Marriage and the new world.

 I was eleven years old when I decided that I wanted to get married and settle down. Unlike most of the guys I knew I grew up loving women well girls at the time. I did not just like looking at them, I respected them and cared about a number of them.

I often found myself feeling conflicted when I was in middle school. I liked one girl because of one reason but liked another because of another quality. I was being told everywhere that I looked that marriage was one woman and one man.

Never mind the gay equality movement that was just crawling from it's infancy and into national attention at the time. Never mind that every church or religion told me the same thing yet in the back of my mind it kept bothering me. If you are a religious person you see love as a gift from God. If you are an atheist you see love as a natural bonding mechanic of our species.

Regardless love is wonderful but when I was growing up it was very important that you only loved one way. If you did not then you were treated differently. This of course is society's answer to almost everything that does not conform to the Status Quo.

The more that I felt the way I did the more I realized that it did not feel wrong to me to love more than one person. I never felt diminished or somehow less for loving more than one person. If anything I felt more alive and happier.

As I got older I reasoned that this whole system of marriage and living is completely the opposite of my own feelings. I still supported marriage at this point however I saw no logical reason to not be able to share that with other people. After all if you and your wife or husband find someone that you can love just as equally as each other then why not let that person share your life.

When I was young however my views were discouraged and in some cases abusively rebuffed. Everywhere I looked all I saw were people divorcing and lives falling apart. My grandfather used to watch a show every day called divorce court. I hated that show because all it showed was the destruction lives and personified in my mind every reason why the modern model of marriage just doesn't work.

Our lives are busier than ever now and we drift apart so easily from one another with everything that we do just to survive. People get married because they fall in love then things just don't turn out the way they wanted. Marriage is for all intents and purposes disposable now. Don’t like your wife get rid of her for another . . . don’t like that one well shoot ditch her and get another.

Instead of fixing the problem or even really trying to find out a what the problem we harp about the rights of this group or that group. We scream loudly about how this or that is corrupting our youth and destroying the sanctity of marriage. We spends millions proselytizing on television, and radio about banning this or that because it challenges the morals of a book.

We should be looking at what really is causing this problem and no one wants to because it points the finger of fault right back at ourselves. We focus so much on what the worlds definition of love is that we strive for things that are unrealistic. We somehow expect fictions to become reality simply because we want to feel the way someone felt on TV.

Love can be fallen into headlong or it can take years but the point is you should love who you want when you want and be willing to love that person to the ends of all existence. If you are married then remember always love first. Never rise to anger that which can be soothed with a kiss.

I spent almost 25 years of my life never speaking of my views about what a family really is to me because the only people I could talk to about it had not even entered into my life yet.

So I went along with the norm because I was afraid to just love the way I felt was right. Do I regret my marriage, never a day in my life. Do I wish I could do things differently and maybe live things out along a different path. . . no because I know that the healing that has happened in my life would not have happened in any other way.

So what is my view now in my near middle age? I believe a family is anyone you can love like a brother or sister. I believe a husband or wife is any man or woman that you and your spouse can love as much as one another for nothing else would be fair. I believe that if you find these things in your life you should love and be OK with being loved.

So there you have it, the heathen speaks and with only words that seek to heal a world that hurts itself in the interest of conformity. Love those who are worthy of it and keep close those who love you.  

Rules to live by?

 As I walk this strange world we live in I find myself sometimes lacking in faith. Not in God or Jesus, or really any other deity. I lack faith in myself, not for any one reason but a multitude of them, all put forth just a bit of doubt or negative self thoughts which when combined together can on occasion cause my depression to get really bad.

It's in the times between that I find myself thinking more and more these days. The times between anxiety attacks and bouts of depression that leave me wishing more that I was dead than alive. So in the midst of all these things I think, at great lengths until my mind and its small village of individuals all agree or we throw our collective hands up.

One of my largest issues was trying to decide now where to derive my values. I am lost to conventional religions because I know to much and have seen to much to simply accept what they propose. So in my search I came to the conclusion that if a man cannot stand upon what he believes to himself to be right and just then he is not serving himself or any other man but rather sin.

As I walked and thought to myself I came to a general consensus within about all the usual things, thou shalt not kill is so vague that it seems that all of the Judeo Christians just said fuck it to that one. I mean how easy is it to understand THOU=YOU SHALT=SHALL NOT KILL= NOT KILL. Its left so clearly unclear, right?

Basically I looked at what was generally considered to be just and right in the world and then I considered how often it happened, so I added a rule in there somewhere about helping people when you know they need it and cannot ask. But overall I thought I did pretty good. Its not written in stone or codified in some dusty basement at the research department of an Ivy league school but for ME it means just as much.

Having a set of values all your own means a lot and it is nice to have something to live for. If I cannot have faith in a god then perhaps I can at least have faith in myself and my fellow human beings.

Never one to leave the argument alone I continued to think and refined my thoughts and ideas and I found myself examining more where my ideas for what is right and wrong came from. Then the frightening idea that most of my core values came from my mother occurred to me. The more I compared my “core” values to those of most people on the planet, or what I grew to call the societal norm, the more that I found them to be wildly divergent in some ways and alarmingly similar at other times.

So it was in the vein of this introspection that I was watching random things on you-tube one night and I ran into a video by a gentleman that is an outspoken representative of the logical folks on this planet.

While I will include the link for this video I wish to make a point for your introspection so following is a list of... commandments if you will and basic rules to live by. All of them things that I found to be my own core values now without ever having read or heard of them. The core here being that there is a great deal of commons sense involved.

1. Stupidity
   The top of the list for Sins. The Cardinal Sin. It’s too bad that stupidity isn’t painful. Ignorance is one thing, but our society thrives increasingly on stupidity. It depends on people going along with whatever they are told. The media promotes a cultivated stupidity as a posture that is not only acceptable but laudable. Humanity must learn to see through the tricks and cannot afford to be stupid.
2. Pretentiousness
   Empty posturing can be most irritating and isn’t applying the cardinal rules of Lesser Magic. On equal footing with stupidity for what keeps the money in circulation these days. Everyone’s made to feel like a big shot, whether they can come up with the goods or not.
3. Solipsism
   Can be very dangerous. Projecting your reactions, responses and sensibilities onto someone who is probably far less attuned than you are. It is the mistake of expecting people to give you the same consideration, courtesy and respect that you naturally give them. They won’t. Instead, you must strive to apply the dictum of “Do unto others as they do unto you.” It’s work for most of us and requires constant vigilance lest you slip into a comfortable illusion of everyone being like you. As has been said, certain utopias would be ideal in a nation of philosophers, but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, from a Machiavellian standpoint) we are far from that point.
4. Self-deceit
   Another cardinal sin. We must not pay homage to any of the sacred cows presented to us, including the roles we are expected to play ourselves. The only time self-deceit should be entered into is when it’s fun, and with awareness. But then, it’s not self-deceit!
5. Herd Conformity
   It’s all right to conform to a person’s wishes, if it ultimately benefits you. But only fools follow along with the herd, letting an impersonal entity dictate to you. The key is to choose a master wisely instead of being enslaved by the whims of the many.
6. Forgetfulness of Past Orthodoxies
   Be aware that this is one of the keys to brainwashing people into accepting something new and different, when in reality it’s something that was once widely accepted but is now presented in a new package. We are expected to rave about the genius of the creator and forget the original. This makes for a disposable society.
7. Counterproductive Pride
   That first word is important. Pride is great up to the point you begin to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The rule of thumb is: if it works for you, great. When it stops working for you, when you’ve painted yourself into a corner and the only way out is to say, I’m sorry, I made a mistake, I wish we could compromise somehow, then do it.
8. Lack of Aesthetics
   This is the physical application of the Balance Factor. Aesthetics is important in Lesser Magic and should be cultivated. It is obvious that no one can collect any money off classical standards of beauty and form most of the time so they are discouraged in a consumer society, but an eye for beauty, for balance, is an essential tool and must be applied for greatest effectiveness. It’s not what’s supposed to be pleasing—it’s what is. Aesthetics is a personal thing, reflective of one’s own nature, but there are universally pleasing and harmonious configurations that should not be denied.

These are just examples I found in one source that I found when reading. The simple sense within these basic declarations of how we can and should live life is undeniable. The reference to both lesser and greater magic is a reference to certain psychological tools that are available to every person on this world. They are not evil or bad, they simply ARE aspects of what it is to be human.

When we go through our day to day lives searching for meaning and hiding from our issues. We live in a haze so thick and complete that coming out of it feels as if you have emerged from a long sleep. We lose our minds and wander lost looking mostly for the same few simple things. Love, happiness, a place to lie down and sleep at night safe and warm.

While we wander we do things that do not truly represent who we are. It is the actions of an automaton existing in this world rather than living. Breathing eating and walking but dead and lost in a sea of pain or fear. Doesn't matter what your issue is when you are lost you are lost and that's all there is to it. No one can get through to you and save you from yourself, our minds fight us every day to maintain perfect control. Maintain the original programming.

This is what makes choosing a path in life so hard. When you are growing up you are shaped and molded into what you become. Sometimes we have choices, but most of the time we are pushed and shaped so hard by the first few years of our lives that we have already been told by someone else whats right and wrong.

Who's right and wrong. What to be, who to be, how to be it, it all comes down to 99% of the knowledge you obtain by the time you are three years old is all you will USE to live your life until the day that you die.

Knowing how messed up this world already is slowly trickled down into this realization and I understood. We as humans are acting more and more like the blind leading the blind. We all have issues in some way, yet we were all born innocent in truth. No one has been born on this world truly evil, what makes us evil or good is how WE choose to react to what life dishes us out. Our tribulations and pains are shared universally by other humans on this planet either alive or dead YOU are not alone in your issues.

It only seems that way because because the things that cause darkness within us. Hate, doubt, fear, these things blind us to the silver linings. They make us see black instead of white, up instead of down. These emotions will control your mind and make you see only darkness.

Humanity is not evil or wrong. We are all of us born unique and good. We are not inherently evil for being born nor are we somehow in debt to anyone for our existence. We do not come to this place and this time in the universe to be punished. No one living is only alive because somewhere along the lines they did something bad and thus deserve to be punished.

Rather than write down a dusty old book full of my own personal rules I chose three simple things to live by.

Love

Love everyone you meet if you. When you meet someone with love in your heart and you accept them regardless of who they are, you open to them a realm of possibility. The possibility that they too can love and be loved back without rebuttal or retribution.

Duty

Duty means to me at least doing the things that need doing sometimes even if you do not wish to. Duty is being willing to stand by what you know in your heart is right. With love in your heart duty becomes a much lighter burden that is more easily fulfilled.

Respect

This above all seems to be the thing that we are losing the most. Love allows us to see the sides of people most others do not. This means that if we do anything in this world it should always be done with respect so that we do not upset the balance of things and lead to hardship.

These things all seemed so obvious to me after I thought about it and so I accepted them into my life as my standard. Am I romantically in love with the whole world, no. Do I love everyone at least a little bit every single day now, yes. It has made a change in my life that has been astounding. I see people differently now and I am more comfortable than I ever thought would be possible.

Not all that glitters is gold and this world is not the most horribly doomed place in existence. That place is reserved for broken hearts and lost souls. I love you all as much as I can, be safe and happy where ever you are.