Gaia is a quiet woman and the straw that broke the camel's back.
When you are a listener, you find people that truly deserve your sympathy. Your heart breaks for them, because you know that life is dealing to them from a stacked deck, and the things that happen in their life are profoundly unfair and sad.
Then, you find your perception of them has been an illusion all along, and that your sympathy you felt for them was woefully misplaced.
Gaia's illusion came from talk of an apparently bad marriage. Her newlywed husband did not wish to support her and treated her like a commodity rather than a wife. As their marriage was falling apart, Gaia became pregnant and endured her pregnancy alone. Gaia fears her ability to take care of her child alone.
In reality, Gaia had sex with another man while married to her husband and became pregnant with the other man's child.
They always say you have to watch out for the quiet ones.
I listen. For whom shall I feel sympathy and whom shall I judge?
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Love - Athena
Athena is a wonderfully complex human being. To say she suffers from highs and lows is a gross understatement. She is a stereotypical emotional roller coaster, careening down the track of life, always within one bad curve of jumping the rails. She has extremely high expectations of herself and those around her.
She often finds herself terribly disappointed.
Athena is a sexual magnet. Men (and some women) are drawn to her like flies. Physically, she's paradoxical. There are many women far more physically beautiful. Her face is scarred with horrible acne and her facial features sit just a little too forward on her face, as if drawn on incorrectly. If she were a cartoon, I'd want to erase her head and start over. Her body is rather boyish, with beefy shoulders and without any hips to speak of.
And yet, she is one of the most strangely alluring women anyone will ever meet. Perhaps it's pheromones. Perhaps, its a combination of everything that she is that creates a perfect storm that everyone perceives as beautiful Athena. I'm not sure.
Mentally, she's one of the most brilliant people you will ever meet, and complex. She is not a simple woman, by any means, although she says she has simple needs. Athena has layers and layers of complexity that someone in the psychiatric profession would simply drool over. Or tire from. For one, I find her personality both addictively interesting and emotionally taxing, to say the least.
Athena is, at her core, a good person with more potential in this world than anyone I have ever known. Unfortunately, she may ultimately be her own worst enemy, self destructing before she can ever realize her full potential.
She has only been married for two years. She says she loves her husband, but is always speaking ill of him around others. She wants to have his children, but can't imagine how he will provide for them. She imagines herself growing old with him, yet doesn't seem to enjoy conversations she has with him now.
Around her first anniversary, she had sex with someone other than her husband. In her own home. While her husband was there, asleep. Oh, and the sex wasn't with a stranger or someone she works with, but a relative of her husband's. Someone her husband actually respects. Someone he's known all his life.
If a woman wanted to really scar a man emotionally, how would she do it? Athena answered that question cunningly.
Listening is what I do. Why be judgemental?
She often finds herself terribly disappointed.
Athena is a sexual magnet. Men (and some women) are drawn to her like flies. Physically, she's paradoxical. There are many women far more physically beautiful. Her face is scarred with horrible acne and her facial features sit just a little too forward on her face, as if drawn on incorrectly. If she were a cartoon, I'd want to erase her head and start over. Her body is rather boyish, with beefy shoulders and without any hips to speak of.
And yet, she is one of the most strangely alluring women anyone will ever meet. Perhaps it's pheromones. Perhaps, its a combination of everything that she is that creates a perfect storm that everyone perceives as beautiful Athena. I'm not sure.
Mentally, she's one of the most brilliant people you will ever meet, and complex. She is not a simple woman, by any means, although she says she has simple needs. Athena has layers and layers of complexity that someone in the psychiatric profession would simply drool over. Or tire from. For one, I find her personality both addictively interesting and emotionally taxing, to say the least.
Athena is, at her core, a good person with more potential in this world than anyone I have ever known. Unfortunately, she may ultimately be her own worst enemy, self destructing before she can ever realize her full potential.
She has only been married for two years. She says she loves her husband, but is always speaking ill of him around others. She wants to have his children, but can't imagine how he will provide for them. She imagines herself growing old with him, yet doesn't seem to enjoy conversations she has with him now.
Around her first anniversary, she had sex with someone other than her husband. In her own home. While her husband was there, asleep. Oh, and the sex wasn't with a stranger or someone she works with, but a relative of her husband's. Someone her husband actually respects. Someone he's known all his life.
If a woman wanted to really scar a man emotionally, how would she do it? Athena answered that question cunningly.
Listening is what I do. Why be judgemental?
Love - Persephone
Persephone is the epitome of a beautiful young wife and mother. To the outside world, she is happy and content, doing the motherly things and the wifely things that many would probably view as mundane. She has an outwardly happy personality and those that know her cordially would assume everything in her life is as close to perfect as perfect can be.
In reality, Persephone was raped by Zeus when she was three years old. Persephone only began having memories of this over the course of the last two years, when she began having psychogenic seizures while stressed that her husband might leave her. She was so afraid, because she was harboring a terrible secret from him, a secret that most men would quickly use for grounds to file a particular kind of paperwork. Persephone was wrong. Her husband is still with her, although she now worries that it's more for the sake of raising the children properly than anything else.
I would say she's right, but I haven't, as I'm simply a listener. Who am I to judge?
In any event, Persephone was born to a family that no one would otherwise view as dysfunctional. Many would view her childhood as privileged, as she can't remember a time when she did not get whatever she desired. There was always money for clothes or toys, and, later, gasoline and car insurance. It was a childhood on a silver platter with silver spoons feeding her every need and want.
Unfortunately, she did not marry a wealthy man, or a successful man, or even a handsome man. She did, in fact, marry a good man, someone she knew was safe and would never hurt her. She loves this man dearly, even, I would say, desperately, for she believes that no other man completely understands her as he does.
Perhaps this is true, perhaps not, but the awful, pathetic underside of her marriage is that, although her love for her husband is real and deep, she can't help but have sex with every man that wants her. She has a compulsion...or something. It has nothing to do with the quality or quantity of sex at home. She's trying to fill a different kind of hole, no pun intended. A hole apparently blown through her life at the age of three, when Zeus taught her she was really, really useful for a certain thing.
You can't help but feel sympathy for Persephone; that is, until she begins telling you about her most recent sexual encounter, then later lamenting the terrible guilt she's living with because of her behavior. She can't help it, she says. She just wants to feel better about herself, just for a little while.
I listen. Why would I judge her?
In reality, Persephone was raped by Zeus when she was three years old. Persephone only began having memories of this over the course of the last two years, when she began having psychogenic seizures while stressed that her husband might leave her. She was so afraid, because she was harboring a terrible secret from him, a secret that most men would quickly use for grounds to file a particular kind of paperwork. Persephone was wrong. Her husband is still with her, although she now worries that it's more for the sake of raising the children properly than anything else.
I would say she's right, but I haven't, as I'm simply a listener. Who am I to judge?
In any event, Persephone was born to a family that no one would otherwise view as dysfunctional. Many would view her childhood as privileged, as she can't remember a time when she did not get whatever she desired. There was always money for clothes or toys, and, later, gasoline and car insurance. It was a childhood on a silver platter with silver spoons feeding her every need and want.
Unfortunately, she did not marry a wealthy man, or a successful man, or even a handsome man. She did, in fact, marry a good man, someone she knew was safe and would never hurt her. She loves this man dearly, even, I would say, desperately, for she believes that no other man completely understands her as he does.
Perhaps this is true, perhaps not, but the awful, pathetic underside of her marriage is that, although her love for her husband is real and deep, she can't help but have sex with every man that wants her. She has a compulsion...or something. It has nothing to do with the quality or quantity of sex at home. She's trying to fill a different kind of hole, no pun intended. A hole apparently blown through her life at the age of three, when Zeus taught her she was really, really useful for a certain thing.
You can't help but feel sympathy for Persephone; that is, until she begins telling you about her most recent sexual encounter, then later lamenting the terrible guilt she's living with because of her behavior. She can't help it, she says. She just wants to feel better about herself, just for a little while.
I listen. Why would I judge her?
Friday, October 12, 2007
Faith
Faith is such an interesting concept. We have faith in God, we have faith in our fellow man, we have faith in ourselves. When our faith in any of these is shaken, we tend to become demoralized, especially when we've invested the energy and good intentions in trying to maintain our faith, even though common sense and logic might dictate otherwise.
I'm not a religious man, not by a long shot, but I enjoy reading the Bible, as I enjoy reading many books. I can't say my faith in God has ever wavered, primarily because my expectations are pretty low. Do I want Jesus to come again? Absolutely. Do I expect him to come anytime soon? Please. I don't expect a lot, so I'm not disappointed.
I have faith in myself and my abilities, so you could say "I'm happy in my own skin." I don't desire to be anyone else or covet anything that belongs to my neighbor, so looking in the mirror while brushing my teeth isn't a problem. No self-loathing here. My expectations of myself are reasonable, so any potential disappointment is tempered by my apparently unique ability to exercise self control.
Faith in my fellow man. Yeah, that's where it's so damn easy to lose faith.
I could go on (seemingly) forever about world events that we all know about and hear about on a daily basis that continuously shakes the foundation of how I view the species of which I'm happily a part. At some point, I may post about those, too.
What irks me now, at this moment, is more deeply personal and important to me than suffering in far off lands. It's the suffering that otherwise intelligent individuals create for themselves. It's about decisions poorly made by those that seek sympathy from me, when I no longer have any to give. The well is dry, pumped clean to the bedrock of my soul.
You see, I am so sick and tired of otherwise good, intelligent people doing bad things on purpose. It's becoming a plague in my life, to the point where I wonder if people around me even know right from wrong, or if there's a gene defect that prevents these folks from firing the proper neurons to understand there are always consequences for their actions.
Always. As in, without fail. It's a physical law: for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. If you do 'A' the result will be 'B.' Not a very complicated word problem, by any stretch of the imagination.
My faith is so shaken because I'm a 'listener.' I'm the sympathetic shoulder to cry on when times are tough and another's faith in God or themselves has been shaken. I'm the one who's expected to 'understand.' The problem is I understand all too well. I really, really do. I understand with the crystal clarity that makes me sick to my stomach and makes me want to vomit my understanding all over these people.
Oh yeah (and this is important), when I say 'people' and 'my fellow man,' I mean women that I know.
Let's look at some purely fictional case studies, shall we?
Persephone has been married for nearly 14 years and has probably slept with as many men during that period of time.
Athena loves her husband, but concurrently hates him, justifying her extramarital affair as his fault.
Gaia got married, then became pregnant with another man's child.
Yes, I know these scenarios sound far fetched, and, of course, they most assuredly are. In the coming days, I will relate their stories here, in a manner that which only a fictional account could do justice. Think of them as shadows of reality, but take my word for it---
Truth is damn well stranger than fiction.
I'm not a religious man, not by a long shot, but I enjoy reading the Bible, as I enjoy reading many books. I can't say my faith in God has ever wavered, primarily because my expectations are pretty low. Do I want Jesus to come again? Absolutely. Do I expect him to come anytime soon? Please. I don't expect a lot, so I'm not disappointed.
I have faith in myself and my abilities, so you could say "I'm happy in my own skin." I don't desire to be anyone else or covet anything that belongs to my neighbor, so looking in the mirror while brushing my teeth isn't a problem. No self-loathing here. My expectations of myself are reasonable, so any potential disappointment is tempered by my apparently unique ability to exercise self control.
Faith in my fellow man. Yeah, that's where it's so damn easy to lose faith.
I could go on (seemingly) forever about world events that we all know about and hear about on a daily basis that continuously shakes the foundation of how I view the species of which I'm happily a part. At some point, I may post about those, too.
What irks me now, at this moment, is more deeply personal and important to me than suffering in far off lands. It's the suffering that otherwise intelligent individuals create for themselves. It's about decisions poorly made by those that seek sympathy from me, when I no longer have any to give. The well is dry, pumped clean to the bedrock of my soul.
You see, I am so sick and tired of otherwise good, intelligent people doing bad things on purpose. It's becoming a plague in my life, to the point where I wonder if people around me even know right from wrong, or if there's a gene defect that prevents these folks from firing the proper neurons to understand there are always consequences for their actions.
Always. As in, without fail. It's a physical law: for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. If you do 'A' the result will be 'B.' Not a very complicated word problem, by any stretch of the imagination.
My faith is so shaken because I'm a 'listener.' I'm the sympathetic shoulder to cry on when times are tough and another's faith in God or themselves has been shaken. I'm the one who's expected to 'understand.' The problem is I understand all too well. I really, really do. I understand with the crystal clarity that makes me sick to my stomach and makes me want to vomit my understanding all over these people.
Oh yeah (and this is important), when I say 'people' and 'my fellow man,' I mean women that I know.
Let's look at some purely fictional case studies, shall we?
Persephone has been married for nearly 14 years and has probably slept with as many men during that period of time.
Athena loves her husband, but concurrently hates him, justifying her extramarital affair as his fault.
Gaia got married, then became pregnant with another man's child.
Yes, I know these scenarios sound far fetched, and, of course, they most assuredly are. In the coming days, I will relate their stories here, in a manner that which only a fictional account could do justice. Think of them as shadows of reality, but take my word for it---
Truth is damn well stranger than fiction.
In The Beginning...
There are many reasons to start a blog. For me, writing is therapeutic, and blogging is a way to shake my fist at the universe with an audience who will either feel sympathy, pity, embarrassment, or some other emotion for the few minutes they might read my thoughts. Regardless, it's a way for me to collect my thoughts on the stressful days that result from, well, just living.
I hope it helps. :)
I hope it helps. :)
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