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I think the rain and humidity are giving me near-migraine type pain. I’m not used to ever getting headaches, so these horrible things suck ass. Hence lack of writing.

So…sorry for being sloppy with my writing.

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“I often think that men don’t understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.”

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Ah, anxiety, the currency of the modern age.

The Name of Power

I did it because any form of power comes with duties. I’m obliged to take responsibility for my power, to learn its effects – even unintentional ones – to see what it does to others when I’m not watching, to use it in the best way possible. Sometimes to relinquish it.

No it’s not some “elaborate Spiderman speech,” as my lover dubbed it when I emailed him that quote. It’s actually a guy speaking about why he took his wife’s last name when they got married. The article is short, and has sparked a lot of interesting conversations. Of course, I can’t wait till the day where it won’t. Where taking your wife’s last night isn’t something novel. Although, in homosexual couples, I wonder how this dynamic works. Do they hyphenate? Does one change their name? Do names matter as much? I’m weird about names since I changed my last name, for a variety of reasons but mainly because it suited me better. I am attached to my last name because I made it up. It’s so personal to me, since it had nothing to do with family or lovers, just my own identity. So if I am ever put into a marriage, or a civil union, (although I don’t really ever see that day coming) I would be reluctant to change my last name. One, because I like it. Two, because I do not approve of the tradition of taking someone else’s family name (I dislike how one-sided it is). I probably would only change it if the other person’s name was awesome, and I mean awesome. I think ideally, I’d love to make up a name together.

The responsibility of power, and the duty of it, actually reminds me of The Little Prince. The part with the fox. That chapter comes the closest to my conceptions of love and friendship, taming and love, and duty and responsibility. The connection between them could be from the way I was raised. No Hollywood romances, but families bound by duty. I knew love, as awesome as it can be, also had a lot of power and responsibility. You become responsible for what you have tamed, or what has chosen to be tamed by you–whether or not you chose it. I think that’s the funny thing about power, and control (a series of conversations I seem to perpetually be having), it’s the responsibility that comes with it…regardless of your choice in the matter. I suppose the only choice you do have is what you do with it, and how kind and compassionate you are to others. You may not even know why you have that power over someone else (or multiple someone else’s) but the fact is you do. You can try to deter them. You can be as honest as you can to them about your situation or your lack of interest in their love or the power they give you. I doubt that’ll do much, really. What can you do is be kind, and try to make them understand that they do not have to give you that power. That they should spend it on someone else. Then again, you could always chose never to wield that power. Never to abuse or use it. But isn’t power and control so delicious?

Vulnerable

“Love is not love until love’s vulnerable”

Theodore Roethke

America’s Economic Myths

Myth # 1: “Dependence on Foreign Oil”

This myth basically suggests that the problem with oil prices is due to America’s “dependence” on foreign oil. One of the worst economic myths, it plays on economic nationalism and on xenophobic feelings that are sometimes pervasive in the United States.

The high price of oil has nothing to do with its origin; the price of oil is determined in international markets. Even if the United States were to produce 100% of the oil it consumes, the price would be the same if the worldwide supply and demand of oil were to remain the same. Oil is a commodity, so the price of a barrel produced in the United States is basically the same as the price of a barrel of oil produced in any other country, but the costs of labor, land, and regulatory compliance are usually higher in the United States than in third-world countries. Lowering these costs would help increase supply. Increasing supply, whether in the United States or elsewhere, will push prices lower.

Importing a product does not mean you “depend” on it. This is like saying that when we “import” food from our local supermarket we “depend” on that supermarket. The opposite is usually true; exporters depend on us, since we are the customers. Also, importing a product usually means buying at lower prices, whereas producing in the United States often means consuming at higher prices. This point is proven when we see the cheap imports we can purchase from China and the higher prices of many of these same products manufactured in the United States. The amazing thing is that the protectionists claim, on the one hand, that America should be “protected” from cheap imports, but when it comes to oil, they say we should be “protected” from “expensive imported” oil.

Most, if not all, of the higher price of oil can be explained by the expansion of the money supply or the debasement of the dollar. The foreign producers are not at fault; our national central bank is the culprit.

Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

“The greater part of most people’s thinking is involuntary, automatic, and repetitive. It is no more than a kind of mental static and fulfills no real purpose. Strictly speaking, you don’t think: Thinking happens to you. The statement ‘I think’ implies volition. It implies that you have a say in the matter, that there is a choice involved in your part. For most people, this is not the case. ‘I think’ is just as false a statement as ‘I digest’ or ‘I circulate my blood.’ Digestion happens, circulation happens, thinking happens.”

Oh yeee gads! Socialism! Get it off! It’s all over me!

Proximity

What is it about proximity, both too much and too little, that drives people insane?

It makes us forget our promises, or hold on to them even stronger, till they are so twisted, or so idolized that they no longer resemble their original shape.

Assumptions

I think lots of people mistake me as dominant in the bedroom because I am so assertive outside of it. I have a leader personality. I take charge when people are fussing about. If it has to be done, I can do it, and well, and bring others into it.

Yet, the bedroom is not the same for me.

I’m still pretty fiery, but really, I’m just trying to see who will stand up to me and try to tame me.

I’m the fox.

I used to be embarrassed about my desires when I was younger. I thought there was something wrong with me. I think most of us believe this at some point or another. We feel we have been wired wrong.

I was embarrassed at how much I enjoyed being submissive. I felt guilty about it. I thought I was being a bad woman. A bad feminist. Just bad bad bad. But I began to understand that pleasure works differently.

It took me a long time to accept who I am, and who and what I enjoy.

 

Let’s all try and be careful about our assumptions, who knows what we could be missing out on?