This is me.

 Almost to a "t", this is uncanny...

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPxB1uIkqZE/?igsh=MTYyZWl4aTc0cm1uNg==

Taking Away Safety: The Biggest Threat to an Anxious and Avoidant Attachment Styles

The biggest internalized fear of an anxious or avoidant attachment style person is getting hurt.  Both grew up and experienced in their childhood a significant trauma that shaped their subconscious view of what love is.  Each person has been conditioned by their upbringing to fear losing love because love was seen as conditional to them during their childhood.  By this I mean that some trauma during their childhood has left them subconsciously thinking that all love is only given unreliably, with conditions, or else otherwise isn't unconditional.  Generally, this fear comes from unreliable or unstable parenting for a variety of reasons, abuse at home, parents who divorced and didn't maintain a healthy stable environment for their children, and even something as common as poverty can be causes of this, but it is highly individualized for each anxious or avoidant person.

As a result of the aforementioned trauma and subconscious belief that love is conditional, the subconscious of this individual both craves stable love and fears losing it.  Their upbringing has taught them that it is conditional and their subconscious mind as an adult constantly scans their friendships, relationships, etc. for signs of that love being taken away.  Sometimes, perhaps the scan is right and someone in a friendship/relationship is pulling away.  However, most of the time, the subconscious incorrectly identifies something completely different as an example of pulling away love.  I will first explain what I mean and then why it is important.

For example, you and a friend of yours spend a lot of time together, maybe more than you had before; you've begun to get very close.  You're enjoying the connection greatly as you don't make those type of connections easily or often.  Yet your subconscious mind is scanning the entire time looking for signs that your past experiences are repeating, and that that love from your friend is going to be taken away.  Your subconscious mind is trying to protect you from hurt, just wanting you to be safe.  

Unfortunately, when the subconscious mind misfires and identifies a behavior as someone you love pulling away from you, it enters fight or flight mode to protect you.  Just the same as you might fend off physical blows from an actual attack, it tries to fend of the blow of losing your friend to protect you from harm.  As an example, a friend doesn't show up to plans at the planned time (or at all perhaps), doesn't apologize for doing, perhaps even downplays the importance of this action to you.  Ordinarily, with an average connection, this would be annoying but wouldn't trigger fight or flight.  But, the closer someone gets, the greater the threat your subconscious mind sees in their potential behaviors towards you.  That is, the closer someone is the greater you fear them leaving, and therefore the greater the sensitivity of your subconscious to possible signs of that love being taken away.  And, it's a feedback loop.  I'll get to that in a moment as well.

For an anxious attacher like myself, when you get close to someone, your subconscious fears escalate because the likelihood of you being hurt if they leave increases greatly.  This is also true for an avoidant.  The only difference between the two attachment styles is the result.  The anxious attacher moves into "fight or flight" mode and picks fight.  They are going to fight to maintain that connection by pulling you closer, being too demanding of your time, being unreasonable in their requests for closeness.  For an instance where someone is actually pulling away, this signals them to run.  For someone who isn't, this leads to confusion, hurt feelings, and then often also the signal to run.  

For the avoidant attacher, they are feeling a lot of internalized fear that love will be taken away as well.  They too scan for signs of it.  And when they find it, real or imagined, they flee to protect themselves.  They subconsciously rationalize that the pain of losing someone now will be much less than the pain of losing them later.  Their fight or flight leads them to flee the connection as a solution to their fears, whereas the anxious fight to keep the connection.

Additionally, as I said, this fear is stuck in a feedback loop.  The closer someone gets, the tighter you hold to that fear and the greater it's impact becomes.  You might even recognize that you're likely going to self-sabotage the connection even before you do.  But the closer they get, the greater the fear and the greater the fear the higher the sensitivity of your subconscious mind's scans for a loss of that connection.  Eventually the subconscious mind justifies it's fears on real or false actions by the other person, and the anxious fights for the connection and the avoidant flees it.  These actions are particularly intense when the connection is between an anxious and an avoidant person.  Both are constantly subconsciously scanning to determine their safety in a connection and both can and likely will find some reason to fight for that connection (anxious) or flee it (avoidant).  When this is triggered, the  anxious pulls the avoidant closer, often demanding more time with them, begging them to stay, questioning them for their actions, fearing the worst.  The avoidant in this situation does in fact pull away, because they feel this behavior is unreasonable (and it typically is).  When the avoidant pulls away, the anxious attacher's subconscious mind sees this as justification for how they act and triggers your brain to pull them closer even harder.  This causes the avoidant to pull harder away, hence a feedback loop.  Both are triggering each other now.  Eventually either the anxious is going to be so unreasonable that the avoidant leaves entirely, or the avoidant will pull away so much that the anxious becomes unreasonable and the avoidant pulls away entirely regardless.   Either way, unrecognized for what is happening for both parties, the connection will end as a result of one or both of their actions.  It's only a matter of time.

The connection ends because one or both parties no longer feel safe in the friendship or relationship.  They feel that the risk of getting hurt is now the most likely outcome of this friendship or relationship.  In fact, for the avoidant in particular, the perceived loss of safety in a connection will lead them to pull away.  For either party, this loss of safety can be caused by many actions: arguments are a huge cause of this, but also one party threatening to end the friendship or relationship if their needs aren't met is another huge reason.  When a connection is no longer felt as safe, both party's subconscious minds are working to end the connection to protect themselves, even the anxious attacher even though they don't want it to end.  Part of the anxiety caused for the anxious is a result of conflicting thoughts.  The subconscious mind wants to end a connection because they're afraid to be hurt again and the conscious mind craves that connection and while they also fear losing it, will cling to it using any means necessary because the conscious mind of an anxious attacher is mortally afraid of losing that connection too.  Unfortunately, when this level of anxiety is reached, the connection is usually damaged beyond repair and falls apart.

The anxious attacher finds safety in the connection with a trusted person that they've actually let into their hearts, as friend or romantic partner.  The avoidant attacher finds safety in solitude.  They would rather have no connection rather than constantly fear losing it.  For either party, when the safety of that connection is challenged, by fight, or emotional trigger, or even just the closeness itself, their subconscious minds look to find a solution.  The anxious cling to the connection and the avoidant push away from it, both to protect themselves from hurt as I've said.  

Taking away safety in one of these connections is the linchpin to the connection being unintentionally ended.  Both the anxious and the avoidant as I said, are fighting a fear of losing that love.  When the safety of that connection is no longer seen as certain, the subconscious mind of both parties moves into the fight (anxious) or flight (avoidant) mode that I previously mentioned thus dooming the connection.

Everything above leaves both the anxious and the avoidant EXTREMELY unhappy.  The anxious loses the one thing they're afraid to lose and the avoidant pushes away the one thing they don't want to lose to protect themselves.  Both party's subconscious minds feel justified in their actions, because to them the ends justify the means.  "I told you so."  "They were going to leave you and I was right." "They were crazy and going to hurt you."  These are just some simple examples of the thought processes that happen and that reinforce the subconscious mind's self-destructive fears.  In short, you feel justified in being afraid to lose connections and that trauma-induced anxious or avoidant attachment style is strengthened and maybe justified not only in the subconscious mind but also now in the conscious mind as well.

So what can be done?  It's clear that self-sabotaging close connections isn't beneficial to you as an anxious or avoidant attacher.  You will still crave that connection and still lose it, time and time and time again.  You have to break the feedback loop and change how your subconscious mind thinks.  I talked a little about that in the last post and I will go into greater detail in the future in my next post as well about how to do that.  For now however, it's important to recognize the role that safety plays in this process.  Anxious and avoidant attachers both constantly subconsciously weigh the pros and cons of a close connection to protect themselves.  Safety is the biggest pro that most connections have.  "I feel safe with them." That thought outweighs a ton of fears and keeps you in a functioning friendship or relationship.  Conversely, one or more party removing that feeling of safety through their actions is the single biggest trigger that will doom that connection.

The anxious feels that the other removes that safety but withdrawing, being less communicative, not being where they said they'd be for plans they've had, increasing time between texts or replies, mood changes, and many other similar triggers.  The avoidant feels safety is removed when the anxious clings to them or worse, has a temporary break, during which the anxious might block them on social media, remove them from their lives, shout at them and argue with them unfairly, and then come back later begging forgiveness.  This instability is overwhelming for the avoidant, who sees these actions not as a struggle in the anxious's mind spilling out onto them, but as a purposeful attack on them (the avoidant) which triggers them to feel that safety was taken way and causes them to sever the connection.

In each the anxious and avoidant, the loss of a perception of safety dooms the connection.  Each clings to the idea of safety in the connection to justify it continuing despite feeling an increasing level of fear of being hurt as each gets closer to the other.  When that safety is taken away, there's no justification in either's mind for continuing the connection.  The avoidant leaves.  The anxious clings to the connection out of fear, driving the other away anyways.  Either way, the connection ends due to fear because safety is no longer a justification to stay.

Next time, I will dive into methods of combatting this self-sabotage.

Anxious and Avoidant Attachment

Every single person attaches to others in one of four mostly specific ways.    Attachment itself refers to how you bond with others:  be it friendships, familial bonds, or romantic/sexual relationships.  The four types of these attachment styles are:  secure, fearful, anxious, and avoidant attachment.  They can also simply be categorized into secure attachment and insecure attachment styles.  I am mostly going to talk about two styles:  anxious and avoidant as they're relevant to my life currently.  It's important to note that attachment styles can change throughout your life, but usually only due to large life events or intentional work on your specific type.

Your initial attachment style is formed early in life, between birth and about 7 years old.  These formative years play a huge role in the attachment style that you will have for the rest of your life (or at least until you identify it and work to change it).  There are many things that can impact your attachment style, however all of them are directly related to your homelife.  If you have a secure, loving family environment, you will end up with a secure attachment style, barring any extraordinary event that may shape you otherwise.  An example of that would be sexual assault, bullying at school, death of someone close to you, etc.  Major negative life events.  

Barring negative life events, the relationship that your parents have plays a HUGE role in the attachment style you develop during these years.  A stable loving environment creates a stable, secure, attachment style.  An unstable environment, due to unreliable love from your parents, a hostile home life, parents who fight or do not show love to each other (etc.) all contribute to creating an insecure attachment style in a child during their formative years.  This style often doesn't present itself until much later in childhood, but can sometimes be seen even then.  Children in these situations are subconsciously taught that love is conditional and if you don't meet those conditions, whatever they may be, you are not worthy of love.

Insecure attachment styles come in three versions as I previously mentioned:  anxious, fearful, and avoidant.  In the most basic terms, each of these styles is marked by the action the individual takes when encountering a close attachment with another person, be it friendship, relationship, or familial.  The fearful person avoids all attachments for fear of rejection.  They will not engage people socially and often come off as very skittish or socially awkward.  Similar, but different, is the avoidant.  Avoidant people DO seek and want attachments but when they get them, often contradictorily try to avoid them.  And finally, anxious attachment people become very anxious as attachments become closer and tend to cling to them instead of pushing them away (the opposite of the avoidant style).

For the sake of this discussion, I will not be talking about the fearful attachment style, but only focusing on the anxious and avoidant styles as they pose an interesting set of opposites worth some look at.  They are also the two that have most directly impacted my life in recent memory.

In both anxious and avoidant attachment type people, at some point in their formative years their subconscious learned that love is conditional.  Some people learn that if they aren't "good" that love will be removed by their parents, some come to see punishment for not being "good" as proof that they aren't worthy for love later in life as well.  Others have difficult homelives due to relationship issues between their parents.  A parent or parents who is/are cold to their partner or checked out of that relationship or who struggle with an insecure attachment style themselves will pass that on to their child in their formative years.  The impressionable child sees their method of love as being the way love is.  So if love is distant, conditional, or otherwise unstable, the child will internalize that feeling and it will come up as part of their subconscious as an adult in their own relationships.

In my case, I grew up in a home with parents who fought nearly constantly and never constructively.  Verbal, emotional, and sometimes physical abuse was common.  Love was conditional in my home based on if I was a "good child" or not sometimes.  And, growing up I had zero positive examples of a functioning romantic, loving relationship as my parents' definitely was not.  Over time, this caused me to internalize love as being conditional or something that can be "taken away".  As I grew older, this subconscious understanding of love turned into an insecure attachment style, specifically an anxious attachment style.

What does this mean?  This  means that subconsciously I believe that any attachment I made (friend, romantic partner, or familial) is based on an somewhat unknown set of conditions.  I would know that as a child affection was given for good grades for example.  And, mental, emotional, and sometimes physical abuse was given for bad grades.  So grades became a condition of receiving love subconsciously.  Bad grades triggered a negative reaction, therefore as a child I always sought to be perfect in everything I did, because all children want love and bad grades led to less love.  That is a very basic example but it illustrates my point well.  This perfectionism was triggered by negative reinforcement as a child.

Sounds harmless right?  Everyone wants to "do well".  Except that's not the case.  Not doing well, in anything, can trigger the same reaction, even today.  It triggers the feeling of worthlessness and can, if unchecked damage my mental health.  

I used the word "trigger".  There are other triggers that pop up from time to time as well.  They are mostly "tangent triggers", in that the action isn't directly related to a negative experience, like bad grades, but that the subconscious classifies them as "bad" and therefore feels that love will be withdrawn when they occur.  Additionally, these triggers become stronger when there is more "at risk".  Friendship, familial, and romantic relationships will all be referred to as "relationships" going forward just to make things easier as they are all impacted equally by your attachment style.  The closer a relationship becomes (regardless of type), the sharper a trigger can be "triggered".

Why are triggers sharper the closer you get to someone?  This is really important.  Someone with an insecure attachment style (anxious, fearful, or avoidant), has a deep set internal fear that love is conditional as I've mentioned.  When you love someone more or deeper, you subconsciously realize that you have more to lose.  That deep set internal fear bubbles up to the surface and often times you "self sabotage" the relationship.  I'll get to that later.  The point is, when you are insecure in your attachment, you become increasingly fearful of losing it.  Your subconscious mind is there to protect you, and it tries to warn you of threats based on your previous experiences.  That is a good thing, unless your subconscious mind has the wrong information, which in this case it does.  It perceives love as a risk, a very frightening risk whereby you can be seriously damaged.  

As a result of a misfiring subconscious mind, the anxious person clings to relationships when they perceive even the SLIGHTEST negative change in the relationship dynamic. When a trigger is "triggered" our anxiety skyrockets and causes us to do self or relationship destructive things.  Typically overreacting at the other person is the biggest example of this, otherwise starting fights, excessive clinginess or a few other activities can happen.  Essentially anything that seems to show that the other person is pulling away (simulating love being conditional) causes a negative reaction in an anxious attachment style person.

The very same thing is happening in the mind of an avoidant style person.  However, there are a few big exceptions.  First, the avoidant often doesn't realize what's happening, even during counseling.  Many, but not all avoidant people simply avoid thinking about the topic all together as it causes them to trigger.  Anxious people also trigger in these cases as mentioned, but we tend to also be over-analyzers as well.  We can come to terms with what is happening in our heads much easier.  Avoidants subconsciously try to avoid that thought process and fearful attachment people completely avoid it out of fear.  This is not to say any one is superior or worse than the other, just that anxious attachers tend to also be overthinkers, which sort of helps them in this area to an extent (and harms them in other areas).

Additionally, avoidant people, while the insecurity does bubble up in their minds just as it does for the anxious, they have an opposite reaction to it.  When a friend or partner gets close they push them away to avoid the possibility of getting hurt if things don't work out, while the anxious does the opposite and pulls closer for the exact same reason.  That's the difference between the two.  95% of the process is the same, but they come to different solutions to escape the fear of getting "too close" to someone even when they consciously might want to be close to them, even intensely.

Both anxious and avoidant attachers CAN maintain friendships/relationships to an extent.  Both can find success pairing with secure attachment type people.  The secure person will reassure the anxious and let the avoidant have space as needed without negatively impacting the connection.  A problem does arise however if avoidants and anxious attachers make an initial connection.  This is the final thing I want to touch on here and the one that most directly impacts me in my life.

As I mentioned, I have an anxious attachment style.  In the recent past I connected VERY well with someone with an avoidant attachment style.  The friendship was fun, energizing, uplifting and something I looked forward to literally every single day, even if we weren't hanging out that day.  The thing is, over time we did get very close.  We spent basically every day together at one point, for maybe 5-8 hours each night.  It seemed at first, amazing and ideal.  But both of our attachment styles would kick in as we got closer.  

In general, avoidants need to have space to themselves sometimes to recharge and decompress.  That can happen while spending time with other groups of people, but often needs to be alone.  Certain actions can trigger a faster response as well.  This is normal for them.  In those instances, an avoidant may disappear or "ghost" their friend.  But in reality it isn't that simple.  Typically it starts with the avoidant pulling back and socializing less with their friend/partner.  When they might have initiated activities in the past, they only follow along to activities now.  Where they might have texted or called first, now they only respond.  These actions are taken to lessen the subconscious fear that they have of letting people get too close to them for fear of being hurt.  Essentially, consciously or subconsciously they need to recharge and decompress.  If they don't get that recharge, it can manifest in avoiding the other person, not answering messages at all, or even ghosting them entirely if it gets bad enough.  The avoidant person has subconscious fear of losing love in the back of their mind that increases as someone gets closer to them, to the point that it outweighs their desire to be close to them and they push them out to protect themselves.  This need to protect themselves is rarely rooted in fact, often just learned behaviors from their formative years.  The child had an unreliable source of love growing up.  The adult mirrors that onto all future friendships/relationships.

In general, anxious attachers are exactly the same, except that instead of pushing away their friend/partner, they pull them closer and cling to them.  Instead of ignoring them, they text bomb them.  They get frustrated by a perceived lack of closeness that may not actually exist and overreact.  This often leads to arguments and emotional outbursts.  They may get so anxious that they self-sabotage the attachment, breaking it and leaving.  They can't handle the anxiety and/or don't understand it, and do anything they can to stop it.

As I've mentioned, anxious and avoidant attachers are exactly the same except that their solution to the problem (fear of loss of love) is the exact opposite.  This means that when a connection is between an anxious attacher and an avoidant attacher, shit can hit the fan really really fast and hard.  In those situations, an anxious attacher notices a change in behavior from the avoidant which signals to them that they are withdrawing their love.  This could be taking a longer time to answer texts, avoiding their calls, or just simply the tone they have randomly one night.  The trigger is also usually completely false.  It MAY be real, in that the other may be withdrawing a bit, but typically it isn't.  In these friendships/relationships the avoidant may also be triggered by the perception that the anxious is getting too close, too close too quickly, or otherwise that they may fear losing them because they realize that they've come to value them greatly and are afraid to lose them.  Ultimately this will result in the avoidant withdrawing from the friendship a bit or in total.

The withdrawal of an avoidant from an anxious attacher will cause the anxious attacher to grasp hard at the friendship/relationship because they are mortally afraid of losing it, which causes the avoidant to pull harder away.  This causes the anxious to again pull harder.  It's a feedback loop.  In the end, both piss each off so badly that something breaks.  The anxious may blow up at the avoidant.  The avoidant may completely cut the anxious out of their life.  Both happening simultaneously is most common.  Both are reacting with fear over losing what they perceive as conditional love that they both overreact and destroy the friendship/relationship to try to find peace in their heads.

This pattern will happen again and again, regardless of who the attachment is to.  There is hope though.  Both the anxious and the avoidant (and the fearful) CAN rewrite their subconscious mind into learning a secure attachment style in which they will be confident in their friendship/relationship and in which nothing will trigger that fear reaction I spoke about.  They have to want to though.  An avoidant may rewire themselves and walk right into an anxious who didn't and the anxious may still wreck that friendship/relationship.  An anxious may rewrite themselves, but an avoidant may still leave as a friendship/relationship gets closer.  Equally, it is much more difficult to migrate to a secure attachment style when not currently dealing with an attachment.  It's very easy to think you've mitigated fear when you have nothing that your subconscious mind used to fear in your life.

The fact is, to rewrite your subconscious idea of "conditional" love into one of "unconditional" love, you have to be challenging yourself in a close friendship/relationship.  When that fear percolates, you have to recognize it, describe it to yourself, and mitigate it.  But it has to percolate for you to rid yourself of it for good.  You need to separate emotional thought from logical thought.  This is easiest done when two people are are attached communicate openly and honestly about how they are feeling.  This is profoundly easier for the anxious, who often overthinks and overshares emotions anyways.  And it is much more difficult for the avoidant, who often will just want to avoid the topic all together.  However, when two people, who are close, make a concerted effort at changing their subconscious fears, they CAN be changed.  Both just have to want to.

If both do want to change to a secure attachment style, both have to first recognize for themselves what trauma in their past caused this subconscious thought to begin with.  For me, that was child abuse which made love feel conditional.  Both then also have to recognize what triggers them to feel fear and what the fear feels like when they are experiencing it.  Avoidants often feel overwhelming mental pressure and/or panic from a trigger.  I, as an anxious, feel extreme anxiety.  When both can realize what triggers them, they can recognize the resulting feeling as it's happening.  Taking a step back and focusing to neutralize these feelings at this starting point will stop their negative impact on the other person.  Discussion after the fact, calmly with the other about the trigger is helpful.  Having a watchful eye from a trusted friend/partner in these situations does help greatly in reducing the result of the trigger on their friendship/relationship.  Recognizing that negative result in your friend/partner's actions also can help on your own end.  If you recognize that the the anxious definitely doesn't mean to blow up at you or the avoidant definitely still cares about you even when they take a lot of distance, the friendship/relationship can and will continue to prosper.

Eventually, both the anxious and the avoidant need to come to terms with their fears.  They need to address them and overcome them.  Eachother can be a source of encouragement and support in those situations, but often both aren't able or willing to do so.  So it can be a crapshoot.  Rewiring your subconscious takes a lot of effort.  It takes longer alone, but it is also still possible.  At the end of the day though, that trauma from childhood impacts the insecure attacher greatly and impacts every one of their close relationships until it is addressed properly.

For my part I work daily now to fix my anxious attachment style.  I use journaling as I enjoy writing.  I reach out to others and talk about how I feel.  But I'm also just open and honest with myself.  I don't judge myself for being this way.  It isn't my, or your, fault.  But we can fix it.  We can be happy.  It just takes work and courage.  

Talking it out here, is actually one way I've been working on it myself.  Here are a few sources that might hit home for you.  I don't endorse any product, just figure out what works for you.

An honest look at anxious attachment:  

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPaIl3YkTv1/?igsh=MW82dmI2bDR2dDV3cw==

An honest look at avoidant attachment:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPWvz-BET28/?igsh=YWF3bnE2MWUyeGpj

Resources:

https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/anxious-attachment/

https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/avoidant-attachment-style/

https://psychplus.com/blog/how-to-manage-and-fix-anxious-attachment-styles-understanding-triggers-and-solutions/

https://www.eyemindspirit.com/

My Own Mind

The human mind is a duality.  That is to say, there are two people inside most people's heads.  It is the interaction of these two entities that determines who you are.  

The first is the sum total of all of your experiences, it is a body of knowledge that you reflect on when thinking or meditating.  It is not the consciousness that we traditionally think of as our mind.  It's behind that.  It's the voice that alters your mood, makes irrational fears float to the surface in times of stress, and ultimately has a significant impact on you as a person.  

The second is your consciousness.  It is the core of you as a person.  It is the voice you hear in your head when thinking or reading this sentence.  Some do not have that voice, incidentally.  For instance, those that are born deaf often have that "voice" represent as images.  Others simply don't have it.  This voice is the real you.  It's the part that you internally recognize as YOU most of the time.

Both of these two parts must live in harmony if you are to be happy and well.  But they don't always.  Sometimes, past trauma so colors the first part that it bleeds over into the second.  The first can affect your mood positively or negatively.  Often we see it when it does so negatively.  To find happiness, contentment, harmony, you have to come to terms consciously with the trauma loaded into the memories of that first part of your brain.

I find myself sometimes sitting in my own head realizing that the actions I'm taking outwardly are wrong yet still do them.  Sometimes we let that first part take control, especially in times of stress or difficulty.  We can all think of times we've knowingly did stupid things but did them anyways.  

To move forward, that trauma needs to be identified and addressed.  An abuse victim with detrimental behaviors, for example, can't stop taking those actions without addressing the trauma in their past.  Ultimately they need to understand that they are safe, loved, and free from those past conditions.

For others, the examples are slightly different, but still need to be addressed similarly.  Identify the problem, address the triggers of those issues, communicate with yourself and others when those insecurities are triggered causing a negative response, and ultimately forgive yourself.  Forgive yourself for not being strong enough, for the mistakes you've made in the past.  Accept yourself.  Love yourself.  And be kind to yourself even when that other voice isn't so kind.

At any rate, those are just a few thoughts spinning around my own mind this evening.  As a mental activity for anyone reading, take some time in your own head and try to find the separation point between your conscious self and that voice crying out about your past experiences.  It takes time, but you can actually find it.  We often take for granted that everything in our own heads is "us", but some of it is just an melding together of past experiences expressing themselves on your conscious self.

Good luck!

My Last

 My previous post was found as a blank page in draft form this evening.  I found the existence of it to be rather poetic.  So I published it blank as is over a year later.  Seems fitting to be honest.

Time Enough at Last

(This space unintentionally left blank)

Loss

 Tonight's topic was going to be loss.  2020-2022 held for me quite a bit of loss.  I was going to write about it, but I came across this and I think it sums it up pretty well...  Do well to remember though that loss can also be a new beginning.

36

Navigating life into your mid and eventually, ugh, late 30's is much different than your mid/late 20's.  Artificial time limits that we impose on ourselves for many of life's milestones seem increasingly close and their goals seem increasingly distant as the years tick forward.  It is important however to remember that these milestones are not actually set in stone.  They take work.  Sometimes a lot of work.  And they don't have an actual timeline.

In my 20's I believed by 36 I would be married to a good man.  Have a family.  A career.  A home.  And that things would be, in all, pretty decent.  All the hard work of my early 20's would pay off and all of these milestones would be reached.  But of course, we're all a little naive about these things.  We have emotional responses to them which sometimes cloud logic.

Three years back, I was in a relationship.  I had a good paying job.  And, as should come as a surprise to no one, I was miserable.  I worked too hard on career at the expense of my personal life.  I was in a relationship, well-intentioned as we both were, that wasn't the right fit.  My personal life and personal goals suffered.  My happiness suffered.  It might sound a little bit strange but COVID lockdown ended up being a blessing in disguise for me.  

I broke up with my ex boyfriend in December 2019, and COVID began appearing in January 2020.  Lockdown started April 14th and lasted into July.  For a time I felt that I had failed at the relationship.  Logically of course I know that all of the problems we had were not completely my fault, that in life they're often shared or else unrelated to either one person but related to circumstances out of either of your control.  Lockdown gave me an excuse to close everyone off for a time.  It gave me time to heal.  It gave me time to feel better about myself and to come to terms with the loss.  Every failed relationship, romantic or platonic, is at some level similar to a death in your life, as it is a death of your way of life to varying degrees.  You need to take time to mourn that death.  Then afterward, you need to figure out why it died, if you want to learn from it--and I did want that.

2021 saw the end of a career for me.  And at the same time, and maybe even to a greater level of closeness to my heart than many of my personal relationships, I had to mourn that loss.  6 1/2 years at the old job and 15 total in the food service industry, both longer than any romantic relationship I'd ever been in.  My ultimate goal was always to get out mind you.  And I finally had enough and did.  I am proud of that.  My career was destroying my personal relationships and happiness, particularly in the last year.  The quality of my peers had profoundly dropped.  Sacrifices were being made in the quality of those around me out of the lack of people available.  I watched those with decades of experience leave the business in general.   I was working more hours and harder to keep everything together.  Yet like cupping water to your chest in the shower, it eventually escapes.  I was the last rat off the sinking ship.  I could rant and rave about the reasons why I left, but that's last year, and those issues are processed and put away.

This year has been a different kind of challenge.  The biggest was health.  In April my physical health took a bad turn.  I was exhausted all of the time.  I had a fever for the better part of a six weeks.  It was an intestinal abscess for what it's worth.  I ended up having it removed.  It was an ordeal of patience as much as of me being a patient.  Sitting in bed and waiting made up most of my days for almost a week and a half after being admitted to the hospital.  It was mind numbing, almost torturous for someone with a very very active mind.  It was a point that I had to relinquish control of my autonomy to others.  Doctors and nurses and then family until I healed enough to take care of myself.  For more than a month, for the first time in more than a decade I had to depend on others for my wellbeing.  Of course, there's a difference between willing accepting the help of others and needing to accept the help of others.  I am a prideful person and an independent person.  This was profoundly difficult.

Yet, time moved forward and I healed permanently.  Moving into the summer I returned to work, at a new position that was as completely out of the day to day physical service of food as I could be, for which again I'm grateful.  As the years piled up and the mileage piled on, doing that type of job at the level of intensity that my ego and pride required of me, was becoming increasingly taxing.  I wasn't 20 anymore.  I do miss the intensity sometimes of pushing out a lunch service when the kitchen opener calls out.  But, I've come to a point where I'm more grateful not to add that wear and tear on my body anymore.  I'm in better shape for having started eating better (though not perfectly, I admit).  I feel better in my own head than I was when work imbalanced my life and added detrimental levels of stress to it.  

One of the best parts of the last year is that in my new role I got to interact with a lot of new people.  And many of them were very decent and I couldn't be more grateful for that.  I am very grateful for them in my life.  Yet that comes with challenges as well.  This year I've come to realize that I've spent the last few years focusing on myself, which was needed, but at the expense of my personal, platonic, relationships as well.  Between my previous imperfect romantic relationship, taking a big career move, and taking time for myself to figure everything out, on top of a major health issue, I stopped caring about my friendships.  Regrettably I've pretty much lost them all, or at the most relegated them to acquaintance status, where you say hi every six months, plan to get together and then never do.

That's where I stand going into 2023 and into my 36th year.  It's time for me to rebuild my life outside of work.  Something I haven't worked on, honestly since college.  I have a small family, and while many of them are decent, there is a physical distance issue even there that makes greater closeness difficult.  Yet, more so it's the personal time activities, hobbies, and friendships that I need to work on this year.  Now that I actually have time to balance my career and my personal life, I actually have to do that.  Of course, there's no easy path to that either.  Making new friends in your 30's, expanding your social circle, is difficult.  Many, if not most my age are focused inward on family now.  Their own families.  That I don't have.  So it becomes difficult, though not impossible.  

Ultimately I still want to find love, to find a husband, to have a family, a home, and so on.  That hasn't changed in the last 15 years.  But, perhaps the path to those things now should.  In my 36th year and in this new year I'm not going to look for love at first.  In the new year, in my next year,  I look to surround myself with decent people and balance my work life with personally inspiring activities.  The difference between your 20's, in college, and in your 30's is availability of good people.  In college there are thousands of people just like you, equally immersed in collegiate life.  It's easy to meet people.  In your 30's I have learned that the best way to meet people, platonic or romantic, is to do so through osmosis.  Surround yourself by activities you enjoy, hobbies, etc.  In doing so, you surround yourself with people with common interests--platonic relationships arise from common interests and experiences.  And from those platonic relationships maybe I can also find love--either directly or perhaps in meeting someone who knows someone, etc.

So in your new year, surround yourself with people who matter to you.  Or if you, like me, have lost their way on that endeavor over the years, immerse yourself in your interests and through that meet new people and grow your social circle again, filling it with people who are beneficial to you.  I always say that I hate people, that I can't stand most people.  I don't like guys that are loud, dumb, obnoxious, misogynistic or homophobic (obviously).  I don't like girls that are air-headed or  manipulative.  I like people who are icebergs.  The bit you see at first is only a small portion of the person they are underneath.  I like people with content, who are thoughtful, hardworking and kind.  And most of all, I hate drama.  So in my activities and hobbies in the new year I will incorporate those positive platonic relationships in my life and from there look to a romantic relationship again.  Maybe that'll be next year, maybe the year after, or whenever.  

I recognize that I need to build my life properly to attract good friends and also to attract a good guy.  There is no timeline that I should feel pressure to adhere to, though that can be hard sometimes.  36 and 2023 are going to be a good year.  And I hope the same for anyone who reads this.  While I'm terrible at taking my own advice, I am very good at giving it.  So I will do so.  If you find yourself in the same position I've been in these last few years, work on the foundation first.  Work on you.  Work on your interests.  From there work on your friends.  The circle of support you have around you.  And finally work toward love.  As much as some say that it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a supportive circle around you to find and maintain love.  It is hard work.  And we'd all be best to work together to find it, use our experiences and lessons learned to help each other along the way.  So to anyone reading this and to me when I go back and look at it, good luck and I believe in you.

The Wall

 Suffice to say, I think it's obvious that it has been a hot moment since the last time any real inspiration struck me.  I've touched on why in at least one previous post from many years ago--that thinking of the world and of existence requires a higher level of thought than is often available to us during the daily grind.  If you must hunt and gather continuously to find food for subsistence, physical tangible food or else intellectual or emotional sustenance, you do not have the structure in place that allows you the time to delve into the higher levels of existence.  If memory serves me, and I'm not entirely certain it does, I had basically surmised that those who have to struggle for air rarely can oxygenate the intellect enough to stimulate new understandings of ideas.  It has been such a very long time for me between said events.  Inspiration has found a way to strike however, and it is this.

 

Humankind, and indeed all of nature as we know it, is in a constant struggle.  We've labelled this "survival of the fittest", though this is not entirely accurate.  It's rather more like survival of the lucky, or perhaps the opportune.  The idea of fittest and what we on the surface believe it to mean are different things.  It has nothing to do with the most intelligent or most athletic or most--in one way or another--equipped to pass on your genes.  Fittest is simply a catch all.  It is a label of the amalgamation of all survivals to happen.  Nothing more and nothing less.  For whatever the reason may have been that survival occurred, it did occur and thereby makes that entity the "fittest" in that situation, at that time.

I sense I'm splitting hairs however.  It will be more clear as I progress.  Life as we know it is in a constant state of competition.  From humans to yeast cells in your next sourdough.  Each wants the best possible outcome in any and all situations.  "Survival of the 'fittest'" as I mentioned.  Remember, too, that in life the best possible outcome rarely happens as the culmination of all possibilities weighs heavily against the possibility of one specific outcome occurring as opposed to any number of a possibly infinite other outcomes occurring.  That is to say, it's far easier to pull hay out of a haystack than the needle.  That said, statistically it does happen from time to time.

Unlike yeast cells, at least so far as we know, we humans have the ability to comprehend our own existence.  We can "see" the rules.  That is, we can see cause and surmise effect. We may be clouded in our judgement of effect (or result if you'd rather) by our emotional attachment to a different outcome, our past experiences, simple error, a lack of a full understanding of the circumstances, or frankly any number of other reasons.  Yet, we can perceive our existence.  Whether that perception is more or less flawed is up for debate on any given day, but it is certainly ever elusive in my opinion.

Nothing I've said so far is all that revolutionary.  Perhaps it is better understood as a result of your reading it.  Perhaps my ability with words and my ability to convey meaning with them has increased your understanding of the aforementioned concept--survival of the fittest.  Maybe it hasn't.  Maybe you have a better understanding of it than I do.  Or maybe you think you do.  At any rate, it doesn't matter.  You'll take from what I say that which you, though your lens--tinted by your experience--, suggests you should.  This leads me to wonder further about the concept of free will, but that is a discussion for another time.  How indeed can your will be free if it is dictated by your desire to survive and simultaneously your tinted perception of what choices would be best for survival?  But, I must digress.  There are other observations to be made tonight...

Social media is in effect a means of control.  In the past fifteen years or so we have seen the growth of what we can broadly describe as "Web 2.0", which was in essence the creation of the internet consciousness of humankind.  It is different though similar to the worlds described in any number of science fiction works of the past generation , though each inaccurate in the eventual design of the system, they are remarkably able to see the intent of it.  I am not being clear.  Ready Player One, Ender's Game, The Matrix...  These are examples of world building in which a human consciousness becomes prevalent online.  There are many more, but you get the point I hope.  Rather, you understand the beginning of my premise, now several paragraphs deep.  

We have become a world of social media consciousnesses.  We live a great deal of our lives online.  From Instagram to TikTok to this forum and that, our existence has broken beyond the barrier of the digital world.  A part of who we are is melted into the social media consciousness.  And, these platforms that we use daily encourage that behavior.  They encourage use.  Even something like TikTok that offers you suggestions to put it down and come back later, is in essence encouraging you to continue in the long term at the cost of the short term.

This point brings me to the crux of this essay.  Where are the creators of these platforms?  Does Jeff Bezos spend his day writing Amazon reviews?  Does Mark Zuckerberg spend his day arguing politics in the comments of a linked article on his Wall that has little to no genuine impact on himself?  Do the creators of Google spend their days clicking on ads on a Geocities page with 8-bit flashing animations?  That that latter statement mixes Google and Yahoo isn't relevant, I just find the thought amusing.  The point is, that they don't.  They've already survived.  They've gotten their best possible outcome of a situation in years past and have moved onto the next battle.  

But what do I mean "they've survived".  What struggle?  Survival of the fittest.  Like serfs to manor lords, like employees to employers, like followers to messiahs, they have won.  They have won because they were able to profit from your time, time which you have given them willingly in fact.  The more time you spend on social media, the more they can monetize that time.  The more they monetize your time, the more they profit.  And profit they do.  At the expense of everyone else

Remember, your time is finite.  That is what gives it value.  Scarcity creates value.  They only have so much time to themselves, but long ago, at the dawn of civilization or even before, we in our ability to understand our own existence have learned that we can manipulate others to give us a share of their time too.  If we didn't give our time to Facebook or Snapchat or whatever social media, it, like Sears or the telgraph or AIM, would cease to have any value whatsoever. Just as corporations take some of our time in exchange for less than it's worth (so that they profit off of it), so too do social media companies.  Walmart makes money because the conditions are tipped in their favor to do so.  The same is true for Fox News.  The same is true for Disney.  The same is true for anyone and everyone to a similar, albeit lesser degree.  

Life is a peacock strutting to a peahen.  We hock our wares to the interested buyer to make a profit, to survive.  A great many of us will only inevitably have our time to bargain with and nothing or little else.  And as mentioned, the cards are stacked against us in this deal.  We receive back from that exchange for our time, to varying degrees less of what we want than what that time is worth.  Sometimes we are able to make something that appeals to the masses more effectively than our time.  Sometimes our strut is grand enough to excite others to give us their time.  That hype is what social media creators feed on.  Indeed it is how they feed themselves.  Yet, they are confined to the social media of their own choosing and the can only draw from that well to feed themselves.  The Youtuber profits based on the proliferation of their content on Youtube.  Their presence in the mutual fund market would be, if at all, tangentially affected by this.  Why is this important?  They receive profit based on how much time they receive from others.  But they are not in charge either.  In reality, they receive a cut of the profit of that time.  Youtube's parent company, Alphabet, actually is the one that profits.  You simply give them your time and they give you back a lesser portion of remuneration and pocket the rest.  

None of this is groundbreaking.  It's been happening since humankind first began to comprehend existence.  The forms have changed over the years, but the same basic model continues to pervade.  The fittest is the person or persons at the end of the day whom the collective efforts of all the others trickle up to.  In the Internet Age you have your Jeff Bezos' and Mark Zuckerberg's just the same as Industrial Age had Andrew Carnegie's and John Rockefeller's.  These people are, by an large, simply the highest person on the mountain, the one who stands on everyone else.  They are, by definition, the fittest.  

 

Yet, this isn't some age old conspiracy of a collective group of wealthy individuals.  The players do change, yet as a whole, the fittest evolve.  One may depart as an industry or poor decisions or happenstance occurs and another may be admitted to that "club", to that criteria that defines the "fittest".  Many mistakenly assume that this means that there is an overarching group that seeks to control everything.  There isn't.  There is however an overarching desire to be the fittest.  They will band together to keep their collective positions, and have done so throughout history.  Look at the number of American presidents that are related in one way or another.  Or movie stars.  Or the crowned heads of Europe.  Or any number of other groups that represent the "fittest" currently or in years past.  The powerful will band together to suppress others from dislodging them from below.  At the same time, they will in the same breath seek to dislodge those around them.  Survival of the fittest requires one to come out on top.  This general observation explains the sum total of all of politics ever anywhere in the world.  

The takeaway here isn't that you need to upset the system or upend it, though given the chance we all would.  Survival of the fittest after all.  My point is simply to suggest that you are but a brick in someone else's wall.  Yet, if happenstance or luck should have it and your best possible outcome should present itself, take it.  And don't forget where you come from.  Yet it seems you will forget, if history has shown us anything, the powerful always choose to forget that they were once a brick in someone else's wall.  Or, perhaps, they choose even more firmly to squeeze those bricks down on their own wall, so as to maintain their position for fear of returning to their previous position.  But  I digress, this isn't relevant to my point.

Your time is valuable.  More so than you think.  Keep this in mind as the next age is dawning... the "metaverse".

Rantings of a Mad Man Part XXII

The lower you are, the lower your mental state of mind, the higher the likelihood you seek out instant gratification.  It's a self-feeding cycle.

You do nothing intrinsically different now than we did 10,000 years ago.  We wake up, go to work to provide for ourselves and our families, return home, eat, relax and socialize, and continue again the next day.  It is no different in action than walking up, going out hunting or foraging, coming home, eating, and relaxing and socializing before going to bed to do it again the next day.  The basic needs of mankind haven't changed, just the conditions it is undertaken within and the methods we use to do so.

Uniqueness is a product of past experience.

Companies reward executives with more money for more successfully paying workers less money.

The only difference between a social bath with friends and a hot tub party is the appearance of alcohol at the event and of bubbles in the water.

Cheese is essentially rotten and moldy milk.

The ejaculation led to your birth involved a race of 100 million contestants of which you were the winner.  And you only won the race because your parents both individually won their own races.  Therefore, all other factors aside, the odds of you existing as you do today are about 1.0x10^24.  For reference that's about 100,000 times bigger than the number of grains of sand on Earth.  It's also about the same number of stars estimated to exist in the universe.  And that only takes into account yours and your parents' coming to existence and does not account for the hundreds of generations previous, or anything pre-human that evolved into us, or the fact that the Earth existing at all is an extremely unlikely set of odds into and of itself.

Gravity, Absence, and the Formation and Continuation of the Universe

There are two forces at play in the universe that impact and shape mass.  They are gravity, the attracting force, and it's counter, repelling force, absence.  

Remove absence from the equation for a moment.  Picture the universe as different sized marbles placed on a trampoline.  If the quantities of mass in the universe in any one area break beyond a certain level of density, or in the sake of our trampoline, are heavy enough to impact the surface tension of the trampoline... ie are heavy enough to indent it, the mass will pool together in a central point.  Eventually, if not for a few potential equilibriums being met, whereby a balance is achieved in the mass being equally dispersed so that all symmetrically attract all others, the entirety of the mass will eventually pool together.

In this model on a universal scale, if gravity is the only attracting or repelling force, eventually everything would pool back together into a Big Crunch.

Remove gravity from the equation instead, leaving only absence, and a universe would simply, eventually coalesce in a state of equilibrium whereby a finite space in the universe is filled equally with mass or an infinite universe spreads mass so thin so as to make it's existence approach zero.  In either of these situations, finite universe, or infinite universe mass would no coalesce so much as it would homogenize.  

The observable universe, however, is neither of these examples.  It is not a place where matter all coalesces into a big crunch nor is it a universe where matter homogenizes into a certain symmetrical density or a density tending to zero.  By simple observation, we can see that none of these are true currently.

There are therefore two possibilities.  

(1) The balance between gravity and absence is in equilibrium.  This means that a constant ebb and flow of the two forces determines what occurs to mass in the universe.  You'll find a universe with these rules will have many things in common with our actual observable universe.  Matter does coalesce, but it also breaks up, often (cosmologically-speaking) in large explosions.  Matter never leaves the cycle.  By definition, the universe encompasses all.  In a system that is in equilibrium, the conversion of matter to energy... primarily through the life cycle of stars... energy must then also convert back into matter at the same effective rate.  

Effective rate suggests that the process from energy to matter may be over a much longer term, but encompass much more mass whereas the process of transformation from matter to energy can be relatively quick or even instantaneous (eg. stars forming versus supernovae exploding).  The net result of the equation must be zero, however, if equilibrium is kept.  The system can be a function of both time and mass but together must cancel each other out.

In this system, mass bounces over time between matter and energy in a closed system.  It is perpetual and completely self-contained.  There does exist a logical concern to this, seemingly possible scenario.  Equilibrium is hard.  VERY hard.  The idea that a billion billion billion stars in the universe could all be in equilibrium, while at the same time not being symmetrical is exceedingly difficult, if not functionally impossible.  It is certainly statistically improbable.  In an infinite universe, the possibility of this occurring would tend toward zero as the number of variables (quantities of mass) tends to infinity.  There is another possibility.

(2)  There is near-balance between gravity and absence that tends towards equilibrium but never gets there.  In this system, much the same as the previous system is true, but the system isn't perfect.  The balance is slightly off, and eventually, one side wins.  Look back to our examples of removing gravity and removing absence to see what would occur.  If gravity has the upper hand, eventually matter wins over energy and the universe ends in a big crunch.  If absence has the upper hand, eventually the universe if infinite, will suffer a heat death if finite will suffer homogeneous symmetry--everything would be the same everywhere.  Our model can also suffer heat death, if the universe is itself large enough to spread out its mass far enough, though technically it doesn't have to be infinite, although technically that would itself be defining infinite as a quantity by the definition of what the universe is-- i.e "everything".

From what we can see currently, there is at least a lot of interplay between gravity and absence or we wouldn't be here.  The longer the universe continues the more we can define the universe as approaching equilibrium.  In which way, in fact, we can chart over time any apparent heat loss in the universe as a whole to determine the interplay of gravity and absence, and theoretically could test how close to equilibrium gravity and absence indeed are in our universe.  

Be careful however as there is a potential flaw in this logic.  If we can prove and define absolute zero as a point at which all motion stops without exception, then we can indeed possibly find a universe that reaches heat death.  However, if absolute zero does not, in fact, stop the forces of gravity from attracting mass together, then perhaps even if the universe is large enough for heat death to occur, it may not be possible for it to occur at all.  Additionally, it may be possible for it to occur for a period of time or in specific locations, but not actually end the system at all, if absolute zero does not end all motion in practice as it does in theory.  This in itself is highly likely.  Absolute zero may tend toward being motionless, but the motion may occasionally occur, which means that in that scenario, regardless of the interplay of gravity and absence, the universe wouldn't ever truly end.  However unlikely, it would merely tend toward ending--which much data today actually may support.

Observation is key.  We must observe with greater clarity exactly what occurs before we can make determinations.

Analyzing the Trump Voter

There is a core belief that sits in the hearts of all Trump voters. And that isn't racism or misogyny or hatred of the working poor necessarily. Hear me though on this. Many of those beliefs are for sure A reason why some people support Trump. But they aren't THE reason. 

The reason people voted for Trump is an inherent belief that there just isn't enough to go around. 

Enough what? 

Everything. Anything really. 

There isn't enough food to feed everyone. There isn't enough space to house everyone. There isn't enough wealth to enrich everyone. 

These people believe that they need to get theirs and defend theirs before helping others. This is why people vote against their own best interests. They aren't looking to feed the poor. They're looking to ensure that they are fed themselves and they are going to TAKE what they need to TAKE to ensure that this occurs. They aren't looking to protect women's rights, they're looking to preserve a society from the past that catered to them. 

They simply don't care about others. They don't care about refugees from another country. To them they are competition for resources. They will use and justify using any and all physical and psychological differences that make you different from them to compartmentalize in their minds the belief that they are not more important than you--to dehumanize you. 

The same is true in reference to Black people. 

Gay people. 

Women. 

There is an entire generation of poor white men in this country that actually believe that there isn't enough to go around. They've been shown the evidence their entire lives by those in power, those manipulating them to gain more power. They have been shown a scapegoat for all of their own problems, for all of the difficulties they've had in their lives--the Black person, the gay person, women, immigrants, refugees, "foreigners", "illegals", atheists, communists, socialists, and so on. Those who don't have can easily be manipulated by those who do. Waive a little chunk of what they want in front of their faces and point to the Black person, suggest that they somehow are the reason they don't "have". 

Keep this in mind when talking with Trump voters. Ask them for yourself if they feel they should get theirs first before helping others or if by helping others they can get theirs. 

The answer will surprise you. 

Or not, if you've been reading the signs.

If You're Scared about Trump...

What Must be Done

It is very easy to look for reasons why this terrible thing has happened.  It's very easy to mourn and grieve for this loss.  The reasons why and feeling bad for what happened, however, do not solve the problem.

There is currently a realignment going on in the political parties of this country.  All wedge issues and core beliefs are now being bowed around one key issue.  It isn't outsider versus insider.  It's not change versus stagnation.  A change is happening.  At the core of the political realignment going on in this nation and across the Western World right now is the fight between corporation and person.  In one camp the wealthy and their influences are bleeding the world dry, treating people like cattle, a sharecrop between corporations.  In the other, the people of this nation are banding together.

Corporations are not people, as much as certain small numbers of wealthy people would otherwise say.  They have no real power.  It is an illusion.  The election of Donald Trump ripped open the Republican Party, bent over the barrel of corporate interests.  Now the Democratic Party take a hard look at itself.  The fractured collection of differing points of view under the guise of liberalism has reached its breaking point as well.  It will rupture in the coming months.  It has already begun in the highest levels of the Party as it tries to find its voice for the 2018 election cycle.

If we are smart, we tap into the power that has caused the ruptures in both parties.  People. We pull that power into the Democratic Party.  We embrace it.  We remove from the Party all corporate influence, because people, real living breathing people, are at their breaking point.  Tap into the frustration of millions of people in the Western World, who have been de facto enslaved by corporation over the past forty years, and we can rise up and rebalance our society.  We can repair the damage caused by Donald Trump and the uber wealthy.  We can make this country work, as it should, for all of us.  

The fact is that business is not evil into and of itself.  It is however far over-extended in its influence currently.  Wage laws have been decimated.  The earning power of the middle class has been flattened.  Corporations are supposed to work for the people, for us.  We are not supposed to be beholden to corporations.  Peel back the veneer of the corporation and see them for what they are.  They are a few people, fewer than a hundred, who control our health through their impact on the ACA, our education through their big contracts with the Department of Education and the pseudo-functional charter school system that fleeces billions out of education and into their own pockets, to proxy wars functionally carried out by the government but padding the pockets of the uber wealthy and costing us our lives-- quite literally your personal well-being.

In the words of George Carlin, "The upper class: keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes.  The middle class: pays all of the taxes, does all of the work.  The poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class--keep them showing up at their jobs."

We are enslaved to them.

Now is the time to right the ship.  Now power will swing back in our direction.  Not because of Trump.  Certainly not as a result of anything he does.  But in defiance to him.  In defiance to the system he represents.  In defiance to racism, sexism, homophobia, and every other tool of division they use against us to weaken us.  We, the people, are strong together.  One people.  And we are coming.

Gay Life Lesson: Be Real

The number one issue gay guys talk about when they mention dating is guys being "fake" or guys "playing games".  Shocker, I know.  So here are some life lessons from your resident gay blogger to help avoid being that person yourself.  Be the change you want to be.  Change begins at home.  So here we go:

1.  When a guy texts you, unless you're under some sort of duress--don't text and drive, if you're in the hospital getting emergency appendectomy surgery he'll forgive the delay--DON'T whatever you do purposely ignore the text for an hour or two or a day or seven days in an attempt to play hard to get  It's not playing hard to get, it's rude.  Treat a text message the same as if someone walked up to you and said what they texted you.  Worst case scenario "hey I'm in a meeting, chat later..."  It's not that difficult to have some manners when texting.  We all know you look at your phone thirty times a minute.  It's just plain rude to keep someone waiting.

2.  Along the same lines as the previous point, let's talk about disappearing DURING a string of text messages.  Again the same rule applies, treat texting like you do a face-to-face discussion.  You guys were chatting back and forth for an hour and then you say something like "ok so what time do you need me to pick you up from your mom's?" or whatever you happen to say--the sort of thing that doesn't assume the end of a stream of consciousness and does assume an answer is necessary.  And then what?  He disappears for two hours.  So you sit there.  And wait.  And wait.  I mean he needed a ride after all.  You don't want to seem like an unprepared guy.  He finally gets back to you and then the shocker... he got delayed and won't need a ride for another four hours.

Basically, don't do this.  And if they do it to you, then don't bother with them.  They've clearly got enough going on in their life that they don't have time for anything potentially serious with you.  Move on.

3.  Following the last two points let's talk about playing hard to get.  Aloof isn't sexy.  It's disrespectful.  If you feel strongly about someone, let them know.  If you don't know, let them know that.  If you don't want to be with them, let them know that too.  Guys think they have to play hard to get to keep a guy around.  This isn't true.  If he wants to stay around, he will, whether you play hard to get or not.  You're more likely to piss off a good guy who now thinks you aren't interested than to actually get him to stick around.  

4.  Be yourself.  Don't pretend to be someone else for someone because you think they like that personality you're trying to convey.  You know what, he's a super masculine guy and you think he only likes super masculine guys?  Well, he's in bed with you right, and you're kind of middle of the road.  Maybe that's what he wants?  Even if it isn't though, pretending to be someone you're not will only leave you miserable in the long run.  You will not be happy in a relationship if you're not being yourself.

5. Grindr.  You went out on a really nice date with a really sweet guy and all signs point major potential.  So you go home afterward, get bored, and go straight to your Grindr app.  You're just bored though; it's not like you're actually looking for a hookup... you're still buzzing about this guy after all.  But then hey, what's this, HE is back on Grindr too!  WTF??  *Shoots laser beams out of your eyes and your head explodes*  The jealous part of you feels like shit because clearly he's no better than all the rest.  Clearly the date didn't mean that much to him.  You know what, fuck him; he's not worth my time.  Right?  Yet you were online too.  And he's probably online checking to see if you're online too just like you're doing.  So now you're both feeling shitty and think that the other doesn't really see potential with them, or worse, were lying about the potential they claimed to see.

Life lesson, give it a rest!  We're all guilty of this.  Just put the app down.  Give him a text tomorrow and be your adorable self.  Don't expect him to do the same.  It's better you don't know if he's online anyways.  It's not like you're dating yet or anything.  You went on one date.  It's still casual.  You don't have the right to think he wouldn't be talking to other guys still.  For your own sake, don't look him up on Grindr or other dating apps.  Take him at his word.  If he's interested he will stick around.  If he's not, live, learn, and move on.

6.  Communication.  We all know it's key but we frequently forget how important it really is.  If you don't like something, say something.  Be reasonable and kind.  If it's something you like.  Say something just the same!  Tell him what you like and don't like.  The worst thing that can happen is you both realize that you're incompatible.  It's best to find out earlier than later.  You'll save yourself a lot of heartache in the long run.

7.  Fear.  All the games that everyone plays (and yes we ALL do it to some extent) are played in an attempt to keep the guy around.  We want him to stick around so we play hard to get.  We want him to stick around so we ignore how much we hate that he drinks too much or treats you poorly.  We want him to stick around because we're afraid of being without him to varying degrees.  Humans are social creatures, we want to find someone to connect with on a deep level.  It's natural.  Don't fight it.  But, at the same time you have to be careful about how you're coming across when trying to find that special someone.  We get it in our heads that if we act a certain way, say (or don't say) certain things, that we'll keep him around longer.  And that's the operative word.  Longer.  If you need to play games then you realize on some level that he's not going to stick around and you think logically that it's better to have him for a while than not have him at all.

If he doesn't like you for who you are, LET HIM GO.  He's not the one for you.  The longer you stay with him, the longer you're not going to find the right one for you.  So, don't play games.  If he sticks around then maybe he's the one for you.  If he pushes you away, then go find someone else who will be a better match.

And for the love of your sanity, don't beg him to stay.  Don't bargain with him.  And don't play with his emotions.  Be respectful and you will find the right guy.  Play games and all you will find is eventual disappointment.

Just a little smile... Have a great day!

Hey it's another video!

I promise I'll get back to actually writing things.  In the meantime, there's this.  Always remember that no one should feel unloved and no one should ever have to choose between those who are biological family and love them and those whom they love and want to marry.

Sorry I couldn't embed it... Click here.

Usually I hate remakes. This is not one of those cases.

Terrible video though.

(Trigger warning) I've posted this before, but it needs to be said again

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