I have been known to go the casino every now and then and I can be found at the craps table when I go. Of all the casino games, craps has the ambiance I like and, if you're smart, a reasonable chance of winning without the mechanical feel of system blackjack.
One night I was playing craps and a guy not far from My spot was in the midst of a modest comeback after a protracted bad streak. "Rome wasn't built in a day," he said as he collected another small winning bet, meaning by that aphorism that if he kept his discipline and didn't try to win it all back at once, he'd end up all right.
On the other side of Me, another patron, straight out of a casting call for Guys and Dolls, glanced somewhat skeptically at the fellow and said, out of his hearing, "but it only took one night to burn it down."
I had to laugh. Now, if I recall My history, Nero's fire in Rome actually burned for something like a month. But I knew what the gentleman was getting at with his sotto voce assessment. Mr. "Rome wasn't built in a day" found himself where he found himself more from his own lack of discipline than as a result of any astoundingly bad run of dice, and that it wouldn't be long before the plunger reverted to his unshakable habits.
I've incorporated that "but it only took one night to burn it down" saying not only into My supply of humorous remarks but also into My thinking about life, and about this lifestyle.
We work and work and work . . . we struggle to be better . . . as Dominant or submissive. And I have written, more than once, about how progress is that long long string of infinitesimal notches forward, only seen when we turn and stop to look at how far we've come. And while that's true, it's also true that it's so easy to let ourselves down, (and others), to undo so much of what we've done, to unthinkingly cut that string, our hard-earned pearls falling and scattering everywhere.
I have no particular reason for calling this idea to mind, tonight. No profound conclusion. Just perhaps a reminder to Myself, and to whomever might find it the right thought today, to always be on the lookout for unwittingly setting that fire that burns the whole thing down.
Showing posts with label philosphy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosphy. Show all posts
Where You Are Is Where You Belong (For Now)
Lady Janon wrote:
"As for me, pet has done a good job of chronicling all of our exploits. I can feel her, the real Domme, lurking beneath a surface, like a tiger behind a thin pane of glass. I just have to figure out how to break through. She paces back and forth, waiting, watching, wanting.
But the thin glass was a steel fortress months ago, so we've definitely come forward. And that is good."
Reading that made Me think of one of the "lectures" I've given My girls, oh, once or 200 times now. Namely, that we are, pretty much, exactly where we should be, at the moment. That simple statement, almost inane in its obviousness, is much more profound than it seems at first glance.
In D/s, perhaps more than in any other field of human endeavor, there's a tendency to worry about where we are versus where we've come to believe we should be. I am not sure if that is because the Internet has made so many people's adventures/stories/philosophies available to a wide readership, or to some factor inherent in the pursuit of D/s. Perhaps an arena where one party by definition gives up control to a greater or lesser degree and wants to be dictated to creates a natural self-imposed competition against some perceived ideal. I honestly don't understand all the underlying dynamics there.
Aspiring to an ideal isn't a bad thing in and of itself, of course. The submissive, hopefully, is geared towards "improving" him- or herself in his or her service and submission to the Dominant. And, certainly, while I can understand and even endorse the idea that there is some objective standard to be aspired to, however loosely defined, in the end each D/s relationship ends up being shaped by individual desires/history/limits etc.
And if that's the case, then we truly are right where we must be at any given moment. We can hardly be otherwise. Where the problems come in, as I see it, are in three areas:
1. Being happy with the fact that we are where we must be right now.
2. Understanding that temporary sidetracks and missteps are just that, temporary.
3. Realizing that the Dominant and the submissive won't always be at the same state of acceptance of the current place they find themselves.
And this is where Lady Janon's quote above struck Me. I would say that the "real Domme" is already there. It's Her. Now. And that "real Domme" incorporates all the perceived hesitancy, the watching, waiting, and wanting . . . along with everything else that makes Her, Her. That makes us all what we are.
Does that imply that things never can or will change? Not at all. We are all on a continuum in this. We move along it, how and when we can, sometimes prodded to act, to move, by forces unnameable and incomprehensible, sometimes urged by those same forces to slow down, to consolidate, to ponder. One state has no less "realness" than the other. For Dominants, especially perceptive ones, it can be especially difficult since often We can feel, strongly, the submissives' desires to be pushed, challenged. And I know from personal experience the guilt that can accompany those feelings.
For Me, only a deep acceptance that I am where I must be, right now, and that My girls are too, gives Me the confidence, the calmness that I need to be Me. All of Me.
"As for me, pet has done a good job of chronicling all of our exploits. I can feel her, the real Domme, lurking beneath a surface, like a tiger behind a thin pane of glass. I just have to figure out how to break through. She paces back and forth, waiting, watching, wanting.
But the thin glass was a steel fortress months ago, so we've definitely come forward. And that is good."
Reading that made Me think of one of the "lectures" I've given My girls, oh, once or 200 times now. Namely, that we are, pretty much, exactly where we should be, at the moment. That simple statement, almost inane in its obviousness, is much more profound than it seems at first glance.
In D/s, perhaps more than in any other field of human endeavor, there's a tendency to worry about where we are versus where we've come to believe we should be. I am not sure if that is because the Internet has made so many people's adventures/stories/philosophies available to a wide readership, or to some factor inherent in the pursuit of D/s. Perhaps an arena where one party by definition gives up control to a greater or lesser degree and wants to be dictated to creates a natural self-imposed competition against some perceived ideal. I honestly don't understand all the underlying dynamics there.
Aspiring to an ideal isn't a bad thing in and of itself, of course. The submissive, hopefully, is geared towards "improving" him- or herself in his or her service and submission to the Dominant. And, certainly, while I can understand and even endorse the idea that there is some objective standard to be aspired to, however loosely defined, in the end each D/s relationship ends up being shaped by individual desires/history/limits etc.
And if that's the case, then we truly are right where we must be at any given moment. We can hardly be otherwise. Where the problems come in, as I see it, are in three areas:
1. Being happy with the fact that we are where we must be right now.
2. Understanding that temporary sidetracks and missteps are just that, temporary.
3. Realizing that the Dominant and the submissive won't always be at the same state of acceptance of the current place they find themselves.
And this is where Lady Janon's quote above struck Me. I would say that the "real Domme" is already there. It's Her. Now. And that "real Domme" incorporates all the perceived hesitancy, the watching, waiting, and wanting . . . along with everything else that makes Her, Her. That makes us all what we are.
Does that imply that things never can or will change? Not at all. We are all on a continuum in this. We move along it, how and when we can, sometimes prodded to act, to move, by forces unnameable and incomprehensible, sometimes urged by those same forces to slow down, to consolidate, to ponder. One state has no less "realness" than the other. For Dominants, especially perceptive ones, it can be especially difficult since often We can feel, strongly, the submissives' desires to be pushed, challenged. And I know from personal experience the guilt that can accompany those feelings.
For Me, only a deep acceptance that I am where I must be, right now, and that My girls are too, gives Me the confidence, the calmness that I need to be Me. All of Me.
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