entanglements as well. It's clear that being online is an easy way to find people who have your same interests, which is often the basis for friendship; these friendships can certainly carry over into real life, but they have a significantly higher rate of ending in unpleasantness than relationships that form from the start in "real life," most likely because it's easier for people to deceive others, and deceive themselves ABOUT others, online than in person.
The same thing goes for romantic relationships, times TEN; it's human nature to try to make a potential partner think that we're better than we really are, and online we can pretend almost anything, and the other person becomes swept away before they get the chance to test the reality of what has been said (which they would have been doing all along if they were face to face), not realizing that the person they love bears little relationship to the person they're talking to until it's too late. BEWARE any situation where you think you're in love with someone you haven't spent a great deal of time with in person; people who go from online love to real-life love, and STAY in love, are the exception rather than the rule.
Another part of human nature is to fade away when things get tough, or stop being fun, or when the novelty wears off, if a way to fade is available, and the fade is ALWAYS available online. People can block you from their email and IM accounts, and in these days of ubiquitous caller ID they can screen you out easily enough if you have progressed to phone calls; if you don't live near enough to someone that you can show up on their doorstep (and know where that doorstep IS), they can evaporate in an instant if they want, and it happens ALL the time, even when those involved seemed like the best of friends or romantic "soul mates."
I think there ARE people that can really have "true friendships" or "true romances" with people they've only been involved with online, but most online "relationships" are just "friendly interactions of convenience" that wouldn't survive real life even if the participants tried to make them real. If you live nearby someone you're befriending online, I'd suggest meeting sooner rather than later, to maximize your chances; if you live too far away, it still MIGHT be that you've made a lifelong buddy, but keep telling yourself that the chances are very, VERY low.
I'm recalling so many people that seemed like true bosom buddies that I've been involved with online through clubs, forums, message boards, etc, and they nearly all burned hot and then burned out, or faded out, or erupted into the sort of fights that would be nothing offline but are the kiss of death online..... the only exceptions are people I didn't get TOO deeply involved with, or didn't have TOO frequent of contact with, and that's probably not a coincidence.
It's so much easier to pour your heart out to a chat screen, or a blog, or an email, or a forum post, than it is to look someone in the eye and tell them the same stuff, and we really WANT to share all we have with others. Once we've shared, we naturally feel emotionally connected, but we need to FIGHT that tendency online, because just because someone has read our chat comments, blog, email or forum post does NOT mean that THEY feel an attachment to US, although they might fake it to get you to continue giving them a voyeuristic thrill from the peep show into your soul.
No matter WHAT you feel, don't believe it's "real" until you've met the person offline and interacted with them long enough to PROVE that it's real-this will save you endless heartbreak. Enjoy online contacts for what they are, and save your love for people who can give you love back; don't mistake online relationships for real ones.
For most of human history, the ONLY way to have a relationship was with someone you knew face to face. In the time since most people were able to read and write, and mail delivery became reliable, it has been possible to have some sort of involvement with people at a distance, but can that really be called a relationship when you've never SEEN the person, and so can't be SURE about your perceptions of them? When you've never had to depend on them to do things for you, never been through hard times with them to see how they cope?
Nowadays, when we can share endless words and photos at the touch of a button, when we can chat on the IM's or in chatrooms and feel a real-time connection, it's much easier to get emotionally involved... but, does that mean that it's a relationship when we STILL haven't interacted "for real"?
I've spent a pretty huge amount of time socializing online, felt alot of things for alot of people, and seen other people go through all sorts of entanglements as well. It's clear that being online is an easy way to find people who have your same interests, which is often the basis for friendship; these friendships can certainly carry over into real life, but they have a significantly higher rate of ending in unpleasantness than relationships that form from the start in "real life," most likely because it's easier for people to deceive others, and deceive themselves ABOUT others, online than in person.
The same thing goes for romantic relationships, times TEN; it's human nature to try to make a potential partner think that we're better than we really are, and online we can pretend almost anything, and the other person becomes swept away before they get the chance to test the reality of what has been said (which they would have been doing all along if they were face to face), not realizing that the person they love bears little relationship to the person they're talking to until it's too late. BEWARE any situation where you think you're in love with someone you haven't spent a great deal of time with in person; people who go from online love to real-life love, and STAY in love, are the exception rather than the rule.
Another part of human nature is to fade away when things get tough, or stop being fun, or when the novelty wears off, if a way to fade is available, and the fade is ALWAYS available online. People can block you from their email and IM accounts, and in these days of ubiquitous caller ID they can screen you out easily enough if you have progressed to phone calls; if you don't live near enough to someone that you can show up on their doorstep (and know where that doorstep IS), they can evaporate in an instant if they want, and it happens ALL the time, even when those involved seemed like the best of friends or romantic "soul mates."
I think there ARE people that can really have "true friendships" or "true romances" with people they've only been involved with online, but most online "relationships" are just "friendly interactions of convenience" that wouldn't survive real life even if the participants tried to make them real. If you live nearby someone you're befriending online, I'd suggest meeting sooner rather than later, to maximize your chances; if you live too far away, it still MIGHT be that you've made a lifelong buddy, but keep telling yourself that the chances are very, VERY low.
I'm recalling so many people that seemed like true bosom buddies that I've been involved with online through clubs, forums, message boards, etc, and they nearly all burned hot and then burned out, or faded out, or erupted into the sort of fights that would be nothing offline but are the kiss of death online..... the only exceptions are people I didn't get TOO deeply involved with, or didn't have TOO frequent of contact with, and that's probably not a coincidence.
It's so much easier to pour your heart out to a chat screen, or a blog, or an email, or a forum post, than it is to look someone in the eye and tell them the same stuff, and we really WANT to share all we have with others. Once we've shared, we naturally feel emotionally connected, but we need to FIGHT that tendency online, because just because someone has read our chat comments, blog, email or forum post does NOT mean that THEY feel an attachment to US, although they might fake it to get you to continue giving them a voyeuristic thrill from the peep show into your soul.
No matter WHAT you feel, don't believe it's "real" until you've met the person offline and interacted with them long enough to PROVE that it's real-this will save you endless heartbreak. Enjoy online contacts for what they are, and save your love for people who can give you love back; don't mistake online relationships for real ones.
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Psychic synch
A good friend of mine is in psychic synch with water; any time a plumbing disaster is about to happen, even if she's miles and miles away, she knows INSTANTLY, and knows the exact spot in her home to run to to look for the leak/flood/etc. Water conducts various kinds of energy quite well, and obviously the energy of karma and thought can resonate with it too.
*I* am in psychic synch with electrical appliances... so much so that I "scramble" them. Just today, I managed to have one in a long series of problems happen with a computer that are not supposed to be ABLE to happen; the first one came over 20 years ago in high school, with the first computer I ever interacted with, on which my little Basic program (which was 100% correct and identical to what others had written for the same assignment) brought forth an error that no one had ever heard of, that the manual claimed was an "imaginary error" that meant something obscurely bad was going on... and no one else EVER got that error.
In the past, I've had all sorts of appliances fail to respond when I push their buttons, or do something other than what they're supposed to; whimsically, this is FAR more likely to happen when no one else is around, so the presence of another person must somehow mute the effect. One of the wildest incidences of this was the one and only time I was supposed to start my mother's VCR taping by pressing Record on the remote (normally, she would program it, but as it was something for just ME she couldn't be bothered); when the time came, I pressed the button, and nothing happened. I lost the first few minutes of the show as I pressed the button over and over, screaming for my mother to come and do something, while the VCR refused to start. Finally, I ran to the machine, found that there WAS a record button on it, and got the stupid thing to start... at which point my mother FINALLY showed up, screaming bloody murder because I'd touched a button other than the one I'd been told to use (my family works on the theory that there's only one right way to do things on a machine, and the end of civilization will come if you do it a different way, which might be the root of my ability to mess machines up), and insisting that it just wasn't POSSIBLE for the button on the remote to not have worked. She was right, in a way, because that is the ONLY time in the 20 years or so that she had that VCR (yes, she's VERY cheap) that ANY button on that remote failed to work.
Another wild example is one I mentioned in an earlier essay; a "Vegas" arcade game that I played blackjack on, on which I went over 21 EVERY time I had 12 and hit, despite the fact that no one else who played that game EVER had that happen. It wasn't ALL arcade games that went bad with me at the joystick, though; I had the world record score on a machine just a few feet away from the Vegas one.
Clearly, the energy behind psychic ability CAN interact with certain physical forces, and different people work on very different wavelengths than others; I've also had a friend who passed away contact me via my computer, TWICE, so THAT energy must be similar, or identical, which is what I've always thought. I'm going to try thinking about what I could do to consciously control some of this energy right before I go to sleep, so that maybe my subconscious will give me an answer in a dream; wish me luck.
*I* am in psychic synch with electrical appliances... so much so that I "scramble" them. Just today, I managed to have one in a long series of problems happen with a computer that are not supposed to be ABLE to happen; the first one came over 20 years ago in high school, with the first computer I ever interacted with, on which my little Basic program (which was 100% correct and identical to what others had written for the same assignment) brought forth an error that no one had ever heard of, that the manual claimed was an "imaginary error" that meant something obscurely bad was going on... and no one else EVER got that error.
In the past, I've had all sorts of appliances fail to respond when I push their buttons, or do something other than what they're supposed to; whimsically, this is FAR more likely to happen when no one else is around, so the presence of another person must somehow mute the effect. One of the wildest incidences of this was the one and only time I was supposed to start my mother's VCR taping by pressing Record on the remote (normally, she would program it, but as it was something for just ME she couldn't be bothered); when the time came, I pressed the button, and nothing happened. I lost the first few minutes of the show as I pressed the button over and over, screaming for my mother to come and do something, while the VCR refused to start. Finally, I ran to the machine, found that there WAS a record button on it, and got the stupid thing to start... at which point my mother FINALLY showed up, screaming bloody murder because I'd touched a button other than the one I'd been told to use (my family works on the theory that there's only one right way to do things on a machine, and the end of civilization will come if you do it a different way, which might be the root of my ability to mess machines up), and insisting that it just wasn't POSSIBLE for the button on the remote to not have worked. She was right, in a way, because that is the ONLY time in the 20 years or so that she had that VCR (yes, she's VERY cheap) that ANY button on that remote failed to work.
Another wild example is one I mentioned in an earlier essay; a "Vegas" arcade game that I played blackjack on, on which I went over 21 EVERY time I had 12 and hit, despite the fact that no one else who played that game EVER had that happen. It wasn't ALL arcade games that went bad with me at the joystick, though; I had the world record score on a machine just a few feet away from the Vegas one.
Clearly, the energy behind psychic ability CAN interact with certain physical forces, and different people work on very different wavelengths than others; I've also had a friend who passed away contact me via my computer, TWICE, so THAT energy must be similar, or identical, which is what I've always thought. I'm going to try thinking about what I could do to consciously control some of this energy right before I go to sleep, so that maybe my subconscious will give me an answer in a dream; wish me luck.
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Online personal ads
Ideally, personal ads are a terrific way to pre-screen people and allow them to pre-screen YOU, so that you hook up with people that you have a true chance of compatibility with. The reality is that most people ignore the information given about a potential date and make a snap judgment based on the photo(s), or, if there aren't any photos and they're interested in what they've read, they instantly ASK for photos... heaven forbid they waste their precious time sending a few emails to someone who they haven't verified looks like a model.
Then again, you can't blame people for ignoring what is written when they see the same pointless nonsense over and over again. I laughed my way through a bunch of ads here:
http://www.hotornot.com/
Each of these folks gets to give a list of keywords and write a little blurb about themselves, and here's what I'd like to tell them:
1) Don't say that you "like having fun," "like doing anything fun," "like having a good time," etc; everyone on Earth likes having a good time and doing whatever is fun to them, and what that is varies wildly from person to person.... try DESCRIBING what is fun to YOU.
2) Don't say that you like "good food," "good music," "good movies," etc; everyone thinks that what THEY like is good, and what we need to know is that what is good to YOU is pizza, jazz and comedies (or whatever).
3) Don't make sexual references; only a real lowlife is going to pick an ad that includes your love of oral sex in your 50 words or less (this goes double for women-trust me, no man respects a woman who advertises herself with sex).
4) Men, if you have a flabby, pasty, undefined upper body, do NOT use a pic of you with your shirt off.
5) Ladies, no one wants to see your underwear, butt cleavage or cellulite.
6) SMILE!! At least PRETEND you have a personality!! There's nothing worse than a photo that looks like a mug shot; what sort of person would respond to a grim, humorless photo?
7) Men, you don't attract women by talking about the sports, beer, and other testosterone pursuits you enjoy; try listing activities that more than 1 woman in a million likes.
8) Ladies, no man wants to feel like an element on your agenda; DON'T mention your intention to marry and/or have kids "some day."
9) Use a photo of you that is at least moderately flattering; if you have greasy hair, undereye bags, and stains on your shirt in your pic, you're not going to maximize your hits.
10) Try to not seem more shallow than average; no one wants to hear about the flawlessly gorgeous person you're looking for, especially if you yourself are no better than average-looking.
I could go on and on, but, based on the evidence, using any brain cells to create an online personal ad is against the rules, lol.
Then again, you can't blame people for ignoring what is written when they see the same pointless nonsense over and over again. I laughed my way through a bunch of ads here:
http://www.hotornot.com/
Each of these folks gets to give a list of keywords and write a little blurb about themselves, and here's what I'd like to tell them:
1) Don't say that you "like having fun," "like doing anything fun," "like having a good time," etc; everyone on Earth likes having a good time and doing whatever is fun to them, and what that is varies wildly from person to person.... try DESCRIBING what is fun to YOU.
2) Don't say that you like "good food," "good music," "good movies," etc; everyone thinks that what THEY like is good, and what we need to know is that what is good to YOU is pizza, jazz and comedies (or whatever).
3) Don't make sexual references; only a real lowlife is going to pick an ad that includes your love of oral sex in your 50 words or less (this goes double for women-trust me, no man respects a woman who advertises herself with sex).
4) Men, if you have a flabby, pasty, undefined upper body, do NOT use a pic of you with your shirt off.
5) Ladies, no one wants to see your underwear, butt cleavage or cellulite.
6) SMILE!! At least PRETEND you have a personality!! There's nothing worse than a photo that looks like a mug shot; what sort of person would respond to a grim, humorless photo?
7) Men, you don't attract women by talking about the sports, beer, and other testosterone pursuits you enjoy; try listing activities that more than 1 woman in a million likes.
8) Ladies, no man wants to feel like an element on your agenda; DON'T mention your intention to marry and/or have kids "some day."
9) Use a photo of you that is at least moderately flattering; if you have greasy hair, undereye bags, and stains on your shirt in your pic, you're not going to maximize your hits.
10) Try to not seem more shallow than average; no one wants to hear about the flawlessly gorgeous person you're looking for, especially if you yourself are no better than average-looking.
I could go on and on, but, based on the evidence, using any brain cells to create an online personal ad is against the rules, lol.
Monday, February 16, 2004
Where does religion come from?
Every culture that has ever existed, from caveman days onwards, has had religion; WHY? Part of it certainly stems from the universal human need to explain the powerful forces that exist in the world and our lives, and part of it is the desire to believe that just because we're grown up doesn't mean that there isn't still a parent figure or figures out there who are looking after us... but is that it?
Once a religion is established, of course, the vast majority of people born into it believe it because that's what they were taught to believe as kids, in the same way modern kids believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and all the cultural references to the religion help keep belief going, too, but that doesn't account for those who feel DRIVEN to switch to a different religion than they were brought up in, or those who were brought up without religion who "find it," or those who had a fairly indifferent sort of belief who become impassioned about it... what happens to cause those sorts of feelings?
We can't discount everyone who sees, hears or feels something that they interpret as a religious experience as crazy, so there's got to be SOMETHING... but what? It seems to me that if there were one true deity, or group of deities, everyone would be perceiving him/them, but instead there are people who feel the existence of all sorts of things-try talking to a wiccan some day. My personal view is that there IS energy out there, the energy that fuels the engine of karma, and that people perceive that energy and interpret it to be whatever sort of religious experience their personality leads them to want/need.
How do I know that I'M not the one giving a subjective interpretation to the energy *I* perceive? Because I'm not giving ANY interpretation to it; I've felt and seen things, but I'm not creating something in my own image to explain it, I'm not pretending that it loves me or is thinking about me... I see a force acting in a consistent way, much as I see every object I drop falling to the ground, and have merely given the force, in all its manifestations, a name (karma) rather than creating a religion around it, or picking a religion to explain it.
COULD there be God or gods at the center of all this energy? Sure-I can't prove otherwise. A deeply religious and spiritual (they are NOT the same) friend of mine is a believer in both God and karma; she sees karma as a device God created to do His will. She also believes that God shows to each person whatever facet of Himself is most appropriate for that person, and that for some of us what is appropriate is to see the engine of karma and not the maker of that engine. If she's right, I hope I'll see Him one day...
Once a religion is established, of course, the vast majority of people born into it believe it because that's what they were taught to believe as kids, in the same way modern kids believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and all the cultural references to the religion help keep belief going, too, but that doesn't account for those who feel DRIVEN to switch to a different religion than they were brought up in, or those who were brought up without religion who "find it," or those who had a fairly indifferent sort of belief who become impassioned about it... what happens to cause those sorts of feelings?
We can't discount everyone who sees, hears or feels something that they interpret as a religious experience as crazy, so there's got to be SOMETHING... but what? It seems to me that if there were one true deity, or group of deities, everyone would be perceiving him/them, but instead there are people who feel the existence of all sorts of things-try talking to a wiccan some day. My personal view is that there IS energy out there, the energy that fuels the engine of karma, and that people perceive that energy and interpret it to be whatever sort of religious experience their personality leads them to want/need.
How do I know that I'M not the one giving a subjective interpretation to the energy *I* perceive? Because I'm not giving ANY interpretation to it; I've felt and seen things, but I'm not creating something in my own image to explain it, I'm not pretending that it loves me or is thinking about me... I see a force acting in a consistent way, much as I see every object I drop falling to the ground, and have merely given the force, in all its manifestations, a name (karma) rather than creating a religion around it, or picking a religion to explain it.
COULD there be God or gods at the center of all this energy? Sure-I can't prove otherwise. A deeply religious and spiritual (they are NOT the same) friend of mine is a believer in both God and karma; she sees karma as a device God created to do His will. She also believes that God shows to each person whatever facet of Himself is most appropriate for that person, and that for some of us what is appropriate is to see the engine of karma and not the maker of that engine. If she's right, I hope I'll see Him one day...
Sunday, February 15, 2004
Common sense is an oxymoron
You see it every day. The friend whose parents have given them nothing but grief and disapproval their entire life who's still trying to find that magic combination of actions that will get them one scrap of approval. People whose families in general are toxic, but who keep on staying involved with them. The guy that ignores perfectly nice people that he could be friends with while clutching onto people who treat him like dirt, and even takes back people who abused him and walked off, often with the excuse of having known the jerks for many years, as if THAT changes anything. The woman whose man cheats and/or beats her who she stays with because she "loves" him. The morons on Jerry Springer who find out that their partners have committed every possible sin against them, but will literally FIGHT to try to keep them. The latest example for me, which inspired this rant, is a sweet, brilliant, gorgeous woman I know who is separated from her husband, and it turns out that they are SO separated that he didn't even contact her on Valentine's Day... and I'm left wondering which one of them is crazier, him for his gross neglect of her or her for bothering with him when he's so obviously just hanging onto her as a fallback position for when he gets tired of his midlife crisis and wants to come home.
We're not living in an old-time agrarian society where we only have a handful of potential partners and so have to grab one and hold on for dear life or be out of luck. We're no longer so dependent on our families of origin that we need to stick around even when they, or any one of them, are abusive. We don't have to hang onto friends who mistreat us-there are countless others who can be our friends. None of this is news to anyone, so why, why, WHY is it that nearly every person I know is keeping a white-knuckle grip on at least one shithead they should be kicking to the curb?
We're not living in an old-time agrarian society where we only have a handful of potential partners and so have to grab one and hold on for dear life or be out of luck. We're no longer so dependent on our families of origin that we need to stick around even when they, or any one of them, are abusive. We don't have to hang onto friends who mistreat us-there are countless others who can be our friends. None of this is news to anyone, so why, why, WHY is it that nearly every person I know is keeping a white-knuckle grip on at least one shithead they should be kicking to the curb?
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