Forgive and Forget

Sorry for the long lack of posting, I have been concentrating on my fiction.


I recently read a long article extoling the virtues of ‘forgive and forget’.
The author emphasised how to do otherwise was bad for your spirit, your health and your life. Saving our spirit, health and life is a noble cause, so I feel remiss in saying “What a load of ill-conceived crap”.

Leave ‘forgiveness’ to the realm of your preferred Deity, and understand that the human mind never forgets – though it may misplace information when badly organised.

Let’s deal with ‘forgive’ first.

Forgive

If an act is an accident, then quite simply there is nothing to forgive - so let’s also dismiss accidents.
When someone does something deliberately, there is always a reason.
We need to know and understand reasons, and we also need to clearly understand that reasons are never excuses.
If someone’s behaviour is hurtful to us, we have to consider the response to their reasons.

Here are a few examples:

Reason: I was angry.
Response: Learn how to deal with anger, how to place it where it belongs, and how to give it boundaries. Until then, stay the fuck away from me. Preferably, also stay the fuck away from everyone else.
*Note. Forgiving the result of anger is not an option. Accepting that the person has done the work and (genuinely) will no longer give way to anger is OK.

Reason: I am ill (mentally, physically, whatever). (A clone of "I was drunk")
Response: Seek a cure. If the illness encompasses doing others harm, expect to be isolated from all except your health professionals.
*Note. Forgiving the result of illnesses is not an option. Accepting that the person (genuinely) has been cured is OK.

Reason: I misunderstood.
Response: Learn to question, check facts, and think before you act. Until you have, stay the fuck away from me.
*Note. Forgiving the result of misunderstanding is not an option. Accepting that the person has done the work and (genuinely) will no longer give way misunderstanding is OK.

Reason: I fucking hate you.
Response: Then stay the fuck away from me.

OK, note a common theme here?
Do not forgive a hurtful act, accept when the reasons has been ’fixed’.
A hurtful act is never acceptable, so can never be ‘forgiven’.
If someone has genuinely solved their problems and is no longer hurtful, then they do not require forgiveness.

'Not forgiving’ is not to be confused with ‘holding a grudge’.

Wanting to remove a source of pain is fine.
Demanding that someone stays away until they stop hurting is fine.
Pining for revenge is not OK.
Wanting revenge is not OK.


Forget

Oh, I forgot that you stabbed me.
Oh, I forgot that you screwed someone else after promising to be in an exclusive relationship with me.
Oh, I forgot that you committed genocide.

Let’s get real here.

We never forget (OK, societies can and often do - more fool them).
To forget, by some medical intervention, is the perfect path to allowing a recurrence.

The point is, we should never forget that an act is unacceptable.
We should never forget that someone is capable of such an act.

We can, eventually, accept that they have removed such capability, cured whatever illness, learnt to handle whatever reasons they had.
IF THEY CAN GENUINELY DEMONSTRATE THE CHANGE/CURE.

This can, and often does, take a long time and a lot of convincing.

Neither forgiving nor forgetting is NOT harmful to us.

Holding a grudge is.
There is a difference.

Stupidity

Yes, this is a vent – but it is also highly representative of the madness the silent majority are allowing to spread across this world.

In recessions and their aftermath, extremists and fundamentalists somehow seem to gain power, and few are fighting back. The situation I am describing is in an Islamic country, yet the stupidity and hypocrisy are just as prevalent in the Christian world.

I may seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill, but just think about it, about the issues involved. (I’ll write more on this after I describe the situation).

A background first:
The city’s public swimming pool has been shut “for renovations” for four years, but finally re-opened recently.

The first thing to note, there are no detectable improvements and the changing rooms/showers are filthy, broken and stink. No one has complained, nor did they during the four years closure.

Now, two new notices have been posted.
The first shows the opening hours, the relevant part is that for the afternoon session the pool is open until 6.00 p.m.
The second, and this is the main issue, states that males wishing to use the pool must wear “tights”. The notice is in Malay, but ‘Tights” is in English.

I have been to many Islamic countries, and most were more fundamentalist than Malaysia. I have swum in those countries and not in ’relaxed’ tourist hotels.
So, wearing that same acceptable swimming costume (modest, lined and from waist to mid-thigh), I went to the pool.
The attendants objected, pointed to the “tights” word and insisted that I either borrow the recommended tights from them or leave the pool. They gave me stretch fit, unlined, semi-transparent cycling shorts. The clearly defined outline of my penis (which is not huge) and testicles was blatantly on display. (See photos above).

Time to insert the dictionary definition here:
tights [tīts]
plural noun
1. thick one-piece garment: a one-piece close-fitting garment made of opaque colored material, covering the body from the waist to the feet and worn by women and girls for warmth and casual wear
2. dancer's one-piece garment: a one-piece close-fitting garment covering the body from the neck or waist to the feet, worn especially by men and women dancers and acrobats
NOTE: The definition does not include cycling shorts.

I refused to wear the cycling shorts, made an appointment with the Director, and discussed this issue. He agreed with me, but asked to see photos of both my swimming wear and of the ‘tights”.

Three weeks later, during which I swam with my own costume and with no complaints, he backed out of his position. He had discussed the matter with the lifeguards/attendants and now insisted that “Tights” be worn.

Here are the issues:
1. A director, having allowed uneducated jerks to build their tiny empire, is ignorant of the actual meaning of the word he supports. I have pointed out to him that no-one is wearing “tights” in the pool.
2. The Director has allowed those same jerks to be the arbiters of Islamic Morality.
3. Once more we have an example of interpreting a rule based on the words used and not the intent of that rule. Modesty is an issue in Islamic states, and I have no argument with that. A rule is also required to prevent people using the pool in their day clothes, for health reasons. This IS a problem with Malaysian Muslims who are supposed to totally cover up. It is NOT an Islamic rule that males show the outline of penis and testicles.

Perhaps, when he looks up the definition of “Tights”, the director should also check the definition of “Modesty”.

Remember that 6:00 p.m. closing time? The pool is actually being closed at 5:45 so that the lifeguards/attendants can start their private swimming lessons. They are robbing the public of the time they have paid for. “Tights” is an issue with the Director, this theft is not.

I am asking the director his intent, because it puzzles me.
Are they all latent homosexuals wanting soft porn live? Is the intention to allow the females to select a well-endowed partner? Who redefined “tights” as cycling shorts?

The reaction of the Malaysians to all this?
“It’s the rules, we have to obey. It’s their swimming pool.” A look of bafflement comes over them when I ask “Who paid for the pool, who pays the director’s salary, and who pays the lifeguards/attendants salaries?”

When I ask the females if it would be OK for them to be forced to show the outline of nipples and pubic crease – they look horrified. So why force men to show their private parts? ”Don’t know.”

As I stated before, the focus on words not meaning and the application of a personal interpretation of those words is the main tool of fundamentalists/extremists of all religions worldwide. It is a Godsend for little people wanting their moment of power.
It is time for the silent majority to make a stand.
So, yes, I will make a mountain out of this molehill.

Moment of Power

A small victory today had me reflecting on a syndrome we all know and have experienced.

Small minded and spiritually stunted people sometimes manage to find a position where they can exercise little moments of power. In the grand scheme of things, these moments are nothing, and yet experiencing them can be frustrating and annoying.

Common examples are the secretary in charge of stationary at the office, a doorman or receptionist at a hotel, or a waiter at a restaurant. Their modus operandi lies in finding a regulation, preferably badly worded, and then sticking rigidly to one or two of those words – while ignoring the intent of those regulations.
If someone argues with them, they indignantly justify their actions with “I am just obeying my instructions/the regulations.”

Another classic is the spotty faced kid employed as a speed cop. Standing tall and proud, he adopts the attitude of a teacher addressing a small school child. Two standard opening gambits are “Do you know what speed you were doing?” and “Do you have a good reason for breaking the speed limit?”
Facetious questions, because no answer will avoid that ticket.
Then will follow a lecture on how speed kills.
Funny, after you were doing 105 in a 100 zone and he just did 130+ to catch up with you. (Justification, this is a zero tolerance area).

It is tempting to say that they are just dumb, but as their victims depart you can hear these people smile.

I am reminded of an acquaintance that once gave me a lift in his car. With a giant truck behind him, he kept stomping on his brakes and then accelerating away. “The clown will just think that I’m having engine problems.” He found this game highly amusing.

In my “What we do to them” blog page I discussed levels of attention, which explains why these people do as they do – their place in life is to be a pain in the arse.

How do you deal with them?
Answer, you don’t.

If it is worth the effort, you simple go above their head – and talk to someone with real power.
Without boring you with the details, that is the nature of my victory today.

Addendum:
When a cop asked me those facetious questions, I replied “I have this silly approach to driving. I keep my eye on the road instead of staring steadfastly at my speedo. So, yes, my speed might marginally increase or decrease once in a while.”
He had no answer and silently continued writing the ticket.

The Power of a Single Voice

This deserves its own blog page, and I just wish that I had far more people that would read it.
I have rushed it, so I apologise, but I wanted to capture the incident while still fresh in my mind.

Every once in a while, someone does something that blows you away – their intelligence, their sense, and their courage – and they restore your faith in the human race.

What I am about to recant may seem a small issue, small potatoes, yet it relates to one of the largest issues in this world today.

First – the background:

A local professor runs a breast cancer clinic, but in recent years the clinic has been having its government support drastically cut. She therefore set up a private charity to create more funding.
Though she is a Malay Muslim, the charity board consists of all three Malaysian ethnicities – Malay, Chinese and Indian.
Decades of hard work and fighting for support has worn her down, so she is retiring from both the clinic and the charity.
Therefore a new chairwoman was selected for the charity, and she is another Malay Muslim. Her taking up the post happened towards the end of a new fundraising scheme. Part of her ‘campaign’ to become chairwoman consisted of listing her husband and friends and the influence they could bring to the charity.

The Event:
Every year, the board organises a fundraising charity dinner. This year they had several potential venues to choose from, but one stood out – it could provide more tables and had a substantially lower cost per head. For the charity, this meant it could raise far more funds.
The event consists of both food and entertainment.

The Trouble:
The new chairwoman objected to the venue – or rather, she demanded that they choose another.
“The restaurant does not have ‘halal’ certification. We must not ask Muslims to go there. My husband can arrange for us to use a government hall.”
Such a change of venue would radically reduce the number of tables available – hence reduce the funding they could gain.
‘Halal’ is an important term in Islam, though the emphasis has slowly become restricted to the way food animals are slaughtered. I both understand and respect this requirement of Muslim life.
The charity board were bowing down to this woman’s demands, not wanting to offend Muslims.

The Stand:
Then just one woman, a Malay Muslim, stood up and gave one of the most important messages this world needs to hear.
“You are using this aspect of our religion as a bludgeon, part of a power play. You are exercising bigotry and intolerance. This event is not about religion and it is not about eating. If we, as Muslims, decide that none of the food is suitable, we can choose to not eat! We can still attend to support the charity and to support our fellow charity members of all ethnicities. Your objection is a non-issue.”

The board saw the sense in what she was saying, and the original venue was re-instated.

My Point:
My point in this blog is not about one religion, and it is not a condemnation of Islam. It is certainly not about suppressing any religious beliefs that an INDIVIDUAL chooses for THEMSELVES.

The extremists in most religions are also the most vociferous. They make claims of representing everyone of their faith.
This claim is a LIE.
They forget the tenets of their religion and they preach intolerance and bigotry. They use their voice to gain power, and they browbeat the rank and file through fear – usually quoting out of context and dubiously interpreted extracts from their holy books.

It brought tears to my eyes when one of the rank and file stood up with the courage to oppose this.

That this example occurred in Malaysia is amazing.
To put this in perspective:
Once famous for its religious tolerance and blended ethnicities, the government that has been in power for over fifty years is now in trouble. They are hence drawing more and more on religion to stay in power. 60% of the population are Muslim, and if these people can be cajoled by unfair ‘gifts’ and bullied by religious intolerance, the government hopes to win the next election.
The other two Malaysian ethnicities are being relegated to second class status, and the extremist right wing Islamic religious leaders are being given more and more powerful voice.

If more Muslim Malays had the courage of this woman, the trend could be reversed.


I stated that this blog was not about any single religion, though I have used this example.
The same issues have dogged this world for thousands of years, and are blatantly occurring in both the US and the UK right now – extremism always expands in times of financial and economical crisis.

This woman demonstrated how a single voice CAN fight back.

What We Do to Them - 2

How we are failing children in our education systems.

Part 1 - Some basic facts:

1. Children learn better in a reward based system. Those rewards do not always have to be praise or presents as such. Reward = “They see something in it for themselves and can get it.” One such reward – they actually enjoy what they are doing!

2. Children learn better contextually. E.g. Teach them Pythagoras’s theorem with diagrams on a blackboard, some will get it. SHOW them how it is used, e.g. in calculating the height of a mountain top, most will get it. That is “Get it”, not just “Memorise it”.

3. This is the twenty first century, with computers and the Internet.
“What is the Capital of India?”
Old way - err, I’ll try to remember.
New way “Let’s check with Encarta or Google.” - on my cell phone!
Trying to store away a mass of facts is both useless and redundant:
• There are far too many for any human to gather in a complete lifetime
• Most are up there on the Internet.
We do not need to teach how to memorise, we need to teach how to search, understand and extrapolate. Using something in a practical way actually tends to plonk the ‘facts’ into memory with far less effort.

4. Yes, there are some basic skills we need to teach – yet these are the very ones that are becoming weakest in children now. Communication, social interaction, initiative, TEAM WORK!

5. Teaching in a categorised way prevents cross-fertilisation of ideas.
E.g. This lesson is Chemistry, or Physics, or History. It is in total contrast to our world, which is rarely so neatly categorised.
Most of the greatest advances today are coming from combinations of very differing fields. E.g. Computer graphics concepts are being used in cancer research and have sparked an amazing new approach and understanding.

6. We haveTIME, but we introduce specialisation far too early! This is the result of mixing two concepts:
• So much to memorise!
• If you haven’t made it by 30,20, 15?, you are a failure.
We misuse time, choosing to abuse it and create needless pressure/stress. “Only two months until the exams, get to work!”

7. Exam based learning is USELESS!
Oh, it provides stats for Education Ministries, helps rank schools in competition with each other, makes ’A’ student’s parents feel proud, and gives us some superstars to praise and write about in the newspapers.

They’re a great KPIs (Key Point Indicators) for the supposed success or failure of the latest implementation of an education policy. Note the word I used – “Supposed”.
And – hey – we get results every year, that’s almost instant gratification.

Truth is, each new set of exams supersedes the previous, effectively negating them.
e.g. In my school days: Eleven plus passed? Forget that, you must get O’Levels. Forget them, it’s A’Levels. Forget them, it’s a degree that counts.
Then, at the job interview, “What experience do you have?”

We use these stages for one simple reason – few of us actually learned how to assess someone. Look at the plethora of “Personality Test”, “Interview Techniques”, “Personal Assessment”, etc tools being sold. All with check boxes and computer calculated results.
As someone who has had to interview and recruit literally many hundreds of people over the last three decades, and had to work with people selected by others using these “techniques”, I can’t emphasize enough how crap these systems are.

8. Children, despite the strength of the Myth, do not develop at the same rate or in the same way. Yet schools generally lump them all together based on age bands. So one six year old is bored to tears amongst the others, while one eight year old struggles to keep up with the others.



Although, in many countries, there are pockets of people that understand these facts - I know of only one country as a whole that is applying them and changing the way they deal with education.
Singapore.
Unlike most of the other “Let’s make changes” we’ve seen over the decades, they also understand the need to phase in their approach – with a carefully worked out transition plan.

What we do to them

Children that is...

On Mondays, I teach music classes – 6 lessons during the day - with children ranging from 3 -7 years old. On Saturdays I teach children to swim (same age range). During the rest of the week, I home school my own two children – now aged 10 and 12.

Observations from those classes and from teaching my own children have compounded with observations in other circumstances during the last five years.
The final impetus for writing this blog entry was a Facebook group called “IF I SPOKEN TO MY PARENTS HOW KIDS TALK NOW DAYS I`D BEEN KNOCKED OUT.” I wasn’t surprised at the ignorance and stupidity voiced on that group page.

So, here we go...

1. The Music Classes.
The truth is, the children are not ready to learn music. Instead, I am initially teaching them:
a. How to Listen
b. Self control
c. Team Work
d. Co-ordination
e. Not to be living representations of Zombies.
f. How to pay attention even when someone is not whacking them on the head.

For the last five years I’ve only had two cultures to observe – Malaysian (consisting of Chinese, Indian and Malay), and the culture I have developed within my own family. Memory prompts me to believe that the crap nurturing of children I observe here is not absent in the West.

Referring to the list (a. – e. above), I’d taught them all to my own children by the time they were four. Both the teachers and the parents of the children in my classes are failing those children miserably.

2. The Hawker Stall (like a Western food hall) - 1
One of the women that serve tables is doubling as a nanny for a five year old boy. When she isn’t sitting with him on her lap, she is carrying him around. The boy is constantly whining and has an almost perpetually miserable face. He is not ill and has a pair of legs that, on extremely rare occasions, work adequately.
When I am sitting near to him, I pull faces and play the ‘hide your eyes’ game. This usually creates a flicker of interest or even a smile/laugh.
There is still the remnant of a, dare I say, normal child in him.

It is not my place to say anything to the nanny, and even if I tried she would neither understand my language nor the concepts I am addressing.
Basically, the child is already pretty much stuffed for life and I pity the teachers, peers and – heaven forbid – the poor woman he may eventually persuade to marry him.
That is the gift from this child’s parents.

3. The Hawker Stall – 2
Malaysians claim to love food. Watching them eating, and every hawker stall has at least some people eating during the twenty four hour day, it becomes obvious that this is not the case.

Instead, they are obsessed with stuffing their faces. The routine is:
• Walk into the hawker stall
• Rush to select food
• Then find a table
• Stuff or vacuum the food into your mouth as fast as possible
• No conversation until every last scrap has been gobbled
• Don’t give a shit if any of your party has/has not been served.
• When sharing bowls of food, don’t give a shit if there is not enough for others, as long as you have grabbed as much as you can.
• If they go for, say, a chicken curry and there isn’t any, they are there, they are going to eat NOW, they would not dream of going next door where they might still have chicken curry.
That would waste valuable eating time.
What they eat is not important, eating is.

Similarly, in every hawker stall at any time of day you will see at least a few gigantic balls of fat wrapped around the children buried within. After they finish the main meal (enough for a large adult), they will usually start on crisps or ice cream.
Where does this obsession come from?
The parents teach it to their children.

Those children will have a problem for life. Those with the sense to, later in life, try to stop the rot will always have an uphill battle.
That is these parents gift to their children.

4. “IF I SPOKEN TO MY PARENTS HOW KIDS TALK NOW DAYS I`D BEEN KNOCKED OUT.”
Where do I begin with this one!

First, to truly nurture a child, there are things you have to start almost from the moment they are born. Every day, week, month, year, decade you omit those things, the greater the uphill battle you are creating. Leave it too late and, basically, I think that there will be fuck all you can do to rectify the situation. We will have to suffer your damaged little bastards.

I’ll list what those things are in another blog entry, later.

OK, the things the idiots commenting on that facebook group need to understand:

a) Whacking a child is not discipline, and it does not install any worthwhile discipline.
Any supposedly ‘good behavior’ the child exhibits is based on fear, and it WILL disappear when that source of fear is removed. Has no one else noticed that most obnoxious brats are those that HAVE been whacked by their parents?

b) Children do, and have to, learn from consequences.
Consequences, however, are NOT punishment.
A shout/scream, thump, removal of something they want etc are rarely directly related to what the child has done – they are a universal/fits all reaction. ‘Bad behaviour’ – smack, shout, whine or bully.

A comparison, to help clarify:

Refuse to wash – dirty/smelly children do not sit on furniture or share company with others. A consequence. It is effective, though may take time to sink in.

Refuse to wash – shout/scold/thump etc. A punishment. It just teaches a child that those who should love/nurture them are also capable of willingly hurting them. It IS short lived and ineffective over the long term.
It teaches a lousy life lesson.

c) Discipline is fine for soldiers.
Want a soldier to obey a command when there is no time for reasoning, teach him discipline.”When I say jump, jump.”
Want a child to grow up into a successful, capable adult – then teach them SELF-DISCIPLINE and SELF-CONTROL.
Ensure that they do things because they understand a valid reason for doing so, not to avoid a smack. This will last them a lifetime. Wait until they are fifteen/sixteen to start trying to teach them this – forget it.

d) Young children, especially very young children, cannot reason.
When will this fucking old chestnut die?

If a child IS too young to understand something, simply DO NOT EXPOSE THEM TO IT.

What if they put a finger in a plug. hand in a fire?
Then you are fucking useless, use plug guards and fire guards! Don’t smack them because of your inability to think.

What if they run into the road?
Do I really have to give a better solution?
Don’t take them on fucking roads unless you CAN hold them.
“Oh, I have to carry the shopping.” Then find somewhere safe to keep your child. If you can’t, or can’t afford to, that’s your fucking problem and not a reason to hurt the child.

e) My parents smacked me, and I grew up undamaged/wonderful.
I seriously doubt the truth of this statement:

1. You have grown up believing that, when you think it justified, it is OK to hurt a child. And don’t be a wanker – a “light smack” is still hurting a child – else why do it?

2. I have yet to see an adult that came from a smacking family (unless they have done a lot of work to counter it) that do not fall back on anger/aggression/violence (vocal or physical) when faced with frustration or a situation they think they are losing control of.

3. Most smacked/disciplined adults tend to attack the individual and not the argument. They have learned that attempting to brow beat is a great counter argument.

4. A very high percentage of smacked adults lean towards favouring emotional blackmail.
News flash –punishing a child IS using emotional blackmail.
They go on to attempt the same in the workplace, with partners, and then with their own children. Emotional blackmail is a shitty behaviour pattern.

*NOTE:
For any wankers that are reading this:

I do believe in teaching children good behaviour (though I sometimes, especially with the older ones, allow them to question if what I want is RIGHT).

I am not speaking as a no experience, dogooder, greenie, leftie, idealist. (Though why is ‘idealist’ considered bad, I have to ask?).
I practice what I preach and IT WORKS.
I am also a solo father, so I haven’t ‘had it easy’.

I DO NOT believe in allowing children to run wild or turn into little shits. Dr Spock was a badly misinformed man, don’t paint us all with his brush.

I do not use ‘Time-out’ or ‘naughty corner’ or any of that other useless crap.
Time-out – for those that insist on using it - is a break (allowing everyone to cool down for a moment) and not a method of teaching.
Naughty corner is just downright bullying.

This is growing too long, more later.

Adultery and Cheating - Relationships part 5

Long time no blog entry - life went through another hectic period.

Anyway - adultery and cheating....

Here’s the thing:

You fall in love (hopefully) and you decide to marry/live together (maybe/eventually).
From then on it’s up to both of you. You can feed the relationship and make it grow, or you can starve it so that it withers and even dies.


Now I’m going to say something contentious:
If one partner decides to cheat – BOTH ARE RESPONSIBLE!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending cheaters – they are self-centred bastards(esses).
They hurt their partner, any children they have, the other woman/man, and the other woman/man’s partner/children. ALWAYS!
They try to justify this with self-deceptions and lies.
They do this because they are too dumb/weak/selfish to undo the damage they have already done to their existing relationship.
They figure the rule “close one door before you open another” doesn’t apply to them.

Even if they want to repent, they have created damage that will take a long time (if ever) to repair – whether or not the partner accepts their repentance.


So, having said that, why do I also put responsibility on the cheated partner?
Simply put, the partner has, either consciously or otherwise, kept their eyes and ears shut - because:

1. There are ALWAYS signs that a partner is willing to become open to someone else.
2. There are ALWAYS existing problems that are leading up to a partner cheating.
3. There are ALWAYS signs when a partner is starting to cheat.

They did nothing about any of this.
And “I’m scared I might lose him/her”, “I daren’t risk breaking up the relationship”, “but I love him/her” are crap excuses.
Doing nothing about those signs is condemning you both to a crap life together.

I am not saying dual culpability excuses a cheater, but the one being cheated must realise the part they played – else they will both continue making the same mistakes and/or potentially become very bitter.

No 2 above will probably need explaining most. What are those existing problems?

Top of the list, Number 1, is lousy communication: -

Are you both really, genuinely happy with the relationship?
Are you BOTH feeding it?
Do you both remember why you got together, what you loved/valued in each other?
Do you both really listen to each other?
Are one or both of you allowing other people, other stresses, other considerations interfere with the relationship?
The list goes on, but those are good starters.

Number 2 on the list: -
were you really compatible in the first place? If serious incompatibilities developed, did you take note and face them?

Number 3: -
Did you define boundaries, set the correct level of expectations, ensure they were agreed upon, and enforce them?
*NOTE: Ignoring something is actually condoning it, saying it is OK.

Very few of us had good training or found a good understanding of what makes a relationship work. Many take self-help books/guides, Guru quotes, Conventional Wisdoms and/or Myths as a supposed great guide. They seek to fit someone else’s template. Very few realise that what makes a great relationship is specific to the two people involved, not what works for others.
And it has to work for both, all the time!

Adultery is a symptom and not a cause, and both partners are culpable.

Breasts and Vaginas and the penis.

Moving to Malaysia, with a mix of three Asian cultures, has been a combination of slipping through a time warp to the 1950’s and being an extra in a US Fraternity Movie (comedy?).
Sadly, however, various parts of the West retain varying degrees of the crap thinking I see over here.

What am I talking about? How does that first paragraph fit with this blog page title?

The title was suggested by two of the social rules over here:
1. The man must always pay – not just for his date, but for every woman in the group.
2. Men must pamper and tolerate their womenfolk no matter how badly they behave.

The standard answer I receive when questioning females “Why should this be?” is always ”Because they’re men and we’re women”.

There is only one generic consistency when it comes to differentiating between men and women.
All women have a vagina and all men have a penis (unless nature or surgery has messed about with them.) I excluded breasts because, although typically women have larger ones, both sexes can have them. “Breasts” looked good in the title though and probably brought in a few more google search readers.

There are big, small, strong, weak, macho, feminine, long haired and short haired women. There are women that go to work and earn money and women that don’t. Some women also have to shave. There are women that can’t cook, wash, clean and/or iron.

There are big, small, strong, weak, macho and feminine, long haired and short haired men. There are men that go to work and earn money and men that don’t. Some men also wear cosmetics and perfumes. There are men that can cook, wash, clean and/or iron.

Therefore, the only sensible conclusion that I can draw is that having a vagina means being paid for and pampered, and having a penis means the opposite.

This logically leads to the assumption that men value a vagina far more than women value a penis.
The thot plickens.
Most research has shown that - despite suppressing the fact in more fanatical cultures and times – both sexes actually like SEX equally.
Heterosexual sex, at least, requires both genders’ equipment.

So, now what are we left with?
The only variables left are that vaginas must be more visually appealing than the penis and that vaginas can eject (after a while) babies! Men must pay/tolerate because women have more visually appealing equipment and can (if both parties decide it is viable) eject babies.

OK, I’m being slightly facetious here.
However, the fact is that women are not stuck at home growing/caring for babies during the dating phase, and many choose not to be even after marriage (which is compulsory for baby growing over here).
I pay a mechanic for fixing my car, not just because he could and might one day. And especially not if he works with BMWs and I drive an Audi! (or worse, he works with Beetles and I drive a Camri!).

Come on folks, let’s mature here a bit shall we and accept that the accident of being born female/male has no more intrinsic value than a love of custard!
Less actually, a love of custard is both a choice and is slightly revealing of who/what we are.

Sex, sin and filth - part 2

"You f*cking c*nt".

(I'm using "*" because I don't want an age warning page on my blog. Even though it goes against my principles!).

Let's try another variant:
"You eating nose".

Hmm, doesn't work, why?

Eating, like f*cking, is a pleasurable bodily activity.
A nose, like a c*nt, is an opening to our internals.
So....?

"You intellectual dwarf" rarely has the same sting as "Small/limp dick!"
"Slag" easily outpowers "Excessive shopper!"
"Drunk" is kindly compared to "Wanker".

So, and this is a rhetorical question, why do aggression and insult always call upon sex and sexual parts?

I said it was rhetorical, here is the answer: Suppression/Repression.
The only competitor to sex/sexual parts is bodily excretia. Kids start out with smelly poo, piss, (simply because parents don't like it) and work their way up to d*cks and c*nts.

Another rhetorical question - why did Janet Jackson showing a glittery star covered nipple cause more outcry (and changes in broadcasting rules) than images of zhombies eating living people's heads?

Supression and repression.

In the same way that "Ban abortion, save lives" generates passion whereas "Save the (already born) children" stimulates apathy. The moral high ground can be taken without shifting that lazy arse. And picketing an abortion clinic is closer to home than some weird African state. And unborn babies aren't drug takers and shoplifters are they. Unborn babies are still adorable angels.

There are several roots to this madness.
1. Sex is a free, non-taxable, pleasure. How do we control the peasants if they have this free pleasure?
2. Sex can tend to lead to tenderness and intimacy. You can't start a war by saying "Make love better than those bloody Germans".
3. Supression/repression creates a self-fullfilling prophecy. The sexually repressed/frustrated then do behave badly - so sin can then be almost accurately attributed to sex. (In fact, it's lack of sexual outlets, but lets not become sensible about this eh).
4. Sex sells - but only because it represents something not available. How many men really will get to f*ck that model in the advertisements? Why, of course they will, if they buy xyz..... How many overweight middle aged women will get to maul that 20 year old hunk dripping water down his superb torso? Of course they will, if they buy xyz....

I stated in part 1 that sex is not important unless there is a problem with the sexual aspects of a relationship. Same goes with day to day living.
The sexually repressed, guilt ridden, damaged sections of humanity do what people always do - they mask their problems and passionately condemn all areas where others aren't sharing the problem.
Look at ex-smokers and their fanatacism towards non-smoking.

And these fanatics spread their illness like a virus, contaminating the healthy.

Ask them to explain why victorian men went wild over piano legs, muslims go out of control over an exposed head of hair, yet europeans don't go on a raping spree after a day of bikinis or exposed breasts at the beach - silence is the reply. Silence or lies and denial. Of course those europeans have become uncontrolled sex maniacs!

Rape is always used as the bogey man of sex, the result of sexual freedom. Two people kissing passionately in a film will lead to an increase in the numbers of rapes - won't it!?
These preachers never bother to discover that most rapes have nothing to do with the sexual act as such - rape is about control, and raping a woman provides that sexual stigma that increases the power. It would be interesting to see if rapists turned to crushing hands if hands became the objects of repression.

There are four aspects of sex that stands it apart from other bodily activities.
1. It can lead to unwanted pregnancy. (A matter of education, held back by repression/suppresion).
2. Sexually transmitted diseases. Funny isn't it, this is more a bogey man that the equally fatal hepatitus spread by unwashed hands and cooking/eating.
3. The man goes inside the woman, invading her internal space. (So does someone sneezing next to you, with some very unpleasant side effects at times). So does someone shooting you or sticking a knife into you.....(see 4. below). We could talk about intimacy here, but many women do enjoy non-intimate sex - so it really is a red herring. It's a mind set thing.
4. Stigma. A woman allowing a man inside her carries so much baggage. We all know the "men sowing their oats is natural and OK, women doing so are slags". No stigma attaches to a knife wound, no blame shed towards the woman. But if she is raped......!!!!!


I've rambled a bit here, pull me in - start commenting on this blog!!

Sex, sin and filth....Part 1

When I started this blog, I had an opening page that promised many topics. I deleted that when it became obvious I wanted to cover relationship stuff for quite some time. I've been using intermissions to slip across other topics, but nothing in depth really.
My topic todays is a "tweenie", not totally relationship, not totally something else....

There's a saying in some parts of the counselling world - "If the sexual aspects of a relationship are fine, sex is totally unimportant. It only gains importance when it's a problem".
Pretty anti 1st generation Freud eh? (He actually debunked his sex theories later in life, his 2nd stage that many ignore or never even knew about. For the record, he declared his earlier research was based on a lousy and prejudicial selection of subjects!)

We, as humans, manage to push most aspects of our lives into needlessly complicated and myth ridden areas. We can come up with distorted, obsessional over emphasis on just about everything we do (or don't do).
Sex is just one of those areas.

We also love to claim lack of control in our lives, especially if we can attribute activities to genes or animal heritage or both. "I can't help it, I'm just being the alpha male" and that sort of crap.

Before delving into sex and co, I'm going to make a pretty radical statement.
"I have yet to find any aspect of our lives and behaviour that cannot be strictly under the control of our own conscious decissions (excluding the EXTREMELY RARE misdevelopment or misfunctions of our physiology)."
So, for example, ALPHA MALES act like ALPHA MALES simply because they are being taught to! Now, not in the far distant past.

OK, sex.....

We have bodies. Those bodies have parts. Those includes tits, bums, penises and vaginas.
We like to use those parts of our bodies, all of them, for many things.
Take our hands. We can use them to hold things, push things, we can touch others with them, and we can hurt others with them. We don't declare them no-go bits or assign sin to them.
Ah, you may say, there is a fundamental difference between a hand and a penis! Hands aren't under the control of hormones! (Well, not directly, the argument may go...).
So, the sexual organs are in a different category, so the argument goes.

Hmm, so that means they must be covered up and declared nasty?
Look, let's get real. Hormones etc do have direct effects on those sex parts (making them sensitive, erect, la de da) - but those direct effects are minimal. It is in the mind that the effects have real power. Covering the bits up will not make much difference there. Oh, but seeing bits leads to excitement and lack of control.... Bullshit.
We have Victorian men being driven into animalistic rampancy by the sight of an uncovered piano leg, Muslim men by a woman's hair, but Swedish men blithely indifferent to six foot tall busty blondes swanning around the beach. Hmmm.

We need to separate reality from guilt/sin/fanaticism if we are to tackle this sex subject sensibly.

Part 2 coming....

Absence makes the heart......

I could make excuses - novel and short story taking priority, non-literary pursuits (planning and running a holiday camp for twenty kids), even being hassle bound fighting the condo management over their letting our pool go dark green with algae pollution......

Truth is, though, I just wanted a break from thinking too much.

I will soon be back with further posts.

Intermission - 2. A milestone in life

I'll be slowing down with my postings for a little while, to maybe 1 per week. Obligations and all that.

Meanwhile......

There is a milestone in life, the one I’m going to talk about now, which is probably the most significant one in your life.

Be under no illusion, ‘significant’ is not all good!

There is a price to pay. The rewards, however, can exceed all expectations.

First, sorry folks, a little science – though in plain English so you don’t need a PhD.


From the very first millisecond our conscious mind clicks into awareness, we become inundated with input, a total overload, and we begin developing mechanisms to help us cope.

The way we learn to see gives a useful example of such a mechanism.

We have specialist cells at the back of our eyes (millions of them), and they react to light – sending signals to our brain.(For the interested - ‘Rods’ detect black and white, ‘cones’ detect colour.)

However, if a light shines on them for too long, they temporarily burn out – which is a ‘bad thing’.

We are not aware of it, but our eyes are constantly vibrating, moving those cells in and out of a specific light wave to protect them. (A simplification here, sorry).

An example of burn out is that glowing ball of light we can still see with eyes shut after staring at the sun. It is a negative image of the sun we stared at, as only the non-burnt out cells are temporarily working (the burnt out ones do kick back into life after a while).

The key point being that we never, ever, see anything clearly, just a cloud of light and dark and colour.

During the early years, we begin interpreting those clouds, using our other senses in the process. E.g. Touch a hard edge of a table, learn to associate that particular cloud with the hard edge of a table. We eventually teach ourselves to ‘see’, to compensate for those vibrating eyes.

Busy bees we become eh.

Too busy when you add in the same ‘associations’ we are building with all of our senses.


To avoid that potential overload, into the frame comes ‘categorisation’.

We continue experiencing a sensation (or sight) until we get just enough information to categorise it, then we stop. Most of the time, we are approximately correct, but illusion occurs when we get it wrong.

Try something. When you are about to see a friend or loved one after a while apart – picture them in your mind. When you meet, truly stare at them - concentrate, compare what you actually see with that memory you recalled. You will spot a hell of a lot of differences. Categorisation stopped you updating the image, and quite a while ago!

Ever wondered why you stop noticing that you are wearing a watch or a ring etc? The signals are still being sent by your nerves, but the brain switches off reception – category identified, signal not required. We filter out the majority of the signals our bodies (including eyes) are sending us, categorised, they are ‘not needed’.

We do the same with our thinking!

We learn to love shoving things into categories and hence not having to think too much more about them. We filter out a lot of thinking.

Here comes the bad news. A mechanism that worked wonders for learning to see with our eyes actually fails miserably when it comes to thinking.

That milestone, one that only a few ever reach, comes from understanding how categorisation is failing us.

We start to resist it.

However, we also then move out of those comfort zones.

The rewards can be immense, but it can also be painful and lonely at times.

Relationships - Part 4b

In part 4a, I gave a simple example of the reality check - comparing a partner’s words with their actions. As painful and difficult as that might be, life would still be far simpler if that was all we had to do.

Life tends to play more devious games with us however and, whether dealing with a relationship or with a solo life, the personal reality check is essential. I will briefly cover that now, hopefully you will get the message by reading the examples below.

We build up attitudes, beliefs and, dare I say it, scarring labelled as experience. We can plod on through life holding these dear to our hearts and minds.
To give ourselves the best shot at happiness or (where we rate it as a higher priority) fulfilment, we need to ask ourselves some questions.

They consist of a set of more detailed and specific variations of “Does who I am and what I believe serve me best to achieve what I want from life?”
If the answer is no, you are probably living a set of mistaken beliefs.

(For thoroughness, I’d better state that personal integrity can demand that we live a life lacking in elements that would otherwise make us happy. Being happy is not the only criteria for some people – which is OK as long as it is an informed decision and truly based on personal integrity. Generally, however, our state of happiness is usually a good guide).

What we are trying to catch can be called “Self Deceptions”, which is both negative and condemning, or more constructively “Mistakes”. Although I am also guilty of using the former term sometimes (when I’m feeling lazy), it does infer something done deliberately. That is, fortunately, rarely the case. Mistakes can more easily be rectified, while deliberate deception is a far harder beast to tackle.

I will confuse the issue thoroughly now by stating that the type of mistakes I am referring to still do serve to deceive us.

Here are some simple examples:

I am great at social occasions – yet people tend to put up with me rather than actually enjoy my company.

I am a, (and this is one of my favourites!), ‘nice’ person – yet people become bored with me, annoyed at me, and don’t want to form a (loving) relationship with me.

I am worth it, so a potential partner should be willing to ‘work at’ winning my trust – yet I continue to end up with shitty partners.

I have great instincts - yet I continue to end up with shitty partners.

I am fair and open minded – yet my list of ‘dislikes’ continues to grow.

I prefer bad guys/girls (another of my personal favourites) – yet I always end up hurt and alone again.

I’ll stop there for now, as it could be a huge list. I’ll come back to this later, it permeates so much of our relationship lives.
The fact is, if you are alone and/or unhappy, you are either incredible cursed with bad luck (which is extremely rare) or you are living by one or more mistakes.

When we have piled up a quantity of these mistakes, when that shapes the environment we have come to live in, we need to perform ‘Life Style” suicide.

See Part 5.

Relationships –Intermission: Crap advice

I just had to mention this one.

My local paper has an Agony Aunt, a counselor, psychologist etc. So she should know better!
One question-answer item really made me see red.

The letter, condensed:
My husband is a great provider and loves me and the children. Yet, despite being able to repair a car engine in the dark during the evening, he will not do a thing around the house or help me out.

The Agony Aunt reply, condensed:
You say he is a good provider and loves you. Perhaps you should value this and not demand more. Maybe it’s also the way you ask him. Try a different approach. Welcome him home, make him a cup of tea and discuss his day. Show you care and he just might want to do something back.

OK, this IS Asia, but please...

1. What is he providing and who for? Himself, the children he chose to have and the little woman that should be happy to fulfill his needs! He’s certainly not providing something she feels that she needs. The marriage is all about what suits him.

2. Yes, she should try a different approach – like not accepting his selfish behavior. That was her mistake from the very beginning. She accepted his behavior and hence said it was OK.

3. Oh yes, I can see that working. He has no impetus to change, so pampering him even more is going to change that how?

Both the woman writing the letter and the Agony Aunt need to step into the 21st century.
Surely, the days of thinking a man’s occupation is work and a woman staying home looking after the children is leisure time should be long gone.
If he is working 8 – 6, so is she, even though the nature of the work is different.

I fully agree that the nature of his work should play a part, but they must still negotiate arrangements for who does what in the evening – and find a solution that BOTH are happy with.
That is what the marriage is currently lacking.

Negotiation tactics is something I will be covering later, but I will say that is the part of the Agony Aunt reply that I nearly agree with.
Negotiating by attack pushes the other party into a defensive corner, and an amicable settlement then becomes very hard to achieve.
Non attack negotiation, however, does not infer total submissiveness.

This little question answer item illustrates something I have been discussing.
Tolerating leads to resentments and resentments start to undermine a relationship.
That is amply proven by the fact that the letter writer felt the need to write to an Agony Aunt about this.

The Agony Aunt is so saturated by her culture and peer pressure that she forgets everything that she should have learned as a counsellor. Going against a culture IS hard, but that is the only way a positive change can be achieved.

Relationships – Part 4a

A quick note. This site is getting increased numbers of visitors, yet few are commenting. Feedback please people.

OK.

The Reality Check –part a.

‘Reality’ is, I’m sure you know, a hotly debated concept in some circles. For sure, it’s hard to get an objective perspective – which makes it a dangerous term to throw around.

A ’Reality Check’, however, is a different beast. It is not so much a statement of fact, it more usually consists of a comparison – in the form of a question.

The best, and most accurate, Reality Checks are simple in nature . The more complex they become, the less reliable the conclusion. Complexity can be one of the greatest tools of deception, especially self-deception.

Great pre-amble, but what is a ‘Reality Check’?

In its simplest form, either “Does belief (A) match result (B)?” or it’s converse “Does Result (B) confirm belief (A)?”

Here is a common example of a failed Reality Check, drawn from teenage confusion;
“(A) He says he’s wild about me, but (B) he rarely contacts me”.
Mismatch. Failed reality check.

(B) indicates low on his priority list, which does not match (A) “Wild about me”.

Some get this far, but then lose their nerve.
To be effective, do not alter the reality check question.

Where (B) is not the answer desired, do not modify it by applying excuses.

With many, the Reality Check is either ignored or made more complex – “Does he seem wild about me when he doesn’t have other priorities, am I being ‘too demanding’ or ‘needy’?”

Let’s respond to that:

1. Your level of demand or need is your right, and it is part of who you are. Being wild about you must include that level of demand or need. Otherwise, “Wild about you” translates as “Like some things about you”. Failed Reality Check.

2. Pick up phone, dial number, say “Hi, just checking you are OK. Sorry I’m busy, let’s meet as soon as I can”. Time taken, what, 2 minutes? Not willing to sacrifice 2 minutes = “Not wild about you”. Failed Reality Check.

Converting a simple question into something more complicated and/or applying excuses to justify a failed Reality Check is self-deception.

‘Why is he not wild about me?” is a separate issue, it is not part of checking if he really is ‘wild about you’.

Accepting “Wild about you” after the failed Reality Check but remaining unhappy is a cul-de-sac, one based on deception, his and your own.

To many, that blindness seems preferable to accepting the information and having to deal with it.
A huge mistake.

A failed Reality Check does not have to mean “end relationship”.
It does mean that there is a problem with that relationship that needs understanding.
We go from deliberate ignorance to making informed decisions.

More in Part 4 The Reality Check – part b.

Relationships – Part 3

I’ve been covering a lot of ground, and at quite a fast pace, and leaving lots of ‘More later’ promises.

Before I go any further, however, this is a great point to cover one extremely important concept.

When we start a new relationship, we have one of those rare and valuable opportunities in life.

It can best be summed up by a simple sounding sentence.

“It is not who you were, it is who you want to be and can you live up to it”.

Think about the common run of life, of how we both build up our own image of ourselves and also how others see us.

Our parents watch us grow, and they see not only our successes but also our mistakes. Those mistakes are often called ‘failings’. Sadly, parents often – when faced with their children grown into adults – still see that child and insist on maintaining the relationship the way it used to be.

In early relationships, as an adult, we try on a certain persona, and the partner reacts to that persona.We can also build a negative history together, where old hurts and injuries are kept alive.

Both partners can end up re-enforcing that initial persona and it becomes very hard to change. Even when we do, the partner can refuse to believe or accept the change.

One of the common problems in relationships, especially those established while young, comes from friction when either or both partners grow. It is, again sadly, rare for both to grow in the same direction at the same rate. This becomes increasingly difficult when one or both partners demand the other remain the way they used to be. It becomes a balancing act, keeping the partner happy whilst still allowing ourselves to grow.

It is both amazing and impressive when couples actually manage this successfully, as some do.

Many, however, fail.

I think many of us come to a stage in our lives when we ask “How the hell did I become this person?”

Look at the amazing opportunity we have when starting a new relationship.

Some may have experienced this when starting a new job with a new company. We can dump all that garbage, all that history, and have another chance to become who we really want to be.

And how sad is it that so many waste that opportunity. They stick to all those “This is how we always…”, “This is how I always…”

And they fail to ask themselves one very important question “Who I am, what I believe, how I act – do those things actually work for me?”

We have all heard, and probably used, the term ‘Baggage’.

More often than not, it is a coverall for behavior that we don’t like in someone, “He/she had too much baggage”’

Everyone brings something into a new relationship that pre-existed. This can be a job, a house and furniture, children, as well as behavior patterns. Someone once wisely stated “It is not the baggage; it is how we handle it”.

Well, we have a chance to handle it differently with someone new, how stupid to waste that opportunity.

Here is some good news. As many that have hit relationship trouble, and then sought out help, have found - we can start afresh even within an existing relationship – it is just much harder work.

(See, I told you ‘relationships are hard work” is indicative of problems!)

In these blogs I will repeatedly come back to one of the greatest tools we have, the “Reality check”.

In this case, it can be phrased as “Does what I believe, what I demand, what I do, actually achieve what I want? Does the story I tell myself match up with what I really experience?”

I have found an amazingly large number of people continue where the reality check fails.

Coming in Part 4 – The Reality Check.

(Isn't blogging great. Unlike a book, we can hop and skip around like crazy!).

Relationships - Part 2

Another long one....

PART 2

Before I go much further, I need to clarify something.
There is no ideal or “one size fits all’ relationship model.
I will be pointing out what tends to either suit or cause problems for most people. When I ‘bust’ a myth, I am not necessarily saying don’t live by it. I am saying that you should be making informed decisions.
For example (I love examples):
If you are aware of the evidence against a flat Earth, if you know the inherent dangers of believing in a flat Earth, yet still wish to base your life on such a theory – I say good for you, just;
1. Make sure that everyone in a relationship with you understands and is comfortable with it. Ensure that they also are making an informed decision when deciding to be in a relationship with you.
2. Do not try to enforce it on an unwilling participant.

Now that I have stated that, please don’t expect me to keep on pointing it out.
Acknowledge that I am offering information.
Also, please acknowledge that such information is (informed) opinion; I do not claim it as any form of universal objective truth.

I hate that “in my opinion" game. The one that states “Say ‘in my opinion’ and you are modest, don’t say it and you’re an egomaniac”.
Please…..yawn.
It came from my hand/mouth, obviously it’s my opinion – I trust you to work that out for yourself.

OK, let’s continue.

In every relationship, we have three initial responsibilities:

1. To set up a correct level of expectation.
Some mistakenly call this “Honesty”. Look at just about every female profile on a dating site, there will be that word under requirements/what I am looking for. “HONESTY”. What a sad tale that tells.
Let’s break that myth now, (MYTH Number 2) “We must always be honest with each other to have a good relationship”.
Newsflash: honesty is not always a pre-requisite and can sometimes be a fatal mistake.
If one or both partners state up front “I will lie to you when it suits me” and both are happy with that, there is no problem.

Lying can range from little white ones “Oops, I forgot your birthday. BUT. Look in the closet. Wow a present”, through supportive “You look beautiful tonight” despite the fact that they are virtually destroyed by the flu, through persuasive “I do love you, let’s fuck”, and onto destructive “I’m having a night out with the girls” when she is going to see her lover.

We do not require absolute/generic honesty; we do need to define areas where it is essential to us individually. That is part of setting a level of expectation.
One other point, only a fool states “I have caught you out in a lie, you are dishonest, and so we are finished”. You need to understand both the motive and the context of a lie before you can come to such a decision. More later….

2. Setting boundaries and sticking to them.
Accept/tolerate something shitty, then you’d better understand that you are saying that it is OK. Keep on accepting it and you’re driving yourself into a dead end, one that will be very difficult to reverse out of.

Not setting boundaries is grossly unfair to your partner; it is not an act of love. If they don’t know that they have crossed a line, why should they stop doing it? Why shouldn’t they be surprised when, upon doing it for the hundredth time, you suddenly change into someone else that becomes angry?

MYTH Number 3. “We should be tolerant with our partner”.
Sounds good eh? However, when we look at it more analytically, there are two problems with that concept.
a). It is denying a fundamental human right. I have the right to be who I want and to act as I want (though of course, I must accept the consequences of any actions). So do you.
What fundamental arrogance for anyone to believe that they have the right to ‘tolerate’ me! You either accept or you ensure than one of us goes somewhere else.

Acceptance, in this context, places neither partner in a hierarchy – we are different, neither being superior nor inferior.
Such hierarchical approaches are destructive unless both partners have selected such a relationship as desirable.

b). More often than not, such tolerance is totally artificial. It is more usually a point scoring mechanism, with an attached incurrence of debt.
“I have accrued x tolerance points, that entitles me to (x * Factor y) benefits.”
And again, usually the tolerated partner only finds out about the debt when the one tolerating decides to call it in. More later…


3. Start with fresh eyes, fresh mind and fresh heart.
This is based on a concept that will be very difficult to stomach:- you have probably learned very little of use from any previous relationships.

“Ah”, you will probably say, “I have learned what I do and do not like!”
The fact is, however, what may be likeable or unlikeable from one person may actually be the opposite with someone else.
Everyone will, eventually, do or say something that recalls a bad memory from some previous relationship – but it is a different person doing it with (probably/hopefully) a different motive.
Everything is contextual. Don’t consider scarring as experience or wisdom. More later…

PART 3 will expand on some of these “More Later” statements

Relationships – Sigh…

OK, let’s do it, let’s tackle one of the biggies.

I’ll be concentrating on loving relationships (Male-Male, Male-Female and Female-Female), but there is something well worth remembering. Every interaction we have with every living thing, (and some inanimate things), is a relationship – be it with a dog, workmate, girlfriend or Grannie Biggins. This discussion will, therefore, both draw on and be relevant to all forms of relationship. I’ll point out where they diverge.

For the moment, I will be talking about a relationship with someone that does not have a serious physical, mental or emotional problem. We may, however, discover along the way that most people are not totally free of all three conditions – hence my using the qualifier “serious”!

Over three decades of counseling, I have seen most of the fallacies, myths, conventional wisdoms and urban legends. If you hold any of these dear to you, tough shit – I’ll be hammering them.

This IS a huge subject, so…

PART 1 (I haven’t planned out how many parts yet).

Two people can be attracted to each other, right. Whether that is because her nose looks like a red-arsed baboon’s labia, he reminds you of the one male in your life to ever show kindness (Uncle Bert), or simply because she has great tits, it really doesn’t matter. It also doesn’t matter whether or not those attractions are the result of ‘our animal heritage’. Those theories are great for anthropologists or social scientists, but for the rest of us it’s OK to just know it happens. We usually draw on those theories when we want to make excuses for some bad behavior.

So, the big question is, “what do we do when it does happen, when we have that attraction?”

I’ll go into some of the aspects of turning that attraction into a relationship later, first there is an important point I need to make.

Let’s jump the gun, look at existing relationships, and hit MYTH NUMBER ONE.
It can be summed up by a simple sentence, and when I hear some version of it I want to take a sledge hammer and knock some sense into the speaker’s thick, dumb skull.
“Relationships are work, and too many are not prepared to put in the effort, preferring to just run away”.

Bull fucking shit!

Here’s my reply: “If your relationship is work, you’ve got a real problem. You’re probably not compatible”.
Most people make the mistake of confusing half-love with full-love.
Half love is when you love some things about someone but not others.
Never commit on the basis of half-love. I’ll go into that in more depth later. (I’ll keep saying “more later”, this is a big subject with a lot of ground to cover).

All those things that make a relationship work, all those things that keep it vital and enduring, they are FUN.
More often than not, they are also the very things that made us decide to have a relationship.

Much of that ‘work’ concept is based around the misunderstood and misused word “Compromise”.
In my experience, which is extensive, compromise usually means that one person get’s what they want and the other put’s up with it. That is not compromise, it is control. In a true compromise, both parties walk away truly happy with the result.

Here is an example:

The Issue;
He wants to watch sport on TV and she wants to watch her favorite soap opera. (Nice, using stereotypes eh, should make everyone feel comfortable).

Compromise as control:
“I get to watch my sport, then I won’t go all silent and moody, I’ll be nice and even tempered”. One partner gets what they want, the other makes a ‘sacrifice’ for the sake of good relations.

Compromise with winners and losers:
“You get to watch sport every first and third week of the month, and I watch soap operas during the other weeks”. That means that, every week, there is a winner and a loser.

True Compromise:
“Hey, we’ll cut back on going out and buy a second TV”. No winners, no losers (except maybe a restaurant or film theatre), everyone is happy.

Much of the marital or relationship ‘work’ is based around choosing either example 1 or 2. Both lead to resentments, eventually.

Let’s look at another aspect of that ‘work’.

“Life is full of problems and stress, we all get tired sometimes, we can’t be perfect all the time. We have to accept that and understand when our partner is not at their best”.

Do we?

There is a vast difference between “Being supportive” and “Taking shit”. I fully agree with the former, I reject totally the latter.
I’ll listen to you, I’ll have your head on my shoulder, I’ll make you a nice cup of tea, and I’ll see if there is anything I can do to lessen the burden. I’ll even understand if you need to shout, scream and curse – as long as it is not directed at me. That’s being supportive. I‘ll not indulge you in making me your whipping boy, and I’ll not accept you insisting on also making my life a misery. That is taking shit.

This takes us very handily onto the next concept, relationship negotiation and setting boundaries.

More in PART 2.

Middle Class Terrorists

I was working on some of the blogs I promised, but something happened that deserved priority. I really had to post this one.

A friend had lost her internet service for a few days and I let her use mine, which involved her coming to my house and using my computer.
The nature of our relationship was such that she was quite happy to have me sit next to her while she opened her email account.

I was, quite frankly, stunned – 247 unopened!

She was obviously an indiscriminate surfer; for she rapidly deleted 50 spam mails and 20 newsletters from organizations she really had no interest in.

OK, what of the remaining 177?

5 were legitimate messages from real friends or relatives.
That left 172, and they all came from just two people.

I sat for an hour while she opened each of these in turn. There was a motley collection of funny/amusing images and cartoons, a few FUD (Fear, uncertainty and Doubt) articles, and some chain letters (“read this, then pass on to 10 friends to assure lifetime happiness”), but the rest all held PowerPoint attachments.

As she watched each one in turn, two things struck me:

1. Whether intentional or otherwise, these were an amazing terrorist tactic to clog up the internet. Imagine how many people were receiving these, and then forwarding them to a list of ‘friends’. Try to calculate the terabytes of feel good crap clogging up servers across the world.

2. They all had the same formulaic structure and content. Soporific music, a soothing voice, and seemingly bland (more on this later), comforting middle class messages.

The first you can easily make up your own mind about, but I want to look at the latter in more depth.

When looked at with a slightly more objective, analytical eye, they were immensely dangerous.
I am no conspirator theorist, but I gradually came to the conclusion that only a few had been created by smug would be Gurus, the rest had been specifically designed to sell a horrific set of subliminal messages.

When I asked my friend to step through a couple with me, pausing at each of the pages, clarifying the message and its inherent hypocrisies and dangers, she sometimes agreed, but more often than not her eyes glazed over and her hackles rose. It was not simply that she felt she had to disagree, it was more that she began to feel embattled, that the stable basis of her life was being threatened by me.
I began to realize that the years of hearing these messages had done their job, she was brainwashed.
She could not deny what I was saying, she had no reasoned or logical counter to it, yet everything about her stated “I will not listen”.

I gave up.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I was not seeing the bogeyman under the bed. Some of the messages were just space wasting, ‘yeah I can agree with that’ pap.
The ‘smile at a stranger and make the world a happier place’ – sure, your smile is going to make a man forget that his wife just left him and he was entrenched etc, but what the hell.
The ‘think positive and you will get everything you want’. OK, except I keep positive thinking that a meteor will land in my garden, turn out to be a huge diamond, and make me wealthy beyond belief – but it hasn’t happened yet.

No, it’s only when we get beyond them.

There is a trick that most partisan ‘survey’ specialists know, a way to lead the interviewee into the answer you want.
e.g.
“Do you think it is OK that children in the US are still starving?”, of course not.
“Do you think the government has unlimited funds at its disposal?’, of course not.
”Do you believe that charity begins at home?”, of course.
“Should we be spending billions on foreign aid instead of investing the money at home?’.
Err, no, I suppose not.

That is how these PowerPoint presentations work.
A series of beautiful photographs, soothing music, scrolling messages, each line revealed after you have swallowed the last. Everything carefully designed to switch off your analytical awareness.

And what are these messages?

It is fine to build up personal wealth at the expense of others.
It is OK to suppress the rights of others if they are contrary to our belief system.
We can sit back smugly surrounded by our nice, comfortable material world as long as we pray each night.
Life is precious if it is white, middle class conservative. (I loved the way my friend swallowed this last, despite her being Chinese!).
Non-white people can be beautiful as long as it’s hard to tell they are not white.
It is great to praise Jesus, it’s dumb to follow everything he said if it is contrary to our comfortable existence.
The list just went on and on.

The next time you get one of these, switch off the sound, pause the scrolling, ask yourself “What am I really being asked to accept?”

Ask yourself if you really want to clog up the internet and continue the brainwashing by passing these bloody things on.

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