Sunday Sermon [Stopping the War]

Hola mi gente,
First, I want to give a big shout and loud ¡WEPA! to fellow Puerto Rican and tennis slayer, MonicaPuig, for winning our beloved (and besieged) Island its first Olympic gold medal. If you’re wondering why Puerto Rico has its own team, consider that Puerto Rico is a colony (not “commonwealth” or “freely associated state”) of the United States. Basically, Puerto Rico has its own Olympic team because the International Olympic Committee has recognized the island's National Olympic Committee. The Olympic Charter explains that “the expression 'country' means an independent State recognized by the international community,” and the IOC recognized Puerto Rico as such an entity in 1948. And I’ll add that if you are ignorant of Puerto Rico and its history, there’s a (not so noble) reason for that.

On another, wholly unrelated, point, we unearth the following gem from our Only in New York files:

Most NYC subway riders are pretty nonchalant when panhandlers hit them up for cash between stations. Man, sometimes it’s like a show where contestant after contestant makes a plea for money. Some are weird, some are hilarious, many are bothersome, and some are tragic. Like the pregnant woman I saw the other day who pleaded, “I’m hungry and I have no place to go. Please, please, pleeeease help me!” And she was high.

So, when I was riding the train and I hear a panhandler announce he was collecting funds to build a time machine, I, along with some of my fellow riders, laughed. But then at the next stop a man who looked just like the first man, boarded the train and announced he was the inventor’s future self. He implored us not to give any money because “time travel will ruin everything.” Hilarious! Here’s a video:

And speaking of subways… 

Stopping the War

You can’t win a war anymore than you can win an earthquake.
 -- Jeanette Rankin

It’s been brutally hot here in the Center of the Known universe. The heat index outside yesterday felt like 115 degrees! The temperature in the bowels of New York -- the subway -- is probably more than 10 to 15 degrees hotter. So imagine that? Imagine then, that you board a train and its air conditioning is not working. Such was the situation for me this past Friday as I boarded the downtown no. 6 train. Needless to say, life in the Big City can be very challenging and stressful.

No sooner that I enter the subway when a man pushes up behind me and practically tramples me. Not only that, he’s yelling in my ear for those he’s with to “Come on! Here!” Then he pushes me again as three women, two with baby carriages, pile on into the car. To make matters worse, the women with the baby carriages decide to congregate by the doors and that adds to the increasing tension in my body. I see this as inconsiderate and unruly -- “ghetto.” Needless to say, I’m becoming pissed, so I turn around and this guy and I lock eyes. I see that he’s preparing himself for me to get confrontational, to say something, perhaps yell at him, “What the fuck is wrong with you,” or something like that. His eyes are wide in anticipation and he’s getting ready to respond with perhaps a “Fuck you, motherfucker,” or some such New Yorkism. 

And that’s exactly what I was going to do. I’ve had a really bad week. Yesterday I was informed that I would be suspended without pay from my job and will most likely be fired, I still need to find a place to stay as my welcome at my sister’s has (rightfully) worn out and it’s hot and… well, you get my drift -- the shit has gotten hectic. So yeah, I was ready to get into it, let him have a piece of my mind and I didn’t really give a fuck about the possible consequences. But something strange happens when I lock eyes with this man. I become conscious of the tension and contraction in my body and make an effort to relax and breathe, and instead of yelling at him, I say:

 - “Disculpame” (excuse me).

At that point, taken completely by surprise, the guy checks himself and after a pause he says:

 - “Naw man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push you.”

I say:

 - “It’s Okay brother, no problem.”

We look at each other and nod our heads.

This gives me the time to assess his situation. He’s with several women, two of which have strollers with kids wailing in the heat, and there at least three other children in tow. He looks exasperated, having to guide the whole contingent while trying to maintain his own sanity in this sweltering heat. I take all this in and I get a different picture of this fellow human being. He’s going through his own tribulations and perhaps he’s not just an asshole -- he’s having a difficult moment. Perhaps he’s at the end of tether. As I take in this insight, I feel gratitude for not escalating the situation. I probably will never see this man again, but for the short moment we made contact, we were able to create serenity instead of insanity. The reverberations of our interaction were skillful.

The next stop is mine and the guy looks at me and asks:

“Is this your stop?”

I nod my head yes and he starts barking comically at his contingent to get out of the way and make room for me. As I step off we nod at each other again, perhaps in recognition of what just happened. 

And just like that we create the world we want to live in. Sure, I was in the right. He was being inconsiderate (in my estimation) for stepping on me and pushing me. But what good is being right if I use that to create self-righteous indignation? What do I win? What good is right if it leads to so much wrong? Sometimes we have to let go. Sometimes we have to choose to stop the war -- this interminable argument with life.

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...

Monday Madness [Psycho Magnet]

Hola Everybody,
I’m feeling a little better, though I still have some congestion in my chest. Time to get back to the plantation, my friends. Have a great week.

The Psycho Magnet Chronicles

Never sleep with anyone crazier than you my son.
 -- Father

When my father offered the above advice I was initially overjoyed. After all, there aren’t too many people crazier than yours truly, I thought. I was wrong. Really, I was dead wrong. I’m only half joking when I kid around that I’m a certified psycho magnet. I seem to attract the crazies in a way that makes me doubt my own tenuous grasp of sanity. 

I’ve had a really great collection of psychos in my life. There was the spoiled rich trust fund baby who wanted me to cut her during sex and who was genuinely proud of the fact that she managed to total three cars in the six-month period we were together.

I had another who actually paid someone to kill me. Or at least hurt me really bad. The problem with her plan was that her hired “killer” was no killer. Besides, everyone thought I was connected with what was rumored to be some cartel. I caught him peering into my bedroom window one night and managed to sneak up behind him. We got high with the money she paid him.

I believe a large part of this phenomenon had to do with the fact that at one time I wasn’t very selective about whom I went to bed with. I mean, at the time my attitude was, like, who cares? If she’s gotta a nice ass and the chemistry was there, I’d hold off on that sanity issue when we got to it, right? Another part of it is that I’m very accepting of people. I tend to see past the quirks (such as cutting behavior, suicidal tendencies, and boundary issues, for example) and see the natural radiance of people. Finally, I think people who have “issues” gravitate to my ability to empathize at a deep level. I can’t help it, it’s what I do and empathy is for zanies what blood is for vampires -- it’s irresistible.

A more recent psycho episode occurred with a lovely lady who was my tailor. When I was in a committed relationship, my significant other would tease me anytime we went to her because this woman had the most glorious beautiful ass derriere, and my ex knew how much I appreciated a well-rounded ass. She was Russian and a natural blonde. Her face was a bit too blunt, but was pretty in a peasant-girl kinda way, and she had great cheekbones.

My ex would tell me that she liked me, but I never paid it any mind, thinking it was her way of teasing me. Once I was no longer in the relationship, my tailor noticed ex was no longer in tow and, short story short, we began seeing each other. At first, it was fantastic. She was, like, eager and quick to me make me feel good. And the sex was out of this world.

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Well, you know the deal. At first, she became very clingy, especially as our sexing became more intense. Clingy is a particularly unattractive character trait. I mean, it can be cute up to a point, but normally, clingy tends to repel people. I know, I can be a little clingy myself, but I tend to keep it in check. The clingier she became, the more I distanced myself. The more I distanced myself, the more her clinginess turned to anger. The angrier she became, the uglier the situation became. She transformed from this beautiful dream woman into a shrew, calling me all kinds of names, questioning my manhood and sexual prowess, and then immediately calling me on the phone asking to forgive her. Typical abusive behavior pattern.

Eventually the anger turned into full-blown psychosis. I was getting harassing calls at my job, at home, and she was turning up in person unannounced at all the wrong times. When I wouldn’t answer her calls, she would leave really ugly messages, like, “Who are you fuckin' in the ass now, you fuckin' faggot.” Shit like that. A concerned friend feared for my health.

Finally, I was coming home one day at 5am with a close woman friend. Now mind you, this friend is married to a friend and our relationship is purely platonic. I have known her for decades and she’s one of my closest, trusted friends. Anyway, she had driven me home after a night of hanging out and she wanted to use my bathroom before she headed home, a good hour’s drive from my place.

Well, you know who was waiting in the lobby of my building, right? At fuckin' 5am in the morning! She started a huge stink, insulting my friend and becoming so unhinged, to the point that my normally peaceful friend wanted to kick her ass. Of course, none of that happened and I ended up calling the police. My friend still teases me about that night, by the way.

She left me alone after that, except for the occasional phone call, and I went on with my life. Then one day without thinking, I answered my cellphone and it was her. I still remember the barely contained psycho edge to the tone of her voice as she let me know how she had found a real man and not “faggot” like me, and all the while I’m mouthing the words, “Thank You!” I refrained from saying anything lest I encouraged her to rethink her romance and then she hung up. Whew!

There are more, too many to enumerate here, but I’m happy to say I’ve become more discriminating in my romantic choices. And then again, who knows, perhaps I'm someone else's psycho story?  LMAOOO!

Any other stories for the “Psycho Magnet Chronicles”?

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Monday Myth Busters [Madness and Creativity]

Hola mi Gente,

I used to hold Mondays for dispelling commonly held beliefs. I’ve stopped that for some time, but here’s one that has always bothered me.

* * *

Creativity & Madness

No great genius is without a tinge of madness.

-- Aristotle (384–322 BC)

Since the time of Aristotle (and most likely before), the assumption has been that the truly creative, particularly those in the arts, are a little “touched” or crazy. And it seems this assumption would not be hard to document. After all, the list of artistic kooks stretches as far back as known history and there are enough contemporary artists to support the idea that insanity and creativity are intimately connected.

But my blog isn’t called unCommon Sense for nothing and part of what I do is question “conventional wisdom.” To wit: Just how true is this assumption?

Well, several researchers have looked at groups of creative individuals to see how many were suffering serious emotional problems. The results were eye opening. In one study of 47 artists and writers, psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison (who suffers from bipolar) found that 18 (38 percent) had been treated for a mood disorder at one time or another. Half of the poets she interviewed had been hospitalized or received medication for such a problem.

Another study by psychiatrist Nancy Andreasen monitored faculty members of the renowned University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop. In 1987, she found that twenty-four of the thirty creative writers had at some time been diagnosed with a mood disorder -- nearly three times the rate of a matched group of professionals in other fields. In addition, Andreasen found that the writers’ parents and siblings were similarly much more likely than the general population to have had a psychological disorder as well as to have reached a high level of creative achievement.

It would be so easy to spin various theories from the results of these studies. Manic states can heighten the senses, accelerate the creative process, or flow of ideas, are some examples. Jamison explains, “Such people have a higher energy level. They think faster.” Another possible explanation is that it is conceivable that both elation and depression provide good material for creative work -- a road often not taken leading to experiences as yet explored. Then there are those enamored of biological explanations who assume (even in the absence of any convincing evidence) that it’s all genetic.

However, is mental illness really necessary for art or even more useful than mental health? Andreasen stressed that psychological disorders in themselves do not lead to higher levels of creativity. It’s not so much that mental illness makes people more creative. Rather, it’s more likely that they have a fundamental cognitive style that makes them more creative and also makes them more susceptible to mental illness. That cognitive style could be described as an unusual openness, sensitivity, or intensity. What we can say is that creative people often have what some psychologists call “thin boundaries”: a tendency toward being sensitive, vulnerable to stress, loss, and rejection -- all of which are known as precipitants of mental illness.

Creativity and mood disorders are indirectly related, with each being connected to a third factor, and because of this, virtually all researchers deny any real connection between madness and art. In other words, the great majority of creative people are not psychotic and the great majority of psychotic people are not creative. If you go to a psychiatric hospital, you won’t find eccentric, creative people. Rather, you are more likely to find apathetic, sick people.

On the contrary, when given personality tests creative thinkers score high on what is called “ego strength.” Ego strength can be defined as persistence; a sense of reality in the midst of confusion, the ability to function after having been tossed around. According to researchers, creative people are rather well organized, well-put together people who happen to be vulnerable to mood disorders. In fact, contrary to the popular notion, creative people seem to do their best work during their healthy periods. They don’t do well when their moods are at the extreme end. For one, they’re too disorganized when they are high and too despairing when they are low.

I will go further and say that the seeming eccentricity of creative people have led them to being misdiagnosed as bi-polar. Western psychology is biased in the sense that it is overly preoccupied with pathology. Mood swings don’t always imply mental illness. In addition, there is the question of defining mental illness and its relationship to power and norms. In Madness and Civilization, Foucault explored how “madness” could be constituted as an object of knowledge on the one hand, and, on the other, as the target of intervention for a specific type of power: the disciplinary institution of the asylum. Artists and original thinkers are often iconoclasts whose pursuit of their ideas takes them away from the mainstream. It is possible that being a creator, especially in a society that punishes those who do not conform and does not value the creative process, can cause, or worsen, the illusion of psychological difficulties.

So, yeah, it does not follow that madness and creativity are all that connected...

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The TGIF Sex Blog [Psycho Magnet]

¡Hola! Everybody...
My back is still painful. I am headed to the doctors right now, in fact. Sitting puts pressure on my lower back, pressure I don’t need, so my writing output is down to zero. I am looking forward to a long weekend of rest and decorating.

* * *

-=[ The Psycho Magnet Chronicles ]=-

Never sleep with anyone crazier than you my son.

-- Father

When my father offered the above advice I was initially overjoyed. After all, there aren’t too many people crazier than yours truly, I thought. I was wrong. Really, I was dead wrong.

I’m only half joking when I kid around that I’m a certified psycho magnet. I seem to attract the crazies in a way that makes me doubt my own tenuous grasp of sanity. I have even written poem for the psychos of my past…

A case of Bacardi for the crazy ladies
in the corner of my past,
the hectic, horny days
of yesterday!

They beckon me back
to my forgotten madnesses
those chest-pounding blackouts
that have grown into story-time delights...

Well, “forgotten madnesses” is poetic license. I’ve had a really great collection of psychos in my life. There was the spoiled rich girl who wanted me to cut her during sex and who was genuinely proud of the fact that she managed to total three cars in the six-month period we were together.

I had another who actually paid someone to kill me. Or at least hurt me really bad. The problem with her plan was that her hired “killer” was no killer. Besides, everyone thought I was connected with what was rumored to be a Colombian cartel. I caught him peering into my bedroom window one night and managed to sneak up behind him! We got high with the money she paid him.

I believe a large part of this phenomenon had to do with the fact that at one time I wasn’t very selective about who I went to bed with. I mean, who cares? If she’s gotta a nice ass and the “chemistry” is there, we’ll cross that insanity issue when we get to it, right? Another part of it is that I’m very accepting of people. I tend to see past the “quirks” (such as cutting behavior, suicidal tendencies, and boundary issues, for example) and see the natural radiance of people. Finally, I think people who have “issues” gravitate to my ability to listen at a deep level. I can’t help it, it’s what I do and empathy is for zanies what blood is for vampires -- it’s irresistible.

A more recent psycho “episode” occurred with a lovely lady who was my tailor. When I was married, my wife would tease me anytime we went to her because this woman had the most glorious obscenely beautiful ass, and my ex knows how much I appreciate a well-rounded ass. She was Russian and a natural blonde. Her face was a bit too blunt, but was pretty in a peasant-girl kinda way and she had great cheekbones.

My wife would tell me that she liked me, but I never paid it any mind, thinking it was jealousy on my wife’s part. Once I was divorced, my tailor noticed the wifey was no longer in tow and, short story short, we began seeing each other. At first, it was fantastic. She was like a tigress in bed, eager and quick to satisfy all my desires. When she finally propped that delicious-looking ass up in the air and begged me to ream her I was in heaven! I was soooo happy!

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Well, you know the deal. At first, she became very clingy, especially after our first anal session. Clingy is a particularly unattractive character trait. I mean, it can be cute up to a point, but normally, clingy tends to repel people. I know, I can be a little clingy myself, but I tend to keep it in check. The clingier she became, the more I distanced myself. The more I distanced myself, the more her clinginess turned to anger. The angrier she became, the uglier the situation became. She transformed from this beautiful sex kitten into a shrew, calling me all kinds of names, questioning my manhood and sexual prowess, and then calling me on the phone asking to forgive her. Typical abusive behavior pattern.

Eventually the anger turned into full-blown psychosis. I was getting harassing calls at my job, at home, and she was turning up in person unannounced at all the wrong times. When I wouldn’t answer her calls, she would leave really ugly messages, like, “Who are you fuckin' in the ass now, you fuckin' faggot.” LOL! Shit like that. A concerned friend feared for my health.

Finally, I was coming home one day at 5am with a close woman friend. Now mind you, this friend is married to a friend and our relationship is purely platonic. I know her for about sixteen years and she’s one of my closest, trusted friends. Anyway, she had driven me home after a night of hanging out and she wanted to use my bathroom before she headed home, a good hour’s drive from my place.

Well, you know who was waiting in the lobby of my building, right? At fuckin' 5am in the morning! She started a huge stink, insulting my friend and becoming unhinged, to the point that my friend wanted to kick her ass. Of course, none of that happened and I ended up calling the police. My friend still teases me about that night.

She left me alone after that, except for the occasional phone call and I went on with my life. Then one day without thinking, I answered my cellphone and it was her. I still remember the barely contained psycho edge to the tone of her voice as she let me know how she had found a real man and not faggot like me, and I’m mouthing the words, “Thank You!!!” I refrained from saying anything lest I encouraged her to rethink her romance and then she hung up.

Whew!

Any other stories for the “Psycho Magnet Chronicles”? LMAOOO!

Love,

Eddie

PS: Sex is good for you!