Found a New Doctor

I went to see a new physician today, and so far, so good. I told her what I needed more than anything else: someone who will listen, guide, and adjust along side me. She appears to be willing...

Oh yeah, she's an amateur jeweler who like gems and minerals. Another connection.

Love Story

Humans tell stories, and that is a central way in which we differ from other animals. We weave the elements of our lives together like a tapestry. Story telling is a way to create familiarity, and in this way stories create safety.

Who doesn't like a good story? Stories are used to impart morals and values, to tell others about the sentinal events that shaped us, and to pass culture to the next generation. Stories connect us to our past, give meaning to our present, and to cement a direction to the future. Story telling must have begun soon after languge appeared in humans: it is so compelling that we cannot sit long without anyone telling or listening to one.

In the same way, love is a story.

Love is a product of our mind that interprets for us, makes sense of, our pair bonding experience. Love is about creating a new story that binds lovers together in a timeline that is remembered as a series of varying contexts and events. No love is without a story: where you met, the first time you made love, the bitter way that it ended. Stories about love are told through ballads, books, blogs and countless venues. Almost all bars are filled with simultaneous story telling groups, male or female, old and young. The conversations at water fountains are frequently stories about love gone well or badly or longed for. All mythology is story. Religions are all story.

Love is a powerful, often referenced phenomenon, ubiquitous and omnipresent throughout human history. Love is biologically based and neocortex-mediated for each individual. There is no specific region in the brain where "love" resides (although the dopamine center releases its stuff when we think about or see pictures of our beloved), but you would expect there to be one: it is probable that "love" is nothing more than what you decide to call the release of dopamine and other hormones and neurotransmitters that gives us the "special feeling" as we desire a particular person. If we feel sexual desire for anyone, it may or may not be that we have decided to interpret this as love; more likely, love begins as we expand our experiences with someone in the throws of sexual interaction. The sex becomes a cement to the story we are building.

When we behave in ways that ensure our partner's well-being, growth and development are as important to us as our own, than we have made them the central character in our story.

More on Blonde Hair

Some time ago I wrote a blog (Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow) concerning hair and in it I mentioned an association between blond hair and the ancient way of identifying prostitutes. To those who rightfully chastised me: I was trying to make a point, but I made it incompletely and therefore misleadingly.

I said:
"Now the show also made reference to the scarcity of blond hair as the origin to its special importance and interest. Not entirely true. Yes, blond hair is less common than shades of brown or black, but if this were the directing variable, then red haired women would be in special demand, and they are not. In ancient times, prostitutes dyed their hair blond as a signal that they were in the sex business, to distinguish them from all others. That conditioning has carried a long way forward. Do blonds have more fun? Only if you are blond and a prostitute, and only if you consider prostitution "fun."

In an effort to be more intellectually honest, here is the rest of this story:
Sociobiological reasoning has it slightly deeper. First of all, prostitutes dyed their hair blond perhaps because Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love, was depicted with blond hair, and she was always one who conveyed youth, fertility, and beauty. But there are things beneath that: why was she shown this way?

Well, blond hair is more common among children, especially female children, owing to genetic differences in pigmentation. As women get older, their hair typically darkens. The almost Freudian notion is that therefore, blond hair evokes feelings and behaviors in men in the direction of fatherhood and paternalistic protection (a kind of ownership). So, as men prefer signs of youth and fertility (clearly demonstrated in research), blond women would be more likely to arouse this set of behaviors.

Blond hair dye in this country is 5 times more popular than any other color, and so there we are: blonds do "have more fun" because they evoke long buried sexual pursuit signals in the brains of men and gain additional social attention and invitations because of it.

Buddhism and Wicca

Did you know these two are the only religions that do not alienate or desparage homosexuals?

Money is Like Water...

When we hear from corporations whenever they reap the benefits of their newly acquired revenue streams, increased cash flow and optimized liquidity, we can know the metaphor is exact. Money flows in streams, towards the deepest locations, the deepest pockets, away from shallow places. The deeper the pockets, the more water that flows into them. Money, like water, precipitates often where it is least needed, and evaporates into thin air when parched earth, the poorest soils, need it most.

The coming decades will witness water distribution as the key to survival, wealth and war. There is enough water in our biosphere. In its various forms and constituencies we have all we need if only there were a worldwide system to deliver it to where it is needed most. In that same way, money is plentiful, too. But it's soaking fewer and fewer pockets at the expense of those who could use a little relief on occasion. It's always been this way.

SIRI: A Sign of the Impending End of Civilization

We are very close to no longer needing to speak to any real person, to look anyone in the eye. SIRI and its soon to follow upgrades are making the alone experience less lonely, but at a great cost: our social skills will eventually become eroded to the extent that we will not be able to decipher body language, which relies on a constant correction process that compares nonverbal cues with verbal ones. I fear our future. With robotic responses in pleasant, even sexual tones, what will we want with real people? We will no longer be required to interact in any way that is meaningful. We will become quintessentially narcissistic and not be able to tolerate anything other than "yes." Am I being too dramatic here?

We may even be able to invent robotic people with lifelike skin that obviates any human contact. As in the movie Surrogates, we will lay in bed and not come outside anymore, breathe fresh air, and will eventually, perhaps even quickly, become deeply, deeply depressed. Did you know that depression rates have escalated every decade following the 1940's here in America?

If I'm being honest and not kind, I think America is on the way down. We will fight tooth and nail to stop it, mind you, but we have evolved into overusing, over-coddled, overweight dullards. I may move to Sweden or Denmark or maybe Australia. I was going to move there in my early twenties, but I chickened out. I think I'm too old to do it now. My sister and her husband, folks I think very highly of, threaten to move to Nova Scotia every once in a while, every time the U.S. fucks up in yet another big way that always seems to trample the average guys. It's been happening a lot lately.

It Has Been A Ride...

I haven't blogged in a while now. The semester is ending, with the flourish of exams, paper grading, and student excuses. The paperwork for summer and fall is due soon enough, and I am tired. Oh yeah, and there's unfinished grief at home. My wife's sister remains in ICU. She's still not even close to well, and we don't know what will happen ultimately. My wife's mother has been deceased a few weeks, but the ultimate grief has yet to fall, likely because her sister is touch and go in the hospital. The tears are being saved, just in case.

The bill for my sister's ICU stay? It just topped approximately 1.2 million dollars - only in America. Thousands of citizens go bankrupt each year due to medical bills. When will we learn? Health care should not be for sale.