Modern False Prophets

“A lie would have no sense unless the truth were to feel dangerous.” –Alfred Adler

Social networks are changing the way we communicate with the world.  They are transforming how we connect with others and how we represent ourselves to the public.  This blog is an example.  I know personally a dozen people who read it; however this blog has approximately three dozen weekly readers in total.   

If you subscribe to Sacred Contracts, I’m sure that you can identify my twelve primary archetypes.  If you do not, then I don’t have much to add other than this: These blogs are me.  For those who do not know me in person, these blogs are as personal as it gets.  If you don’t like what I write, then you won’t want to spend any one-on-one time with me.  If you believe what I am sharing would warrant me an invite for kaffee und kuchen, then we are on the same page.  For me blogging is about personal growth, and sharing my lessons/thoughts with whomever drifts this way.

Internet-based networking has changed how we write our stories.  We are the heroine, the artist, the storyteller, the warrior, the mystic, and the increasingly popular, victim.  You see the profiles.  The sock puppet accounts, the single ‘couples’ accounts, the love-me-for my-big-cock or big-titties accounts, the “I’m so misunderstood” accounts.

We see the empty profiles with a question mark for the personal icon, no groups, no wall posts, no events, maybe a handful of “friends”.  My thoughts:  Cheater or a second profile so someone can write about their real thoughts on a discussion board.  We see the individual account that has an introduction of “we are a couple”.  My thoughts:  Trouble in paradise or there are serious trust issues present.  Every so often someone writes a journal entry about the small-minded people are who only show a picture of their huge cock or udder-ly enormous breasts on their profile.  I do not think small-minded.  I think, “Nice.  Me like. I wonder how many people without ethics or ‘moral purpose’ are hitting on them right now?”  Boys and girls, this is a public service announcement: Transparent insecurity is an aphrodisiac to predators.

Then we see the profiles that have one or two lengthy paragraphs about how they, the profile owners, need to explain themselves.  They are just simple folk who are misunderstood by a few in the community.  And if you, the reader, ever talk to those rouge few, they just have to put the whole story out there, to explain all the rumors and false information you, the reader, may hear.  My thoughts: Drama-rama is part of their makeup.  And they must be pretty full of themselves to think I give two farts about the sliver of a chance I may run into these rouge few who have something unpleasant to say about them.  The profiles I really appreciate are those who say this-is-who-I-am without all the trappings and bullshit.

For the longest time I did not have a ‘real’ profile.  I called it a 'shell'.  Then I added two links: one to Twitter and one to this blog.  It has only been in the past few months I added the ‘petition for service’ part of my about me section.  Overall I have not changed my stance about how I want to connect with people: meet me at a munch or an event.  I give you glimpses of my thought processes via this blog.  However, if you really want to get to know the genuine article, you need to do it face to face.  No matter how many times I post to this blog or I modify my 'about me' section, you will never get to truly experience Me using an internet-based social network.

Twisted Knickers, Not

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it.” –Marcus Aurelius

Breadcrumbs were left by friends regarding a discussion thread about TNG, The Next Generation.  It’s a kinkster subset specifically for the youngest members of our community, those between 18 and 35 years old.  There are a couple ways around the age criteria.  I can attend by being a guest or partner of someone who is within the age limit.  That’s right, this almost 50 year old person can attend a TNG event if I am escorted by a TNG-er.  Or I can be the guest presenter/speaker at an event.  Yep, I can mingle with the all the newbies for doing a demo. 

Some believe the group is needed as a ‘gateway’ introduction to the lifestyle.  One can go to a munch without having to run into an older relative or having to deal with creepy old perverts with lecherous designs on fresh young things.  Some believe the group is all about ageism and provides no real service to the community.  All it does is create a false sense of security and it allows a generation to hide from the ‘elders’ while propagating bad habits.

TNG has left loopholes in its rulebook for people over-35 to attend their functions.  And I believe that is the salient argument of those who are against a group that has membership based upon age.  It appears the lowest age is the floor or a ‘hard limit’ because if the group is defined as 17-35, then a 16 year old may not attend.  Yet the group does not hold the upper age as a true ceiling, or an uppermost limit.  There are ways for people over-35 to be in attendance.

How about that early 40-something year old guy who goes to every event with the 20-something girlfriend he is dating that month?  He not only attends every TNG event, he helps to organize them too.  What about the late 40-something Mistress who shows up a few times a year with an under-35 pet?  She will leave her pet on a bar stool while making the rounds, chatting with all the unescorted subbies.

So as the rants and the “muck-rakery” continue, I think to myself that perhaps TNG should be limited to 29 years of age and a new group should be formed, The Transition Generation.  It would comprise of all the 30-somethings that didn’t want to be leered at by the old farts and not bothered by the antics of the kids.  If the kids want to go out and not have ‘people as old as their parents looking over their shoulders’, then maybe a 30-something doesn’t want to hang out in a bar with ‘kids not much older than their own children’.  (Snark alert)

I find the agruments for both sides to be flat and full of self-justification.  Personally I don’t give two flying fingerdoodles about either side of the subject.  The group exists.  I am excluded from the group because I do not meet all of its criteria.  Boo-hoo.  I’m so sad.  My feelings are really hurt.  Yeah, right.  Some groups aren’t my cup of tea and I wouldn’t join their membership even if I met all the criteria.  Like the KKK.  Or the Free Masons.  Or the Christian Coalition of America.

Being a exclusive club doesn’t make it or its members special.  If I wanted to attend a TNG Munch or party, I could find a 20-something subbie to take me to one.  However, I don’t want to attend a TNG munch.  I do not normally go to bars where the median age is in the mid 20s.  So why would I get my knickers in a twist over a munch?  However, if you are around my age and you do like going to bars where the median age is in the 20s, then please continue to do so.  While doing so, do realize munch attendance is not a civil liberty.

Simple Is Not Always So

“The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.” --Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I am having a difficult time keeping compassion in my heart.  At first when the insensitive, the insecure, the unaware or the dim-witted come into my path I have compassion for their plight.  However, given time I begin to feel the welling up of irritation, anger, frustration.  Then guilt sets in and an internal struggle ensues.

Shouldn’t I be beyond such ego-driven needs of reciprocity in relationships?  Who said ‘mutual benefit’ is a necessity in life?  Is anything like this even mentioned in our constitution?  I mean, what is more intimate than someone caring so much about you that they want to help meet your needs?  Contrary to popular opinion I do not believe chicken soup feeds the soul.  A small helping of authentic sharing sates my appetite.

For me reciprocity implies the other person is responding to my needs and I am being ‘heard’.  Not just listened to, but heard.  Someone cares enough about me to process what I have shared with them and in turn shows me that “you like me, right now, you like me!” with their actions.

Problem is when I put myself in a position to rely on such give-and-take in a relationship, this is when I have been the most disappointed.  In fact, relying on others to keep me safe, to help me through the tough times or to lift me over troubled waters have been the lowest points of my life.  When I reflect on my moments where compassion is replaced by ill emotions, I realize I am being insincere. 

The feelings of anger and frustration are direct by-products of the lack of honesty I have with myself in that moment.  Sometimes it is about me reliving old hurts and projecting them on another.  Sometimes it is about me not being direct with a person because I don’t have the confidence to do so.  Sometimes it is as simple as me not taking care of my physical self, so my mental and emotional selves are in a state of exhaustion.

I cannot keep compassion, at times, in my heart because I hold it there by force.  I still experience compassion as an emotion, and not as a state of being.  Then I beat myself up with the reaction of guilt.  Vicious, exhausting cycle. 

The Buddha Nature of a Layperson

“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.” –Harold Wilson

Many, many moons ago when petrol was almost half the cost it is today, traveling for several hours on Sundays to The Zen Center was affordable.  Now that petrol is where it is today in price, such travels are outside of my budget.  It goes to say today my practice is solitary.  No Zen centers or structured sitting groups here in this small hamlet.

Traditional Buddhists will say I am not practicing properly because I do not sit on a regular basis with a teacher.  In countries that have an established and prevalent Buddhist community such a view is feasible.  I say that viewpoint is impractical in the United States.  Access to the community is limited in most places.  And for many of us it does not exist.  Many of us will practice as laypersons without formal teachings.

Besides the scarcity of others to practice with, let alone a mentor or teacher to seek guidance from, I question the authorities who want me to believe the only way to be a fully practicing Buddhist is to be someone’s student.  In one breath I hear that the act of sitting is ‘the practice’.  In another I hear to sit is enlightenment.  And then a few breaths later I hear to fully practice and be a Buddhist one must sit regularly with a teacher.

I believe the American layperson practicing Buddhism in solitude is going to change the face of Buddhism.  I see it starting a new school, a new tradition.

The Choices of a Social Hermit

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” – from “The Teachings of Buddha”

My truth: The relationship status I have with myself is best described as “it’s complicated”.  I admit there are a few not-so-flattering facts I have come to realize about myself. 

 I have held close people who did not truly care for me, the real me; they cared only what I could do for them.  As soon as the money ran out, my mental energy faded or my good nature wore thin, “loved ones” disappeared to leave me to pick up the debris in the aftermath.  Physical and emotional. 

I have held close people who did not believe in my ability to accomplish what I set my mind to, even when it bucks convention.  When I needed true support when times got tough, I was given cursory encouragement and superficial assistance.

For the past two years I have stayed single.  So far I do a better job at not complicating my life with nonsense bullshit.  (Or should I say bullshiters?)  There is a reason those who can empty their lives of physical and emotional expectations choose monastic lives.  They separate themselves from the interference inherent when bringing into one’s inner circle the drama junky, the deceiving wretch, the confused child, the bratty twit. 

Even well meaning folk can derail us as they make requests of our time and energy.  We become a parent, a daughter, a sister, a son, a brother, a friend, a boss, a colleague, a student, a client…the list goes on.  We can spend days, weeks, or years being someone to others and not to ourselves.  It is the making of an unfulfilled life to be someone to people who would do not love you.