High Road Holy Rollers

¡Hola! Everybody…
Check this out: there’s an item in the news this morning on a survey research purporting to measure happiness throughout the life cycle. According to this study, women are happier than men are during their twenties. The other side is that men are much happier than women later in life.

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-=[ High Road Holy Rollers ]=-
“Self-righteousness is the load din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.”
-- Eric Hoffer

I’m going to be clear: I make a distinction between being judgmental and utilizing one’s ability to judge. If a child points out the emperor’s nakedness, that’s using one’s ability to judge.

The King is naked.

Making blanket statements about me, or speculating about hidden motivations behind my posts/ responses? That’s being judgmental. I can’t abide judgmental mindsets. It has been my experience that judgmental individuals are dull and lack creativity.

This blog is not a place for people to come and pass judgment. There are plenty other blogs for that. I have always striven to be as transparent as possible and to encourage people to go beyond their personal opinions and look at issues from a larger, more panoramic perspective.

If you don’t like my writing, or what I post here, yes, it’s your right to express your dislike, but it’s also my right to tell you to go fuck yourself when you post something I find distasteful on my blog.

As people know, it’s rare that I comment on other blogs. That’s because most of the time I don’t have anything to add, I find the subject matter irrelevant (I don’t give a shit about gardening or cooking, for example), or sometimes the effort put forth in presenting the material is not to my tastes.

However, I will not go to, say, one of Nina’s gardening blogs and blurt, “This shit is stupid, I can’t stand this shit.”

Why?

Because it doesn’t add to anything and is rude.

Someone here (Lulu on Multiply) made a comment yesterday speculating on my motivation for compassion – specifically that I save my compassion for women I wanna fuck. The comment was without tact and unnecessary. Immediately following that comment someone else (Francesca), posted a comment expressing how she’s above it all.

The former comment was just plain bullshit, and the latter I found pompous.

Having put out all this, who really gives a shit about our judgments?

Really.

Additionally, if you’re really so above it all, you would refrain from commenting. Right?

The irony is that when you pass judgment on judgmental people, they get all bent out of shape. It’s as if they have a sense of entitlement. They can pass judgment but you or I can’t. If I have the temerity to pass judgment, then there’s something wrong with me: I’m being hypocritical, overly sensitive, too tense.

I view that as duplicitous and the height of condescension.

It’s easy to criticize something, anyone can do that. Again, I strive to keep this blog from that type of mentality. What’s more challenging is to offer a solution, or something that would make the situation better. Everybody has an opinion, and like assholes, everybody thinks theirs doesn’t stink. I don’t give a rat’s ass about opinions, my opinion is that opinions are highly overrated. LOL! I’d rather spur people to think outside their normal parameters – beyond their personal likes and dislikes.

The fact is that oftentimes, the very same people who claim the high road, have feet of clay. This happens in all areas of life. Ever hear of the fallen preacher? Or the do-gooder who was molesting children? Many people here on the ‘net present themselves in the best possible light, but I’m willing to bet we have all made poor choices in the company we keep and occasionally continue to do so. We have all broken hearts, have had our hearts broken, committed all kinds of sins, and continue to do so.

I will submit that this “I’m above it all” attitude is a sign of unconscious dishonesty. C'mon now: Who the fuck hasn’t felt superior to the angry outburst or a slip of another individual – only find herself in the very same spot the next day? Self-righteousness is useful only in that it points toward our shadow side. As I pointed out yesterday, I will cop to my shit, and I am confident in my capacity for self-knowledge. Still, what we least like to admit about ourselves is what we most often feel most self-righteous about.

It’s our blind spots and self-deception that leave us open to dysfunctional habitual behavior patterns. The fact is that the person we feel most self-righteous toward may be the person you might learn the most from. When we point a finger, always remember that there three more fingers pointing back at you. Take the focus off the external factor and try to look within and notice how these individuals touch our most sensitive area.

Yesterday, I had to look at the remark about me saving my compassion only for women I want to fuck, and it didn’t take me long to understand this was feedback that was useless and unkind. Not only is it insulting to me, it’s insulting to the women I befriend because it implies a nefarious and hidden motivation. It has taken me a long time, but when I’m confronted with such behavior, I’m able to say, “Fuck you,” and keep it moving.

I have confronted individuals like Polo before. Polo is a thief and a predator, but he’s also a human being deserving of self-respect and dignity. However, not taking him to task is the height of apathy which is the polar opposite of compassion. Just because you don't engage him, or people like him, doesn't make you any better than anyone else. I have received PMs from women who have informed me he engages in predatory 'net behavior. If my post is able to uncover his behavior and bring his actions to light, then I feel a certain amount of satisfaction.

To the people who feel offended by all this, who feel they are above my actions? Don’t come here if you don’t like it. I’m certainly comfortable with that choice. However, if you come here to pass judgment and I smack you in the face with what you dish out, don’t play the victim, or hide behind pseudo-therapeutic psychobabble.

I’m done with this. I will not respond to any comments to this blog. I only ask that people read my writing before swallowing the spin. My writing stands on its own. I’m sure some will squawk, but this is part of who I am and what I do.

Take it or leave it.

Love,

Eddie

Willful Ignorance and Social Failure

¡Hola! Everybody…
It never fails: whenever I expose (and belittle) a bully, I get several PMs uncovering a pattern of abusive behavior. Our weight-challenged friend, Polo, is no different. It seems he can’t handle rejection well. When rejected he resorts to cyber stalking, abusive language, gossip mongering, and character assassination. He’s done this with Amy as well other women who have communicated with me privately. I find it hard to believe that any woman that defends this kind of behavior and/ or individual possesses any kind of self-respect.

I would say that you have to be pretty much hard up to come this illiterate fool’s defense. Which brings me to today’s rant…

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-=[ Adult Literacy & Failure ]=-

“The most violent element in society is ignorance.”
-- Emma Goldman

***

“I’ll tell you like this ,___"s face mouth became New Africa along time ,so watch font!!!!!Thank You”
-- Polo, Adult Male

“YOU NEED TO TELL THAT BIG EARED BITCH TO KEEP HIS FUCKIN NAME OUT HER MOUTH WHEN SHE TELLS HER LITTLE RIDE TO ALL HER LITTLE PUSSY RIDIN BITCHES!!!! MAYBE THIS SHIT WOULD HAVE BEEN OVER WITH IF SHE D QUIT TELLIN HER DUMB ASS STORIES....THE BITCH SUCKED HIS DICK FOR YEARS, LOVED HIS DICK FOR YEARS, AND NOW IS MINIMALIZING THE RELATIONSHIP TO KEEP YOU POWDER PUFF HOOLIGANS MESMERIZED BY HER FLYING TRICKS. EVERYONE THAT CHATS KNOWS WHAT IT USED TO BE. SHE WAS THE BIG EARED BITCH BRAGGING ABOUT HOW WELL POLO FUCKED HER. RUN TELL THAT!!!! GET YOUR CAPE OFF YOU WILL NEVER SNIFF THAT CHICKS PUSSY. THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED FAST EDDIE THE SUPER FRUITY YAHOO 360 DON? ALRIGHT THEN, WE CAN DO THIS!!!!! TOUCHE EL HOMO....TOUCHE!!!!!”
-- “Big Head Chrys,” 32-year-old Female

Okay, I’m not reposting the above to belittle these two individuals. I actually believe illiteracy to be a serious issue. And contrary to a friend’s objection, pointing out a truth doesn’t equal being mean. If you show your ass and I point it out, how is that mean? Moreover, if you consider my demands for honesty and trust a “condition” of my love, then so be it. I’ve heard worse.

The two “writing samples” above are indicative of what’s rotten in our society today. The first sample, posted to my quick comments – well, I don’t even know where to begin with that one. While I can fathom the gist of his twisted message, in actuality, it makes no sense at all. Language is the one human instinct, and if you do not possess any measure of mastery over one of the most important tools, then you’re lost.

You have doomed yourself to a life of darkness, self-loathing, and failure.

I understand perfectly why Polo engages in abusive ‘net behavior. He has no sense of self-esteem. How could he? He can’t even defend himself from me because he doesn’t have the ability to construct a complete sentence. Hence, his thought process is scrambled and his ability to navigate the world severely hampered. Again, I’m not poking fun at his ignorance; I’m pointing it out because it’s tragic. It’s tragic that a grown man, living in the richest, most powerful nation in the history of humankind is an illiterate.

A grown, 32-year-old woman wrote the second sample, sent to me via the 360 mailbox (PM). One thing that really gets me (aside from people who type in CAPS. LOL) is when an individual, obviously lacking the vocabulary skills, attempts to use unfamiliar language structure. While the sample I’ve offered may not seem as illiterate as Polo’s (I would be hard put to find anything worse than his), it’s chock full of grammatical and structural errors (i.e., run-on sentences, partially formed ideas, “chicks” instead of the possessive “chick’s,” etc.). I would be embarrassed to offer such writing in public. This woman actually reposted the above sample in the comments section of my blog yesterday. She’s actually proud of authoring that piece. Let’s put aside the obvious psychological issues (lack of self-esteem, self-loathing, irrational anger, etc.) for a moment and just look at her writing and message. Again, you can pick up on the gist of her message (hatred), but her thought process is scrambled, her struggle with coherence is almost palpable.

Both individuals sound and act ignorantly. It was the same when I confronted Bryson. He used to brag that he was peddling a screenplay to DreamWorks, but he couldn’t write a proper sentence. Am I mean for pointing this out?

However, these alleged adults have made conscious choices to remain ignorant and barely literate. That’s on them. What concerns me, and what I hope you think about, is this: if they write and speak in this manner, then what about their children? I would be hard put to believe any woman would have a child from Polo, but, as you can see from Chrys’ writing, there are some dim bulbs out there. You never know. Moreover, Chrys is 32 years-old and if she's raising, for example, a daughter, then how well can that child be doing in school? What are the chances of her success and what are the messages she’s absorbing regarding womanhood and sexuality if her mother spends her time on the ‘net viciously defending the actions of an abusive, obese, and illiterate bully?

Let me be clear, our children are being failed by their parents and by the adults in this society. Our children are being failed by society – by social policy decisions that minimize and undercut the importance of education. If we were to spend even a fraction of what we spend stockpiling WMDs and bombing backward countries, we would be a nation of geniuses. And let me tell you: other industrialized nations know this and make huge sacrifices to ensure their children get the best education possible. No one likes to pay taxes. But you won’t hear of people in Sweden, for example, closing down a school because they didn’t want to pay taxes. They make the sacrifices and act in unison as a society to ensure their children get the best education possible.

We do the opposite

Then we look at the failure of education in this country and do you know who we blame? We blame the very children we have failed.

The Chrys’ and Polos’ of this society undercut our value. They have chosen to remain willfully ignorant. At the same time, they have also sentenced their children to a life of mental and financial poverty.

That’s the tragedy…

Love,

Eddie

The "Balls Ovah Yer Nose" Award

¡Hola! Everybody…
Today it’s an extra treat! Yet another of 360’s many misogynists dances for Mr. T. Today’s it’s the e-thug who calls himself “Polo”…

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-=[ Misogynists ]=-

I know, I know, you’re probably asking yourself why is it only me that exposes the misogynists (women haters) on this site, right? I dunno, I just find it hard to wrap my mind around why any self-respecting man would attempt to bully a woman, on or off the ‘net.

I mean, shit, I’ve had things done to me here and you don’t see me whining about it or posting personal pics of those who had endeavored to hurt me. Shoot, we all know I gave a certain individual here the benefit of the doubt even when it was clear that this individual wasn’t playing scrabble with Mia Farrow in Darfur (the “Out of Africa” episode). Even when it was revealed to me that the same individual was telling other people here that I was pestering her when in fact she was sending me daily “declarations of love” I didn’t resort to posting naked pics of her or anything like that. In fact, I truly wish this individual all the love she so obviously wants.

Ya gotta let it go, people, it’s not good to hold on to resentments. Resentments are like pissing on yourself, no one feels it but you and you end up stinkin’ up the place.

Which brings me to the now weekly “Balls Oveh Ya Nose” award. This week’s recipient actually stole a revealing photo of our very own Amy and now gets his rocks off posting it all over the ’net. He plasters his page with photos of Amy and then resorts to putting her down. Now, I happen to know Amy and I like her. She’s smart and she’s funny – witty. I also know that on one level she laughs at that Polo’s pettiness, but I also have to think that enough is enough. Amy ain’t no shrinking violet, she can take care of herself, but I know she’s trying not to address this predatory behavior because it only feeds into what Polo wants, which is attention.

And get this right: when you go to someone’s house and steal a photograph and then post it on the web, that’s predatory behavior.

So, Imma step up to the plate and take a few swings. ::wink::

First, Polo, who lives in Texas, spent mad money, time, and effort visiting Amy, who lives in Oregon. He was fiendin’ (pronounced feeenin’). And feindin’ for a long time. Years even. Spent a lot time and money traveling. I’m sorry, I might be a romantic, but I ain’t traveling over 2,000 miles unless there’s some hawt sex involved and even then, I have to think about it. And you know why? Because I have a life. LOL

Anyway, Polo likes to tell people he makes 100k a year, he likes to brag about how he has this and that and apparently the truth of the matter seems to be that still lives with his father. I can’t say this for sure, but if every time you call someone and his father answers the phone… well…

::blank stare::

But I’m not even going to speculate. I don’t need to because any man who exhibits misogynistic behavior has deep-seated feelings of insecurity. If Polo had a life, he wouldn’t waste his time 24/7 on IM and thinking of ways to harass a woman who obviously doesn’t want anything to do with him.

This is a fact. If he was a real man, he’d let it go, move on to another lover, or do something with his life other than spending huge segments of his time, sitting on his fat ass (he’s obese, BTW) on the internet.

For being a misogynist and a creep, Polo gets this week’s “Balls Ovah Ya Nose” Award and joins the rest of the wife-beaters, e-thugs, and Yahoo fakes in a dance for Mr. T:

(Click here to view Polo dancing for Mr. T)

That’s it for today, folks, be nice!

Love,

Eddie

Monday Madness [Emotional Healing]

¡Hola! Everybody…
Well it’s back to work for yours truly. I took a two-week vacation in which I did… nothing. Yup, that’s right, I did nothing. Do you know hard it is to do nothing? I mean, it’s, like, a sin or against the law to do nothing in America. People would ask and when I informed them that I was doing nothing, they would look at me as if I’d just developed a third eye and immediately offer “solutions” to my “predicament.” Some people actually looked resentful that I had the audacity to do nothing – or at least admit that I was doing nothing. People: don’t drink the Kool-Aid.

SMDH

I think we all should do nothing more often.

Today’s art work, titled Emotional Healing Reprise, is by James D. Lewis (click here to visit his website).

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-=[ Emotional Healing ]=-
“We must take care not to make intellect our god. It has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot rule, only serve.”
-- Albert Einstein

Emotions get a bad rap in our culture, but without emotions, life would have no meaning. In fact, without emotions we would’ve ceased to exist as a species a long time ago. Emotions give direction to our thoughts and are integral to our decision-making process. Furthermore, without love, beauty, justice, truth, dignity, honor and the great satisfactions each of these provide, what worth would life hold?

These experiences, and the emotions that drive them, gives us our direction. They compel us toward more love, more beauty, more justice, and to distance our selves from their opposites. Without emotions, we lose our ground of being – our fundamental bearings – and we cannot make choices that truly reflect what matters most to us.

People with serious mental illness lose this ability. Like, Emilia, for example, a young woman who came to my office one day. Part of my training involves listening at a level most people are unfamiliar with. One of the things I look for is an individual’s ability to stay “on task” – to demonstrate some measure of focus. Initially, she seemed quite normal, though she had problems making eye contact. For the sake of brevity, I’ll just say that Emilia eventually attempted to stab me with a letter opener. Luckily, I was paying attention and realized, after a while, that she seemed to be listening to voices. I also noticed she was taking quick glances at a cup on my desk that held the letter opener and scissors.

As the realization that I was with a disturbed individual dawned on me, I went to take the cup out of reach as subtly as possible. That’s when she lunged for the letter opener. I was able to wrest the cup for her grasp, but it was a harrowing experience nonetheless.

I was able to get Emilia some help, but the next time I saw her, there was no life in her eyes. And it was sad to watch her. While the antipsychotic medicine helped take away the voices and hallucinations, she seemed more like a zombie than the vibrant, intelligent young woman her family remembered. And that’s the whole thing: no emotion, no life. Today, there are antipsychotic medications whose side effects are less disturbing, but side effects are always a concern. We just don’t know enough about the way the mind/ brain works.

On the other hand, emotional over indulgence does not make for skillful living. Emotions must be tempered by the rational analysis that the cognitive brain provides. Otherwise, rash decisions made in the heat of the moment can adversely affect our relationships with others. I’m willing to bet that many of you reading this have probably had children off a feeling. LOL

Emotions without focus, thoughtfulness, and planning leave us at the mercy of the vicissitudes – the random ups and downs -- of life. If we are incapable of controlling our existence, life loses meaning too.

Your life is unique – every life is unique. It is also true that every life is difficult. Too often I hear people comment that if only they had more money, were better looking, or were more talented, that they would then be happy. By becoming someone else, they seem to be saying, they would not have to face their obstacles and problems – and that is true. But they would have other problems – theirs!

I say, if you’re not happy now, then you’ll never be happy no matter what. You will always have something to bitch about; something will always bother you, or stop you from your happiness. You will always say…

If only…

Marilyn Monroe was perhaps considered the sexiest, most famous, and most desired of all women of her generation. Yet, she could never escape a deeply embedded sense of loneliness which she drowned in alcohol. Eventually, she would die of an overdose of barbiturates. Jimi Hendrix became a superstar and changed the very way the guitar was played and no one today can pick up a guitar without being influenced by his playing. He too died from an overdose of drugs. One of my favorite writers, Earnest Hemingway, won a Nobel Prize and led a life full of adventure and excitement and yet that didn’t stop him from putting a gun to head and pulling the trigger.

Neither talent, nor glory, power, money, nor the adulation of men and women can make the essence of life easier.

Still, there are people who seem to live in harmony. Most often they have a feeling that life is generous. They are able to enjoy the people around them and the mundane everyday pleasures: meals, sleep, projects, and relationships. They don’t belong to a cult or a specific religion. Some are rich, some are not. Some are married, others live alone. Some possess extraordinary talents, others are quite ordinary. They all have experienced failures, disappointments, and dark moments. Nobody – nobody – escapes from hardships.

However, overall, these people seem better equipped to overcome obstacles. They seem to have a special ability to get through misfortune, to give meaning to their lives, as if they had a closer relationship to their lives, with others, and with what they have chosen to do with their existence.

I believe that we all can learn to live in this way – to live in harmony with our environment and our internal values. My experience has shown me that we can learn to heal ourselves, that there is a vast reservoir of healing energy within all of us. I also believe that this healing power is within our grasp and that it lies in learning to harness the power of our emotions.

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [Dreams & Illusions]

¡Hola!
OK! The Russian Sex Kitten is tiring of yours truly and in a way, that’s a good thing. I do think there’s a bond that will last, but I can see myself playing more of a mentor role, than a lover. BTW, is it messed up that I think her moms (who’s younger than I am) is FOINE?!! LOL

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-=[ Dreams & Illusions ]=-
“Free your mind, your ass will follow.”

Observe your sleeping dreams and you quickly realize that our minds have the ability to create worlds seem completely real and appear to be outside us. Yet, it’s equally obvious to us when we awaken that all the people and things in these dreams are actually creations of our own minds mistaken for reality. We wake up and we recognize that none of the events that seemed to happen in the dream ever occurred.

We need to recognize the power of the mind to create and destroy worlds. Perception is a mirror not a fact, as I have written before. Yet we buy into the dreams and lose sight of the fact that we create our own heavens and hells.

I’ll offer a good example, so that this doesn’t seem like some mystical blah blah blah. You’re driving your car and someone cuts you off. Immediately, you become incensed! You curse the offending driver and at that point in time there is hate in your heart. You can try to intellectualize it, but if that individual were to appear to you, you would hurt that person. If you doubt me, then pay attention to reports of road rage in which seemingly normal people, people who have never had a history of violence, inflict great harm.

Later, as you’re venting to a friend you state, “He [the driver] made me so angry!”

Think about that: did the person driving the car make you angry? You had no choice? That person climbed inside your head and forced you to be angry, right?

::blank stare::

So you see, there’s a practical application to what I’m pointing at right now. We create our world.

That’s why all the great wisdom traditions emphasize that what we call “reality” is also a dream – a dream from which we have not yet awakened and therefore do not recognize. The aim of genuine psycho-spiritual practice is to help us recognize our dreams and illusions and to awaken from them.

Dreams teach that you have the power to create a world as you would prefer it – as you would see it. And because you perceive this creation as real – there is no doubt in your mind – you act accordingly. Yet here is a world, completely of your making, that seems to be outside of you. In the example of the inconsiderate driver, you have created a reality that is merely a belief. You have no way of knowing the person that cut you off, or why he or she cut you off in the first place. Yet, you behave as if you know all this. You don’t. You’re assuming a reality that has no basis in fact.

In fact, your sleeping and waking dreams are different only in form. One of the first miracles is to awaken to the fact that much of what we take for reality is but a construction of our minds. This is crucial in dealing with illusions (waking dreams). Think of your greatest fear: if you can correctly recognize it as an illusion, its grasp over you quickly loosens. No one is afraid of a mirage. We fear things because we don’t understand them. We don’t understand our fears as dreams. We “forget” that we created the fear in the first place. Is that not an illusion?

What happens is your dream of fear is changed into a dream of happiness. Forgiving dreams are kind to all who appear in the dream and so forgiveness brings full release from dreams of fear.

Forget that it is your mind that has power over all your fantasies and dreams, and you will live as a prisoner, at the whims of all the boogiemen your mind can create. I hear so many people hear talk about god, about how they want to know God, or how God talks to them, blah blah blah. However, I also see these very same people fall into the traps of fear, anger, and hate. What kind of shit is that?

If you want to know god, to have peace of mind, or to be in any way happy, you have to give up all dreams. For if you grasp onto the illusions of anger, fear, and hate then you’re not being spiritual at all. You’re buying into castles in the air, you’re lost I illusion and if you think that’s God talking to you, it just might mean you’ve totally lost contact with reality.

Go beyond the illusion of the waking dream because to awaken from your dreaming is to awaken from your fear.

Love,

Eddie

Mattress Flying...

¡Hola! Everybody,
Just thought I’d leave a little something from “The Committee” before heading out. Y’all have a great day, ya hear? LOL

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-=[ Sonnet from the Groin ]=-

[I came across the following poem the other day and I thought I’d share because I know for a fact many women here can identify. I mean, c’mon girls, BOB will take you only so far, he won’t pull your hair or try to slip up inside your rectum by accident (“oooops”) and you know you miss that shit! LMAO!]

Crazed with spring all I want to do is fuck, free
these thighs from their denim prison, let the rich
scent floating around my neck take a look see
into the under things of a man. (Which
man is a trivial spec.) Oh! To be flying
above a mattress, screaming not with hate
but with throaty mating only trying
for the peak and pinnacle of frolic. Fate
and I have made a bargain: to compel
the most virile to lay me down, discipline
the demon out of my body. Possible
friction, find me I’m not hiding, will become
an electric pink rubber band on command. Womb
you have nothing to do with this! Time to bloom.

-- Maggie Wells (1977 - )

The Friday Sex Blog [The Sense of Smell]

¡Hola! Everybody…
I wear cologne everyday. Recently, I’ve taken to wearing Hesperides by Fresh. Go to your nearest Sephora today and smell it while thinking of me and anal sex.

I favor citrus scents and my favorite for a while was Jo Malone’s Lime Basil & Mandarin. I also loved their Verbenas of Provence. The drawback with the Malone line (and as with all citrus-based scents) is that it doesn’t last. In fact, it doesn’t last at all. The Fresh line (I also use their Sugar Lychee) lasts only slightly longer, but I love fresh, subtle scents. Over the years, I have made several different scents my scent, and women always comment.

There’s a method to my madness… LOL

* * *

-=[ Sex & the Sense of Smell ]=-

“Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary, and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains.
-- Diane Ackerman

The best smell in the world is that man that you love.”-- Jennifer Aniston

I’ll never forget the time I received a panicked telephone call from a former lover. I hadn’t heard from her for years. In fact, I had heard she married and was out of the singles game. We had an affair totally based on sex and she was almost as much of a freak as I was. Anyway, when she calmed down enough to explain, I discovered the source of her anxiety. Apparently, her husband (who, she assured me, she loved, like, forever) went out and bought a cologne that was my signature scent. The scent (a Paco Rabbane) evoked images and memories of yours truly at the most inappropriate time and it freaked her out. Why she then called me is beyond my understanding, so… LOL! There’s more to this story, but that part will suffice for today.

The sense of smell is probably the oldest of our senses. It is the only sense directly connected to the brain. The reason why my ex-lover was thinking of me after so many years is because the sense of smell is highly involved in sexual function, pleasure, and irritation. It’s also closely related to memory. Scientists speak of the concept of “smell print” where memories are associated with certain smells. As with my anxious ex-lover (who feared she was having marital doubts), a certain scent will vividly cause a person to recall a memory associated with it. Smells are like fingerprints, highly individualized.

To illustrate further, the sense of smell is involved with the deeply embedded limbic brain – what neuroscientists call the “emotional brain” or what has been identified as the emotional center of the brain. The limbic brain and the sense of smell go hand in hand when it comes to sex. For me there is no greater smell than the scent of a freshly washed cunt. There’s no greater aphrodisiac, at least for me, than the intoxicating mixture of soap and musk of a freshly washed pussy. It literally makes me drool.

On the flip side, an artificially scented vagina is a huge turn-off. It communicates to me that the woman is not comfortable with her own scent. There’s a huge problem if I have to wade through the stink of something Proctor &Gamble produced to get at your pussy. According to recent research, the organ in the brain that is responsive to sexual-interest hormones is more than two times larger in men than women. According to other research, the smell of cooked cinnamon is a natural aphrodisiac for men.

Certain smells are associated with sexual interest in both men and women, but since the brain works through association and within a cultural context. In the U.S., we are obsessed by sterilization. We don’t take to smells well, as a society. We spend a tremendous amount of money and exert a lot of energy and time in masking natural smells, and sterilizing surfaces (those soaps, BTW, actually increase bacteria ladies). I still remember my post on hair and vaginas and how so many women fiercely defended the practice of shaving their pussy bald. The major reason? Hygiene!

::blank stare::

Whatever, I love a little hair on the pussy I’m eating – something to graze on while I’m down there. In addition, some women shouldn’t ever shave their pussy. If your pussy doesn’t resemble something virginal – something that has never been sucked or fucked -- then go ahead shave that ass, but ladies (!) some of you need to keep a little hair (cover dem labia!) on that baby! LOL At least a mustache or something. For me, the hair adds a little “spice” to the pussy, something I enjoy.

Since ancient times, there has been a search for the scent that elicited sexual desire. Many ancient societies believed perfumes were aphrodisiacs and some new research suggests they may have been right. The Romans and Egyptians used copious amounts of musk. The musk used was derived from the anal glands of the Ethiopian civet cat. Research suggests that the scent of musk closely resembles that of testosterone, the hormone responsible for enhancing the sex drive in both men and women.

Other studies have demonstrated the impact of floral and herbal essential oils on the nervous system. Sexual arousal and response is controlled by the two parts of the nervous system: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which is responsible for preparing us for physical action and emergencies *(the fight or flight system); and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which stimulates relaxation. For those who need to relax in order to get in the mood of sex, the PNS should be used, while those who need to be stimulated would do better by enhancing the SNS. According to the research, sandalwood, marjoram, lemon, chamomile, and bergamot stimulated the PNS. The SNS was stimulated by the scents of jasmine, ylang-ylang, rose, patchouli, peppermint, clove, and bois de rose.

I guess the take away from this is that sense is integral to the sexual experience and you should exploit this fact so as to make your sexing more pleasurable and meaningful. Go out and find the scents that are appealing to you. Scents (as with other aphrodisiacs) need to be tailored to individuals, not large groups. Experiment with different essential oils and use them in carrier oils to prepare massage oils (as a prelude to sex), for example.

I often smell my women as a way of committing them to memory. It’s almost a primal relic – something passed down by my hunter/ warrior ancestors. I do it in a way that they don’t notice, but it’s one of the first things I do when I meet a woman. What an individual smells like tells you a lot about that individual. I may not remember your birthday, but I will always remember what your ass smells like! LOL

Love,

Eddie

PS: Sex is good for you.

Is Marriage Dead?

¡Hola! Everybody…

* * *

-=[Is Marriage Obsolete/ Do Marriages Work? ]=-

The short answer to the question posed is yes, I feel marriage as an institution is obsolete and no, marriages, for the most part, don’t work!

One answer is an opinion; the latter answer is a fact.

I feel the structure of marriage as we know it is too restricting, too suffocating for it to work. It’s an institutional form of social control in which oppressive and limiting gender roles are reinforced and where spontaneity, creativity, and true love dies.

You doubt me? Well, check this out: roughly about half of all marriages end in divorce. But that’s not the whole story. Of the half that does stay married, seventy per cent report being in marriages they find unsatisfactory. Do the math, people: the vast majority of marriages are miserable failures. And please don’t trot out some pitiful old couple that’s been married since the Stone Age, because staying in a marriage does not necessarily equate to a happy or even successful, mutually respectful marriage. In fact, most of the long-termers I have spoken to have all admitted to much conflict and even infidelity in their marriages.

So, am I right? Is marriage done? Should we stick a fork in it? Am I ahead of the curve or just demented and heretical? Obviously, I think marriage as we know it should change to accommodate the world we live in. I may be wrong, but time will tell.

I will submit that marriage is in fact being reinvented by innovate and creative people as we speak. I will even go so far as to say that the few successful marriages are successful because people are adapting marriage to suit their need and no the other way around. The structure of family is changing. Relationships with former lovers are changing. Expectations are expanding in some cases, and narrowing in others. I believe this is a good thing. The concept of a traditional marriage as the only option is dead, an albatross around our collective necks, we should pull the plug on it and liberate ourselves of its stifling grasp.

But what of the marriages that do work you ask? Well, what about those marriages! I was reading a rather interesting survey study of 50 white, middle-class, and well-educated couples who had been married nine years or longer identified four types of good marriages (comprised of the romantic marriage, the rescue marriage, the companionate marriage, and the traditional marriage). Without exception, these couples mentioned the importance of liking and respecting each other and the pleasure and comfort they took in each other’s company.

Huh? ::blank stare::

What about the love, you ask?!!

Some spoke of the passionate love that initiated their relationship, but surprisingly enough, love grew in the rich soil of the marriage, nurtured by emotional and physical intimacy, and appreciation. Some spoke of feeling safe, or being cared for, and still others spoke of trust and friendship. Many spoke of the family they created together. Most importantly, all felt they were central to their partner’s lives and believed that creating the marriage and the family was the major commitment of their adult life.

These couples valued respect based on integrity. They held admiration for a partner’s honesty, compassion, decency, generosity, and loyalty.

Not the stuff of romantic movies, huh?

What I found most interesting about the study, however, was the identification of elements that make relationships work. Based on their study, these researchers offered a list of nine tasks that couples need to address, some of which I will list below:

Interestingly enough, the research authors state that the first task is to detach emotionally from the families of childhood, commit to the relationship, and build connections with the extended families. I think we’ve all seen marriages flounder when one of the partners stays too emotionally connected to their family of origin.

The second task is to build a relationship (“togetherness”) through intimacy and to expand the sense of self to include the other, while still maintaining some measure of autonomy. This is not an easy task. One can lose a sense of self to the point where it may seem oppressive. Still, this core identification provides the ground for genuine bonding. As one man put it, “In a good marriage, it can’t be Me-Me-Me, it’s gotta be Us-Us-Us.” Couldn’t put it better myself. These two tasks help launch the marriage.

The fourth task is to confront the inevitable challenges and unpredictability of the adversities of life, including illness, death, and catastrophe in ways that enhance the relationship despite suffering. Every crisis carries with it an element of danger as well as an element of opportunity. Managing stress is the key to having a marriage that is resilient and that can reinvent itself rather than becoming a shadow of itself.

The fifth task is to create a relationship in which the safe expression of difference, anger, and conflict – which are inevitable in any marriage – is encouraged and cultivated. All close relationships involve love and anger, connectedness and separation. The task is to find ways to resolve differences without manipulating each other, being violent, or giving away one’s heart’s desire. In the study, conflict ran high among several couples, but there was no evidence that conflict by itself wrecks a marriage.

The seventh task is to share laughter and humor and to keep the interest alive in the relationship. A good marriage can be both playful and serious, some flirtatious, sometimes difficult and cranky, but always full of life (My only promise? Never a dull moment! LOL).

The eighth task is to provide the emotional nurturance and encouragement that all adults need throughout their lives, especially in today’s isolating suburban communities and high-pressure workplaces.

There are more, but I just listed the ones I found most interesting. What I cam away with from this study is that marriages come in all shapes and sizes. Fortunately, we live at a time where the strict rules of traditional marriage can be altered by couples to suit their needs. No marriage provides for all the wishes and needs people bring to it. Although every good marriage provides many satisfactions, they also exact a different price. Additionally, different types of marriages (the study offers a typology of marriages: romantic, rescue, companionate, and traditional) require different supports from our society.

For my money, a good marriage is transformative. From my perspective, people enter adulthood not yet fully formed and marriage changes each individual tremendously. The very act of living together closely for an extended period brings about an inner change.

I believe that for marriage to survive, it must adopt to people’s needs in a postmodern world and not the other way around. I feel that having the flexibility to redefine intimacy, family structure, and gender roles as well as societal support needed to make marriages successful will help marriage succeed as an institution. And if it dies as a result of irrelevance, then so be it! LOL

Love,

Eddie

References

Wallerstein, J. S., & Blakeslee, S. (1996). The good marriage: How and why love lasts. New York: Grand Central Publishing.

The Nine “Psychological Tasks” for Marital Bliss

1. Separate emotionally from one’s childhood so as to invest fully in the marriage and, at the same time, to redefine the lines of connection with both families of origin.
2. Build togetherness based on mutual identification, shared intimacy and an expanded conscience that includes both partners, while at the same time setting boundaries to protect each partner's autonomy.
3. Establish a rich and pleasurable sexual relationship and to protect it from the incursions of the workplace and family obligations; it is the second part of this task which must not be overlooked or taken for granted.
4. (For couples with children) Embrace the daunting roles of parenthood and absorb the impact of Her Majesty the Baby's dramatic entrance into the marriage. At the same time the couple must continue the work of protecting their own privacy.
5. Confront and master the inevitable crises of life and maintain the strength of the marital bond in the face of adversity and create a safe haven within the marriage for the expression of difference, anger and conflict.
6. Use humor and laughter to keep things in perspective and to avoid boredom and isolation.
7. Provide nurturance and comfort to each other, satisfying each partner's need for dependency and offer continuing encouragement and support.
8. Keep alive the romantic, idealized images of falling in love, while facing the sober realities of the changes wrought by time.
9. Drawing sustenance and renewal from the images and fantasies of courtship and early marriage and maintaining that joyful glow over a lifetime.

Women, Viagra and Embarrassing Moments

¡Hola! Everybody…
This morning there’s an item on women and Viagra. The study, a small study, found a favorable correlation between Viagra and women on antidepressants.

Now, let’s deconstruct this for one moment. First, depression has been over medicated in my opinion. We do not know enough about the chemistry of the brain. The long-term effects of antidepressants are not known. And please, don’t mistake what I’m saying: if you’re taking antidepressants, don’t flush your ‘script down the toilet.

What I am saying is that because HMOs refuse to pay for adequate psychotherapy visits, there’s an over reliance on medication as a way to treat depression. Taking a pill alone is not an effective way to treat depression. This is not an opinion, it’s a fact supported by rigorous research. At best, antidepressants should be used as a short-term solution to help individuals severely debilitated by depression. Ideally, medication should be integrated with therapy. As it is, medical general practitioners, people who have very little expertise in psychology, write most scripts for antidepressants.

Because drug companies stand to make tons of money and because HMOs refuse to pay for adequate therapy sessions, depression has become over-medicated. If you don’t believe me, take note that currently there are over 6 million women suffering from depression. These categories of drugs have been prescribed to the extent that traces of anti-depressants are showing up in the water.

Let’s recap briefly:

1) We have a mood disorder (depression) that has been over-medicated.

2) The long-term effects of these drugs are for the most part unknown. One of the known side effects includes sexual dysfunction.

3) Millions of women are being given antidepressants.

Still with me?

Today, in the news there’s a widely reported “finding” of a very small study, funded by – you guessed it – a pharmaceutical company, showing that taking Viagra helps women on antidepressants. So, here's the issue: we now have a drug to counter another drug that probably shouldn’t even be prescribed in the first place.

::blank stare::

This is the “free market” at work people. The very same players who own the media monopoly are now selling you drugs from the pharmaceutical monopoly. In addition, they report it as “scientific.”

You should be worried.

* * *

-=[ Embarrassing Moments ]=-
“The one thing you can do is to do nothing. Wait…You will find that you survive humiliation and that’s an experience of incalculable value. -- Thomas Stearns Eliot

I don’t know why I’m posting this. Yesterday, while dining with some friends, the subject of embarrassing moments came up.

::sigh::

My life – I couldn’t write this shit… two moments come up for me. One is a little tragic; the other is somewhat funny (if you weren’t me).

I grew up in some rough neighborhoods with some great characters. One friend, who had just gotten out of prison, was staying with me. He didn’t have anywhere to go and he was a close friend, so I agreed he could come stay with me while he got situated.

One day, when I cam home from work, he came in with a pillowcase full of jewelry. I mean there was a pillowcase and it was literally filled with high quality jewelry. I noticed there was a piece with the Jewish “La Chaim” symbol on it. I explained its significance to my friend who couldn’t care less. He gave it to me, actually let me have my pick of a few pieces as gratitude form my generosity. I knew it was stolen goods, but my ethics weren’t all that great as a young man.

So, the next day I wore the La Chaim piece to work and the girls were all admiring it. At that time, I couldn’t tell the truth if you paid me. So when they asked where I got the piece, I said it was from my “new girlfriend.” This was a good move on my part because it made one of the girls I had my eye on jealous.

Then there was this homely girl no one liked. She asked to see the piece and when she turned the medallion over she began screaming.

I mean she began screaming – like horror picture-Friday-the-13^th-you’re-killing-me screaming. This was in an office. Everybody stopped. Everything stopped.

She took a breath and then yelled out for everyone to hear, “This is my chain! This is my jewelry!” and she began screaming again.

Not knowing what to do, I affected an annoyed tone and calmly replied, “You must be mistaken, sweetie. This chain was a gift from my girlfriend.” I looked at her as if she were a leper and asked her to let go of my chain.

She wouldn’t let go and when she turned the medallion over, she showed where her now deceased mother left her an inscription with her name on it.

There are over 8 million people in The City people. That had to be the most embarrassing moment in my life up to that point…

But there’s another, more humiliating experience.

I was dated a court reporter for several years. We were together for a while. I was in love with her ass. She had the most exquisitely shaped ass ever. She was also 5’11” tall in her bare feet. She had the longest, most beautiful legs. I stand at 5’7”. I was in love with her lower half. She was also very politically conservative. She claimed to be a virgin and would not allow vaginal intercourse. She would fellate me and eventually I convinced her that anal sex was a good resolution to our sexual haggling, but I couldn’t enter the va-jayjay (eventually I would).

Anyway, we would have these huge arguments over political and religious matters. One day, right before we broke up, she told me that I would never amount to anything. She said I was the most brilliant man she ever met (and the only reason she put up with me), but like most brilliant people, I assumed the rules didn’t apply to me.

My response was to tell her to go fuck herself and how being sexually repressed didn’t give her the right to pass judgment on me.

Fast forward to about 10 years. I am standing in a November drizzle shackled in front of the Manhattan courts. I have just gotten off the bus from Riker’s Island where I was incarcerated while fighting a criminal case. It’s the day I’m going to be sentenced. Obviously, I’m not looking forward to this day. People, “regular” people walking to work are staring at me and the group of men like me who are shackled hand and foot. Wall Street, Chinatown, and the courts, are all within walking distance of each other here, and there are tons of people walking by. It’s humiliating. And I’m thinking to myself that I hope I don’t see anyone I know. And who do I see walking down the street? Yes, my ex, the repressed wanna-be virgin of the conservative mind-set.

I try to make myself invisible. I stare at me feet and slump my shoulders. She walks right by me and I’m relieved.

She didn’t see me, I think to myself.

“Eddie?” She stops, starts walking toward me and she says again, “Eddie?”

“Eddie?!!”

I look up and we make eye contact and there’s panic in her eyes, she’s concerned. She tries to run up to me only to be stopped by a corrections guard who tells her to stand back. My fellow inmates are by now commenting on the “fine bitch” trying to talk to me and she's walking alongside me asking me questions I can’t answer. All I can do is shrug.

Later, as part of a plea bargain, I allocate to my crime. Not only am I being sentenced, I have to stand up in a court of law and verbally admit to everything I have accused of…

That was a dark day.

Love,

Eddie

Giant Spiders, Awareness, and The Healing Mind

¡Hola! Everybody…
Geeez! You realize you can’t get into a night showing of the new Batman movie? I think part of the reason is that people have a morbid curiosity about death and are flocking to theaters so they can comment on Ledger’s performance. I’ll probably check it out today…

* * *

-=[ The Healing Mind ]=-

“We attend in silence and in joy.
This is the day when healing comes to us.
This is the day when separation ends,
and we remember Who we really are.”
-- A Course in Miracles

Today’s post is inspired somewhat by yesterday’s and the comments it elicited. Before I jump into this, I would like to point out that while doing “the work” is important, it’s counter productive to get too obsessive around “self improvement.”

Sometimes you have to settle back into the saddle and loosen the grasp on the reins, people.

My belief is that awareness, or awakening, is synonymous with healing. By awareness I do not mean mental masturbation. When I speak of awareness, I am attempting to highlight the very human ability for self-awareness. This type of pure awareness is devoid of judgment. This type of awareness will see tits as tits, without attaching the labels “perky” or “saggy” to the reality.

On the one hand, you have the tits, on the other awareness. They rub up against one another and you have awareness of tits. Not saggy, or nice, or bad tits (mental masturbation). They’re just tits.

This is the path to true freedom and healing. As you cultivate this form of awareness you begin shed to the excess baggage. As your awareness grows, so does your health.

Suffering is optional, ladies and gentlemen.

Let me share a teaching story that had a profound influence on me. It’s a Zen story that opened up for me a path of investigation into the roots of suffering and sanity.

Many years ago, a young monk in a monastery was struggling with his meditation practice. Every time he sat down to meditate a giant spider would materialize, threatening to kill him. After much anxiety and loss of sleep, he decided he would slay the creature.

He took a big knife and headed toward the meditation hall. His teacher saw him and asked what he intended to do. The young man explained his situation. The master listened attentively and recommended a different strategy to the monk. He advised to first get his calligraphy brush and carefully paint a cross on the spider’s belly, then plunge the knife into the intersection of the cross the next day.

The monk entered the meditation hall with his brush and ink. Sure enough, the spider appeared and he carefully painted its belly in the advised manner. Feeling quite satisfied, he bowed and left the meditation hall – only to discover he had painted a huge X on the front of his robes.

His laughter, it is told, was heard everywhere.

The young monk had placed the monster outside of himself. To others the monster could just as well appear within.

The whole point of the practice of cultivating awareness is to notice the mind’s tendency to create love and hate (i.e., “bad skin,” “saggy tits”), birth and death, sickness and sanity, and yes, even monsters and magic. Your mind is conditioned by culture and society to play hide and seek with itself, a game of selective amnesia as we swim through an ocean of mental, emotional, and physical activities – whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. These obsessions drive us into patterns of greater or lesser suffering and illness that are difficult to escape. Truly, we are busy entertaining ourselves to death.

Genuine healing transcends the borders of your body. It happens when we tap into our inner resources rather than looking for the quick fix. This is the reason why diet fads don’t work. Not one diet fad has been proven effective yet we spend literally billions on such diets. They don’t work because they fail to make the inner connection with that part of ourselves that is already healed. If you hate your body, if you hate your imperfections, that hatred will keep you glued to your suffering.

Guaranteed.

However, if you can retrain your mind to accept the ebb and flow of the constant changing conditions of life, we can connect to the most profound form of healing.

In quieting the mind, you can better grasp the essential nature of reality, which is change and impermanence. Everything changes, nothing stays the same. This is a fact. If you’re basing your happiness on this constant ebb and flow then you’re doomed to a life of misery. If you’re grasping then you will be disappointed time and again. If you’re basing your happiness on people, places, or things, you will be miserable. Fact is that there’s no Santa Claus, that you will get old, you will sag, and the you will die.

That’s a fact.

Through awareness we can begin to become willing to accept our own suffering and pain. We discover that surrender, a consequence of acceptance, is our only true path through sickness toward health. Surrender is the only way to sanity.

As you learn to accept all aspects of life, we awaken to the totality of our real selves. Disease and insanity come from a mind that is disconnected, that is filled with confusion and despair.

To be “healed” – to become willing – means to restore yourself to a place in which the mind is at peace.

Love,

Eddie