we didn’t start the fire

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2010-03-08T18:05:55-07:00

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2010-03-08T17:11:32-07:00

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we didn’t start the fire

2010-03-08T18:05:55-07:00

0 I have a problem with cute indie girls. The ones that’ll charm you with their sweetness one moment and then tell you exactly how it is the next. <Photo 1> So this afternoon, I made it past a gauntlet of two bearded boys in kelly Greenpeace jackets asking if I had a moment to save the world. It’s not that I don’t think the world’s worth saving. Certainly not that I didn’t have a moment. Part of it is the tenacity of the Greenpeace activists on Pearl Street, positioned at key places along the way to interrupt as much traffic as possible. Another part of it is that I don’t support most of Greenpeace’s current platform or methods. I made it past these two boys only to be accosted on my way out of Starbuck’s (yeah, yeah, look at that fuckin’ hipster wearing his corduroy jacket and sipping his latté and all. Go ahead, poke fun!). I made it ten feet before a cute, bespectacled, pierced indie girl with streaks of blue in her black hair smiled and asked how my day was going. So yeah, I stopped. She made small talk for a few minutes. College student, forget which one, studying art (of course). She asked me what year I was. Of course. Lots of smiles and eye contact. Really working the charm. I knew it was coming. So do you know anything about Greenpeace? Le sigh. So I told her that I wasn’t currently interested in supporting Greenpeace’s efforts. But don’t you want to save the world? Here’s the deal, I told her: Have you ever heard of Zaadz? Or Gaia.com? Yeah, I helped build that community from the ground up. Three hundred thousand people currently, all with a vision of a better world. And you know the thing I learned? We all have different visions. In <a href="http://joyfultohear.com/play/entries/doc/reconsidering-change">reconsidering change</a>, I wrote: <blockquote> Here we are, each of us, believing that we know which way to steer the universe to save us all. And yet most of us still don’t even understand ourselves. </blockquote> I take issue with people and groups who want to blame others for their problems, for society’s problems, for the world’s problems. Not because the people around us don’t bear some responsibility for all the messes we co-create, but because when we refuse to take responsibility for how our own actions create this world, we refuse to accept the possibility that we have the power to heal the problems we face. We’ve all grown up with frightening shadows of terrible things at home and abroad: famine, disaster, war, nuclear power, global warming. So many fears, so many problems, many of such immensity that we feel powerless to do anything except toss a few dollars here and there to worthy causes, try and recycle our soda cans, and eat green or local or vegetarian. Billy Joel sings we didn’t start the fire / it was always burning / since the world’s been turning — but we do keep the fire raging. Not by ignoring the problems or by doing too little, but by pretending the true problems are anywhere except within ourselves. We blame presidents and politicians for where we are. We blame the liberals or the conservatives. We blame Christians or Muslims, atheists or humanists. We blame the Chinese. We blame urban decay. We blame hillbillies. We blame Big Oil. We blame corporate greed. We blame welfare moms. We blame environmentalists. We blame each other. Nothing — nothing — will ever get done while we stand around pointing fingers at each other. Rampant blame and the failure to accept personal responsibility are symptoms of short-sighted thinking. There’s no logical reasoning in attacking an evenly-matched opponent when you want to get something done. Entrenching yourself against an enemy only pitches the battle and prolongs both sides’ inability to achieve their goals. Even when a small victory is achieved, it is often quickly overturned or at least defanged by detractors. So, Greenpeace (and any other group hoping to change the world), if you want my support, dedicate your efforts to finding common ground. We are all human and sharing this world together, and we do share enough to understand each other, even if only a tiny bit sometimes. There are no insurmountable divisions between men and women; I believe that with all my heart. We create the walls between us out of the dust of thoughts and memories, held by the mortar of our experience. And our experience is tinted with our prejudices, imagined and real, inherited and newly created. If you want to change the world, I said, find common ground. Look not for weaknesses in your enemy but for each other’s strengths and insights. Do not tear each other down, but reach out a hand to each other. So she closed her book, smiled at me, and said, You’re a Buddhist, aren’t you? Bet you’re going to tell me ‘change must come from within.’ I just smiled. Something like that.

2010-03-08T17:11:32-07:00

Nothing — nothing — will ever get done while we stand around pointing fingers at each other.

2010-03-08T18:05:55-07:00

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2010-03-08T17:02:23-07:00

Quote

2010-03-08T17:00:07-07:00

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tomboy scratching her legs

2010-03-08T17:02:23-07:00

0 I am proud of my sisters-–even if, most days, I feel like the tomboy scratching her legs at the beauty parlor. I will try harder to be my best self, and I will try to support you on your journey too. We are all so amazing. It’s about time we stop tearing each other down.

2010-03-08T17:00:07-07:00

Alma, "Sisterhood?" http://talesfrommidair.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/sisterhood/

2010-03-08T17:02:23-07:00

true

2010-03-07T12:43:43-07:00

Photo

2010-03-06T07:36:05-07:00

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2010-03-07T12:44:36-07:00

The Cowboy of Copper Canyon

2010-03-07T12:44:36-07:00

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2010-03-07T12:43:43-07:00

334

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2010-03-04T19:46:17-07:00

Entry

2010-03-04T18:05:29-07:00

new the-rake highlighted

the rake

2010-03-04T19:46:17-07:00

0 Some smart but socially awkward guys just want to find a way to connect with women, get confident in their company, and maybe even get a girlfriend. And that – well that’s pretty damn sweet. - Kelly Diels, <a href="http://www.kellydiels.com/2010/02/28/im-not-picking-on-pick-up-artists-much/">I’m Not Picking on Pick-Up Artists. Much.</a> <Photo 1> I used to be a nice guy. No, wait. I used to be a Nice Guy. You know the type: the perennial friend, the guy who has more women friends than men, the one who never seems to get the girl. The guy who secretly wonders why women keep ending up with the asshole, but gladly gives them his shoulder to cry on when The Asshole inevitably ends up acting like… well, an asshole. The guy who waits in the wings waiting for the girl to come to her senses (because obviously, she can’t be acting sensibly and be with that guy). The problem with nice guys is that most of them are secretly afraid of women. And they take out their fear and confusion with the opposite sex in veiled grunts of frustration to the few male friends they have, asking why the hell doesn’t she see how good I am for her? and how can she be so stupid? Because, see, at heart, the nice guys hold onto a lot of anger against the women they supposedly care about. They’re angry because — time & time again — they’re passed over for some guy who isn’t “worth her time.” I know this because I used to be one of these guys. And I hated the guys who treated women (in my opinion) like shit. More than that, however, I really couldn’t understand that my female friends weren’t being stupid or silly. Because that’s how we nice guys rationalize your behavior, you know. We can’t for the life of us figure out why you like who you like, and we just convince ourselves you’re out of your minds and will eventually come to your senses. Offensive much? Women aren’t stupid – certainly not as idiotic as the Nice Guy mind wants to believe – and I’ve often wondered in the years since if my female friends didn’t know or at least sense the feelings I wouldn’t voice. As I said, the problem with most nice guys is that they’re afraid of women. They’re not willing to risk what they have with a friend, despite the depth of their romantic attraction. They’re not willing to speak truth. Instead of being willing to take you to task for repeatedly dating men who hurt you, or even willing to ask the question: hey, why?!, they validate your anger, let you cry, hang out around you in your times of need in the hopes you’ll throw them a bone in a moment of weakness. I used to be a nice guy. I know these things. . . . A long, long time ago, as I was nearing the end of a year-long period of self-imposed celibacy following the dissolution of my marriage, I joined a free online pick-up artist community at the suggestion of a friend. I’ve never been the type of guy to meet women at bars or clubs – the idea of meeting up with someone for a night, taking them home, sleeping with them in a drunken stupor and parting ways the next day – well, it just never appealed to me. I met people in bookstores, grocery stores, in my philosophy classes, at work, online. And certainly not through conscious effort on my own part. My ex-wife (while we were still married) once pointed out a ticket-takers blatantly obvious flirtation with me as she stamped my hand at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. I hadn’t noticed a thing. You’ve got to have a broader understanding of me beyond this point. I’d considered myself a feminist for a long time (nice guys often do), had read Transforming a Rape Culture (not an easy task) and other seminal works of feminist literature at the urging of my ex-wife, unsuccessfully fought to have alleged removed from its place before rapist in the college paper (and later found myself and the Editor-in-Chief of the paper surrounded by Katie Koestner and two dozen angry women at the middle of a walking bridge on the Hamilton campus)… I’d had my eyes opened to the entitlement of being a white man in our society. I never worried about walking back across our campus at night – it seemed so safe to me, so hearing that other people worried shocked me. But I didn’t really see what I’d been doing inside my own head until I joined the PUA community, a newbie with a chip on his shoulder and a bunch of strange ideas about women filling my noggin. I read tale after sordid tale of how a guy’d been lucky, met a girl he liked who liked him back for a bit and then dumped him for being too nice. Or she never paid him attention at all. And – in the presence of other men – they weren’t shy about voicing their anger at women for such behavior. Their voices rang loud and shrill, calling women ‘stupid’, ‘selfish’, ‘manipulative.’ In the PUA community, a fatal attraction for the one that got away (or the one you never had) was called ‘oneitis’. And the crude advice they gave us newbies? GFTOW: Go f*ck ten other women. It’s a terrifically vulgar way of saying get over her… move on – in a sort of sucker-punch locker room talk. And even the same guys who can’t talk straight to a woman aren’t so afraid of telling a guy they need to shape up or ship out. I never listened to the words literally. I got their message, or at least translated it into something I could accept: meet other people, realize there are many other fish in the sea, etc. So a lot of nice guys showed up here – this wasn’t a paid community, though some people did stop in to shill their product, and some of the guys who hung out there moved on to create their own seduction classes – and as you might expect, the atmosphere of misogyny stunk up the place like bad cigars. But if I looked beyond that, the lessons of the PUA community fall into several categories: Technique – Cubing. Magic Tricks. Games. Negs (mild insults designed to show women you’re not afraid of them even though you really are). C&F (Cocky & Funny – projecting confidence and humour). Openers. Ice-breakers. Much more. Psychology – gaining rapport through mirroring body language. Overcoming ASD (the anti-slut defense, and yes, I’m sure that name raises a lot of hackles). Cock-blocks and how to avoid them. Self-improvement – eating healthy. exercising. doing what really interests you. The thing about most of the techniques taught in PUA communities is that they’re cheap, cheesy, and wholly designed to let guys fake it until they’ve found their own confidence. As are the self-improvement elements. So I went out on assignments. I encouraged myself to walk up to women I found attractive (for me, that usually meant someone in a class whose insights I particularly valued, or whom I saw reading a Buddhist book at the Coop, or sitting at the Cambridge Zen Center) and striking up a conversation. I pushed myself past my comfort zone – getting a number here or there, perhaps going for a kiss. I bombed more often than I succeeded. And I never really used any of the techniques. I’m no magician, and I wasn’t about to start any potential relationship being someone I’m not. But slowly, something happened. I did start noticing how the pseudo-psychology they peddle does somewhat describe people’s behavior in the real world. I started treating everyone I met with the same personality my friends get – I give them a hard time. I tease them. I call them on their shit. And why does this Cocky & Funny thing work? Because when a person truly interacts with confidence and humor, it shows women (and men, for that matter) that they aren’t afraid, aren’t hiding. A huge problem with nice guys is that you never actually know how they feel about you. With (good) confident men – and I specifically remove from that group those without integrity – they’re honest when they’re happy, and honest when they’re not. Life is simpler. I noticed a few times, when the prospect of greater intimacy loomed between us – that I’d hear things like, I’m very picky about who I sleep with (even before anybody had even mentioned or suggested that prospect). Before I joined the PUA community, I’d have considered that a full stop. After? It didn’t rattle my confidence. I just kept being me. And we were all happy about that. As the guys who started with me kept at it, I noticed something happening – they ranted against women a lot less frequently. They started taking responsibility for their own issues. Their own fears. Their own shortcomings. They began to look at themselves, to work on the parts of themselves they felt needed work. They stopped blaming women for their loneliness and realized that – perhaps – they shouldered most of the blame for the life they’d led so far. <blockquote> What’s amazing when a person truly takes responsibility for their own qualities & imperfections is that they find their own power. </blockquote> I ended up leaving the community within a few months. I left with a final message, that I’d discovered the games and tricks and verbal manipulation weren’t for me. I’d discovered that one doesn’t have to GFTOW to overcome oneitis. But more importantly than that, I’d learned the things I’d really needed to learn: take care of yourself; be yourself; do the things you love; and don’t make your whole life the pursuit of women. And that’s what I did. I can’t say I suddenly became a Lothario. But as I shifted my focus away from meeting women, I ate healthier, drank more water, started paying a little more for haircuts that flattered me, developed a personal style, took classes and read about subjects that interested me. I ended up moving to Maui for a little while. I built a little online community. I deepened my Buddhist practice. I wrote. And I wrote even more. I never did really go out of my way to meet random women after that. But as I took care of myself, something else changed. People approached me – they often had before, but I’d totally missed it – and I knew how to react. I wasn’t afraid or scared. And I didn’t blame them for not seeing me. The people who came to me – they saw something they liked in me, something that attracted them. And instead of changing into that scared, powerless nice guy, I treated them like friends from the beginning. I didn’t worry about messing things up. If I liked someone they knew. Sure, I still had a good shoulder for crying on, but there wasn’t anything hidden between us. And I still did have my doubts from time to time. I once let slip to a girl that I was surprised “a girl like you likes me.” Oh, well, she had none of that. I got an earful. And she disavowed me of that silly notion once and for all. So yes, you meet me and you might notice a bit of Cocky & Funny these days. But you know why? That’s me. That’s who I am to the people I really care about. And I dare say I’m a bit interesting (ok, some people call my brand of interesting eccentric; after all, I am an absent-minded professor type). But a lot of what turned me around were those few months in the locker room, trying to filter out the misogyny and the rampant testosterone-filled posturing, trying to get past the silly games, the theatrics, and into the real meat. Because men aren’t stupid either, and the fact is, there was some real wisdom hidden among all the sweaty gym clothes and ego-inflation. Some guys actually paid attention and learned a thing or two and decided to share it with the others. Us slow-learners. The downside of these communities exists in the risk that men won’t learn to take responsibility for themselves and their own actions. These are the men who study the tactics and the psychology religiously, who work the magic tricks, the card games and the art of persuasion to a fine art. They fill their void of confidence with con games and tricks of manipulation. Instead of coming to view women as equal people, they convert their nice guy feelings into asshole feelings. To them, women are still stupid and need to be tricked into realizing who’s right for them. To them, women need to be manipulated and convinced. That’s not true seduction. What real benefit exists in attracting someone to you if the you they like isn’t really, well, you? Is it really satisfying, at the end of the day, with a woman lying in your arms and smiling happily at you, if she only sees this act you’ve been pulling just to get her there? Real seduction is still something magic. And it’s on-going. It’s not about being someone else or reciting scripts or doing what some PUA guru told you to do. It’s about having enough confidence to take great joy in honest and playful dance with those you like. Real seduction becomes effortless. It’s a smirk or a playful tease without hidden agenda. It’s leaning in toward each other to listen more intently. It’s the way our eyes move from eye to eye to mouth and back again before a kiss, but not because we know the Kiss Test. Simply because this is just what we do, who we are. The magic of real seduction is in the back-and-forth. The thousand little things we do that convey interest and attraction to each other. The tiny little games we play. And all of this can be observed and discussed and shared – by women to women, men to men, etc, etc… <blockquote> But the spark, especially the one that lasts, is something that – like enlightenment – can’t be taught. It can only be pointed toward: we are most attractive to others when we’re being exactly who we want to be. Not who we think we should be. Nor who we think other people want us to be. </blockquote> We’re most attractive when we are who we want to be. Learn this lesson and take care of yourself. That’s all you really need to know. And to think I didn’t even charge you for this deepest, most powerful secret of seduction! I highly recommend you read <a href="http://www.kellydiels.com/2010/02/28/im-not-picking-on-pick-up-artists-much/">Kelly Diel’s blog series on PUA</a>, which served as the final push for me to post this blog entry, which has been rattling around in my head for – oh, about five years.

2010-03-05T01:05:29-07:00

learning the art of seduction in a feminist age

2010-03-05T11:54:17-07:00

true

2010-03-01T19:46:46-07:00

Quote

2010-03-01T19:45:40-07:00

new love-wants-to-be-inspired highlighted

Love wants to be inspired

2010-03-01T19:46:46-07:00

0 love is about teaching each other the language of our individual hearts. It’s as much about deciphering hieroglyphics and hand gestures as it is about hearts and flowers. When you finally speak the same language, you find inspiration. Love wants to be inspired. It wants to skedaddle off in fifty different directions like rogue sparklers in December. It wants to learn your punctuation and wait for a pause. It isn’t threatened by edges of tone or what isn’t said.

2010-03-01T19:45:40-07:00

i choose you http://kryptonitecupcaketheory.com/2010/03/01/i-choose-you/

2010-03-01T19:46:46-07:00

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2010-03-06T12:56:36-07:00

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2010-02-28T11:28:42-07:00

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2010-03-06T12:56:42-07:00

A quiet moment

2010-03-06T12:56:42-07:00

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2010-03-06T12:56:36-07:00

500

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2010-02-27T20:07:52-07:00

Quote

2010-02-27T20:05:44-07:00

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emo-baggage

2010-02-27T20:07:52-07:00

0 If (our) emo-baggage isn’t checked at the curb and handled appropriately – we’ll never be able to see who’s really shining in front of us because we’re too busy tossing our shit at them for whatever twisted and unresolved reasons we hold on to. That’s the dose of Kryptonite it takes to destroy a relationship. How do we work with this – in ourselves and our other – when this arises?

2010-02-28T03:05:44-07:00

Ali - "Kryptonite" @ The Kissing Lessons http://thekissinglessons.blogspot.com/2010/02/kryptonite.html

2010-02-27T20:08:57-07:00

true

2010-02-21T18:22:07-07:00

Entry

2010-02-21T17:50:02-07:00

new finding-my-way-back highlighted

finding my way back

2010-02-21T18:24:35-07:00

0 Light snow falling on a blanketed city. Taking stock and looking ahead. A solitary flute floating on the quiet wind. Telling my friends how much they mean to me. Chasing a pair of Shih Tzus, one black, one white, kicking up clouds of powder. This is my Boulder. <Photo 1> About a year and a half ago, I lost my way. Looking back, we can usually point to the events that knocked us off our path, the little tragedies that begin a spiral of behavior and decisions that slowly take us further from ourselves. But getting lost is a series of choices, little moments, tiny steps, each taking us further from the trail we’ve set out to follow. It’s not filling a suddenly empty schedule with the things we love. It’s doubting the love right in front of you. It’s staying quiet when your heart wants you to speak. It’s turning away from the obvious causes of your unhappiness in the hopes that they’ll resolve on their own. Once we’ve lost sight of the path, even our good decisions sometimes lead us further astray, with evening settling in and the snow covering our footprints behind us. We grasp at the things we love and think we need in our lives. We look around and the woods we could have navigated blindfolded seem strange and unknown. Getting lost isn’t about making the wrong choices. It’s about making the best choices we can and still circling, zig-zagging, deeper and deeper into the spaces and the places that scare us. It’s about waking up and wandering about with unkempt hair. It’s about closing off from friends. It’s about forgetting the lessons we’ve learned. <blockquote> Getting lost is a thousand little missteps that lead us nowhere slowly. </blockquote> No matter how far we stray from the path that’s best for ourselves, we are still, however, only ourselves. Maybe with a moustache. Maybe without a care for what clothes we put on. Maybe with an inability to pay attention to the important details. Maybe we blame ourselves for everything terrible that’s happened. Maybe we fall in love with people who are at once amazing and destructive. The reasons for our actions are often impenetrable to those that love us. Counterintuitive. A bit crazy perhaps. We’re just lost and adrift, trying to find the groove again. We’re ourselves even in crisis, and we learn so much about who we are in the opaque wilderness, beset by strange sounds and dangers seen and unseen. We react, but if we watch ourselves, if we pay attention, we see little gems of wisdom glinting in the snow. And then the turning point, when it comes – it comes sometimes in the guise of disaster, sometimes a lucky break – but they are the same thing: a moment of clarity brought on by persistence, by perseverance, by remaining true to who we are. And if we see the hint of turning, if we follow the arrow pointing us back, we begin the journey home. We begin finding our way back. Finding my way back is about shaving off a mustache. Getting a hairstyle that really looks good on me. Looking inward for a while and getting my head on straight. Fixing my camera. Focusing on getting the very basics solid. Telling friends how much I love them. Listening to sounds of a quiet, snow-covered city. Making scary choices. Feeling grateful. It’s about buying new socks. Sending baskets of goodies to my lover. Writing lists of what I’ve done and what I want to do. Sharing beautiful moments with beautiful friends. Forgiving. Remembering. Rejoicing. It’s about playing and flirting. It’s about mending. It’s about writing and not writing. Taking pictures. Reinventing the self. Reaching out. Reaching in. Smiling. Catching a friend’s hand as you pass each other in a crowded club, squeezing it just to let her know you’re there. A kiss at a party. Patience. It’s about stopping and looking around until the unfamiliar faces of the trees around you regain their warmth and familiarity. It’s about choice after choice of forgiving and loving yourself, the people around you, your world, until the alien landscape that threatened to swallow you up once more spreads out before you like a backyard you’ve played in for years. About a year and a half ago, I lost my way. But now, I’ve found my way back.

2010-02-22T00:50:02-07:00

The reasons for our actions are often impenetrable to those that love us.

2010-02-21T18:24:35-07:00