About Orientations

I think we do not pay enough attention to orientations in our culture. What do I mean by orientations?

To me orientations are those things that we are born with. Orientations differ from lifestyle choices because orientations are not choices. Orientations can be resisted but not eliminated. Orientations are part of who and what we are. Like feelings, orientations choose us, we do not choose them. Orientations always have to be part of the equation when people are making lifestyle decisions. In my opinion orientations are hard wired in.

It used to be people thought folks could be cured of their orientations. For example, after the misery of attempts at “conversion therapy” most rational people now accept different sexual orientations as being something folks just are.

Yes, we do pay a lot more attention to sexual orientation (thank goodness) than we used to. In fact, it is rightfully against the law for people to be discriminated against for their sexual orientation (thank goodness) and legal same sex marriage has become the norm in our society.

Gender orientation is often included with sexual orientation, which is a good thing because it makes discrimination based upon it actionable. In my opinion our gender (our wiring) is sometimes very different from our sex (our plumbing.) I think the truth is orientations are generally a non-binary spectrum as opposed to say sex, which tends to be binary. I believe almost all of us have both male and female in us, no matter what’s our plumbing.

I think another kind of orientation that’s coming into realization is relationship orientation. This is emotional romantic orientation not just sexual sexual. In fact some folks are attracted to one gender sexually and another romantically. The hetro-normative standard is male-female monogamy. To me that is just one option, of a landscape of options. Polyamory is just one other possibility.

Almost all of us have met people who just cannot be sexually and/or romantically monogamous. In the past these folks have often been shamed for being who they are and have had to either cheat or deny themselves. Thankfully, that seems to be changing. Oh yes, and if the statistics for infidelity are any indication, monogamy vs. non-monagamy seems to be a a non-binary spectrum as well. Even people who profess to monogamy seem to struggle with emotional infidelity as well as sexual infidelity. No, I don't think cheating is right. People are responsible for their actions.

Folks need to know who they are. People should not be shamed for their orientations, as long as they act ethically. People need to be able to see themselves for who they are and consider what kind of ethical commitments they make based on those orientations, before they make them.

People should accept their orientations and live them, when possible, in a way that is ethical, sane, safe and consensual. If people live a lifestyle that differs from their orientations they need to be prepared for a life of internal conflict. Everyone who ethically lives their orientations should be respected and accepted by others who do not have the same orientations. They are living their lives as who they are. That, to me, is what freedom is all about.

Cheryl Strayed: Love, Life and Lessons Learned in “Wild”

Required listening after your required reading of her book, Wild. Some of the most profound transformations we can go through are not those that can be seen from the outside; but they create a new truth. That is the truth we take forward.

Popeye got it right!

Maybe you have heard it to many times, (or maybe you have said it to someone,) "You are too..."
The next word might be one of the following:

Manly, feminine, mental, dumb, intellectual, feminine, masculine, girly, butch, fat, thin, sensitive, insensitive, negative, optimistic, pessimistic, shy, withdrawn, happy, not happy...
Or, it may be something else.

The point is someone is trying to judge another based upon their own opinion of what they consider "normal." People often like to put labels and categorize others and say what is normal, like they are the keepers of the yardstick of normalcy. Maybe they have had it done to them and have had their own individuality repressed and feel threatened by people not afraid to express their own uniqueness.
In reality, we are all as different as snowflakes or zebra stripes or fingerprints. As long as we are not hurting or oppressing others we should cherish that which makes us unique. We are entitled to having and expressing our own feelings and lifestyles as long as we are not hurting others.
Yes, as individuals we have a right to choose whom to spend time with, our friends, our lover (or lovers), our life partners. But, we do not have a right to shame others and/or chastise them for being themselves.
I have a male friend who got emotional and started to cry and another male friend told him to "man up!"
That just rubbed me the wrong way. People have a right to be sensitive no matter their gender.
When I think of this I think of Amelia Earhart who said, "Women must try to do things as men have tried." Amelia Earhart was controversial in her time. (Even I remember when some folks believed it was improper and not "normal" for women to work in men's professions.)
Most enlightened people today know that particular sexist attitude is incorrect. Yet, I have heard men who think of themselves as enlightened (and even women working in male dominated fields) complain of men whom they judge as not being masculine enough. Hey folks, even though it's different, it's the same thing. It's sexism folks.
Popeye got it right! Let people be themselves.

Letting go of the lead weights

It's  hard to rise to your potential when you don't let go of what is pulling you down.

Turn Away

My journal entry from Tuesday, April 23, 1991, 6:40 a.m., Doctors' Hospital, Modesto, CA

OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD!...

I am sitting next to my middle son's bed. My four year old youngest son is in the next room. The news is on television. My son just closed his eyes. Candy is dead! It is so hard to write, much less understand, what has gone on...

Beck's Lyrics to Turn Away

Turn turn away
From the weight of your own past
It's magic for the devil
And betray the lack of change
Once you have spoken
Turn away...

In my 10 week Spirituality class we were asked to identify what was holding us back, and in essence, write a mantra about it. Mine focused on forgiveness. I have had really shitty things happen to me in my life, but none of it bore the weight of what happened that night. I was mad; mad at God, why did she die so close to home with the kids in the car?

I was crazy mad at circumstances and most of all mad at myself. Why wasn't I there? Why wasn't I driving?

Saturday night my wife Candy went to her mom's to tell her about the divorce she and I had recently filed. I had spent the evening at my oldest sisters in Dublin and we went out to dinner. On the 60 mile drive home from Dublin I bought a bottle of diet 7-Up, to mix with Seagrams when I got home, to make some good, strong drinks.

When I got home to Patterson, I called my dear friend (and former sister-in-law)  to see if she heard if Candy had talked to her mom (about the divorce) and how it went. Marie said she hadn't heard from Candy. So, I called Candy's mom and ended up talking to her about an hour about the divorce. I then drank my second drink, put Bonnie Raitt on the stereo and went to sleep. I was only asleep about five minutes when I got a call...

Survivors guilt?

It's been a brick in my heart. I have cried so many tears. Our decision to end our marriage was mutual and very painful. But, we made it together, intent to part as friends.

We were each even anticipating the life we could have separately that we could never have had together. Suddenly everything changed. We shared our dreams of lives apart with each other. I was the only one who would be able to live that life...

I have a great and happy life in the here and now. Yet I am, almost 25 years later still afraid to let go and forgive myself, perhaps lest she die a second death?

Here I am playing this song over and over...

Turn turn away
From the weight of your own past
It's magic for the devil
And betray the lack of change
Once you have spoken
Turn away...

My mantra?

I am forgiveness, I am forgiving

Therefore, I have to forgive myself. Let that part of her go. But, I don't have to forget, do I?

What if

What if all the times in life one thing could have happened but another thing did, whether good or bad, that was fate?
What if all the bad things that happened in life, and good, were exactly what it took to make you the person you are now?
What if right here and right now it were up to you to decide just what to do with that to make you who you will be tomorrow?
What if that was the only thing that matters?
What if that is why you are here?

Science, faith and the picnic

Science is many things including a belief system.

Science is a belief system of values built upon the concept of the scientific method. It calls for measurement, testing, application and more measurement, testing and application of the results. It provides for rewards based upon the ability of the method to create things that can be monetized. We call that technology and capitalism. The problem is it is not so good at solving fuzzy problems that can't easily defined and/or monetized.

Capitalism is very good at monetizing solutions to technology problems that can be defined, that people with monetary resources want. That's why we have so many solutions for erectile disorder and no cure for ebola. The research, technology and rewards goes where the money is. That's, also why we have global terrorism.

Science is great at meeting the definable, technical and monetizable problems. Science sucks at providing for fuzzy needs that are hard to define, test and monetize; but no less real despite being fuzzy.

Science and Technology creates widgets that entertain us and poison the planet. Science and Technology gives us virtual technical solutions that can leaves us lonely and isolated from physical and emotional human contact.

Religion meets fuzzy human real needs for physical and emotional human contact but the cost sometimes is the need to either accept the ways that religion contradicts science, or reject one, or the other.

Science and Technology disenfranchises whole third world cultures while it rewards others. Is it no wonder some of them use technology as a weapon? Jihad is an example the rejection of science for the sake of religion. I think it's no accident that Jihad is most at root in societies unable to benefit from science and technology.

But, what about the cool-aid? I don't think you need to drink the cool-aid if you want to go to the picnic. Faith based belief systems are far from perfect, but so is science. Stay away from the cool-aid!

"I will take a heap of science and a scoop of faith, I want some of each, thanks. No, I don't want the cool-aid, thanks, I am having a beer."