Lion Smiles For The Camera
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Posted:Sep 11, 2013 8:38 am
Last Updated:Sep 12, 2013 9:55 am
51014 Views
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I'm not posting anything serious right now... I just wanted in on the HNW action, and I wanted to take a moment and remind everyone that today is 9/11. I hope you will all take a moment today and remember the innocent victims of this senseless attack against our nation.
Thank you.
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Your Odds Of Winning Are... Awwww, Man...
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Posted:Sep 10, 2013 10:21 pm
Last Updated:Sep 23, 2013 6:14 am
22946 Views
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Do any of you play the Lottery?
I do, when I have extra cash on me. I play a single Quick Pick of Super Lotto (the California-specific lottery), Mega Millions (you might be familiar with that one, it's in a lot more states), and of course... PowerBall. I'm sure everyone knows the PowerBall. It's $4 out of my pocket every week or so, since I don't play religiously and I only check my results when I get around to it.
I never win. Ever. I don't just mean the big money, I mean ANYTHING. I can't even get a free ticket. Just dumb bad luck, I guess. Don't rub my belly before throwing the dice in Vegas, either... trust me, I have much better things to rub if you want to get lucky. 
I have no idea why I keep playing, either. I don't expect to win. The odds of me ever winning anything big are astronomical. If I can't even win the $2 booby prize, how can I expect to retire early on lottery winnings? And yet, I keep playing, because you can't win if you don't play. Maybe I'm hoping that all the bad luck I'm having with the lottery will pay off with one big win.
I've been watching the show "My Name Is Earl" lately... I found free episodes online, and I thought it would be fun to watch the entire series. As such, I'm getting the redneck version of the concept of Karma laid on me pretty thick, and I have to say: if Earl can come across all this good stuff and huge amounts of free money because he does good deeds, why can't I?
I mean, Earl did all sorts of bad things in his life, so he got all sorts of bad things happening to him. The whole premise of the show is that Earl decides he's going to do nothing but good things the rest of his life, and to start by making up for all the bad he did. It pays off for him in big dividends, too.
Of course, this is a TV show and has nothing to do with reality, but let's go with the whole Karma thing for a minute. Bear with me, I'm going with the redneck version, since I know squat about Karma other than the Earl Hickey version. 
Karma is supposed to be a whole cosmic thing where, throughout your multiple lifetimes of dying and coming back as various things, if you keep doing good things, your overall Karmic energy remains positive. If you do good, good comes to you. Unlike yin-yang, where balance is achieved through both good AND bad and the belief in being one with everything, Karma is pretty cut and dried: good equals good, bad equals bad.
To paraphrase Rajesh from The Big Bang Theory... if that's the case, why am I not a devastatingly-handsome billionaire with wings (I can't complain about the "well-hung" part... I won that genetic lottery)?
I've been bad in my life, and I've done things I'm not proud of. I had to beg, borrow, and steal from friends and strangers for nearly 20 years before I got financially stable, and even now I'm not entirely stable but I'm not begging, borrowing, or stealing anymore. I firmly believe in the concept of Paying It Forward, and paying it back if I can. I volunteer. I work hard. I defend my country. I give to charities when I can... admittedly, not very often because I'm still mostly broke. I donate blood every two months. I treat people like I want to be treated.
And I do it to make up for the mistakes I've made in my past. Just like Earl. I can't go around specifically targeting the people I've done wrong to... mainly because I have no idea where they are anymore. But those that I COULD target, I've made a point to make up for it. I'm still working on that, too.
So if Karma is out there and working for me, did it miss me somehow? If God blesses the charitable spirit, why don't I feel very blessed? If Yin and Yang are all about the balance of good and evil, why is my Yin so out of whack with my Yang?
This isn't about religion. Don't get me wrong. And for Pete's sake, PLEASE don't start proselytizing to me! I'm a good Christian boy, and I'm ruminating on my life... don't read too much into this!
It just seems to me that, with all the bad that's happened to me in my life, and all the good I think I've done for others, I think I'm due a winning Lottery ticket. Don't you?
And you can't win if you don't play. So... I play.
Hell, at this point, it might be the only retirement option I have, if I can't find a permanent full-time job soon. This part-time stuff is for the birds.
So... okay, Universe! I'm ready for that whole cosmic payback thingy! I could really use that winning Lottery ticket right about now! I'll even keep doing the good stuff I do... hell, I could do it a lot better! I'd be sure to buy plenty of businesses and hire as many people as I could for decent wages, and fuck that ObamaCare stuff... I'd get them all the GOOD healthcare packages! I have plans to build humane animal shelters to prevent needless killing of animals with no homes, too! And did I mention the ideas I have for a permanent haunted house attraction I want to build? I even have the perfect people to hire to run it, too!
Hmmm... I'll have to tell you all about my tourist attraction idea I have, someday. I think you all might like it. Again, if ever I can get the money, someday...
What do you think, Lady Luck? Want to kiss me on the forehead just once? I can do the rest after that.
How about you all? Do you play the Lottery, hoping for the big win? Are you more of a "scratcher" kind of player? Maybe you skip the Lottery entirely and just hit the casinos (I enjoy the slot machines, although... again, I lose. What's up with that?)... are you a big winner in gambling? As usual, my lines are open, and I want to hear your thoughts.
Maybe I'd have better luck in Bingo...?
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Guns, Medals, Shot Down In A Blaze of Glory.
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Posted:Sep 9, 2013 7:57 pm
Last Updated:Sep 1, 2016 4:40 am
33338 Views
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This is weird for me... I'm in a writer's slump.
I can't think of anything I want to write about except maybe stuff that's somewhat political in nature and would probably start an argument and cause a lot of hurt feelings as angry posts get flung back and forth... not what I imagined for this blog, and not a place I want to go.
I'm trying to just write about ANYTHING, hoping something will get kick-started, so... here goes.
Tomorrow, I'm going to a shooting range with my Army buddy. He got a new gun he wants to show off, and I need to practice up on my aim. Since I'm getting older and my eyesight isn't getting any better, I need the extra practice if I'm going to qualify this year. That, and my friend is feeling a little upset because he got passed over for a medal, and I'm going to work with him to get one written up for him.
Oh! I got a medal! I received an Army Achievement Medal for all the work I did during my Annual Training. I worked my happy ass off during those two weeks making sure everything got set up and running smoothly, and the fact that I had to teach several CA's how to do their jobs didn't hurt, either. It was nice to be noticed and rewarded for all that work. A few more points towards my next promotion is always nice.
I'm having trouble trying to figure out how to send messages to the local ladies on this website. I had a system that kinda worked for me when I was just trying to connect for FWB's, but since I've started looking for an actual relationship... I'm a bit stumped. Since the VAST majority of the women on here don't talk about themselves at all on their profiles (they mostly just talk about sex and what they want from men), I have no idea what to write.
I have a system of writing on other dating websites, but that system doesn't really feel right here. I've had more than one woman send me a message on here telling me I'm crazy to look for something real on A.F.F., that I'm barking up the wrong tree or that I'm just trying to play on a woman's emotions in order to get her into bed and I'm a pig for playing with her emotions like that... sigh...
Honestly, I'm a little lost as to what I should do on A.F.F. anymore. Every connection I make falls apart, and women think I'm nuts looking for love in all the wrong places. Damn sure I can't think of a good way to cold-message the women in my area... hell, if they didn't respond to me before, why would they respond now just because I've shifted gears?
Maybe that's one of the reasons I'm in a writing slump... because I'm getting discouraged again. A guy can only hear NO so many times before he just doesn't want to hear it anymore. I'm getting gun shy about even writing to anyone anymore... no one responds anyway, and all that writing isn't exactly easy. People don't realize that individual, specific, and personalized messages take time, effort, and a lot of reading her profile to come up with stuff that sounds witty, charming, and sincere. After a while, with zero results, you get to the point where you don't want to go through the bother anymore.
See, you women have no idea about this, because it's all on the guy's side on this website. Maybe you've done a bit of fishing here, but you certainly have no need to do any at all with the number of guys throwing themselves at you. They might all be a bunch of losers that you ignore or shoot down, but I'd much rather be shooting down a huge number of women pounding down my door than trying time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time again to get someone's notice... with no response, no interest, and no fun. At least you get the ego boost. Mine just gets stomped on. A lot.
See, this isn't good. I'm going to start looking desperate again, and I'm going to attract some weird woman with serious issues hoping I'll solve them for her, and I'll cling to her because I'm lonely as hell and even a broken toy is something to play with... ARGH! What the fuck is wrong with me???
I can't start down this road again, and yet here I am, finding myself at the head of the road, staring into the distance and wishing for just that one special woman to come along and break me out of this fucked up pattern.
Okay, I'm going to stop writing. This was a bad idea to just write and see what popped into mind. If anyone has any ideas for contacting the women on here for the purposes of actual, genuine dating intentions, I'm all ears... I'm stumped.
Oh, I seem to be stymied on my weight-loss, too... life just seems to be stalling me on all fronts lately.
Where's my cat? I need to cuddle. 
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Like A Knight In Shining Armor... From A Long Time Ago.
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Posted:Sep 5, 2013 8:07 pm
Last Updated:Sep 30, 2013 7:29 pm
33437 Views
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A knight isn't just a guy in armor swinging a sword and riding a . That may be what video games and television wants us to think, but a knight can wear slacks and a t-shirt and still be a knight. It's not what you look like, but who you are. One of my personal favorite online names is Sir Lionmane... and what's wrong with wanting to emulate a Knight and a Lion? If you ask me, we need more knights and lions in this world.
There's something to be said for chivalry. I'd like to think I'm a chivalrous kind of guy. I will usually hold the door open for other people unless my arms are full, and even then I'll brace a foot against the door as best as I can. If I see that someone is obviously cold and doesn't have a jacket, I'll usually give them mine... I don't mind the cold so much, and I know what it's like to "need and not have". So many people helped me when I was down and broke that I couldn't possibly pay them all back, so I make it a point to pay it forward if I can. I just think it's a good thing to be a good guy.
Treating people honorably, speaking truthfully, following through with what you promise, defending family and friends, working hard and completing what you start, stepping forward to right a wrong with both words and actions... these are knightly virtues. Does it cost so much for a person to do these things? It might at times, but most of the time it really doesn't. And in the times it does, those are your scars of battle against the evils of this world, and there's nothing wrong with wearing those scars proudly.
Knowing that doing the right thing will often put you in conflict with people who are determined to do wrong even in spite of themselves, a knight must arm and armor himself to fight that evil. In this day and age, that's not with full-plate-mail, shield, and sword... it's with knowledge, with wisdom, with a healthy body and a sound mind, with education, and with a strong sense of who you are. Some martial arts training couldn't hurt, either, 'cause there are some serious wackos out there.
Does it make you a hero? No. To my thinking, doing these things makes you a decent human being, and to not at least try to be like a knight is to sell yourself short and hurt your own soul. In many cases, it can hurt your body and mind too, since psychologists generally agree that the opposite of those knightly virtues typically leads to all sorts of problems; mind, body, and spirit.
There's a law of the Universe called The Law of Attraction. It's much like the Christian philosophy of "do unto others" and "you reap what you sow", or the Hindu belief of Karma. In basic terms, The Law of Attraction states that "like attracts like"... positive attracts positive, negative attracts negative. If you do good things, good things will happen. If you do bad things, bad things will happen.
Now, naturally that's not a cut-and-dried kind of thing, because Life happens to everyone, the rain falls on the just and the unjust, the best person on Earth can have the worst luck ever... Life happens. There isn't much you can do about it. But it DOES make perfect sense, and in fact it is a scientific and spiritually significant fact that The Law of Attraction is real, potent, and is a pretty good indicator of the kind of person you are.
Think about it: smokers hang around smokers, drinkers hang around drinkers, Christians hang around Christians, Muslims hang around Muslims... we naturally gravitate around people who are like us. Why do you think one of the first rules of being wealthy is "Go hang around wealthy people and act like them as much as possible"? It's not a coincidence. Hell, a famous book called Think and Grow Rich, written by a man named Napoleon Hill, was almost entirely based on that concept, and that book is practically the Bible to many wealthy people.
So. Let's say you make a decision to embrace knightly virtues. You decide that you want more positivity and good things in your life. You can be the nucleus of a better world to live in simply by trying to do just that... be a better person. Your positivity will influence other people to be positive. Will it change overnight? Of course not. But over weeks, months, even years? You bet. And those people will be more positive, influencing other people to act more like a knight to others, which in turn will make other people happy.
Of course, bad things will happen. And when they do, the others in your life that you positively influenced will come to help you. It's circular. Even if they don't, you can still choose to do the right thing, because when it all comes down to it, you are in charge of your own destiny, and you decide the kind of life you lead.
I'm poor. I'm average-looking. I have no girlfriend. My barely talk to me and are hundreds of miles away. My family barely speaks to each other. I live in a tiny room that smells like a cat box, in my parent's house because they need me and I'm too broke to live on my own. Most of my clothes are hand-me-downs and out of style, my furniture is beat up and falling apart, and all of my friends are so far away that I have to plan day trips to go visit them.
And yet, I am a knight. Because even though there are times I let my circumstances get the best of me, I will still do the right things and stand for what I believe. I will risk the rejection of others and do what might be unpopular, because it's the right thing to do. I will do more than complain on Facebook and Twitter and whatever other social networking there is, and actually DO something about what might be wrong. And good things do and have been coming my way because of this choice I've made to always do the right thing.
I may not always be able to do it, and I may fail horribly at it, but I can look myself in the mirror and honestly say I tried. Sometimes, I might even be able to say I succeeded. Not every knight wins his battles. But every knight can say he fought to right a wrong, and was the good against the evil.
Can you say that?
I hope you can. I want you to. We are living in a world of negativity, and it has to stop. It is time to step forward and be heard. It's time to speak up when someone says something hateful, no matter who it's against. It's time to step between the bully and his victim. It's time to speak out against the wrongs that are being perpetrated by our own government against its own people. It's time to turn off the TV shows like Jerry Springer and Jackass and reality-TV that isn't real at all, and all those idiot-shows that glamorize anger and violence and stupid stunts for attention. It's time to turn off the songs that preach racial hatred and violence, that call women bitches and whores, that glorify drugs and self-mutilation, and listen to... hell, ANYTHING else!
All that negativity. It's affecting you, a hell of a lot more than you know. You CAN be positive! You don't have to be naive about it, but what's so wrong with a smile at a stranger? What's wrong with kind words instead of nasty attitudes? Try shaking a hand or clapping someone on the shoulder in greeting. Would it really be so tough to not snap at people just because you're having a bad day or a rough life or you don't like your job or whatever is eating at your gut? Believe me when I say... that only hurts you. And it hurts you a lot.
You only get what you give, so if you're giving out bad, you're going to get bad back. So try giving out some good for a change.
There's nothing wrong with being a knight. People might throw mud on your armor to try and lower you to their level, but mud washes off of steel... they're the ones with the stained hands.
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Locked, Blocked, Socked, And Clocked.
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Posted:Sep 3, 2013 9:39 pm
Last Updated:Sep 5, 2013 6:39 pm
20485 Views
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Hello all.
You may be wondering to yourself... why has Lion not posted anything since his 100th post? Well, it's simple. I can't think of anything to write about.
I've always considered my blog to be meaningful, if only to me. I tend to write about things I believe in or are important to me, and although I want everyone to like what I read and can appreciate the effort and thought I put into my posts, when it all comes down to brass tax, I guess this blog is really about putting myself out there in a real way.
But sometimes... I just get silly. This is one of those times.
Locked. A few days ago, one of the bathrooms at the hospital I work at inexplicably locked itself shut. This is technically not possible, since the lock is a deadbolt type, and you can only lock it from the inside. If you want to lock or unlock it from the outside, you have to come get me, since I have the emergency key that supposedly opens all those doors should they lock themselves. Inexplicably.
So I'm trying to unlock this bathroom. My emergency key doesn't work. Weird. I fiddle with this for a few minutes before giving it up as a lost cause. So I call the engineering department to tell them we have a broken lock.
Blocked. The engineering department's number comes up with this recorded statement: "We're sorry, but the number you have reached has been disconnected or is otherwise no longer in service." This is, again, impossible, since the number I dialed is a direct-line within the hospital switchboard... at no point does the call go outside that switchboard. Yet, somehow, I've been redirected not only out of the hospital, but to a disconnected number. Maybe it was me? I tried again... same result. What was going on?
So, seeing as I'm a good worker and mindful of the need for patients to occasionally need to use the restroom (since it was a patient restroom), I attempt to track down the engineering department. I have no idea where that is, however, and apparently neither does anyone else. I asked about a dozen people who have been working at that hospital for about a million years, and not a single one had any clue where to go. So... I go to Security.
Socked. As I'm talking to a pretty young girl working the Security desk, about 20 all in their stocking feet suddenly come rushing around the corner at top speed, pelting down the linoleum hallway as fast as their legs can carry them. Fortunately, the oldest of them was about 10 and the youngest about 5, so they're fairly lightweight.
Unfortunately, there are 20 of them, they aren't watching where they're going, and they are very intent on sliding across the slippery floor for as far as they can go. Before I can react, about half a dozen barrel straight into me accidentally, followed by all the rest of the completely on purpose. This resulted in several things:
I was knocked off my feet and onto my back.
I was on the bottom of a dogpile of young that I've never seen before.
The Security girl was both laughing her ass off and trying to help disentangle me from the pile up.
Clocked. As the Security girl is scolding the for running in the hallway and barreling me over, three adults come walking around the corner and see the being chastised by the Security girl, who is just then being joined by another Security guy. This results in the adults immediately taking offense to Security telling the not to run in the hallways... why these perfect strangers (because the Security asked if they were related or friends to any of the , to which they answered no) decided to take up this unworthy cause, I have no idea.
Meanwhile, I've been completely derailed from my original task of locating the engineering department, and Security has its hands full. So I call down to my supervisors to ask if they knew where engineering was, or if they could perhaps contact them to fix the broken lock. Before I can get a word in edgewise, the supervisor that answers says, "Isn't it your lunch-time? You should be clocking out."
To explain this, the County is anal-compulsive-retentive-need to get the stick out of their ass-nutso about exact times for breaks and lunches. I look at the clock... I have 20 minutes to lunch time, and I tell her this. She proceeds to start arguing about lunch times and how I need to adhere to them exactly. I tell her I agree, which is why I'm not clocking out for another 18 minutes. This conversation goes on for the next 23 minutes, during which I spoke roughly... oh... 25 or so words. The last words of which were: "Ma'am, I need to clock out for lunch, I'm late."
For which, I get in trouble. Not a lot, but I got talked to for allowing my lunch time to start late. I guess the fact that it was the supervisor's fault to begin with was beside the point.
I never got to engineering. The nurses station finally managed to make the phones over there work about a day later. Last I heard, the bathroom lock is still broken. The number of urine clean-ups I've had to do since then have roughly tripled. I wonder if that might somehow be related?
Smile. It's my day off. And it's going to be a good day.
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Post #100... and 100,000 Lovers In A Lifetime
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Posted:Aug 30, 2013 10:07 pm
Last Updated:Sep 30, 2013 7:29 pm
31829 Views
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Hey, what do you know? I'm at post #100 on my blog. I thought I'd celebrate with my take on a recent bit of news.
I heard on the news today that a 21-year-old woman named Ania Lisewska from Poland, a country widely known to be very taboo on the subject of sex, is planning to set a world record for the number of lovers in a lifetime. Her current goal... 100,000 men.
Don't believe me? Here's an article on the subject, and there are others:
http://NoStrings.com
Her plan is to travel the world having sex with as many men as possible in every major city in every country she can get to. She says she's going to be doing this primarily on weekends, and each man will have at least 20 minutes to do their business, minimum. She has a boyfriend who apparently is going along with this plan (although from some accounts, grudgingly so), and is already up to 284 men thus far, according to her Facebook and webpage.
https://www.facebook.com/anialisewskasex
Now, personally, if this is something this woman feels she wants or needs to do, then all power to her... I won't be one of her lovers, but who am I to decide another person's life? It's fairly obvious that she's making as big a spectacle of this as she can, which makes me think she's doing this for attention. But I know absolutely nothing about this girl, and maybe she just genuinely loves sex and lots of different lovers, so I'm going to leave my speculation right there.
What boggles me is the commitment she has put herself to. Let's boil this down to numbers:
100,000 men she wants to have sex with. If she had sex with one man a day, every day, no exceptions, no sick days, no holidays... she would have to have sex with a different man each day for 274 years. I'm thinking she's probably going to die before that happens. Hey, science is progressing in leaps and bounds, so maybe we'll all living to 300 soon, but... I'm going to say she'll have to up her count a bit.
So, how might she make this happen? Well, let's see... if she decided to complete her mission in 20 years, she would need to have sex with 13-14 men per day, every single day. I suppose that's doable. She'd probably need SOME days off for sickness.
Oh, but wait... she's only doing this on weekends, according to her. Hmmm... okay, if that's the case, let's extend the time to 60 years (so she'll be 81 when she's finally finished), and if she didn't miss a single weekend, that would mean she would need 16 new lovers per day of her weekend, or 32 guys per weekend. Still doable.
She says she plans to have sex with each guy for 20 minutes each, minimum, so that's a time commitment of 5 hours and 20 minutes set aside each day, just to have sex. Minimum. That's assuming no delays between guys... literally lined up outside her door, and jumping in her pussy the second the last guy is done or 20 minutes has passed. Still possible if she has some sort of manager to get the guys ready to go for her, and assuming the manager has plenty of advertising set up proclaiming that this woman is putting out free sex to any guy who will have her... that's doable.
I know nothing about this girl, but I have to wonder... where is she getting the money to do this? If she's only doing this on weekends, I'm assuming that means she has a job, but that also means she's pretty attached to Poland, then. If she's having to travel back and forth to other cities and then back to her home town to go to work, that's going to cut heavily into her sex time. Plus, what kind of job does she have that she can shell out that kind of money for constant plane trips and hotel rooms and food and all that jazz at age 21?
I'm thinking she must be born into money... which would also explain the desperate need for attention.
Either that, or she's going to be travelling from location to location, and making porn videos and selling them to fund her trips. That would help her add to her lover-count, she'd make decent money, that money would likely increase as her fame grew with the number of lovers she's had (SEE ANIA'S LATEST SEXCAPADES ON VIDEO! Only $29.99!), and ironically she could write off quite a bit of her expenses on her taxes. Assuming she had a good head for business... and gave good head for the videos... that scenario is, again... doable.
I hope she keeps her figure as the years go by. Time is not a friendly fellow.
My guess is that this woman will dive headlong into the porn business, setting up huge gang-bangs on the weekends where dozens and even hundreds of guys will flock to fuck her on video. It's really the only reasonable way she can expect to knock out 100,000 different guys in her lifetime. Even assuming she's rich, there's simply no other way to manage something on that scale.
Good luck, Ania Lisewska. I hope you ensure every guy uses a condom, that you somehow remain entirely disease-free, and that this will somehow let you find what you're wanting in life.
I can't help but think that this will end badly.
Hurray for 100 posts!
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I'm Going To Die Getting Healthy Again. Irony Is A Bastard.
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Posted:Aug 28, 2013 8:42 pm
Last Updated:Sep 7, 2013 6:08 pm
32658 Views
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Okay, a little background.
I mentioned earlier in my blog that I'm fighting high blood pressure. I also mentioned that I'm trying to lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle diet. I haven't mentioned that I'm a little lactose intolerant... not severely, but you don't really want to hang around if I've had too much dairy in my diet.
I've also mentioned that I'm working out with lap swimming nowadays, which is doing good things for my health. I lost my goggles, so my eyes aren't feeling so great, but I just replaced them today, so that should be handled. My goggles, that is... not my eyes.
So... blood pressure, lose weight, lactose intolerant, working out. I think we're all caught up.
I am going to starve to death.
I'm sure you've all seen those sitcoms where older men with high blood pressure are warned about laying off the red meat and greasy food and such, and they inevitably cheat (ONCE! How is that realistic?), and suddenly they're keeling over and having heart attacks. So I'm sure those of you without medical degrees have a general idea of how I need to lower my blood pressure.
Lay off the red meats and greasy foods, no alcohol, no salt, no butter or bacon or doughnuts or noodles, no french fries, no caffeine (although that's not proven by any studies, and some even say coffee can help, so that's inconclusive), sweets, or nuts. Sigh... okay... not really liking that, but okay. I can do that.
What SHOULD I eat for high blood pressure? Fruits, veggies, skim milk, dark chocolate (wow, really? But... no sweets, right? Bad for the diet, anyway.) fish, chicken (both prepared in as tasteless a fashion as possible... and I really like fish, too...), whole grains, and foods high in potassium and magnesium. Okay, I can do that, too. I like fruits and veggies, I've gotten used to skim milk over the years, I love dark chocolate (my favorite chocolate, in fact), I typically get whole grain breads and such anyway, and I can add the other heart-healthy stuff to my diet. Okay... this is still doable.
Need to lose weight, still. Hmmm... okay, well... I have to keep my protein up. My body type requires a high amount of protein, both my doctor, my dietitian, and my own body screams for it constantly. Besides, with the lap swimming, it would be a slow form of suicide to not maintain high protein levels. Just means I have to have a lot of fish and chicken in my diet. Not bad at all, I like both.
So I need to keep counting calories, lay off the sugars and fats, keep working out with swimming and such, stay active, eat healthy... all that standard "never eat anything genuinely tasty again" kind of shit.
Hmmm... lactose intolerant. Well, I'll have to go easy on the skim milk, even though I need it for my blood pressure. And the chocolate, too... three strikes, it's out! For that matter, there are a lot of veggies that practically make me a walking methane generator... NOT the best choice when I'm trying to find Ms. Right, I think. Maybe go REEEEEAL easy on that...
All of that is doable. It's not fun, but you don't get better without sacrifice, right? No pain, no gain? It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle? Right?
Right?
Something happened today. Honestly, when it hit me, I had to fight tears. For me, that's saying something.
I went shopping today, and for the first time, I was shopping not only with my diet in mind, but my blood pressure. I was having trouble finding foods that filled all of the requirements I had, and still be able to store it all in my little room and small section of the refrigerator. And I was suddenly struck by all of the foods I can't have anymore. Most of it is no loss, but... a lot of it is.
I suddenly realized that I can't just sit and eat chips anymore. I can't have a bowl of ice cream without wearing a gas mask. I can't have dill pickles... that's my go-to diet snack, since it's zero calories, but I can't have them because they're packed with sodium. Probably the reason why my blood pressure is up again. I can't eat steak anymore. No bacon. No beef. No more wine and cheese. So much for wine and cheese tasting. No bacon cheeseburgers, and that's just hitting below the belt.
It's a serious thing I have to do here. Heart problems run in my family, and I'm the first one to be able to recognize it and do something about it BEFORE it becomes a problem. I have to keep my weight down and my exercise up if I'm going to be serious about my military retirement... the military is looking for reasons to kick people out, and they damn sure don't want to pay out retirement anymore. Diabetes is a running problem with my family too. And aren't I just a lucky to be the first in my family to become lactose intolerant?
Sigh. These are changes I have to do. I'm doing them. I recognize the necessity, I know the health benefits these changes make in my life, and they're doing good things for me.
But...
...
...
... why did it have to happen to me? Why do I have to lose foods that I like? The exercise isn't so bad, and in fact I enjoy it, but the food...
It's just not fair...
For the fifteen years I dealt with the soul-crushing debt I was saddled with by my ex, the only thing I had that was a luxury was food. It's one of the reasons I became a foodie. I couldn't afford my own place, I couldn't afford a car, I couldn't afford new clothes, I couldn't have all the cool toys most people my age could have... but I could eat, and I could enjoy eating. And maybe I had to sacrifice some things to get healthy again, and sacrifice others to lose all the pounds, and maybe it was for the best.
But today... looking at all those grocery shelves full of things I can't have anymore... I realized how much my life has changed. I can barely recognize myself in my old photos, and I'm nothing like who I was so many years ago. I've become such a better person over these years. So why do I have to lose the one thing that has always made me happy?
Dangerous thinking, I know. Using food as comfort. I had to break myself out of that rut years ago in order to stop the downward spiral. The problem is that I just don't think I've found anything to replace it. And that scares me. It scares the ever-loving shit out of me.
The only thing that gives me any comfort anymore is my cat, and she's dying of old age. And that scares the shit out of me, too.
When I made the change to stop letting food take control of my life, I didn't realize just how drastic a change it was going to make on me. I think that's one of the reasons my sex drive, already pretty high, has been on hyper-overdrive the past few years. I've replaced one thing with another. And I think it's THAT realization that made me decide to stop trying to drown in sex and look for Ms. Right.
And that is stymied. So what do I have?
I think that scares me most of all. I don't really know.
Oh Jesus, I'm a walking, talking cliche' for middle-aged men. I knew I was heading for mid-life crisis, but I think maybe I've been here for a while and didn't realize it. And to think... it was triggered by walking down a grocery aisle.
I'm not sure how I got from describing a shopping trip to here, but here I am, nonetheless. I guess I'm having a weak moment. Hopefully you'll understand... I already have enough women thinking I'm tame and weak, the last thing I need to add to that is unmanly. But that's what a blog is for, right? To write out what you're thinking, so you can put it all in perspective? Maybe that's just me.
It's all worth it. It is.
Maybe if I keep telling myself that, I'll eventually believe it.
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Time Off To Play...
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Posted:Aug 27, 2013 9:29 am
Last Updated:Sep 5, 2013 9:06 am
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... and no one to play with.
Sorry, today's blog isn't very meaningful. It's more just me rambling about what to do with myself for the next few days. I have three days off, and I have no idea what to do.
All of my friends are either working the next couple of days or too far away to visit easily. I'm feeling restless lately, like I want to go have FUN FUN FUN somewhere! Honestly, Disneyland has been calling my name, I love that place. But without anyone to go with, I'd just be... well... me. Disneyland is fun, but it's just not the same without friends or family or someone special.
Same goes for any theme park, for that matter, or museums or wine tasting or cheese tasting or farmer's markets or karaoke or any of the other places I like to go for fun. Except movies, movies are okay to go by myself... but even then, it's better with others.
Kinda tossed around going to a waterslide park, but... same problem. I'd be the awkward middle-aged guy gawking at the hot women in bikinis, not the guy with friends having fun in the sun and water... gawking at the hot women in bikinis. Look, if you're going to show off your body, it would be rude not to look! I'm just sayin'! 
I'm heading off to go do my lap swimming soon, so that will be something active and productive, but I want to go have fun for a while. Just go and play, you know? And not the middle-age-be-responsible-and-not-make-an-ass-of-myself kind of play, but the let-loose-and-go-wild-tease-the-security-touch-the-exhibit-that-says-NO-TOUCHING-jump-in-the-city-fountain-laughing-uncontrollably-just-because-I-can kind of play.
I just wish I had someone to go play with. I feel like I did when I was a , growing up on a block with no and strict parents that refused to let me go anywhere. Except now, it's not that I CAN'T go, it's that it would just be ME going. When you want to have REAL fun, doing it alone makes people think you're Looney Tunes or high off of something very, very illegal... but do it with friends, and you're just part of the obnoxious, giggling, out of control mob. I'm not normally like that, but sometimes you just have to LET GO... you know?
I'm going to go do my lap swimming. Maybe something will occur to me. Or maybe I'll flirt uncontrollably with the aerobics instructors and see what happens. Really wish one of you was here with me... wild monkey sex afterwards aside, we would have a great day today.
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Do You Love A Man In A Uniform?
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Posted:Aug 25, 2013 7:54 pm
Last Updated:Sep 10, 2013 9:27 pm
20764 Views
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This is a picture of me today, in my Army ACU's. How am I looking? The lap swimming is paying off, I think.
I'm going to be a little angry here, so bear with me, and I hope you understand. I wanted to talk today about the American military, because I'm honestly tired of some of the misconceptions, myths, and outright lies perpetrated by the media, our own government, and those who feel it's okay to spit on us.
You know what? It's okay. You can not like us. You can even hate us. You have the right to do exactly that. You have the right to protest and petition our government to disband the entire military in the name of peace. You have the right to the freedom of speech that lets you scream at the top of your lungs how much you can't stand anyone and everyone in the military for whatever reasons you may have. They might even be good reasons... I haven't lived your life, so I can't judge you. Apparently it's okay for you to judge ME, but that's another story...
Do you know why it's okay? Because those of us in uniform fight and die so you can have that opinion. We choose to accept your sarcasm and your bile and your bitterness and your hatred, because if we didn't, you wouldn't be able to fling it in the first place.
Try doing that in just about any other country that has not embraced the American example. Protesting, that is, or speaking out against the military or the government. Go ahead. I dare you. I double-dare you.
Every country that has chosen not to follow the example of the United States would have their military arrest you, beat you, torture you, imprison you, take away all of your possessions, publicly humiliate you, tax you so hard that you'd lose your home and everything you and your family have, savage your sexuality, enslave you, kill you, kill your family, kill your neighbors who had the bad luck to be living next to you, hunt down and kill your friends just in case they contracted the "freedom disease" you had, and desecrate your body in ways only humanity could ever come up with.
Go ahead. Just try. If those other countries "have got the right idea", then feel free to go see for yourself.
Or you can take my word for it when I say that over 7/8ths of the world would happily throw your life into a wood-chipper for daring to speak against their military or their government. And most of the remaining 1/8th would shut you up in other, less violent but no less oppressive, ways.
Don't believe me? Go watch the news once in a while. See what happens to protesters in other parts of the world... those that dare to have protesters, that is. The United States treats their protesters with gloves and warm blankets compared to them. You think tear gas and tasers are bad? You think being manhandled a little by police is bad? You think getting thumped by a baton because you were stupid enough to pull a weapon on a cop is bad? HA! You have no fucking clue, pal. None.
And you think you know the truth about what's going on in those countries, do you? Let me guess, from all the television shows and movies, right? You're only seeing what got past the censors in that country... you have never, and likely will never, see the savage butchery that usually accompanies innocent people who desperately wish they had the same freedoms that you spit on and take advantage of.
Our military keeps your freedoms safe, and we do it with our blood, our limbs, our mental health, our physical well-being, and our very lives.
We brave weapons that would give you nightmares for your entire life if you ever actually encountered them in real life, so that you can protest our funerals. We endure tortures that would break your minds like twigs if you had to endure them, so that you can call us baby-killers and warmongers and death merchants. We live in conditions that have been compared to maximum-security prisons and found wanting, live in dust and mud and sand and biting insects and poisonous plants and killing climates, live in countries full of people who also spit on us if they don't actively want to kill us... so you can sit in your comfortable armchair and condemn the sacrifice we make because you don't want to understand why.
And yes, I say you don't WANT to understand why. It's not that you're incapable of understanding, you simply refuse to accept it because we offend your delicate sensibilities. But in the interests of trying to educate and make a difference, here's why we military folks do what we do.
1. To protect your freedoms: Before the United States rose up and created their own rules for living, there was not a single country that was free. Not one. Every single country was ruled by monarchy, warlords, and despotism, and those rulers did whatever the hell they felt like doing to you. Oh, some of them couched their dictatorship with sweetness and light and proper etiquette, but it was a velvet glove over an iron fist... again, feel free to look up your history on whatever country you think was an exception to that rule. There wasn't one. This country is the only one that gave you the freedom to create your own life without fear of tyranny and oppression.
That might be changing in the near future, but that's a whole other political mess I'm not going to get into.
2. If we didn't, you would not have the life you currently lead: Here's some Wake-Up Juice for you... humanity sucks. There are people with a lot of power, a lot of money, and a lot of firepower who would happily take everything you have. Do you like going to church? What if the guy who just conquered your city said religion now earned a death sentence? Maybe you'd be happy to die for God, but that life you led is now over, one way or another.
Are you rich? Well off? Own a fancy car or home? If the warlord with the guns and tanks and air power decided that he wanted it, you would lose it. Your only alternative would be to use that wealth to create an army to protect yourself with... and that would only last as long as you held out. Not much of the happy, easy lifestyle you currently enjoy, eh? How much freedom do you have behind walls and armed guards?
Do you like your job? Hate your job? Well, guess what? You get to do it for free! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you're a slave! Or getting paid such a pittance that African tribes are sending YOU money so YOU can survive! Do you like your car? You don't own it anymore! It was taken by some guys with guns because they wanted it! Did you like living? Oops... sorry, some other guys with guns got bored and decided to have a little game of How Long Can He Live, and forced you to run through a minefield, or stuck you with a poisonous dart, or threw you to starving tigers, or just put you in a cage and didn't bother to feed you.
This country maintains a powerful military and a nuclear deterrent because if we didn't, some other country with a hell of a lot less scruples than we have would happily come over here and take it from us. And then we live by their rules, or we don't live at all.
Think I'm exaggerating? Go look at Africa. Go look at south-east Asia. Go look at the Middle East. Go look at South America. Those people live in a constant state of fear, ever-changing dictatorships, terrifying warfare, and other assorted nightmares.
3. Believe it or not, we like you: Your military is friendly, caring, and is genuinely concerned for the welfare of you and your country. That may be somewhat conditional on the soldier in question, but as a whole, we don't do this for the money... we do it for you.
We come to your aid in times of crisis, and we ask for nothing but a small salary and something to live on when we retire... just like everyone else. We take enormous pay cuts so our government can give billions in aid to other countries and to illegal aliens... but also to give to the poor and needy, those that genuinely can't care for themselves, and those who just need a little something until they can get back on their feet again.
We give our own food up so a hungry can eat for a day, because we know we can handle the lack for a while, but that might not be able to. We take on the enemies of the American way of life, because if we didn't, you would suffer for what we didn't do. We throw ourselves into hurricanes and forest fires and earthquakes and floods in order to rescue those who can't rescue themselves, because we couldn't live with ourselves if we stood by and let another person die while we stood safe.
We aren't warmongers. We aren't murderers. We don't look forward to killing others, and we certainly don't want to die. We just realize that someone has to make that sacrifice so that others don't have to. We accept that our choice to be the sword and shield for this country means having to do things no decent human being should ever have to endure. No one forces us to stand that ground, to hold that line in the sand, to refuse those who would take from you that which we have given so much to retain.
"The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war."
Douglas MacArthur
We're not asking for your blessing. We know that's probably asking too much of some people. All we really ask is that you treat us with the same respect you would treat others. We ask for the same respect you would give your dog, who defends your home selflessly for no other reason than loyalty. We ask for the same respect you would give your parents, who would give their lives to protect yours and sacrifice everything for your well-being. We ask for the same respect you would give your friends, who stand by you even when they know you're wrong.
We just want to be treated like you would want to be treated.
If you can't manage that, at least have the common decency to leave us alone and let us live our lives in the way we have chosen, just like you have. And if you can't even manage the tiny, insignificant thing of not going out of your way to spit on us...
... well, then I pity you. Because I don't hate you. I'm volunteering to possibly die to allow you that virulent hate. So I pity you. I can't imagine what horrors you must suffer to hate those who would give up everything for your well-being... for your freedom.
I just wanted to get that off my chest. Thank you.
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Lovesickness... Ever Had It?
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Posted:Aug 22, 2013 8:22 pm
Last Updated:Aug 31, 2013 5:50 pm
19710 Views
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It's a funny thing, being in love. It's a feeling I haven't had in a long time, and yet it's the one feeling that time just never causes to fade.
I think that's how you really know that you're truly in love, in fact. I think true love is so powerful, so paradigm-altering, so completely enveloping to a human being that we can never truly get over it. I think it's why some people simply pine away and die after the death of their spouse... they just can't live without them.
I think I'm thinking a lot.
But it makes sense to me, if love can make sense. That kind of complete trust and intimacy is so rare anymore, or at least I never see it. I'm not sure if even my own parents have it, although I'm certain they do love each other. It's such a rare commodity, and truly precious.
I think we, as an American society, have become so jaded that we aren't willing to give up ourselves to anyone that completely anymore. We see the consequences all too clearly if things fail, and if it doesn't happen personally, we get inundated with it from television, movies, music, social networking, and a hundred other sources. We may have gained a lot from technology, but we've lost a lot, too. How sad is it that true love has become a casualty of forward thinking?
I actually plan to blog about the effects that music and TV have made on us in the next few days or so... I think it's a serious topic to talk about, especially in our love lives and sexual identities. But that's a topic for another day.
Today, I'm talking about lovesickness. I'm not talking about infatuation, either... infatuation is something most of us mistake for true love, but in fact is just the huge surge of emotions that accompanies a new relationship. I'm talking about lovesickness in its true form.
I think it has a few different versions: one of heartache, one of heartbreak, one of acceptance, one of trust, one of surrender, one of patience... probably several others. It's what happens to a person when love genuinely smacks them in the noggin and sends them flying, turning everything they knew before into something utterly different, and suddenly they have no idea what to do next. And it's funny, but that feeling is almost always located right in your gut.
Everyone says that the heart is the center of love, but I call shenanigans on that. The heart is the seat of emotion, true. But I believe true love goes beyond the heart. It has to. True love has to have the brain agree with the heart in order to happen... it can't happen otherwise. If it did, the brain would constantly clash with the heart and tear a person apart... a perfect example would be an abusive situation where one person still loves the other despite them getting abused. That's the heart in control and ignoring the brain... not true love. On the other side of that coin is the person who is getting married to someone because "it makes sense to" or "why not do it?"... that's the brain in control over the heart. Still leads to a bad deal.
I believe true love is in your gut. I think I wrote this before, but the saying is still true:
"The brain is logical, the heart is emotional, but your gut never lies."
Your gut is where your brain and heart agree, and when that happens, the effect is so powerful that you can feel it deep down in the very bowels of your being. Your gut is truth. I know that sounds a little weird, but it's true. You can FEEL it inside of you like a living thing. I'm not capable of comparing, but I wonder if it feels a little like a baby growing inside of you? I've heard some women describe the sensation of pregnancy as something like love growing, so maybe I'm not far off.
Naturally, that feeling has an effect on a person. If stress can cause bodily harm, and laughter can heal... I would think love could probably do some pretty serious shit to the body. So why wouldn't you feel it physically as well as emotionally and mentally? Maybe spiritually? That physical feeling isn't going to manifest as a headache or a heart attack, now is it?
Trust your gut. If you feel so strongly about someone that you physically feel the effect on yourself, it's love. True love. I know, because I feel it for my . Maybe you do, too.
What would it be like to love someone again as powerfully as I love my ?
Lovesickness.
The one thing I wish was communicable.
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What Is It About Chocolate Chip Cookies?
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Posted:Aug 21, 2013 2:35 pm
Last Updated:Aug 30, 2013 9:08 pm
18965 Views
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I'll admit it... you want to get my attention? Give me cookies. I'm a cookie-fiend. It's my one dessert-related weakness. And my absolute favorite is, naturally, chocolate chip cookies.
I went to Mr. Pickles today for lunch, and I don't know if this is normal or not since I rarely go to Mr. Pickles, but they gave me a chocolate chip cookie for free. I kinda surprised myself by pouncing on that cookie like a starving hyena and chomping it down in three bites.
On a surely-unrelated note, I have been horny as hell lately. I've been having to "take care of business" a hell of a lot over the past few days, and even as I'm writing this, I'm feeling the urge again. Third time today, and it's only early-afternoon. I've been horny like this before with girlfriends, but never just when it's me, myself, and I.
I'm not really sure what's bringing it on, either. It's not like I'm getting cock-teased by a hot girl or even hanging around half-naked women all day or something... it's just work, or watching a movie, or reading, and suddenly all I want to do is grab the nearest woman and find out how many times she orgasms before I blast her wide open. And then do it again. And again. And again.
Now that I'm looking at it, I never go to Mr. Pickles for lunch, and yet I was inexplicably drawn there... sex on the mind, at all? The deli girl looked really hot, too. Good grief, I need to get laid.
This isn't very conducive to finding a girlfriend, though. In fact, historically speaking, this is how I totally blow it. Meet the lady, sex on the brain, push for sex sex sex, and either I push too hard and she runs off, or I succeed, we fuck like rabid bunnies on Viagra... which means no basis for relationship, and it becomes doomed. So if I'm going to find my ladylove, I need to get past this little... problem.
I don't know if you all know this, but guys actually have periods like women do. We don't bleed, but we have very similar hormonal fluctuations. A man's cycle is every 31 days, give or take, and we experience moodiness, sudden upsurges of sexual interest and activity, and other related factors based on testosterone levels. Oddly enough, the strength of our periods is based on our sense of smell... the stronger the man's sense of smell, the stronger his period is. That's because men can smell the pheromones a woman puts off, although it's typically an unconscious thing.
I have what my friends call a "psychic nose." They call it that because my sense of smell is insanely powerful. I've been known to smell things minutes before anyone else does. Hell, I often know when a woman is starting her period before SHE does, and I've been known to find gas leaks and smoke long before anyone else even realizes it. I once tracked down a friend's brother by smelling his odor on the wind and walking twenty minutes through a mountain forest before locating him sitting by a stream, fishing. Beat that.
So I'm thinking I must be on my period, because I really want chocolate chip cookies and sex, and I'm feeling moody. And every time I feel this way, my urge to find a girlfriend becomes extremely powerful. This is a downward-spiraling problem.
Ugh! Look, I just really need a woman to come bring me cookies and get naked, is that so much to ask? I see now why some guys call it "clearing their head"... I can totally relate to that sentiment right now.
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Metaphors of a Second-Hand Lion: Critical Thinking... on the Internet?
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Posted:Aug 20, 2013 9:18 pm
Last Updated:Aug 21, 2013 10:18 am
18658 Views
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The power of language is an awesome force for critical thinking. With more than a million words to call upon in the English language alone, the human mind can use language to interpret, categorize, analyze, and process an enormous amount of information. This ability to express thoughts, emotions, ideas, and concepts into a coherent form enables the thinker to broaden his perspective, helping that thinker to envision the viewpoints of others while cementing the scattered images and disorganized information he receives into a fuller understanding of an issue. Using this language, one may be able to persuade a person with irrational beliefs to accept a rational explanation as an alternative. Strangely enough, this cohesion of language into critical thinking has no better champion than the global community of the Internet.
Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “The limits of my language are the limits of my life”. If this is true, then the Internet has done more for critical thinking than any other community has ever managed before: it created the possibility to integrate all languages into a single, useful medium that everyone can utilize. While face-to-face communication remains the best interactive method, the translation programs on social networking and informational websites have made the different languages of the Earth no longer a hindrance to sharing ideas. The ability to openly display every imaginable thought and concept that mankind is capable of producing in an easy-to-use manner has created the only truly global community on Earth: the online community. This group of individuals, numbering in the hundreds of millions, comes from every possible walk of life, is made up of every single religion, encompasses every imaginable human perspective, and while the points of view are often conflicting and contradictory, the entire spectrum of the human condition can be found within this global community.
Since the Internet is composed of such a wide variety of human beings, it is possible to collect the thoughts, feelings, imaginations, and creativity of that variety, and utilize them into the critical thinking process. The mind is opened to cultures that have never been seen or heard by the thinker before, and understanding those cultures gives the thinker the ability to see a problem from that culture’s viewpoint. What is considered humor in one country may be foolishness to another, and being able to see and accept their brand of humor will help relations between those two countries. Social mores in the Far East are much different than in the Western civilizations, but with the Internet flooded with information from both sides of the Pacific, what was once considered unusual from one has become normal to the other.
The common language of the Internet has expanded the technological base of every country capable of hooking up a computer as well. With the open trading of ideas and bouncing suggestions off of experts thousands of miles away, those countries that are behind in technology have the knowledge to adapt and expand their capabilities. This is not a one-sided trade, as those individuals that possess brilliant minds but were unable express their ideas due to the limitations of living in remote, resource-poor countries can now share their knowledge with anyone willing to listen.
One of the greatest strengths to the informational overload of the Internet is also one of its greatest weaknesses: while it is open to brilliant minds, it is also open to those with closed, stubborn, unwilling minds. These individuals are determined to utilize this medium to spread hate, fear, and/or uncompromising viewpoints, whatever they may be. Here again, however, the Internet shines the light of knowledge and the open mind. As these websites put forth their negative messages, they are also exposing their viewpoints, the reasoning behind their negativity, and their illogical findings to the world as well.
This allows the critical thinker to acquire the facts needed to counter that faulty information. While a stubborn fanatic will never listen to any critical thinking that disproves his view, the understanding of that view enables the critical thinker to persuade those non-fanatical readers who follow such beliefs, but still possess an open, reasonable mind. These minds can be talked with on open forums and in chat rooms, shown the fallacies of their faulty logic, and over time and with patience, these minds can be persuaded away from the negative path they have been walking. A critical thinker deals in truth and fact and logic, and when the argument is with a person dealing in lies and faulty logic, the critical thinker will win every time. This does not mean the critical thinker will convince his illogical opponent away from his beliefs, nor does it even mean the critical thinker is correct in his own views, but planting the seeds of logic in the fertile soil of an open mind can often bear the fruit of a reasoned conclusion.
The Internet is growing at an astronomical rate, and the influence it has over humanity grows with it. This influence joins the world into a single community with a single language, combining the thoughts and imaginations of an entire planet into one place for anyone to visit and learn from. The constant combining of cultures and beliefs into the cauldron of the World Wide Web is breaking down the barriers that prevent critical thinking from becoming the norm instead of the exception. The closed-minded mentality of political borders, racial tensions, and religious rigidity is slowly fading away, and the Internet has potentially become the precursor for the globalization of critical thinking on this planet. One can only hope… and keep an open mind.
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More from the mind of Lion, student of critical thinking and rhetoric.
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Metaphors of a Second-Hand Lion: The Nature of Logic and Perception.
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Posted:Aug 18, 2013 6:15 pm
Last Updated:Aug 31, 2013 5:51 pm
32189 Views
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Let's stop and think about how we perceive the world for a minute.
Every human being that ever lived or will live is faced with decisions in the course of their lives. These decisions are influenced by the circumstances of the person making them, whether those circumstances are within the awareness of that person or not. The choices made are shaped by the actions of others, determined by visual cues and accumulated knowledge, and changed by the addition of newly discovered factors. The results of those choices, however, are directly affected by the unknown factors the decision-maker was unaware of at the time. It is impossible for humanity to have a completely logical response to any given circumstance, simply because it is equally impossible to know every factor influencing the situation. As a result, humans must fall back on a combination of experience, emotional response, and what they know of the situation they are basing the decision on.
So I pose this hypothesis: that perception on an individual basis is incomplete, and as a result a typical human being has a great deal of difficulty creating a completely logical decision.
For example:
A man in his early thirties who lived in California fell in love with a woman in Tennessee via the Internet. He moved to Tennessee to live with her, uprooting his life and creating a new one with her. He got a job working in a gas station, and worked his way to becoming an assistant manager and was about to be promoted to manager of his own gas station. The man went back to college in order to get a degree, and he spent a great deal of his time doing what he could to make the woman he loved happy. He was madly in love with the woman, and did everything he could think of to make her smile. There were stumbling blocks, of course: he had a very large credit card debt due to a spendthrift ex-wife, and he could barely make the payments on them all, so the woman, who became his fiance’, took on most of the household expenses until he could finish college. To his perception, life was ideal.
Unfortunately, his perception was faulty. He had no idea that the woman he was in love with was unhappy. She did not tell him of any troubles or concerns she was having, and he was ignorant of the fact that she had fallen out of love with him. Four years into the relationship, she left him and moved out of the apartment they had together without a single word of explanation. The man was crushed. Not only had he lost the woman he loved, he was unable to support himself with the terrible debt he had. He was forced to move out of the apartment, leave the career he had only just begun, drop out of college, and move back to California to live in his parents’ house. He never heard from that woman again; no phone number, no email, no letter, no trace of her on the Internet… nothing.
That man was me.
What had happened here? Two human beings had made a series of choices that drastically affected the lives of both. Little information is known of the reasoning behind the woman’s decisions and perceptions, so the focus must be primarily on the man’s fate. His choices were based on the perceptions he had of the woman, his financial state, his career, and his academic future. He believed his financial state was stable because of the two-person income. The relationship appeared to be thriving and even exciting, and while there were the occasional disagreements that all couples have, those disagreements were rarely heated and never lasted beyond a day. His perception of her circumstances was that she had a stable and happy career, her own financial state was stable despite her needing to take on the larger portion of the household bills, she was satisfied with her academic achievements, and she showed a great deal of pleasure in the romantic part of their lives.
Yet, as the outcome proves obvious, there was a great deal of discontent on the part of the woman, to the extent that she broke off a four-year relationship without any reason given. This discontent was unknown to the man, and to this day is still unknown. There must have been clues as to why she was unhappy with him, but somehow the man did not perceive them. He was not aware of any attempts to talk to him about her displeasure, nor was he unfaithful to her; on the contrary, she evinced happiness with him, and he loved her completely. The only real clue he had (that he realized on hindsight) was her increasing interest, and in fact outright obsession, in the online game World of Warcraft. That game became her entire world: she woke up and logged on, and didn’t stop playing until exhaustion forced her to bed, or she was required to be at work. Even at work, she would peruse World of Warcraft websites and plan for future playing sessions. Although the man didn’t realize it until much later in life, the woman was attempting to escape her unhappy circumstances through this game.
The man learned a harsh lesson in reality in the months and years that followed. He had looked at the woman with rose-colored glasses, refusing to see her in any light but a perfect one. He had been so concerned with getting his life in order that he somehow missed the issues the woman had. The fault was not entirely his, as the woman certainly never made her issues apparent to the man, but this was out of the man’s control.
So what did he learn? Much.
He could have seen her increasing obsession with World of Warcraft as a sign that she was unhappy, so he made a point to be more observant of obsessive behavior. She may have shown subtle signs of unhappiness rather than outright complaints, so the man made the decision to be more aware of a woman’s subtle hints. The entire situation could have been avoided if she had been willing to communicate with him, and he may have resolved the issue if he had attempted to talk to her about her World of Warcraft obsession, so he made the commitment to himself that he would make certain communication was a major part of every future relationship. Most importantly, he chose to live his life in an honest and open fashion, so that anyone he dated in the future would not suffer the same deception he had received from the woman. Since it is impossible to change others, he instead chose to change himself to be a better man.
The logic the man used to determine the success of his relationship was inherently flawed due to the lack of information he had, and the faulty perceptions he based his decisions on. A combination of the man’s failing to perceive the woman’s unhappiness, her own failure to discuss her issues, and some problems unknown to the man all contributed to the woman’s conclusion that the relationship could not continue. The perceptions of both man and woman were incomplete due to the unknown factors on both sides, thus creating the great difficulty both had in making logical conclusions concerning their relationship. While the love between a man and a woman is certainly not logical, it is almost certain that without a degree of logic invested in their relationship, a couple faces a huge obstacle.
“Hindsight is 20/20”, as the saying goes.
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This was a paper I wrote for a college class, but it was also an attempt to come to grips with the loss of my fiance'. My focus was so emotional, I thought it would help to break it down in a logical manner. It did help.
What do you think? Am I on to something here?
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