Category: relationships

Sculpting

Dating from a woman’s perspective, I would say is similar to sculpting. We don’t make the slabs of marble. We encounter various sizes and colors and qualities of marble throughout life, and sometimes, often times we encounter piles of dirt. So the earth supplies a slab of marble and we provide the dream/vision. Now we have to painstakingly labor to remove the unwanted and irrelevant pieces to achieve the masterpiece.

As previously mentioned, double standards suck, but for safety reasons its better not to be the initiator when you are interested in someone. Therefore the power that remains is in dismissing the ineligible suitors. Just like a sculptor chisels away the unwanted material, similarly guys who do not have the qualities you desire must be dismissed.

Featured image by: Stux https://pixabay.com/photos/sculptor-steinmetz-arts-crafts-1791944/

Pablo Escobar

I’m a fan of the Narcos series on Netflix. It was the first series I ever binge watched on the platform. You may already know that it is a documentary series about the life of Pablo Escobar on of the most infamous drug traffickers from Columbia. He basically makes Scarface look like a kindergartner in the drug business. Ultimately he was a very evil man who helped some people but hurt many more, possibly millions more.

After he did a bunch of horrible things-in addition to peddling poison he was facing extradition to the USA. He did not want to go to the US as he had no influence there and would have to spend a extended stay in the prison system. So using the immense power he had in Columbia, he made a deal with the government there to imprison himself. The rediculousness of the idea shows how much power he had to be able to get it done.

The military eventually attacked his prison compound as he was still conducting business as usual including bombings of civilian aircraft and pharmacies.

What ever could be learned from such a horrible person? One thing is not to hurt innocent people. Not to create bad karma in general. Appreciate what you have. Also, we can learn that isolation, restriction, confinement and even imprisonment can be a state from which you can exercise power. Even prisoners in developed countries without the perks of Pablo, can exercise their power by going on something as non-violent as a hunger strike or refusing to leave their cells. Something so passive can display to the wardens and guards that the prisoner still has power. This is ultimately upsetting to the power structure and if all things are aligned can affect change. That is an extreme case but being in prison is extreme. I personally cannot go more than 4 hours without a snack.

In dating or in a relationship there may be demands or conditions in which you feel powerless. The fact is you always have power. If isolation from the person is an option that is a place from which you can get your thoughts together to find your powers. We sometimes are forced to slow down and realize how good we had it, when we become ill or find ourselves in some other debilitating place.

Assessing your current state and appreciating the privileges as few as they may be, and finding peace with your current state can possibly prevent things from getting worse. Pablo wasn’t satisfied with great wealth and power, he just wanted more of everything and he became so encumbered he destroyed himself. You have all you need right now.

Safety Factor

We can do anything we put our minds to. We are fearless and strong. Educated, skilled and qualified. We are world travelers, dancers, artists you name it. We are free!

With freedom comes glory and responsibility. The freedom to make decisions is also the assignment of accountability for the results of said decisions. Most unfortunately we also face consequences based upon other peoples’s actions. For example people who wish to harm us while we are in the process of living our lives and being great.

Across the world women have been protesting domestic violence, violence against women and femicide. Here in America we are somewhat insulated from the conditions women face around the world. Genital mutilation, child marriage, no reproductive control, no economic standing, no political representation and overall lack of what we see as basic human rights. We are also insulated from the sex trafficking and exploitation right here in America. As the media these days does mainly celebrity news, gossip, political exposes , paid ad content and other exaggerated stories about topics that do not advance humanity.

Right here in America, Indigenous women, from the reservations in the mid and south west all the way to Alaska are facing disappearances and death. All across America, immigrant women are transported from one corner of the country to another. From Mexico to New York, as depicted in a documentary I saw about two years ago.

We are totally detracted from the dangers other’s suffer until we encounter it ourselves. So we end up ill prepared to avoid and or prevent further occurrences. For example Uber was found to have suppressed approximately over 3000 instances where passengers were sexually assaulted by drivers. If the news media has exposed this information we would be more careful when getting into a vehicle. Maybe we would be more vigilant, even for a while. Maybe the offenders would know that they are under our watchful eye and find work where they would not be in a position to exploit their passengers.

The responsibility is never on the victims.

The responsibility is for the collective society to hold each other accountable to enforce an environment of security. To punish offenders and send a clear message that justice will be swift and inexorable. We have to share our knowledge to protect our neighbors and loved ones but how can this happen when the only place he Uber story was reported on was in the business pages?

We are living our lives, that in itself is a struggle, but it is made somewhat easier with information. What locations are dangerous, what times of the day are most dangerous, where are the places criminals frequent? Where is the safest place to park?

Some may see it as oppression but the fact remains that women should consider the safety of their environment even in our relatively liberated country. There are emotionally and psychologically disturbed people who do not view you beyond an object for economic and/or sexual exploitation. Be careful out there and travel at a reasonable hour. Let your loved ones know who you are associating with and let your associates know that your loved ones know who they are.

I understand you are a strong independent and fierce womyn. That does not mean you purposely and unnecessarily walk into danger.

 

Featured photo: Graeme Maclean https://www.flickr.com/photos/gee01/

 

Sabotage Pt. 2

I have written previous blog posts about friends who are threatened by your happiness and accomplishments, even their imagination of your happiness offends them secretly. The friends that try to engage you in situations where you will be embarrassed, degraded, devastated, drunk, fired, divorced, imprisoned, physically harmed, and in worst case killed.

In a blog post titled Sabotage I retold a story where a jealous friend gave a woman bad advice, telling her to engage deeper into a relationship with a musician that lived overseas. You can read the post here: https://goodguyfinder.com/2019/07/29/sabotage/ but it is not necessary to read it to understand this post.

Gossip ultimately is a terrible thing as it is a snippet of a much greater issue. Since we are not naming names, and hopefully I am using this as a example of how to protect yourself, I don’t wish this to be misunderstood as gossip. I will call it, current events.

So the current event is the younger lady she advised to go all-in with the musician is now pregnant with the musician’s child. While a new life is a blessing to the world, for a child to have the best chance the father should be present. Unfortunately in this situation the musician has advised the young woman that he will not be relocating as he has other children to care for in his homeland, but he will visit when he can. You can use your imagination from there as to how the months and years ahead will play out.

This to me is partially sad, as the woman is probably disappointed, while simultaneously realizing how silly she was to expect a musician who sings and performs hyper-sexualized music to be domesticated by her. Understandably she believed herself to be the exception, like we all believe ourselves to be, but that has to be followed by exceptional decisions for our selves.

Though I wrote the Sabotage post about five months ago, and expected things to go badly, I did not expect it to go this bad. I expected him to use her for sex, a visa, and money as she is a high paid professional. I did not however expect a child to have to suffer from her naive decisions or the maleficent advice of a jealous woman. I am confident that there were other women giving her bad advise regarding the relationship for their selfish entertainment.

The jealous people now pretend to feel sorrow for her but are actually reveling in the devastation because they themselves are miserable. Now that someone else’s life is miserable they don’t feel lower or threatened by the still  accomplished, but once perceived happy person. They achieved their goal of sabotaging her life, and if she manages to overcome and smile again, they will again be envious and seek to tear her down.

All the signals were here, there and everywhere she chose not to heed them, she sought out the advise of those who also saw the signals but enjoyed the ratchet reality show that was developing.

In conclusion beware of people encouraging you to act against logic. Beware of people who themselves engage in reckless behavior. They are acting based on emotions and if you hold yourself to be exceptional you should not make decisions that are not based on facts and stats.

 

Featured image: Ben Mortimer https://www.flickr.com/photos/mort183/

30% Ignored

If I told you 16% of the US population had no health insurance in 2007 would that number of people deserve attention? Politicians thought so and we are still discussing the uninsured now even though its been cut to under 9%. Now if I told you approximately 25% of the population of the US ceceeded causing the Civil War. Would you say that’s a significant number of people who deserved attention and consideration? Abraham Lincoln apparently believed those people needed some serious attention.

Recently I watched a documentary series in Netflix called “Explained.” They had an episode discussing monogamy and whether it was natural. The answer is no it is not natural and especially in the case of men. Additionally approximately 30% of people in a monogamous relationship want to see multiple people. For the majority I believe this episode states the obvious. If it was not obvious it hopefully helps some of those who invest so much into a person’s expected fidelity that news of their infidelity tears them apart.

The only person who we can know completely is our self. We owe it to ourselves to be honest to ourselves. It is difficult to be 100% honest or vulnerable as we may fear being chastised or punished by others. Honesty gets compromised when there is a selfless interest involved.

In a raw example. A person who falls into the 30% mentioned above may enjoy you physically but they may also welcome a endorphin release from a physical interaction with another person or other people. Their brain did not chemically reprogram when they met you. Social constructs dictated that they conform to an over fidelity. Therefore to avoid persecution they covertly engage in an endorphin release with someone else.

So in conclusion. If you expect your spouse to suppress their chemical and animal nature they must subscribe to a social, moral, religious, philosophical system that keeps them inline with your expectations. Without much thought  easily that would fall into the Judo-Christian religions. Still that is no guarantee, as we are aware of the many stories of infidelity and/or  sexual hypocrisy of the highest priests, pastors, preachers and deacons etc. It takes a lot of observation and studying to figure out if someone has a high or low probability of infidelity not just their overt morals. The takeaway from this discussion is not to invest your sanity in your partners fidelity. There’s a 1 in 3 chance they have a wondering eye.

 

 

Featured photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/23943126089

 

Fortune favors the phone

I have been busy researching how to develop a hair product for about two months. So my inspiration to write has been hindered somewhat. You don’t get many apiffanies regarding relationships but reading PubMed, Heathline, WebMD and Wikipedia. Sometimes inspiration finds you though.

I was scrolling through my Instagram feed when I saw a post from Financial Times. The British financial newspaper had posted a chart depicting the ways in which heterosexual couples meet over the past twenty years or so.

The chart showed that the majority of couples meet online primarily and at bars secondarily. If you have read my previous posts, I believe those to be the two worst places. Well actually I believe online and dance clubs are the worst but if you dance in a bar then that’s a club to me.

Online dating and clubs eliminate the benefits provided in the declining meeting situations. The ones on decline are: Church, Neighborhood, Family, Friends, College and Workplace. Those places and institutions allow your potential mate to be vetted by people who genuinely care for you.

Meeting a stranger at a bar or online alone is a risky business. It goes without saying how many Law and Order episodes probably start like that. A social order not only vettes your love interest but also ensures that you are not acting wreckless or silly or making a fool of yourself. As we can get caught up in the excitement and put away our common sense.

Apps and bars total to approximately 70% of how couples meet according to the chart in 2017. Also Pew Research Center, men 25-34yo who never marry is at 52% as of 2010 and climbing. The Pew report is seven years older than the Financial Times report. I would posit the prime age men who never marry is closer to 60% presently. The two numbers I just mentioned if anything says, whatever the majority of people are doing, is probably not the best thing to do.

We all would like an easy and happy life but life isn’t always happy or easy. We would like to be left alone to be free to make our own choices but we need people to save us when we are in trouble. In my opinion the best strategy is to learn from others’ mistakes. Save ourselves a lot of time and losses. Use the network of family, the right friends(not all are good) and the right environment to create the conditions for a safe and sustainable relationship.

Attraction Distraction

Being physically/visually attractive and or funny people say is how you gain some ones attention and or interest. Both of those things are relatively superficial. Physical appearance is in most cases temporal and many times based on fads or fashion. Being funny or entertaining can last longer than physical appeal.

Entertainment in the broadest interpretation gives us an escape from the thoughts that burden us. We turn off our brain and allow the video, music, literature, speech, painting, sculpture, tour guide etc to take us into a different reality. Take for instance a most horrible example of slaves in America working and singing. Though their situation is horrific, they are aware that they must work or die. So to take some of the edge of and comfort themselves through their entire life of suffering they sing.

Without entertainment everything becomes more real. More in-your-face, or more in your head. Thinking about the difficult things causes you to either go into a depression(which includes acceptance imo), or causes you to act to cure the problem.

The example of slavery is extreme, but we all try to take the edge off reality in some way. We know what the problems are but just want to escape for a moment in our minds. We don’t want to, or are unable to fix the issues. For most of us its the former. We just don’t want to. This is a ultimately destructive behavior as the problems remain and wear on you. Instead of saving yourself the anguish by immediately tackling and removing the problem.

Suicide is never a solution. It is just allowing the enemy to destroy you completely. Murder is definitely not a solution as you will end up in jail. Additionally murder on a sick and crass level, does not agree with a vegan lifestyle jk. I only mention these things as we sometimes find justification where it is not present.

A love interest may be funny and/or attractive but that may be a cover for other flaws. Someone told me once that the first thing a con-man does is tell you a joke. So in my opinion, while you are laughing just keep in mind that we all have an agenda and the main agenda is not to make life unsustainable or more difficult than it already is. Don’t get distracted.

Special interest

I picked up a Cosmopolitan magazine that was laying around and read through about four articles. In between the articles were advertisements targeted to mostly young women I would assume in their teens to late twenties. Some articles referred to older women as “OGs” and young readers as “Newbies.” As this was my first time intently reading the magazine I was surprised at the amount of profanity used by the writers.

OK, I’m old. Maybe also lame. Maybe prudish but when I read something other than Fader, Vibe, Source or High Times magazine I don’t expect to read so much profanity. Terms such as OG I understand are taken from gangster culture in order to make reading seem cooler or at least as cool as the raunchy content on social media. All the profanity and acronyms show an attempt by the editors to gain the young crowd. Which understandably is where the money is, as the youth make up a large market.

Back to the ads and articles. I read a little big of Iggy Azaleas article, as I did enjoy her music and found it unjust how people treated her. Her article indicated that she wasn’t able to deal with the pressure of her fame and needed time to learn how to handle life(Justin Beiber recently said the same). She then went on to say she hopes to be with her current rapper boyfriend ten years from now and have some children, but marriage is not required. From a economic standpoint marriage is not in her favor(see Wendy Williams, Hallie Berry, Aisha Taylor). At her current net worth of only approximately 6 million, she doesn’t have much money to spare for an international celebrity. Her bf(7 years her junior) lyrics include the typical Cosmopolitan profanity with added, b*tch, thot, n-word, celebration of drug use and murder. Its art alright, right? So I don’t expect that 10 years of longevity. Hopefully the young ladies reading don’t believe they will have a happy Will & Jada happy(recently revealed not so happy) ending. Then again Will Smith prided himself on being the rapper who never used profanity, might explain the longevity of his marriage, go figure.

I went off track on Iggy as I like her material. So the articles were about legitimizing hookup culture, different sexual exploration and the ads were cosmetics and birth control. All those things go hand in hand. You get into a unsustainable relationship with a drug using bad boy, you get on birth control(as he will not take precaution), have eccentric sex, break up now you need makeup for your next date, that doesn’t work out so you have to buy another Cosmo for further instruction.

Ultimately Cosmo is out to help Cosmo and its advertisers generate more money. Buy more pills and makeup and Cosmo until you are so jaded and reach the age where you start to use empirical date from bad experiences.

If Cosmo’s intent was to help, they would give warnings that hookup culture will ultimately give you more depression because it is not sustainable. As progressive, liberated, empowered and tough you may believe you are, there is a point where you will interpret the hook-up situationship as exploiting on your side. There will be misunderstanding and without a structure or guidelines there is nothing to keep the situationship together. If there was then that would be a relationship.

I understand that we are in the information age and the on-demand age, etc. I get it, but we are still 75% water, carbon based creatures with some would say a spiritual being, and definitely a ego. Your ego if it is big enough to have sustained you to an autonomous adulthood will not allow you to stay in a situationship for long. I would say long is past 2 years. I am willing to retract that if I knew otherwise. I don’t believe there is enough data to dispute my claim as pride prevents people from sharing this info. We generally have a feeling hookup culture and situationships are on the rise but give me the numbers on a graph.

Cosmo is a corporation and a corporation’s number one responsibility is to make profit for their shareholders. The company is not a charity or a non profit. If profits can be generated from increasing entropy, from increasing loneliness, anxiety, depression, fear, then they will capitalize upon it. I repeatedly discuss friends who are bad influences. People who are bad influences, and from recent news we find that legally corporations are people. So we have to be mindful of the human people and the legal people we associate with.

Sick doctor

We most of the time, with sufficient consideration know what is the best thing to do. Somehow we find a way to end up not doing the best thing. It may be that we enjoy things that cause dysfunction or we are not observant of the relation between cause and effect. Maybe we feel dispair and don’t want to execute the solution.

Most things are easier said than done. Some people say talk is cheap. Talk is cheap but it might be more valuable than thoughts that are never vocalised or recorded. Speaking thoughts or writing them gives them a physical presence. For instance this blog. I could have kept my thoughts to myself, and that would probably be best for the world but for me it is therapy. When I read my old posts, I find things I had forgotten which I wanted at the time to remember. My past self is essentially teaching my present self. If I never wrote these thoughts down, I could have spoken them to someone and they may remember, or not, then the apiffany would be lost.

I’m getting off topic. Basically theory is easier than practice. We know what we must do but end up not doing what is necessary. You might encounter a doctor who smokes cigarettes or has a poor diet. They are on the front line of the causes, symptoms and results of poor choices. They have the most knowledge but in practice do not follow the theory.

How awesome and proud would we be if we resisted temptation, explored opportunity, developed our skills, mind, body, spirit and environment? All it requires is a first step and a focus on the person you dream yourself to be.

Nothing is absolute. There will be things to attempt to distract, dissuade and disappoint you but if we as much as possible live up to the standard we set for ourselves we will average on the up side in the limited time we have on this plane.

Homeostasis

I like the word sustainable and this other word homeostasis popped up in my consciousness recently. You already know homeostasis is synonymous with balance and it’s word associated with health, at least in my wacky vocabulary.

More often than not we are moving from crisis to crisis. One drama or problem after another. Another unexpected bill or expense another thing that disturbs us from our state of rest(if we can get it). Never a moment where everything is in its proper place and calm. This just raises our stress levels and causes us in effect to become ill. It also causes us to loose discipline as we try to treat our stress with self medication, that may turn into abuse, whether food, drugs or other.

I believe minimalism to be a great way to eliminate a good chunk of the many variables that come our way. Minimalism is mostly referred to as a way of saving money but that is only one of the many benefits. It also lowers the amount of worry and stress. The more stuff you have to deal with the less rested you are.

The human body, in relation to digestion for example is minimalist in my opinion. When we eat, the body extracts the nutrients and eliminates the excess. If we are constantly accumulating stuff and bills and stresses and disturbances it is in effect a body that is eating but not eliminating waste. We hoard things that we may never use, people that are useless(or harmful) and stuff we may not want. Its constipation.

Accept it or not, we are heavily influenced by our environment, social circles. Remember watching Saturday morning cartoons and the toys that used to be advertised. That is how you knew what toys you wanted for Christmas. The desire for the stuff was implanted into your head. Likewise your friends may tell you about this new stuff or exercise or diet they are on. This is a thought implanted into you to now investigate if not try whatever you discussed. Recently I watched a documentary called Drugs Inc, where in one episode a musician who himself was a MDMA user said that many of his fans revealed to him that they became MDMA users because the musician mentioned it in his songs. So that was an example of how those fans increased the disorder in their lives by bringing in more stuff. Stuff that they acquired because they were influenced.

I wrote a post yesterday about Miley Cyrus who in her music also referred to Molly which is a colloquial for MDMA. Being a celebrity means dealing with a lot of stuff, people, money, appointments, contracts, obligations etc. So its understandable how they could happen to self medicate to the point of abuse. Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Jim Belushi, Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, etc. Nothing is absolute as in the same documentary I mentioned there were homeless people who had nothing in terms of material possession that were self medicating, but their situation may have devolved from a state where they had much and lost it due to choosing the wrong cooping mechanism namely drugs. I don’t specifically want to discuss psychotropic drugs but I do want to mention that they can cause mental illness. There are many other things we use to cope but ultimately it involves consumption or practice(for lack of a better word).

Excess is abusive to the self because it causes illness as mentioned above. Minimalism can help us to put bigger spaces between the crises, have all our bills in order, reduce our impulse to self medicate. How does this relate to dating and relationships. Well the longest relationship you will have is with yourself, so understandably you want to treat yourself well. Eliminating the excess is a path to wellness.