Sexual Evolution

We all have heard one time or another about the stark rise in separations/divorce from one generation to the next.  All sorts of theories emerged.  The sexual revolution, drugs, breakdown of family values, all the way to the other side of the spectrum with the objectification of women with unrealistic standards of femininity.

Now I propose our typical human arrogance might have let the real reason slip by.    We tend to, in general refuse that our short comings exist by hiding behind  societies scientific advancement of which  mutation exceeds what mother nature has in store for the flesh and blood individual.

This includes what’s going on in our little heads.   In simpler cultures, simpler times where options (for everything) and the amount of information provided from the environment are limited, it’s fine to hit puberty running and start breeding like many of our furry mammal cousins.

This is not so in affluent modern societies where the individual faces a bombardment of not only biological and synthetic physical matter but the dynamic influx of events and influences toying with our emotions.

Plainly said,  The cultures where there are less options and influences are the same cultures that marry and breed earlier.    And it works just fine.    Yet, such is not the case in more modern, fluid, transient, info saturated cultures.   The places where the Perpetual Bachelors usually emerge from.

What am I getting at?    Emotional maturity.   In such busy bee societies people worry a little about those who marry young.  The news of young couples always tend to raise a few eye brows and nervous grins.   In addition, that “too early” age seems to be getting higher and higher every decade.

Meanwhile in other societies it’s the reverse because unlike the former’s necessity for one to be emotionally responsive to more dynamic surrounding, the latter’s surroundings simply don’t call for it.

Therefore it is impossible to compare the 1950′s with the 1990′s or with good country living to metropolitan life.

There’s no way, even without the wanderlust, could I see myself getting married in my 20′s.    No way.   It’s like trying to sip your pina colada in a wave pool.

Now,  we are not evolving to the point where like praying mantises or cicadas  spreading our genes is the last productive thing we do. (though it may often feel like it)  As much as we like to point out our cultural differences we fail to accept them as logical causations for other radical and often ignorant accusations assumed to be the fault of differences in culture.

Ok, so now what?   Well, nothing.   The transient, affluent, hipsters of the world  have already recognized that in their microcosm the species develops  not any better, but more complex and at a slower rate.

Am I saying they are emotionally more mature in general.   No, not really.  But I am saying when subjected to  a greater amount of external stimuli from ones environment one must have a higher level emotional maturity to have successful relationships.

Crazy is What Crazy Does

I told you previously there was a point for behind the last post, and here it is, and 1/3 the size of it prologue.

Dating a bipolar bear.  My 100% unprofessional an non-clinical opinion…as if that ever stopped me before, yet unlike most of them real life shrinks I’m actually a bit of a nut job.   Kinda like a horse that can talk. Let’s just skip the middle man.

So I assume we all have heard about a co-dependent relationship and their pit falls.  Usually it is referring to drug addicts but can also be the same with minor short circuitry.   Bi polar bears are much like pit bulls.  You put two together, they are either gonna fight or ….make real nice.

Why the later?  Because it’s rare that someone can relate to them on those specific and extremely personal issues.  That quickly makes that person more attractive and in many ways a logical mate.  They understand.  But do they really?  Do they fully?  Are they too caught up in their own crap to be any used to you despite the intimate camaraderie in craziness?

Sometimes it seems like a great way to get over ones issues or help cope with them is to help one more screwed up than you are.   You’re not as hopeless or useless.  You’re now working in the same world with someone else and your knowledge is recognized.   All this time you haven’t been trying to communicate to the world through indecipherable scribbles.  The world just didn’t know how to read it.   There’s no guilt or inferiority complex because you are both similarly flawed.

Here’s the trouble.  One may put up with all sorts of crap and see what they want to see just so they can have that feeling of usefulness.  Others want to hold on to that stability for a while.  Want a crutch.  Want an instant fix.  One if not both parties involved may begin to use and manipulate the other.   It’s just too much baggage for a relationship to deal with especially when those dealing with their own problems get slammed on the head with the others screw ball crap.   These are to be match box relationships.  A hot, hot flare and let it burn out.  An attempt at a long-term gig…like Chernobyl.  The fall out is toxic and lingering.

Now the fight part usually begins when you notice personality traits you can’t stand in someone.  You don’t know the real reason you can’t stand them but in time you may realize that either  it’s because you have or had the same annoying  traits or you sniffed out crazy and it’s depressing  and frustrating to be around.

Cathartic Purge (But I swear it leads to something)

Back from sabbatical. (fancy way of saying been too busy or lazy)  I think I might have to open up the season with one for me. Not sure where the Perpetual Bachelor is going to go this year, but I suppose that the fun in it at least for me.

I found myself smiling like an idiot while brushing up on my clinical knowledge of bi-polar characteristics.  It comes to a point where that stuff becomes elementary yet worth a review and reassessment.   Over time one forgets how they fashioned their lives around their condition.  It’s a marvel to realize that such choices become automatic and how ones troubles are usually due to a straying from those internalized rules.  Yes, feel free to assume I’ve had my issues, if you haven’t already long ago. (I can hear your snickering from here)  “S.A.D” for those who remember psych 101.  I’m like the only pun in the text book. Fitting though.

Those fortunate to learn to manage the various short circuits one may have in their heads develop an enhanced ability to decipher their own feelings.  As a blind persons hearing adjusts one with a bi polar disorder or depression issues may eventually be much more aware of their feelings and the causes behind them than the average person.

Of course that is a sugar coating found with those fully functional and educated on their condition and even when this is the case repercussions of a disorder still must be dealt with for most realizations are made retrospectively, usually just in time to prevent any real damage.

You can’t help but to still be a little “off,” but at the same time those who aren’t a bit “off” begin to seem insane or mundane, hard to explain.  I’ll stop. Any who…(yep, any who) this development that keeps one from conflicting with themselves causes friction between them and the outside world.

Deep down inside no one like to feel like they are flawed and with an intuition honed out of necessity to be more responsive to how one is feeling, their surroundings and the feelings of others, animosity towards the average comparatively insensitive individual can flourish since the “flawed” are rarely fully understood by that average person.

A health nut forced into the life style for some reason may have a little more distain for the over weight while a trust fund baby tends to have less understanding or empathy for the poor.  Those who have been places in their heads fear and loath the judgments of others and this may be one reason why it’s so hard for many to find help. Now imagine that they don’t know what’s wrong with them, which is basically always the case, at least the first time.  Pretty shitty.  It’s not like a broken arm or a limp. People do not readily empathize.

With that said I suppose examples or at least a few metaphors are in order. As I said in the beginning, I was smiling like an idiot.  I returned from vacation with an odd case of jet lag.   I would bound between bouts of joy and sadness as if on a trampoline.  Now after dealing with a depression disorder as a young man and for the most part conquering my demons I eventually realize that at some point I got on the roller coaster again and in a sick way can find amusement in it all.  Got to stop and be your own shrink. What am I feeling? Why am I feeling? What if anything should be done?

Most of all one wants to assess the situation to learn what the trigger may have been but before I choose whether or not to get into that I want to go back I and illustrate what I meant by fashioning your life around the condition.  Shit, I’m known to be a little bit of an eccentric and have my own methodical madness, but these adjustments are beside all that which pretty much makes for a character. I don’t mean to sound narcissistic or self abusive it is what it is.

For me, weather was a major player so I turn and bend that growing stalk that is my life toward the sunlight.  I ate well and began working out not because I was a competitive person or for the sakes of vanity, but because they brought with them natural endorphins, a healthier endocrine system and enhanced self esteem.  After learning slowly to show myself compassion I became more likely to show such compassion to others.  Then adversely show a much greater distain for those lacking in compassion.  One develops crutches, some try using people, thankfully I don’t think I did much of that in the sense one may think, but boy was I guilty of it in another way.

Sometimes some latch onto a safety blanket.  A hobby, a pet, an inanimate object can become the guard rail or pillar of ones turbulent inner world.

You’ve seen the cases where those mentally ill or deficient would just open up or have their keel evened with the aid of animal assisted therapy or your idiot savants gifted in whatever they find as a point of stability.  As for me, writing, animals and some “destructive” habits kept me a cool cucumber.

I doted over my fish and still do over my cat. One gets conditioned by the world and as sad as it sounds when confronted with stress I would take a pen, notebook and my cat before another human being.  I would love to have my old fish tank.  “Normal” people don’t understand why the troubled do the things they do and just throw it in as just a characteristic of being mentally challenged or ill.

When, if they could tell you, they might say that they could find more empathy in the eyes of a stray dog than they could in another person.  My 45 gallon hexagon fish tank that I took on a two day move down the east coast of the U.S sounds insane to most but to me it meant stability.  My cat I raised from a bottle and my library of scribbles was the earth, sun and sky.  My jewels in a world found unsatisfactory.  Of course this sounds nutty.  But it is what it is.

I will never work in a cubical, only outside or by large windows.  I love teaching because of the openness of youth.  Adult minds can grow stagnant, unmalleable and unimaginative.  Whatever agent of creation there may be we risk growing away from it as we mature.  That God, collective unconsciousness, or what ever universal truth is more one with the damaged, children or animal kind and it’s mans individual challenge to keep as close as they can to it through their lives.  I like to surround myself with things that remind me of such. (besides all the scientifically proven biological benefits for my condition that just happen to coincide, but the first part sounds so much more profound no?)

I have been there and back. Experienced so many things just with in my head that I could only be awed in what could possible be going on in someone else’s head.  But being “there” (I’m in a big quoting mood today”) and back, for me it’s like being a three dimensional ball in a linear world.  I see those who suffer within their skull and people walking by or feebly knocking upon the door I myself have been behind.  It’s a trip.

Last thing one wants to admit is that what ever short circuitry they suffer from or the solutions for the malfunction changes them, takes them over.  That’s why many refuse to take medication and it takes a rock bottom event to get them on it.  Many secretly are jonesing to get off whatever stuff they were prescribed and once they begin to feel better they stop, there’s a sudden relapse and some unfortunate things sometimes happen. And everyone is “surprised”.

Now, I don’t think I could tell you what or who I would be.  I was a broken kid when I had to make the adjustments and I was flawed long before realizations were made.  What I can tell you is that there have been many positive outcomes and mutations do to my condition and for all intensive purposes I am what I am and the only thing I could ever be.  Between hereditary and environment and the fact that our biological systems and subconscious still call most of the shots you’re all just as crazy as me, but you don’t know it, which makes you crazier than I.  The fact that I am pretty tuned into my insanity makes the average person merely meandering their lives blindly away far crazier than I am.  But that’s ok, I understand.

Now, I hinted lightly upon how such things could change the landscape of interpersonal relationships. Sorry for the prelude but I believe it’s necessary for the following installment to be understood clearly.

Dating with a Bi Polar disorder..I’m not even sure you’re even supposed to do that.   Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “ups and down in a relationship.”  But we will talk about that next time.  Same Bat time Same Bat Channel.

Challenge: One Night Stand Etiquette

Challenge! 

One Night Stand Etiquette

Before I go on to answer this challenge, I must make clear that being the virtuous fellow I am the following may entirely be based from presumption.   So let ya be learned yeah?

Let’s begin with the just dont’s.

If you have an infectious rash or flesh-eating disease.  (Nor if you carry any transmittable STD’s  or think you may have symptoms.  If you have to be told that you are indeed a grade A asshole….huge asshole, like I’m trying to clean up my language but still must emphasize, scumbag asshole.)

If you have a violent, significant other or stalker that follows you around.  Do not use someone to get someone else jealous or set them up to be attacked.  That’s what crazy trashy people do.   To be judgemental, yes.

If you are smarting from some other rocky or ended relationship and there is a greater than 25% that  you’re gonna start crying at some point, do not pass go and do not collect da booty.

Ok, so now we have a set of basically harmless, emotionally sound people.  I think a cliché’ “Do & Don’t” list is called for.

Don’t

• Refuse to wear a condom or ask someone not to use one.
• Don’t wait till the last possible minute to tell someone you’re on your period.  That info should be mentioned before heading anywhere and not saying anything and destroying a mans sheets, well  that’s just dirty on so many levels.
• Hickys, bite marks and scratches are very inconsiderate.   You may not know where he or she works or whom they are seeing.   You also beg to be gossiped about.   You want some dudes friends all calling you “Wolverine” or have to go to work in a turtleneck?
• Do not take anything with you.  Even if they loan you cloths while in their home.  If it is a necessity to take them, ask if there is a way you can return the clothing.
• Don’t disappear while they are asleep.   Even writing a note is pretty weak. Unless it’s a flattering, super sexy note.   For the most part be an adult and face the admirable farewell.
• Don’t linger.  Rise with the house.  Follow their lead and when they start getting dressed that’s your cue.  If they offer breakfast accept if you wish then shortly after make for the road.   You should know by then if you’re gonna end up staying the afternoon or not.
• Don’t bother if you are in risk of having whiskey or coke %&$#.   They didn’t take you where ever for your lame ass excuses and apologies.
• If a girl changes her mind, that’s her prerogative.  She is a bit of  a jerk and total cock tease but the dudes a bigger jerk if he flips out.  A man should keep their cool, never look desperate and make them second guess and regret their decision.   Yet ladies, you really should have you’re mind made up with how far you’re willing to go before you venture off.
• Don’t be one way.  To take and not at least try to give…they probably should bad mouth you.
• No porn star crap unless it’s asked for.  You know what I mean.

Do‘s

• One should have some basic stuff in the home for any guest not just the really unexpected ones.   Contact lenses case and solution, toothbrushes, some various sized comfortable clothing.   Condoms.  Having to run around for rubbers in the wee hours of the morning is a total tacky buzz kill.  Be a big boy or girl and be prepared.  They have pretty long shelf lives.   A bottle of red, a bottle of white, and a few brewskis are usually a good thing to have around as well.
• Always offer water. It’s polite and you’ll hopefully need lots of it.
• Offer a shower and a clean towel, before or after but at some point.
• Offer breakfast.  Unless you just HAVE to get away and get them out.  But you know a few eggs ain’t exactly a wedding proposal.  Besides it gives you a few more minutes to try to figure out their names.
• Make it clear one way or another that nothing may result from the drunken collision BEFORE it happens.
• Make sure you have at least a clue of who they are and not end up nailing the boss’s,  your friends, or some pimps property.

There you have it. If I lacked  moral fiber and partook in such animalistic behavior I’d like to think that that’s a solid guideline.

Challenge! Long Term Realtionships…What do I think?

Inquiring minds want to know, “what does the “Perpetual Bachelor” think about long term relationships?”  It is perceived by some that my view of such an arrangement is negative due to its absence in The Perpetual Bachelors subject matter.  This leads me to wonder if it’s also assumed that I dislike kittens or grapefruit juice because I don’t talk about it.  FYI, I adore kittens and don’t care much for grapefruit juice.

The PB’s response to this of course starts with a question.  What business does say, Vegetarian Weekly have writing a three page feature on “Cooking the Perfect Steak”?  It doesn’t mean the writers don’t like steak yet such an article invites a justifiable question of credibility.

Two issues make this essay uncomfortable is that I loathe using myself as a subject and I will continue to dance around that.  Nor, do I like putting myself in the situation where I may be pulling things out of my butt.  Another thing to be taken in consideration is when talking about relationships articles are forced to come primarily from personal experience than observation unlike the dating scene therefore it much more insensitive towards the feelings of those whom were in relationships with the writer.  For that reason I long ago decided I wouldn’t go there very much and nor will I in the future.

Now will that all said I will do my best to appease my readership and to start to point out that it may very well be them and not you.   Perhaps the gentleman does not find it honorable to bring on a wife and or kids when unable to afford financially what he feels they deserve.  Maybe he feels it would be ethically irresponsible to bring more children into an over crowed world.   He could have a nasty terminal and or genetic condition that will eventually rip a family apart and doesn’t have the heart to put someone through it.

All too often people take others personal choices or points of view as a personal critic upon oneself and fail to realize that they can’t truly understand another until they except that it isn’t about them but about someone else.  One may think it to be obvious, but we all do it, all the time.

Now a relationship is something you trade for.  You trade independence, simplicity and a certain amount a freedom for responsibility and vulnerability.   Therefore it better be worth it.   Mama’s boys, male chauvinists and those slaves to the status quo have no issue jumping into relationship after relationship while the fiercely independent, idealists and helpless romantics are less likely to follow suit.

A relationship should not be pursued because one wants to have children or fulfill some set of expectations.  Nor to have someone take care of you or have someone to take care of.  Not even because you’re afraid of dying alone.

Yet, many seem cool with that.  Many don’t mind marrying rich or being married to because they’re rich. Because they’re hot, good in bed, they need you, whatever’s clever for this is after all the Perpetual Bachelor not perpetual boyfriend, perpetual husband, perpetual man who has given up on life…kidddddinggggg.   Yet, I can still point out what many of us see through observation and don’t want.

A partner should be a soundboard not a verbal punching bag.

One should not find themselves having to hide from the other.

It should be teamwork not a separation of duty.

A partner should not have to be fixed or broken in.

One should not have to worry about having someone to occupy their other when going out together.

The terms “sex night” and “Birthday BJ” is two of the most horrible things I have heard in my life.

Back talking kids, partners with illogical expectations, violence, deceit, divorce,

Minivans, pleated khakis, golf shirts with “Douche bag” already embroidered on them.

 

Do we see nice stuff?  Sure.

Kids, vacation photos, possibility of steady sex,

Someone to have your back, help you clean, hear you out, accept you and all your disgusting shit.

So to summarize, I don’t think one way or the other about relationships.  When I see a good one I think it’s very nice and figure I could do something like that and when I see something I don’t like I thank the powers that be that  I’m single.    It’s not a situation where it’s “You haven’t tried pizza?” it’s more like “You haven’t tried raw clams?”  Sometimes you might be allergic to that type of clam or they may have been sitting out too long.   Relationships are not a safe bet and one should not be judged for not looking for one anymore that they should for looking for one.

Those who find m view objectionable may ask, “does the PB have baggage?” Bah, who doesn’t at least carry a phanny pack?  Yet never has it affected my objectivity… has it affected yours?

 

Why Sports? I’ll Tell You Why.

I am going to set forth and explain something, that when usually questioned, receives a glare, a shrug or “just get me another beer” in reply.   This is far all of you who wonder what exactly is the attraction to sports.  Why do we glue ourselves to the TV for hours on end? Why do we talk and debate endlessly about coulds, shoulds, whys and hows of these games?  Why do we paint faces, shout, sing songs and sometimes, even cry about these sports, which in reality have little importance to the survival of the individual crying? It is all because sport itself is an irreplaceable institution of civilized human society.

Aristotle claims man to be a social animal with a natural affinity for friendship and community.  Giving us a little too much credit.  Thomas Hobbes, is a little on the pessimistic side and felt that man, a self involved, individualistic creature, finds society to be merely a convenient way to get what he wants and keep it.

The reason behind sport lies between the two.   There was a time when men began to band together for such things as protection and the mixing of genes.   Men poorly designed and vulnerable to their environment had to be constantly plotting, predicting, confronting, adapting to and conquering the adversities of the unknown that stemmed from the natural world.   That type of behavior is what makes one Human. Everything else is just basic life function.

In today’s society, the natural world hardly exists.  Yet there is still the underlining need for men to be men in a world designed for automatons.   Ones job and ones marriage and family are just fulfilling some of those animalistic life functions that every living creature does to exist.

The same reasons children knock each other around are the same reasons fuzzy little puppies; kittens and cubs knock each other around.   No, you do not see a bunch of grizzlies practicing a play action pass. (And we should worry if we do) but the natural world has not been removed from them.  Society might not have the need for each man to use his instincts.  But his instincts need society to provide an outlet.

Today, there are more Monday morning chieftains than warriors to take the field but the war paint, tribal colors, the allegiances are as ever alive.  We plot and discuss, question and strategize, we form the tribal bonds of what we now call teams.   We defend “our home.”   We compete to win or lose. We do this all because it is what put us here on top of the food chain.

Many say sports are stupid, and that they don’t understand the purpose behind the game or the behavior of the fans.  Some of these are a little more feminine and prefer baking and potpourri.  Many have been roughed up by some dumb jock when they were 13 so decided to take it out on an entire social institution.   Most just are not athletically gifted.   Of these people many play Chess or Dungeons and Dragons or the like, where they plot, and predict to defeat their adversary on the field of battle.  Sound familiar?  Men are different sure, but they all are slaves to their instinct and will go about it in the ways they are best capable.  So if you find yourself, bitching about your loved ones and the games they play just be thankful you’re not in a society where those games aren’t warranted for your loved ones at least will be coming back alive.

I also guarantee that if you take a group of people of similar size and athletic ability and give them a game to play, that they will have the time of their lives.   It might not be a pretty to watch but that’s not the point.  If this sounds sexist oh well.  I see a lot of women sports too and if you’re not playing, you’re either fawning over the warriors or kissing boo boos.  What about the whole “nesting” thing and shopping? Yes, the table can be turned.  If you’re still too (insert nonconformist click) to think sports are ok.  Well, athletes do drugs too if that’s helps.  Also, I’d kick your ass in Chess, Stratego, or Risk and I have a 2^ND Edition Druid or a 3^rd edition fighter/mage that would ruin you. Four eyed bitch.

If you are just a concerned, or jealous girlfriend, you should stop being a self fish and or insecure and see the brighter side.  Yeah, sure there are no-lives that get carried away and spend way too much time involved yet there are many who just want to watch their team, or be left alone on Sunday.  How is this a good thing?  Any proper and manipulating woman with half a brain knows these things already, but I will enlighten you.

First, and most obvious, Bargaining chip.   “Sure I will leave you alone all Sunday, I will even pick you up from the bar IF…….”  You offer a day of football, with no tasks, calls for attention, no complaining, you will be surprised what that will get you.

If you actually take interest, you can play it like sex.  I know women in some relationships use sex as a reward, (If it were me and I had to do shit for it, well there would not  be a relationship)  You can play it off that you are joining him to keep him company and have y0ur wings and eat them to.

Thirdly, if you don’t really care for it, but you help him root for his team, and stay deathly quiet when things don’t go well he should appreciate that immensely. It can be something you do together, there just isn’t as much talking.  Very little in fact.  Think of it as quiet time, like if you were going to Church together.   He just prays to the T.V and mumbles swear words instead of church music.

On a side note regarding football over morning sex: There are seven days in a week.  But only one is Sunday.  There is one choice for the animal and one choice for the civilized man.  The civilized man knows there will be other mornings, but only two Redskin/Giant games a year.

Originally Posted 7/13/09

People

People are all the same.   In which they all have this unique, vast, ever-changing universe with in their heads but are yet still subject to hereditary, environment and biochemistry.   At one moment all the broad generalities and stereotypes are nothing but ignorant falsehoods and at the same time the cold truth.

How can this be?  Well to dismiss generalizations of human character would be to insult mans ability to classify and find congruencies.    A vast body of scientific knowledge may disagree with the ideal of unique individualism.

At the same time we know that we’re different, that we are indeed special.  But to what extent and how much control do we have over it?   Are we closer to a fully conscious sentient being or a meat sack running on a biological program?

Weather our ego can handle it or not we all unknowingly give off messages fitting of stereotypes and unconsciously look for them in others.  Girl:  “At first I though he was just a (adjective) (generalization) (stereotype), but once I got to know him he yada yada.”

He was and is those things but the girl took the time to interact with the boy and more importantly the boy had disarmed himself a little bit.    The superego gives way to the more conscious ego when you “get to know someone”.     That’s why it is fool heady to go by such things but it is equally as stupid to ignore them.   It’s as if we were all onions and every other level was generic while the alternating layers are wonderfully unique.

Yet, what if he was a pathological liar or the woman was in a bad mood.  What if they were in a refugee camp for the last three months and neither have had an appropriate amount of food or water?

What if they were in the arctic and have not seen sunlight in six months?  What if one of them was gay or found vey unattractive by the other?   What is truly taking precedence when it comes to controlling how we each allow ourselves to perceive others and be perceived?

The external influences now become their own vast, unique ever changing universe that continually collides with that one in ones mind or soul.   As universes collide and give off a spectrum shall we feel victimized by the colors other may see or accepted it all as a state of being neither solid nor permanent?

Now with this collision come questions.

Mans failure to curb the murder and exploitation of their kind in the face of all our collective scientific discovery brings up two important questions

Has human society advanced too far for the average persons mind that we find ourselves reverting to behavior based on basic instinct to simplify and find a stable enclosure for ones inner universe?

Have we as a society shot up at such an incline that we as individuals cannot handle the gravity and are as a whole bound to complete the bell curve with an identically steep fall?

The animal kingdom has proven to show malice, compassion, and choice.  We are not alone in being sentient or emotional.  In fact many things we consider to be “human” could be more accurately categorized as biological programming for the benefit of species survival than some mystical choice of the soul.

Yet, we do have religion don’t we.  Yes the religious creature and in the worship of these dogmas it finds a true human characteristic, irony.   Religion as a concept is a good thing.  Takes the complicated and makes it simple.  Religion sets a guideline and reasons for such guidelines when minds are unfortunately too simple to grasp the true reasons for such rules.   Finally and most importantly it is like baseball and the various superstitions players have.  Sometimes the game is just plainly easier when you believe your dirty socks are making you hit the ball better.

The only problem is that irony thing.   We know that ironically we tend to kill each other over these religions even though the basic premise of these beliefs is that we should not do such things.  What is the virus that slips into the membrane of ones spiritual beliefs and makes it cancerous?

Logically these deities would have long ago abandoned their divisive and destructive little ant colonies.  Spirituality is not like food, land or genetic variety.  There is no natural competition present there.  Of course one can see the use for it as a form of social control and a siphon of power for the ambitious but what makes others follow along when words and actions are so blatantly at odds?

Maybe the same analytical drive to categorize that drove our curiosity and therefore our society is also a basic instinct.   We will never cease to find differences and where we can’t find them, create them.  That is fine though, makes the world a colorful place.

But the violence?   Why is mans bottom line warfare and violence even when there is no natural cause?

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which is a widely accepted theory states human needs to be of the following: Physiological, Safety, Love/Affection, Esteem and self actualization.  I will so brazenly simplify further to break it down eight personal urges; eat, compete, mate and dominate. Nurture, procreate, learn and communicate.  I do roll in all the in and outs of the human body into “eat” for the sakes of bad poetry and do indeed differentiate between mating and procreating.

Now from these I find all human actions are delivered and may also be the shelters we climb into to shield from the collision between the two worlds.   If one thinks about it, most disorders physical, mental or social is by definition a failure to or overindulgence of one of the above.

I now bring back the possibility of those colliding universes and the individual’s response to hide from the collision within basic instinct.    Are the ambitious also driven by the basic instinct to dominate and or destroy perceived competition?

Why do religious leaders past and present find the existence of another religion that much of a threat to justifying killing people in mass?   Would perpetuating violence truly increase one individual’s quality of life to such a point where blood shed was logical?  Are any of the above needs at risk?  Historical record and sheer logic say no.   So why do it, especially when the books that give one their power say otherwise?  One may gain a higher position here or there but there are no real gains to be made or threats to be thwarted.

Modern politics is another example of where logic may have fallen to basic instinct or an imbalance there of.

In the United States and various places around the world you have entities that fight venomously against the basic values of a healthy society.   They push for brutally anti social behavior and policies when the perceived threat to them doesn’t exist to the magnitude they portray if they even exist at all.  Those whose all biological, psychological and social needs are taken care of still have a drive to oppress others when there is relatively little to lose or gain from it.     Again, why? Why do these leaders in the face of human progress behave so and what drives some people to follow them?

It can be understood, the human instinct to simplify in the sakes of learning, to compete, ok……but to simplify morality, oppress and exploit needlessly?

The followers of such people simplify and judge matters with a leaning toward a dominance instinct but  within the masses the primary basic instinct is fear and they are continuously making decisions on their social ideals in a state of fight or flight.

Those who take the collision of the universes and revert to the basic instinct of domination seem to be followed by those who revert to the instinct of fear both leading to blind and antisocial behavior.  The combination is far more efficient as a causation of change than any combination of the more passive qualities of human basic instinct.

Together the havoc they reek, this solid slab of action in reality will be then visually soften by less concrete action or rhetoric to keep the individuals very controlling and dominant ID out of conflict with the EGO and hidden behind the super ego.

A simple example is going to Church, saying something patriotic, meanwhile ones actions are nothing but the opposite.

A more complex example would be the pro life lobby of which the gross majority of the group has voting records unfriendly to institutions involving social well being.   One could easily classify this group as a group of people blind to the human condition trying to compensate for what is otherwise an unethical mind set.

Of course that is oversimplifying each individual, yet, isn’t that what we ask for en mass when we affiliate with large groups”?  Can we try to claim benefit of the doubt due to individualism when perpetuating the identity shared by a group?

It’s incredibly hard to judge when a person’s capability to show that inner onion is marginalized by civil society.  The voting booth, psychological testing or a wealth of observed personal interaction would be the only hints for us to have an accurate shot to guessing what is going on in an individual.  But that’s when generalizations, communication theory and the school of psychology come in I suppose.  Yet, the point remains.  The actions of little consequence in relation to meaningful decision making  (ie. Going to a religious service and dropping a few bucks in the bucket  then voting to cut aid to the poor) is congruent  (as far as predicting ones personal make up)  with ones  stereotype/superego and ego.

What is disturbing is that in popular fiction through out human society those whose actions root primarily from self interest, dominance, and fear are considered to be the bad guys; to be evil.  Yet, in the real world such people are handed power and when push comes to shove they are often handled gently in some quasi politically correct manner which only encourages and sometimes emblazons the anti social behavior.

Furthermore, one has to bring up the question that debates whether mankind is either inherently good or evil.   For how many anecdotes and sayings do we have involving one showing what they truly are made of when pressed?   Perhaps we are all always being pressed by the collision between this rapidly developing man made world and our own amazing little brains and we should be more sensitive to peoples actions and call it as it is.

What basic instincts do we revert to when making our decisions on how each of us will impact the world?  Are they good? Are they Evil?  Perhaps the whole story for warning Armageddon was much like the New Testaments parables; a message in a story.   Maybe we each have an angle and/or a demon with in us and the struggle between those who have decided is the ongoing conflict that will decide the fate of the species.

13-31 Part Five: What Wisdom Dost Thou Bring?

Part five.  We have gone through puberty to adulthood.  The final installment of mush and whine.  We hit the mature male and their attempt at prose.  Have they really learned anything?   Have they grown bitter?  If love is a battle field, are they now pacifists, P.O.W’s or perhaps shell shocked? Let’s find out.

You

You’ve been lost

Obscured by clouds

Under the rain

Stuck in dry dessert

I’ve been there with you

Even when I hardly knew

What was in the mirror

I love you, what you do

How could I not,

It’s what I choose

The songs you play

Forget the miseries

Make them new each day

The present pleasant memories

When you have been hurt

When you have been weak

When you have had to beat yourself down

To begin to build it all back up

It’s just a splash on that mural of what you are

Forget the names

Material hooks

That drag you down

Painful memories,

What if’s

And meaningless to be’s

Everything is simply what is

And you are

And I love it

You’re the beginning and the end

What we have done to ourselves.

Adoration

No need for meditation for you find peace in their eyes,

A secret source of serenity where your love lies.

To spend time with one whom you adore, makes you feel the thief

Adored are the things you always wished one would adore

You feel the sort of things once discarded as romantic lore

Typical destinies lead you to question the con

Isn’t that just the curse of desire

Walking in your life keeping the soul a fire

It’s a double down die hard sin to logic

And you’ll know it will break your heart if they deny it

Power tripping will put you on your face

Pushing pace will just risk disgrace

It’s hard to manage the breaks

When you’re racing against separate fates.

Cement Shoes in the Storm

Sitting here, my room warm with or without

But don’t let me get used to this weather,

For all addictions do begin to wane.

You bring clouds to my mornings

Begins to rain with a spiteful scowl

This jungle of yours is for animals,

Not right for this beast

And beauty is no excuse

For where we espy heaven you bring hell.

To improve

What am I to do

To remain worthy of you?

How will I emerge?

Find some steady ground to live

And still stay safely near belligerence?

Down to returning bottles

Fearing my credit and without my ride

Police too thirsty for quotas today

Not safe to take mine

The hermit with no shell

They are already full

Or I continually fail to fit

Bravery is only to ease the mind

When on the tight rope well aware of the drop

But bravery does not make you any smarter

Or any less venerable.

Is it brave to go it alone

Or stupidity to carry the extra burden?

Don Quixote

I suppose I could list the women whom the muse had used

Mauled the ones who used in return

And little ole’ me in the middle feeling the expanse of circumstance

The illusion of reality

The falsehood of possibility

Will I always be a bitter slave?

There is no quit, but only submit

And they’re all lies

Eyes, poetic brides

Tis the work of a fool

Bounded by the boundless description of hinder like tales of suffering.

A queen to pardon his mortal sins

To rest his head

Take to bed

And demand the same from him

To demand and be demanded

One enchanting to the peasant

But also dependable and welcome as spring

To a would be king.

Solace

At times I look back to blissful blindness.

Not that I wish for such a regression

That steed I could never quite tame nor train

Was  found ever charging into folly

No, loneliness be but another abstraction

no more nor less than the courtesans in one’s life.

Those who take, receive

perhaps partnered in loss or bounty.

It’s no more task or tarry to maintain oneself

than to engage in custom codependency

Biology, the mother of all conundrums

Has her devious methods and all too often

We seek medications for the drugs

already within.

Never embracing the solace

nor the opportunity to conceive ones own composition

from which they are to compose

The trivial, tragedy, conflict and comedy

all can be spattered, still to be art.

But love, love?

That, if you wish no spattering

Unconscious strokes layered finely

In a bold yet mellowed hue

That, will take a tempered hand,

a steady gaze

A soul that knows solace.

Limbo in Distance

What will it take to attain your presence?

Bend saplings like a bear

Scribe things worthy of Voltaire

Strike a pose

Bare a cross

With roses fill the air

A hint of your tastes

A taste of your whims

a demand

allusion

your abhorred and favored sins

Surrender than impair

Coy births fools

Silence kills

keep I not on the blind dare

but to pursue with care

Than just sitting in want on my derriere.

When

Games are forgotten fables

and your past historic lore

The horizon a mission

and sentiment becomes law

When joy is in a complexion

and found in your reflection

Your worthiness you question

and pure is your intension

Ones mind is not blank

nor diluted or ill

You know a sound structure

You know pit from hill

Fears do not protest

Scars do not tingle

vanity subsides

to a bashful trickle

Humble are your words and lust, a subtle pulse

It’s all bread, breath, water and sun

The sinless apparition

of ever wanting none

Walls dissipate than close

with a farmers faith

in what he sows

Not a smile forced

Caress mistaken

A tongue held

A kiss barren

No questions of if

or wonders of why

Whens been answered

When is nigh

13-31 Part 4 What have they learned?

We shall continue the path to V day by examining bad poetry from men in order of age.  We have gone from puberty to frat boys and we now will see if the “adults” have managed to learn anything.

Raise Those Eyes

Sometimes you just have to appreciate it.

Live band blends into the rumble of a crowed pub.

Sometimes you just have to look up.

Even the most crowded turnpike still has sky.

Despite how hazy there is a vast beyond.

The funeral pyre always has its flame,

And in turn the clouds share their rain.

Many deserts shortly flower,

And with the same desolation my life has you.

But we all forget to look up

From the dull gravel at the feet before us.

Too distracted by the pot holes

Failing to realize what it was

That has kept one from falling flat.

But when I do,

I see you.

With dark hair laced over your face

I watch eyes from shadow pulling me from mine.

If not the sky or the ocean

The music amongst the dense crowd,

It is just what you do for me.

Sometimes you just have to look up

Just for a moment you may need to look up

And see me

It’s beautiful,

It’s beautiful

For me.

Merely Lovers

You wish to be within my breath

Without my arms around you

Even merely lovers cannot

Adjust to such a false truth

A mans vocation is what they are

What they do

So is the human bond, between two

What they are

What they do

The King never plays Prince

Nor the blacksmith, a horse

It’s a thing beyond nature

That one cannot force

Lovers are not like the moon they gaze upon

Or ocean sway

They are light, heat, the breeze

That either stays

Or fades away.

It Doesn’t Take Much

I can see it in your eyes

If there be lies

If there be pain

And the rain

And the hunger for shelter

If there be joy

If there be love

Or if the fire for me

Hast faded away

I can see it in your eyes.

Farther Away

Tell me what to wear

Pull at me with intimate nicknames

But still I step away

I placed it on the floor

and though you dance around it

It slowly disappears into the sand

And reappears in my chest

In which a step a day

Is farther away.

Love Is

I cannot be debonair, because there is no romance with out you

I be silent, but not strong

More dark, less handsome

A knight, without the shine

Love is to sacrifice joyously, to hurt willingly, to yearn knowingly, to live selflessly,

all for but a shadow of a kiss.

I cannot be passion, for there is no flesh with out you,

A lover listless

A poet voiceless

A minstrel out of tune

Love is to nurture ones self, as the other, and the pair as a whole.

Love, is a state of being, not a feeling, not a goal

Love, is, if you know it, when you know it, if you accept it, if you fight for it,

if you choose it, if you lose it, worth it.

In the Fray

Fragile feminine fingers lost in the fray on my head

To spider climb the terrain

Slide down my back with a hint of passion

Trim, turbulent, tummy, supporting my head lost in the fray

To hold on and resist slumber

As fragile feminine fingers get lost in the fray

Lethargic, longing or lost in the fray

To retreat to as storms hover above

When one knows of a few safe places to stay

Whether weaken, in love or lost in the fray

Best to sail for safe harbor

in the presence of female company.

Like Wine, My Ass

Women my age don’t care for poetry,

by the time the do, I’ll be old and bored with such,

When they be no longer worthy

Then and only then, will they pursuit this heart

Yearning for ballads of love.

I could not afford them as a youth

And I will not afford their egos then, anymore

Than they could afford the truth.

Love is innocent, and beauty fades,

So they’re left merely, a self-serving maid.

Absence

Absence

I miss her, and it’s a little not fair, dare

I say, to those in history who have had to

Lose, miss, listless days for their hearts

When soil and sea, balks at whatever

Technology or piece of mind

Promises to fill the spaces they create

Ever how short the time I may have had,

Justify the wrong to be without

Ways of saying things you won’t

Note, until you are displaced

Laced with a numbing salve of

Heart, hit lust solitude.

Absence,

A song of longing,

Of quiet gentle cords

Poured out slow along a cello

Covering skin in a nuke warm shower

Waiting for one to dry you off.

Tool

That fickle muse

She will beat me and bruise me

Tease me and taunt me

So I can sing of her darker side

She uses

Blindness and beauty

Lust and mercy

To keep me hooked on the golden line

Woman, you’re just another tool

Your mother never raised you to be so cruel

You’re just at the use of the muse

and she set you loose with the tools

to come and break my lonely heart.

13-31 Finally, Some Discontent

PART III   Not so bright eyed anymore eh?

Albert J. Alfalfa

A sigh exhaled with the failing light

Absorbed into the blanket of an intruding cloud

I must say I felt quite bright

When the storm abruptly turned around

But a whisper of raindrops, the sun at late day height

Shade to the east, shaded eyes peering west

Last treatment of rays before a lonely night

It’s my rabbit friend and I again, taking the world in expansion of chest

We become to some an alarming sight

Small surprise slipped in along their way

I ponder the approach of golden hair, I might

Regret the actions of the day

Would have to be one with interests tight

One who radiated without the sun and equal in depth

For the most subtle efforts to surface right

Amongst Sky’s azure and breeze a good breath

The vanquished storm to my delight

The rabbit growing sleepy, nudges me gently

A break in the storm, one of natures invites

My rodent here lures quite quickly

Perhaps a chance for romance by twilight

The winged are calling the settings suffice

Yet in no mood to enter that plight

To venture for love in female fishing strife

No need to fear regrets slow healing bite

Shall relent in no chase, content and at bay

The days more fitting for the flight of a kite

Such a melancholy day with very little to say

Worry not this lonely night

Or those that stare with sunshine hair

All a pleasure, a credit to sight

But with the light on my face, I’m incapable to care

A reflective day, all is right, I shall be alone tonight.

This Girl Strikes Me Curious

There is depth in those eyes

Wry smile and slight turn of the head

Can only wonder what words on her lips lie,

Anticipating curious, what is to be said

The glow of the divine,

but the look of a predator,

studying the moves, the use of time,

yet above the game, to hunt in depth

all to complex for this simple rhyme

- and the puzzle of mind.

Shells, What’s Up With That?

Lip’s pucker, brow crumpled downward, then a shy smile side ways,

Later, a glance, a brush of a hand and a slight finch- like nod

Never a word, as quiet as her fair skin

Yet as wild as amber eyes

Speak! Yell! Scream!

Shells can be beautiful

Glisten in a spectrum

Ponderous in pattern

But cannot be consumed

Call it brain food but I cannot be nourished by sight alone

Some need to hear the bones crunch, to taste the marrow of what one is made of

The soul like the body has pulsating flesh, why hide either like

a stunning shell hiding all that makes it that much more  special?

Shells are to be left rumbling upon tides

Shells are shelved

or at best worn as a prize.

It’s better to live with a shell than as one.

A Time For Action

So life, with thorns a many

And the soles of my feet splintered and worn

I will untie myself and walk along

For thorns are merely thorns

-and unsung songs, are merely songs.

I’ll wear only black and white

So I can appear simpler for you

I’ll shred my tongue, dull my bite

So I will never say a word to complicate you

Of course I’m a slight resentful

Being muted and intrinsically bound

And yet I continue to sit below your gaze

Like an absurd idea, waiting to be found

It’s as if there is no path with out thorns

-without regret

Though I do not fear the loss of blood nor sweat

-from persistently courting

But to squander daylight attempting

To ignite dampened kindling

Would be simply self-defeating

So life, with thorns a many

And the soles of my feet splintered and worn

I will untie myself and walk along

For thorns are merely thorns

-and unsung songs, are merely songs.

I cannot stand to watch

-repeat after repeat

As a starved predator feasts on rancid meat

-that may remind them from which they came

To continue the game

To seek out the lame

And I seem to be, attempting the same.

Yet, to those who I am prey

I will cease to be so allusive

For constantly hiding from others desires

Can only be self-abusive

I have done all but prove untrue

And you reply with mere facial expression

Now I ask for you to act, to do

And spare me from a more painful lesson

So life, with thorns a many

And the soles of my feet splintered and worn

I will untie myself and walk along

For thorns are merely thorns

-and unsung songs, are merely songs.

20,000 Feet Above

From way above the earth things seem black and white

Land, streams, rivulets, in marsh are cookie clear-cut and designed

Things are smaller at a distance, as well my resistance

I look at it all from twenty thousand feet above

And from there I make my decisions on love

For ones life is but a pattern, like that earth we tread on

When stuck in the tall grass. The clarities  gone

Keep that head in the clouds, as long as your looking down

It’s not impersonal, but sound

And from where I see, we’re bound

Like rivulets through trees, we’re designed to be

Though it seems unlikely, you have to learn to see

It all makes more sense from above

Looking down from up, its easier to find love

Even 20,000 feet above

I feel so grounded with out my love

I never felt so low

Until the time you flew my way, and continued to go

Tell me you are willing to see

What I have found to be

From 20,000 feet above

Our puzzle piece reality.

Your Oil, to My Sea

Ah, that sea between you and we

What I am to you, and you to me

One of plain symbolism, old ideas and T.V

And I, of relics, abstract sentiment and poetry

Oh suffer so, my values and curiosity

A lifeless intangible unseen

In your psychology

A character, a play I ponder

Your dichotomies

Unfound and indescript I exist

Beneath your society

As two universal polarities

We’re just ghosts, salt air

The dew on each other’s daisies.

Track Marks

It’s that time of year

Chocolate, flowers and teddy bears

Self-conscious fear

Diamond commercials filled

With melodramatic tears

As a man your love and devotion are weighed

As the ladies get paid

To get laid

For a few days

we feel quite poor

having no one to go to Hallmark for

But these are the minds tricks

that put track marks

on a mans dick

So don’t go looking or love

Don’t go looking for sex

It’s heroin and that’s why

There’s track marks

on your dick

Just got to let those things happen

and stay true

it far easier to relax

and let love and lust

find you

Go ahead

And spread yourself like jam

to sweeten the world

but don’t rush to hand your world

to one single girl

Every hole can be a bear trap

And every smile a guillotine

It’s all too easy to loose a head

so take heed to what I said

Don’t go looking or love

Don’t go looking for sex

Its heroin and that’s why,

There are track marks on your dick.

Butterfly

Butterfly, with dampened wings

Don’t fly far from me

the droplets that weigh you down

Not only magnify the radiance

But yet the subtle strength

in those soft mosaics

The winds of the world may always seem

to blow a turbulent course

But let my breath lift you higher

From my lips an upwind force

Gliding from leaf to leaf

Your conquest is all but inevitable

But to rest on the breast of ones breath

Can bring peace to the worry

Of challenges still left.

So butterfly

Don’t fly far from me

For ones eyes need such beauty

To give a reason to see

And purpose to breathe

Than simple survival

Through the storms of our seasons

Ones flight

Is to the delight

To those on the ground

Blowing in the wind.

Believe in Me

I know how it is to be an imaginary friend

They share their thoughts and fears from end to end

You tell them what they want to hear, and mean it,

And when they share themselves, you feel it

You’re so right, you must be imaginary

But you do feel, and that’s the sad reality

It’s like describing depth when one hasn’t ever seen the sea

“How could I ever get her to believe in me?”

I know how it is to be an imaginary friend

When things are so perfect from end to end

When it’s not two in one, but one in two

But one refuses to believe it true

As if imaginary, you stay by their side, from end to end

Yet, no matter how you express “I love you”

To them, It’s still pretend.

Trifecta

I read historical novels.

Fantasy books and poetry

One for the mind, one for the heart and one for the soul

I write sarcastic essays

Narrative and bad poetry

One for the mind, one for the heart, and one for the soul

I watch public broadcasting

Football, and the ocean rising

One for the mind, one for the heart and one for the soul

And yet, it’s quite amazing

After all these things I divide

One for the mind, one for the heart and one for the soul

I have

But one woman

One for the mind, one for the heart and one for the soul.

The Poet and the Minstrel (Part 1)

The minstrel is the ebb and flow of passion

Coloring the air with his devotion to emotion

The poet takes his color from all around

Sometimes all, or everything but sound

For every note, there is a color of ink

Both can make you feel, both can make you think

But the minstrel of all loves himself the most, and the music a little more

The poet lives for love, for the entire pallet, from truth to lore.

Ah, but it is the way for the musician to be adored

The poets are for the muses, the gift, for a place in their hoard

The minstrels mark of sensation, received and henceforth given

Muse’s give and take from poets, their all, their hell and heaven.

What will love you more, the mouth or heart of creation?

But who would risk the ills, of a muse’s cursing suspicion?

A resting unrest

Sit still and rest

On a young woman’s breast

Trying to ignore “ifs” of wrongs done

A sweet blasphemy to accept such tenderness

When there lies such little faith.

Just a stray dog forcing down a tender steak

When accustom to gnawing on bone.