Another Dreamer

Friendship over love

Falling in love is beautiful.  But so is getting drunk.  Falling in love is giving in.  Some men can fall in love, in one second, with a woman he passes on the street.  He may even find a way to make her fall in love with him.  So what?

Love conquers, but then what?  Love is tearful and tragic.  It is selfish in the sense of conquest. It is possesive in the sense that we talk about "having" somebody.  It is as ugly as greed.  Love without friendship leaves only pain and agony.  Love alone simply doesn't work.  It has no real value.

It is necessary to think of friendship as something higher than love.  It is not a second prize, it is the only prize.  Even in marriage...everyone loves who they marry...but what misery a couple experiences if they don't explore and develop friendship.  How cold and calculative the arguments.  How selfish the decisions.  How insensitive the words.  How boring and basic the sex without the playfulness of friendship.  How ugly!

Love is not the goal...it is the given.  It is the effortless part.  Laughter is the goal.  Growth.  Support.  Help.  Sensitivity.  Selflessness.  Forgiveness.  Caring.  Curiosity.  Hope. Friendship.

And how interesting that, while romance and sex can easily flow from a beautiful friendship, pain does not.

Friendship over love

Falling in love is beautiful.  But so is getting drunk.  Falling in love is giving in.  Some men can fall in love, in one second, with a woman he passes on the street.  He may even find a way to make her fall in love with him.  So what?

Love conquers, but then what?  Love is tearful and tragic.  It is selfish in the sense of conquest. It is possesive in the sense that we talk about "having" somebody.  It is as ugly as greed.  Love without friendship leaves only pain and agony.  Love alone simply doesn't work.  It has no real value.

It is necessary to think of friendship as something higher than love.  It is not a second prize, it is the only prize.  Even in marriage...everyone loves who they marry...but what misery a couple experiences if they don't explore and develop friendship.  How cold and calculative the arguments.  How selfish the decisions.  How insensitive the words.  How boring and basic the sex without the playfulness of friendship.  How ugly!

Love is not the goal...it is the given.  It is the effortless part.  Laughter is the goal.  Growth.  Support.  Help.  Sensitivity.  Selflessness.  Forgiveness.  Caring.  Curiosity.  Hope. Friendship.

And how interesting that, while romance and sex can easily flow from a beautiful friendship, pain does not.

What is it that we hate about being alone?

In all these years, I've never written about being alone.  I've never really been alone, in that I've had a soulmate who always has shared my dreams and my reality.  What is different now is that she travels often on business, and so the feeling of loneliness is becoming a familiar one.

I have generally liked my own company, but these days perhaps not as much.  I am no longer smug in my self-assurance that I am perfect.  Perhaps I need someone there to look at me in the way I want to be able to look at myself. 

I don't want to need anything, but I do.  I need to feel as though the entire world isn't moving while I am still, alone, and forgotten about.  I know that I'm not forgotten about, and perhaps my appetite is simply too large.  But I am the type who tortures himself with thoughts...who understands himself enough to know exactly where his weaknesses and imperfections lie.  When I am alone, these things stab at me from within.

Yet the idea of opposites is very real...these moments of loneliness only make moments of coexistance sweeter and fuller.

What is it that we hate about being alone?

In all these years, I've never written about being alone.  I've never really been alone, in that I've had a soulmate who always has shared my dreams and my reality.  What is different now is that she travels often on business, and so the feeling of loneliness is becoming a familiar one.

I have generally liked my own company, but these days perhaps not as much.  I am no longer smug in my self-assurance that I am perfect.  Perhaps I need someone there to look at me in the way I want to be able to look at myself. 

I don't want to need anything, but I do.  I need to feel as though the entire world isn't moving while I am still, alone, and forgotten about.  I know that I'm not forgotten about, and perhaps my appetite is simply too large.  But I am the type who tortures himself with thoughts...who understands himself enough to know exactly where his weaknesses and imperfections lie.  When I am alone, these things stab at me from within.

Yet the idea of opposites is very real...these moments of loneliness only make moments of coexistance sweeter and fuller.

On betrayal

At this moment, how many people around the world stand on the verge of a fundamental betrayal of nature and their own humanity?  We were born into this world for a single, simple purpose: to be the unique genetic mutation that we are.  To respect nature itself is to be what we are and to allow others to be the sometimes strange yet overwhelmingly beautiful mutation that they are.

We all know this to be true at the deepest levels of our souls.  Without a doubt, we all feel it.  Nature as put this instinct in us.  To hide who we are or to conform is painful.  To force others to do the same is the same.  Every time any of us unquestionably obeys authority out of fear, when we look at others with envy and try to imitate, when we talk sports because everyone else is, when we augment our bodies with surgery, when we starve ourselves to look like models in magazines, when we take corporate drugs to make us seem normal, when our tax dollars are used to overthrow a democratically elected government and destroy the hope of a people, when we put someone in prison for choosing to enjoy marijuana...we are acting in betrayal of nature and we are selling our souls to the cancer that is the corporate-controlled system of oppression which is destroying the world.

Fuck it.  Be who you are and let others do the same.

On betrayal

At this moment, how many people around the world stand on the verge of a fundamental betrayal of nature and their own humanity?  We were born into this world for a single, simple purpose: to be the unique genetic mutation that we are.  To respect nature itself is to be what we are and to allow others to be the sometimes strange yet overwhelmingly beautiful mutation that they are.

We all know this to be true at the deepest levels of our souls.  Without a doubt, we all feel it.  Nature as put this instinct in us.  To hide who we are or to conform is painful.  To force others to do the same is the same.  Every time any of us unquestionably obeys authority out of fear, when we look at others with envy and try to imitate, when we talk sports because everyone else is, when we augment our bodies with surgery, when we starve ourselves to look like models in magazines, when we take corporate drugs to make us seem normal, when our tax dollars are used to overthrow a democratically elected government and destroy the hope of a people, when we put someone in prison for choosing to enjoy marijuana...we are acting in betrayal of nature and we are selling our souls to the cancer that is the corporate-controlled system of oppression which is destroying the world.

Fuck it.  Be who you are and let others do the same.

A life choice: passivity or interactivity

There are two kinds of sports fans: the spectator and the athelete. Similarly, two opposing conceptions of life have emerged in modern societies around the world: the choice between life as passive consumption or active participation.

The difference between these two lifestyles depends upon how we approach our information / entertainment consumption, as well as how we conceive our social life.  It is a choice between being passive or interactive. 

Within the backdrop of the consumerist society of shopping malls and advertisements, the passive consumer mentality was largely brought about by technologies created soon after the industrial revolution: Radio, Film, TV, etc.  The passive consumer was awed by entertainment content, and was made to feel small by the media's portrayal of other people's lives.  What was sold as "big" and "important" by Hollywood was desired and coveted, and the consumer began to feel as though his or her real life was boring and inconsequential.  Lives became full of imitation rather than invention.  Real friendships were replaced with characters in sitcoms.  Real-life romances were replaced with soap operas.  It was considered enough to sit back and be entertained for hours without thinking or without even moving, much like a heroin addict on a trip.

But today, while barely visible to the consumer culture machine, massive numbers of people around the world are sharing an entirely new conception of life: active participation.  The driving force behind this movement, of course, is the best tool human beings have ever had for interacting: the Internet.

We see ourselves as characters in our own films.  We are bored with most films and everything on TV...for the simple reason that our own lives have become more interesting! 

We don't see ourselves as subjects to some pre-defined system.  We don't follow all the rules.  We don't succumb to the pressure imposed on us by mass media and all those who are addicted to it.  We don't like doing anything passively.  We feel that time alone, spent in isolation, is time wasted.

We do see beauty all around us.  We do take risks and even make mistakes.  We learn from our mistakes.  We ask questions.  We don't regret.  We meet people.  We love freely even at the risk of a broken heart.  We write.  We play.  We dance.  We love music.  We talk all night.  We touch.  We value relationships more than anything else.  We are connected.   We don't respect boundaries.  The only authority we listen to is our inner voice.  We are bruised.  We are experienced.  We have character.  Even the youngest amoung us possess a life wisdom that transcends even the aged passive consumer. 

We are bored to tears with the people in our lives who conform to the passive consumption model.   They sit back and wonder what it would be like to live life fully.  We know.   

A life choice: passivity or interactivity

There are two kinds of sports fans: the spectator and the athelete. Similarly, two opposing conceptions of life have emerged in modern societies around the world: the choice between life as passive consumption or active participation.

The difference between these two lifestyles depends upon how we approach our information / entertainment consumption, as well as how we conceive our social life.  It is a choice between being passive or interactive. 

Within the backdrop of the consumerist society of shopping malls and advertisements, the passive consumer mentality was largely brought about by technologies created soon after the industrial revolution: Radio, Film, TV, etc.  The passive consumer was awed by entertainment content, and was made to feel small by the media's portrayal of other people's lives.  What was sold as "big" and "important" by Hollywood was desired and coveted, and the consumer began to feel as though his or her real life was boring and inconsequential.  Lives became full of imitation rather than invention.  Real friendships were replaced with characters in sitcoms.  Real-life romances were replaced with soap operas.  It was considered enough to sit back and be entertained for hours without thinking or without even moving, much like a heroin addict on a trip.

But today, while barely visible to the consumer culture machine, massive numbers of people around the world are sharing an entirely new conception of life: active participation.  The driving force behind this movement, of course, is the best tool human beings have ever had for interacting: the Internet.

We see ourselves as characters in our own films.  We are bored with most films and everything on TV...for the simple reason that our own lives have become more interesting! 

We don't see ourselves as subjects to some pre-defined system.  We don't follow all the rules.  We don't succumb to the pressure imposed on us by mass media and all those who are addicted to it.  We don't like doing anything passively.  We feel that time alone, spent in isolation, is time wasted.

We do see beauty all around us.  We do take risks and even make mistakes.  We learn from our mistakes.  We ask questions.  We don't regret.  We meet people.  We love freely even at the risk of a broken heart.  We write.  We play.  We dance.  We love music.  We talk all night.  We touch.  We value relationships more than anything else.  We are connected.   We don't respect boundaries.  The only authority we listen to is our inner voice.  We are bruised.  We are experienced.  We have character.  Even the youngest amoung us possess a life wisdom that transcends even the aged passive consumer. 

We are bored to tears with the people in our lives who conform to the passive consumption model.   They sit back and wonder what it would be like to live life fully.  We know.   

When we communicate, we become god

Isolated, I am powerless.  I am blind to the world around me, blind to how I fit within it, blind to how I am perceived.  I am small. 

But when I communicate, I am no longer just I, but part of the larger we.  I am omnipresent because my knowledge extends beyond the self.  I am omnipotent because my influence extends beyond the self.

The words humans use to describe god are nothing more than projections of ourselves.  Humans, alone, are only...human.  But when we fulfill our role in Humanity, we become pieces of god.  What powers do we grant to our fictional gods that Humanity does not possess?

And what kind of god are we?  It depends.  Will we continue to sit in isolation and allow ourselves to be controlled by self-serving, lifeless corporations?  Or will we connect, communicate, and realize the divinity of our Humanity.

When we communicate, we become god

Isolated, I am powerless.  I am blind to the world around me, blind to how I fit within it, blind to how I am perceived.  I am small. 

But when I communicate, I am no longer just I, but part of the larger we.  I am omnipresent because my knowledge extends beyond the self.  I am omnipotent because my influence extends beyond the self.

The words humans use to describe god are nothing more than projections of ourselves.  Humans, alone, are only...human.  But when we fulfill our role in Humanity, we become pieces of god.  What powers do we grant to our fictional gods that Humanity does not possess?

And what kind of god are we?  It depends.  Will we continue to sit in isolation and allow ourselves to be controlled by self-serving, lifeless corporations?  Or will we connect, communicate, and realize the divinity of our Humanity.