What I've learned...

Ladies, I have some feedback for you. This is not conformationally biased, this is the result of tons of homework on the history of human society and relationships. This Feedback does not come from a place of bitterness, pain or hate. My Feedback to USA Society comes from a place of truth, effort and experience:

1. A guy who wants to meet in person is not a serial killer, stalker, Internet Predator, over-aggressive, etc. Let's get it out of the way, please? If you are so pre-occupied with your body and meeting, probably missing out on a lot of good things in life. Nothing happens that is not mutually consented and agreed, so start agreeing! It's just dinner or a movie. If you really are that fearful, bring a friend along for the first few dates - I'm not joking! We are adults here. Stop treating me like a stranger, we aren't going to get anywhere that way.

2. Your own Ego has to be mostly left at the door. Your Ego is the picky part that says you have your mind all made up about what you want in life.. I've done a ton of work to crush and discard my Ego, so I ask that we both make serious effort to be honest, open, truthful. Working together and good communications is the name of the LifeLong Relationship game.

3. I am seeking mutual Love. I entirely enjoy and am mutual in sex. However, as I've stated, I'm after long-term mutual Unity of more than just physical. This "Cougar" thing I keep running into with middle age women just isn't my thing, sorry. I just am monogamous at heart, doesn't mean I'm not a "real man".

4. "I'm not Ready For a Relationship" is one of the worst "lines" a woman can use. If you don't like me or have a better guy lined up, just say the truth and end the relationship with honor and respect. Talk openly about your other dating activities and romances. I will. If you are 30 years or older, you are ready for Life. I am wanting to share Real Life, not some sterile fantasy you think Disney shows on movies. How is a marriage supposed to work if you have to have period of time in your life when you "are not ready" and run away? You can have your own time and space in a relationship - it's called working together and good communications with your partner.

5. We work together, so all of this is negotiable. I hope you enjoy conversations that involve back/forth sharing and holding hands.

I think for now, I've spent enough active effort on this dating game. Based on my life to date: My mind is clearly one taste that most women do not enjoy. Maybe you can help change that taste, you only know me as I am now - before your influence? I'm here and available if you are willing to work together to make us both mutually happy. Frankly, I'm rather submissive and understanding in almost all ways. If you are open minded to unique ways of thinking... I'm really a pushover. Soft cuddly women have my full consent to use their charms to get what they want out of me. I really don't want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with me.

I'm not a fool being Open and Honest, despite those who think "Fools Rush In". What am I rushing into again, Living Life? My Love is my gift to give, you stick around and you will keep finding unconditional Love, unconditional forgiveness, unconditional acceptance, unconditional interest in you, unconditional service. Let's truly Work Together, we both listen until we both understand and accept each other...

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Best to you.

Masked Marilyn Monroe meets Tristan

Joseph Campbell in 1987:

In the Tristan romance, when the young couple has drunk their love potion and Isolde's nurse realizes what has happened, she goes to Tristan and says, "You have drunk your death." And Tristan says, "By my death, do you mean this pain of love?" -- because that was one of the main points, that one should feel the sickness of love. There's no possible fulfillment in this world of that identity one is experiencing. Tristan says, "If by my death, you mean this agony of love, that is my life. If by my death, you mean the punishment that we are to suffer if discovered, I accept that. And if by my death, you mean eternal punishment in the fires of hell, I accept that, too." Now, that's big stuff.

What he was saying is that his love is bigger even than death and pain, than anything. This is the affirmation of the pain of life in a big way.

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Now, Tristan was a fictional character, a fantasy constructed by the Troubadours around the Year 1180. Tristan set the ideals of Love. But they seem to aim so high, no real human would ever be that serious, would they? Would you really accept someone and Love Them no matter what?

I found a more modern quote that expresses to me the same Ideals. Tristan was a warrior Independent Male... Interesting, this second viewpoint is from a warrior Independent Female...

Marilyn Monroe:

I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.

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It takes Two Brave and Fearless people who Independently Consent to come together. Marilyn Monroe was a Mask Stage Name for an Actress, do you think it was an Actress reading her lines? or the True Norma Jean who was speaking?

I truly speak, don't let my lack of Mask scare you off, I am not acting like almost Everyone Else. I know it can seem shocking if you are used to only Actors. I am Not Afraid of The Universe, to Live Like a Candle In the Wind! I am seeking that One Perfect Lady to Cling To but Not Hold Too Tight. Fear will not drive My Life, Fear will not drive Her Life. Love will Drive Us into Unity.

I am a "Unity Freak", including Atheists

Some people are called "Jesus Freaks" for being too serious and outgoing with their religion and preaching. I guess you could call me a "Unity Freak". I want all religions to get along, I want all people to get along. I strive really hard, but am not perfect, in accepting and understanding all points of view. Joseph Campbell, while not perfect, was an awesome teacher on this matter. Including science game.

How do people disagree but live in peace? The virtues of arguing, nagging, persuasion, rhetoric, consent, "hug it out". Yes, nag me and "hug it out", if I'm not taking care of my health or doing my job that I promised - push my love buttons and motivate me. Positive button pushing, yum yum yum. I want that from a lady! If I'm scared, motivate me by holding my hand. yum yum yum. I like those fruits of the spirit! Will you take mine? And help me grow new ones that I can share with the world?

I want a tolerant and understanding woman with a mind who can accept and love me. Is it about ego? No, it is about giving up ego. I want to also give of myself, as equally as we can work this out. Joseph Campbell:

There are two completely different stages of marriage. First is the youthful marriage following the wonderful impulse that nature has given us in the interplay of the sexes biologically in order to produce children. But there comes a time when the child graduates from the family and the couple is left. I've been amazed at the number of my friends who in their forties or fifties go apart. They have had a perfectly decent life together with the child, but they interpreted their union in terms of their relationship through the child. They did not interpret it in terms of their own personal relationship to each other.

Marriage is a relationship. When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you're sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship. The Chinese image of the Tao, with the dark and light interacting -- that's the relationship of yang and yin, male and female, which is what a marriage is. And that's what you have become when you have married. You're no longer this one alone; your identity is in a relationship. Marriage is not a simple love affair, it's an ordeal, and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship in which two have become one.

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My necklace... I do wear a Happy Humanist and a USA Apollo capsule on my neck. The Apollo capsule represents 1969, the year I was born - and scientific learning. (I like the religion implication of the name too, and searching out heaven - Joseph Campbell loved that theme also.) It's a bonus that this charm was my mothers, I got it after her death. She had never even removed the charm from the cardboard. I wonder if she purchased this charm in 1969, when I was born? Yet, I ramble on... that's sometimes my connections (James Burke Connections reference).

I've been dating an atheist. She calls herself a Secular Humanist. In fact, I purchased my Humanist necklace because of her. Prior to that, I had a crappy infinity symbol charm that I didn't like, I removed it.

I want you to see what's behind the necklace. In both the human spirit - and the ideals. As I am both.

I consider myself a Spiritual Humanist to put a name on what I believe - spiritual. So a Secular Humanist has been dating a Spiritual Humanist. At least that is what we CALL ourselves, what we are may not agree with our animal self - and Campbell talks about that too.

Now I have asked this girl, the Secular Humanist, for another type of unity. I invited her to consider and work toward marriage. Can I move in with her, can we start to work toward "forever"? Alas, she won't agree. I can't decide if she likes that we disagree or likes that we have fun together. Maybe both? Maybe I'm just an asshole that not many women like, and I don't do it for her. She wouldn't be the first to turn me down. I try to be myself and improve myself, and on this blog I have talked before about being an acquired somewhat bittersweet taste. I can't ever figure women out, if you haven't realized that.

I try to figure out women, I offer my hand in marriage to her - and it's her decision. Consent - so I keep trying to talk women into marrying me - but they know I'm serious about it, so they won't agree. Oh, Erotic Irony!

How many women have I suggested to that I wanted to marry so far this year? FOUR. Run for the hills lady. I clearly must be obsessed about marriage ;) Well, maybe I am a bit obsessed with Campbell's teaching, a "Unity Freak". But at least I'm not obsessed with cheating on my wife with the bar girls, my car color, where I live, or having things "my way". See, it's about giving up ego - freely and with respect to each other and that life itself is difficult, including doing it alone.

Did I get on my knees and propose to these Four women? No. I did see these were strong willed women who could put up with my mind - and I would like to start building a relationship. I used the word "marriage" to make it clear to them I wasn't kidding. Was I being literal in really wanting to get married -- well, see that's another spiritual tricky thing about timing. Eternity, forever, messy concepts.

I want to build the relationship together - which means we decide those kinds of things in unity/we/together terms. Yet, I get to say "I want to be with you the rest of my life, let's get started today" - and that is what I was trying to say to these women. Once the consent is given by both, then we start working together on the logistics and details. We have the rest of our lives, marriage license itself may prove optional. I guess you could say sometimes Fools Jump In.

Some of you might consider this insane, but I consider it giving up my freedom - and respecting that I'm in love with the woman in front of me - and that's a great starting point. She also has to decide, well, that she is in love with me - and she wants one guy for the rest of her life. It's all very complicated, I'm trying to "cut to the chase". Probably making a fool of myself, including being honest and open about it here on this blog.

My first marriage we lived together for 3 years before marriage. I think counting months and years with love is a bit absurd. It's about me being ready and her being ready. Again, I'm just talking moving in together - giving "consent" to try and get closer to "forever" and "lifelong". Working together, in unison, toward that.

Was I always this driven, behave this "desperate" as some would say. No, in fact, I kind of decided that was my fault in life. For not taking what I believed serious enough. Now I'm a "unity freak" and I focus on my own inside to out. That if it is in my heart, go for it. Open my damn heart right up, know myself, and be ready.

The virtues of arguing, nagging, persuasion, rhetoric, consent, "Hug it Out". But I want the surprise of the rest of my life. I don't need to know everything there is to know like favorite colors - that stuff comes in due time. I want to work together, for real. I want her to be HAPPY with me, and me happy with her. Who is her, are you her?

Song to go along with this theme: Steely Dan: Time Out of Mind. Album "GAUCHO" - am I your Gaucho?

If you are serious about me, learn this song. Learn every word, pretty please? You don't have to like it. We could write our own version if we can consent. I'd like to start singing it with you in unison. I didn't write the song, the universe did! It's about living in the moment, and being ready, letting go of your ego.

Son you better be ready for love
On this glory day
This is your chance to believe
What I've got to say

Keep your eyes on the sky
Put a dollar in the kitty
Don't the moon look pretty

Tonight when I chase the dragon [Campbell's Ego]
The water will change to cherry wine
And the silver will turn to gold
Time out of mind

I am holding the mystical sphere
It's direct from Lhasa
Where people are rolling in the snow
Far from the world we know

Children we have it right here
It's the light in my eyes
It's perfection and grace
It's the smile on my face

Tonight when I chase the dragon [Campbell's Ego]
The water will change to cherry wine
And the silver will turn to gold
Time out of mind

Children we have it right here
It's the light in my eyes
It's perfection and grace
It's the smile on my face

Tonight when I chase the dragon [Campbell's Ego]
The water will change to cherry wine
And the silver will turn to gold
Time out of mind

I'm obsessed about a healthy unity. One where Unity is the love. Where two independent free adults decide they want regular monogamous sex, good times, bad times, shared finances - and well - kind of what marriage was supposed to be about. lifetime loyalty. It's a labor of love, including this writing and your reading.

Affirmation of Life

Do I go too quick in the first stages of romance or does everyone else go too slow? Is it my goal to be compatible with every single women in life? No, but I'm open to it - but it seems really hard. It is my understanding to be compatible with life itself, including me. Affirmation.

Bill Moyers: "I will do the best I can."

Joseph Campbell: "I will participate in the game. It is a wonderful, wonderful opera -- except that it hurts."

Affirmation is difficult. We always affirm with conditions. I affirm the world on condition that it gets to be the way Santa Claus told me it ought to be. But affirming it the way it is -- that's the hard thing, and that is what rituals are about. Ritual is group participation in the most hideous act, which is the act of life -- namely, killing and eating another living thing. We do it together, and this is the way life is. The hero is the one who comes to participate in life courageously and decently, in the way of nature, not in the way of personal rancor, disappointment, or revenge.

The hero's sphere of action is not the transcendent but here, now, in the field of time, of good and evil -- of the pairs of opposites. Whenever one moves out of the transcendent, one comes into a field of opposites. One has eaten of the tree of knowledge, not only of good and evil, but of male and female, of right and wrong, of this and that, and of light and dark. Everything in the field of time is dual: past and future, dead and alive, being and nonbeing. But the ultimate pair in the imagination are male and female, the male being aggressive, and the female being receptive, the male being the warrior, the female the dreamer. We have the realm of love and the realm of war, Freud's Eros and Thanatos.

Heraclitus said that for God all things are good and right and just, but for man some things are right and others are not. When you are a man, you are in the field of time and decisions. One of the problems of life is to live with the realization of both terms, to say, "I know the center, and I know that good and evil are simply temporal aberrations and that, in God's view, there is no difference."

Bill Moyers: That is the idea in the Upanishads: "Not female, nor yet male is it, neither is it neuter. Whatever body it assumes, through that body it is served."

Joseph Campbell: That is right. So Jesus says, "Judge not that you may not be judged." That is to say, put yourself back in the position of Paradise before you thought in terms of good and evil. You don't hear this much from the pulpits. But one of the great challenges of life is to say "yea" to that person or that act or that condition which in your mind is most abominable.

Bill Moyers: Most abominable?

Joseph Campbell: There are two aspects to a thing of this kind. One is your judgment in the field of action, and the other is your judgment as a metaphysical observer. You can't say there shouldn't be poisonous serpents -- that's the way life is. But in the field of action, if you see a poisonous serpent about to bite somebody, you kill it. That's not saying no to the serpent, that's saying no to that situation. There's a wonderful verse in the Rig Veda that says, "On the tree" -- that's the tree of life, the tree of your own life -- "there are two birds, fast friends. One eats the fruit of the tree, and the other, not eating, watches." Now, the one eating the fruit of the tree is killing the fruit. Life lives on life, that's what it's all about.

Myself transformed, a new openess in love; the ladies speak and are heard

Poetry of life has transformed me this day. My journey has born fruition in my own realization of unconditional love expressed in female form. These new words tie nature to my inner feminine spot -- touching me deep inside.

The words of the Troubadours have spoken for me as to the embrace of endurance and affirmation of the sorrow in love. This was my male expression of unconditional love - my historic focus on what my heart felt and knew.

Now, through the poetry of life, I have been transformed. I have added a new expression of love and relationships. This transformation journey is perhaps best illustrated by Joseph Campbell's discussion of Nietzsche:

Nietzsche, in Thus Spake Zarathustra. In a kind of parable, Nietzsche describes what he calls the three transformations of the spirit. The first is that of the camel, of childhood and youth. The camel gets down on his knees and says, "Put a load on me." This is the season for obedience, receiving instruction and the information your society requires of you in order to live a responsible life.

But when the camel is well loaded, it struggles to its feet and runs out into the desert, where it is transformed into a lion -- the heavier the load that had been carried, the stronger the lion will be. Now, the task of the lion is to kill a dragon, and the name of the dragon is "Thou shalt." On every scale of this scaly beast, a "thou shalt" is imprinted: some from four thousand years ago; others from this morning's headlines. Whereas the camel, the child, had to submit to the "thou shalts," the lion, the youth, is to throw them off and come to his own realization.

And so, when the dragon is thoroughly dead, with all its "thou shalts" overcome, the lion is transformed into a child moving out of its own nature, like a wheel impelled from its own hub. No more rules to obey. No more rules derived from the historical needs and tasks of the local society, but the pure impulse to living of a life in flower.

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What was the outcome of this recent transformation? A true understanding of unconditional love and working together in my future relationships. A new way of relating my heart to the world, a new way of living. Nothing less than an entirely new life.

A reader of my blog shared interaction with me and provided me with a female version of my Troubadour ideals:

Molly Venter; Can I Love a Man the Way I Love a Mountain
(Available on iTunes)

The day is over and I'm standing outside
Watching clouds drag their shadows cross the hillside
And the streets are all empty now, the kids have gone home
So I walk the gardens alone
I'm in love with the way I am touched by the wind
It is soft as a lover on my skin

And I don't cling at it or grasp at it or tell it how to change
I don't make up stories I don't beg it not to go away
Can people hold each other close and still feel free
To have that kind of love, you know I would let die part of me

Can I love a man the way I love a mountain
Can I love a man the way I love the sea
I let the beauty of a sunset break my heart a thousand times
And I keep coming back to feel it beat?
I keep coming back to feel my heart beat
Hey...

And I read about the raven and how it mates for life
And when one passes on, it isn't long,
You'll hear its fading cry
I have loved like that before but I did not die of grief
I learned the more I open up my heart the more I'm gonna bleed
(But it's a good thing my friend)

So I will take these broken wings
I'm gonna take these broken eyes
And take these broken wings and learn to fly, fly....

I want so bad to let you in this house
The way I run out in a storm and let the rain fall in my mouth
I've been holding up so scared to feel the pain
Oh but I still love the fire and I have
Been burned by the flame

Can I love a man the way I love a mountain
Can I love a man the way I love the sea
I let the beauty of a sunset break my heart a thousand times
And I keep coming back, I keep coming back, I keep coming back....

I'm here ladies, no promises have been made; invitations to all the universe have been sent out. Take as much time as you need. I suggest Facebook messaging as the way to reach me.

Adopted for a day, These Seeds May Life Grow

Something very wonderful happened yesterday on Facebook. Three ladies from the same family came together to mind me. Trust was given to me, flirts exchanged. All done in a growth-inspiring way.

I was provided some validation of my intended message - my openness tested, in a way. I am hearing that my message was being received.

So if these seed I have planted are fertile, then I have decided that perhaps for some time I should just let them grow. I have exercised enough openness to show what I mean by it - but it almost becomes wasteful to become too routine in public display of it. I want a relationship with one specific person, this "open blog to all" is only a tool to get me along that path.

So ladies, I'm here. I'm going to sit back and let you come to me. I've shown many of my feathers and warts.

Please call or contact me, make sure I get your message. Understand that I don't make all the rules, there may be more than one of you. I keep my promises that come from my heart and friendship is offered to all.

I will probably be back to post in a few weeks - for now, let's hope for germination.

Karlfried Graf Durckheim: "When you're on a journey, and the end keeps getting further and further away, then you realize that the real end is the journey."

A Man is a Man

1982 Pete Townshend (The Who), when he was midlife.
(I could not find a song version on Youtube, it's an excellent song...
It is on iTunes for $0.99 )

yes, I used to listen to this song probably 250 times when I was 16 to 19. Probably contributed to my crazy beliefs system. One never knows...

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You talk about crazy affairs
You talk about your life as though it really mattered
You get attention 'cos you block the stairs
Bragging about some bottles you have shattered

Well I met a man who really lives
He really does it all
But what really matters is the heart he gives
He makes your talk seem small

When a man is a man
He doesn't act to a plan
He don't have to perform like John Wayne in some B feature flick
A man is a man
When he can offer his hand
Not afraid of appearing insane if he can't break a brick
I know a man who's a man

Can't you sometimes crack a smile
Do you think if you did we would run and tell
I know one day your big villain style
Will collapse as they turn the key in the door of your cell

I know a man who was once like you
But he opened his heart
No one is really bad right through
He's just another part

When a man is a man
And he drinks 'til he's canned
He can drop to the floor, he can weep, we won't ask the price
A man is a man
He can fall, he can stand
We won't love him more if he keeps his soul on the ice
I know a man who's a man

Every one of us is looking for fame
He's a looker
He's a dresser
He's a genius under pressure
I know a man who could tighten your rein
He's a father
He's a brother
He's a rock
He's a lover

He's a man he's a man
He doesn't act to a plan
He don't have to get hitched to a train in some muscle beach trick
A man is a man
When he can offer his hand
Not afraid of appearing insane if he can't break a brick
Be a man who's a man