Media, Humanity, Consumption, mid-March 2018

"All we are saying is: give peace a chance" seems shared with the ego in mind. As it is a very weak selling point, it doesn't promise anything,, yet it does identify a place.  It was not popular as an idea. What was popular was the beyond-word idea of ending terrorism and war.  Not dominating it. And if that meant dealing with ego conflicts neighbor to neighbor, then that is what it meant. It was collective behavior that was understood to be the problem, and only a collective change would find the place of peace to be where one had been all along.

Not so today. People want to grow terror and ego, no matter what. Bad wants to be met with worse. There is no place of peace desired, there is a craving for domination winning of teams.  This is not good in any sense of good. People are fighting for goods and services. Humans are organized around their things and will give goods a chance.  But goods have had much more than a chance, they are only being given more of a chance.

Teams of all types are competing with other teams. There is no human here, only ego teams. Somehow, even babies and homeless old people are put on teams as some interest category. Lovers, and Dreamers, and Me comes to mind and not only is the dream of the rainbow prism now one of team colors, there is no arc to climb over of ego.  There are just ego walls itself, constructed ego compartmentalization. And it is the most inhuman prison possible, direct from our human mind, as it is everywhere and all the time.  Time has been sliced into team structures and celebrity brands, goods and services with all the structure of the ego categories.  All we all are saying, if you listen, is be on your teams. Compartmentalize.

I can relate to this side of me....

"The Nuisance"
by Marge Piercy
Circles on the Water. New York: Alfred A Knopf, Inc, 1982.

I am an inconvenient woman.
I’d be more useful as a pencil sharpener or a cash register.
I do not love you the way I love Mother Jones or the surf
Coming in
Or my pussycats or a good piece of steak.
I love the sun prickly on the black stubble of your cheek.
I love you wandering floppy making scarecrows of despair.
I love you when you are discussing changes in the class structure
And it jams my ears and burns in the tips of my fingers.

I am an inconvenient woman.
You might trade me in on a sheepdog or a llama.
You might trade me in for a yak.
They are faithful and demand only straw.
They make good overcoats.
They never call you up on the telephone.

I love you with my arms and my legs
And my brains and my cunt and my unseemly history.
I want to tell you about when I was ten and it thundered.
I want you to kiss the crosshatched remains of my burn.
I want to read you poems about drowning myself
Laid like eggs without shells at fifteen under Shelly’s wings.
I want you to read my old loverletters.

I want you to want me
As directly and simply and variously
As a cup of hot coffee.
I want to, to have to, to miss what can’t have room to happen.
I carry my love for you
Around with me like teeth
And I am starving.

Unconditional Love - Love is always love

This is the same message as my last blog posting, expressed in art. Love is always love! Do you want Love? Or do you want something else... "Amarantine" means everlasting or immortal.

Enya - Amarantine

You know when you give your love away
It opens your heart,
everything is new
...And you know time will always find a way
To let your heart believe it's true
You know love is everything you say
A whisper, a word, promises you give
You feel it in the heartbeat of the day
You know this is the way love is

Amarantine Amarantine Amarantine

Love is always love
You know love may sometimes make you cry
So let the tears go, they will flow away
For you know love will always let you fly
How far a heart can fly away

Amarantine Amarantine Amarantine

You know when love's shining in your eyes
It may be the stars fallen from above
And you know love is with you when you rise
For night and day belong to love

The word "love" and the word "relationship"

"That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts. There is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking." ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Or writing ;) Words, oh words, how they can divide us. So I'm going to cast out far beyond the ends of division and words. I'm going to try to say that Love is Love. And Relationships are relationships. Two separate things!

When it comes down to it, for me it seems there are three big stages of a romantic relationship. 1) finding each other - friendship, 2) engaged to be married, 3) marriage [with marriage vows].

Now I'm cheating a bit and going to say that 'relationships' is not really the topic of this posting. The meatier topic is Love. And to me, Love means forever. Love doesn't mean "relationship". Relationships can change, relationships are here in the field of time and require agreement and participation of two people.

What I really mean by love in this discussion is "unconditional love". Unconditional love requires and necessitates "unconditional forgiveness". I've talked about this in previous blog postings. Love, to me, is timeless. This aspect of "unconditional Love" often seems confused by society. So I'm going to post a series of quotes to try and point in the general direction of what I mean by unconditional love...

If you Love a mountain because it does not argue with you... If you Love a tree because it does not argue with you... If it is possible that I can say a few words that cause you to "stop loving me", then it's probably the meaning of the word "Love" that we argue about... (~RoundSparrow)

“To be able to say how much you love is to love but little.” ~Petrarch

“In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities.” ~János Arany

“Love is born with the pleasure of looking at each other, it is fed with the necessity of seeing each other, it is concluded with the impossibility of separation.” ~Josi Marti (1835-1895)

“In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.” ~Mignon McLaughlin

“Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter.” ~T.S. Eliot

“Love works in miracles every day: such as weakening the strong, and stretching the weak; making fools of the wise, and wise men of fools; favouring the passions, destroying reason, and in a word, turning everything topsy-turvy” ~Marguerite De Valois

“True love is knowing a person's faults, and loving them even more for them.” ~Mandy Hampton

“You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.” ~Sam Keen

“Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.” ~Julius Gordon

What is love? Not the Ego, Knowledge, Appearance of the person... it is their spirit, and it is that which I seek to share. Let's try this quote to really shake up the realization:

“Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself. Just as the word "water" is a noise that symbolizes a certain liquid without being it, so too the idea of ego symbolizes the role you play, who you are, but it is not the same as your living organism." ~Alan Watts

And again, to me, Love is not the same as a Relationship. As I see it, Relationships take two, relationships take time, and many more things that could be said about Relationships...

On giving... Unconditonal True Love...

The creative act is not hanging on, but yielding to a new creative movement. Awe is what moves us forward. ~Joseph Campbell

On the matter of Unconditional True Love of which love does not involve clinging, attachment or expectations I start to scratch on Life itself. Is Love my own reason for Life? This, to me, is the story told by in Tristan and Isolde... and echoed in Romeo and Juliet, and of the quote I give in earlier blog postings from Marilyn Monroe (or Norma Jeane Baker behind the mask).

Joseph Campbell said some very interesting things about art. I would like to say this same quote could be used to describe my own personal experience of Unconditional True Love. As you read this quote, think of Love instead of the word "art"...

For the reality to which the artist and the mystic are exposed is, in fact, the same. It is of their own inmost truth brought to consciousness: by the mystic, in direct confrontation, and by the artist, through reflection in the masterworks of his art. The fact that the nature of the artists (as the microcosm) and the nature of the universe (as the macrocosm) are two aspects of the same reality (respectively, as a minute part of the whole, experienced from within, and as the whole viewed from without -- equivalent, respectively, to Schopenhauer's "world as will" and "world as spectacle or idea") accounts sufficiently for the creative interplay of discovery and recognition which alerts the artist to the possibility of a revelatory composition in which outer and inner realities are recognized as the same.

In his early novel A Portrait of the Artists As a Young Man (written 1904-1914, published 1916), James Joyce quotes Thomas Aquinas to the effect that "beautiful things are those that please when seen" (pulcra sunt quae visa placent). Beauty is thus a value, a good, an end in itself. Ugliness depresses, beauty exhilarates, heightening the sense of life, which again is a good in to itself. Normally art aspires to beauty and thus to a sensuous glorification of life: so that Nietzsche could write of the aesthetics of art as "nothing but applied physiology." Whereas l'art pour l'art, in his view, was an aberration of the "Decadence" of his century: "the virtuosic croaking of cold-blooded frogs, despairing in their swamp."

Beauty we may regard, then, as a normal and proper intention as the Way of Art, affirmative in the sensuous glorification of life, thus grounded in physiology. To this degree, the Way of Art coincides with the Way of Beauty. However, there is another and further possible degree or range of the revelation of art that is beyond beauty, namely, the sublime, which has been defined as "that which arouses sentiments of awe and reverence and a sense of vastness and power outreaching human comprehension." Cosmic space and great distances experienced as sublime; also, detonations of prodigious power. If beauty so heightens our sense of life that aesthetics may be termed "applied physiology," the sublime, transcending physical definitions, suggests magnitudes exceeding life; not refuting, but augmenting life. And from this perspective, viewing art, the same Nietzsche declared: "Art is the proper tasks of life, art is life's metaphysical exercise....Art is more worth than truth."

For many... the Art of Life is the practice of Unconditional Never-ending Love...

Love, Forgiveness ⟸ Acceptance ⟹ Forgiveness, Love

Friedrich Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, whose critiques of contemporary culture, religion, and philosophy centered on a basic question regarding the foundation of values and morality:

Ihre (Predigern des Todes) Weisheit lautet: "ein Thor, der leben bleibt, aber so sehr sind wir Thoren! Und das eben ist das Thörichtste am Leben!"
⟸—⟹
Their (the preachers of death) wisdom speaks thus: "Only a fool remains alive, but such fools are we! And that is surely the most foolish thing about life!"

Love, Loyalty, Mutual Consent = Making Love!

This will seem insane to many of you. It is thinking in duality and infinite terms that took a lot of consideration. It comes after a spiritual awakening of being "born again". Plus, language and time is limited. A slip of word-choice can let something of great beauty be tarnished by imperfection. I accept and embrace imperfection, part of the theme of Erotic Irony you find mentioned earlier on this blog.

At age 83, Joseph Campbell in 1987, who was a college professor for nearly 40 years in the USA:

Joseph Campbell: One must discriminate between the mortal aspect and the immortal aspect of one's own existence. In the experience of my mother and father who are gone, of whom I was born, I have come to understand that there is more than what was our temporal relationship. Of course there were certain moments in that relationship when an emphatic demonstration of what the relationship was would be brought to my realization. I clearly remember some of those. They stand out as moments of epiphany, of revelation, of the radiance.

Bill Moyers: The meaning is essentially wordless.

Joseph Campbell: Yes. Words are always qualifications and limitations.

Bill Moyers: And yet, Joe, all we puny human beings are left with is this miserable language, beautiful though it is, that falls short of trying to describe --

Joseph Campbell: That's right, and that's why it is a peak experience to break past all that, every now and then, and to realize, "Oh. . . ah. . ."

Love Comes First
====================
I do not want to have sex with someone I do not love. I had this once in my life. It was my second sexual partner. She took advantage of a breakup with my first true love and first sexual partner. I was 19 years old.

It was awful. I did not enjoy it! It was not the "rebound" aspect, I just didn't enjoy the unfamiliarity. I could not read the emotions, it took away the part of love making that I liked - the LOVE!

I can have a form of that experience, it's called "self love" - and it isn't very satisfying to me. If you enjoy it, knock yourself out. It leaves my emotional and spiritual self more lonely. It is nothing more than a physical and chemical hormone relief, it does not satisfy my love or compassion. There is no giving, no "unconditional love" in "masturbation" self-gratification. That doesn't mean I hate myself. I emotionally and spiritually love myself, as I Love all of The Universe. And for the record, yes, I masturbate, but I'd rather not need to. I'd much rather Love a woman and Make Love!


Loyalty
=========
I believe it's possible to fall in love with other women, but also not cheat! Cheating requires a physical act. Moving in with someone, sharing a bed, having sex. Is a kiss of another woman OK? In some circumstances, maybe. It depends how long it lasts. ;)

Love of more than one person, that's OK! Love, flirting, and Joy from another woman... I'm just going to bring that home to my chosen lady! That is loyalty! "Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?" I'll be in a good mood, isn't a good mood a good thing to share with your selected partner?

I'm not going to say more, it's that simple! Depersonalize...

Bill Moyers: Do you in your own life just leave it there as a mystery? Or do you think that one can successfully have a marriage and a relationship other than the marriage?

Joseph Campbell: Technically, one could say, "Why, yes, of course."

Bill Moyers: But it seems that whatever one gives to the love affair is barred from the marriage relationship and diminishes the loyalty to the relationship.

Joseph Campbell: I think one has to work out these things oneself. There could be a love seizure after you have a commitment to marriage, and it could be such a seizure that not responding to it might -- what can I say? -- dull the whole experience of the vitality of love.

Bill Moyers: I think that's the core of the question. If the eyes scout for the heart and bring back that which the heart passionately desires, is the heart only going to desire once?

Joseph Campbell: Love does not immunize the person to other relationships, let me just say that. But whether one could have a full-fledged love affair, I mean a real full-fledged love affair, and at the same time be loyal to the marriage -- well, I don't think that could happen now.

Bill Moyers: Because?

Joseph Campbell: It would break off. But loyalty doesn't forbid you to have an affectionate, even a loving relationship to another person of the opposite sex. The way in which the knightly romances describe the tenderness of the relationships to other women, of one who is being loyal to his own love, is very graceful and sensitive.

Bill Moyers: The troubadours would sing to their ladies even if there was very little hope of furthering a relationship with them.

Joseph Campbell: Yes.

Where am I going with this?
=============================
For the past 3 years [well, my whole life], I have been working on:

1. Loving quicker and easier. Falling in love quickly. Love is self-sacrifice to me. It is giving of oneself to another. I have a "open heart". My heart is not greedy, it is not selfish, it is "unconditional love".

2. Letting go of the past, forgiving, absolute and true forgiveness. "Unconditional Forgiveness" is part of "Unconditional Love". The facts and details of a situation can still exist and be discussed, for the sake of historic record and learning, but the negative emotional and punishing side is entirely erased!

3. Mutual Consent. Understanding my feminine side, my male side. Focus on arguing, rhetoric, consent, permission, debate, discussion, talking, communications. Oh I love to argue with a woman. I'll gently talk to her while I give her back rubs, while I hold her hand. It's a form of arguing silently while I kiss her. We can silently argue all we want about which way to kiss - as long as we keep kissing! Oh boy, oh boy! I can argue in silence, I can argue without a word. Consideration, compassion, mindful, loving sharing. sharing, sharing, sharing. Mine is yours. "no expectations, no clinging, no attachment". Take me, only if you wish to have me. I do not want to be with someone who hates me or dislikes me!


Roundabout Way to One Night Stand?
===================================

1. If a pure and entirely open and selfless heart can fall in love in hours...

2. I do not cheat, I am loyal... I have no record of this in my life, I am pretty confident on this.

3. We both consent? No drunk situations or rushed, just two people who do their best and both say "yes".

Is it possible to have a "one night stand" - that the first night I meet someone, I have sex with them? I suppose: Yes! Is it a goal? NO! Working together, Mutual Consent, both agreeing to details - that's what I'm after. If it's weeks of months, that's fine if that's what we both agree. Both parties have to consent, say yes, in a relationship! All aspects of a relationship!


The Morning After, Fear
=========================
Now, a woman may say Yes at night then wake up with me in the morning - and like the famous "Coyote Ugly" reference, chew their own arm off to get away from me! But that is their own indecision and mistake. Remember my prior blog posting, "trust first, ask questions later..." is my approach.

I have been married only once. I did not get married until I was 30 years old. We lived together for 3 years before we got married. I knew exactly what marriage meant to me: unconditional love, unconditional forgiveness. I was loyal to her for 13 years. In the end, she pulled a "coyote ugly" act and chewed off my arms. All she had to do was leave, but she choose to burn every bridge into town... out of fear.

I've seen other marriages last for 25 years, and still end in horror. How long exactly is long enough? How long is too short? Where does eternity end and begin? AUM ॐ?

Adam and Eve? Garden of Eden? Joseph Campbell:

In the Christian tradition, Jesus on the cross is on a tree, the tree of immortal life, and he is the fruit of the tree. Jesus on the cross, the Buddha under the tree -- these are the same figures. And the cherubim at the gate -- who are they? At the Buddhist shrines you'll see one has his mouth open, the other has his mouth closed -- fear and desire, a pair of opposites. If you're approaching a garden like that, and those two figures there are real to you and threaten you, if you have fear for your life, you are still outside the garden. But if you are no longer attached to your ego existence, but see the ego existence as a function of a larger, eternal totality, and you favor the larger against the smaller, then you won't be afraid of those two figures, and you will go through.

We're [Adam and Eve] kept out of the Garden [Eden] by our own Fear and Desire in relation to what we think to be the goods of our life.

All about Making Love?
========================
Yes ladies, I can indeed fall in Love in a matter of hours, days or weeks. Don't be scared! I'm real, my Love is real! I will stick around and prove it. Drop the fear, please please please drop the fear. I will not be greedy with my desire, we work and discuss together.

Consent... I will Consent... if I Love you. I will be loyal and faithful. Do you consent to Love me?

Bill MOYERS: I've often thought that if you could get in touch with your feminine side, or, if you're a woman, your masculine side, you would know what the gods know and maybe beyond what the gods know.

Joseph CAMPBELL: That's the information that one gets from being married. That's the way you get in touch with your feminine side.

Bill MOYERS: But what happens to this self-discovery in love when you meet someone else, and you suddenly feel, "I know that person," or "I want to know that person"?

Joseph CAMPBELL: That's very mysterious. It's almost as though the future life that you're going to have with that person has already told you, This is the one whom you will have that life with.

Bill MOYERS: Is that something coming from within our inventory of memories that we don't understand and don't recognize? Reaching out and being touched by that person in a way --

Joseph CAMPBELL: It's almost as though you were reacting to the future. It's talking to you from what is to be. This has to do with the mystery of time and the transcendence of time. But I think we're touching a very deep mystery here.

Now what's this all about? Why am I always referencing quotes and Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung and Philosophy? Well, I'll let Joseph Campbell speak for me here...

[Regarding Carl Jung] And very soon discovered that through the realm of myth—of dream, rather, he was himself moving into the sphere of myth. This gave him a basic principle for the psychological work. And I think that it is one that we can all live with. He calls it amplification: Amplify your own fantasies by finding in the field of the cultural heritage of mankind analogous images. And these will pull you out; they will depersonalize your life. And that is what the function of myth is.

And some say I have no sense of humor. Aren't I such a disgustingly forward and aggressive man? It's all about Sex, I just want to Get Laid!