Saturday, March 05, 2005
The natural look
I remember an interchange I had with an ex-boyfriend on the patio behind the art building in, I think, the latter half of my high school career; as a not particularly subtle poke at me, and the makeup I was wearing, he announced that he didn't like makeup, because it wasn't "natural," that he only liked things that were "natural," and thought that every aspect of a person's appearance should be "natural." My scathing reply was:
"Oh REALLY? Then why do you have those braces on your teeth, Nature Boy? They aren't "natural." Those glasses you're wearing aren't "natural," either, are they? You're wearing clothes, and that's not "natural." You've got shoes on your feet, and that's not "natural." You hair is cut short, and that's not "natural." You shave, and that's not "natural." You trim your nails, and that's not "natural." You wear deodorant, and THAT'S not "natural"... there isn't much about you that IS natural, is there, so you can keep your rude, stupid, hypocritical comments to yourself."
lol
Although he was pretty much burned to a cinder, he did his best to hem and haw and but-but-but; he failed utterly of course, because he was wrong, and in the wrong, on every level. (If you're feeling any sympathy for him, don't bother; remember, he instigated negative commentary KNOWING that I'd blast him, but he still had to do it, still HAD to be a jerk and take a shot at putting me down.)
The really sad thing is that, in a culture where standards of beauty keep escalating, to the point that even those with the greatest "natural" beauty can't compete with the heavily retouched images of artfully coiffed, dressed and made up people that we're bombarded with a hundred times a day, there are STILL men claiming to prefer "the natural look"... even though the women they DATE rarely have makeup-free faces, much less hair with neither perm nor artificial color. Is this just pure misogyny, a way to arrogantly criticize nearly ALL American women with a single phrase, a way to deflect the power of women's beauty by deriding its "unnaturalness"? I'm sure most men who say that would deny it, but, let's face it, it's not NICE to make a negative blanket statement like that, so it's difficult to ascribe motives that aren't at least somewhat negative.
Although there are certainly makeup styles that are clownish or freakish, in general makeup hides flaws and enhances the features in accordance with what men are biologically programmed to prefer, so there's absolutely NO excuse for anyone to turn their noses up at it; the exception would be if there were any men who could say honestly that they LIKE pimples, scars, blotches, dark undereye circles, pasty cheeks, dry lips, and all the other elements of the average woman's face without makeup, but of course we all know that no such men exist.
Even those men who don't take a hard line about makeup will usually, if asked, say that they prefer a makeup-free face; as any woman can tell you from experience, however, men show MUCH more attraction and interest in her if she's made up than if she's not, so... why do men SAY that, when their actions and arousal patterns so clearly show the opposite?
I suppose that men might be scarred for life by their disappointment the first time they see a woman without her "face" and realize that she's not nearly as pretty as they thought she was; then again, the first time the woman sees HIM with bedhead, puffy eyes and stubble, scratching his genitals through ratty boxers, SHE'S not thrilled, so it should balance out... and it'd be just too pitiful of a reason in any case.
Let's forget trying to explain why men claim to prefer the natural look, and ask ourselves if it's objectively BETTER; is there some innate superiority in NOT having pigmented substances on one's face? Of course not. There's a wider frame of reference in which it IS better, though, or at least would be if we could achieve it; it used to be that virtually ANY healthy woman who wasn't too far along in years was considered reasonably attractive exactly as she naturally looked, because natural was all we had to go by, the only faces we saw were those in our village or town so we didn't have much basis for comparison, and retouched photos were far in the future... imagine, ladies, making NO effort at a beauty regimen and STILL being widely considered as appealing. Boggles the mind, doesn't it? I think we'd be far, FAR better off as a culture if we went back to that older standard of looks, but it's never gonna happen.
An interesting change HAS been happening in recent years, though; with women's dollars being courted for movies, TV shows, musical acts, etc, and with the possession of those dollars allowing women for the 1st time in history to pick male partners based on attraction rather than on their ability to bring home the bacon, the standards of looks for MEN are shooting up by leaps and bounds, and suddenly MEN are doing endless primping and grooming, exercising and trying to dress sharp... the era of the metrosexual has arrived, and, though some despair of this trend, it has the undeniable benefit of it making it difficult for men to keep banging the drum for the natural look, especially with men's cosmetics being one of the fastest growing markets in the country.
I recently saw a somewhat mean-spirited program showing celebs without their makeup; one of the people featured was a plain, doughy-faced girl with stringy hair and dozens of large pimples covering her cheeks... does that sound like anyone you'd pant after, fellas? Who was it? Britney Spears. Hard to believe, but true; one of the hottest babes on the planet revealed to be, withOUT the makeup, a girl most men would cross the street to avoid talking to.
What do you suppose SHE would say about how men REALLY feel about the natural look?
"Oh REALLY? Then why do you have those braces on your teeth, Nature Boy? They aren't "natural." Those glasses you're wearing aren't "natural," either, are they? You're wearing clothes, and that's not "natural." You've got shoes on your feet, and that's not "natural." You hair is cut short, and that's not "natural." You shave, and that's not "natural." You trim your nails, and that's not "natural." You wear deodorant, and THAT'S not "natural"... there isn't much about you that IS natural, is there, so you can keep your rude, stupid, hypocritical comments to yourself."
lol
Although he was pretty much burned to a cinder, he did his best to hem and haw and but-but-but; he failed utterly of course, because he was wrong, and in the wrong, on every level. (If you're feeling any sympathy for him, don't bother; remember, he instigated negative commentary KNOWING that I'd blast him, but he still had to do it, still HAD to be a jerk and take a shot at putting me down.)
The really sad thing is that, in a culture where standards of beauty keep escalating, to the point that even those with the greatest "natural" beauty can't compete with the heavily retouched images of artfully coiffed, dressed and made up people that we're bombarded with a hundred times a day, there are STILL men claiming to prefer "the natural look"... even though the women they DATE rarely have makeup-free faces, much less hair with neither perm nor artificial color. Is this just pure misogyny, a way to arrogantly criticize nearly ALL American women with a single phrase, a way to deflect the power of women's beauty by deriding its "unnaturalness"? I'm sure most men who say that would deny it, but, let's face it, it's not NICE to make a negative blanket statement like that, so it's difficult to ascribe motives that aren't at least somewhat negative.
Although there are certainly makeup styles that are clownish or freakish, in general makeup hides flaws and enhances the features in accordance with what men are biologically programmed to prefer, so there's absolutely NO excuse for anyone to turn their noses up at it; the exception would be if there were any men who could say honestly that they LIKE pimples, scars, blotches, dark undereye circles, pasty cheeks, dry lips, and all the other elements of the average woman's face without makeup, but of course we all know that no such men exist.
Even those men who don't take a hard line about makeup will usually, if asked, say that they prefer a makeup-free face; as any woman can tell you from experience, however, men show MUCH more attraction and interest in her if she's made up than if she's not, so... why do men SAY that, when their actions and arousal patterns so clearly show the opposite?
I suppose that men might be scarred for life by their disappointment the first time they see a woman without her "face" and realize that she's not nearly as pretty as they thought she was; then again, the first time the woman sees HIM with bedhead, puffy eyes and stubble, scratching his genitals through ratty boxers, SHE'S not thrilled, so it should balance out... and it'd be just too pitiful of a reason in any case.
Let's forget trying to explain why men claim to prefer the natural look, and ask ourselves if it's objectively BETTER; is there some innate superiority in NOT having pigmented substances on one's face? Of course not. There's a wider frame of reference in which it IS better, though, or at least would be if we could achieve it; it used to be that virtually ANY healthy woman who wasn't too far along in years was considered reasonably attractive exactly as she naturally looked, because natural was all we had to go by, the only faces we saw were those in our village or town so we didn't have much basis for comparison, and retouched photos were far in the future... imagine, ladies, making NO effort at a beauty regimen and STILL being widely considered as appealing. Boggles the mind, doesn't it? I think we'd be far, FAR better off as a culture if we went back to that older standard of looks, but it's never gonna happen.
An interesting change HAS been happening in recent years, though; with women's dollars being courted for movies, TV shows, musical acts, etc, and with the possession of those dollars allowing women for the 1st time in history to pick male partners based on attraction rather than on their ability to bring home the bacon, the standards of looks for MEN are shooting up by leaps and bounds, and suddenly MEN are doing endless primping and grooming, exercising and trying to dress sharp... the era of the metrosexual has arrived, and, though some despair of this trend, it has the undeniable benefit of it making it difficult for men to keep banging the drum for the natural look, especially with men's cosmetics being one of the fastest growing markets in the country.
I recently saw a somewhat mean-spirited program showing celebs without their makeup; one of the people featured was a plain, doughy-faced girl with stringy hair and dozens of large pimples covering her cheeks... does that sound like anyone you'd pant after, fellas? Who was it? Britney Spears. Hard to believe, but true; one of the hottest babes on the planet revealed to be, withOUT the makeup, a girl most men would cross the street to avoid talking to.
What do you suppose SHE would say about how men REALLY feel about the natural look?
Friday, March 04, 2005
Feeling the power?
On 2-28-05, I wrote about the affirmations I'm going to do to help a loved one get his brilliant screenplay to the actor everyone agrees should play the main role; I've been doing them every day, but last night, something new happened, something which had never happened during ANY affirmations I've ever done... I actually FELT "power" being generated. The affirmation process started in the usual unspectacular way, but when I was about halfway through them I noticed that I felt... well, it's hard to explain, but the image that keeps coming to me is when you rev a car's engine and hold it at a level higher than a normal idle when you're trying to warm it up-that's what it felt like. There was no particular emotional state attached to this, other than a vague confusion as to why I was getting this feeling, which went away as soon as I realized what must be happening; I didn't feel elated, as one logically might expect me to (perhaps because it was 5AM and I hadn't been to bed yet), I just sorta went with it and finished the affirmations... and, once I was done, the feeling of "power" faded.
Was what I experienced exhaustion, delusion, wishful thinking, or a combination thereof? They're all valid possibilities, and I can't disprove any of them; my instinct, though, is that I WAS feeling the karmic "power" I was generating, and that it's MUCH stronger than previously due to the spiritual progress I've made... I sure HOPE that's it, because if it is I can be fairly confident about bringing about the desired result.
I did today's affirmations right before doing this post, and... it was even stronger today, and was accompanied by odd bodily sensations that I can't quite describe, and a faintly dizzy and headachy feeling towards the end, although I was NOT pushing or straining in any way, just typing steadily and focusing on trying to create some semblance of the proper words (I'm an AWFUL typist). Why did my brain react as if I HAD been making some huge and protracted effort, rather than just typing for a few minutes? Did I psych myself into it? I can't discount the possibility, but it just doesn't seem likely; if that were what was going on, you'd think I was getting myself worked up, but I was smart and took my pulse right after I finished, and it was SLOWER than normal, rather than speeded up as you'd expect it to be if I were eagerly creating the illusion that I was radiating power... my best guess as to why it was slower is that the process of making the affirmations involved some small degree of meditative state, but that's based on just one event, so it's not carved in stone. WAS some sort of major something-or-other going on in my brain during the affirmations? Again, I'll need more data before drawing any conclusions, but if that WAS what I felt, rather than just some side effect of the energy that was encompassing me, that would mean that a whole new "layer" is being added to my understanding of how affirmations work... or that I'm somehow able to ADD something to the process... wow....................................
I've gotta admit, this creeps me out just a little, but I'm resisting "shutting down" with all my might; this is what I've been seeking out, and now that I'm getting it I'm going to see how far I can take it.
Was what I experienced exhaustion, delusion, wishful thinking, or a combination thereof? They're all valid possibilities, and I can't disprove any of them; my instinct, though, is that I WAS feeling the karmic "power" I was generating, and that it's MUCH stronger than previously due to the spiritual progress I've made... I sure HOPE that's it, because if it is I can be fairly confident about bringing about the desired result.
I did today's affirmations right before doing this post, and... it was even stronger today, and was accompanied by odd bodily sensations that I can't quite describe, and a faintly dizzy and headachy feeling towards the end, although I was NOT pushing or straining in any way, just typing steadily and focusing on trying to create some semblance of the proper words (I'm an AWFUL typist). Why did my brain react as if I HAD been making some huge and protracted effort, rather than just typing for a few minutes? Did I psych myself into it? I can't discount the possibility, but it just doesn't seem likely; if that were what was going on, you'd think I was getting myself worked up, but I was smart and took my pulse right after I finished, and it was SLOWER than normal, rather than speeded up as you'd expect it to be if I were eagerly creating the illusion that I was radiating power... my best guess as to why it was slower is that the process of making the affirmations involved some small degree of meditative state, but that's based on just one event, so it's not carved in stone. WAS some sort of major something-or-other going on in my brain during the affirmations? Again, I'll need more data before drawing any conclusions, but if that WAS what I felt, rather than just some side effect of the energy that was encompassing me, that would mean that a whole new "layer" is being added to my understanding of how affirmations work... or that I'm somehow able to ADD something to the process... wow....................................
I've gotta admit, this creeps me out just a little, but I'm resisting "shutting down" with all my might; this is what I've been seeking out, and now that I'm getting it I'm going to see how far I can take it.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
The karma of insanity
I could theoretically leave this post blank, because I don't KNOW how insanity affects karma... only that it MUST, because insanity creates totally atypical sorts of thoughts, often coupled with an intensity of emotion that's equally atypical, and that combination is extremely powerful, especially with the obsessive repetition the insane tend to give their thoughts. They're generating a massive amount of karmic energy, but of what kind? If they think they're angels or Mother Teresa, does that mean they're generating positive energy? If their fantasies are scary, making them afraid all the time, does that generate negative energy, as it would with a normal person? Does insanity make all their exuded karma neutral? Does it mess up their brains so badly that what emanates from them isn't even regular karma anymore? Does it make a difference if they have any understanding of right and wrong, or if they're totally amoral as sociopathic crazies tend to be? Does it matter if they've lost all touch with reality, or if reality fades in and out for them, or if, again with sociopaths, they've got a solid but warped and ugly grip on reality? Does it change anything if they're rapists or murders, if they're torturing animals, or people, or committing other atrocities?
I first started thinking about this a while back when my husband was telling me a lengthy list of horrifying things that Stalin had done; he was evil, he was crazy, and he lived a long life and died a natural death, never having suffered for his misdeeds. Oh, his lack of positive energy being generated meant that he didn't have any love and friendship coming to him, if only because he kept KILLING his friends, but obviously he didn't CARE; more to the point, he was doing evil deeds as fast as he could think them up, he had everyone in an entire country so afraid of him that, when he made appearances, people would applaud nonstop for literally hours because no one wanted to be singled out as being the first one to stop applauding... but no negative energy seems to have rebounded onto him, so SOMETHING karmically unusual must have been going on.
Dictators in general appear to avoid bad karma; yes, some get killed, but that's cause and effect, and until that time they seem to not be suffering much... they may have suffered on the inside just by virtue of being crazy, but the tsunami of negative energy that one would expect to hit them and mess up their lives never does. Serial killers and child molesters tend to have perfectly decent lives until they get caught, and being caught is, again, cause and effect, especially since they WANT to get caught and given credit for their deeds; the negative energy you'd expect THEM to receive doesn't materialize, either. If normal people who do evil things get negative energy back (which they do), but crazy people doing EVIL deeds are immune, insanity must scramble, cancel out, confuse, reverse, or otherwise affect karma in a way that prevents the standard flows of energy from occurring... it sucks big time, but there's no other way to explain the facts.
I really want to know what the mechanism is behind this; I do NOT want a personal encounter with a psychotic, I'd like information and/or an epiphany to come to me on this topic... and I hope karma sends it SOON, as it's making ME crazy wondering about it.
I first started thinking about this a while back when my husband was telling me a lengthy list of horrifying things that Stalin had done; he was evil, he was crazy, and he lived a long life and died a natural death, never having suffered for his misdeeds. Oh, his lack of positive energy being generated meant that he didn't have any love and friendship coming to him, if only because he kept KILLING his friends, but obviously he didn't CARE; more to the point, he was doing evil deeds as fast as he could think them up, he had everyone in an entire country so afraid of him that, when he made appearances, people would applaud nonstop for literally hours because no one wanted to be singled out as being the first one to stop applauding... but no negative energy seems to have rebounded onto him, so SOMETHING karmically unusual must have been going on.
Dictators in general appear to avoid bad karma; yes, some get killed, but that's cause and effect, and until that time they seem to not be suffering much... they may have suffered on the inside just by virtue of being crazy, but the tsunami of negative energy that one would expect to hit them and mess up their lives never does. Serial killers and child molesters tend to have perfectly decent lives until they get caught, and being caught is, again, cause and effect, especially since they WANT to get caught and given credit for their deeds; the negative energy you'd expect THEM to receive doesn't materialize, either. If normal people who do evil things get negative energy back (which they do), but crazy people doing EVIL deeds are immune, insanity must scramble, cancel out, confuse, reverse, or otherwise affect karma in a way that prevents the standard flows of energy from occurring... it sucks big time, but there's no other way to explain the facts.
I really want to know what the mechanism is behind this; I do NOT want a personal encounter with a psychotic, I'd like information and/or an epiphany to come to me on this topic... and I hope karma sends it SOON, as it's making ME crazy wondering about it.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Thank you Scott Adams!! :-)
It was from Dilbert
http://dilbert.com/
creator Scott Adams that I first learned about affirmations; if you go here
http://www.bobjanuary.com/bj_scans/readings/dilbert.htm
where Adams' text on matters metaphysical is reproduced, and go about 2/3 of the way down, you can read about his experiences with affirmations... experiences that were powerful enough to encourage ME to try it, with stunning success.
Now, I have something new to be grateful to him for; a clever and clear way to explain to "nonbelievers" why I believe in the things I do. Why should I have to explain or justify anything to anyone? I shouldn't, of course, but I periodically encounter disrespectful people who say things like, "So what if you've seen events occur a thousand times in ways that look to you as if they're meaningful and caused by what you call 'karma'... you don't have 'proof' from science that any of that stuff works the way you say it does, so why do you believe in it?" My traditional reply has been along the lines of, "I've seen and interacted with ghosts, and experienced psychic phenomena, so I KNOW that there are unprovable unknowns out there; the other aspects of karma can't be perceived directly, but I've seen it work exactly as my worldview predicts countless times, so how can I NOT believe?" I've had limited success with that explanation, but I think I may do better with one that Adams gave:
"While I believe the scientific method is a wonderfully useful tool, proven many times, it is not logically applicable to 100% of all questions about reality (examples to follow). Moreover, as a practical matter, people don't often have the option of applying the scientific method to their daily decisions.... But we all agree that some amount of anecdotal evidence should, cumulatively, influence our decisions as long as we apply some common sense. It's an imperfect approach to life, but it's the best we have.
For example, let's say your house has two doors. Every time you walk out the North door, you get hit on the head with a golf ball. Scientists can't figure out where it comes from, because it never happens when they're watching. All you know is that it happens every time you walk out the door when no one else is watching. And it hurts.
Which door do you use in the future?
If you're a rational person, you use the other door, even though there's no reliable scientific evidence that it will be safer. You haven't solved the mystery of the golf ball, but you can still make a rational choice. You can still recognize a pattern. There's a rational cause, you just don't know what it is."
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! :-)
To use his example, *I* got hit in the head with the golf ball until it occurred to me to "use the other door"... and that door has led to an ever-increasing understanding of how karma works, paired with an ever-increasing ability to manipulate it directly. All of this happened DESPITE my natural inclination, which was to believe that NOTHING was controlling events other than what we already knew about; I started out as a hard-core atheist, which changed to agnosticism when it was pointed out to me that to be SURE there was no God without proof was as intellectually indefensible as claiming there WAS a God with no proof, and at no point did I ever even CARE about spiritual matters... I'd always say something along the lines of "If there's anything 'more' in the universe, I don't know what it is, and I couldn't care less." When that "golf ball" started hitting me, though, I HAD to believe, because believing in something you have endless evidence of, even unsubstantiated evidence with no scientific backup, is the only thing a rational person can do; no one was more amazed than me when I went from being the least spiritual person in my circle of acquaintance to being the MOST spiritual, but it happened this way because it had to... for reasons that I'm just starting to really see.
http://dilbert.com/
creator Scott Adams that I first learned about affirmations; if you go here
http://www.bobjanuary.com/bj_scans/readings/dilbert.htm
where Adams' text on matters metaphysical is reproduced, and go about 2/3 of the way down, you can read about his experiences with affirmations... experiences that were powerful enough to encourage ME to try it, with stunning success.
Now, I have something new to be grateful to him for; a clever and clear way to explain to "nonbelievers" why I believe in the things I do. Why should I have to explain or justify anything to anyone? I shouldn't, of course, but I periodically encounter disrespectful people who say things like, "So what if you've seen events occur a thousand times in ways that look to you as if they're meaningful and caused by what you call 'karma'... you don't have 'proof' from science that any of that stuff works the way you say it does, so why do you believe in it?" My traditional reply has been along the lines of, "I've seen and interacted with ghosts, and experienced psychic phenomena, so I KNOW that there are unprovable unknowns out there; the other aspects of karma can't be perceived directly, but I've seen it work exactly as my worldview predicts countless times, so how can I NOT believe?" I've had limited success with that explanation, but I think I may do better with one that Adams gave:
"While I believe the scientific method is a wonderfully useful tool, proven many times, it is not logically applicable to 100% of all questions about reality (examples to follow). Moreover, as a practical matter, people don't often have the option of applying the scientific method to their daily decisions.... But we all agree that some amount of anecdotal evidence should, cumulatively, influence our decisions as long as we apply some common sense. It's an imperfect approach to life, but it's the best we have.
For example, let's say your house has two doors. Every time you walk out the North door, you get hit on the head with a golf ball. Scientists can't figure out where it comes from, because it never happens when they're watching. All you know is that it happens every time you walk out the door when no one else is watching. And it hurts.
Which door do you use in the future?
If you're a rational person, you use the other door, even though there's no reliable scientific evidence that it will be safer. You haven't solved the mystery of the golf ball, but you can still make a rational choice. You can still recognize a pattern. There's a rational cause, you just don't know what it is."
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! :-)
To use his example, *I* got hit in the head with the golf ball until it occurred to me to "use the other door"... and that door has led to an ever-increasing understanding of how karma works, paired with an ever-increasing ability to manipulate it directly. All of this happened DESPITE my natural inclination, which was to believe that NOTHING was controlling events other than what we already knew about; I started out as a hard-core atheist, which changed to agnosticism when it was pointed out to me that to be SURE there was no God without proof was as intellectually indefensible as claiming there WAS a God with no proof, and at no point did I ever even CARE about spiritual matters... I'd always say something along the lines of "If there's anything 'more' in the universe, I don't know what it is, and I couldn't care less." When that "golf ball" started hitting me, though, I HAD to believe, because believing in something you have endless evidence of, even unsubstantiated evidence with no scientific backup, is the only thing a rational person can do; no one was more amazed than me when I went from being the least spiritual person in my circle of acquaintance to being the MOST spiritual, but it happened this way because it had to... for reasons that I'm just starting to really see.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Do we love our pets TOO much?
Are we using them as substitutes for HUMAN relationships, human closeness, human affection? Animals are sort of a captive audience; they can't break up with us, so it's safe to invest any amount of emotion in them... they won't spurn us one day, pack up their chew toys and depart, breaking our hearts. We never have to worry that they'll reject us in any way, so we can dump our emotional and affection needs on them without fear. They don't judge us; we can gain 10 pounds, not shave, get lazy about touching up our roots, dress like slobs, and we don't have to worry that they'll love us less, or start looking at photos of younger, thinner, more attractive masters. They can't talk about us behind our backs, can't reveal our secrets, don't nag or scold, don't argue, criticize, disagree, or remind us of our past mistakes... they're like the idealized version of a friend that no person can live up to (because that would mean being a Yes Boy/Girl, NOT being a friend). They're great listeners; we can spout on and on, and they'll never interrupt, or try to get us to see what THEY think and feel, or want to take up our time telling us how their day went, or chatter on about things we think are trivial... no matter how much flea-scratching and butt-licking they do, we never have to hear about it.
Is it a coincidence that Western culture, where almost every kind of touching is seen as potentially sexual, and physical affection, specifically, is seen as attempted foreplay, and thus makes us uncomfortable if it comes from someone other than our mate and lasts longer than a brief hug, is the culture where animals are dressed up like little people, talked to as if they were babies, and even CALLED our "children"? Where we want to take our pets everywhere, even if that means carrying them in our purses, so that we can pet them and babble to them all the time? Where we want them to hang out with us on the couch, on the BED, wherever we are, so that we have the closeness of their warm, furry bodies all the time? In cultures that don't have our sick attitudes about sex, affection and touching, they may have pets, they may even have intense love for them, but they do NOT use them as primary sources of comfort and closeness... they have other people for that, which, quite frankly, is how it SHOULD be.
Human beings have an inborn need for physical contact with others, and our biological programming is NOT to fill that need through contact with other species; we're meant to fill that need with each other, and the fulfillment of that need is supposed to cement us together emotionally to the benefit of all members of the community. Personal relationships have gotten so complicated and scary, though, we're so cut off from our roots, we move and change our lives so much, losing track of people as fast as we get close to them, we're so hesitant to touch children for fear of being labeled molesters, we're so worried about being seen as gay if we try to get touched by same-sex friends, and of being faced with unwanted sexual advances if we try it with friends of the opposite sex, we're so clueless about how to make friends with other adults with busy lives and established relationships, we're so at sea about how to find romantic partners at ages that mother nature expected us to be LONG since coupled up and producing children by, especially since we have no methods in place to even MEET other singles once we're out of school, even more so if we're not allowed to date those who work with us and don't attend church... it's no wonder that we fall back on the effortless love and affection obtainable from a pet, and often love our animals more than we do people.
Non-human creatures are often stunningly wonderful, and I think in general that it's a good thing for us to love animals, and for them to love us back; however, if you, or someone you know, has few or no friends, and/or little or no warm family contact, and/or no romantic partner or one where the standard affection-leads-to-sex thing holds true, AND has a pet that gets treated as the center of the universe, upon which endless extravagant attention gets lavished... it's time to make an effort at more intensive HUMAN contact.
Is it a coincidence that Western culture, where almost every kind of touching is seen as potentially sexual, and physical affection, specifically, is seen as attempted foreplay, and thus makes us uncomfortable if it comes from someone other than our mate and lasts longer than a brief hug, is the culture where animals are dressed up like little people, talked to as if they were babies, and even CALLED our "children"? Where we want to take our pets everywhere, even if that means carrying them in our purses, so that we can pet them and babble to them all the time? Where we want them to hang out with us on the couch, on the BED, wherever we are, so that we have the closeness of their warm, furry bodies all the time? In cultures that don't have our sick attitudes about sex, affection and touching, they may have pets, they may even have intense love for them, but they do NOT use them as primary sources of comfort and closeness... they have other people for that, which, quite frankly, is how it SHOULD be.
Human beings have an inborn need for physical contact with others, and our biological programming is NOT to fill that need through contact with other species; we're meant to fill that need with each other, and the fulfillment of that need is supposed to cement us together emotionally to the benefit of all members of the community. Personal relationships have gotten so complicated and scary, though, we're so cut off from our roots, we move and change our lives so much, losing track of people as fast as we get close to them, we're so hesitant to touch children for fear of being labeled molesters, we're so worried about being seen as gay if we try to get touched by same-sex friends, and of being faced with unwanted sexual advances if we try it with friends of the opposite sex, we're so clueless about how to make friends with other adults with busy lives and established relationships, we're so at sea about how to find romantic partners at ages that mother nature expected us to be LONG since coupled up and producing children by, especially since we have no methods in place to even MEET other singles once we're out of school, even more so if we're not allowed to date those who work with us and don't attend church... it's no wonder that we fall back on the effortless love and affection obtainable from a pet, and often love our animals more than we do people.
Non-human creatures are often stunningly wonderful, and I think in general that it's a good thing for us to love animals, and for them to love us back; however, if you, or someone you know, has few or no friends, and/or little or no warm family contact, and/or no romantic partner or one where the standard affection-leads-to-sex thing holds true, AND has a pet that gets treated as the center of the universe, upon which endless extravagant attention gets lavished... it's time to make an effort at more intensive HUMAN contact.
Monday, February 28, 2005
To help or not to help
There are plenty of circumstances where you want to help someone, but you'll mess things up for them if you do (sitcoms are full of that sort of stuff-apparently it's funny when it happens to OTHER people); the problem is usually that you can't possibly know everything that's going on that could impact the one you want to help, or everything that COULD happen to them, often combined with an imperfect ability to analyze what you DO know, or the psychology of the people involved... and, while you're free to take risks with your own life, you're morally obligated to be MUCH more careful with other people's lives, especially if they haven't ASKED you to intervene.
The potential problems multiply enormously when the sort of help you're thinking of giving taps into the unknown, such as when you're considering praying for someone, casting a spell for them, or, as I'm planning on doing, using affirmations and focused imagery; this isn't just because doing so means dealing with energies you don't understand with methods that are crude at best, but also because one of the basic tenets of karma is that whatever you send out energywise will come back to you (some people would say threefold or even tenfold), so if what you try to do turns out badly, BOOM... it doesn't matter what your intentions were (we know what the Bible says about the connection between good intentions and the road to hell, right?), if you cause harm you'll pay for it one way or another.
Ok, so here's the situation; one of the people I love most in the world has written a brilliant screenplay, and everyone he describes it to names one particular actor for the leading role... and, given what we know about this actor, it's the exact sort of movie he'd want to do. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but a producer has already taken an interest in the script, so there's an actual chance of it getting into the hands of this actor, or someone associated with him; naturally, it's far from being a certainty, and this is where *I* come into it... I'm going to undertake my biggest attempted manipulation of karma ever, to try to draw this actor to the script, and then into wanting to make the movie.
The visualization part will be easy, and relatively safe; I've taped a photo of the actor up by my computer to remind me to repeatedly picture him and my loved one talking about the script, interacting on the movie set... maybe even sitting together at the Oscars, why not think big. Where it could get tricky, and thus where I've had doubts about pitching in, is with the affirmations, since the way I learned to do them is to phrase them in terms of ME getting something, achieving something, whatever; I honestly don't know if I can "project" an affirmation, and, even if I can, how can I be sure that whatever one I use will have the desired results? What if I do it wrong and cause more harm than good? For example, if I ask karma to bring my loved one and the actor together, they could end up in adjoining beds in the emergency room after a multi-car pileup, so I need to be more specific... but, if I'm TOO specific, and try to eliminate every possible undesirable outcome, that can block off so many avenues to the desired result that karma can't make it happen, and, worse, while it's attempting to do so it might miss out on some OTHER avenue that WOULD have worked had I not tried to steer things. Just as importantly, affirmations really need to be simple to work well, because, if you're writing out a near-novel to describe what you want, that disperses the energy you're generating over a wide area, and that CAN'T be good.
With what I dearly hope is laudatory determination rather than hubris, I've chosen to give this my best shot; I've decided to do the affirmations, and just do them the standard way, as "I" statements, so that I don't risk projecting the wrong sort of energy into someone's life. Before I started writing this, my best idea was to have the affirmation be that I'd get a call from my loved one saying that he'd gotten the script to the actor... but then, I realized that I'd have to add that the actor loved it, and that he wanted to do the movie, AND that whatever studio picked it up would keep my loved one involved with the script... too long, too complicated. As I was writing the last paragraph, the perfect way to do it occurred to me:
I, Omni, will get a call from my loved one with totally wonderful news about his script.
This is very simple, gets across the idea of ALL aspects of this working the way we want them to, and leaves every possible path to the desired outcome open... even if, for instance, some OTHER big actor gets involved instead. I'll sleep on that, and, if it still looks good to me tomorrow, I'll do it... substituting the real names in, of course. Do I think this will make something happen? It's so big that I might not be able to, but I honestly think there's a good chance I WILL; my loved one is SO deserving of this success, both as a tribute to his brilliance and to his being one of the best and most generous human beings on this planet... if it's possible for this to work, I'm going to MAKE it work.
Stay tuned.
The potential problems multiply enormously when the sort of help you're thinking of giving taps into the unknown, such as when you're considering praying for someone, casting a spell for them, or, as I'm planning on doing, using affirmations and focused imagery; this isn't just because doing so means dealing with energies you don't understand with methods that are crude at best, but also because one of the basic tenets of karma is that whatever you send out energywise will come back to you (some people would say threefold or even tenfold), so if what you try to do turns out badly, BOOM... it doesn't matter what your intentions were (we know what the Bible says about the connection between good intentions and the road to hell, right?), if you cause harm you'll pay for it one way or another.
Ok, so here's the situation; one of the people I love most in the world has written a brilliant screenplay, and everyone he describes it to names one particular actor for the leading role... and, given what we know about this actor, it's the exact sort of movie he'd want to do. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but a producer has already taken an interest in the script, so there's an actual chance of it getting into the hands of this actor, or someone associated with him; naturally, it's far from being a certainty, and this is where *I* come into it... I'm going to undertake my biggest attempted manipulation of karma ever, to try to draw this actor to the script, and then into wanting to make the movie.
The visualization part will be easy, and relatively safe; I've taped a photo of the actor up by my computer to remind me to repeatedly picture him and my loved one talking about the script, interacting on the movie set... maybe even sitting together at the Oscars, why not think big. Where it could get tricky, and thus where I've had doubts about pitching in, is with the affirmations, since the way I learned to do them is to phrase them in terms of ME getting something, achieving something, whatever; I honestly don't know if I can "project" an affirmation, and, even if I can, how can I be sure that whatever one I use will have the desired results? What if I do it wrong and cause more harm than good? For example, if I ask karma to bring my loved one and the actor together, they could end up in adjoining beds in the emergency room after a multi-car pileup, so I need to be more specific... but, if I'm TOO specific, and try to eliminate every possible undesirable outcome, that can block off so many avenues to the desired result that karma can't make it happen, and, worse, while it's attempting to do so it might miss out on some OTHER avenue that WOULD have worked had I not tried to steer things. Just as importantly, affirmations really need to be simple to work well, because, if you're writing out a near-novel to describe what you want, that disperses the energy you're generating over a wide area, and that CAN'T be good.
With what I dearly hope is laudatory determination rather than hubris, I've chosen to give this my best shot; I've decided to do the affirmations, and just do them the standard way, as "I" statements, so that I don't risk projecting the wrong sort of energy into someone's life. Before I started writing this, my best idea was to have the affirmation be that I'd get a call from my loved one saying that he'd gotten the script to the actor... but then, I realized that I'd have to add that the actor loved it, and that he wanted to do the movie, AND that whatever studio picked it up would keep my loved one involved with the script... too long, too complicated. As I was writing the last paragraph, the perfect way to do it occurred to me:
I, Omni, will get a call from my loved one with totally wonderful news about his script.
This is very simple, gets across the idea of ALL aspects of this working the way we want them to, and leaves every possible path to the desired outcome open... even if, for instance, some OTHER big actor gets involved instead. I'll sleep on that, and, if it still looks good to me tomorrow, I'll do it... substituting the real names in, of course. Do I think this will make something happen? It's so big that I might not be able to, but I honestly think there's a good chance I WILL; my loved one is SO deserving of this success, both as a tribute to his brilliance and to his being one of the best and most generous human beings on this planet... if it's possible for this to work, I'm going to MAKE it work.
Stay tuned.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Visual preferences
We nearly all have a favorite color; did you ever wonder WHY you prefer the color you do, and in general why ANYONE prefers one color more than another? Most people prefer blue, if memory serves, followed by green, and that makes a certain evolutionary sense, given the importance of green plants and blue skies when you're a primitive human... but why do some people prefer purple or orange? Since we're not biologically programmed for coordinating outfits or interior decorating (as any straight men is proof of, lol), why do we have color preferences at all?
One visual preference that makes perfect sense is for landscapes that are mostly open with some trees, and with water visible; yes, they actually studied this, and even people who live in areas with radically different landscapes, and whose families had for centuries, preferred the kind I described... which is, noncoincidentally, the setup most beneficial for primitive humans, since we can't go for long without water, and need the open space to spot prey and predators, and trees to hide in and escape the elements under.
We're biologically programmed to like physical features that indicate youth, health, strength and fertility... but why do some of us prefer straight hair to curly, or brown eyes to blue? There are theories that we seek out people who look like our parent of the opposite sex, or our favorite sibling, or who look opposite to them... but none of those theories explain anywhere near all of our often VERY strongly-held preferences about looks.
Oddest of all, if you think about it, are the wide range of preferences we have for virtually EVERYTHING we see; stripes over plaid, small patterns over large, silver over gold, French provincial over traditional American, patterns over solids, dark wood over light, sports cars over luxury cars, modern architecture over classical styles, and on and on and on. We don't have any "wasted" areas of the brain, so there's GOT to be a reason that we're programmed to have visual preferences about just about everything, something that has survival and/or reproductive benefit... but I don't even have a clue as to what that reason might be.
One visual preference that makes perfect sense is for landscapes that are mostly open with some trees, and with water visible; yes, they actually studied this, and even people who live in areas with radically different landscapes, and whose families had for centuries, preferred the kind I described... which is, noncoincidentally, the setup most beneficial for primitive humans, since we can't go for long without water, and need the open space to spot prey and predators, and trees to hide in and escape the elements under.
We're biologically programmed to like physical features that indicate youth, health, strength and fertility... but why do some of us prefer straight hair to curly, or brown eyes to blue? There are theories that we seek out people who look like our parent of the opposite sex, or our favorite sibling, or who look opposite to them... but none of those theories explain anywhere near all of our often VERY strongly-held preferences about looks.
Oddest of all, if you think about it, are the wide range of preferences we have for virtually EVERYTHING we see; stripes over plaid, small patterns over large, silver over gold, French provincial over traditional American, patterns over solids, dark wood over light, sports cars over luxury cars, modern architecture over classical styles, and on and on and on. We don't have any "wasted" areas of the brain, so there's GOT to be a reason that we're programmed to have visual preferences about just about everything, something that has survival and/or reproductive benefit... but I don't even have a clue as to what that reason might be.
