Have been on vacation and whatnot . . .
More posts soon . . .
Why do I click on certain links? Why?
I came upon the following video. (Sorry about the ad -- turn your sound down for 25 seconds at the beginning.) It's an ex-Facebook executive talking about how he's still working, even though he no longer needs to. It's full of wonderful high-minded sentiments.
I wonder if the guy, who is still working partly because "I Have Kids And I Don't Want To Be A Douchebag," has any clue that only a douchebag keeps working after winning the lottery?
Oh well.
I wonder if the guy, who is still working partly because "I Have Kids And I Don't Want To Be A Douchebag," has any clue that only a douchebag keeps working after winning the lottery?
Oh well.
Depictions of Female Sexuality in Popular Literature
Twitter is delightfully random in its interconnectedness. Via a series of re-tweets, I saw a link to the following passage a little while ago. I never would have seen it otherwise.
"In a lot of the chick lit, depicting women slightly older than me, the sexual maturity is that of a nine-year-old, maybe. The sex is just this giggly and ridiculous activity one is subjected to in order to make a man stay in your house and marry you. There’s no honest expression of female sexual desire, the kind you find even in those old cheesy feminist manuals like Our Bodies, Ourselves. We’ve gone backwards." --British novelist Zadie Smith
I have several problems with the above.
1. Why on Earth would anyone use "chick lit" as a barometer of anything significant? Chick lit is a specialized form of writing, aimed at a tightly-defined audience. It has not pretensions of saying anything important about life, or love, or sex, jacket blurbs to the contrary. Decrying that chick lit portrays immature views of female sexuality is like saying that Popular Mechanics doesn't provide good plans for a nuclear submarine.
2. "There's no honest expression of female sexual desire." What is honest? Ms. Smith doesn't know any women who just want to live with/marry a guy? She obviously travels in more enlightened circles than I do, because I know plenty of women in that situation, and for many of those women good sex (hell, any sex) is a bonus. And that's as honest as it gets, girlfriend.
3. "Cheesy feminist manuals like Our Bodies, Ourselves." I suppose viewed from 40-plus years down the road, OB/OS might seem cheesy. But even a cursory examination of the history of feminism shows that OB/OS and other books were putting out necessary information, that many/most women not only needed, but didn't know they needed. It started the conversation about things that no one was talking about, ever, before that time. That is seems quaint or cheesy now shows that it did its job admirably.
4. I see a lot of that "honest expression of female sexual desire." It's really everywhere -- youtube, tumblr, thousands of blogs, twitter, etc. There are thousands of self-published works where women are expressing very honestly their most private, crazy desires. Even in some mainstream literature -- a certain class of "enlightened" woman might not like Fifty Shades of Grey, for instance, but one can't argue that it puts sexual desires out there that chick lit would never touch.
5. Ms. Smith concludes that "we've gone backwards." Absolutely, positively not true. No one's "honest sexual desires," man, woman, straight, gay, bi, Dom/me, sub, whatever, are ever going to be mainstream. Highly idealized/constrained visions of sex -- chick lit, Playboy, romance novels, etc. -- are always going to have a certain people. But those things will continue to exist and/or thrive is not an indicator of a lack of progress -- it's the way of the world. But that there is Fifty Shades of Grey, a website for every fetish imaginable, The Adventures of Terri and Jennifer, Literotica, many many websites devoted exclusively to erotica by women, countless tumblrs and blogs where women, straight, gay, and bi, are writing very frankly about sex (and relationships), is an indicator of progress. The best kind of progress.
What one might want to see in terms of progress, from an academic/theoretical standpoint, one often won't see, because the world, especially the parts directly reflective of human nature, stubbornly refuses to comply with notions of how people should be evolving.
But to say we've gone backwards in the "honest expression of female sexual desire" is to be not paying attention.
"In a lot of the chick lit, depicting women slightly older than me, the sexual maturity is that of a nine-year-old, maybe. The sex is just this giggly and ridiculous activity one is subjected to in order to make a man stay in your house and marry you. There’s no honest expression of female sexual desire, the kind you find even in those old cheesy feminist manuals like Our Bodies, Ourselves. We’ve gone backwards." --British novelist Zadie Smith
I have several problems with the above.
1. Why on Earth would anyone use "chick lit" as a barometer of anything significant? Chick lit is a specialized form of writing, aimed at a tightly-defined audience. It has not pretensions of saying anything important about life, or love, or sex, jacket blurbs to the contrary. Decrying that chick lit portrays immature views of female sexuality is like saying that Popular Mechanics doesn't provide good plans for a nuclear submarine.
2. "There's no honest expression of female sexual desire." What is honest? Ms. Smith doesn't know any women who just want to live with/marry a guy? She obviously travels in more enlightened circles than I do, because I know plenty of women in that situation, and for many of those women good sex (hell, any sex) is a bonus. And that's as honest as it gets, girlfriend.
3. "Cheesy feminist manuals like Our Bodies, Ourselves." I suppose viewed from 40-plus years down the road, OB/OS might seem cheesy. But even a cursory examination of the history of feminism shows that OB/OS and other books were putting out necessary information, that many/most women not only needed, but didn't know they needed. It started the conversation about things that no one was talking about, ever, before that time. That is seems quaint or cheesy now shows that it did its job admirably.
4. I see a lot of that "honest expression of female sexual desire." It's really everywhere -- youtube, tumblr, thousands of blogs, twitter, etc. There are thousands of self-published works where women are expressing very honestly their most private, crazy desires. Even in some mainstream literature -- a certain class of "enlightened" woman might not like Fifty Shades of Grey, for instance, but one can't argue that it puts sexual desires out there that chick lit would never touch.
5. Ms. Smith concludes that "we've gone backwards." Absolutely, positively not true. No one's "honest sexual desires," man, woman, straight, gay, bi, Dom/me, sub, whatever, are ever going to be mainstream. Highly idealized/constrained visions of sex -- chick lit, Playboy, romance novels, etc. -- are always going to have a certain people. But those things will continue to exist and/or thrive is not an indicator of a lack of progress -- it's the way of the world. But that there is Fifty Shades of Grey, a website for every fetish imaginable, The Adventures of Terri and Jennifer, Literotica, many many websites devoted exclusively to erotica by women, countless tumblrs and blogs where women, straight, gay, and bi, are writing very frankly about sex (and relationships), is an indicator of progress. The best kind of progress.
What one might want to see in terms of progress, from an academic/theoretical standpoint, one often won't see, because the world, especially the parts directly reflective of human nature, stubbornly refuses to comply with notions of how people should be evolving.
But to say we've gone backwards in the "honest expression of female sexual desire" is to be not paying attention.
This Bud Was Never For You, II
In eighteen months or so, baseball is going to need a new commissioner. Unlike the NBA, where David Stern is handing the job off to his longtime Deputy Commissioner, it's not at all clear who the baseball owners might be thinking of to succeed Selig.
I have heard various names thrown out there.
Bob Costas -- Would probably be very good for the game in the long run but has no chance of getting the job. The owners don't want a Commissioner who might tell them that some of Bud's revenue-maximizing schemes are actually not in the best interests of the game or the fans.
Joe Torre -- A name that's getting a lot of mentions. Is currently working in the MLB front office. Having seen the man Derek Jeter calls "Mr. Torre" up close and personal for many years as Yankee manager, I'm not that impressed with his potential to be a good Commissioner. But since one of the job requirements is not managing a bullpen, he's got that going for him.
Peter Gammons -- Ummm . . . no. Please God, no.
George W. Bush -- Was managing general partner of the Texas Rangers for five years. Might be interested in the job (expressed an interest before running for President). And he once fired Bobby Valentine . . . so that's a plus. The union will hate this choice, obviously.
Condoleeza Rice -- Purely in personal terms I'd like to see the first dominatrix Commissioner.
Bill Clinton -- The union would like him, he's a great talker, and generally a fun guy. He and A-Rod could cruise chicks during playoff games (although he'll have to find Hillary another gig that entails her traveling a lot).
Sandy Alderson -- Longtime baseball man. Did an amazing job bringing the umpires to heel (all his good work since undone, alas . . . thanks again, Bud). Might well want the job, too -- how much fun can being the GM of the Mets be right now?
There are others . . . mostly guys currently working in MLB in some capacity or other. I'm thinking the owners may go for a more corporate type -- in their eyes baseball is so much more about the business than about the game, and the union and player agents are relentlessly pulling in one direction. (That direction can be summed by the urban but eloquent "mo' money, mo' money!" - as in more of the owners' money) So the union is going to distrust whoever the new Commissioner is . . . the owners will be smart enough (I think) that if they do go for a corporate type, it won't be someone with a perceived history of union-busting.
The new Commissioner will have to navigate a tricky course, assuming his or her term lasts more than a couple of years. There will a contentious labor negotiation -- baseball's economic model may not be sustainable for a sport that is no longer "America's Pastime" in terms of popularity. There will be a new TV deal to be done at some point -- will ESPN and Fox keep paying the rates they're paying? The big market/small market dichotomy will get worse as big market teams pull back on spending, resulting in no more luxury tax revenues and a growing resentment of the revenue-sharing arrangement. There is the perception that the fans want more extensive/invasive PED testing, a move the union will have to resist. Small market teams will continue to agitate for a salary cap (although their appetite for a cap diminishes markedly when it's pointed out that a cap includes a salary minimum as well).
The qualitative aspects of the game need work, too. The umpires are back to their personal strike zones. I personally find the games generally less exciting lately -- even with the infusion of international talent, the game feels diluted. This may well have to do with the loss of black players in recent years (I recently read that the percentage of black MLB players is down to 8%). The new Commissioner needs to do a lot of work to re-popularize baseball in inner cities and among young people.
If the baseball owners are true to past form, they will choose a new CEO (let's call the job what it now is) with less regard for the thorny issues and more regard for who will best pepretuate the status quo, because they're making money, the stands are more or less full (at least in terms of tickets sold -- I see lots of empty seats on TV), there is labor peace and the gullible pubic believes Selig's nonsense about MLB having "the toughest drug policy in professional sports" (this is like saying that your hen house only has one fox in it).
The owners have eighteen months to pick someone. Since I don't think I'm getting that call, I look forward to watching the process unfold.
I have heard various names thrown out there.
Bob Costas -- Would probably be very good for the game in the long run but has no chance of getting the job. The owners don't want a Commissioner who might tell them that some of Bud's revenue-maximizing schemes are actually not in the best interests of the game or the fans.
Joe Torre -- A name that's getting a lot of mentions. Is currently working in the MLB front office. Having seen the man Derek Jeter calls "Mr. Torre" up close and personal for many years as Yankee manager, I'm not that impressed with his potential to be a good Commissioner. But since one of the job requirements is not managing a bullpen, he's got that going for him.
Peter Gammons -- Ummm . . . no. Please God, no.
George W. Bush -- Was managing general partner of the Texas Rangers for five years. Might be interested in the job (expressed an interest before running for President). And he once fired Bobby Valentine . . . so that's a plus. The union will hate this choice, obviously.
Condoleeza Rice -- Purely in personal terms I'd like to see the first dominatrix Commissioner.
Bill Clinton -- The union would like him, he's a great talker, and generally a fun guy. He and A-Rod could cruise chicks during playoff games (although he'll have to find Hillary another gig that entails her traveling a lot).
Sandy Alderson -- Longtime baseball man. Did an amazing job bringing the umpires to heel (all his good work since undone, alas . . . thanks again, Bud). Might well want the job, too -- how much fun can being the GM of the Mets be right now?
There are others . . . mostly guys currently working in MLB in some capacity or other. I'm thinking the owners may go for a more corporate type -- in their eyes baseball is so much more about the business than about the game, and the union and player agents are relentlessly pulling in one direction. (That direction can be summed by the urban but eloquent "mo' money, mo' money!" - as in more of the owners' money) So the union is going to distrust whoever the new Commissioner is . . . the owners will be smart enough (I think) that if they do go for a corporate type, it won't be someone with a perceived history of union-busting.
The new Commissioner will have to navigate a tricky course, assuming his or her term lasts more than a couple of years. There will a contentious labor negotiation -- baseball's economic model may not be sustainable for a sport that is no longer "America's Pastime" in terms of popularity. There will be a new TV deal to be done at some point -- will ESPN and Fox keep paying the rates they're paying? The big market/small market dichotomy will get worse as big market teams pull back on spending, resulting in no more luxury tax revenues and a growing resentment of the revenue-sharing arrangement. There is the perception that the fans want more extensive/invasive PED testing, a move the union will have to resist. Small market teams will continue to agitate for a salary cap (although their appetite for a cap diminishes markedly when it's pointed out that a cap includes a salary minimum as well).
The qualitative aspects of the game need work, too. The umpires are back to their personal strike zones. I personally find the games generally less exciting lately -- even with the infusion of international talent, the game feels diluted. This may well have to do with the loss of black players in recent years (I recently read that the percentage of black MLB players is down to 8%). The new Commissioner needs to do a lot of work to re-popularize baseball in inner cities and among young people.
If the baseball owners are true to past form, they will choose a new CEO (let's call the job what it now is) with less regard for the thorny issues and more regard for who will best pepretuate the status quo, because they're making money, the stands are more or less full (at least in terms of tickets sold -- I see lots of empty seats on TV), there is labor peace and the gullible pubic believes Selig's nonsense about MLB having "the toughest drug policy in professional sports" (this is like saying that your hen house only has one fox in it).
The owners have eighteen months to pick someone. Since I don't think I'm getting that call, I look forward to watching the process unfold.
This Bud Was Never For You
Bud Selig announced that he is retiring after next season. (What is it with these sports commissioners and giving 18 months' notice? David Stern just did the same thing. Will the search process really be that long? Are we looking for someone to throw out ceremonial pitches, or to run the Large Hadron Collider?)
Anyway, assuming this retirement is legit (Bud tried to retire a few years ago but supposedly the owners twisted his arm to stay; personally I doubt it took all that much persuading), a few words about his tenure as Commissioner of Baseball are in order.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Prior to becoming Commissioner, Selig was owner of the Milwaukee Brewers. Selig, in conjunction with several other owners, a group known as the Midwest Mafia, engineered the infamous collusion scheme, in which team owners agreed clandestinely to not make offers to free agents. The players' union, not surprisingly, saw exactly what was going on and took baseball to court. This started in 1985; finally, in 1990, the owners settled, agreeing to pay the players' union $280 million (about $500 million in today's money).
In the wake of the 1994 strike, the owners recognized that a fundamental change had taken place. The fact of the players' union meant that whereas in the past the "best interests of baseball" was the guiding principle, and the Commissioner was the one to define those best interests, now Federal labor law was the controlling authority, and the union aggressively filed grievances and hauled the owners into court for every real or perceived violation. It culminated with the 1994 labor stalemate that cost baseball the end of the season, playoffs, and World Series. (This is about Bud Selig, but it should be noted that Marvin Miller and Donald Fehr belong in at least as low a circle of Hell as Bud does.)
In this climate, the owners decided that the even-handed approach of a Faye Vincent or Bart Giamatti was no longer called for. If the players were going to have the courts, the owners were going to have a guy in the top job who was unabashedly in it for the owners' interests.
Enter Bud.
My most vivid memories of 1998 are two. First and foremost, the Yankees burning a path through baseball en route to winning it all. Second was Bud's face on TV, seemingly every night, waving the pom poms while roided-up goons laid waste to the home run records. Over and over the grinning fool praised Sosa and McGwire for "bringing baseball back" after the debacle of 1994. Meanwhile, the Yankees just quietly (and 100% cleanly, as far as anyone can tell) just kept winning and winning and winning.
Like all owners, Bud's concern for the fans is strictly lip service. He would have you believe that exclusive windows for Fox and ESPN are somehow good for you, the fan. He shoved the World Baseball Classic down our throats, which is beloved everywhere except the United States. Apparently, selling a few more jerseys in Antwerp and Shanghai and Melbourne is somehow good for you, the fan. World Series games that no one on the East Coast can stay awake to see the end of are somehow good for you, the fan. That baseball has been passed standing still by the NFL (and college football in many places) is somehow good for you, the fan.
Then to top it all off, Bud gets religion about performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Apparently, what was good in 1998, what "brought the game back," was no longer good in the late 2000s. In fact, worse than "no good." More like really really evil. Like, more evil than what was once America's Game being run by a used-car salesman whose venality is his best feature.
The upshot of all this new-found religion about the evils of PEDs? Barry Bonds convicted of the Federal equivalent of jaywalking, and the Mitchell Report's star informant shown up in Federal Court for the perjuring hanger-on he had always came off as. Well done, Bud.
Enjoy your retirement, Bud, and the undoubtedly obscenely generous severance the owners are going to give you. Just please, please, please stay the hell away from baseball.
Anyway, assuming this retirement is legit (Bud tried to retire a few years ago but supposedly the owners twisted his arm to stay; personally I doubt it took all that much persuading), a few words about his tenure as Commissioner of Baseball are in order.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Prior to becoming Commissioner, Selig was owner of the Milwaukee Brewers. Selig, in conjunction with several other owners, a group known as the Midwest Mafia, engineered the infamous collusion scheme, in which team owners agreed clandestinely to not make offers to free agents. The players' union, not surprisingly, saw exactly what was going on and took baseball to court. This started in 1985; finally, in 1990, the owners settled, agreeing to pay the players' union $280 million (about $500 million in today's money).
In the wake of the 1994 strike, the owners recognized that a fundamental change had taken place. The fact of the players' union meant that whereas in the past the "best interests of baseball" was the guiding principle, and the Commissioner was the one to define those best interests, now Federal labor law was the controlling authority, and the union aggressively filed grievances and hauled the owners into court for every real or perceived violation. It culminated with the 1994 labor stalemate that cost baseball the end of the season, playoffs, and World Series. (This is about Bud Selig, but it should be noted that Marvin Miller and Donald Fehr belong in at least as low a circle of Hell as Bud does.)
In this climate, the owners decided that the even-handed approach of a Faye Vincent or Bart Giamatti was no longer called for. If the players were going to have the courts, the owners were going to have a guy in the top job who was unabashedly in it for the owners' interests.
Enter Bud.
My most vivid memories of 1998 are two. First and foremost, the Yankees burning a path through baseball en route to winning it all. Second was Bud's face on TV, seemingly every night, waving the pom poms while roided-up goons laid waste to the home run records. Over and over the grinning fool praised Sosa and McGwire for "bringing baseball back" after the debacle of 1994. Meanwhile, the Yankees just quietly (and 100% cleanly, as far as anyone can tell) just kept winning and winning and winning.
Like all owners, Bud's concern for the fans is strictly lip service. He would have you believe that exclusive windows for Fox and ESPN are somehow good for you, the fan. He shoved the World Baseball Classic down our throats, which is beloved everywhere except the United States. Apparently, selling a few more jerseys in Antwerp and Shanghai and Melbourne is somehow good for you, the fan. World Series games that no one on the East Coast can stay awake to see the end of are somehow good for you, the fan. That baseball has been passed standing still by the NFL (and college football in many places) is somehow good for you, the fan.
Then to top it all off, Bud gets religion about performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Apparently, what was good in 1998, what "brought the game back," was no longer good in the late 2000s. In fact, worse than "no good." More like really really evil. Like, more evil than what was once America's Game being run by a used-car salesman whose venality is his best feature.
The upshot of all this new-found religion about the evils of PEDs? Barry Bonds convicted of the Federal equivalent of jaywalking, and the Mitchell Report's star informant shown up in Federal Court for the perjuring hanger-on he had always came off as. Well done, Bud.
Enjoy your retirement, Bud, and the undoubtedly obscenely generous severance the owners are going to give you. Just please, please, please stay the hell away from baseball.
Reality and Observation
Deepak Chopra posted something on Twitter than I have to respond to, but can't nearly do it in the 140-character confines of Twitter.
His Tweet:
"Empirical measurement is a description of a mode of observation not of fundamental reality."
This is a tricky one. Dr. Chopra implies that what we perceive empirically is not real. Such a stance makes the world impossibly opaque, and leaves us in a state of perpetual not-knowingness, and not the good kind.
What is amiss here is not the underlying sentiment, however, but the notion of reality. Consider this alternate idea --
"Everything empirically perceived is real but not all encompassing."
His Tweet:
"Empirical measurement is a description of a mode of observation not of fundamental reality."
This is a tricky one. Dr. Chopra implies that what we perceive empirically is not real. Such a stance makes the world impossibly opaque, and leaves us in a state of perpetual not-knowingness, and not the good kind.
What is amiss here is not the underlying sentiment, however, but the notion of reality. Consider this alternate idea --
"Everything empirically perceived is real but not all encompassing."
This idea liberates us from the blind pawing at an unknowable fundamental reality . . . it acknowledges the realness of our perceptions, the accuracy (and the limits) of our science and measuring capabilities, and gives us a basis from which to explore further, building upon what we know to have already established as real.
However, the further implications are, well, staggering.
1. Everything empirically perceived . . . meaning, there is no such thing as a hallucination. How this can be true is embodied in the idea that --
2. . . . not all encompassing. Meaning that reality in its totality contains many unknown aspects, and possibly some unknowable aspects.
Taken together these two concepts at the same give us a basis and shake that basis to its foundations, but without simply denying the (very real) existence of that basis.
This idea does not make things easier. It makes things much harder, because it prevents us from dismissing aspects of reality that we don't want to deal with, or can't account for ("things that go bump in the night" for example). But at the same time our state of not-knowingness is at least informed by the small percentage of fundamental reality that we have been able to work out thus far.
Everything You Know Is Wrong, Part I
[It seems like a good time to examine some utterly wrong statements that many people take for granted. Number 1 in a series.]
"That which does not kill us makes us stronger." --Friedrich Nietzsche
Everyone's heard this one, or something very close. And from what I can tell the vast majority of us take it as gospel.
And admittedly it makes a lot of surface sense. It expresses some ideal of human nature . . . the idea that a human (and by extension, humanity) is made better and stronger by struggle and misfortune and pain, emerging stronger on the other side (or dead, in which case presumably it doesn't matter).
Reality, however, simply does not bear this out. We're surrounded by examples of cases where people were not killed, but did not emerge stronger. They are broken, or bitter, or loon-ass crazy. They end up mean, or criminal, or narcissistic, or fearful to the point of paralysis. Some of these people are hidden away in our jails and mental institutions; most are not. They are in our lives, often, and all around us. Sometimes we're acutely aware of their damage, sometimes not. Sometimes our own damage prevents us from seeing the extent of the damage around us.
The really insidious inaccuracy of "that which does not kill us makes us stronger" lies not in the failures, however, but rather in the apparent successes. We can all see and understand, to varying degrees, the sad or neurotic or fearful broken person, trampled down by the harsh randomness of life and the unique hell that other people can be. But the other end of the spectrum, the ones made so much stronger, apparently, are harder to see for what they represent, and create so much more misery in the world. The most annoying and depressing "Debbie Downer" among us creates a tiny fraction of the negativity and damage that the sadistic boss, the bully, the unapologetic corporate scumbag, the Type A crazy person, create. And yet we celebrate those people and ridicule those who are too timid to step over others to get what they want.
We have confused survival with strength. The "strength" we admire is not heroic; it is the sad residue of a spirit that takes to the crushing other spirits in order to preserve itself. A few, a very few people, rise above the randomness and pain of life and emerge truly stronger and better. Real strength lies in seeing what has happened, processing it, and letting it go. Emerging at the conclusion of that process is a truly strong person -- tough without being brittle, powerful without being a bully, focused without being blind to the world outside.
That which does not kill us . . . does not kill us. It can make us stronger, if we were strong enough to see the possibility of emerging stronger to begin with. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that recognizing the truth of that is crucial to humanity's future.
"That which does not kill us makes us stronger." --Friedrich Nietzsche
Everyone's heard this one, or something very close. And from what I can tell the vast majority of us take it as gospel.
And admittedly it makes a lot of surface sense. It expresses some ideal of human nature . . . the idea that a human (and by extension, humanity) is made better and stronger by struggle and misfortune and pain, emerging stronger on the other side (or dead, in which case presumably it doesn't matter).
Reality, however, simply does not bear this out. We're surrounded by examples of cases where people were not killed, but did not emerge stronger. They are broken, or bitter, or loon-ass crazy. They end up mean, or criminal, or narcissistic, or fearful to the point of paralysis. Some of these people are hidden away in our jails and mental institutions; most are not. They are in our lives, often, and all around us. Sometimes we're acutely aware of their damage, sometimes not. Sometimes our own damage prevents us from seeing the extent of the damage around us.
The really insidious inaccuracy of "that which does not kill us makes us stronger" lies not in the failures, however, but rather in the apparent successes. We can all see and understand, to varying degrees, the sad or neurotic or fearful broken person, trampled down by the harsh randomness of life and the unique hell that other people can be. But the other end of the spectrum, the ones made so much stronger, apparently, are harder to see for what they represent, and create so much more misery in the world. The most annoying and depressing "Debbie Downer" among us creates a tiny fraction of the negativity and damage that the sadistic boss, the bully, the unapologetic corporate scumbag, the Type A crazy person, create. And yet we celebrate those people and ridicule those who are too timid to step over others to get what they want.
We have confused survival with strength. The "strength" we admire is not heroic; it is the sad residue of a spirit that takes to the crushing other spirits in order to preserve itself. A few, a very few people, rise above the randomness and pain of life and emerge truly stronger and better. Real strength lies in seeing what has happened, processing it, and letting it go. Emerging at the conclusion of that process is a truly strong person -- tough without being brittle, powerful without being a bully, focused without being blind to the world outside.
That which does not kill us . . . does not kill us. It can make us stronger, if we were strong enough to see the possibility of emerging stronger to begin with. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that recognizing the truth of that is crucial to humanity's future.
Reconciling Dominance with Humility
When I am praised I tend to deflect the compliment. I have come to realize that some people find this vaguely insulting (as in I'm somehow devaluing their praise, and thus the praiser), but nothing could be further from the truth. I am highly appreciative of the praise. I simply can't allow Myself to unreservedly buy into it.
I have a saying I use . . . I no longer remember if it's original or not; if it's not, My apologies to the original author of it. My goal is to "not believe My own press clippings." Even if (especially if, actually) they are true.
This approach keeps Me balanced, sweet, and hungry. I don't lapse into arrogance or complacency because I keep telling Myself I still have light-years to go. I stay (mostly) nice because I know I don't know it all.
OK, so I sound pretty wonderful, right?
I'm no saint . . . I have My crappy moods, My insecurities, My petty concerns. But by trying to stay humble, and, this is the most important part, by really meaning it, I avoid a lot of the pitfalls that any kind of Dominant or leader can fall into. All leaders have a mask (a topic I wrote about a long time ago), but humility is not My mask -- it's real, and feels real. And necessary.
Which brings up the logical question: A humble Domme? Isn't that an oxymoron?
No. For the the following reasons.
1. One has to be what one is. Dominance comes naturally; learning humility doesn't diminish one's natural Dominant nature.
2. Humility enhances Dominance. This is fairly obvious -- power without control is one definition of evil. Humility provides the necessary restraint that enlightens Dominance and transforms it into real Leadership.
3. The Humble Domme has better submissives. We as Dominants end up with the subs/slaves We deserve. The Domme who knows what She doesn't know ends up with submissives who understand and appreciate the nuances of their role, and who respect Her for her Humanity as well as for Her power. To be served by that kind of submissive is an unparalleled joy.
I have a saying I use . . . I no longer remember if it's original or not; if it's not, My apologies to the original author of it. My goal is to "not believe My own press clippings." Even if (especially if, actually) they are true.
This approach keeps Me balanced, sweet, and hungry. I don't lapse into arrogance or complacency because I keep telling Myself I still have light-years to go. I stay (mostly) nice because I know I don't know it all.
OK, so I sound pretty wonderful, right?
I'm no saint . . . I have My crappy moods, My insecurities, My petty concerns. But by trying to stay humble, and, this is the most important part, by really meaning it, I avoid a lot of the pitfalls that any kind of Dominant or leader can fall into. All leaders have a mask (a topic I wrote about a long time ago), but humility is not My mask -- it's real, and feels real. And necessary.
Which brings up the logical question: A humble Domme? Isn't that an oxymoron?
No. For the the following reasons.
1. One has to be what one is. Dominance comes naturally; learning humility doesn't diminish one's natural Dominant nature.
2. Humility enhances Dominance. This is fairly obvious -- power without control is one definition of evil. Humility provides the necessary restraint that enlightens Dominance and transforms it into real Leadership.
3. The Humble Domme has better submissives. We as Dominants end up with the subs/slaves We deserve. The Domme who knows what She doesn't know ends up with submissives who understand and appreciate the nuances of their role, and who respect Her for her Humanity as well as for Her power. To be served by that kind of submissive is an unparalleled joy.
Social media is too damn . . .
. . . social!
I recently joined Twitter . . . to promote this blog a little, mainly. I also figured out that by following the sports teams I like I can get scores and news items without having to dig around for them.
I also followed some posters on other topics I'm interested in, namely BDSM and Spirituality. And therein lies the trouble.
There is a process, of course . . . one follows a bunch of people, then gradually figures out which feeds to stop following and which ones to stay with.
So far, most of the BDSM feeds I follow are those of ProDommes . . . they seem to be mostly what's out there to follow, but I'm new at this so perhaps My feed-searching skills are not what they should be yet. As for content most of these feeds are not that interesting to Me, but sometimes they are humorous or an interesting picture is posted. Most of the ProDommes on Twitter that I follow really should avoid political/social pronouncements if they want to be thought of as intelligent, but I could say that about most people, regardless of what they do for a living.
The Spirituality feeds, thus far, are more troubling. I get that the idea of social media, at least to some extent, is that anyone can say anything about anything. And I get that in the realm of spirituality, almost anything goes, since most see it as an area where there is no presumed "truth." In other words, most people won't venture uninformed statements about . . . molecular biology, or auto repair, let's say, but feel very comfortable saying anything and everything in the realm of spirituality.
And the problem is not necessarily that this multitude of spiritual tweets is "wrong." The problem lies in the fact that in most cases they are too generically correct. Here's a recent example of the kind of tweet I'm talking about:
Don't be afraid. You are already everything.
Now, this is certainly true, or arguably so, on several different levels. But it's so non-specific as to be . . . valueless, to Me, anyway. It's the spiritual equivalent of saying that "the entire universe is composed of energy," which in a sense is true, but is so broad as to not shed any light on the nature of anything in the universe.
For Me, spiritual analysis (and it can be analyzed) must be specific, focused. I like Mom and Apple Pie as much as the next Girl but they don't get Me very far in terms of being enlightening.
A big part of the problem lies in a medium itself. It's hard to say much profound in 140 characters, especially if one can't shake the grammar bug.
Is spirituality on Twitter a lost cause, then? I don't know . . . way too early to tell.
My girl lissa suggested, and I imagine she is 100% correct, that it takes time to find the right feeds to follow, and in turn to attract the right followers. So there's that to look forward to.
In the meantime, however . . . have to whore it up! Follow Me ( @Enchanted_Palms ) and I'll follow you! Promise!
I recently joined Twitter . . . to promote this blog a little, mainly. I also figured out that by following the sports teams I like I can get scores and news items without having to dig around for them.
I also followed some posters on other topics I'm interested in, namely BDSM and Spirituality. And therein lies the trouble.
There is a process, of course . . . one follows a bunch of people, then gradually figures out which feeds to stop following and which ones to stay with.
So far, most of the BDSM feeds I follow are those of ProDommes . . . they seem to be mostly what's out there to follow, but I'm new at this so perhaps My feed-searching skills are not what they should be yet. As for content most of these feeds are not that interesting to Me, but sometimes they are humorous or an interesting picture is posted. Most of the ProDommes on Twitter that I follow really should avoid political/social pronouncements if they want to be thought of as intelligent, but I could say that about most people, regardless of what they do for a living.
The Spirituality feeds, thus far, are more troubling. I get that the idea of social media, at least to some extent, is that anyone can say anything about anything. And I get that in the realm of spirituality, almost anything goes, since most see it as an area where there is no presumed "truth." In other words, most people won't venture uninformed statements about . . . molecular biology, or auto repair, let's say, but feel very comfortable saying anything and everything in the realm of spirituality.
And the problem is not necessarily that this multitude of spiritual tweets is "wrong." The problem lies in the fact that in most cases they are too generically correct. Here's a recent example of the kind of tweet I'm talking about:
Don't be afraid. You are already everything.
Now, this is certainly true, or arguably so, on several different levels. But it's so non-specific as to be . . . valueless, to Me, anyway. It's the spiritual equivalent of saying that "the entire universe is composed of energy," which in a sense is true, but is so broad as to not shed any light on the nature of anything in the universe.
For Me, spiritual analysis (and it can be analyzed) must be specific, focused. I like Mom and Apple Pie as much as the next Girl but they don't get Me very far in terms of being enlightening.
A big part of the problem lies in a medium itself. It's hard to say much profound in 140 characters, especially if one can't shake the grammar bug.
Is spirituality on Twitter a lost cause, then? I don't know . . . way too early to tell.
My girl lissa suggested, and I imagine she is 100% correct, that it takes time to find the right feeds to follow, and in turn to attract the right followers. So there's that to look forward to.
In the meantime, however . . . have to whore it up! Follow Me ( @Enchanted_Palms ) and I'll follow you! Promise!
On Twitter
Some said it couldn't be done!
Some said it had to be done!
Either way, Me and this blog and the whole #EP experience (it's not a blog, it's a lifestyle!) are now on Twitter.
Some said it had to be done!
Either way, Me and this blog and the whole #EP experience (it's not a blog, it's a lifestyle!) are now on Twitter.
Lenora X
@Lenora__X
Accept no substitutes! Follow Me now! That's an order! (Plus I have no shame -- follow Me and I'll follow you. Everyone gets numbers.)
(thank you, lissa)
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