New, Unified Blog

Thank you all for reading "Going Forward Without A Map". I've decided to unify my blogging efforts in my Tumblr blog. Please feel free to check out Scavenger Hunt. Thanks!

Cœurs Brisés

In my opinion, longing, loneliness and broken-heartedness feel the same, whether you're gay, straight, bi, trans, cis, inter, two-spirited, pansexual or whatever. The heart has longings that are often unmet. I feel for you.

On an unrelated note, I'm considering migrating this blog and merging it with my Tumblr photo blog. Any thoughts?

Facebook Depression

I read today psychologists have noted a phenomenon called "Facebook Depression." Essentially, viewing friends' profiles, with their smiling photos, and their posts about their activities gives one a skewed view of the world. One compares one's own life not to the actual lives of others, but to their lives as posted on Facebook. Suddenly, one feels like a loser, with a relatively uninteresting and unenjoyable life.

I've experienced this, somewhat with Facebook, and a whole lot with Tumblr. All the beautiful photos of the beautiful people doing beautiful things on Tumblr tends to depress me after a while. I need a Tumblr diet. Or a total internet diet.

¡Recuérdese!

Sólo los peces muertos siguen la corriente del río.

Aphorism for Today

Still waters run deep.

Brief Reading Note

I finally got through Dante (I read Inferno at a loping pace, dragged through Purgatorio, and made a mad, mad dash through Paradiso—which I will regret, I'm sure) and I'm likely to finish up the British sci-fi novel Point today. I've got stacks of books in ten different subjects waiting for me, but I'm not sure which one to read next. To be honest, I really need a day or three to catch up on my magazine reading.

I have waiting for me two issues of Inside Lacrosse, two issues of The New York Review of Books, the winter 2011 issue of Winq, an issue of Monocle, and an issue of Inked. (I won't even mention the surfing magazines commemorating Andy Irons and celebrating Kelly Slater). It will take awhile to get through all the interesting and relevant articles piled up in these magazines on my coffee table.

The World...

...is still turning.

Relationship FAIL

You know, I really hate the fact that my last long-term relationship was with a narcissist. It sort of highlights in neon-bright colors the my abysmal record of failure in relationships. I'm lead to ask: is there really something wrong with me that I get into bad and/or doomed relationships? Am I simply incapable of finding/co-creating a lasting, stable, good relationship? Am I attracted to the wrong kind of men? Am I the wrong kind of man?

I suppose I need to find my purpose and meaning in something other than relationships, but I have to admit that even the most fascinating intellectual pursuits do not carry the emotional oomph that relationships do. Is there anything in life I can be as passionate about as love?

Moleskine Tip

If you use Moleskine® notebooks, and you add some artwork to the cover, I suggest not spraying fixative over the artwork. It turns into a tacky mess. You could use it to remove cat hair from your clothes, LOL.

How to Reject, How to Take Rejection

How to Reject:

If someone shows his interest in you, and you do not feel the same, the best thing to do is simply to let the person know that you are flattered, but not interested. Expect him to be mature, and go on. If he isn't mature, that's his problem. Drama is always counterproductive. Always.

How to Take Rejection:

If someone you are interested in rejects you, move on. Yes, it hurts, but life is full of pain, and surviving is all about learning to accept the pain and moving on. I won't say something trite like, "There are plenty of fish in the sea." That actually may not be true. But there is more to life than sex, love and romantic relationships. And I suggest pursuing those other things.

Get Stronger

Survive. Get stronger. Care. (That last one is the hardest, maybe.)

Instead of Another Bad Romance, I Need a Rad Bromance

Having survived the warfare of love, and convalesced in the hospice of taking care of myself, I believe I have arrived at some new insights. Not only have I been looking for love in all the wrong places; I would have done better not to look for love at all, at least not in the traditional sense. I don't need a romance—I need a bromance.


I need someone to go shopping with, to help me figure out which home improvements to make, to hang out at the bar with, and most of all to go to soccer and lacrosse matches with (heck, I'd even go to see hockey and basketball games, as a trade off). A pal, a bud, a dude to chill with. He could be gay, bi or straight—it wouldn't matter because sex would not be a factor.* As long as he is a decent, stand-up guy, and we can get along, I think it would be fun.


And fun is the key. True, I want friends in my life to help me carry the burdens of living—the horrors of the daily grind, the heartaches of loss, etc. But I strongly suspect that the persons best suited to help carry the burdens are also the ones who most adeptly help one lighten the loads by lightening up. Relationships should be fun.


So I'm going forward looking for good friends, people worthy of investing time away from myself alone. I know they are out there. I just haven't had my eyes sighted correctly.

---

*Years of singleness and a handful of atrocious hook-ups have taught me to be sexually self-contained.

I Am an Empath - Empathy Is Almost Completely Useless

Among people who have known me for a while, I present a quandary: how can such a “nice guy” be such a jerk sometimes? I think I have an explanation. Please bear with me (or not, and navigate away from this page).

I am an empath. This makes me next to useless in dealing with human problems. Next to, but not completely. Let me explain. When a person is in pain, physical or psychological, what she or he really wants is sympathy and understanding. With sympathy and understanding, the person gets heard, and if needed, has solutions offered (or at least methods of dealing with the pain if it cannot be eliminated). Sympathy leads to aid.

Empathy does not. Empathy is identification with the pain. A sympathetic person knows what pain feels like, but is at a remove from it, and therefore can offer an ear, a word of advice, etc. In empathy, however, the pain is felt. And if the pain is debilitating to the original feeler, it can be likewise debilitating to the empath. When I hear of physical or psychological pain, I feel it. I then have the choice either to allow the feelings to continue (and therefore eat up an hour or a day), or shut them out entirely and move on.

Being with others, and being with their pain wipes me out. It renders me either useless, or cold. Since I prefer functionality most of the time, I come across as cold and distant.

Of course, at times being cold and distant are very useful, as in crisis management. I can distance myself enough (at times) to coolly figure out what needs to happen next. This can be very helpful. Dr. House is an ass, but if I had a medical mystery going on, unlike my mother I’d want someone like him on the case. A rational distance is much more helpful than a sloppy closeness.

My 2010 in Books, Part 4 (Honorable Mentions)

The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation and Commentary, by Edwin F. Bryant. If you have any curiosity about Indian philosophy, I highly recommend this book. Bryant surveyed all the commentaries on Patañjali, including not only various Hindu schools, but also Buddhist and Muslim commentaries, and incorporated the material in this comprehensive volume. Highly recommended.

Personal Memoirs, by Ulysses S. Grant. I read this book out of a curiosity raised by frequent reading in Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog on Atlantic.com. A must for those interested in US history or the US Civil War.

Turtle Feet: The Making and Unmaking of a Buddhist Monk, by Nikolia Grozni. My new all-time favorite "spiritual" memoir, Grozni's slow awakening to the pretensions and underlying reality of spiritual pursuits in the Himalyas is funny and rich.

My 2010 in Books, Part 3 (Books That Affected My Life)

Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This book spells out the keys to a 'flow'mentality, at work and at play. Essential reading.

Think for Yourself!: An Essay on Cutting through the Babble, the Bias, and the Hype, by Steve Hindes. An essential book on critical thinking. It helped me to rethink my beliefs (or lack thereof).

The End of Overeating, by David A. Kessler, MD. By looking at the reasons behind current US obesity trends, Kessler is able to make solid recommendations for individuals trying to fight the overeating habit.

My 2010 in Books, Part 2 (Non-Fiction)

Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall. In trying to discover why a tribe of sandalled indigenous Mexicans happen to be the greatest long-distance runners on the planet, McDougall also uncovers the problems with the modern running shoe, how our ancient ancestors ran down their food, and some things that bring simple joy to living. Also, he tells a really good story.

Losing My Cool, by Thomas Chatterton Williams. Williams immersed himself in the middle-class black approximation of thug life hiphoppery in his middle school and high school years, but soon learned it was a dead end. His father's relentless influence, and his father's huge library, led Williams back to a love of learning. This is perhaps the best memoir since Lac Su's I Love Yous Are for White People.

The Gun, by C. J. Chivers. An excellent history of automatic weapons, and in particular the AK-47. Chivers explains how this weapon, more than any other, including the Bomb, has changed the face of our world.

My 2010 in Books, Part 1 (Fiction)

Ghost Radio, by Leopoldo Gout. A creepy, atmospheric ghost story, steeped in a middle-class urban Mexican-American milieu. In some ways, this novel is as much a meditation on music, noise and teen rebellion as it is on meaning in life, and on what haunts us.

Let Me In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist. By far the best vampire novel I read this year (I read five). It starts out creepy, and the horror just grows. What's more, to the very end I remained conflicted about the role and survival of the original vampire. The plot twists add to the tale.

Secret Identities, edited by Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow and Jerry Ma. A seminal collection of Asian-American superhero comics. Fun, enlightening, and well crafted. If you love comics, you really ought to have this book.

3 Secrets about Me

Three secrets about me:

1) Sometimes I get very, very frustrated that parts of my body ache and/or refuse to work right, usually because of age;

2) I miss cuddling more than sex; and

3) I still want to start an "old school" gay family, i.e., the kind in which all the members, who cross the generations are recruited into it.

Culture, History and Language

For several years I collected books on religion. Whichever religion had intrigued me at the time, I had collected books on it. Over the years I amassed quite a library of books on religion, particularly, but not exclusively, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity (especially Mysticism), Judaism (especially Kabbalah), and Paganism. I had not come close to reading all the books I collected. I figured books were investments in the future, and that I would be reading and studying these books for years.

Then suddenly this past summer I woke up to realize that I did not know whether or not God exists, and that I would never know for sure one way or the other, and that I did not have the will nor the wherewithal to make myself have faith in God. I acknowledged my own agnosticism. And my interest in religion (insofar as I was trying to figure out the meaning of life) plummeted. All these books I'd amassed to help me study and understand the meaning of life no longer had that value for me.

This realization not only shifted my emphasis for my library, but shook my confidence in my studies. For a while there I really didn't know what to study. I tried studying philosophy for a while, to continue to search for meaning in life. But I rather quickly realized that any meaning my life would have would have to be made (rather than discovered) by me. Philosophy is still of interest, but it no longer is an indispensable study for me.

I decided I needed to find an emphasis for reading and study.

This weekend I realized that what interests me far above all else is the combined studies of History and Culture. History without Culture is merely a recitation of a series of events; Culture without History is merely an attempt to freeze life into a museum exhibit. Neither works without the other. My insight came from reading a very good book on the Cherokee ball game, anetso. Anetso is a cousin of lacrosse, and the author examines the history, culture and religion surrounding anetso's practice and exhibition. But one interesting point he makes is that Westerners tend to study European and Euro-American religions historically, while they tend to study non-European religions culturally (and therefore ahistorically). In other words, the study of religion in Europe is part of the fabric of European history; however, outside of Europe (and European America) it is viewed as the province of Anthropology, and thus more related to an attempt to see it statically, as part of a museum exhibit.

To remedy this all around, I feel that whether I'm studying religion, sports, the media or whatever, I would do well to view it as a study of Culture and History. In truth, one does not exist independent of the other.

I've acquired several good books recently that fall in line with this new emphasis in studies: one on the changing meaning of jihad, one on the War of 1812 in North America, and just today a history on the killing of Crazy Horse (a personal hero of mine). I'm also weighing studying the Cherokee language, as part of connecting to my family's history (but that is for another post).

Looking Forward

Time marches on. Good. In my lifetime we've seen an increase in tolerance for gays, but a corresponding increase in civic disengagement and mindless demogoguic populism, especially on the right. It is what it is.

But on a personal note, I will be glad to see the end of 2010. With such things as Manuel's nose wound, the blizzard week, Mom's several health issues and surgeries, the bedbug war, a rather dismal social life, 2010 was the worst year I've had since 2006.

I'm also looking forward to the end of my fifth decade of dwelling on this planet. After much reflection I've concluded that my fifth decade was the worst decade of my life, with the losses outweighing the gains. I expect life to get better. I expect to do better myself. I just have so much to gain.