Month: September 2012

Love threatens your existence while it drags you in.

No, that's not my thought.  This was the theme of a recent piece by Sadhguru for the Huffington Post.  It's written from a Hindu perspective.  I am not of that faith or belief system, but as I read it, I saw the wisdom in the thought process so I wanted to share it with my readers.

According to the article, the Hindus believe that people are made of 4 components:  the body, mind, emotion and energy.  Of these 4 parts, the strongest force is emotion.  A big part of the force of emotion is the power of love.  Sadhguru notes that in acknowledging that you love someone, you have acknowledged another person as meaning far more to you than you mean to yourself.   It threatens your existence.

The moment you say "I love you" to somebody, you will lose all your freedom, you will lose everything that you have. You can no longer do what you want in your life; there are innumerable problems. But at the same time, it drags you in. It is a sweet poison, a very sugary poison. It is self-annihilating.

Sadhguru believes that to know love - to truly experience it - some part of you must die.  The person you love must destroy the space formerly occupied by your single-minded independent thoughts, choices and values.  Choices must be made and weighed based on the scale of 'our' rather than 'my.'  "Somebody else has to occupy that space within you that was you all this time. If you do not let this happen, there is no love, only calculation."

In discussing Shiva, a Hindu deity widely regarded as the most powerful god in Hinduism,  Sadhguru says:

...continue reading "Does Love Kill?"

I read an interesting piece the other day in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.  It was a column by Jack Sheehan titled:  "Every Writer Struggles To Tell The Next Great Story." The piece was about how much more there is to writing a book than telling a story.  It's a great piece and well worth a read.  I completely agree - but I also disagree.

The story is the message in the bottle.  If you're hanging out on a dock and a bottle floats by - you might be angered at the thought that someone disrespected the planet enough to turn a lake into a trashcan.  You might give the thrower the benefit of the doubt and wonder what extreme emotion or life-changing peril the thrower was experiencing that sent the bottle flying towards a watery future.  But it'd be all about the bottle.

What if a man's been alone since his ex skipped off with his business partner and the company bank account.  Now, he's nearly decided there's nothing left to lose - nearly.  He chooses to take one last gamble, writing a note to a lady he's met only in his dreams.  He tucks it in a bottle and lets the water decide his fate.  The note is the story.

Mr. Sheehan's right that the best tale in the world won't carry a reader if it's not told well.  He relates meeting a lady who perked up when she found out he was a writer.  Yes, she had a great story to tell and needed someone to write it down.  Sheehan says:

The clear implication when folks say they have a great idea for a book or movie and just require a scribbler to put it on paper for them is that the person making the pitch is holding all the valuable goodies in this proposition and that the prospective writer is merely a necessary nuisance to be tolerated on the path to stardom.

This is akin to telling Herman Melville, "Hey, Hermie, I have this story about a big fish and a guy who's mad at it. If you can just toss some verbiage around and put the commas in the right place for me, I can take credit for one of the great novels of American literature. … Oh yeah, the fish's last name is Dick."

...continue reading "Is There More To Writing It Down Than Writing It Down?"

I read a fun piece on Huffpo titled:  "8 Reasons Why Sex Is Better After 50." Having just turned 50 last month, I found the article interesting and possibly even - inspirational.  (Be afraid, Mr. Duck.  Be very afraid!)

The piece was written by Suzanne Braun Levine and it cited a study done by the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine and the San Diego VA Healthcare System. The 806 women studied were over 40, with an average aged participant being 67.  The ladies participated in a larger study that has tracked the health of residents in a planned San Diego Community,  Rancho Bernardo, for over 40 years.

Two Thirds of the women studied reported that they were moderately or very satisfied with their sex lives.  Less than 3% reported that they always or almost always desired sex.  The results mean that the women engaged in sex for a number of reasons including desire but more often to affirm or sustain a relationship. Many of the women who reported being very satisfied with their sex lies weren't engaged in active sexual relationships.  They found sexual satisfaction through touching, caressing or the myriad other small touches exchanged throughout a long relationship.

A highlight of the study -- the proportion of women satisfied with their sex lives increased as the women got older.

Ms. Levine says she's talked to "hundreds" of ladies like those in the study for her books and she thinks there are 8 reasons why sex gets better for women as they mature:

1.    They can separate sex from reproduction;

2.   They can separate sex from love;

3.   They can separate sex from sin;

4.   They're more willing to say "what the hell;"

5.   They're not riding the hormonal roller coaster;

6.   They're motivated to discover new ways to have orgasms;

7.   They've developed a more optimistic outlook;

8.   Drugs like Viagra.

Levine makes the point that women in this range have passed "the reaches of conventional good-girl morality."  She calls "this rule-breaking behavior the Fuck-You-Fifties."  Women over 50 are risk takers who don't have to risk pregnancy to walk on the wild side.  The author feels that the 50+ ladies have mellowed with age.  They've learned to "sweat the small stuff less and cherish the moment more."

The Fuck-You-Fifties?  If I'd known that, I'd have rushed to try to get here faster.  It all makes sense to me, because when I was younger I worried so about what others would think about something I felt or did or said.  Now that I'm older, I'm much more at home and at ease in my own skin.  If I hear now that someone didn't like or didn't approve of something I think or said or did, my reaction is apt to be - okay, and why should I care?  I've finally gotten smart enough to understand how right Popeye was - "I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam."

Given all that, given how aging makes me accept myself - sags, bags, stubbornness and all - it only makes sense that like fine wine, sex gets better with age.

Now where is Mr. Duck hiding this time .......