True News: Public Miseducation and the Shame of History (from Freedomain Radio)
Posted by Stefan Molyneux, MA in Freedomain on February 8th, 2010
Why it is sooo insane for pundits to argue that Obama is having a hard time getting things done because the electorate is sooo dumb! :(
About love, regret and loss and all that
Posted by Andrea in Andrea Schoening on February 6th, 2010
‘Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.’ – Anais Nin
I am all about action. I like to work and do and produce because it aligns my mind and body. When I produce I live, when I use my hands to create, when I can effect change, I am the happiest. It works so well that even when there is something really bad going on, I don’t have any control over, it takes me out of the moment and I don’t care as much about it as I did before.
There are a lot of things, I don’t have control over which came in pursuit of my dreams. In a way, my dreams contained me and I am less free than before, but I still have the freedom of expression though the choice of action and non-action in other parts and I am good at it. A suitable painting analogy: I am sure I spend as much if not more time pondering about my work in progress than actually working on it. And I figured that rush, usually just complicates things. I learned this first in work life when I would spend the same amount of time fixing my errors, as I spend creating them in a rush.
But what about a dream that is out of your reach. You can’t touch it, you can’t move it, and you can’t have an effect on it. There are these things, I took a chance on and it feels like sitting on a roulette table, not literally, I don’t like gambling. Anyway, even if it is not gambling in reality, it feels like it because of the prospect of loss.
Loss.Click.
Something funny crossed my way a few days ago when I was reading the movie review of “the last unicorn” because I was looking for waves that where painted in an old-fashion Chinese way and I remembered a scene from that movie.
The reviewer talked about “…learning to value regret and love that exists only within death, …” and another one mentioned in this context love, regret and loss as well. And I remember thinking: Hey, nobody ever told me that was part of life!
When I was whining about all the hardship going on while in a conversation with my Dad lately, he said: "Well, that’s life, isn’t it?"
I think, I always thought the purpose of life was to work myself out of the hardship of it. I expected it to become easier not harder in time. Truth is, things are way harder than 10 years ago. Love, regret and loss – I have had a lot of it and the stakes are still rising.
That’s life, my life but it doesn’t change me as a person. I mean, if I win it all or lose it all it doesn’t really change me. It might change my surroundings, my feelings, my finances, my home, the people in my life but I will be still the same. I won’t lose or win my memories, my experiences, my desires and dreams.
Maybe I didn’t play hard when I was younger because I couldn’t and maybe I will play harder in the future because I can. The strength comes not from what I can lose but from what I won’t. I am not my life. There are a million things I don’t have an influence on, things I don’t own and might lose or regret or love. If it is all taken from me, my life, there is still me and I’d go for a walk in the wheat field, lie down watch the wind moving the ears and start dreaming again just to fill up my life with love and hardship again because this is how things are.
The Haj & the Nal 2010-02-04 18:33:00
Posted by Hajnal in The Haj & the Nal on February 4th, 2010
My interest in Spanish and Hungarian were there partially as metaphors for not being heard, since it was pretty much like speaking in another language to talk to anybody. How many of us are really on the same wavelength of understanding?
You just want somebody listening to what you say
It doesn’t matter who you are
-
Is there anybody out there who
Is lost and hurt and lonely too?
Are you bleeding all your colors into one?
And if you come undone
As if you’d been run through
Some catapult had fired you
You wonder if your chance will ever come
Or if you’re stuck in square one
The Haj & the Nal 2010-02-04 18:28:00
Posted by Hajnal in The Haj & the Nal on February 4th, 2010
Journaling never works anymore.
Ask Rabbit: Sharing Sexual Desires & Needs
Posted by Rabbit White in Rabbit Write on February 4th, 2010
Dear Rabbit White,
My boyfriend and I have been in a relationship for the past three years and recently moved in together. There is a five year age gap between us (he’s older).
When we first started dating, he had very little sexual experience and it was incredible fun to have sex with someone who didn’t have an already formed set of ideas about how their sex life with another person should be. He was open to having fun and exploring my sexual desires, needs and fantasies for the last three years. I have tried to satisfy and explore his sexuality but he refuses to share his needs with me.
I have tried discussing his fantasies with him and have often gotten the reply of ‘I don’t have any’ or ‘I don’t want to share mine with you’. Even then, when we are having sex, if I ask him what he would like, he always responds with suggestions which focus on my pleasure rather than his. While it is nice that he does focus on my orgasm, it also makes me feel really bad. To me, sex should be about taking and giving, and most importantly about sharing.
It has gotten to the point where I now am actually arguing with him about it because an important part of my sexuality is that I want to be able to please my sexual partner and being quite frank, I’m starting to run out of ideas to our sex life fresh. I know I shouldn’t argue with him about it but it’s just so frustrating to feel that your partner feels they can’t open up to you or that they don’t want to open up to you.
So I was wondering if you could shed some light on this issue for me.
Is it normal (I know that’s a pretty relative term in sexuality) for someone not to have any fantasies or to not want to share their fantasies?
How can I relate to him about my need to also satisfy him and my desire to also build an intimate relationship around sharing both our sexual desires?
Hope you can help,
D
Dear D,
I think your letter shows a huge amount of care and empathy about your significant other. Because of this, I am sure that with a little relationship work, this sexual part of your relationship will go far. So let’s address what you are dealing with, this is a personal issue of his. Yet, it becomes an issue for you and I can totally see where this would be frustrating and upsetting on your end.
Before you can move forward with his issue, your own frustration must be addressed. If you hide it, it will inevitably bubble over into resentment, but if you don’t fully explore it, it will keep coming up when you try to talk about his experiences/feelings. You have every right to your feelings too, whether you are pissed, hurt, scared or whatever. Try journaling and focusing on the different parts that come up, perhaps linking to another time you felt this way.
Where you might be now is in a cycle, when you press him about his fantasies, he shoots even further back inside. It becomes a dance, he pulls in, you react, he pulls in further, you react more. Stuck. It is time to stop this cycle.
There is something else that often happens when we get into these cyclical arguments, I’ll call it “the crunch.” This is the worst -case scenario idea that you have about your partner, the most extreme (negative) ideas of what they are really like. When we are put into a “crunch” situation, this worst-case scenario is often highlighted. When you do finally talk to him about this issue, make sure it is not from “the crunch” fear but rather from a place of love, curiosity and empathy for your partner. I think that becoming comfortable with your own feelings and understanding how the cycle triggers you will help you to do this.
When you are in that place, ask him to talk. Take some deep breaths, tell him that you love him and then go. Start by explaining the facts,these are the things that could be picked up by a video camera. Ex: “When we talk about fantasies, you don’t say anything and seem to shut off.” Next, bring up how you interpret that. Ex: “When you do that I interpret it as that you are uncomfortable with me and question whether or not you can trust talking with me about sex.” Next explain how that makes you feel. Ex: “That makes me feel lonely and scared about our sex life.”
After you’ve said your part, open the conversation up to him– about what he feels. When he begins to talk try to only use active-listening, rather than advice giving or weighing in on how you feel again. Active listening involves listening to the speaker, and repeating what they’ve said back to them. It is reflecting that you understand what they’ve said and clarifying the emotion behind their statement. Here are some sites that further explain active listening: 1 , 2, 3
Active Listening Ex:
You: I sense that you pulled away just now.
Him: *Sounds sad* Mhmm…
You: You seem upset about that?
Him: *Arms crossed* I’m not upset, I just don’t know why we have to talk about it…
You: (Clarifying) So you don’t want to talk about it…That is frustrating?
Him: Yeah it is. It’s more like I feel, anxious..
You: (Clarifiying with Emapthy) You feel anxious.
Him: Like my heart is going to explode.
You: (Confirming) That sounds scary.
Keep actively listening until he seems done talking. Eventually, as this topic becomes more comfortable and he wants to explore the issue, you might help guide him inward while using active listening. When he expresses a deep emotion, it might be appropriate to ask “Do you remember another time you felt this way?” or “Tell me more about that emotion/experience” or “what are you feeling now?”
Employing active-listening will not be a band-aid on the situation. It often feels counter-intuitive to talk this way and learning to do it is hard work.
A lighter idea here is that you might want to simply start talking about sex, using the word in a context outside your own bedroom. Talk about sex as a general topic,explore sex-positive topics. Try bringing up something you’ve read that sparks you (maybe one of my blog-posts) and open up conversation about ideas and feelings on the topic. This might help you explore the issue when it isn’t so heavy.
Wishing you the best, D. Thanks so much for writing!
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‘You Are Not Alone’ – Freedomain Radio Interviews Dr Richard Schwartz
Posted by Stefan Molyneux, MA in Freedomain on February 4th, 2010
Richard Schwartz earned his Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Purdue University, after which he began a long association with the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and more recently at The Family Institute at Northwestern University, attaining the status of Associate Professor at both institutions. He is coauthor, with Michael Nichols, of Family Therapy: Concepts and Methods, the most widely used family therapy text in the United States.
Dr. Schwartz developed Internal Family Systems in response to clients descriptions of experiencing various parts—many extreme—within themselves. He noticed that when these parts felt safe and had their concerns addressed, they were less disruptive and would accede to the wise leadership of what Dr. Schwartz came to call the Self. In developing IFS, he recognized that, as in systemic family theory, parts take on characteristic roles that help define the inner world of the client. The coordinating Self, which embodies qualities of confidence, openness, and compassion, acts as a center around which the various parts constellate. Because IFS locates the source of healing within the client, the therapist is freed to focus on guiding the clients access to his or her true Self and supporting the client in harnessing its wisdom. This approach makes IFS a non-pathologizing, hopeful framework within which to practice psychotherapy. It provides an alternative understanding of psychic functioning and healing that allows for innovative techniques in relieving clients symptoms and suffering.
http://www.selfleadership.org
Franqly
Posted by Hajnal in The Haj & the Nal on February 2nd, 2010
A man walks around the house with a gun in his hand. He shoots it, and tells his child, Franq, “It’s your fault for pulling the trigger. It’s YOUR FAULT. You did this.”
The child lives for years in terror and worry over what actions or words might set off his father’s aggression. There was no safety. It seemed anything could set him off.
Franq and his siblings thus live lives of conformity to the father’s every whim and wish.
He grows up with this unprocessed trauma, and replicates it with other people — when he criticizes them over what they’re doing “wrong” to displease him, and in addition when he does not at least tell them what his preferences are. When they ask him, he says, “I don’t know.”
While Franq may not have grown up with the same patterns as his father, he still replicates that pattern, leaving people he knows feeling as though they “walk on eggshells” around him.
Ultimately, if Franq does not process what happened to his child self and learn the virtue of just responsibility, his life and relationships will always be unhappy, and his father will win.
My Philosophical Life
Posted by Tom in Living the Dream on February 1st, 2010
In a nutshell, the main focus philosophy as I see it, is being concious of the consequences of our choices. In my life I have developped habits and compultions which keep me in a kind of repetetive cycle of living out the same situation over and over again. With regards to stress, on reflection I can see that I not only deal well with stressful situations, I excell in them, seek them out, and crave them. Psychologically I get a lot out of being in them, just like the ‘Simon the Boxer’ metaphor layed out in the Real-Time Relationships book by Stefan Molyneux. Just as the boxer is addicted to violence after having violence inflicted on him as a child, I cope with the panic and fear I felt in childhood by reenacting that same situation in adulthood.
One specific example in my recent past is caving. Though it’s dangerous and scary, I manage to keep a cool head throughout, and wouldn’t get as much of a kick out of the less dangerous, committing or demanding trips I went on. I know that this is an addiction for me, so I now choose to avoid it for my own emotional wellbeing, not to mention my physical safety.
As for my finances, I seem drawn towards living on the breadline. Whether in a 100% commission job like my last one in sales, or spending my way into debt whithout looking for work when unemployed, which is my current situation. Though there are no unchosen positive obligations, I am fully capable of dissociating to the point of spending until I can’t live without taking some action to get work. I’m totally free to procrastinate on getting a job until I can no longer sustain my current lifestyle. I don’t have to do a single thing. Quite simply, it’s interesting that I choose not to apply for jobs.
What I’m also free to do, is to live without the stress of falling into this financial rock bottom. I don’t have to end up down and out in Paris and London. I can if I want, but I could also choose a life in which I have a stable income, where I can even fund therapy and live in London near my friends. Like when going sky diving, even when up in the plane at no point do I have to jump, it’s totally ok to choose to stay onboard and come to land safely.
What I’m dealing with here is a habit, a sense of compulsion to repeat an old pattern. I can choose to break that cycle, or I might not, whatever I do, the important thing is that I remain concious that it’s a choice I’ve made, and that I’m choosing the consequences that come with it.
This is just too weird
Posted by Puck T. Smith in Things I've Found on January 31st, 2010
OK, first I stumbled across this…
SENATE BURGLARY: CIA DOMESTIC BLACK-OP TEAM ARRESTED
ALL 4 INVOLVED IN SENATE HOMELAND SECURITY BREAKIN CIA “N-O-C” AGENTSCIA PROGRAM MAY HAVE TRAINED DOMESTIC “DEATH SQUADS”
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Last week’s breakin at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office in the New Orleans Federal Building was more than it seemed, much more. All of the 4 arrested had been trained by the CIA and, possibly, Israel. One arrested, Stan Dai, is listed as an Operations Officer of the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program and a known expert and lecturer on, not only surveillance but explosives training, assassinations and “false flag operations.” If you wanted a plane to crash, an enemy to get sick and die or a building to blow up, Dai would be the man to know how to make it happen. Problem is, his skills were being used as part of a criminal conspiracy inside the United States against members of our own government.
Read the rest…
“Great,” I think, “pure Alex Jones, black black helicopter, wack-a-doodle, interwebs nonsense.” However, I started looking around to find something like a snopes.com refutation and what do I find but this…
Lindsay Beyerstein notes that one of the four men arrested, Stan Dai, has past ties to Washington national security think tank, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. From the bio that accompanied his 2005-2006 Phillips Foundation College Leaders Program award:
STAN DAI, Lisle, Ill., attends The George Washington University majoring in Political Science. He is editor-in-chief of The GW Patriot, an alternative conservative student newspaper, a Club 100 Activist of Young America’s Foundation, and an Undergraduate Fellow on Terrorism of the Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies.
FDD executive director Cliff May says Dai was part of an FDD summer terrorism/counterterrorism program for undergraduates in the summer of 2004. “He was one of our students six years ago,” May said by email. “He was a serious student then. Sounds like he’s got himself in a heap of trouble now.”
He said it was his understanding that after graduation, Dai went to work at National Defense University, although he wasn’t sure in what capacity.
“We haven’t been in touch with him in recent years,” May said.
Dai, an immigrant from China, was president of the Conservative Student Union at George Washington University.
In 2008, he was assistant director of an intelligence community “center for academic excellence” at Trinity Washington University.
“Stan Dai was a junior program administrator for one year in a grant-funded program at Trinity Washington University,” Ann Pauley, media relations director at Trinity Washington University. “The program was called the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence (ICCAE) and was one of several similar programs created with federal funding through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence following the September 11 attacks. The purpose of the program was to introduce students in liberal arts colleges to concepts in intelligence studies and potential careers in intelligence. Mr. Dai has not worked at Trinity since October 2008 when the grant ended. Trinity’s ICCAE program also ended at the same time.”
And this…
Some highlights from Stan Dai’s bio:B. Career History
• Mr. Dai has been involved in JSA since 2001: after attending summer school at Yale, he founded the JSA chapter at Naperville North, served in various Midwest region positions, and was a resident assistant at Georgetown.
• Mr. Dai was the first Assistant Director of the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence at Trinity in D.C.
• Prior to that, he served as the Operations Officer of a Department of Defense irregular warfare fellowship program.
• Mr. Dai graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the George Washington University. He was the editor-in-chief of The GW Patriot, an alternative conservative student newspaper, a Club 100 Activist of Young America’s Foundation, and an Undergraduate Fellow on Terrorism of the Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies.
What to make of it?
I don’t know.
3 dreams
Posted by Hajnal in The Haj & the Nal on January 30th, 2010
I told Baul the truth about life;
I hid among dogs and, when in danger of being exposed, walked straight and dignified up to Arugal, bowed and told him I wanted to be a worgen — but he turned me away without killing me;
And with acrobatics I dodged the inhabitants of a multi-story graveyard with unknown and treacherous creatures, who once killed me before I even saw them coming — and near the exit, met a lady who I had to pretend to conform around if I wanted not to be killed. I took her cookie/brownie and walked out with the line of people in front of me.
